WWII-era ladder truck. Image by Kristarella/Kristarella.com

We’ve got a few reasons for publishing this image: Kristarella, an outstanding web designer and software developer, is also a fabulous photographer, and we encourage you to check out her Photoblog for page after  page of images which will capture your curiousity, imagination and awe. But that’s not, strictly speaking, on-topic.  These reasons are:

1. We’re about to run a series of posts about firefighting apparatus – which is to say vehicles, mobile firefighting equipment, as opposed to infrastructure (fire water mains, sprinklers, hand-held gear and, as important as the rest, prevention), and thought this mid-20th century piece would be a good reference point;
2. Note the following screenshot: Kristarella is a leader in managing the metadata – EXIF   (Exchangeable image file format, Wikipedia entry; see alsoEXIF.org) which accompanies digital images. We hope to explore the ways in which EXIF data and images might be used to crowd source risk assessment, disaster planning, and disaster response. So we’ll be exploring Kristarella’s Thesography Plugin, and more tools that will exploit EXIF and other usable meta-data.

Randy Sarafan defies easy description. He’s clearly a polymath of some sort, a provocateur

Mr. Sarafan has posted a recipe for a simple chalkboard-surfaced table on the outstanding  and ever-useful Instructables.com.

Chalkboard Table design by Randy Sarafan

While Sarafan’s design assumes Ikea trestles, this can be managed with sawhorses, or leaned against or mounted on a wall.The only indispensable items are chalkboard paint, a relatively smooth surface (Sarafan’s table was made of MDF) and chalk.

The point is that, with inexpensive, easily available materials, it’s possible to create a graphic representation of, for instance, a neighborhood – for planning purposes – or even in the midst of a crisis. While rolls of butcher paper are also available quickly, they’re not easily erased as revisions and updates are required. There are, of course, more sophisticated variations: magnetic white boards permit the use of objects and markers (for streets, vehicles, people); acetate overlays over maps permit drawing with grease pencils; GIS applications permit much more nuanced data manipulation.

But this will work-

and can be seen and worked on by more than one person at once – without electricity, without much more than a smooth surface, chalkboard paint, and chalk.

We’ll try to post some other variations on simple “sand-table” solutions in the near future.

Paint

Rustoleum makes chalkboard paint in brush-on and spray versions; it’s my guess that the fastest construction would involve spray paint or canned paint using a roller to create a thinner, quicker-drying coat. Rustoleum suggests 24 hours for drying. A hair dryer might work to accelerate the drying process.(Rustoleum’s spray-on version comes only in black; the brush-on version, in black or green).

Dick Blick carries Krylon chalkboard paint in green and black (spray, $4.99 12 ounces)), black only (regular can, $11.99 29 ounces)

Craft At Home has a recipe for making your own chalkboard paint from acrylic paint, glazing medium and tile grout. via Lifehacker.

See also:

Simple tools for planning

Sand Table and Modeling: Supplies and resources

1. (To be more precise, many of “Laszlo Toth’s” letters were, in fact, answered
2. Bob Garfield interviews Don Novello about the Laszlo Letters on the WNYC show On The Media

Zero Geography reports on a real-time game using GPS devices which has – for our purposes, interesting applications for coordinating SAR or other response efforts. From Zero Geography: GPS Real-World Gaming in Hybrid Space.

A real-time, multiplayer, GPS game for mobiles is being played out in the real-world. The game, played by groups of four or five people, uses a one kilometer radius around any point on Earth to delineate spatial extents in which three or four chasers try to capture one runner. Each one of the players is tracked via a GPS phone and their coordinates are mashed onto a map that they can all see. The only twist that that the runner is always allowed to view the map, whilst the chasers only have access to the map every six minutes. The game is a fascinating way to roll elements of the physical and virtual together into an adrenaline-pumped experience.

Zero Geography is a brilliant blog about matters geographic by a person, persons, or entity named Mark Graham, who is otherwise reticent about identity or contact information. Check it out.

Tom Mouat has produced current NATO map symbols as a font set called MapSymbs which is in fact used by NATO member countries. Popular Logistics editor and artist/animator/engineer Garry Osgood (Particular Art; site under construction) is currently experimenting with the construction of an icon set to be used as tools for planning and communication for disaster planning, modeling, and response. Initial efforts – since our focus is on social networks – is to use the conventions of the Universal Markup Language. [Because it's not a “web-safe” font, the following images are not taken directly from MapSymbs.

More - including sample images - after the jump.

MapSymbs installs easily under Windows (a Mac converter is provided for Mac users).

Mouat has also written other related applications:

OpWrite - a normal writing to military Operational Writing text converter macro, ExHelp - a Windows HelpFile on designing large scale military training exercises, ExHelp Resources - Sample incident lists and other Resources to go with ExHelp, Basic Battle Skills - A Windows HelpFile Military Training Game, LOAC Help - A Windows HelpFile on the Law of Armed Conflict (including a test), and more.

Mouat's Links Page is an extraordinary collection of geographic, graphic, military iconography resources.

Further:

Selected image gallery:

[Show as slideshow]

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Excerpted from Wikipedia’s explanation of NATO APP6-A. :

APP-6A, Military Symbols for Land Based Systems was the NATO

standard for military map marking symbols. APP-6A was promulgated in December 1999. The NATO standardization agreement that covers APP-6A is STANAG

2019

.

APP-6A’s American sister standard is MIL-STD-2525A, Common Warfighting Symbology ; the contents are essentially identical, but MIL-STD-2525 has been evolving faster than NATO’s APP-6. MIL-STD-2525 was issued in September 1994, MIL-STD-2525A in December 1996, MIL-STD-2525A Change 1 in July 1997, MIL-STD-2525B in January 1999, MIL-STD-2525B Change 1 in July 2005, MIL-STD-2525B Change 2 in March 2007, and MIL-STD-2525C in November 2008. APP-6A is considerably different from APP-6, while the successive versions of MIL-STD-2525 more or less maintain continuity. APP-6B seems to be a subset of MIL-STD-2525C.

The APP-6A standard provides common operational symbology along with details on their display and plotting to ensure the compatibility, and to the greatest extent possible, the interoperability of NATO Land Component Command, Control, Communications, Computer, and Intelligence (C4I) systems, development, operations, and training. APP-6A addresses the efficient transmission of symbology information through the use of a standard methodology for symbol hierarchy, information taxonomy, and symbol identifiers.

These symbols are designed to enhance NATO’s joint interoperability by providing a standard set of common symbols. APP-6A constitutes a single system of joint military symbology for land based formations and units, which can be displayed for either automated map display systems or for manual map marking. It covers all of the joint services and can be used by them.

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