GISmonitor
2006 January 19



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Editor's Introduction

This week I compiled for you a calendar of the major geospatial conferences and tradeshows from now until the end of June, so that you can start planning your travels for the year. I also bring you a short report on Autodesk's decision to rename MapServer Enterprise and two interviews: one with GeoEye's Matthew O'Connell and one with geoVue's Michael Kesselman.

— Matteo




Conferences and Tradeshows, January through June

Autodesk Renames MapServer Enterprise

Autodesk has decided to change the name of MapServer Enterprise, previously code named "Tux." The open source version will now be called MapGuide Open Source; the commercial version (available later this year) will now be called Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2007; and the commercial authoring tool (also available later this year) will now be called Autodesk MapGuide Studio 2007.
     The company gave two reasons for this decision. First, the open source Web mapping community voiced concern about confusion between the existing MapServer project and Autodesk's Web mapping product. Second, the company's current MapGuide customers and partners communicated that they would prefer a name and a brand that they know well and with which they could identify. Autodesk said that it "listened to this feedback and responded accordingly."
     Members of the open source geospatial community will meet February 4 in Chicago to discuss the MapServer Foundation. Online discussions are underway to find a new name for the foundation, which is now seeking other open source geospatial projects to join the effort.


Interview with GeoEye's Matthew O'Connell

Last week, ORBIMAGE closed on the acquisition of Space Imaging and changed its name to GeoEye. This week I discussed the company's strategy and prospects with its CEO and President, Matthew O'Connell.

Matteo Luccio (ML): What were each company's strengths and what synergies did you achieve?
Matthew O'Connell (MO): Space Imaging was a terrific acquisition for us. Its IKONOS satellite is a robust and agile spacecraft, it has the world's largest archive of map-accurate commercial satellite imagery, it has a strong production capacity, and most importantly a terrific workforce (we kept more than 80 percent of it). It also has an international affiliate network and strong, enduring contacts with the U.S. government.
     ORBIMAGE was last to the party but learned from the industry's history. I come from a Wall Street legal and financial background. GeoEye will be a more independent company that is focused on our customers and on creating value for our investors.
     At ORBIMAGE we also have a terrific value-added capability, in our St. Louis operation, which we bought in the late 1990s. It developed a lot of the processes for the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA), which then became the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), which then became the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
     GeoEye has 20/20 vision because were are flying three satellites, two of them high-resolution vehicles. Both can down-link imagery directly to our key customers overseas. This is a terrific opportunity for our partners around the world because they control and task the satellites and get high-quality imagery very quickly. Our low-resolution satellite, OrbView-2, works primarily for NASA and the commercial fishing business. It delivers the SeaStar service to commercial fishermen and it is a strong business that has an established customer base.
     We've had the experience of running OrbView-2 for eight years (it has a life expectancy of at least two more) and learned a lot from the SeaStar business. The satellite captures an image, we overlay a map on it, then we build intelligence into the map. In the future, adding intelligence is going to become increasingly important.
     We are going to combine the assets of the two companies and operate them as one company. GeoEye is headquarted in Dulles, Virginia and will be the single face to our important customers in the national security community. GeoEye now has the world's largest archive of commercial satellite imagery: 250,000,000 square kilometers of high-resolution imagery. We also have the largest satellite constellation and the largest collection ability because we can achieve tasking synergies or what we call collaborative tasking. We can pass orders back and forth between our satellites to give our customers the best images in the shortest time. Again, our focus is on our customers at all times.

ML: How does this acquisition change the industry?
MO: Now that the number of satellite imaging companies has been reduced from three to two — a duopoly — the benefits go beyond the two companies. The industry is now more stable and there are higher chances of having two profitable companies. This is better for our company, for our customers, and for the U.S. government.

