| OGC LAUNCHES THE OPEN LOCATION SERVICES INITIATIVE
Open GIS Consortium (OGC) held a Sponsors meeting January 30 to announce the launch of the first test bed of the Open Location Services (OpenLS) Initiative. IT and wireless industry leaders Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Webraska, Yeoman, Intergraph, ESRI, CTIA, In-Q-Tel, MapInfo, Autodesk, Siemens and Hutchison 3G participated.
The meeting was held to confirm sponsorship interest in the OpenLS Initiative and to solicit feedback regarding the next steps, including the upcoming release of the Request for Quotation document and the first test bed.
With the OpenLS Initiative, OGC will deliver open specification interfaces for interoperable location-based application services and client applications by using its collaborative, rapid-paced, hands-on engineering program. Many industry analysts believe that open standards will be a catalyst in the growth of the nascent location services industry and will greatly facilitate the efforts of both buyers and providers of interoperable location-based applications and services.
OGC introduced plans for harmonizing OpenLS specifications with other industry forums and standards organizations such as the Location Interoperability Forum (LIF). Several OGC OpenLS harmonization liaison efforts already underway drew support and positive feedback from the industry participants.
To become a sponsor, or for additional information about the OpenLS Initiative, visit http://www.openls.org
GBA MASTER SERIES and HETEK SOLUTIONS UNITE FOR INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
GBA Master Series, Inc., Lenexa, Kansas, USA, announced the formation of a strategic business relationship with HETEK Solutions, Inc., a full service civil engineering company with headquarters in London, Ontario, Canada.
The agreement reached by the two companies provides for exclusive distributorship of the GBA Master Series IMS applications by HETEK throughout Canada, the Caribbean and Malaysia. HETEK will provide marketing and sales efforts, along with implementation, support, and maintenance services for computerized asset management projects. GBA Master Series, Inc. will provide consultation on implementation projects, assistance with sales and marketing efforts, and a series of specialized training courses to acquaint HETEK personnel with the intricacies of the software applications.
GBA Master Series™ Infrastructure Management Software is a suite of products used to manage and maintain water, storm, wastewater, and street systems. The well-designed Infrastructure Management Software (IMS) applications enable public works and water resources professionals to more efficiently manage their systems. By utilizing the software industry professionals can quickly and accurately prioritize maintenance and rehabilitation tasks, analyze current and historical data to identify system trends, and recommend comprehensive budget forecasts.
HETEK Solutions, Inc., formerly known as Heath Consultants Limited, has been serving utility, municipal and industrial clients throughout Canada and internationally since 1956. The company has an extensive product line in the areas of water leakage detection, water and wastewater flow and monitoring, gas detection, confined space entry, as well as data acquisition. HETEK offers a range of engineering services including industrial inspections, gas leakage control programs, water (fluid) leakage control programs, tracer gas type leak detection programs, training and education. "The opportunity to collaborate with HETEK is exciting," said James C. Graham, P.E., Vice President of GBA Master Series, Inc., "offering the software will complete the range of products and services HETEK currently provides to their municipal and private clients."
For more information about the GBA Master Series suite of IMS products and services, visit www.gbamasterseries.com or write to [email protected]. For more information about HETEK, visit www.heathltd.com or write to [email protected].
ORBIMAGE AWARDED NEW CONTRACT BY U.S. NATIONAL IMAGERY AND MAPPING AGENCY
Orbital Imaging Corporation (ORBIMAGE), a leading global provider of Earth imagery products and services, announced that it signed the NIMA Production Prototype (NPP) contract with the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). Under the NPP, which is an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ)-type contract, NIMA may order products and services for one base year and two optional years. The maximum value of the contract to ORBIMAGE is $100 million over the three-year period.
The primary objective of the NPP program is to develop, prototype and demonstrate new or improved geospatial and intelligence products and data sets derived from commercial satellite and/or U.S. Government imagery sources. Under the contract, ORBIMAGE has proposed the development of various multispectral and hyperspectral products from its satellite and aerial imagery sources to demonstrate the value of these products for national security customers and to expand the availability and applicability of basic "foundation" data for urban applications.
According to Paul Weise, Director of NIMA's Commercial Partnerships Branch, "We looked to a variety of commercial and government data providers and selected ORBIMAGE after a competitive process. We are pleased to award one of the NPP contracts to ORBIMAGE because of their ability to provide high quality commercial imagery, their innovative perspectives as a commercial company, and their strong history of providing geospatial information products to NIMA."
