iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 11/11/2025

Recently I stumbled upon the web serial api! Supported in Chromium browsers, it allows you to hook into a devices attached to serial ports on your machine through the browser! I've implemented logic to read in a gps nmea stream directly into our SIIS web app!

Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 31/10/2025

More timelines! Two way interaction between our custom Imagery Collection Layer and the timeline! #timelines #arcgisdev

Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 29/10/2025

Working on adding some timeline user interface components to simplify the process of choosing relevant data. In this case we a bring COGs directly into the app from a STAC api! #arcgisdev

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Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 01/10/2025

Building a timeline using d3.js. Sometimes its easier to roll your own then search for that golden goose library that someone else has built! Pretty much unstyled at the moment, but has the functionality I need for handling interactions.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 01/08/2025

Made primarily of polystyrene they weigh just 1.6 kg on take-off, but despite this they are capable of operating in the stronger winds we experience down in the Antarctic with a maximum continuous wind limit of 17 m/s. In fact, yesterday we clocked a top ground speed of >63 mph! 2/2

A photo of a man launching the ebee UAV in a grassy field. There are trees in the distance and white fluffy clouds in a blue sky.

A photo of 2 men, one of them holding an ebee UAV, in a grassy field. There are trees in the distance and white fluffy clouds in a blue sky.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 01/08/2025

MAGIC was out test flying our eBee VISION platforms in advance of the upcoming Antarctic field season this week. The eBee VISION UAVs can fly for 90 minutes and operate up to 20 km from the pilot. Here's a short clip of one of them in action! 🛩️ 1/2

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 30/07/2025

Lots of dots! These are spot heights generated for our Air Operations Planning Maps, using REMAv2 2m tiles. Next steps are to clean up the density, add existing GPS points & then add them to our maps, which are used for planning by pilots across the continent. The data will then be openly published!

A screenshot of 59,261 spot heights in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula. This is the initial version, before reducing the density. Each point is shown as a red dot, the coastline of Antarctica is displayed as a grey line, and the yellow squares are the extent of some of the REMA tiles.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 24/07/2025

We are currently hosting an intern digitising ice floes from satellite radar (SAR) imagery in the Weddell Sea. The resulting labelled data will be used in the NERC DEFIANT and QUASAR projects to assess the performance of machine learning methods and quantify errors in sea ice concentration data.

A screenshot of a SAR image at the north-east end of the Antarctic Peninsula. The digitised ice floes are highlighted in semi-transparent green. The image is from 31st Dec. 2020.

A zoomed in portion of the SAR image in the Weddell Sea. The digitised ice floes are highlighted in semi-transparent green. The image is from 31st Dec. 2020.

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Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 24/07/2025

Just finished building a gazetteer search component on top of the ArcGIS SearchViewModel! Its running off of a set of geoserver WFS services with a custom locator layer source! Working really neatly! #ArcGIS #Maps

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 14/07/2025

We have been working along with engineers from Phase One and Rocky Mountain Aircraft over the past week to install and test our new Phase One PAS aerial camera into BAS's Twin Otter aircraft. 🛩️ 1/3

A photo of BAS's red Twin Otter plane in a hangar/workshop. A Canadian flag can be seen in the background.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 09/07/2025

Did you know that it's possible to follow the RRS Sir David Attenborough on @bas.ac.uk's website? We provide the maps and location tracking to underpin this. 🚢🗺️ See the latest position of the ship here, on its way north after a long season in Antarctica! www.bas.ac.uk/polar-operat...

A screenshot of a map showing the location of the RRS Sir David Attenborough, travelling north off the west of Africa. A globe inset shows the location in a wider context.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 04/07/2025

This week we have been at a @polomints.bsky.social project meeting, planning details of how to use fixed stereo cameras, RPAS and our new air camera to monitor calving of the Sheldon Glacier on Adelaide Island. For more information visit polomints.ac.uk.

Photo looking from Stork Ridge down to Sheldon Glacier showing part of the view that our fixed cameras will capture. The image shows the view from a rocky outcrop looking down on a crevassed glacier with water in front of small icebergs are floating in the water.

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Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 03/07/2025

Whilst updating an app to the latest version of the ArcGIS JS API (4.33) we picked up a minor regression in labelling for a super niche situation. I would call that one epic win for our automated testing setup! Check out our setup here: github.com/antarctica/e... #Arcgis #Dev #Playwright

A snapshot of a map application showing the pixel difference highlighted during an automated testing run. The difference shows that some labels are no longer being rendered on the map at certain positions.

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Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 25/06/2025

I’ve used it a lot. GitHub copilot integration has got a lot better in normal vscode, but still doesn’t feel as intuitive and seamless as cursor for me… the tab multi line complete is just so slick!

Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 25/06/2025

I always like to get in early with implementing a responsive UI - usually it means that the actual extra code is pretty minimal! #arcgis #responsive

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 25/06/2025

We're hiring a GIS and Mapping Specialist to manage our Geospatial Helpdesk and to contribute to our Topographic Map Series. This is a really exciting opportunity at the British Antarctic Survey to support colleagues across the organisation. Details here: shorturl.at/bA4fd #GISjobs

6 small maps of regions in Antarctica and South Georgia. These are examples of typical Helpdesk outputs from the job being advertised. Each map contains place names, bathymetry in shades of blue, and terrain details on land.

A map of Signy Island, South Orkney Islands. This map is part of our BAS Topographic Map Series. Bathymetry is shown in deepening shades of blue. Details on the land include ice and moraine extent, lakes, contours, and place names.

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Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 24/06/2025

We've been developing a new application with ArcGIS Maps SDK to create a simple UX for exploring our imagery archive - We pull on lots of the existing widget view models but tweak them to create out own workflow and design system. Map and workflow logic is orchestrated by XState. #arcgis #arcgisdev

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 12/06/2025

Great to see our map used by UK Foreign Secretary Rt Hon David Lammy and Espen Barth Eide during their visit to the @ukarcticoffice.bsky.social in Ny-Ålesund recently. With summer/winter versions, it shows how fast the region changes and why frequent, detailed mapping in the Arctic is so important.

A photo of Dr Robert Mulvaney showing a map of of Ny-Ålesund and the Kongsfjorden region in Svalbard to visitors at the NERC Arctic Office. The visitors include the UK Foreign Secretary Rt Hon David Lammy and his Norwegian counterpart Espen Barth Eide. The photo shows 5 people stood around a map laid on a table, with one man filming.

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Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 29/05/2025

Just finished a little refresh of Sewagemap.co.uk. Added a fun loader, and additional layer filtering bits and bobs! It continues to show a bleak picture of sewage overflow in the uk... 💩😔 #sewage #uk #arcgis

sewagemap.co.uk

Sewage Map

Real-Time Sewage Discharge Monitoring | Sewage Map - Stay Updated on Sewage Pollution

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 29/05/2025

A few months ago, we surveyed Rothera Point using our fixed-wing eBee-X UAV. We've now processed the data and produced this beautiful, orthorectified mosaic, as well as a Digital Elevation Model. We carry out these surveys every year, allowing all of BAS to work with current and accurate data!

An image of Rothera Research Station, Rothera Point, on Adelaide Island. There is a bright blue building in the centre of the image which is the new Discovery Building. You can also see patches of snow on the point, and there are small icebergs floating in the surrounding water.

A zoomed in portion of the image, showing the northern end of the runway and the hangar. A white and red plane can also be seen, parked next to the hangar.

A zoomed in photo of the plane. The plane is red and white. It is possible to see skis in front of it, probably removed from the plane as it continues its journey north away from Antarctica.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 21/05/2025

We're proud to share that our Bedmap3 map won "Best Map" at the International Map Industry Association (IMIA) forum in London last week! 🏆 This international award celebrates Outstanding Cartographic Design & we’re honoured to be recognised alongside leading names in the field from previous years. 🗺️

A photo of the trophy and certificate, with side A of the Bedmap 3 map shown behind. The map shows the bed topography of Antarctica underneath the ice.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 15/05/2025

It has been a busy week for conferences this week! One of our GIS Specialists presented at the IMIA Mapping Leaders Forum in London yesterday. It has been a useful few days talking to some world-leading map publishers and printers and we’ve gained lots of ideas on how we can do more with our maps!

Vivien Godfrey introducing the 2 day event. There are round tables with people sitting around them, and 3 screens at the front.

Showing our map of of ‘The Shackleton Crossing’ route on South Georgia to someone.
Photo taken by David at SplashMaps.

A view of London. Many tall buildings can be seen and the sky is a bright blue.

A photo of the News Building with the Shard behind it. The event is taking place at Harper Collins, inside the News Building.

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Polar Geospatial Center @polargeospatial.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Effective immediately, the PGC is no longer accepting new NSF-supported requests due to a lack of renewal funding. Current work is wrapping up. Please contact your NSF program officer if impacted. We’re grateful to have supported your polar research. Read our full statement at www.pgc.umn.edu

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 29/04/2025

📢 We're hiring a GIS Specialist to support the Antarctic Infrastructure Modernisation Programme. This is a really exciting opportunity at the British Antarctic Survey for someone to help us integrate GIS and BIM for infrastructure projects in Antarctica. Details here: shorturl.at/Mf983

Virtual 3D scene of Rothera Station, Antarctica comprising a 3D model of Discovery Building, aerial imagery and elevation model. The Discovery Building is a pale blue and has an air traffic control tower on top. Other buildings can be seen around Rothera. The background of the image shows rocky and icy terrain.

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Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 26/04/2025

Really swish - do you think the caret disappearing on mobile might be a bit of a usability issue? I’m always hesitant to do too much with hover events because I’m afraid I might break the mobile experience.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 18/04/2025

You might have spotted oval symbols on sea ice charts. They’re not Easter eggs 🐣 — but they 𝘥𝘰 contain something inside: a compact summary of ice concentration, thickness, and floe size.