ML: What investments are you making in new technology?
MO: The biggest investment that is coming down the pike is $250 million in the NextView contract (plus an additional $250 million from the U.S. government). We have a great story to tell the market about continuity. IKONOS will operate through 2008 or longer; OrbView-3 will operate through 2010 or longer; and OrbView-5, scheduled for launch in the first quarter of 2007, will operate until 2015 or longer. It is great to be able to tell the market "We can give you assured access to the highest quality commercial satellite imagery for the next decade." Governments and commercial customers can count on having a steady stream of imagery for the next decade or longer.
     The IKONOS and OrbView-3 satellites have a resolution of 1 meter and are black and white. Of course, with IKONOS imagery you can create 1-meter resolution multispectral imagery by bringing in the color from the 4-meter resolution imagery. For our next-generation satellite we are building OrbView-5, which we will probably rename GeoEye1. It will have a resolution of .41 meters in the panchromatic (black and white) mode, and 1.64 meter resolution in the multispectral (color) mode. It will be able to collect about 700,000 square kilometers per day. That is about the size of Texas, Poland, or Turkey. It will be very agile and it will have ground stations in Virginia, Alaska, and Antartica. As I like to put it, every day it will collect imagery for an area the size of Texas with a resolution that allows you to count manhole covers in Manhattan. It will be very valuable for many industries including state and local governments.
     In addition, we are working on even more advanced processing systems: our St. Louis operation is constantly looking to the future and developing proprietary technologies. While I can't talk about specifics, I can say that they are pushing the edge from a technology point of view. One of the pleasant surprises in this deal is that many of the Regional Affiliates that were once part of Space Imaging and are now affiliated with GeoEye would like to talk to us about having access — where possible — to some of the magic being created in St. Louis.

ML: Do you anticipate any significant changes in the company's business model?
MO: No, we don't plan to change our business model as we integrate the two companies. We will execute on the wonderful opportunities we have before us. Our highest priority will be executing a successful NextView contract. That program is on track and on budget. We are proud of both of those elements. Second, we are going to continue tapping the opportunities and synergies of the integration of our two companies. We took the best of both teams and put them together. For example, Mark Brender, who was the Director of Corporate Communications for Space Imaging, is now head of marketing and communications at GeoEye and the head of IT for Space Imaging now has the same position at GeoEye.
     Third, we are moving forward with our partnership with Microsoft, exploring the opportunities of marrying software and imagery content. Fourth, we are going to maximize the use of our archives. With our partners we will turn the archives into active ones rather than just maintaining data mausoleums! We've been so busy trying to win this merger that we have not had much time to think about it yet.

ML: Is your geographic focus going to change?
MO: We are customer-driven. In terms of our footprint we cover most of the world. We have more than a dozen Regional Affiliates located around the world, especially in the Pacific Rim region and certainly in the Middle East. We are making head-way in South America and hope to have some announcements soon. Right now there is not much demand for imagery of the African continent, but that will change over time.
     Since we have the world covered, our focus is not so much geographic now as being able to provide geo-insight for our customers. We focus on flawless execution, so that our customers get the best value for their money and, with Microsoft, we are going forward on developing new applications.

ML: The success of Google Earth has greatly increased the visibility of and demand for satellite imagery. However, some small companies and government agencies are now less inclined to pay for commercial satellite imagery because they can get most of what they need for free over the Internet...
MO: The two statements are both correct and not necessarily inconsistent. Google Earth has raised the visibility of our industry and that is a great thing. In a way, they have brought "satellite imagery down to earth" for all to see. However, both Microsoft and GeoEye are focused on the business-to-business side. We think that there is more money to be made there and that is what we are pursuing. Serving business customers is generally more profitable and less work than serving the consumer market. By far the bulk of our revenues are derived from the defense and intelligence communities and they are not satisfied with what they can find on the Internet — they want advanced capabilities with all the important meta-data and other "pixel forensics" that are needed for quality work.
     I see an analogy with cable television, which has tiers of products. Chuck Dolan is most famous for having invented HBO, but he is most proud of his invention of tiering — that is, having different tiers of service at different costs and enticing customers to buy up. We focus mostly on the intelligence and defense markets, domestically and overseas. So, I don't think that Google Earth will have a strong negative effect on our market. Mr. Gates is personally enthusiastic about mapping and Microsoft will eventually have consumer products, but in the short term we will continue to focus on business-to-business.

