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Message from the Editor -
Welcome to GISWeekly! Attendees from over 56 countries attended this year's Intergraph Geospatial World 2005 held in San Francisco, Calif. April 24-28. Halsey Wise, President and CEO of Intergraph Corporation, began his opening remarks by saying that it was too early to discuss the company's financials which were to be announced on Thursday. He quoted Mark Twain, saying, “You can't rely on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus.” Adding: “Some of the things that we imagined will soon be part of Intergraph's future.”
Preetha Pulusani, President of Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions (IMGS), spoke on “Enabling the Spatial Enterprise for the Future,” and in that context, of the company's vision of seamless computing. Read about it in this week's Industry News.
GISWeekly examines select top news each week, picks out worthwhile reading from around the web, and special interest items you might not find elsewhere. This issue will feature Industry News, Acquisitions/Alliances/Agreements, Announcements, Appointments, New Products, Around the Web and Upcoming Events.
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Best wishes,
Susan Smith, Managing Editor
Industry News
Geospatial World 2005 Report - A Look at Seamless Computing in the Future
By Susan Smith
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Halsey Wise, President and CEO of Intergraph Corporation. |
Halsey Wise, President and CEO of Intergraph Corporation, began his opening remarks by saying that it was too early to discuss the company's financials which were to be announced on Thursday. He quoted Mark Twain, saying, “You can't rely on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus.” Adding: “Some of the things that we imagined will soon be part of Intergraph's future.” A full overview of his talk can be found in this week's AECWeekly.
Technology Vision - Seamless Computing
Preetha Pulusani, President of Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions (IMGS), spoke on “Enabling the Spatial Enterprise for the Future,” and in that context, of the company's vision of seamless computing.
Four elements comprise this vision:
1. seamless data access
2. seamless application access
3. legacy data
4. enterprise database, which contains both spatial and business data.
She spoke about seamless application access and how we use Outlook to access email or an Internet café outside the conference, yet don't think twice about it. We know it's coming from the same source.
This seamless computing can start small and grow from one department to the entire organization. As you scale you don't want to re-architect your whole system. Seamless application integration using web services gives you a combination of all the following aspects - clients, data and functionality.
Intergraph's vision is for seamless geospatial computing. As we have data access fairly seamless and interoperability, we are not starting at ground zero, Pulusani said. Customers are no longer tied to an application because of the data format. There is a strong foundation to build on to reach that vision of seamless geospatial computing.
Spatial Solutions in Action
What is the open spatial enterprise? Being able to access data from different sources and having the best tool to complete that task, said Pulusani. She gave examples around the world of various customers that showcase open spatial enterprise.
Shanghai Telecom in China is one of largest telcoms in world. It serves 10 million customers in a fiercely competitive market that continues to grow. They invested in Geospatial Resource Management (GRM). The first thing they had to do was collect data, and sent 1,000 people out in the field for a year to collect data. Last year they were in phase two of application development, and now phase three was optimizing their network operations by using G/Technology with their existing communications solution. They have implemented parts of the solution to date.
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The fusion of data such as vector data, text data, terrain data is of significantly greater value than used independently, noted Pulusani.
The NGA is responsible for providing timely, accurate, relevant data for national security. They have outsourced much of their map production to Intergraph. ImageScout, a solution that is built on top of GeoMedia, was chosen to do their broad area searches. It integrates imagery and does image analysis. “NGA has a plan for really changing how their people in the field work, and they've had Image Analyst and Mapping Analyst. They are really trying to bridge that gap and make them one and the same,” Pulusani explained in a later interview. “So they needed some technology that brought these two together. ImageScout has a lot of the image analysis functionality that can be used by geographic analysts.”
The Czech Office for Surveying Mapping Cadastre won an award for their new portal, created as a result of a request from the Czech government that data had to be available to any public sector agency for free and to the private sector for a price. Using standards based web services, they integrated with multiple vendor systems in order to be able to provide data for free. “What they are really promoting by selling data to the private sector is for partners, especially in Czech Republic. There are many companies there accomplished in both IT and geospatial,” according to Pulusani.
