2006 September 15

This issue sponsored by

ESRI

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Editor's Introduction

This week I report on Autodesk's launch of Topobase 2007. If you are a current user of Topobase or a prospective user of Topobase 2007 I would especially appreciate your comments and your ideas for follow-up stories. I also bring you a few other tidbits and my usual news from press releases.

— Matteo

Autodesk Launches Topobase 2007

This week Autodesk launched Topobase 2007, an infrastructure design and management solution built on Autodesk Map 3D and Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise software by c-Plan, a European company that Autodesk chose as a partner in 1996 and acquired in June 2005. This is a reversal of Autodesk's typical process of developing products in the United States and then syndicating them to other geographic areas. C-Plan has a customer install base of about 500 mostly local governments and cantons in Switzerland, Germany, and other parts of Central Europe, that are already running on the Autodesk Map platform.

According to an Autodesk press release, Topobase 2007 is a better way for teams to "share spatial information across departments" by "integrating islands of CAD, asset, GIS, and customer information from both paper and electronic sources into a centralized infrastructure spatial information database." It is "designed to integrate with existing business systems without the need for expensive proprietary tools or middleware" and can "leverage infrastructure project data from design and construction phases through ongoing infrastructure management." Of course, Autodesk claims that the product will improve its users' productivity, efficiency, and profits.


Topobase Display Models

Scheduled for release in October, Topobase 2007 incorporates Oracle Spatial 10g Release 2 software and will include a series of modules—each with a detailed data model, workflows, and display models—for managing specific types of infrastructure assets. The first modules will be for water and wastewater, to be followed by electric, gas, land, and survey modules.

I discussed the launch of Topobase 2007 with Stephen Brockwell, Program Manager for Autodesk's Infrastructure Solutions Division. "The scarcity of financial capital," he told me, "is driving joint ventures between engineering and construction firms, consulting agencies, and large government organizations." In these collaborations, some agencies are responsible for enforcing regulations, other ones for maintenance, and yet other ones for billing and customer service. Topobase, Brockwell says, is designed to support that kind of multiparty system and includes Buzzsaw for sharing documents through a life-cycle process.

Unlike Autodesk's prior geospatial platforms, which were "quite generalized," Brockwell describes Topobase as "extremely vertical," with "a complete model and rules and procedures all ready to go." He emphasizes that Topobase's architecture is "extremely open" and plugs into both Autodesk's Map 3D—a client-centric, CAD design tool—and MapGuide, Autodesk's Web tool.


Topobase Reports

GIS, says Brockwell, "has not served well" the construction side of the business, in which you need "a lot of detailing" and "true 3D models" that are part of AutoCAD and Civil 3D. "In an operational world you need a truly relational and connected model that is topologically correct." Such a model, he claims, is a "unique feature" of Topobase.

Another thing that is "unique" about Topobase, according to Brockwell, is the kind of tabular view of the data that it offers: "Because it leverages Oracle Spatial, it has a very comprehensive model for the infrastructure assets: a valve is an actual object in the database." It can also integrate information from various different legacy systems—including financial systems, such as SAP, Maximal, and Hansen. "That integration takes place at the database level, through completely standard database technology. There is no proprietary storage or interface whatsoever."

Through feature data objects (FDO), Map 3D can access this database as well as live information from ArcSDE, shapefiles, Intergraph, or "anything that is following a standard interface in the industry today," says Brockwell. Customers, he explains, "can have water, for example, managed, or drawn, or captured with AutoCAD or AutoCAD Map and then they can have SDE information integrated with that."

The FDO layer is common to both Map3D and MapGuide. Therefore, Brockwell explains, now both components "can be augmented and extended to support different data sources simply by updating this FDO layer," which "understands all of the normal GIS transformations that you need—coordinate systems, long transactions, spatial queries, how to do joins." Because of the way in which Topobase uses both Map 3D and MapGuide, building my new modules involves data modeling rather than code-writing. "Topobase," says Brockwell, "has a very rich administrator tool that allows customers to customize and extend our vertical modules using point-and-click interfaces. All of the rules on the database side are written in PL/SQL and there is a whole library of rules that customers can basically cut and paste to use in their triggers and in their definition of their database features."