Mr. Gilbert D. Rye, President and Chief Executive Officer of ORBIMAGE, said, "This contract award reflects a growing recognition on the part of NIMA of the unique attributes of commercial imagery. It will allow ORBIMAGE to work with NIMA to integrate commercial imagery in existing products and explore possible additional product enhancements. In addition, this contract strengthens and broadens ORBIMAGE's relationship with NIMA, an anchor customer for our imagery products."
For More Information Contact: Barron Beneski (703) 406-5528, [email protected]
BaySys to Provide GIS Services to Philadelphia Water Department
The City of Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) selected BaySys Technologies, Inc. (BaySys), now an affiliate of Geographic Information Technology, Inc. (GeoIT), to provide GIS application software and services. BaySys is furnishing software configuration, implementation consulting, end-user training and project management services. PWD will use BaySys' Water Network Management (WNM) and Wastewater Management System (WMS) applications to manage their digital water, sanitary sewer and storm sewer facility GIS information. The database design for the WNM and WMS applications will be implemented in a Microsoft SQLServer environment on a Windows NT operating system.
"Philadelphia's water distribution and wastewater collection systems have been serving customers for over 200 years," said Sue Lior, Deputy Water Commissioner for Information Technology. "PWD's Geographic Information System (GIS) program has enabled the Department to continue its long tradition of excellent customer service by maintaining accurate facilities information. PWD is using the WNM and WMS applications to maintain highly accurate maps of our water and wastewater infrastructures. The BaySys maintenance applications," she concluded, "allow PWD to keep our data current and give us the ability to make updates quickly. This timely and accurate means of doing maintenance is essential to the success of our enterprise-wide GIS.
The Philadelphia Water Department is a municipal water, wastewater and storm water utility that has been serving the City of Philadelphia metropolitan area for nearly 200 years. PWD maintains approximately 3,2000 miles of water and high pressure fire mains including 28,000 hydrants and over 86,000 valves. In addition PWD provides collection service via 3,420 miles of wastewater and storm water pipe, 75,000 inlets and 85,000 manholes. The Water Department also provides wastewater and storm water treatment services for Philadelphia and three surrounding counties, serving almost 2.2 million people.
For more information, contact: Bart Koenig, Vice President, Green Bay Operations 1620 South Ashland Ave., Suite 106, Green Bay, WI 54304, (920) 432-1820 [email protected]
Research Systems Releases ENVI 3.4 Service Pack #1
Research Systems, Inc. (RSI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kodak and developer of technical visualization and application development software, has released the ENVI 3.4 Service Pack #1. The service pack provides timely fixes, updates and enhancements for ENVI 3.4.
In addition to addressing known bugs, RSI has added support for new file types and projections. New file types supported include HDF-EOS ASTER Level 1A HDF files. The ASTER HDF file will automatically be recognized by ENVI and four separate meta files will be opened: VNIR Bands 1-3N, VNIR Band 3B, SWIR Bands 4-9, and TIR Bands 10-14. There is also added support for reading and writing PNG file type. An ENVI display window can be output to an 8- or 24-bit PNG image file, and "Open Data File" from the main ENVI menu will recognize PNG files for input.
The two new projection types that have been added to ENVI 3.4 through this service pack are Generic Space Oblique Mercator A and Integerized Sinusoidal. Jim Kelley, the ENVI Business Manager, explains that the ENVI 3.4 Service Pack "continues Research Systems' commitment to timely enhancements and bug fixes for the ENVI product line, and our tradition of customer responsiveness. The new file support adds greater flexibility, ease-of-use, and breadth of application for ENVI customers."
The new ENVI Service Pack can only be downloaded from the RSI Web site (http://www.researchsystems.com/download/chooseplatform.cfm?urlProductFamilyID=-200 ), and is free to existing ENVI 3.4 customers that are current with their maintenance contracts. Additional information can be found at www.researchsystems.com.
Intergraph Makes Technology Gift to UCGIS Model Curriculum Project
Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions, a division of Intergraph Corporation, announced its expanded support for the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) Model
Curriculum project with a technology gift consisting of campus wide software licenses, support, and training to UCGIS member schools. Intergraph is offering each UCGIS member school the following tools: campus site licenses of GeoMedia® technology for the desktop and the Web, three years of upgrades and technical support, and two free enrollments in all GeoMedia training courses (GeoMedia, GeoMedia Professional, and GeoMedia WebMap).
Intergraph is also extending this offer to new UCGIS member schools during the next three years upon the formal acceptance of their membership application. The total estimated value of this technology gift is $1.5 million based upon current UCGIS membership. This opportunity will be made available to more than 50 schools in the United States.
