2007 February 8

This issue sponsored by

Professional Surveyor Magazine

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Editor's Introduction

This week, I bring you two big stories: the first one is about a deal between SiRF, the largest manufacturer of GPS receiver chip sets, and Skyhook Wireless, developer of a WiFi-based positioning system, to develop a new, hybrid GPS-WiFi positioning system; the second one is about a lawsuit filed by a few professional geospatial groups against the U.S. federal government with regard to contracting regulations for surveying and mapping. Plus, two more conferences and my usual news items from press releases.

— Matteo Luccio

SiRF and Skyhook Develop Hybrid GPS-WiFi Positioning System

SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. is the largest manufacturer of Global Positioning System (GPS) chip sets, subsystems, and software, with annual sales of about $250 million. Skyhook Wireless, Inc. has developed WPS—an alternative, software-only positioning system that leverages a nationwide database of known Wi-Fi access points to calculate the location of any Wi-Fi-enabled device. (I described WPS in detail last April). Today the two companies announced that SiRF has licensed Skyhook's WPS and that they have jointly developed XPS—a hybrid GPS-WiFi positioning system.

XPS will greatly improve the reliability and initial response time of positioning and navigation for mobile devices—cell phones, PDAs, and laptop and notebook computers—in urban areas, thereby boosting location-based services (LBS). The two companies will demonstrate XPS at the 3GSM World Congress 2007, in Barcelona, Spain, February 12-15, using an HTC Artemis phone.

Read more…

Geospatial Groups Sue Feds On Contracting Regs

The details of governmental regulations can have a big impact on an entire industry. According to a coalition of professional geospatial industry organizations, the U.S. Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council has consistently refused to fully apply to surveying and mapping the qualifications-based selection " (QBS) process mandated by the Brooks Act, which requires federal agencies to award contracts for services to the best qualified bidder, rather than to the lowest one.

This refusal, the organizations claim, harms the industry's professionalism and endangers the public's health and welfare, because geospatial work involves "considerable variables, contingencies, and unknowns that make price competition very undesirable from a public interest standpoint and make it very difficult for firms to truly engage in competition based on price," according to John Palatiello, executive director of the Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (MAPPS). Furthermore, they claim, it has put geospatial firms in the untenable position of having to either turn down profitable federal contracts or violate state ethics rules, which in many states bar them from winning contracts by submitting the lowest bid.

Read more…

Geospatial Conferences

Last week I published a compilation of 31 geospatial conferences taking place in the next three months. Reader brought two more to my attention:

March 7-9, Appleton, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Land Information Association Annual Conference

April 16-18, New Orleans, Louisiana: Geospatial Integration for Public Safety Conference

This conference has grown out of URISA's Street Smart and Address Savvy Conference that was held for several years. In 2005, URISA joined with NENA to present a conference that looked at addressing issues in general, and addressing for emergency response in particular. The first GIPSC—which took place 2006 April 10-12 in Nashville, Tennessee and was attended by nearly 300 people—brought together GIS professionals, addressing coordinators, and 9-1-1 and emergency response specialists to one place for opportunities in networking and learning.

News Briefs

Please note: I have culled the following news items from press releases and have not independently verified them.

  1. CONTRACTS & COLLABORATIONS

    1. The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) has approached Airborne 1 Corporation, a provider of LiDAR services, rentals, and software worldwide, to provide mapping to monitor gradual landslide movement in the Los Angeles, California, basin. Read more…

    2. EarthData has signed a $1 million contract with URS Corporation for aerial LiDAR surveys over the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. Covering 1,600 square miles, the project calls for 1–meter post–spacing LiDAR data, hydrographic breaklines, and 1' contours. The California's Department of Water Resources (DWR) will use these datasets to evaluate levee stability under various flooding scenarios as part of its Delta Risk Management Strategy. Read more…