Many of Autodesk's customers still use AutoCAD or Autodesk Map to map their infrastructure. Autodesk, Brockwell says, will help them upgrade their infrastructure models step-by-step up the "geospatial value chain" to Topobase's database-centric solution. "We are proposing effectively what is a stack of integrated databases," he says. "We are not advocating, by any means, that customers migrate all of their data into Oracle. What we are saying is that Oracle is the best database for spatial data processing and for many other things, too—for scalability and security, for example. Topobase has a completely open Oracle database model. You can use it within your organization, using whatever IT infrastructure you choose."

By leveraging Oracle Spatial's capabilities, Brockwell explains, Topobase allows users—for example, private utilities that charge certain customers depending on the amount of capital investment they have made in specific tax district polygons—to replace classic GIS procedures with simple Web reports. "They've gone from something that takes a GIS mapping person with a couple of years of expertise at least a couple of weeks to do, to something that can be done in half an hour as a Web report for the entire service territory."

The Topobase Web application server, bundled with MapGuide Enterprise, takes the business rules and the .Net logic that is in the Topobase client in the Map 3D side and serves that up as HTML forms, using ASP.net. According to Brockwell, this will allow many end users to maintain their data, produce maps, dispatch crews, run network traces, and respond to customer service requests directly from the Web platform, rather than having to purchase separate front end tools.

To help it both sell and configure Topobase in particular vertical markets, Autodesk is partnering with value-added resellers (VARs), independent software vendors (ISVs), and system integrators. In the water and waste water market, Autodesk is working closely with CH2M HILL, with which it is already pursuing several joint ventures. "They are going to be helping us sell," says Brockwell, "because they are already trusted advisors in those accounts." They will also help Autodesk customers integrate their CAD and GIS assets and get through such Topobase 2007 implementation steps as installing the software, migrating data from existing sources, configuring databases and business workflows, and training end users.

According to Brockwell, Autodesk aims to be very competitive on the price and wants to "democratize these kinds of solutions." A typical configuration, he says, will cost between $50,000 and $150,000, including system integration, depending on the number of users.

From where does Autodesk expect competition to Topobase? Intergraph is in some ways competitive, Brockwell told me, but their client and Web technology lacks "a solid design, engineering-quality front end." The fact that MapGuide "is built to be portable, to be thin, to server-centric," he adds, "is another huge advantage for us against Intergraph." As for users of ESRI's SDE, "the difference is the fact that all of the data in Topobase is open. With SDE that is simply not true. You can use open Oracle Spatial geometry, but you cannot use Oracle Spatial tools to maintain it. You really have to go through SDE to ask some questions."

Another source of competition, Brockwell says, will come from the business systems—"from the SAPs of the world, who are moving very aggressively to dominate huge sectors of this marketplace." While Autodesk and the GIS companies are growing "up," into the business systems realm, he says, many business systems companies are growing "down," into the more operational aspects of their customer's business."

GITA and AAG Launch GIWIS

This week, at the GIS in the Rockies conference in Denver, Colorado, the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) and the Association of American Geographers (AAG) launched GIWIS (pronounced gee-whiz), or the Geospatial Industry Workforce Information System, in pilot form. Billed as "the nation's first and only geospatial workforce information network," GIWIS' website will highlight jobs in the geospatial industry.


These are all the people who spoke about the impact of GIWIS just before the unveiling of the website. From left: Bob Samborski, Executive Director, GITA; Steve Hick, Director of GIS, University of Denver; Jeanette Alberg, U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard's staff; Erin Minks, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar's staff; Jon Gottsegen, GIS Coordinator, State of Colorado; and Pete Gomez, Director, Information Requirements, Xcel Energy.

The event was the culmination of a $700,000 U.S. Department of Labor grant that supports the High Growth Job Training Initiative by forming high-level partnerships to collaboratively develop solutions to meet the workforce challenges and labor shortages facing the geospatial industry.

The event included remarks from Bob Samborski, GITA's Executive Director, Jon Gottsegen, GIS coordinator for the State of Colorado, Pete Gomez, of Xcel Energy, and Steve Hick, of the University of Denver. Representatives from the Colorado offices of Senator Wayne Allard and Senator Ken Salazar were also on hand to lend their support for this occasion.

Briefly Noted: Geographic Illiteracy

The 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy has confirmed, once again, that most young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 in the United States have a very limited understanding of the world.