To achieve seamless geospatial computing, Pulusani ended by saying, “You need to have big vision and think open, maybe start smaller and build from where you are today.”
A Look at the New Products
GeoMedia 6.0 is said to be “the most significant release since 1.0 with more enterprise enablement functionality.”
G/Technology 9.3, to be released this summer, “surpasses FRAMME and related MicroStation technology. Combined with open architecture it is unique for utilities and other applications.”
Art Spencer, Executive Vice President, Government, Transportation, Utilities and Communications announced the 2005 awards for the 100 Percent Cutover Club and the 100 Percent Club. The 100 Percent Cutover Club honors customers who achieved completion of implementation and testing of systems and putting them into operations. Cobb County, Georgia, who won this award, is also a member of 100 Percent Club.
The 100 Percent Club winners must achieve a full conversion that is fully digitally captured. It obviously takes many years to archive 100 percent data conversion. Among the winners were the Electric Utility of Poland, who was first to implement FRAMME and G/Technology. Denmark's utility, a customer for more than 20 years, will deploy G/Technology this summer. Kinexis Utility in Germany converted 8,500 miles of electric line, and recently implemented a wireless outage management system.
Spencer talked of the three top three strategic priorities for his division:
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- Lower costs 47%
- Increase customer satisfaction 46% - Improve performance and processes 36% |
He gave a recent example of a logistical challenge in the city of Rome: STA is owned by the city of Rome and provides services that have to do with mobility planning of the city of Rome.
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Dr. Matt Tate, Intergraph Geospatial Intelligence and Earth Imaging Solutions spoke on the fact that earth imaging solutions is here to help see the world clearly. This is a foundation that applies to all solutions--not just geo intelligence and earth imaging.
The areas that geo intelligence serves are military intelligence and security. Everything in that environment has changed in the last two years. The most visible change is the enemy - once this was geopolitical and wore uniforms. “Now our strategy is different,” said Dr. Tate. “We need to take the civilian community and coordinate that with the military community and the hinge pin is the coordination between the two. Intergraph operates spatially to bring them together.”
Areas where technology has changed:
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- Speed --cycle much shorter
- Flexibility - taking systems and matching them together. Connecting different kinds of data from civilians and military and metadata to see better - Usability - we cannot expect to have an operator in the intelligence community to be a GIS expert and be able to know how to use these technologies. They must be easy to use. |
Moving to services oriented architecture is where the world is moving to, according to Holmes. There are existing IT platforms to provide this. Oracle provides this with its application server. IBM provides WebSphere. “Services are going to be defined in a loosely coupled interoperable way,” said Holmes. Communication will be done via web services. GeoMedia WebMap Web Services are positioned squarely in the middle of this.
GeoMedia 6.0 is one of the largest releases of the product and much easier to deploy across an enterprise. Some of its features include:
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- Added CAD-like capabilities
- Geospatial metadata catalog search and query makes it easy to discover and retrieve geospatial data. - Publish web sites or web services without programming. - Provide advanced integration and validation workflows (a new product built on top of GeoMedia called ImageScout - conflation process) - Significantly improved linear reference systems for Transportation - GeoMedia Grid product improved grid analysis for continuous surface modeling. |
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- Extended CAD integration improves productivity and usability for desktop and mobile users.
- Improvements to mobile workflows increase productivity - New distance based tracing enables further analysis |
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- Integrated with Geomedia WebMap
- Also TerraShare will support Oracle's new Georaster |
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- Stereo feature collection with in Geomedia
- New photogrammetric production environment |
InService 7.9 release will allow
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- Switch planning enhancements enable productive and safe network operations.
- I/Mobile tc portal job distribution performance improvement. |
Acquisitions/Alliances/Agreements
Laser-Scan announced partnership arrangements with MecSpatial and Espatial Resources Sdn Bhd. Effective from January 27th 2005, MecSpatial was appointed as Laser-Scan's exclusive distributor for its products in Malaysia. Laser-Scan is soon to announce a partnership on data in Malaysia with Espatial. Due to customer feedback and market demand, the companies have joined forces to support Ordnance Survey Great Britain's (OS) national Positional Accuracy Improvement (PAI) program; the combined offering will help customers benefit from the improvement in accuracy offered by OS MasterMap®.
