GEO: connexion articles from May 2003

GEO: connexion archives from May 2003

Making a better world. (Up Front).
May 1, 2003... Iraq's hard-pressed populace may have won a freedom of sorts after three weeks of coalition blitzkrieg, but many still question the justification for a conflict that has wrought immense damage to lives, property and historical treasures, to say...

NEXTMap raises its profile. (News).
May 1, 2003... NEXTMap claims to have "accuracies of up to 2.5m horizontal and 50cm vertical for its newly-available Digital Terrain Model of England, Wales and parts of Scotland. Available from Geosense (Hartley Wintney, England), prices start at [pounds...

eCognition elements launched. (News).
May 1, 2003... Definiens Imaging (Munich, Germany) has launched eCognition "elements", a stand-alone software product that extends eCognition product line in an easy to use Windows[R]-based environment, "elements is designed for those whose remote sensing...

ISTAR wins CAP benchmark study. (News).
May 1, 2003... The European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC) has awarded ISTAR (Sophia Antipolis, France) a contract to benchmark the impact of new digital aerial acquisition technology on Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) remote sensing campaigns. The...

Map-makers lobby in Brussels. (News).
May 1, 2003... Dozens of MEPs and EC officials attended an evening reception at the European Parliament in Brussels hosted by EuroGeographics, the representative body for European mapping agencies. Hosted by Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey Northern...

Simmons Aerofilms maps floods. (News).
May 1, 2003... Over the New Year period England was hit with more floods, devastating lives, homes and businesses. With 1.7million homes & 130,000 commercial properties, worth [euro]290billion, at risk from flooding, the authorities require as much...

Millenium Map for use with OS MasterMap. (News).
May 1, 2003... Getmapping is offering its Millenium Map as a digital aerial photographic layer for use with Ordnance Survey MasterMap. This 25cm resolution imagery is currently available for the whole of England and Wales and most of populated Scotland. The...

Admiralty data for Terrafix. (News).
May 1, 2003... The UK Hydrographic Office (Taunton, England) has signed a partnering agreement with Terrafix Ltd, under the Admiralty Licensed Partnering initiative, part of the UKHO's commercial development programme. The agreement allow Terrafix to use...

Cadcorp ahead of the game. (News).
May 1, 2003... Cadcorp (Stevenage, England) has announced that Cadcorp SIS Version 6 now provides enhanced support for the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC) Web Services. The four supported services are: * Web Map Service (WMS), for serving raster images of...

Port de Paris on-line. (News).
May 1, 2003... * The Autonomous Fort de Paris has implemented Intranet access to its GIS data using software from STAR INFORMATIC (Liege, Belgium). The Port de Paris and STAR INFORMATIC started workin 1988 on a database covering 20 kiometres of the banks of...

Historic aerial photography used for ecological management. (News).
May 1, 2003... The Countryside Services department of Hampshire County Council is using CR Historic aerial photography, published by GeoInformation Historic (Cambridge, England), to monitor, assess and manage areas of special interest within the county As a...

Linz goes for IntelliWhere[TM]. (News).
May 1, 2003... Linz AC, a regional utility company in Upper Austria, has chosen to streamline its field data capture workflows with IntelliWhere[TM] OnDemand mapping software for personal digital assistants (PDAs). Using the software from IntelliWhere, a...

ESRI serves home county. (News).
May 1, 2003... Public access to county and local council services across Buckinghamshire, including online access to local planning applications, will become faster and simpler with a new online map-based service due to go live in summer 2003. The service is...

Standard Ortho reduces mapping costs. (News).
May 1, 2003... A new IKONOS Standard Ortho product has been launced by Space Imaging (Denver, USA) as a cost-effective mapping product that can be produced and delivered quickly. Designed for GIS users requiring basic mapping or image classification and...

Gaz de France selects ESRI for GEOSIC. (News).
May 1, 2003... Gaz de France is expanding its Commercial Information System (SIC) with GIS capabilities provided by ESRI (Redlands, USA). This system, called GEOSIC, will provide the Gaz de France sales force with powerful tools for geographic analysis and...

