GEO: connexion articles from October 2004

GEO: connexion archives from October 2004

What's in a name?(Upfront)
October 1, 2004... The Open GIS Consortium has announced a change of name to the Open Geospatial Consortium--a logical enough move given the organisation's growing activity in areas such as earth imaging, mobile location and Web services. The change also reflects...

Support for TC 287.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... ESRI (California, USA) has announced that its European office, ESRI-Europe, will sponsor Technical Committee 287 (TC 287), as organised by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN). TC 287 is responsible for coordinating working group...

Dolphin friendly technology.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Measurement Devices Ltd (MDL. Aberdeen, Scotland) is providing the University of Aberdeen with a hand-held laser rangefinder LaserAce 300, to measure bottlenose dolphins in the wild. The eye safe, class I laser is capable of measuring...

Reveal your data.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... GDC (London, England) has launched a new geo-statistics product, GeoReveal, which demonstrates the link between data and its geography, Aimed at both novice and expert GIS users, GeoReveal links back-office data with graphics and interactive...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
October 1, 2004... In the September 2004 issue, the article 'SEE-ING is believing' was erroneously attributed to Fawzi Kabbara of Khatib & Alami. The correct attribution should have been to Jacques Ekmekji, formerly director with Khatib & Alami, and now president...

Spot on.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... The Malaysian Centre for Remote Sensing (MACRES) has signed a three year agreement with Spot Image (Toulouse, France) for imagery reception from the entire SPOT constellation (SPOT 2, 4 and 5). This brings the total number of SPOT receiver...

Leica casts its net.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Leica Geosystems' (Heerbrugg, Switzerland) GPS Spider software has been selected by the Portuguese Geographic Institute (IGP) to manage the national GPS network in Portugal, IGP has ordered remote licenses and additional RS500 GPS receivers as...

Kings of the road.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Masternaut UK's parent company in France has been acquired in a multimillion pound deal by Sanef, a transportation conglomerate. Specialising in toll road technology, Sanef is planning a major assault on the European telematics market which is...

ER Mapper's Euro expansion.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Earth Resource Mapping (Perth, Australia) has announced that master reseller Umweltdata (Imst, Austria), responsible for much of Central and Eastern Europe, has itself recently appointed two new resellers to expand the sales and support centres...

Steep learning curve.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Snowflake Software (Southampton, England) has recently completed a project with the Forestry Commission where it was responsible for the implementation of national coverage of Ordnance Survey MasterMap data. The original driver for the project...

Future of NIMSA.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Consultations are underway into the future of a long-term government agreement designed to support uneconomic mapping services required in the national interest in the UK. The National Interest Mapping Services Agreement (NIMSA) is a...

A new view.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... A new product, Photoscape 3D, which has been launched in England and Wales hopes to change the way the landscape is viewed and explored in 3D. A collaborative effort between four companies, the software is aimed at the leisure market. The basic...

OSNI pinpoints Version I.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Version I (Dublin, Eire), has won a 500,000 contract to develop a database of locations and addresses for every home and business in Northern Ireland. The project, Pointer, is supported by Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland (OSNI) and others. The...

Buck up.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... The BucksMaps (Buckinghamshire, England) website has been relaunched with a number of enhancements to make it a more user-friendly experience. The site provides the public with information on planning, community facilities and other services...

Flying high with ESRI.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) has chosen ESRI UK (Aylesbury, UK) to provide its new aeronautical chart production system. The charts underpin Eurocontrol's activities including control of airspace,...

Guide to GIS.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Kingswood MapMechanics (London, England) has released a redesigned version of its data catalogue. The 64-page edition is freely available both online and as a paper copy. As well as providing details of the company's products the catalogue also...

Charting the changes.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... The British Geological Survey (BGS) has enlisted Oce (Essex, England) to create a digital archive of more than a million irreplaceable documents, including deep mine records, geological field maps and field slips. Working from BGS's premises at...