Geosoft Incorporated, a provider of geospatial mapping software, announced the continuation of a Cooperative Agreement between Geosoft and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Huntsville Center. Now in its fifth year, this technology development partnership will build on Geosoft's industry standard Oasis montaj mapping software, used in Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) detection, to deliver enhanced efficiency and accuracy in UXO investigations.
DigitalGlobe, provider of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery and geospatial information products, announced that Marathon Oil Company has joined DigitalGlobe's Enterprise Partner Program, a mechanism that streamlines access to geospatial products, and provides quick and easy data viewing and ordering in a desktop environment.
Mobitrac Inc., supplier of a new generation of transportation execution systems, said it has received $8.3 million in funding from U.S. Venture Partners, Frazier Technology Ventures, Arch Development Partners, Illinois Ventures, Illinois Finance Authority and Mentor Management to support rapid company growth, an expanding customer base and an aggressive product roadmap.
Announcements
Intergraph Corporation, global provider of Spatial Information Management (SIM) software, announced that, consistent with its Strategic Plan, the Company is realigning its organizational structure and streamlining its global operations from four to two divisions - Process, Power & Marine (PP&M) and the newly formed Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I). Intergraph's SG&I division will consist of core operations that previously existed in Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions, Intergraph Solutions Group and Intergraph Public Safety. The organizational realignment is intended to: (1) improve the customer focus and responsiveness of the Company; (2) facilitate revenue growth by better leveraging the Company's full range of technology and services; (3) enhance the Company's development capabilities and ability to deliver innovative solutions to its target markets; and (4) reduce the overall cost structure of the Company . The Company expects the organizational realignment p process to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2006.
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A new live training seminar from ESRI Virtual Campus, Introduction to ArcSDE, is designed for users who want to explore the features and best practices of ArcSDE. Attendees will learn about the components included with ArcSDE and how they work as well as hints and ideas that help maintain performance. The seminar will take place May 19, 2005, at 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 3:00 p.m. Pacific time.
MapInfo Corporation identified the top metros where tax refunds may be used to pay off outstanding credit. According to MapInfo's research, all of the top ten metropolitan areas with the highest propensity for personal lines of credit are all located west of the Mississippi River including Bend, Oregon, Boise, Idaho and Reno, Nevada.
The top ten metros, in order of their general credit card index, are:
1. Bend, Oregon
2. Boise, Idaho
3. Reno, Nevada
4. Colorado Springs-Pueblo, Colorado
5. Albuquerque-Santa Fe, New Mexico
6. Denver, Colorado
7. Phoenix, Arizona
8. Casper-Riverton, Wyoming
9. Tucson, Arizona
10. Billings, Montana
The Carbon Project announced that attendees from multiple organizations successfully completed the world's first training course to focus on applied Open-Geospatial Development. The course, Fundamentals of Open-Geospatial Development, was held on April 12-13 at Intergraph in Reston, Virginia.
The training leveraged a new free geospatial development toolkit, CarbonTools™, to teach attendees how to rapidly develop open-geospatial applications and access hundreds of online geospatial resources. Based on the Microsoft .NET Framework, CarbonTools provides a powerful and extendible API for accessing geospatial web services based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specifications.
Appointments
Exor Corporation, a global provider of infrastructure asset management software, announced the appointment of David MacDonald as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales - MacDonald will also take a position on the board of Exor Corporation.
Financials
Garmin Ltd. announced a record first quarter ended March 26, 2005. The company's consumer segment experienced 11 percent revenue growth during the first quarter of 2005. The aviation segment also achieved 59 percent revenue growth for the quarter, which led to overall revenue growth of 22 percent for the quarter.
