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Business Notes: September 17, 2002• Announcements Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions today announced the Intergraph Open Interoperability Grant Program, a new international grant program promoting and emphasizing the use of OGC interoperability specifications for accessing and applying geospatial information from a local to a global level. Each of the 100 grants includes Intergraph's GeoMedia(R) Professional and GeoMedia WebMap, a Web map server (WMS) adapter kit for GeoMedia WebMap, GML data server, GML export command, maintenance program, Team GeoMedia Subscriber membership, technical support, and membership in the Intergraph GeoSpatial Users Community (IGUC). SWEGIS has become a reseller for Cadcorp. Data quality services provider Melissa Data announced a licensing agreement with Tele Atlas North America, a leading provider of digital mapping software. The agreement allows Melissa Data to incorporate Tele Atlas' U.S. Postal Points data into Melissa's MAILERS+4 GeoCoder, GeoData and GeoCoder Object. The Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) announced that it has formed an Educational Outreach Committee to promote GIS, GPS (global positioning satellites), and remote sensing technology in schools, colleges, and universities across North America. Specifically, the committee will encourage educational institutions to offer GIS as standalone programs. Ashok Wadwani, president of Applied Field Data Systems, Inc., in Houston, Texas, was named chair of the committee. Wadwani is president of the GITA's Gulf Coast Chapter, one of 19 regional GITA chapters in North America. RMSI's e-mail facility and website are now available on a new domain name "www.rmsi.com". The Ordnance Survey (OS) announced that 40 new central government organizations are beginning to harness the power of geographical information (GI) following the launch in April of a pilot agreement aimed at spreading the word about the power of geography. The OS' network of business partners is flourishing since the launch of its new Partner Initiative in September 2001, with 76 innovators developing location- or mapping-based applications or service ideas for market. CellPoint Inc., a provider of mobile location software technology and platforms, announced that it has evolved its Mobile Location System (MLS) location product to operate in the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) environment. • Contracts and Sales Kivera Inc. and VoltDelta are partnering to deliver custom driving directions to wireless customers. The service expected to be used by Verizon LiveSource operators is in trails. Customers of the wireless carrier who call directory assistance for a listing also can receive detailed driving directions to businesses or residences. • Products Earth Resource Mapping is pleased to announce the release of a free ArcPad v6.0 ECW Plug-in v1.0 that allows users to view ECW and remote ECW images (ECWP) within ArcPad v6.0. The company also announced a free ECW Decompression SDK (Software Development Kit) for Windows CE v2.46 that gives users the ability to view both local ECW images stored on hand held computers as well as viewing ECW imagery served up from Image Web Server. Applied GIS, Inc. of Schenectady, New York is pleased to announce the release of the Migration Assistant for ArcView. Basically an enhanced "help" option, the product requires the installation of either ArcView 3.x or ArcView 8.x and eases users through the re-learning process. Evaluation copies are available. NovaLIS Technologies’ Parcel Editor 8 software for ESRI’s ArcMap 8.2 - officially released this month – is available for download from the company’s website. Blue Marble Geographics has announced the release of Geographic Transformer v 4.4. The Geographic Transformer allows you to easily establish an "image-to-world" relationship between image and map coordinates and reproject an image into a georeferenced image map. The new version includes the ability to read and georeference MrSID, ECW, DOQQ and BIL image formats. The Geographic Transformer already supports TIFF, GeoTIFF, Windows Bitmap, JPEG, PNG, BSB Chart and CADRG. All output image formats can be saved as TIFF, GeoTIFF, Windows Bitmap, JPG or PNG files. Evaluations are available. EnerQuest Systems LLC has developed a technology, named SILC (Spectral Imagery LIDAR Composite), for the automatic classification of LIDAR points. Multispectral pixels are now associated with individual XYZ values to discriminate between roads, buildings, trees, water and other features. Lizardtech Software announced GeoExpress with MrSID version 3.0 which features lossless encoding, the ability to update existing MrSID mosaics, dramatic performance enhancements, more flexible encoding options and numerous additional features to enable efficient creation and distribution of network ready images. Virtual Wave has selected the GPS Accessory by Airbiquity for the delivery of its RoadStar GPS wireless location-based services. The GPS Accessory is a battery attachment that is compatible with over 30 different Nokia-brand phone models. The device allows users to “fix” their position via satellite with the push of a button, and send the location data over the wireless voice channel to RoadStar GPS’s call center. Monthly service plans start at $6.95, but I could not find the price of the accessory itself. Ordnance Survey released an interactive address layer in OS MasterMap, its revolutionary database and online service. The Address layer involves the complete migration of Ordnance Survey's ADDRESS-POINT product into OS MasterMap. The transport network, due to begin rolling out over the next few months, will bring Ordnance Survey's existing OSCAR road product into the OS MasterMap family. Among other forthcoming layers, high-resolution imagery will allow customers in government and business to overlay mapping on aerial photographs for easier visualisation and analysis. In co-operation with English Heritage, MoD and international archive holders, aerial photography taken between 1939 to 1952 by Luftwaffe, RAF and USAF will be made available from original film, in an orthorectified format for the professional market. Following the initial release of the principle cities of London, Birmingham and Liverpool, the GeoInformation Group second phase includes major towns and cities and the remaining areas of England in the third phase. The historic imagery will be made available on CD-ROM and through two new online services, CRConnect for online access through a GIS and CRAtlas (due for launch Q4 2002) an online solution for Internet browser access. GeoInformation Group also announced the launch of a dedicated, software independent training and consultancy division. • Appointments and Hires Earth Resource Mapping announced the appointment of Mick Armstrong as the new EAME Regional Manager. Syncline, Inc. announced that James Heppelmann, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Software Products at PTC, has joined its board of directors. A supplier to major manufacturing companies worldwide, PTC is the world's largest software company with a total commitment to product development solutions. If news like this is important to you, sign up for our weekly GIS MONITOR Newsletter. --------- Source: Material used herein is often supplied by external sources and used as is. |
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