The best laid schemas.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... The UKHO (Taunton, England) has taken the first step in adopting Geography Markup Language (GML) in hydrographic data by developing a GML schema for S57 ENC data. The schema will aid the interoperability of data produced by different vendors...

We must first dream, then visualise ...(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Research Systems Inc. (RSI. Colorado, USA) has released an updated version of IDL (Interactive Data Language), its software for data analysis, visualisation and cross-platform application development, Building on last year's release, version...

Offshore outsourcing.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Forrester Research (Massachusetts, USA) has released a new report predicting that by 2015 1.2 million European IT jobs will have been displaced offshore, with suppliers in countries such as India and China picking up the business. According to...

Happy birthday OrbView-2.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... ORBIMAGE Inc. (Virginia, USA) has recently celebrated the seventh successful year of operations for its OrbView-2 satellite. With a 98 per cent availability rate, ORBIMAGE expects the satellite to continue providing service for at least a...

Germany gets to grips with generalisation.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Schleswig-Holstein, Germany is the latest state from the Offices for Land Surveying in Germany to join a generalisation project using Laser-Scan (Cambridge, England) technology. The project is developing a standard software module based on the...

PriceWatch.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... PriceWatch* stock price change Autodesk 36.87 +8.59 Intergraph 21.43 +0.53 MapInfo 8.17 -0.04 Trimble Navigation 22.50 +0.95 * Share price (converted to euros) as at close...

Record results.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... LizardTech (Washington, USA) has reported the strongest fiscal year in its 12 year history, showing a 34 per cent increase over 2003 sales. "Coming just one year after the acquisition of LizardTech by Celartem Technology, Inc., LizardTech is...

Bentley acquires Haestad Methods.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Bentley Systems Inc (Pennsylvania, USA) has acquired Haestad Methods Inc (Connecticut, USA), provider of water resources solutions, as a continuation of its consolidation of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) solutions. It...

All mapped out.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Intermap (Colorado, USA) has acquired AirPhotoUSA (Arizona, USA) as part of its NEXTMap USA program. Holders of a large commercial database of seamless, aerial photography for most cities in the USA, AirPhotoUSA also developed PhotoMapper, an...

Luratech MBO.(GEO:News)
October 1, 2004... Following a management buy-out, Algo Vision LuraTech will once again become LuraTech GmbH (Berlin, Germany). After announcing the decision to part ways with the Algo Vision Group, Carsten Heiermann, managing director of LuraTech GmbH said, "The...

Trimble.(Results)
October 1, 2004... Trimble (California, USA) has reported record revenues of 147.5 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2004, a 30 per cent increase over the 113.5 million for the same quarter last year. Net income was approximately 16 million, a 140 per cent...

MapInfo.(Results)
October 1, 2004... MapInfo (New York, USA) has reported third quarter earnings per share of approximately 0.07, compared to 0.02 for the same quarter last year; this represents a 166 per cent increase on 14 per cent higher revenue (26.4 million compared to 23.2...

Bio-diverse downloads.(GEO:Africa)
October 1, 2004... Following a website workshop the Conservation Planning Unit (CPU, South Africa) has updated its website to improve the look and functionality of the site. Visitors can now download a wider variety of data including shapefiles, metadata and...

Rapid response mapping.(GEO:Africa)
October 1, 2004... The City of Cape Town (South Africa) is subject to rapid urbanisation; informal settlements mushroom across the city and these often poorly constructed buildings are built close together meaning that fire or flood can quickly destroy large...

10th anniversary of GISEL.(GEO:Middle East)
October 1, 2004... The GISEL (Geographic Information System at Electricite Du Liban) project has celebrated its tenth anniversary with an open house event held earlier this year by Electricite Du Liban (EDL) and Khatib & Alami (K & A) in Lebanon. The project was...