PocketGIS enhanced. (News).
May 1, 2003... Positioning Resources Ltd (Aberdeen, Scotland) has launched Version 1.7 of the PocketGIS Field Data Capture software. This features enhanced data handling between corporate GIS databases and the field computers to make data transfer quicker and...

Overview finds the Primelocation. (News).
May 1, 2003... Homebuyers visiting Primelocation.com to view prospective properties now benefit from a wider range of localised information, mapping and aerial photography supplied by Overview Mapping (Northampton, England). Primelocation.com is a...

Data analysis improves the 'bottom line'. (News).
May 1, 2003... Visual Information Ltd (Reading, UK) can be seen to offer a different approach to complex commercial data analysis tasks from the look of the user interface. Vi's software enables decision makers to bring knowledge and situation dependent...

Two new layers for OS MasterMap. (News).
May 1, 2003... Ordnance Survey (Southampton, England) have announced two new layer for their OS MasterMap. The Roads Network and Road Routing Information themes are the first release of data in the Integrated Transport Network (ITN) Layer, providing a...

SICAD meets ESRI. (News).
May 1, 2003... A delegation of senior level executives, product managers, and developers from AED-SICAD (Munich, Germany) recently visited ESRI in California for technical meetings and workshops on the integration of SICAD -UT and ArcGIS. Both companies are...

Intergraph teams with Trimble. (News).
May 1, 2003... Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions' (Huntsville, USA) IntelliWhere[TM] division and Trimble (Sunnyvale, USA) have announced a worldwide business partnership to offer solutions for mobile resource management taking advantage of GPS...

Community alerts with multimap.com. (News).
May 1, 2003... A new IKONOS Standard Ortho product has been launced by Space Imaging (Denver, USA) as a cost-effective mapping product that can be produced and delivered quickly Designed for GIS users requiring basic mapping or image classification and...

All the '3's with Ionic. (News).
May 1, 2003... Ionic (Brussels, Belgium) has provided the RedSpiderWeb 3.0 web mapping software for the launch of '3' the UK 3G mobile phone service from Hutchison on 03/03/03. '3' was launched in seven countries during March with all mapping and LBS services...

OTPMEDIA new agent for MapQuest. (News).
May 1, 2003... MapQuest have appointed OTPMEDIA Limited (Bristol, England), a distributor of mobile messaging products, as an authorised sales agent for MapQuest Enterprise Server v2.0 for the Europen market. * www.textstream.co.uk/mapquest.

ACUNIA choose Webraska for OSGi terminals. (LBS News in Brief).
May 1, 2003... ACUNIA, developer of the CarCube terminal has chosen Webraska (Maison Laffittle, France) to provide a Pure Java[TM] off-board, turn-by-turn navigation application. The solution conforms to the Open Services Gateway initiative (OSGi) that helps...

Sendum use MapInfo. (LBS News in Brief).
May 1, 2003... Sendum Wireless Corporation and the MapInfo Corporation (Troy, New York) launched a family of wireless tracking devices at the CTIA Wireless show in March. Using MapInfo miAware [TM], Sendum's tracking devices enable companies to track assets...

Riding the Infowave. (LBS News in Brief).
May 1, 2003... InfoWave (London, England) has launched the InfoWave 728 in-vehicle terminal incorporating voice and data communications with satellite positioning. The terminal is also a computer with Windows CE or embedded Linux and a bright TFT...

Mapminder goes live. (LBS News in Brief).
May 1, 2003... Mapbyte (London, England), publisher of the Mapminder website, has launced its map-based community website. This is based on technology from Telmap and provides a detailed map-based venue and restaurant listing service covering the whole of the...

Opportunities.(geographic information systems)
May 1, 2003... European Commission * The Foundation Cooperation Fund in Poland requires GPS receivers and GIS software for a PHARE water quality/environmental protection project. * Digital atlases and GPS/GSM devices are required for an EC-funded...

New company has its Eye on Space. (News).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... SpaceEyes, a company specialising in Earth Observation technology has been formed to develop a new generation of 3D image processing software and provide customisation and integration services. Based in Valbonne, France, SpaceEyes also...