Among the findings:

  • only 37 percent can find Iraq on a map—though U.S. troops have been there since 2003
  • sixty percent don't speak a foreign language fluently
  • twenty percent think that Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is in Asia
  • forty-eight percent believe the majority population in India is Muslim—even though Muslims actually make up only 13 percent and 80 percent are Hindu, and
  • half can't find New York on a map.

This is scary.

Letter to the Editor

My initial exposure to GIS was in the mid-1980s. At that time the state agency for which I worked was developing a GIS. I work in a state with a two-zone Lambert Conformal State Plane Coordinate System. When I asked how the GIS was going to deal with the two zones, I was told that they planned to use South Zone for the whole state. I pointed out that this would result in unacceptable distortions of length and areas in the North Zone and suggested that they use latitude and longitude. I was told that it was too late to make such a radical change in the programming and it wasn't that big an issue. The bottom line is, the plan for the GIS was developed without input from land surveyors or anyone with an understanding of accuracy or precision.

I have participated in meetings with GIS and photogrammetry professionals and been told that surveyors are not "mapping professionals." I suspect that other surveyors have had similar experiences. It is not surprising then that the disconnect between GIS and surveying has existed for so long.

Now that I have finished the rant, I will attempt to answer the precision question. First, we need to understand that precision is not accuracy. Precision refers to a repeatable result. Accuracy refers to truth. Measurements that are precise (repeatable) within a few millimeters may lead to erroneous results if positions are not accurate. The degree of accuracy required varies with the intended use of the map and associated data. Surveyors require sub-centimeter precision in measurements and positional accuracy for most work. The tolerances can be as tight as a few millimeters in some situations. The key is that accuracies must be clearly documented and understood by the users.

In closing, surveyors need to be involved in development and maintenance of most GIS applications. Both disciplines have a lot of common ground and can reap mutual benefits from better understanding and cooperation.

Lawrence J. Holt, PLS, Survey Manager

City of Lacey, Washington

Department of Corrections

Ajay Lavakare is now RMSI's Chairman, not its CEO as I reported last week.

News Briefs

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

  1. CONTRACTS & COLLABORATIONS

    1. MainPower of New Zealand, Origin Energy of Australia, Blacktown City Council in Australia, and the City of Tshwane, South Africa have awarded contracts to Tensing USA to implement GIS-related products from its line of mobility solutions.

      Tensing business partner We-do-IT, an Australian geospatial information technology services company specializing in enterprise application integration, will handle implementations of the MainPower, Origin Energy, and Blacktown City Council solutions. MainPower and the City of Tshwane have purchased the Tensing SPYder Web GIS product, a low-cost solution that will enable the organizations to display, query, and print GIS data over the Internet or intranet.

      MainPower is an electrical distribution utility serving 31,000 people in New Zealand. The City of Tshwane covers more than 2,300 square kilometers around Pretoria, South Africa, and includes 2.2 million people. Tensing SPYder Web GIS is designed to address those departments or remote personnel not requiring corporate GIS seats but still needing to display, view, query, and control GIS for their own purposes. SPYder Web GIS delivers the total solution for the geo-presentation of digital maps and access to existing corporate GIS applications for the thin-client environment, both internally and externally. With no limitation to hardware, GIS data can now be spatially and textually presented on desktop computers, laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs).

      Blacktown City Council, which governs the third most populous city in Australia, and Origin Energy, a supplier of natural gas, electricity and liquid petroleum gas to 2 million customers in Australia and New Zealand, have both purchased Tensing SPY Mobile GIS from the Tensing SPY.NET suite.

      Tensing SPY Mobile GIS extends GIS capabilities to crews in the field and gives them access to entire mapping systems on laptop, pen, tablet computers, and PDAs. Data is provided to the crews by extracting data from any corporate GIS database via an extremely fast one-to-one conversion tool that simplifies the presentation of the data. Tensing SPY Mobile GIS allows the customer to define the same application regardless of hardware platform.

    2. Softelec, partnering with HP, will present version 2 of its VPmap Series software line for raster processing and vectorization at the INTERGEO fair on October 10-12 in Munich, Germany. The VPmap Series is targeted at GIS applications, mainly to transfer and convert scanned maps into ArcGIS, MapInfo, Autodesk Map 3D, etc.