DAT/EM & AeroMap deal.(GEO:Middle East)
October 1, 2004... DAT/EM Systems International (Alaska, USA) has signed a distributor agreement with AeroMap Technology Systems (Muharaq, Kingdom of Bahrain). Under the terms of the agreement, AeroMap Technology Systems will be licensed to sell DAT/EM's software...

SIME a success in Istanbul.(GEO:Middle East)
October 1, 2004... Space Imaging Middle East (SIME. Dubai, United Arab Emirates) enjoyed a successful time at the exhibition for the Congress of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, held this summer in Istanbul. Turkey, SIME's presence...

Just the Guy.(GEO:People)
October 1, 2004... Earth Resource Mapping (ERM) has appointed Guy Perkins as vice president (Asia Pacific). Perkins has 17 years geospatial experience and has previously held positions at ESRI Australia and MapInfo Australia. Described as "an evangelist for GIS...

Bartlett & Bloch.(GEO:People)
October 1, 2004... Scott L. Bartlett has joined Leica Geosystems' Heerbrugg office as corporate vice president of strategic marketing. Reporting directly to CEO Hans Hess, Bartlett brings with him a wealth of GIS and mapping knowledge having worked previously at...

Bettina Petzold resigns.(GEO:People)
October 1, 2004... Bettina Petzold has resigned as vice president on the council for the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG). The resignation was effective as of June 2004; Petzold retired for personal reasons. The German member association DVW has...

Strength in numbers.(GEO:People)
October 1, 2004... PCI Geomatics has strengthened its management team with several new staff members. Jeff Hoedeman has joined as director of marketing bringing industry experience from his previous job at Avenza Systems. Layton Peck has taken on the roll of...

One event, endless benefits! Nick Chapallaz, chair of the AGI 2004 conference introduces this year's event which is running 12-14 October at Chelsea Village in London.(AGI2004 Preview)
October 1, 2004... AGI 2004, the UK's GI industry event of the year will be opened by Phil Hope MP, parliamentary under secretary of state at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Once again this year's event promises to bring some of the best GI learning,...

Exhibitors.(AGI2004 Preview)
October 1, 2004... 1 Ordnance Survey 2 ESRI (UK) Ltd 3 IGGI 4 Innogistic Software plc 5 TerraQuest Solutions plc 6 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 7 Swift LG Ltd 8 UCL (University College London) 9 Data Insight Ltd 10 Geowise Ltd...

Conference programme highlights--a taste of what is to come ...(AGI2004 Preview)
October 1, 2004... Plenary Sessions: Opening Plenary: 'GI Networks for Organisational Success' chaired by John Alderson, AGI chair Speakers include: Koos Berkhout, LM UK Ltd (Nectar). Professor David Rhind, Statistics Commission, Wyn Williams,...

Intergeo 2004, Stuttgart, Germany: exhibitor update.(GEO:Connect)
October 1, 2004... * AED-SICAD of Munich outlines its enterprise vision and intelligent GIS product line by showcasing new-generation ALKIS, Geoprocessing and municipal applications on stand B7. 145, hall 7. www.aed-sicad.de/ * Two of Germany's leading...

ESRI 2004 International User Conference, San Diego, USA: 'the language of geography'; ... was the theme of this year's ESRI international user conference, and no one speaks it more fluently than company founder and president Jack Dangermond. GEO:connexion joined the 12,000-strong audience at the opening plenary to listen and learn.(GEO:Connect)
October 1, 2004... The pressure on a man who reputedly has his finger on the minutest detail of ESRI's global operation must be immense. Legends abound, but of one thing we can be certain: Jack Dangermond knows his audience. That much is evident as soon as he...

ISPRS XXth Congress: geo-imagery bridging continents.(GEO:Connect)
October 1, 2004... Over 2000 visitors from across the world congregated in the warm and friendly city of Istanbul for the XXth Congress of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) which ran from 12 to 23 July, 2004. Delegates were...