IDS acquires Intergraph Aeronautical products. (News).
May 1, 2003... Select aeronautical products within the Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions (IMGS) portfolio are being acquired by Aeronautical Ingegneria Dei Sistemi S.p.a. (IDS) of Italy for an undisclosed sum. The move includes the transfer of...

Price watch.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... PriceWatch* stock price change Autodesk 14.62 [up] +1.51 Intergraph 17.37 [up] +0.61 MapInfo 2.89 [down] -0.21 Trimble Navigation 19.25 [up] +3.18 * Share price (converted...

ISTAR Americas. (News).
May 1, 2003... Although no official statement has been issued by either company, it is understood from media reports that EarthData Holdings of Washington DC is purchasing ISTAR Americas, Inc., (the US subsidiary of ISTAR S.A. of France), for an undisclosed...

QuickBird flies Baghdad. (Middle East).
May 1, 2003... Eurimage (Rome, Italy) can supply the latest QuickBird imagery of the Baghdad region. With resolutions down to 90cm these images represent the most recent and detailed imagery available of the Iraqi capital. Prices range from [euro]20.7 per...

Iraqi capital. (Middle East).
May 1, 2003... Lead Dog Consulting (Anchorage Alaska) has released vector format street map data of Baghdad. The map is designed for cartographic display and educational reference with the following themes as examples: streets & roads, points of interest...

STAR shines in Saudi. (Middle East).
May 1, 2003... The Eastern Branch of the Saud Electricity Co has signed a contract with STAR INFORMATIC (Liege, Belgium) and its local partner STAR Middle East, for the deployment of a GIS based on STAR software. The contract, for both software and services,...

War darkens the desert. (Middle East).
May 1, 2003... Two images from Orbimage (Dulles, USA) show the immediate effect on the environment at the beginning of the war in Iraq. Taken only 24 hours apart on the 20 and 21 of March, plumes of smoke from burning oil wells can be seen spreading across...

US State Dept opens page on Geobook. (Middle East).
May 1, 2003... The U.S. State Department has selected the Geobook GIS from Space Imaging (Denver, USA) for its "Future of Iraq" project. Working groups will use Geobook for planning local government, repair of infrastructure, economic development, and...

Iraq: the view from space. (Middle East).
May 1, 2003... As coalition forces consolidate gains made during Operation Enduring Freedom, the need to turn swords into ploughshares will get a helping hand from on high Recent operations of coalition Forces in Iraq have served to reinforce the...

Cleaning up in Zanzibar. (Africa).
May 1, 2003... As part of the UNEP/UNCHS-sponsored Sustainable Citities Programme, GIS is being used by local working groups in Zanzibar to tackle environmental problems and improve the nation's existing Environmental Management and information System....

Monitoring threatened habitats from on high. (Africa).
May 1, 2003... BEGo (Build Environment for Gorilla is a joint ESA/UNESCO project with the ambitious aim of protecting African gorilla habitats ESA, the European Space Agency will provide data for the preparation of land use change mapping and 3-D Digital...

AGI Conference plenary details revealed. (Connect).
May 1, 2003... Details of plenary sessions scheduled for the 15th annual conference of Britain's Association for Geographic Information (to be held alongside the GeoSolutions 2003 exhibition, Earl's Court, London, 16-18 September) have been revealed. The...

2003 International Health GIS Conference. (In Brief).
May 1, 2003... ESRI hosts its 2003 International Health GIS Conference this month (May 4-7) in Arlington, Virginia, USA, with the theme GIS: Changing the Way We Think and Act.' Healthcare professionals can look forward to 45 technical sessions, visit vendor...

ETS II: Spatial Web Services. (In Brief).
May 1, 2003... The Geospatial Information & Technology Association and the Open GIS Consortium have joined forces to mount ETS II: Spatial Web Services. To be held next month (5-6 June) in Vienna, Virginia, USA, the event will offer delegates the opportunity...

