2006 November 30

This issue sponsored by

ESRI

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Editor's Introduction

This week I continue my systematic reporting on GIS shops in the Portland area, with the first part of a profile of GeoNorth, the consulting company behind several public GIS implementations in that area; next week, I will feature the second part. I also review a fun and provocative book, The Geist Atlas of Canada. Plus, my usual round-up of news from press releases.

— Matteo

GIS Shops in the Portland Area: GeoNorth

Several public GIS sites in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area are the result of partnerships between public agencies and GeoNorth, a private consulting company that specializes in GIS and in developing Internet applications and enterprise databases. Since 1996, the company has worked with a variety of organizations in the area, including Metro (the regional government), the City of Portland, and the Port of Portland. It built a land administration and leasing system for the State of Oregon, recently integrated the Clackamas County Sheriff Department's CAD (computer-assisted dispatch) and in-vehicle GPS receivers, and is currently developing for the City of Salem an ArcGIS enterprise spatial editing system that includes edit task tracking and auditing. The company's clients also include the cities of Tigard, Lake Oswego, and Tualatin, as well as Washington and Multnomah counties.

GeoNorth has just released its latest product for ArcGIS 9.2, CartaVision 2.0. According to the company, it "makes it easier than ever to publish to the Web the cartography and display rules defined in your .mxd file, while only requiring ArcGIS ArcView 9.2." and it is "ideal for publishing GIS project information or easily adding rich interactive mapping to your Web site." One of the product's new features is the CartaVision Dashboard, a cross-browser Rich Internet Application (RIA) that uses Adobe's Flex technology. It provides users with an interface to manage CartaVision map viewers. CartaVision 2.0, GeoNorth says, "also provides an easy to use REST API which may be used to communicate directly with the CartaVision REST Processor when used with an ArcGIS Server license."

"We build very specific applications, productivity tools," says GeoNorth's Marshall Payne, Principal and Northwest Operations Manager. "The majority of our effort, though, tends to be in the integration of GIS information with other business systems—such as maintenance management or permitting." As part of my continuing reporting on GIS shops in the Portland area, I recently had a long conversation with Payne and with Reggie Wilbanks, Senior Solutions Architect. Following is the first part of my interview; the second part will appear next week.

Read more …

Book Review: The Geist Atlas of Canada

The Geist Atlas of Canada: Meat Maps and Other Strange Cartographies, compiled by Melissa Edwards, introduction by Stephen Osborne (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2006), paperback, 128 pages, ISBN 1-55152-216-0.

Not all the cartography books I receive compare different class definition schemes for choropleth maps, show examples of dasymetric mapping, or analyze the image analysis used to create a vegetation cover map from a satellite image. Some are just for fun. The Geist Atlas of Canada: Meat Maps and Other Strange Cartographies, an offbeat collection of maps published since 1995 in Geist, the Canadian magazine of art and culture, belongs in the humor section of my library—at least until I have a Canadiana section.

Each of the book's 50 maps—all in a "modified Geistonic projection" and re-mastered in full-color—displays geographic locations with names that fit a particular theme—such as conflict, erotica, or automobiles—per the editors' totally idiosyncratic and unscientific classification. The nearly 4,000 places, all indexed, include the following (with their category in parenthesis): Scratch All Point (entomological), Question Mark Lake (angst), Push and Be Damned Rapids (conflict), Lac Du Tictacto (board games), Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (haircuts), and Touch and Tickle Shoal (erotic).

Read more …

News Briefs

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

  1. CONTRACTS & COLLABORATIONS

    1. An investor group led by Hellman & Friedman LLC and Texas Pacific Group has completed the acquisition of Intergraph Corporation, a provider of spatial information management (SIM) software. Read more …

    2. ESRI has entered a strategic alliance with CG/LA Infrastructure LLC, a company dedicated to promoting and supporting infrastructure development in Latin America aimed at quadrupling the current level of investment for infrastructure development projects in the region. Read more …

    3. CPS Energy of San Antonio is now in production using Telvent Miner & Miner's ArcFM for land and electric distribution and is in the development phase for the implementation of gas transmission and distribution. Read more …

    4. The city of New Ulm, Minnesota's Public Utilities is using Autodesk's MapGuide, mPower Technologies' mPower Integrator, and Utility Science Corporation 's (USC) USMap to build their own GIS applications. Read more …