GeoBusiness conference, London.(GEO:Connect)
October 1, 2004... "Profitable Decision Making Through Geographical Analysis" is the theme for the 2004 GeoBusiness conference and it promises to be of interest to anyone involved in store location planning, marketing, customer insight, market analysis or GIS....

GEO:diary.(Calendar)
October 1, 2004... October 04 4-6. Freiburg, Germany. Conference on Laser Scanner Applications for Landscape Assessment. Details: www.felis.uni-freiburg.de 10-21. Toulouse, France. International Conference on Radar Systems. Details: congress@see.asso.fr...

UKHO today.(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... Rooted in the 19th Century rise of the British Empire, the UKHO was created on the orders of King George III to fulfil the need to supply the Royal Navy with accurate marine information. Today, the world's premier supplier of navigational...

Traversing the ocean of opportunity.(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... The UKHO's Commercial Development team, under the auspices of John Pepper, now a recognised authority in GIS circles, has been tasked not only with identifying customers in wider markets but also ensuring that they are fully aware of the...

Swimming upstream.(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... Aware there is a much to be done to bring Hydrospatial data to the market, the last twelve months have been a powerhouse of activity for the team. The UKHO and Metoc plc recently announced the formation of SeaZone Solutions Limited. This...

On the horizon ... AGI 2004.(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... The UKHO, will be out in force at the AGI 2004 conference and exhibition on 12-14 October at Chelsea Village, London. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dr Wyn Williams, National Hydrographer and Chief Executive of UKHO will be speaking on Joining...

GI business needs you! In light of the upcoming EU Day in Stuttgart, Wolfgang Steinborn explains how now, more than ever, those in Europe with an interest in GI should be pulling together to secure the future of the industry.(Letter from Central Europe)
October 1, 2004... The US department of Labour has identified GI technology as one of the most economically promising, job creating fields. Others are biotechnology, energy and nanotechnology. Consequently it invests significant funds in its development, such as...

Meeting the challenges: in this interview, David Roberts, managing director of Innogistic Software, presents readers with his views on the current state of the GI industry in the UK, and how the company he founded fits into this now and in the future.(Interview)
October 1, 2004... How did you first get involved in GIS? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] My background was originally civil engineering--I worked as a design engineer on a number of projects for the water companies and I became interested in CAD, using it for...

Into the third dimension: GEO:connexion quizzes Frank Ostyn, Autodesk's European sales and marketing director for Infrastructure Solutions, on the company's strategy for geospatial and its latest 3D model-enabled software tools.(Interview)
October 1, 2004... A graduate in economics from Belgium's University of Ghent. Frank Ostyn (right) began his career in sales and marketing with a Web-based financial news service. This entree into the world of information led on to the discovery of geomarketing...

Mapping on the move: Thorbjorn Schmidt-Jacobsen relates how changes at Statoil are streamlining delivery operations--with digital mapping pointing the way.(Transport & Logistics)
October 1, 2004... With 500 vehicles making deliveries to 1,500 service stations, industrial premises and homes on a daily basis, Statoil ranks as one of Scandinavia's leading suppliers of oil and gasoline. Clearly, the way in which those deliveries are organised...

Location is the key, information is the solution: as the UK transport sector faces mounting cost, competition and regulation, Ordnance Survey's Nick Bennett-Britton considers how geographic information might ease the pressure.(Transport & Logistics)
October 1, 2004... Transport is an extremely diverse marketplace, but the notion of getting there more accurately, more predictably and with better information is virtually all-pervasive. The more pressurised and competitive the activity, the more vital it is to...

Making history in Worms: famed for its association with Martin Luther, the historic city on the banks of the Rhine continues to inspire radical thinking, not least in the use of GIS for corporate decision-making.(Germany)
October 1, 2004... Appropriately for one of Germany's oldest cities, first settled 4,000 years ago, Worms has made history on many ocassions. Situated on the banks of the Rhine in the Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate, the city is perhaps most famously...

