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Susan Smith, Managing Editor

Industry News
Maps, Anyone?
By Susan Smith




Many organizations now recognize the value of the map as a business tool.

The map now involves a lot more players, not just professionals. For many years, users of maps have wanted to have some say in the generation of maps. The advent of NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas data used for Google Maps and Google Earth triggered awareness of the need to be able to submit user generated content (UGC) to those companies on a regular basis. No longer did we need to rely on TIGER maps and USGS maps that were eight years out of date. Maps could be real time.

The announcement of Esri's Community Maps Program this year at Esri UC is another contribution to that growth that was met with a great deal of interest by the geospatial community. The program allows organizations to contribute their own geographic data including imagery to ArcGIS Online basemaps which can then be shared with the geospatial user community. The maps can also be accessed from ArcGIS for iOS, ArcPad 10, ArcGIS Desktop 10, and free and open web mapping APIs from Esri. ArcGIS Online is a place where users (not just GIS users, but anyone) can find resources shared by ESRI and GIS users everywhere.

With ArcGIS Online, Esri's cloud offering, you can save a map to your ArcGIS Online account, search for maps or add to a map, or connect with a specific GIS server and add in resources from that server. ArcGIS Online content can be accessed directly from within ArcGIS Explorer Online to create maps that can then be shared and consumed by a broad community of users, including the iPhone community.

The deal is that anyone can access the community maps that are at ArcGIS.com and use them for GIS projects, including Web applications and mashups. ArcGIS.com features ready-to-use and free applications that make it easy for people to leverage information that has been shared by ESRI, such as base maps, and content shared by users made possible with a JavaScript Web Mapping application built into ArcGIS.com for creating maps and mashups.

The concept is not entirely new: OpenStreetMap (OSM) has been offering an open map program for some time now. The difference is that OpenStreetMap is not aimed specifically at the GIS community, but at the world community at large. Anyone who wants street maps and other data can get it, and anyone who wants to submit geographic data to OpenStreetMap can do so. The information is uploaded to OpenStreetMap's central database and can be edited by anyone who might know the area better, or have some additional information to impart. These maps can be used without the concern of legal restrictions. This has been especially helpful to drivers, bikers, and hikers, as well as for real estate purposes, locating homes that you might want to purchase, including all kinds of information such as purchase price, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and directions to the home.

According to Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap also does not limit the type of information people can add into the database, “as long as it is factually correct, verifiable and does not infringe on anyone else's copyright.”

The key differences that I can see between these two offerings are that 1) Community Maps are created using “authoritative data sources” that have been thoroughly researched and gleaned from multiple governmental and commercial data sources. The user-generated content that populates it is not offered by the entire global populace, as in the case of OSM. 2) Also, the data is housed in ArcGIS Online which provides a great, easily accessible repository of base maps (street maps, topo, aerial) and GIS data that client applications can pull down from the cloud and utilize. 3) The general population is not able to make changes or additions to the data. 4) Although you can use OSM on the Cloud, it looks like it doesn't have its own cloud offering.

User organizations that contribute geographic data to the Community Maps program will reap several benefits, according to the Esri press materials. The costs associated with distributing their own data and making it widely available will be eliminated. The program also decreases the costs associated with setting up and maintaining data by reducing labor costs and need for server capacity. The data is easily accessible and geared for most GIS web mapping projects.

Contributed data is integrated into online community maps such as World Topographic Map, World Street Map, and World Imagery. The type of data needed are detailed basemap data for cities or regions at 1:50,000 scale; detailed street map data at 1:50,000 scale or larger; and high-resolution imagery that is 1 meter or better, collected within the past three years. All provided data is verified to make sure it enhances existing data on a community map.

Esri does not take ownership of the map.

Building the Community

The applications that are born of these mapping systems will grow the community of users.





One example: earthmine has the same model as ArcGIS Online: a central data repository with ecosystems of client applications that allow you to pull data and use them in menus and different ways such as from ArcPad and iPhones.

An Esri partner, earthmine is a 3D mapping company with a 3D mapping system that employs stereophotogrammetric cameras, and some core technology which was licensed from the jet propulsion labs and was used in the Mars exploration vehicle, Rover.

According to John Ristevski, CEO of earthmine, the Rovers use the cameras to map out the terrain in front of them so they can navigate the Martian landscape. “We use them in a similar way to map out the open environment in 3D,” said Ristevski. “What we produce is a 3D coordinate for every pixel and every image, so the image is very high resolution. We also have that 3D backbone that allows you to map, measure and do all those metric type operations that you can't just do with imagery.”

earthmine has had its own workflows, development tools and software stack which included SDK for flash and web development and SDK for mobile development for some time now. They realized that a lot of people have existing workflows around ArcGIS Desktop, so they created an extension for ArcMap that allows people to view earthmine imagery right inside ArcMap and link that directly to their database.