    3. The Atlantic County, New Jersey, government has implemented technology by Pictometry International Corp., a provider of digital, aerial oblique imagery and measuring software, for public safety applications throughout the county and several of its municipalities. Atlantic County is located in southern New Jersey and has a population of more than 271,000 residents in 561 square miles. In New Jersey, where 10 out of 21 counties currently use or are scheduled to receive oblique aerial imaging technology, Pictometry has been selected as the vendor of choice by these ten counties to provide the technology. Read more…

    4. CENTREMAPS has selected Cadcorp GeognoSIS.NET, by digital mapping and GIS software developer Cadcorp, to power the new CENTREMAPSlive on-line map service. The software is responsible for all mapping output from the CENTREMAPSlive website, and generates detailed maps from the user's selection through the site's interface, which includes OS MasterMap viewing.

      CENTREMAPSlive provides access to national coverage of digital mapping data from Ordnance Survey, British Geological Survey, Intermap Technologies, and Getmapping. OS MasterMap is stored centrally in a PostgreSQL object-relational database, using the PostGIS spatial database extension. Maps selected by the customer are delivered via the site as PDF documents that use standard PDF extensions to include GIS/CAD-style "layers," making them particularly useful for customers who do not have access to GIS or CAD software. Other "industry-standard' formats, including CSV, DWG, DXF, Open Geospatial Consortium Geography Markup Language (GML), and TIFF, and additional formats are expected to be added in the near future. Read more…

    5. The Sacramento County Department of Water Resources (DWR) has awarded a contract to Merrick & Company, a provider of LiDAR, digital orthoimaging, photogrammetry, and GIS mapping services, to provide LiDAR data, 2-foot contours, bare earth, and building classifications for 389 square miles in a rapidly developing area. The aerial data collection was flown in January and final delivery of data that meets or exceeds FEMA standards is planned for May. Read more…

    6. The Spatial Information and Mapping Centre (SIM-Centre) of Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstrucksi (BRR) NAD-Nias in Aceh Province, Sumatra, Indonesia, is using ESRI GIS software to support the activities of humanitarian agencies rebuilding after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. SIM-Centre is actively building sustainable GIS capacity in the government through the creation of an online data catalog, training local personnel in GIS technology, and creating a spatial data infrastructure (SDI).

      SIM-Centre has standardized with ESRI ArcGIS. It uses ArcCatalog to create metadata, which is then hosted on the online metadata catalog, a free-of-charge service available to all cooperating agencies in the area. Not only does the metadata catalog provide guidance and accessibility to necessary datasets, but it also establishes confidence in the quality of the data, something lacking in the area before the tsunami. Read more…

    7. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has purchased high-resolution aerial photography from AirPhotoUSA, a DigitalGlobe company and a provider of aerial information solutions. This is the fourth USGS contract awarded to AirPhotoUSA for off-the-shelf aerial imagery and covers 16 urban areas totaling more than 40,000 square miles. The images will be distributed to federal civil agencies and state and local governments. AirPhotoUSA supplies orthophotography according to USGS's strict standards of resolution and accuracy. Read more…

    8. St. John's County, Florida is using Cityworks for asset management and is utilizing the new Cityworks budgeting tool to assist in the county's financial management. Cityworks is made by Azteca Systems, Inc., a provider of GIS-centric asset maintenance management solutions. Read more…

    9. Global Knowledge, the largest privately held provider of training, enterprise learning services, and software solutions for information technology (IT) and management professionals, has selected ESRI's BusinessMAP software to help its representatives manage sales calls to clients and prospective clients. Read more…

    10. ESRI has signed an agreement with geoVue, a provider of location optimization tools. ESRI will provide its ArcGIS Server enterprise GIS platform, data, and support to geoVue to develop integrated solutions that capitalize on geographic analysis for multi-location businesses. Read more…

    11. GIS & RS Consulting Center GeoGraphic, a longtime sub-distributor in the Republic of Georgia for DATA+, is now a full distributor to further enable the expansion of the GIS market in the country. Read more…