ML: Where do you stand on the debate about satellite imagery of sensitive sites?
MO: We have not been exposed to the criticism relating to displaying satellite imagery of sensitive sites. The U.S. government is our licensing agency and under the terms of our operating license can prescribe any limits. But in all the years of IKONOS and Orbview-3 operation, never once has the U.S. government interrupted commercial service because of national security or foreign policy concerns. We've been playing by the rules and abiding by all regulations. In fact we are extra careful when dealing with unknown customers and their requirements. There has been some concern voiced around the world: for example, by mainland China; that is less a concern to people in the United States than when we are talking about sites in this country.
     In Google's defense, I have to say that we are engaged with others inside the Beltway in a discussion on this issue. The real question is, who draws the lines and how? The government has the right to draw the lines. Some would like those lines to be drawn more restrictively. But in this country we have a strong tradition of First Amendment freedom of the press and transparency of government. Is every dam a sensitive site? What about train stations, airports, power plants?

ML: Is there one image, from the zillions to which you have access, that you would enlarge, frame, and hang on your office wall?
MO: Let's see... Space Imaging selects the top ten images every year. I love those images. One OV-3 image of the Forbidden City, in Beijing is visually powerful and may be my favorite.


Interview with geoVue's Michael Kesselman

At the National Retail Federation's 95th Annual Convention & Expo, this week, in New York City, geoVue unveiled MarketVue Portal v.1.2. I discussed the product with Michael Kesselman, geoVue's Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, on Wednesday, just after he got back to Boston from the trade show.

Matteo Luccio (ML): What was your angle in presenting MarketVue Portal at the show?
Michael Kesselman (MK): We focused on how to extend location-based demand-modeling into the areas of retail planning, real estate, and merchandise planning. The core of our product are the analytic modules. The portal is a deployment platform — a way to deliver the analytics to the enterprise. It's a product that we sell to organizations that want to bring together these analytical modules into a single place. We enhance their portals with our analytics. We showed our portal to companies that don't have their own and it was really well received.


Sample direct marketing screen [Click on the image to enlarge it]

ML: Did you conduct any training or demonstration in conjunction with the show?
MK: We conducted a webinar prior to the NRF show, following a day in the life of a retail enterprise. For example, field real estate teams can use this product. Brokers can submit locations to be considered. They'll see not only the sites that have been submitted but also where other opportunities are. It offers a more centralized way to allow these groups to work together. You can also think of the portal as a way to move a piece of real estate through a pipeline, from identification to site approval to store opening.
     We also showed how a marketing person can use our product to generate a list of stores to run a promotion: it can produce a ranked mailing list of people who would have the highest probability of responding to the promotion, based on their proximity to each store and to competitors. You can see how many potential customers are within the store's trade area and you can track the response to the promotion. This feature is particularly useful for franchisees to improve their direct mail efforts.

ML: What's new in version 1.2?
MK: A few of the things that we added are the ability to import and export data from and into the portal, so that desktop users that may have created content can publish it to the portal. People in the field, driving around, can collect data, put it on their desktop, and then publish it to the portal later on.
     We've also improved the custom drawing and defining of trade areas. We first did this in a project for Dunkin Brands, which used it to define franchise areas. Boundaries are drawn inside the portal and the data is kept in a central database. Polygons are also stored in the database. You define a territory inside a portal and define all the attributes (for example, which properties are available and which leases are due to expire). The territory is now stored and all users will be able to see the polygon in real time. This ability to define the territories inside the portal — rather than on the desktop — means that there is a single source of truth and everybody who has appropriate access can see it.


Sample market planning screen [Click on the image to enlarge it]

ML: Is access control a big part of what you sell?
MK: Yes, it's a big part. Access and security are all rule-based: you can regulate access to certain pages, to specific analytical modules, etc. We can really tailor what a user will be able to see and use.

ML: What else is new in this version?
MK: There's also some enhanced charting and graphing that gets linked to the map. You can create a "geoVuer," which is an executive dashboard to track the performance of various initiatives, summarizing that information on a map. For example, you can generate pie charts showing the percentage of expiring leases by year for each state; then you can drill down and a dynamic view will generate pie charts by county and by ZIP code. You can also link that information to charts with detailed stats.


Sample iTARGET ranking of mail prospects [Click on the image to enlarge it]

ML: On what did you build the program?
MK: Our technical architecture is a Microsoft .NET environment. A lot of the spatial analysis is based on our existing desktop tools. We did not build it from scratch but leveraged a lot of existing capabilities for our portal and products. We designed our architecture so that everything that you can do inside the portal you can also do as a Web service inside a customer's intranet.