“When you load up ArcMap you can see the map on one side and you can see the earthmine street level view on the other side. Inside the street level view you can also see the features from the geodatabase, and we showed a demo of taking some GIS data from San Diego and overlaying that on top of the earthmine imagery, which adds a real world context to the abstract geospatial information.”

earthmine imagery includes the street level view, it looks like a real street, and is very high resolution. A lot of ArcGIS online layers are mostly top down map views. earthmine imagery offers a complimentary view, said Ristevski. earthmine does not offer a large data library yet. Other third party data sources in ArcGIS Online include Bing Maps aerial, and OpenStreetMap. They do project specific data collection service, such as mapping 150 cities in France.

“I think the industry is going this way in general,” said Ristevski. “People want to use data in different ways no matter what the device is, the client app is or where it is. I think that flexibility is becoming important. We have a wide variety of customers, working with DOTs, homeland security projects, etc. Each one is different and they have some different needs like French Yellow Pages need for Flash.”

earthmine has their own cloud service built on Amazon Web Service. “earthmine Cloud is very similar to ArcGIS Online, but specifically designed for earthmine's street level data,” said Ristevksi.

“Many ArcGIS users could utilize both ArcGIS Online and earthmine Cloud together with the benefit of not having to maintain, manage or host any data themselves. Using earthmine's new add-in for ArcMap you could access ArcGIS Online and earthmine Cloud simultaneously to get basemap and street level 3D data side by side without any local storage. This "data as a service" concept is definitely where the industry is heading and we are getting a lot of interest in the Cloud service as an option to our customers,” said Ristevski.

Top News of the Week

Lockheed Martin congratulated the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) on the 50-year anniversary of the first Corona photo reconnaissance satellite image from space, which ushered in new space-based capabilities for the nation.

First developed as a joint U.S. Air Force and Central Intelligence Agency program to provide surveillance from space of denied territories, Corona achieved mission success on August 18, 1960 when an Air Force C-119 aircraft recovered in mid-air the satellite's capsule containing imagery captured by the satellite's panoramic camera system.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the Smart Ocean Sensor Consortium (SOSC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to advance sensor observing systems for the oceans community.

Under the agreement the two organizations will participate in joint outreach and marketing activities to raise awareness and interest in smart sensor systems and Sensor Web Enablement. The organizations' first cooperative activity will focus on the Monterey Bay Research Institute's (MBARI) PUCK protocol for hydrographic sensor configuration. The PUCK protocol specification has been submitted to the OGC as a candidate standard.

Acquisitions, Agreements, Alliances

Manhattan Software announced that it has become an Esri Gold Tier Partner. Through this partnership, the integration of Esri's geographic information system software (GIS) with the Manhattan Software solution is maximized, enabling advanced analytics and geospatial visualization of facilities information. Maponics and Digital Map Products announced a partnership whereby Digital Map Products will offer Maponics Neighborhood Boundaries ^TM. Recognizing the strong linkage between mapping applications and the high-quality GIS data that bring them to life, Digital Map Products will offer Maponics datasets coupled with its mapping technology, beginning with North American Neighborhood Boundaries.

OpenGeo announces a new, global partner program to expand support options for users of the OpenGeo Suite. The OpenGeo Partner Program will create an international network of service providers, to bring more people into the open source ecosystem by aligning the financial incentives of consultants and solution providers with those of the core software developers. Through this network of partners, OpenGeo will offer OpenGeo Suite customers a wealth of proven technology solutions that solve real-world challenges.

Announcements

Safe Software announced the expansion of its FME Training Program, with the addition of Instructor-Led Online Training. Ideal for users who can't afford the time or expense of traveling to a training facility, this new training alternative enables easier access to a broader range of data interoperability topics.

Upcoming Instructor-Led Online courses include FME for the Esri Enthusiast on September 22 - 23, 2010. Private classes for your company can also be arranged on request. To register for an upcoming course, or for more information on Safe's catalogue of Fall 2010 training courses, go to www.safe.com/2010Training.

DigitalGlobe announced that it had contracted Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation to build its next imaging satellite, WorldView-3. The company also contracted with ITT Corporation to build the imaging system for WorldView-3. The imaging system will be capable of capturing 8-band multispectral high-resolution imagery. The WorldView-3 satellite is scheduled to be ready for launch in 2014 and will further expand DigitalGlobe's industry-leading collection capacity, ensuring that DigitalGlobe can meet future assignments while continuing to deliver value-added products that satisfy current customers' needs for information and insight derived from advanced imagery applications.