Metadata: FAQs; In the first of a three-part article, John Maslen demystifies a subject that many find daunting but which, nevertheless, is critical to managing ever-copious quantities of geospatial information.(Data)
October 1, 2004... Metadata... what is it and why is it important? The standard and rather broad definition that everyone references is "data about data". People often cite metadata being "dataset name", "dataset originator", "frequency of update",...

SAOS: an airport system for satellite orthoimage and 3D exploitation; Spanish airports take raster imagery to new heights. Report by Luis Gomez Liste and Jesus Esteban Tudela.(3D Modelling)(Cover Story)
October 1, 2004... To enable the Web dissemination and manipulation of large raster images with no apparent loss in quality, the Spanish airport and air navigation authority AENA (Aeropuertos Espanoles y Navegacion Aerea) has completed the first step in an...

Extreme GIS: Jillian Alexander and Rob Skinner set the scene on a television series that breaks new ground in archaeology--and puts 3D GIS centre stage.(3D Modelling)
October 1, 2004... Fresh from its highly successful Time Team series of archaeological investigations. London-based production company. Mentorn Television, has taken the genre a step further with its latest production, Extreme Archaeology. [ILLUSTRATION...

Who dares wins: a quintet of technology suppliers joined forces to build a daring state-of-the-art archival system for Britain's Defence Geographic Centre. The result, says Mike Law, proved a winner.(Bulk Data Storage)
October 1, 2004... The provision of maps, geographic surveys and associated technical documents to Britain's Armed Forces is essential for operational planning, deployment and ongoing terrain analysis. Now, perhaps more than ever, it is essential that such...

Storage arrays: Mike Bedford reviews the techniques that manage to squeeze ever more into ever less and offers some buying tips for storage-hungry readers.(Bulk Data Storage)
October 1, 2004... The Millennium Map, Getmapping PLC's aerial imagery of England and Wales, now occupies over 20TB of disk space. Certainly few organisations need to store raster imagery for such a large geographical area but it can't be denied that the trend...

Bentley Systems Inc.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Bentley Systems Inc (Pennsylvania, USA), which recently acquired Haestad Methods (Connecticut, USA), has announced academic grants of $5 million in Haestad Methods' software which will be given to colleges and universities with degree...

Cadcorp.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Cadcorp (Stevenage, England) has won a tender to supply Havant Borough Council (HBC. England) with corporate GIS software and services. HBC has experience with a number of GIS packages and was looking to upgrade its current system to one which...

Collins Bartholomew.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Collins Bartholomew (Glasgow, Scotland) has launched a range of data products for both Europe and the world. The range includes Premium, aimed at high-end mapping and GIS applications; it is a cartographic vector dataset bundled with a...

COWI.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... A combination of aerial photos and representative business premises aims to attract foreign companies to set up business in Copenhagen, Denmark. In collaboration with trade promotion officers in the region, Copenhagen Capacity and the Greater...

CSI Wireless.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... CSI Wireless (Calgary, Canada) made newspaper headlines in Canada after its GPS and wireless engineers installed a tracking device on a wooden, horse-driven chuckwagon to monitor its speed and relay the data to spectators during the annual...

ESiT.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... ESiT (Loughborough, England) has announced that RWE NUKEM (Tennessee, USA) has gone live with ESiT's enviro-surv:A, a field data capture and management solution for environmental monitoring. RWE NUKEM is involved in monitoring field data for...

Eurimage.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Eurimage (Rome, Italy) has enhanced its online facility EiNet; Eurimage customers can now select all QuickBird image library scenes acquired within an area of interest. Areas of interest are defined by importing a shape file, entering...

GeoInformation Group.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... London Underground Ltd (LU) is using Cities Revealed aerial photography from the GeoInformation Group (Cambridge, England) to support asset management. The 12.5cm resolution imagery of Greater London provides LU staff with an above ground...

Multimap.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Multimap (London, England) has announced a partnership with Public Sector Mapping Agencies Australia (PMSA, Canberra, Australia) to launch a new internet mapping service in Australia. Using mapping and spatial data from PSMA. Multimap will be...