Ice chart titled “West Greenland Ice Chart” produced by the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), valid as of 15 April 2025 at 21:05 UTC. The map displays the ice conditions along the west coast of Greenland.

Diagram titled “What is the ice chart Egg Code?” explaining how to interpret the egg code used in sea ice charts. The central egg-shaped graphic is divided into labelled sections representing different attributes of sea ice.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 10/04/2025

📢 We are looking for a Geomatics Surveyor to join our team at the British Antarctic Survey. 📢 Are you a surveyor with experience of collecting & managing geospatial survey data? Would you like to get the opportunity to work at Rothera Research Station? Apply today! Details here: shorturl.at/RwAZV

A surveyor stood on a rocky outcrop running a GPS. The sky is grey, there is a rocky mountain in the background, and ice in the foreground.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 08/04/2025

🎉 Imagery from the newly launched Sentinel-1C Copernicus satellite is now accessible via Polar View www.polarview.aq and the Ice Logistics Portal www.icelogistics.info/antarctic?ce...! This addition significantly increases the repeatability of SAR observations in the Polar Regions 🛰️

A screenshot of https://www.polarview.aq/antarctic showing the footprints of Sentinel 1 and Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) products in turquoise and yellow colours respectively.

A screenshot of https://www.icelogistics.info/antarctic showing a Sentinel-1C image of the Brunt Ice Shelf displayed on the map viewer. Sea ice is dark black and hazy grey shades, and the ice shelf is brighter grey and white. Details of the images can be seen in a pop up.

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Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 01/04/2025

Thanks, this is a fantastic resource! I definitely want to try this out in my next project... It definitely is a much more holistic approach to my current workflow of breakpoints and fontsize tweaks.

Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 01/04/2025

Whats your thoughts on varying font size like this? My worry would be that there are accessibility considerations linked with font-size scaling unless some kind of minimum clamp was added...

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Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 28/03/2025

Ever wondered how to do snapshot end-to-end testing when you have live map data? If you are using Playwright you can try capturing the HAR traffic and replaying this when the tests are rerun: playwright.dev/docs/mock#mo.... We use this with ArcGIS where it wouldn't be possible to mock .pbf responses

screenshot of a map centred on the Sir David Attenborough ship's location.

Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 26/03/2025

Steal this implementation of a Labelled Graticule Layer for you arcgis apps. It utilises a client side feature layer and the new display filter to control which lines/labels to show. It works for any projection. gist.github.com/JonnyDawe/be... #arcgis #arcgisjs

A map showing the location of a ship in Antarctica. The focus is the graticule overlay.

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Mapping and Geographic Information Centre @magic.bas.ac.uk · 26/03/2025

Did you know that some of our key Antarctic topographic data is in Esri's Living Atlas? We regularly update these services so that your maps will always show the latest authoritative data! livingatlas.arcgis.com/en/browse/?q... For more info: www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/b...

livingatlas.arcgis.com

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is the foremost collection of geographic information from around the globe. It includes maps, apps, and data layers to support your work.

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We use polar projections (Antarctic/Arctic) to display an interface for a ship's crew on the bridge. Since Degrees Decimal-Minutes (DDM) is the mariner's standard, we want coordinate labels in DDM to be viewable and adjustable, along with geodetic lengths.

Thanks, I knew I was slightly misremembering something! This was exactly what I was encountering and was why we abandoned extending the measurement widget view model. Essentially we wanted to be able to use geodesic measurements (and lat long coordinates) in a planar projection.

2) Additional labelling functionality. Including being able to manually set the label content. 3) COGO tooling - similar to the tooltip options in the sketch view model tooltip (note if this is implemented please let the tooltip lengths be set a geodesic!) Thanks Hugo!

That would be amazing. My impression of the 2d measurements widget has been that it feels a tad "underpowered" at the moment. My biggest wishlist is: 1) Geodesic support for measurements (including supporting showing the drawn geometry as densified geodesic lines).

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I think in a previous post I may have said we were using the measurements view model. But actually I've created a custom subclass of a sketch view model for the line measurements. It handles optimising when distances are calculated to ensure that only the new segment are being actively measured.

Instead of an Arcade implementation, I'm utilising an extended graphics layer which has some custom labelling logic attached. The main reason for this implementation was because I wanted more control over the labelling and specifying geodetic measurements vs projected measurements.

Yep we use the coordinateFormatter to parse the text input into Points. Going the other way, we have some of our own simple formatting logic to convert the points back into the different formats we support. The measurements were heavily inspired by this article: www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/...

Jonny Dawe @jonnydawe.github.io · 11/03/2025

New workflows for adding points in different formats (DDM, DD, DMS etc.) We've implemented a custom graphics layer which persists graphics in local storage - check it out here: gist.github.com/JonnyDawe/8d.... #arcgis #arcgisJS

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How would you alert a user to new data being available into a long running application? I've been building a simple notification and synchronise workflow for our Sea Ice Information application that could be up on a ship's bridge running for days.