3rd DiMENSIon Conference. (In Brief).
May 1, 2003... Meet, Learn & Share! is the clarion call for MENSI's 3rd DiMENSIon Conference, scheduled for October 14-15 2003 at the Chalet de la Porte Jaune in Paris. The organisers promise delegates an ideal forum at which to discover how laser scanning...

Eurimage 2003 Meeting. (In Brief).
May 1, 2003... The Eurimage 2003 Meeting convenes in Frascati, Rome, this month (14-16 May). The opening two days will focus on Eurimage satellite data products with emphasis on QuickBird High-Resolution data after a year of operation. The closing day will be...

Marine geospatial data industry seminar, 1-2 July 2003. (Connect).
May 1, 2003... Hosted by the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, this seminar will focus on the importance of marine geospatial data and its role in supporting the marine environment. The speakers will include Dr Wyn Williams, Chief Executive of the UKHO, and...

Taking centre stage in Paris. (Connect).
May 1, 2003... This year's Le Geo Evenement (the 15th European Geomatics Encounter) was staged at the Palais de Congress in Port Mailot Paris 4-6 March. Those registering for this popular annual fixture (latest attendance figures are awaited but some...

Getting excited in Texas. (Connect).
May 1, 2003... More than 2,250 delegates flocked to San Antionio Texas in March for the 26th Annual Conference of the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA). The 88 conference sessions in 14 tracks, plus 13 seminars and three industry...

GeoNorth exceeds expectations. (Connect).
May 1, 2003... CMPi's IT & Games division, organisers of GeoNorth 2003, declared themselves well-satisfied with the launch event (a showcase and seminar for the public sector) held 18 March in Manchester, England. Eight seminar sessions and 39 suppliers...

Simplifying public sector procurement. (AGI View).
May 1, 2003... 2003 offers exciting opportunities for geographic information (GI) in the UK, both for active users and for those who provide products and services. The roll-out of rich Census information at an unsurpassed geographic scale, and Ordnance...

Jean Poulit takes the helm. (EUROGI Update).(European Umbrella Organisation )
May 1, 2003... Jean Poulit, was elected President of the European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information at its 10th General Board meeting in Brussels in mid-March. 17 full members were entitled to vote, of which 16 were present (Spain having...

Humanitarian mapping mission. (Community).(Aid for Aid)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... While many will have been critical of the lack of humanitarian planning for post-Saddam Iraq, Aid for Aid wags busy providing its mapping services for just this purpose. It was in early March that the British-based charity was approached...

Comic Relif charity fundraiser. (Community).
May 1, 2003... Strutting their stuffing Staffers at Laser-Scan in Cambridge, England (www.isl.com) polished their red noses, arranged their hair dos, and generally put themselves in the mood for this year's nation-wide Comic Relif charity fund-raiser. Their...

Towards improved healthcare. (Community).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... As part of its 2003-4 programme, the European Federation for Medical informatics (EFMI) has initiated a new strand of research that exploits geospatial techniques to meet the demand for end-to-end epidemiological service provision models. ...

Blaha & Van Gils join Thales. (People).(Tomas Blaha)(Ad Van Gils)(Thales Navigation)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Thales Navigation (Nantes, France), a global provider of GPS solutions has appointed Tomas Blaha as the EMEA (Europe, Middle-East, and Africa) land survey marketing manager in the professional business unit. Blaha will be based in France,...

New USGS Deputy Director. (Community).(United States. Geological Survey)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Robert F. Doyle has been appointed Deputy Director of the US Geological Survey (Reston, USA) from 31st March. Doyle comes to the USGS from the Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior, where he has been Assistant Director, Business...

Association of American Geographers. (Newsround).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... The Association of American Geographers has awarded its 2002 Meridian Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography to Professor Aharon Kellerman of the University of Haifa in Israel. The award was made in respect of his latest book, The...

ESRI Education User Conference. (Newsround).
May 1, 2003... Preparations are underway for the 3rd Annual ESRI Education User Conference (EdUC, July 6-9). The event runs in parallel with the 23rd Annual ESRI International User Conference at the San Diego Convention Center, California, USA. Dr. Dawn...

Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions. (Newsround).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions has donated 400 copies of its GeoMedia[R]) Professional software to support postgraduate certificate, diploma, and master coursework provided by the UNIGIS distance learning consortium. The two are...

Oracle Corporation. (Newsround).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Oracle Corporation is to award certificates of achievement to those studying for the BTEC Advanced Certificate in Software Development. The move -- a collaboration between the software giant and Britain's leading awarding body, Edexcel -- will...

Power addressing: are you making the most of address technology? If not, you could be at a severe disadvantage. (Talk).
May 1, 2003... Most readers will know that Address Management Technology ensures that addresses are correctly entered into a database for subsequent interrogation, manipulation and retrieval. However it doesn't stop there. In the UK alone, there is an...

Outsourcing GIS services to India: legal do's and dont's from Belinda Winward and Viv Nissanka. (Legal).
May 1, 2003... India is now a favourite destination for the outsourcing of GIS services that typically include software development, data integration and conversion, geocoding, web-based map visualisation and image processing. Some companies, such as...

A vision for GIS: as this year's Location 2003 events unfold, Roy Laming previews a trio of hot topics on the conference agenda. (Futures).
May 1, 2003... Integration From both a technical and business perspective, integration of business processes is now seen as essential in delivering cost savings and improved efficiency. In the past, geographical information tended to sit on the...

Letters.
May 1, 2003... As part of the ongoing debate surrounding the funding and pricing of Europe's public sector geodata (GEO:connexion 'Viewpoint' April), we are pleased to publish a selection of further postings on this 'hot' topic. courtesy of the EGIP...

Try again! Jacques Ekmekji wonders if our fixation with E-strategies is blinding us to a greater reality. (Strategies).
May 1, 2003... The 'E' in modern web parlance has been puzzling me for some time. While phonetically it sounds right, it seems to lack a sense of purpose, function, and direction. It has undoubtedly gained impetus of late, linking itself to businesses,...

GIS in offshore wind farm development: Mike Osborne explores the potential of GIS in harnessing this important source of alternative energy. (Environment).
May 1, 2003... Date collection at sea is expensive and difficult. As a consequence, when selecting and planning an offshore site for, say, a wind farm, it makes sense to get the most from readily-available data and to manage this, with any new data, in the...

Space mapping the Arctic Tundra: Gita Laidler and Paul Treitz relate how IKONOS satellite imagery has been applied to localised vegetation mapping and modelling. (Environment).
May 1, 2003... Covering approximately 6 million [km.sup.2] of the Earth's surface, tundra vegetation is an increasingly important, but still poorly understood component in the context of global climate change. Such changes may, for instance, cause the release...

Getting the motorist out of a jam: Rob Skinner knows where he's going thanks to the AA's location-based services. (British Isles).
May 1, 2003... The AA describes itself as the "4th emergency service", and to many of us, the familiar sight of its yellow vans reinforces this perception. But a visit to the AA's new web site (www.theaa.com) soon reveals that roadside assistance is only one...

Planning a new Renaissance: location-based services herald a new dawn for Belfast and its citizens. (British Isles).(Belfast City Council )
May 1, 2003... Belfast has experienced something of a renaissance of late, attracting more than [euro]250 million of fresh investment and creating hundreds of new jobs in a variety of knowledge-intensive industries. At the same time, there has been a rise in...

A helping hand for Glamorgan: Nick Wheeler finds a particularly handy and economical way of rolling-out mobile applications in the Vale of Glamorgan. (British Isles).
May 1, 2003... Historically, data have been collected by local authorities for a variety of purposes, often with insufficient focus on their accuracy and maintenance. Datasets have phenomenal value as a vital source of authority-wide information but budgets...

Spring cleaning in Enfield: cleaning-up its data is a top priority as the London Borough gets in shape for e-government. Mick Wooden and Seb Lessware report on ways and means. (British Isles).(London Borough of Enfield)
May 1, 2003... Local authorities and other government agencies are working hard to achieve the e-government target to make all their services available electronically by 2005. Spatial data are vital to this goal... one that will help people communicate and...