The company introduced 16 new products during the quarter, and over 584,000 GPS units were shipped in the first quarter of 2005. The company also began shipping the acclaimed G1000 integrated avionics system for the Cessna 172, the seventh aircraft model to be certified to date.
New Products
Avenza Systems Inc. announced the immediate availability of Internet-accessible floating or networked licenses of MAPublisher 6 for Adobe Illustrator. MAPublisher 6 is feature-rich mapmaking software used to produce high quality maps from GIS data and the addition of Internet-accessible floating licenses make this powerful cartographic production environment even more efficient and workgroup-friendly. This new license format allows access to MAPublisher and all its functionality via remote access to a Windows, Mac or Linux server host using a normal Internet connection. It provides the perfect solution for users who travel, work offsite and/or for workgroups composed of decentralized personnel.
ESRI announced the availability of Tracking Server, a solution for collecting and sending near real-time data from many data sources and formats to Web and desktop clients. Tracking Server was developed by Northrop Grumman to enable the integration of real-time data with GIS. This integration helps users make better decisions and share information quickly, easily, and efficiently.
Laser-Scan and Dotted Eyes presented a new Positional Accuracy Improvement (PAI) solution to the marketplace called ShiftWiz Professional™.
Safe Software Inc. announced a new product for Intergraph GeoMedia WebMap users: FME Data Server for GeoMedia WebMap. This product is based on the industry-standard FME core Spatial ETL (extract, transform, and load) technology. This solution enables GeoMedia WebMap users to gain direct access to spatial data in more than 130 different formats, including ArcSDE, Geodatabase, PostGIS, IBM DB2, MapInfo, AutoCAD, and many others.
LizardTech, a division of Celartem, Inc., and a provider of software solutions that make it significantly easier to manage and distribute digital content such as aerial photography, satellite imagery and scanned color documents, announced support for viewing MrSID® and JPEG 2000 files on the Mac OS X platform.
Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions introduced version 9.3 of G/Technology(TM) to professionals gathered in San Francisco for Intergraph's fifth annual Geospatial World international training and management conference. G/Technology delivers an integrated geofacilities management system that is the foundation for a comprehensive information technology (IT) environment called geospatial resource management (GRM), which facilitates integration among key engineering, operational and customer-related corporate systems for utilities and communication companies. With version 9.3, G/Technology adds new capabilities for data and analysis to improve software usability and increase productivity for daily operational and maintenance workflows.
Also from IMGS was the announcement of version 6.0 of its suite of GeoMedia(R) desktop and Web products for maintaining, integrating, analyzing and presenting geospatial data to enable an open spatial enterprise. The GeoMedia family consists of 17 applications tailored for regional and local government, national and federal government, military and intelligence, utilities, communications, photogrammetry and transportation markets.
Matrox Graphics Inc., manufacturer of graphics solutions for professionals, announced the release of its new 64-bit SE drivers for Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, for the Matrox Parhelia(TM), Millennium P-Series, QID, and Millennium G-Series product families. The Matrox 64-bit SE drivers support both AMD64 processors and 64-bit Intel(R) Xeon(TM) processors.
Around the Web
Google Revenue Nearly Doubles in Quarter, by Saul Hansell, NY Times, April 22, 2005-Google continues to turn its popular Web search service into a rapidly growing and highly profitable business. In the first quarter, the company reported its revenue nearly doubled from the comparable period a year ago and its profits increased more than fivefold.
Scheme preys on people who mistype 'Google.com', by Matt Hines, CNET News.com, April 27, 2005 -- Security researchers have discovered an attack aimed at would-be visitors to Google.com, one that attempts to download malicious programs onto the computers of people who simply mistype the search giant's Web address.
Upcoming Events
ESRI Regional User Conference - Thunder Bay
Date: May 2 - 3, 2005
Place: Nor'Wester Resort Hotel 2080 Highway #61, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada Attend one of ESRI Canada's largest user oriented event. The conferences are designed to bring together senior industry and product managers from ESRI Inc. (Redlands, CA) as well as key senior level people from ESRI Canada to communicate the strategic direction of ESRI Canada, ESRI Inc., and its technology.