ML: How long have you been making Web applications?
MK: We've been around for 13 years. At the beginning we made desktop software. Our first Web application — a site analysis application — was in 2000. In 2004 we released the first version of MarketVue Portal. That is also when we migrated to .NET and shifted to a more database-driven architecture, with all the data stored in an enterprise-friendly database. We've been mapping our development to our customer needs. There are a select few power users for whom the Web does not provide all the robust capability you need for analysis; for them we are still building desktop applications. But the portal reaches a much broader user base.



News Briefs

 Please note: I have culled the following news items from press releases and have not independently verified them.


CONTRACTS & COLLABORATIONS

The City of Toronto, Canada, home to more than 2.5 million people, has standardized on MWH Soft's InfoWater Suite to drive its enterprise-wide geospatial hydraulic modeling effort. MWH Soft is a provider of environmental and water resources applications software. This purchase equips the city with a full range of ArcGIS-centric water infrastructure analysis and management capabilities that will help it cope with fast expansion and optimize capital planning, operations, and community relations.
     Toronto Water, the city's water division, provides drinking water to the City of Toronto and a major portion of the Region of York through a complex system comprising 5,384 kilometers of distribution mains, 469 kilometers of trunk mains, 52,900 valves, 44,460 hydrants, 18 pump stations, 10 reservoirs, 470,000 service connections, and four treatment plants.
     Unlike competing products, the network modeling technology of the MWH Soft geospatial software suite addresses every facet of water utility infrastructure management, optimization, and protection. Built atop ArcGIS, InfoWater Suite integrates advanced water distribution network hydraulic, water quality, and optimization functionality with the latest generation of GIS technology. The suite reads GIS datasets; corrects network topology problems and data flaws; extracts pertinent modeling information; and automatically constructs, skeletonizes, loads, calibrates and generates optimized solutions. The result is performance modeling that sets new levels of scalability, reliability, functionality and flexibility within the ArcGIS environment, eliminating the need for inefficient, unreliable data synchronization and synching schemes or middle link interfaces required by other software. Using these tools, water utilities can simulate and evaluate various operating conditions, pinpoint system deficiencies, and determine the most cost-effective improvements to achieve optimum performance, ensure regulatory compliance, and meet new security challenges.

Varion Systems, the software development and value-added reseller division of GeoAnalytics, Inc, has upgraded the City of Waukegan, Illinois' installation of Govern Software from version 8.0 to 8.5. The completion of this upgrade is the latest step in the City's continued use of Govern Software to manage permits, licensing, code enforcement, and inspections. It has been utilizing Govern and working with Varion Systems since 2001.

The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) has welcomed twelve new members, bringing the total number of sustaining members to more than 85. New sustaining members include BBN Technologies, BEA Systems, Inc., CACI, DataDirect Networks, Essex Corporation, JL WHITE and Associates, Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging, Pangia Technologies, The Potomac Advocates, Red Hen Systems, Inc., SI International, and Zanett, Inc.
     The growing number of sustaining and individual members continues to support the Foundation's role as the forum for individuals, companies, and organizations that work in geospatial intelligence to come together for the benefit of the tradecraft. The addition of these new sustaining members continues USGIF's trend of rapid growth that began when it launched in January 2004.

Varion Systems, the software development and value-added reseller division of GeoAnalytics, Inc, has completed the implementation of a comprehensive GIS-based computerized maintenance management system for the City of Lee's Summit, Missouri, for managing and maintaining the City's water and street pavement infrastructures.
     The comprehensive two-staged project provided an enterprise-wide situation assessment, analysis, and planning effort, along with deployment and implementation within the Water Utility Department and the Public Works Department. The City is leveraging Cityworks to track and respond to public service requests and manage both proactive and reactive work orders along with associated labor, materials, and equipment.
     Varion Systems provided Geodatabase design services, Cityworks customization services, training, and coaching in conjunction with the City's existing SQL Server and ESRI ArcGIS software. In the future the City will develop its Cityworks and GIS databases for asset management and public services in other business areas such as the sewer, signals, signs, and facility infrastructures.

Fairfax County, Virginia, has extended its license agreement with Pictometry International Corp. for updated oblique aerial imaging and software. The county, which is near Washington, D.C., has an estimated population of more than 1,040,000 residents and encompasses 395 square miles.
     Fairfax County utilizes ESRI's ArcGIS 9.1 and is able to incorporate the ESRI data into its Pictometry software that maximizes the effectiveness of the combined GIS and visual data. In addition, access to Pictometry high-resolution oblique images enables users to more easily view changes in land use and structures in their area in conjunction with the county's high precision orthoimagery and other GIS data. Other county applications for Pictometry include homeland security, zoning, and property appraisal.