      VPmap and VPmap pro provide a set of functions and features for capturing spatial data from scanned maps. VPmap Series V2 now provides the option of operating inside Autodesk Map 3D, while choosing to run the programs in "stand-alone" mode remains a standard. Thus, VPmap and VPmap pro offer a flexible and independent platform for building up digital spatial data collections from scanned maps in cadastral projects, land development, land survey, geology, and many more.

      VPmap and VPmap pro contain specialized functions for extracting spatial data from black and white or colored scanned maps. Area objects can be captured as closed polylines or filled polygons, including accurate elimination of overlapping borders. Assigning attribute information to objects is just as simple, as some can even be calculated automatically.

      The features in the VPmap Series products also include assembly of several raster maps, color separation, and mosaicing as well as high-speed and precise multi-point rubber-sheeting. An individual set-up for a vast number of coordinate systems and map projections provides maximum flexibility for import and export. Major supported file formats for import and export are GeoTIFF, DWG (Autodesk), SHP (ESRI), MIF (MapInfo), and DGN (Bentley).

      In addition to VPmap's standard features VPmap pro comes with a program module for automatic vectorization and symbol recognition. Automatic vector conversion options can also be applied on color maps. With its built-in scanner interface VPmap pro thus provides a complete "Scan-to-GIS" desktop.

    3. Swova is working with Clark County, Ohio to provide GIS and CAMA integration services. The county, located in western Ohio, has a department that provides GIS services to the other county departments and works closely with the Auditor's Department to provide updated spatial property data to correspond with the mass appraisal system data.

      Swova is providing the county custom code and modeling for integration between the GIS ArcSDE database and the CLT CAMA Oracle database—including python scripting and geoprocessing models to provide tight integration between the two systems.

    4. Southern Company, one of the largest generators of electricity in the United States, has joined Bentley's Enterprise License Subscription (ELS) program. The Bentley ELS program grants organizations unlimited access to the entire ELS software portfolio for a fixed annual fee. The portfolio covers all the architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) software needs of subscribers, providing building, plant, civil, and geospatial solutions and supporting a managed environment for their AEC IT.

      The total coverage at a fixed, discounted price means that organizations can increase their software productivity and reduce their total AEC software costs simultaneously. The unlimited access streamlines AEC software administration while the annual term simplifies budgeting and accounting.

    5. Home Depot Canada, a division of the world's largest home improvement retailer, has implemented DMTI Spatial's digital map data services to optimize and standardize its home delivery services. The store's employees now can provide their customers with clear, illustrative, and standardized pricing based on the customers' postal code location.

      These maps represent a nationally consistent delivery fee structure, distributed across 123 outlets nationwide. By providing custom mapping of their delivery zones, DMTI Spatial map services reduced the time of Home Depot's previous mapping efforts by 50 percent.

    6. The GPS correction data that has been available for free to users in the Colorado Front Range for the past eight years just got a lot more accurate. CompassTools Inc., the provider of GIS field data collection tools that established the GPS base station in 1998, has joined with Trimble and the University of Denver (DU) in upgrading the system to provide centimeter-level accuracy and real-time correction broadcasts.

      Thousands of surveyors, civil engineers, researchers, and natural resource managers use GPS receivers throughout Colorado. The accuracy of these devices is normally about 10 meters due to atmospheric signal degradation. To improve their accuracy, GPS users can obtain differential correction from a second receiver, known as a base station. The base station established by CompassTools on the DU campus provides this correction data, which users can download for free.

      The DU facility received a significant upgrade this summer when Trimble, a manufacturer of GPS equipment and software, provided a geodetic-quality GPS receiver to serve as the new base station. The Trimble 5700 receiver includes a Zephyr dual-frequency antenna for improved signal reception and multi-path rejection, both of which improve GPS location accuracy. The enhanced equipment also enables the DU base station to broadcast correction signals in real-time over the Internet, so users can correct their GPS location data as it is collected in the field.

      As it has for the past eight years, the DU Geography Department will continue to host the base station and its antenna on Boettcher Hall. CompassTools will make the correction data available on its website. Dual-frequency correction data are collected every five seconds by the base station and posted as files on the website every hour. GPS users up to 200 miles from Denver should be able to utilize the correction data.

  2. PRODUCTS

    1. Teydo BV, a provider of location technology, has made substantive improvements to its LocationXS Web service—a mapping solution for Teydo's Partners servicing the Location Based Services (LBS) market. Specific improvements include satellite mapping, client notifications, cleaner menu screens, and user settings and features.