ITT Corporation announced that it has received a contract from Lockheed Martin Space Systems, a major operating unit of Lockheed Martin Corporation, to continue building the imaging system for GeoEye's next-generation Earth-imaging satellite, GeoEye-2. The GeoEye-2 imaging system consists of the camera and sensor subsystem, optical telescope unit and outer barrel assembly. ITT has been working on long-lead items for GeoEye-2 since October 2007, under a separate contract directly with GeoEye.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) calls for participation in the OGC Web Services (OWS) Shibboleth Interoperability Experiment (IE) to advance best practice for implementing standards on federated security in transactions involving geospatial data and services.

The IE, initiated by OGC Members Cadcorp, EDINA, and Snowflake Software, will demonstrate use of Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) with OGC Web Services, including use of Shibboleth. This IE will build on practices from the European Spatial Data Infrastructure Network (ESDIN) project and on results from previous OGC initiatives on authentication.

People

Pictometry International Corporation announces the appointment of Kevin T. Reilley as President of Pictometry Business Solutions (PBS). In this new role, Reilley will drive sales and product development across multiple business segments.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) announces that Dr. Luis E. Bermudez has been appointed Director of Interoperability Certification for the Consortium. In his new position, Dr. Bermudez will manage the OGC Certification Program, lead plugfest activities, and support OGC testbeds, pilots and interoperability experiments designed to develop, test and validate specifications for geospatial information.

SPADAC has hired recently retired Army Colonel Matthew Artero as Vice President of ISR Programs supporting the company's work with the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and Homeland Security. Mr. Artero is a recognized expert within DoD ISR circles and has advised senior officials at DoD, NATO, the UN, and a number of foreign Defense Ministers.

New Products

OpenGeo announces the release of OpenGeo Suite Cloud Edition in collaboration with cloud technology innovator Skygone Inc. OpenGeo Suite Cloud Edition is optimized for cloud infrastructure, with special features preconfigured for scalability, and performance enhancements already installed. Available with a monthly pricing option, there are no up-front fees or long contracts to commit to, and the Cloud Edition includes everything required for deployment of the OpenGeo Suite.

Autodesk, Inc. announced AutoCAD for Mac software. This version of AutoCAD, one of the most widely used software for professional design and engineering, runs natively on Mac OS X and will increase choice of hardware for millions of users around the world. Autodesk also announced the AutoCAD WS mobile application, a new app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch that will allow users to edit and share their AutoCAD designs in the field.

SuperGeo Technologies announced that SuperWebGIS 3, the newly-released Web map server software, is able to fully support 64-bit operating environments.

SuperWebGIS 3 gives enterprises the capability to publish dynamic maps and GIS data via the Internet. The highly scalable structure, strong support for geospatial database, complete GIS objects, and various types of web templates can help enterprises publish, display, and share spatial data easily in intranet and Internet. Organizations are able to share geospatial data with others through web services without limits.

SuperGeo Technologies establishes Urban Disaster Prevention Spatial System by SuperGIS Desktop, helping inhabitants understand escape directions and evacuate to reduce the loss when disasters happen. The system can benefit disaster-prevention and improve urban security by integrating with the systems of other cities.

Pitney Bowes Business Insight announced expanded country coverage for its industry leading Enterprise Geocoding Module. Available as part of the Pitney Bowes Spectrum™ Technology Platform v6.4, the Enterprise Geocoding Module now provides accurate location-based information for Mexico, the Czech Republic and Hungary. With this additional support, the Spectrum Technology™ Platform now offers the widest range of spatial data and international geocoding functionality for detailed location intelligence analysis and demographics assignment, which helps organizations to better serve their customers.

Clark Labs is pleased to announce the release of another CD in their Global Data Archive Series. This new CD includes monthly global precipitation and sea surface temperature data, critical for climate monitoring and research. The CD is available for only $30 plus shipping and handling. It is also available as a downloadable product.

Geosparc, the company commercially supporting the open source GIS application framework Geomajas, announced that it will be present at Foss4G, the international conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial, in Barcelona (Spain) from 6 till 9 September 2010 at Booth 12.

At Foss4G the Company will demonstrate numerous applications built with Geomajas and officially announce the new Geomajas 1.7. At the same time the Company will introduce no less than 8 Geosparc certified software plug-ins that can easily be added onto Geomajas. Key members of its development team have also been selected to give presentations and poster sessions at the conference.

Around the Web

GISCafe Today Blog

Autodesk Will Reintroduce Its AutoCAD Design Software for Macs, Miguel Helft, August 30, 2010, The New York Times (registration required)

Technology Aside, Most People Still Decline to Be Located, August 29, 2010, The New York Times (registration required)

Software War Pits Oracle vs. Google by Steve Lohr, August 29, 2010, The New York Times (registration required)


Events




You can find the full GISCafe.com event calendar here.

To read more news, click here.


-- Susan Smith, GISCafe.com Managing Editor.