    5. EarthData International, Inc. and Triangle Aerial Surveys, Inc. (TAS), have announced their participation in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Mentor-Protege Program, a federal initiative to promote technology transfer. Read more …

    6. Digital Data Technologies, Inc. (DDTI), increased the number of counties complying with Ohio's statewide Location Based Response System (LBRS) when it completed its data collection process for Allen County. Read more …

    7. Milwaukee's City Assessor's Office recently took delivery of an oblique aerial imaging database of the area and software from Pictometry International Corp. Read more …

    8. Geomatic Technologies Pty Ltd (GT) has joined the Sybase Business Solutions Alliance (BSA) with Sybase Australia Pty Limited (Sybase) to deliver its GT Field Mobile Computing suite of field workforce management and asset data capture solutions on the Sybase Afaria mobile platform. Read more …

    9. ESRI Canada will provide Latitude Geographics' Geocortex Uptime and Statistics products, as a part of its Internet map solutions for Canadian organizations. Read more …

    10. Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) and Texas New Mexico Power (TNMP), both wholly owned subsidiaries of PNM Resources, Inc., have selected Telvent Miner & Miner's ArcFM Solution for their Texas and New Mexico operations. Read more …

    11. Infotech Enterprises, an India-based provider of geospatial and engineering design services to the utilities, telecom, transportation, government, and manufacturing industries worldwide, has joined Bentley's Enterprise License Subscription (ELS) program. Read more …

    12. Open Spatial, Inc. has announced the successful deployment of the second phase of the Munsys public works solution in the San Francisco Department of Public Works (SFDPW) using Munsys Query. Read more …

    13. mPower Technologies, the developer of mPower Integrator, and Utility Sciences Corporation (USC) have announced a co-reseller agreement. Read more …

    14. Digital Data Technologies, Inc. (DDTI) has completed a road centerline base-mapping project and AccuGlobe E9-1-1 software installation in Boynton Beach , Florida. Read more …

  2. PRODUCTS

    1. AirPhotoUSA, a GlobeXplorer company and a provider of pre-packaged aerial information solutions, has released a major-market update featuring high-resolution, one-foot pixel imagery of the Eastern United States. Read more …

    2. Applanix has introduced its new motion reference system for maritime surveying and mapping—the POS MV Elite, a tightly coupled inertial/GPS system that employs high precision ring laser gyros. Read more …

    3. MapInfo Corporation, a provider of location intelligence solutions, has introduced a new product maintenance package to help customers maximize the value of their location intelligence technology. Read more …

    4. The Canon imagePROGRAF iPF9000 60" and imagePROGRAF iPF5000 17" 12-color inkjet printers have both received 2006 DPI Product-of-the-Year awards at the SGIA Digital Trade Show in Las Vegas. Read more …

    5. DM Solutions Group (DMSG) and Pacific Alliance Technologies (PAT) have released iVAULT 2007 with commercial support for MapGuide Open backed by DMSG Premiere, and its future amalgamation with the DMSG Fusion toolkit for MapGuide Open. Read more …

  3. CONFERENCES & TRAINING

    1. Topcon Positioning Systems, a developer and manufacturer of positioning equipment, and Holman's, Inc., a GSA contract holder, are co-sponsoring the inaugural Advanced Positioning Educational Exposition (APEX) conference on GPS, GIS, surveying, and mapping solutions, dedicated to federal users. Read more …

    2. MWH Soft, a provider of environmental and water resources applications software, has announced the latest addition to its educational portfolio of IACET-certified training courses: GIS for Water and Sewer Systems Modeling. Read more …

  4. PEOPLE

    1. Geographic information software solutions that do everything from helping the world to prepare for the effects of global warming to enhancing consumer lifestyle will be the fruits of labour of a new group of business strategists at ESRI (UK). Read more …

  5. OTHER

    1. Autodesk has marked the one-year anniversary of the release of its MapGuide Open Source product and its feature data objects (FDO) source code. Read more …

    2. ESRI and Stratus Technologies have announced the winners of the ESRI and Stratus ArcGIS Server Demonstration Project Grant Program. Read more …

    3. A group of professional societies and trade associations seeking to defend the "Brooks Act" qualifications-based selection process for federal contracts for architectural, engineering, surveying, and mapping services won the first round in a lawsuit when U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis, III of the Eastern District of Virginia ruled against the U.S. Government's attempt to dismiss the case. Read more …

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Matteo Luccio, Editor
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