Autodesk Conference Call. Last week's Autodesk conference call to report earnings had little information for those involved in GIS. The good news is that the company is doing well. AutoCAD 2005 will ship March 22 and the vertical products sometime in March and April. Layoffs are underway (I've heard of a few folks in the Infrastructure Solutions Division who have moved on) and more are to come. UpFront.eZine has a nice summary. Oh, and if you want to know how Autodesk is spending its money, there's a full page ad in the New York Times business section this Tuesday touting how Inventor is the best selling 3D design software for the third year running.
Spatial Data Without Maps. While the bulk of what many of us do ultimately involves maps, many queries don't require them-take for example assessor's data. Type in an address (no geocoding required) or a street name and get back the data for that property or that whole street. You can check out Cambridge, Massachusetts data here. Thanks to reader Larry for sharing the URL.
$100 Map for Canada. There's a new $100 bill coming out in Canada in March. On the back is a map of the country. And, to squeeze the big country onto the tiny canvas, compromises had to made. Land areas were moved a bit here or there, mountains were exaggerated, nothing new to cartographers. In particular the team behind it wanted Canada to look like people think it looks, that is, have islands be islands. The new landcover/topographic map is paired with an old map created by Champlain in 1632. Thanks to reader Rob for the tip.
Update on GISCI. An article in the URISA News reports that 80 people are now GISPs. Scott Grams, who I ran into here in Wisconsin, noted that the total now tops 120. Also of interest, the State of Oregon has officially endorsed the GISCI Certification. The Oregon Geographic Council endorsed a plan for state certification last year, that adopts GISCI Certification. The plan goes on to call for any agency or organization that shares data to have a certified individual in charge.
Another LBS Challenge. In last week's mail my business received a flier from one of the national wireless carriers hyping a new GPS-enabled phone. On the cover it notes that GPS tools are $1.50/day. Inside there's a picture of a phone (with GPS highlighted on a menu) and some rate plans. The pricing and requirements for using GPS are documented on the company website - not in the brochure. Further, these requirements are broken down into three categories: correct phone, correct voice service, and correct Internet connection service. And, depending on whether you want directions, individual, or fleet tracking capabilities, these are different. Suggestion: make this simpler!
Underground Mine GIS. The Underground Mine Locator website reveals Ohio's known underground mines, along with potential areas of subsidence. Ohio currently has about a dozen active underground mines. There are 6,600 known abandoned mines, about three-quarters of which have detailed maps. So as far as I can tell, it's an ArcIMS application. If you want to see pictures of the mines, you need an Intergraph ACGM plug-in.
Lost? A little village in rural Donside, west of Aberdeen, Scotland has a big problem. It's sign, bearing it's name, Lost, keeps getting stolen. The solution is to rename it Lost Farm. Lost is from the Celtic word for inn. I hope they don't change the name of Boring, Oregon, where I spent a fun-filled afternoon snapping pictures of Boring Hardware and Boring Middle School. A shout out to my partner in exploration on that trip, and loyal GIS Monitor reader, Melissa, who was married this weekend.
Week in Review
• Announcements
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Spatial Data Technologies (SDT) announced business partner agreements with Electronic Data Solutions (Jerome, ID), and CompassTools (Centennial, CO). SDT's CartoPac and CartoPac Forms Builder field software will be integrated with GPS handhelds and other hardware.
Michael S. Renslow has been selected to serve as the new Technical Editor for Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing (PE&RS;), effective March 1, 2004. Renslow is a past president of ASPRS, the publisher of the magazine.
Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions announced its Registered Research Laboratory (RRL) Program has signed the University of Canterbury (Christ Church,? New Zealand) and the University of Queensland Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Research Laboratory, (Brisbane, Australia). Also, GeoSpace International Pty, Ltd., based in Pretoria, South Africa, will offer all Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions technology, including Z/I Imaging products, to its customers. Finally, IMGS renamed its Team GeoMedia Program to the Intergraph Synergy Program to reflect expanded coverage for Intergraph's overall geospatial focus, including GeoMedia(R), IntelliWhere, and G/Technology, with plans for TerraShare and other Z/I Imaging technologies in the near future. The Intergraph Synergy Program supports third-party research, development, and implementation of geospatial solutions based on Intergraph technology.
The Open GIS Consortium (OGC) announced a new membership category, the Small Company Commercial Membership.
The Geospatial One-Stop initiative's portal GeoData.gov expanded its resources to include a Lewis and Clark Bicentennial channel that contains valuable data, maps, satellite images, and other information.
The Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) has announced that it has signed a strategic alliance agreement with the Karakawa Foundation, Tokyo, Japan, to strengthen the role of crisis/emergency and risk management in their respective countries.
• Contracts and Sales
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Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions announced Lansing (Michigan) Board of Water and Light (BWL) has purchased Intergraph's Outage Management System (OMS), based on
InService technology, to interface with its current GE Networks GIS.
Forest Technology Group (FTG) has selected Hitachi Software Global Technology, Ltd. (HSGT) and its Any*GIS solution as core spatial technology for extending their webFRISTMASP service for forest managers, planners, and administrators.
Trimble announced that UNAVCO, Inc., has selected the Company to provide 875 Trimble NetRS(TM) Global Positioning System (GPS) reference station receivers over five years. The reference station receivers will be used as part of the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) network, a major component of the EarthScope Program sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Full Circle Technologies announced that the town of Cortlandt, New York has signed a contract for the company's Web-based VectorEyes product.
Loafer Creek's purchased a Leica ALS50 LIDAR system for use in the managing and monitoring of natural resources.
• Products
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Algo Vision LuraTech has three software versions of the PdfCompressor that convert scanned color documents into high-compression PDF files. They compress the data using JPEG2000 technology.
GIS Tools has recently released two updates of existing products, released two new products for Census Summary Files 2 and 4, and slashed prices on all its existing products.
CubeWerx has released its WMS extensions for MapInfo 7 and ArcGIS 8. Free demos are available. The one bonus above ESRI's offering is support for Styled Layer Descriptors. Moreover, if used with a CubeWerx WMS, data can be delivered.
Up-to-date aerial photography of New York City is now available online from Getmapping. Says the release: "The data was captured from a specially-equipped survey aircraft flying at 5,500 ft and provides on-the-ground pixel resolution of less than 10 inches. The digital images can be downloaded for around $45.00 including taxes."
Kronos is a geo-referenced image acquisition system for mobile mapping or video logging applications. Version 2.1 is now available.
GeoBusiness Solutions and DSR Marketing Systems have released the Retail SPEND estimates for the UK.
Making Community Connections: The Orton Family Foundation Community Mapping Program is a new book from ESRI Press designed to bring teams of teachers and their students together with community members to study problems, resources, conditions, and other matters of interest and importance to the community.
Open Source News
The DSpatial project published release 0.3 of the DSpatial kernel.
SAGA 1.0, a new free GIS, is available. The SAGA API supports grid data such as digital terrain models and satellite images, vector data, and tables.
• Events
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The Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Philadelphia, will celebrate 100 Years of Geography March 14-19.
• Hires
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William Aymard has been appointed vice president of international business development and sales at Sanborn. In this newly created position, Aymard will be responsible for developing relationships with international clients and creating a global presence for Sanborn. He comes from Space Imaging.
Russell S. Kauffman, PLS, recently joined Woolpert LLP's Hampton Roads, Va., office as a project director.
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