      In addition to the drawn (digital) maps used on the LocationXS site, Teydo has licensed Microsoft Virtual Earth satellite imagery. The user is now able to toggle back and forth between the satellite imagery and the drawn maps. Superior to Google maps, the LocationXS satellite images show main roads at lower zoom levels, making asset location easier. Teydo has expanded client notifications with account balance notifications to prevent unwanted charges; it has made the menus screens dynamic, so that, depending on the products used, only those features and no others will appear in the screen; and it has improved a host of smaller functions and features which makes managing devices online easier.

      LocationXS allows dealers to sell GPS devices without the hassle of maintaining systems and wireless operator subscriptions and connections. Dealers sign up for an annual base quantity of sold devices and in return get reduced pricing and a dealer residual on the service plans on the installed base. The dealer is free to sell the hardware and related installation services. The fees for the wireless account are wrapped in one monthly fee directly to the end customer.

      Dealers that run larger operations generally choose to have a private label of the LocationXS solution. Private label dealers have their own logo on the service site and determine their own pricing model for transactions. Dealers can choose from wide variety of hardware devices that are supported in the LocationXS tracking portal, including Trimble's TrimTrac Locator, QinetiQ's Ocellus, Enfora's MT-G, MT-GL, and MT-Mini, and Gemini Technologies' GemTek.

      Partners sell a GPS receiver to an end user and open an account for the end user on www.LocationXS.com (service fees for the account run through LocationXS). Wireless devices require a monthly subscription for the wireless service for data communication and LocationXS access. Partners charge their own rates for the hardware and to install or mount the Trackers.

      GPS data is communicated wirelessly over any of the four GSM mobile networks in North America (AT&T Wireless, Cingular, T-Mobile, and Microcell/Rogers) to LocationXS. LocationXS' hosted system receives, processes, and stores the data. Based on the information in the message, the hosted system executes certain particular functions. LocationXS's system is Web-accessible 24/7 for users, allowing for continuous operation and customer support.

      Users with LocationXS accounts can securely access only their own information, which is displayed in a Web browser on a map. Account sign in and Verisign encryption take care of keeping data proprietary and safe.

    2. MWH Soft, a provider of environmental and water resources applications software, has released InfoWater Leak Detection Manager (LDM), a geocentric modeling solution for detecting underground water system leakage. Based on the UK water industry standard step-testing method, this water conservation solution helps water utilities detect where leakage is occurring in the network. InfoWater LDM can help water utilities worldwide eliminate inefficiencies in their drinking water distribution systems and the resulting loss of revenue. It can also help reduce the risk of contamination, lower operational costs associated with increases in pumping and treatment, improve system pressures and firefighting capability, and forge closer ties with customers.

      The California Department of Water Resources estimates that about 81 billion gallons of water leaks from municipal systems in the state each year. Some of the factors contributing to leakage include inadequate corrosion protection, older mains, faulty installation, material defect, excessive water pressure (and objectionable pressure surge), ground movement due to extreme weather conditions, and excessive loads and vibration from road traffic. When leaks prevent water from reaching end consumers, utilities lose revenue and incur unnecessary costs.

      InfoWater LDM provides water utilities with a tool to control the loss of water they have paid to obtain, treat, and pressurize. It also reduces the chances that leaks will cause major property damage, adverse environmental impacts, and detrimental or fatal water quality episodes. Reducing leakage can also defer treatment plant expansion and eliminate the need to search for future water resources to accommodate population growth.

      Built atop ArcGIS, the application integrates advanced water network modeling and computational graph-theory to provide a fully automated step-test leak detection solution in the GIS environment. In the step-test method, the network is subdivided into distinct areas with excessive leakage. The size of each area is then systematically reduced by closing valves on each section of pipe in succession, while measuring changes in the flow rate at a meter installed on the input main to the area. A large drop in flow rate indicates excessive leakage in the last section of pipe closed.

    3. Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging has released Leica Photogrammetry Suite (LPS) 9.1. The introduction of Leica Terrain Format (LTF) provides improved accuracy and processing over LPS 9.0. LTF supports fast update and querying of large quantities of point and line data. Additional features include the DTM Split and Merge tool and additional support for Leica MosaicPro. New versions of ORIMA and PRO600 are also available providing photogrammetry users with an improved workflow processing solution.