Going for Gold: looking for a route map that aligns your hard-won data with Ordnance Survey PAI-corrected mapping? Paul Starkey puts you on the treasure trail. (British Isles).
May 1, 2003... In 2001, Britain's Ordnance Survey (OS) embarked on a five-year programme to improve the positional accuracy of its detailed mapping in rural areas. This coverage, at a scale of 1:2500, comprises 57,500 sq km, or almost 70 per cent of Britain's...

Soft option pays dividends for OSi: Caroline Hogan and David Donnelly report on a highly successful softcopy photogrammetry exercise that brings Ireland's rural mapping bang up to date. (British Isles).(Ordnance Survey Ireland)
May 1, 2003... Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) has a deserved reputation as one of Europe's leading national mapping agencies in applying new technology. It embraced digital mapping in the I 970s and takes significant pride in evolving its products against...

Bringing history to life: from the scorching Sinai to Scotland's windswept Isles, spatial tools are making history in more senses than one. (Image Acquisition & Processing).
May 1, 2003... The search for subterranean chambers and passages has come a long way since the days of tattered, hand-drawn maps and romantic legends. For example, the RAVEN (Remote Sensing Archaeology and Visualisation of the Environment) team, based at...

The impact of digital imagery: Paul Garland and Christoph Doerstel outline developments that hold considerable promise. (Image Acquisition & Processing).
May 1, 2003... The earth imaging industry faces a a trio of challenging question when it comes to modelling our world: How can it best gather the required information? Offer the shortest production cycle? And extract new value from digital imagery? When...

Cave surveying: Mike Bedford goes underground to find out what's up and down, and sideways. (Surveying).
May 1, 2003... The world of caves and potholes, of underground rivers and waterfalls, of stalactites and stalagmites, is an alien one to most people. Indeed, those who venture into the subterranean realm have to develop special skills to explore this...

Bentley Systems. (Business Briefs).
May 1, 2003... Bentley Systems (San Antonio, USA) and ESRI have announced their AEC GIS Interoperability Initiative for direct and intelligent integration between desktop and server-based Microstation and ArcGIS products. Bentley's solutions for Architecture,...

Blue 8. (Business Briefs).
May 1, 2003... Essex Fire has enhanced its effectiveness with blue 8 (Nottingham, England) GIS software on a laptop PC for scene-of-fire use. With this new resource, the responsible officer is able to locate nearby hydrants and identify co-located hazards....

BOW-BildungsZentrumDresden. (Business Briefs).
May 1, 2003... GI awareness campaigns in Saxony are being mounted by BOW-BildungsZentrumDresden (Dresden, Gemany) to encourage an integrated approach to a "Regional SDI" for the state. Further information is available from www.kbx7.de/?lid = l 1l265&c =...

Planlogic, consultants specialising in the gas industry and now serving customers in energy, telecoms, financial services and retail, has become a business partner of Cadcorp. (Business Briefs).
May 1, 2003... Planlogic, consultants specialising in the gas industry and now serving customers in energy, telecoms, financial services and retail, has become a business partner of Cadcorp (Stevenage, England). The SIS software will be used for a range of...

Czech Forestry Agency. (Business Briefs).
May 1, 2003... The Czech Forestry Agency (Sec, Czech Republic) demonstrated its Forestry Development Planning Map 'live' on the Internet at the International SEC2003 Conference. This map will form part of the Czech National Spatial Data Infrastructure which...

DigitalGlobe[TM]. (Business Briefs).
May 1, 2003... QuickBird[TM] satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe[TM] (Longmont, USA) is being used by Canada's CLC-Camint Inc. to identify individual tree crowns in forest areas. This will give foresters a improved forest inventories and managing forestry...

Emerge and Applanix have developed the Emerge Digital Sensor System (DSS). (Business Briefs).
May 1, 2003... Emerge (Andover, USA) and Applanix (Richmond Hill, Canada) have developed the Emerge Digital Sensor System (DSS), a ready-to-use, directly georeferenced medium format airborne digital sensor. Designed to provide accurate, radiometrically...