The City of Fredericksburg, Virginia, has selected Timmons Group, a geospatial and engineering services company, to design a GIS solution for the City. The primary goals of this project are to develop a GIS implementation plan that will enable the City to achieve workflow efficiency gains through automation and easier access to information; improved data integrity and currency; standards compliance; data security; enhanced user functions and new capabilities; and the integration of legacy systems.
     To achieve these goals, Timmons Group is conducting a comprehensive needs assessment, and developing a system design and implementation plan based on the requirements and priorities communicated by municipal staff. In all, seventeen city departments are involved in this project, which includes educating municipal staff on the benefits of GIS technology in a local government organization, and analyzing how GIS can be applied to their critical business processes.
     Fredericksburg's current map-related data and computer technology are being evaluated to determine how to best leverage existing resources to fulfill critical functional needs. The project includes the specification and acquisition of new aerial orthophotography and photogrammetric maps for the city. Human resource and training requirements are also being evaluated, along with existing maps and related land information to determine the data conversion and development services that will be needed to support the new GIS. The City of Fredericksburg expects to begin implementation of its new GIS in 2006.


PRODUCTS

Leica Geosystems has introduced the SmartRover, a new, lightweight, high-performance, all-on-the-pole RTK GPS surveying instrument. Weighing just 2.8 kg (6.16 lb), the SmartRover is 30 percent lighter than other all-on-the-pole RTK systems. Consisting of the Leica AT1230 SmartAntenna and Leica 1250 Controller, the SmartRover is designed to be fully compatible with the Leica SmartStation, the first total station with integrated GPS.
     The SmartRover features Leica Geosystems' exclusive SmartCheck and SmartTrack technology for high performance in the field. The SmartCheck algorithms provide centimeter-level position accuracy at update rates up to 20 Hz with 99.99 percent reliability for baselines up to 30 km. The SmartTrack engine acquires all visible satellites within seconds, tracks to low elevations, measures beneath trees, and provides exceptional multipath mitigation and advanced anti-jamming capability.
     The SmartRover incorporates Windows CE and Bluetooth technologies. This facilitates direct contact to the office via the Internet to upload and download data to enhance survey productivity. With its integrated CF card, data can be seamlessly exchanged with Leica System 1200 instruments to provide full X-Function capability. All System 1200 application software is also available on the new RX 1250 Controller.

With the release of the ArcSDE 9.1 Service Pack 1, ArcSDE now supports Microsoft SQL Server 2005. ArcSDE is a server software product that accesses multiuser geographic databases stored in relational database management systems (RDBMSs). ArcSDE enables users to integrate geographic information query, mapping, spatial analysis, and editing within a multiuser enterprise DBMS; move from a distributed approach to an integrated environment; manage spatial data as a continuous database accessible to the entire organization; and publish maps on the Web. ArcSDE 9.1 Service Pack 1, which is available for download, also includes performance improvements and maintenance fixes.

ESRI has released Business Analyst Online for Education to business schools and libraries. The product provides on-demand reports and maps from a website. Students and faculty can use it to access current demographic and consumer data reports and maps and interactive features for use in their classroom projects and research. Students will be able to link the importance of geography to such typical business applications as trade area analysis, site evaluation and selection, and customer profiling. The product is available via two subscription options. The basic subscription helps students and faculty characterize the people, housing, and retail expenditures in a given area and includes 12 reports and maps. The extended subscription includes all of the reports and maps in the Basic subscription plus 15 additional reports to provide more detail about income and spending habits of customers in a specified area, thus expanding the topics available for analyses.