Enviro Expo 2005
Date: May 3 - 4, 2005
Place: Seaport World Trade Center/FREEMAN Boston, MA USA
BE Conference 2005
Date: May 8 - 12, 2005
Place: Baltimore, MD USA
Bentley's premier professional training event includes training courses and technology updates, keynote presentations by Bentley executives, project presentations by innovative Bentley users, and a wide range of networking opportunities. BE stands for "Bentley Empowered," reflecting the people and projects using Bentley products to improve the world's infrastructure and increase quality of life.
GeoAlberta 2005 Conference
Date: May 9 - 11, 2005
Place: Telus Convention Center Calgary, Alberta, Canada
“Unleash the Energy - Positioning Information and Technology” GeoAlberta 2005, is the fourth annual GeoAlberta conference and will be held in Calgary, Alberta at the Telus Convention Center May 9th to 11th, 2005. Aimed towards new, current and future users of GIS, this conference offers the opportunity for professionals to tap into the power of location-based information by introducing new applications, the latest technologies and forward-thinking methodologies. Attendees work in the Federal, Provincial & Local government, oil and gas industry, environmental services, surveying professionals, the utilities industry, and retail & business professionals as managers, employees, owners and consultants. The 2005 Committee is dedicated to providing participants with a full day of practical workshops, two days of thought-provoking educational sessions, a vendor's exhibition with 30 vendor booths, a map gallery and a not-to-miss vendor casino night. The GeoAlberta Conference is hosted by; GeoEdmonton, GITA Alberta, URISA Alberta and the Alberta Geomatics Group.
SimTecT 2005 Simulation Conference and Exhibition
Date: May 9 - 12, 2005
Place: Darling Harbour Convention Centre Sydney, Australia
This special 10-year anniversary SimTecT simulation conference includes international keynotes, technical and applications papers, workshops, special presentations, exhibition and social program.
ESRI Regional User Conference - Prince George
Date: May 9 - 10, 2005
Place: University of Northern British Columbia 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC, Canada You're invited to attend ESRI Canada's annual User Conference. The conference will provide you with a wealth of GIS technology information and user success stories.
ESRI Regional User Conference - Vernon
Date: May 11 - 12, 2005
Place: Best Western Vernon Lodge & Conference Centre 3914 - 32nd Street, Vernon, BC, Canada You're invited to attend ESRI Canada's annual User Conference. The conference will provide you with a wealth of GIS technology information and user success stories.
MAC URISA Spring Meeting
Date: May 11, 2005
Place: New Jersey EcoComplex Bordentown, NJ USA
(9:00 am - 2:00 PM) The focus of the May 11th MAC-URISA meeting will be on FEMA's Multi-Hazard Flood Map Modernization Program. In an effort to reduce the damages and costs of flooding, FEMA has embarked on an aggressive 5-year initiative to update the Nation's flood hazard maps. FEMA is developing new DFIRMs (Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps) that use GIS databases to store the digital data used in the map production process, as well as the backup engineering data for the floodplain studies. These databases will provide a standard, systematic method for FEMA to distribute comprehensive details of its flood studies to the public in a digital format. FEMA's vision for Map Modernization entails providing flood maps and data for communities nationwide that are more accurate, easier-to-use, and readily available ( www.fema.gov/fhm/mm_main.shtm). FEMA representatives will present an overview of the national Map Modernization Program and provide updates on regional flood hazard mapping activities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.
GEO Brasil 2005
Date: May 30 - June 2, 2005
Place: S©o Paulo, SP, Brazil
GEOBrasil, ExpoGPS/Galileo, GEOIntelligence and GEO Oil and Gas together form the largest and most important and comprehensive set of events connected with geoinformation of Latin America. With the presence of the principal brand names, trade marks and leaders of the market, the event, workshops, courses, conferences and debates present a unique opportunity for total immersion in the principal novelties connected with geotechnologies to be found in the continent.
You can find the full GISCafe.com event calendar here.
To read more news, click here.
-- Susan Smith, GISCafe.com Managing Editor.