Antrix Corporation.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... The commercial arm of India's Department of Space and the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), the Antrix Corporation (Bangalore, India) has been appointed by ORBIMAGE Inc (Virginia, USA) to distribute and resell its satellite imagery...

Tele Atlas.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Tele Atlas (Ghent, Belgium) has launched two Poland navigation CDs; TAN Ceska republika/Polska 2004/2005 E for Blaupunkt TravelPilot E and Tele Atlas Polska 2004/2005 DX for Blaupunkt TravelPilot DX. Both feature 54,000km of fully...

Tianjin Golden Universe Information Technology Co Ltd.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Tianjin Golden Universe Information Technology Co Ltd (China) has purchased two of Intergraph's (Alabama, USA) Z/I Imaging Digital Mapping Cameras and the TerraShare software to support its work providing the Chinese government bodies with...

WTI Advanced Technology Ltd.(Business Briefs)
October 1, 2004... WTI Advanced Technology Ltd (Chennai, India) has achieved ISO 9001:2000 Certification for its main operating location in India. The scope of this certification is "Provision of IT solutions and services for Geospatial IT and Engineering...

Riegl UK.(Hardware Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Manufacturer of laser measurement systems, Riegl UK (Nottingham, England) has announced the release of a new airborne laser scanner, the LMS-Q560. The 2D scanner incorporates waveform digitising of the return laser pulses giving access to...

SCP.(Hardware Briefs)
October 1, 2004... SCP (Aachen, Germany) will be showcasing its large format scanning technology at Intergeo 2004 in Stuttgart. The latest versions of Easy TWAIN, EasyScan and Colorado, SCP's own software for large format scanning, copying and printing will be on...

Thales Navigation.(Hardware Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Thales Navigation (California, USA) has launched MobileMapper CE, its handheld GPS receiver for GIS data collection. Microsoft Windows CE is embedded into the unit which also runs Bluetooth wireless technology. Stig Pedersen, GIS business...

Topcon Europe.(Hardware Briefs)
October 1, 2004... A new series of auto tracking total stations, has been launched by Topcon Europe (Netherlands). The GTS-820A series replaces the GTS810A series and includes a number of improvements such as enhanced prism tracking capabilities, faster rotation...

3D Scanning Solutions.(Hardware Briefs)
October 1, 2004... 3D Scanning Solutions (Paris, France), part of Trimble's (California, USA) Survey Business Area, has announced the release of PocketScape version 2 for the Trimble GS-series scanners. The scanners are controlled by PointScape data acquisition...

Thales Navigation.(Hardware Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Thales Navigation's newly released MobileMapper CE is, available from Positioning Resources (Aberdeen, Scotland) as part of its range of laser rangefinders, handheld PCs and other mapping and surveying equipment. MobileMapper CE is handheld GPS...

US Positioning Group, LLC.(Hardware Briefs)
October 1, 2004... US Positioning Group, LLC (Arizona, USA) has released a new package, Rhino Rover for ArcPad. The combination hardware and software package is built around an extension for the ESRI software and allows users to record uncorrected position and...

Able Software.(Software Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Able Software (Massachusetts, USA) has released a new version of its automated raster to vector conversion software, R2V. One of the main enhancements is fully automatic vectorisation to convert scanned maps to vector formats, vector base map...

Blue Marble Geographics.(Software Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Blue Marble Geographics (Maine, USA) has announced the release of a new version of its coordinate conversion library, GeoCalc.Net. Designed to meet the needs of Windows programmers, the upgraded version is fully object-oriented and relies on an...

Geo-3D.(Software Briefs)
October 1, 2004... Trident-3D Analyst version 3.0 is now available from Geo-3D (Montreal, Canada), the software is a soft-copy photogrammetric tool for the analysis of digital images captured with horizontally oriented camera systems. Several new features have...