WhiteStar Corp. has added Louisiana, Wyoming, and Utah to its CartoBase subscription line of digital cartographic products designed for oil and gas mapping. WhiteStar unveiled CartoBase in 2005 with the introduction of Texas and Colorado statewide products. WhiteStar offers the CartoBase products on a subscription basis, whereby clients receive quarterly updates of key data layers for two to three years following the initial purchase.
     Each CartoBase product contains up to 24 seamless layers of geospatial data covering the entire state and delivered on DVDs equipped with the CartoBase application that allows users to export data in their choice of mapping formats. Popular software formats supported include Petra, AutoCAD, Kingdom, GeoGraphix, ArcGIS, and ArcView.
     Each CartoBase product contains high-resolution statewide data coverage from WhiteStar's most popular National Database products, including: Public Land Survey Grid, containing the 1:24,000 land base derived from U.S. topographic maps; Pipeline Database of the location and attribute details for oil, gas and petroleum pipelines operating in the state; and Well Location File, including the location and attribute information for oil, gas, and coal-bed methane well heads.
     As part of the CartoBase subscription, WhiteStar sends quarterly updates of the Pipeline and Well databases. Other data layers vary from state to state, but most include TIGER file cultural features at 1:100,000 scale, digital elevation models at 1:24,000, political boundaries, TeleAtlas transportation networks, geologic formations and soils maps.

NavCom Technology, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Deere & Company, has introduced TruBlu, a Bluetooth compatible wireless device, enabling cable-free communication between NavCom's GPS receivers and Bluetooth enabled controllers.
     The new TruBlu accessory provides users with added flexibility and the option to use NavCom's GPS equipment with either a serial cable or the TruBlu wireless module to communicate with computer controllers. TruBlu is a wireless transceiver that works with all NavCom GPS receivers equipped with the latest 26 channel NCT-2100D GPS engine. The compact module provides a wireless range of up to 30 meters and is powered directly from the GPS unit, requiring no additional batteries for usage. The embedded blue LED illuminates the translucent and water resistant casing, flashing intermittently to indicate proper operation.


PEOPLE

The Board of Directors of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) has approved the slate of candidates for its 2006 election presented to it by the organization's Nominations Committee. For President, the candidate is Susan Johnson, Director of Business Support Services, City of Charlotte, North Carolina. For the board (three to be voted to three-year terms of office), the candidates are Jack (Al) Butler, GISP, AICP, President, Butler & Butler LLC, Orlando, Florida; Dave Dubauskas, MSC, Project Manager, Alberta Capital Regional Alliance, Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada; Gary Outlaw, GISP, Vice President, Merrick & Company, Aurora, Colorado; Juna Papajorgji, GISP, GIS Manager, Alachua County, Florida; Geney Terry, GISP, GIS Analyst, El Dorado County, California; and Sara Yurman, Director of Information Services, Spatial Focus Inc., Decatur, Georgia.
     URISA members will cast their votes in May. Those elected will begin their terms following URISA's Annual Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia in September.

Autodesk, Inc. has named Carl Bass, the company's chief operating officer, as president and chief executive officer, effective May 1. The company has also appointed Bass to its expanded Board of Directors, effective immediately. Carol Bartz, who has served as CEO since April 1992, will become the company's first Executive Chairman of the Board.
     As COO, Bass has had overall responsibility for sales, marketing and product development in Autodesk's core businesses: manufacturing, infrastructure, media and entertainment, building and wireless data services. Bass' commitment to Autodesk's customers spans his 10-year-long career with the company. Before serving as COO, he was senior executive vice president of the Design Solutions Group. He also served as chief strategy officer, chief technology officer, and executive vice president of emerging business, looking broadly across the Autodesk organization at strategy and growth opportunities that have enabled the company to expand its portfolio of products and services, and enter new markets.
     As Executive Chairman, Bartz will focus her energies on improving the business climate for Autodesk around the world, particularly in emerging markets such as China, India, and Eastern Europe, as well as work to build even stronger relationships with Autodesk's key customers, partners and investors.
     During her 14 years as CEO, Bartz guided Autodesk from its start as a small company to an established and well-diversified design software and services company. With approximately $1.5 billion in annual revenue, Autodesk is acknowledged as one of the best run companies in America. Today, Autodesk is the recognized leader in 3D technology and services. This month Autodesk was named one of America's best big companies, and one of the best-managed companies, by Forbes magazine. In addition, Fortune magazine named Autodesk one of the 100 best companies to work for and named Bartz to their 2005 list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business.


CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS

The 2006 ESRI Federal User Conference, taking place January 31-February 2, at the Washington, D.C., Convention Center, will explore the use of GIS for geoprocessing and analysis, integrated work flows, and intelligent collaboration across government agencies. This year's conference will also include state government agencies and a special focus on intergovernmental partnerships.
     All levels of GIS users will benefit from attending this conference. The event will include comprehensive briefings on ESRI technology that focus on the latest developments of the software, keynote speakers who provide a vision of the future of GIS, breakout sessions that offer real-world examples and expert knowledge, a Map Gallery highlighting user accomplishments, and a GIS Solutions EXPO that features various applications and related technologies.

Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.), Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator, will be the featured speaker at the second convening of the MAPPS Washington Policy Forum on February 9 at noon at the City Club at Franklin Square, 1300 I St. NW, Washington, D.C.


OTHER

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Azteca Systems Inc., a provider of GIS-centric asset maintenance management solutions, and the tenth anniversary of its Cityworks product. The company will recognize these anniversaries with events throughout the year and host a special celebration at the Cityworks User Conference, June 19-21, in Park City, Utah. The company was founded to supply specialized GIS and cartographic consulting services to local, state, and federal agencies. In 1996, it developed the first GIS-based asset and maintenance management system, Pipeworks. The original name was soon changed to Cityworks as it became apparent that the unique software application could easily be applied to more than just pipeline infrastructure. An extension to ESRI's ArcView, Cityworks continued to mature and develop and was the first application built for ArcGIS and ESRI's geodatabase architecture. Today, Azteca Systems customers span the globe using the software to manage a wide array of capital assets and infrastructure, including utilities, transportation, energy, facilities, and public works features.

Global Marketing Insights, Inc. has completed a study entitled "Survey and Analysis of Remote Sensing Market, Aerial and Spaceborne" and delivered the final report to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Satellite and Information Service Division. NOAA has accepted the report and posted it as a PDF for downloading.
     NOAA contracted Global Marketing Insights to conduct a research study of the international remote sensing market as it relates to aerial and satellite data technologies. The company created a series of extensive online surveys covering issues related to eight sectors of the remote sensing market: aerial film, aerial digital, aerial sensors, satellites, commercial end users, value added hardware and software, academic, and government. These surveys were completed by geospatial industry professionals and end users worldwide between February and August 2005.
     To receive the worldwide input needed to make the survey a success, the company established an international network of 26 Survey Affiliate Partners that hosted the website for the surveys and encouraged their clients to participate in the online survey. [GITC America, the publisher of GIS Monitor, was one of them.] Ultimately, 1,547 online surveys were completed and 250 in-depth personal interviews recorded. Over 2,000 pages of statistics were generated from the data collected. The analysis and final report were based on NOAA's specific requirements.
     Market insight in the report includes the following: U.S. and Canadian users see homeland security and defense issues as driving future technological development; in Europe, the development of the European Union will dictate the progress of the remote sensing sector; Asian and African participants believe that the increasing commoditization of remote sensing data will allow them greater access to it; the U.S. aerial imaging sectors expect strong growth with the continuation of mergers and acquisitions, consolidating in larger companies; and internationally, growth in the aerial mapping sector will continue to occur within small companies.

Overwatch Systems will demonstrate the "Intelligence Fusion" capabilities of its RemoteView imagery and visualization software at the DGI Europe 2006 Conference being held January 23-26 in London. DGI Europe is an annual conference and exhibition for the military geospatial intelligence community that draws government, industry, and military leaders from around the world.
     Intelligence Fusion, also referred to as Multi-INT Fusion, requires the ability to search for and retrieve multiple types of data from multiple servers and/or databases for analysis in a central software environment. The Overwatch RemoteView visualization and geospatial analysis software is the first system to automate this process.
     RemoteView is the leading software for imagery visualization and geospatial analysis within the defense and intelligence communities with a growing customer base in commercial sectors. It handles massive image data sets of multiple gigabyte size for rapid visualization and processing. RemoteView provides intuitive user controls to seamlessly build virtual mosaics incorporating hundreds of images for broad-area analysis, and includes tools for vector management, multi- and hyper-spectral analysis, 3D scene visualization, and photogrammetry.
     In addition to the Intelligence Fusion capabilities showcased at DGI Europe, Overwatch will carry out live demonstrations of RemoteView's ability to create 3D renderings from massive data files, build large virtual image mosaics, and extract coordinates with a high degree of precision from a high-resolution image.


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