  3. CONFERENCES

    1. The third "Earth from Space—the Most Effective Solutions" biannual international conference will be held in Moscow, Russia, 2007 December 4-6. The conference, organized by RDC ScanEx and Transparent World, gathers about 300 participants from many countries. The goal of the conference is to show the experience of practical use of satellite monitoring in different branches of the economy, together with the recent developments in remote sensing, as the backbone of cost-efficient functioning economic systems.

    2. Bentley's next annual user conference (called BE, for "Bentley Empowered") will take place April 29 to May 3 at the Convention Center in Los Angeles, California.

    3. John H. Sununu, former Chief of Staff to President George H. Bush and former Governor of New Hampshire, will be the keynote speaker at Pictometry's FutureView 2006 User Conference, scheduled to take place October 29 to November 1 in Orlando, Florida. His background includes executive management roles in government, business, and academia that have encompassed a wide range of responsibilities—such as educator, engineer, governor, presidential cabinet member, news commentator, and business executive.

      Sununu earned his Ph.D. at MIT, served as the Associate Dean of the College of Engineering and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He became governor of New Hampshire in 1983 and served three terms before joining the White House as Chief of Staff on 1989 January 21, and served in that capacity till 1992 March 1. He also served as a Counselor to the President. From 1992 to 1998, he was a co-host of CNN's "Crossfire" program.

      In 2003, Governor Sununu lectured for a year at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and in 2004 he co-chaired the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board's Nuclear Energy Task Force. He is currently the president of JHS Associates, Ltd.

      The theme for this year's Pictometry conference is "Beyond the Image." Governor Sununu's Keynote presentation will take place on the first full day of the conference, Monday, October 30.

  4. OTHER

    1. DM Solutions Group has launched DMSG Premiere, the first commercial support service dedicated to open source Web mapping technologies. Users of MapServer, MapGuide Open Source, and related technologies can now develop applications with the heightened assurance and technology backing that a commercial support service can provide.

      In addition to the commercial support for the technology being provided by DMSG Premiere, a significant priority has been placed on supporting the specific needs of application developers who may be unfamiliar with how to effectively use Web mapping technology. Users often come from either a Web/IT or a GIS background, but rarely both. Many of the services provided by Premiere are targeted at filling in these gaps by providing background and reference information, technical insights, and advice from a company that has been focusing on Web mapping solutions delivery for more than eight years.

      Support is delivered at various levels, beginning with base support, offering information, notifications updates, and security alerts to the highest level of support available through the use of Web-based and toll-free phone support. A multi-tier support structure enables business partners to embed the most appropriate DMSG Premiere plan into their own value-added support offering, while keeping it simple for their customers.

      The open source Web mapping user community has been growing exponentially in the past few years—the MapServer user base alone is estimated at between 40,000 and 70,000 worldwide and adoption of MapGuide Open Source is growing rapidly as well. As these communities have grown and evolved, users' needs for heightened support have grown with it.

    2. DeCarta (formerly Telcontar), a location-based services (LBS) platform provider, is donating a year's worth ($250,000 ARV) of licenses for its Drill Down Server (DDS) platform or its Hosted Web Services initiative to the grand prize winner and each of the three category winners of the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge in The Americas. This annual contest challenges developers to create innovative wireless and Internet applications that involve GPS and location-based technology.

      In the past, winners of this challenge have received a year's worth of NAVTEQ's map data. This year, the winner will be able to process NAVTEQ's data with the DDS platform that provides the foundation for Google Maps, Google Earth, Yahoo! Local, and Ask.com as well as major wireless applications for Motorola and Inrix's Dust Network. NAVTEQ is challenging developers to deliver the next gaming, traffic, entertainment, leisure, or other consumer application.

      The deCarta award supplements NAVTEQ's prize of $50,000 cash and $100,000 in NAVTEQ data licenses for up to one year awarded to the grand prize winner, and $10,000 cash and $75,000 in NAVTEQ map data licenses for up to one year awarded to the category winners. The announcement was made as part of NAVTEQ's official launch of the LBS Challenge at the CTIA Wireless IT show.

      The NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge is a developer program created to catalyze growth in the LBS industry by bringing together the key players in the LBS/wireless value chain. Registration for the LBS Challenge closes on November 10.

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