UCGIS is a non-profit organization of universities and other research institutions dedicated to advancing the understanding of geographic processes and spatial relationships through improved theory, methods, technology, and data. An affiliate member of UCGIS since 1996, Intergraph has supported the Model Curriculum project through donations and resources to grow the project.
For more information about the UCGIS Model Curriculum project, visit http://www.ucgis.org. To learn about Intergraph's academic programs visit http://www.intergraph.com/schools.
DELORME EXPANDS PRODUCT OFFERINGS TO TARGET GIS AND TRANSPORTATION
DeLorme announced the formation of its Applied GeoSpatial Solutions business unit (AGS). The DeLorme AGS team will develop turnkey products and applications targeting the needs of utility, transportation, real estate, municipal government, insurance, CRM and telecom industries.
"Companies are looking for ways to integrate GIS products into everyday business without having to make a significant investment in software, data and training or add staff to administer the system." said John Ferketic, DeLorme's director of the new Applied GeoSpatial Solutions unit. "Our group is solving these problems by developing GIS products that are affordable, easy-to-implement and maintain, and come complete with a rich dataset."
Over the past year, DeLorme has significantly broadened its geospatial offerings with the introduction of the XMap* product suite. XMap* Business is a powerful program that combines detailed maps with database management tools and easy-to-use annotation functions - plus more than 104 million business and residential telephone numbers. It helps companies locate customers, plan delivery routes, generate mailing lists and more.
XMap* Express provides an affordable solution to expensive and cumbersome in-vehicle paper maps. Drivers equipped with laptops, including Panasonic TouchBook touch-screen models, can now easily find their way using a simple interface designed specifically for fleets.
XMap* Geographic is the industry's first geospatial application that provides easy-to-use geospatial tools in a data-rich package -- all for under $500. It provides eighty percent of the essential functionality of the more complex systems at 20 percent of the cost, and is a perfect tool for engineers, surveyors, and land-developers that cannot afford the technology staff or high-end price tag of most GIS systems.
For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.delorme.com.
TRANSMAP Completes Street Infrastructure Survey in Record Time
After only ten months of work, TRANSMAP Corporation successfully completed a comprehensive roadway infrastructure survey project for Hillsborough County, Florida-a project that would have taken three times as long if traditional surveying methods had been used. "In order to complete this project in just ten months, we had to rely on automation," explains Dr. Kurt Novak, TRANSMAP president. "The ON-SIGHT mobile mapping system and our automated data processing system allowed us to reduce data collection and integration significantly."
Using vans equipped with four digital cameras, a Global Positional System (GPS) receiver, and an inertial navigation system, TRANSMAP field engineers drove all of Hillsborough County's 3,000 centerline miles in both directions, taking snapshots of roadside attributes every 35 feet to provide 360¡ coverage. Not only were these assets precisely located to sub-meter accuracy, but data was also provided on their condition, with technicians assigning them a rating of good, fair, or poor.
During the course of the mapping project, more than half a million assets were inventoried. TRANSMAP partnered with two other firms-the engineering firm of Cumbey & Fair, of Clearwater, FL, and Infrastructure Management Services of Arlington Heights, IL-to provide a complete picture of county assets and integrate that data into Hillsborough's Hansen's Roadway Module asset management software.
For more information, contact TRANSMAP: 1275 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH, 43212, tel.: (614) 487-3636, fax: (614) 487-3704. Visit the TRANSMAP website at www.transmap.com or email [email protected]
M3i & Lucent Technologies Partner To Bring Utilities Improved Customer Care and Cost Control
M3i Systems Inc. announced an agreement with Lucent Technologies to co-market and integrate M3i's advanced Pragma(Line outage and Pragma(CAD workforce management systems with Lucent's flagship Kenan(r) Energy & Utilities Suite billing and customer care solution.
This advanced software solution provides real-time information on customers, control rooms, and crews, along with strategy enabling software for billing, customer care, order management and customer analysis. Customers deploying these solutions will see many benefits including superior network analysis and management, more effective financial planning and capital investment, and improved customer responsiveness, satisfaction and retention. In addition, the industry experience and technology embedded in the Lucent and M3i solutions can be deployed at any energy provider, anywhere on the globe.
These utility systems are web-enabled to provide such things as online credit verification, customer profiles, self-crediting, inventory management, and service history. In addition, operators can view outage incidents, as they unfold, on any commercially available web browser, to accurately report on vital issues such as coverage areas, damage, cost evaluation, and service restoration. M3i Systems and Lucent are working together to link their solutions in order to provide a seamless integration for customers who are using both products.
For more information contact: Terry Wildman, M3i Systems Inc., 416 502-0038, [email protected] HOME |