  2. PRODUCTS

    1. Networks In Motion, a wireless navigation and location-based services company, has announced that it will demonstrate a new European versions of its products, including the AtlasBook, FamilyFinder, and AtlasLink, at 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 12-15. Read more…

    2. MapInfo Corporation, a provider of location intelligence solutions, has released MarketBalance, a custom solution that helps communications companies identify the optimal mix of business market potential and sales resources. The solution is designed to enable businesses to unlock hidden business-to-business market opportunities and increase sales by deploying their sales force more effectively. Read more…

    3. LeadDog Consulting, a provider of street and road maps, has released detailed city street geographic databases for Manila, the Philippines. LeadDog maps are in use in a wide range of applications from military and government emergency and defense support to commercial fleet management and location-based services. Read more…

    4. Digital mapping and GIS software developer Cadcorp has announced that its Cadcorp SIS \0xF1 Spatial Information System now includes support for unlimited ECW (Enhanced Compression Wavelet) data export. Developed by Cadcorp using the latest version of ER Mapper's ECW JPEG2000 Software Developer Kit (SDK), the new exporting capability is available within Cadcorp's flagship desktop GIS product Cadcorp SIS Map Modeller. Map Modeller users will now be able to create highly compressed ECW or JPEG2000 files from any of the wide range of CAD, GIS, and image formats supported by Cadcorp SIS. The new capability is now shipping with Map Modeller Version 6.2 Service Release 4 (SR4). Read more…

    5. DMTI Spatial (DMTI), a provider of location intelligence solutions, has launched the Location Hub using the Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model. This new market offering represents a more practical and strategic approach to enabling location intelligence in the enterprise. SaaS approaches are faster, cheaper, and typically more reliable than on-premise software implementations. Moreover, the Location Hub offering focuses on the client's business processes and the quality of data required to drive profitable business outcomes. Read more…

    6. ESRI's Production Line Tool Set (PLTS) for ArcGIS—Mapping Agency Solution 9.2—now includes data models and tools to efficiently collect data compliant with the EuroGeographics specifications for the EuroRegionalMap and EuroGlobalMap projects. This bundled solution is assisting European national mapping and cadastral agencies (NMCAs) in meeting the requirements of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) initiative. INSPIRE is a critical step in the development of the European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI). Read more…

    7. ESRI has announced the availability of ArcGIS Defense Solutions 9.2. The software consists of ArcGIS Military Analyst and Military Overlay Editor (MOLE). The pair of products assists in command and control, battlefield management, intelligence gathering, mission planning, incident planning and response, search and rescue, and defense and intelligence geospatial analysis. Read more…

    8. Merrick & Company, a provider of LiDAR, digital ortho-imaging, photogrammetry, and GIS mapping, has announced the free download availability of MARS FreeView, an intuitive viewing application for LiDAR, high-resolution imagery, and GIS datasets, that it produces and sells. Read more…

  3. CONFERENCES & TRAINING

    1. The 2007 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference will take place in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, September 24-27. FOSS4G is the premier conference for the open source geospatial community, providing a place for developers, users, and people new to open source geospatial software to get a full-immersion experience in both established and leading edge geospatial technologies. Read more…

    2. The Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) will host the second annual Geospatial Career Expo at its Annual Conference 30, slated for March 4-7 in San Antonio, Texas. Read more…

  4. PEOPLE

    1. John E. Boutwell, P.S.M., a veteran surveyor who played a major role in the development of modern Collier County, Florida, will retire from WilsonMiller on March 9 after 37 years of loyal and dedicated service to the firm. Boutwell began his career at WilsonMiller as a field surveyor and worked his way up to Corporate Business Unit Leader of Survey and Mapping, one of 10 Corporate Business Units (CBUs) within WilsonMiller's multidisciplinary operations. Read more…

  5. OTHER

    1. LiDARXCHANGE, the world's largest consortium of LiDAR sensors and expertise, will be attending and exhibiting at ILMF 2007 in Baltimore, Maryland, February 12 to 13. Read more…

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Matteo Luccio, Editor
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