Blue Marble Geographics released Global Energy Mapper version 15.1, a so called minor release that features the “Create Flattened Site Pad Plan” dialog box option and improved processing of IHS Well (297/298) files.
According to the press release, “Global Energy Mapper is not just a viewer capable of displaying the most popular raster, elevation, and vector datasets. It converts, edits, prints, tracks GPS, and allows users to utilize GIS functionality on a wide variety of datasets. With Global Energy Mapper users have access to the Blue Marble GeoCalc coordinate transformation, SpatialOnDemand subscription and custom industry tools like the pad site placement tool, seismic survey tools and built-in point types and symbols for the oil & gas industry.”
Additional features of the new release include added support for MS SQL Spatial databases, enabling Global Energy Mapper to support all available spatial database types and 3D support for displaying a path profile across separate terrain surfaces that allows users to easily compare the surface of multiple loaded terrain layers along a single path.
David Pogue reviews the new Google Maps app for the iPhone for The New York Times today. Readers of GISCafe Voice might remember Apple dropped their long time relationship with Google in order to provide their own Apple Maps, which some customers have not found as good as Google Maps.
Google released a “Superstorm Sandy” CrisisMap on Oct. 25 some days before Hurricane Sandy made landfall, complete with roadwork advisories, fuel inventory statuses, power outage information and more.
Apple’s iPhone 5 maps aren’t anywhere near as good as Google’s Maps, according to an article in ZDNet, but it doesn’t seem to matter because the two companies needed to separate since they are competitors in the mobile mapping market. What may occur however, is that new options might be in the stars.
The iPhone 5 is accompanied by a lot of buzz, and some of that is pretty exciting. Customers of past iPhone models will be pleased to know that the iPhone 5 is made of all glass and aluminum, making it the thinnest yet. It measures 7.6mm thick, 18 percent thinner than previous iterations. It features “Ultrafast Wireless,” thanks to GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSDPA and LTE.
In a recent article “Emergency rescuers: Use GPS devices with caution,” the message was really about what happened to Craig Matthews, who turned off a major highway in northern New Mexico last spring, whose remains were found in July by his girlfriend and another friend. Why? Matthews had been traveling north on Interstate 25 when he talked to his girlfriend, Debra Hughes, who lived in Penrose, Colorado. When Matthews didn’t return home, Hughes called search and rescue. A state game warden found his truck lodged in a snowdrift four days later about 44 miles off a remote side road, U.S. 64. He was found approximately 4/10 of a mile from the vehicle.
Hughes thinks Matthews got confused after he stopped for coffee in the town of Raton which is on the Interstate, and got on 64 instead of the Interstate. She thinks he turned on his GPS to direct him toward home.
On Monday Apple introduced a new version of its mobile operating system for iPhones and iPads that will bring a host of new features, including maps that let users soar over a three-dimensional rendering of a city, according to an article in The New York Times.
As was mentioned in this blog of a pre-announcement of Google Earth for mobile “(Pre-announcement of Google Earth for mobile made at Google event”) last week, the new map software replaces Google data with Apple’s own mapping system. This is a big step for a company that has considered Google a close partner up until now. Since Apple introduced the iPhone, it has relied on Google data to drive the mapping software. When Google released its Android platform, however, relationships between the two companies began to disintegrate. Not surprisingly as Android is the top mobile operating system in the world, putting Apple and Google head to head in several different markets.
Pre-announcement of new features for Google Maps and Google Earth for mobile platforms was made yesterday at the “New Dimension of Google Maps” event. These features aren’t available to the public yet, but possibly announced as a precursor to the Apple iOS6 event next week. It is expected that Apple will announce that Google Maps will no longer be the default mapping application on iPhones. Since Apple has been acquiring companies and building their own mapping applications, they will be offering new mapping applications that will compete with what is offered on the Android phone. This may benefit users ultimately.
It is a little frightening to be able to identify by satellite imagery a hidden nuclear facility in Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the facility was for “uranium enrichment” and was 18 months away from being operational. Satellite imagery company GeoEye has released a photo of what it says is this controversial and underground Iranian uranium enrichment site that was identified a week ago.
The overall view of the Iranian site. The mountain under which the site is built is to the lower right of the image. (Credit: GeoEye satellite image/IHS Jane's analysis)
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