Top Stories
ERDAS IMAGINE® 8.5 Now Shipping
ERDAS®, Inc. has announced that ERDAS IMAGINE® V8.5 - packed with powerful feature enhancements including upgrades to the mosaicking tool, advanced 3D visualization and scene creation capabilities, and MrSID's (Lizardtech, Inc.) space-saving compressor - is now available to customers. With an even easier-to-use mosaicking tool in ERDAS IMAGINE 8.5, users can create seamless output images with the use of specialized colour balancing procedures that remove "hot spots" from aerial photography and other off-nadir imagery. Other new features in ERDAS IMAGINE 8.5 include the addition of license administration flexibility, more import and export utilities, greater mobility for fieldwork, the ability to preserve pixel location and boundaries, an enhanced ability to create and edit ESRI Shapefiles, military grid reference system (MGRS) support, extensions to the IMAGINE Developers' Toolkit™, and numerous enhancements previously released to ERDAS' Software Subscription Service (SSS) members via the ERDAS Web site.
Garmin and Pumatech Team Up to Provide Intellisync(R) Software for GPS Devices
Pumatech Inc., a leading provider of enterprise-level software products and services, has announced two licensing agreements with subsidiaries of Garmin Ltd., a leading manufacturer of navigation, communication and information devices. Garmin will bundle personal information management (PIM) software enabled by Pumatech's Intellisync(R) Software Development Kit (Intellisync SDK) with products like its next-generation NavTalk(R) GPS-enabled smart phone for GSM networks. Pumatech's Intellisync Lite software will provide out-of-the-box synchronization for Garmin's future GPS-enabled devices. Timesaving benefits of synchronization include moving scheduled and rescheduled events directly into the user's calendar, identifying potential scheduling conflicts, and maintaining a single address book.
Visit :
www.pumatech.com &
http://www.garmin.com/pressroom/
GeoConcept Increases High-Quality Image Handling Capabilities
GeoConcept, European leader in geographical information systems, announces today that its industry-leading GIS software, GeoConcept 4.2, now offers enhanced high-quality image handling. This is achieved through the use of MrSID Geo, a file format developed by LizardTech that reduces high-resolution images to less than five percent of their original file size while maintaining original image quality. GeoConcept customers can now benefit by reducing the costs and time traditionally associated with working with massive high-quality imagery for GIS analysis. With MrSID as the standard image format for geospatial professionals, GeoConcept customers can immediately access and leverage the large quantity of existing high-quality MrSID image datasets.
Visit :
http://www.lizardtech.com
Safe Software adds ESRI Geodatabase Support.
Safe Software, the industry leader in spatial data translation solutions, has announced that it has added support for ESRI's geodatabase data format. This solution enables data to be loaded into a geodatabase from over 80 different data formats supported by Safe's FME products, and also enables data held in a geodatabase to be exported in any of these data formats. The geodatabase
support is available with Safe's Feature Manipulation Engine (FME®), FME Objects and SpatialDirect® solutions. "This is a very significant development for all ESRI ArcGIS customers since it greatly simplifies the task of moving data in a diverse set of formats both into and out of a geodatabase," said Don Murray, President of Safe Software Inc.
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www.safe.com
ISTAR Catalogue of North American Imagery Reaches 13
ISTAR has added Jacksonville, Fla., and Savannah, Ga., to its high-resolution image catalogue of North American cities. All orthoimagery and 3D models in the catalogue are processed and ready for delivery. The latest acquisitions bring to 13 the number of U.S. metropolitan areas ISTAR has imaged and processed since early this year. The others include Phoenix, Albuquerque, Tucson, Charlotte, Raleigh, San Francisco, San Jose, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. ISTAR true orthoimagery and derived 3D models differ significantly from other orthophoto products on the market today. The most important distinction is the HRSC digital scanner, developed by the DLR (German Space Agency), which acquires multiple simultaneous images of every ground point during a single pass. This produces a "true orthoimage" in which the elevation of every pixel has been measured directly, instead of interpolated.
Visit :
www.istar.com
RAPIDsite Introduces 3D Parametric Modeling for GIS/CAD Users
Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. will demonstrate breakthrough 3D visualization capabilities for GIS and CAD users of its RAPIDsite(TM) visualization software at the annual ESRI Users Conference, the company announced. RAPIDsite Version 2.2, which will ship in August, introduces new features aimed at GIS/CAD users, such as the ability to use ESRI ArcView shapefiles and AutoCAD DWG files to automatically generate parametric 3D feature models and place them in a dynamic 3D site visualization. In addition to new parametric feature modeling capabilities, version 2.2 also offers a number of performance and usability improvements, such as texture management enhancements, support for ArcView projects containing multiple shapefiles, and the ability to generate 360-degree digital panoramic images along with video fly-throughs and walk-throughs for use on Web sites and other marketing materials.
Visit :
www.es-rapidsite.com
EarthScan and AirPhotoUSA Announce Strategic Relationship
EarthScan Network, a provider of web-enabled image and application distribution services, and AirPhotoUSA, a leading provider of aerial photography, today announced the formation of a strategic business relationship. EarthScan will facilitate further distribution of AirPhotoUSA's digital aerial imagery and its Change Detection application via EarthScan's website and their Affiliated Storefronts and will develop a web-based e-commerce system for AirPhotoUSA. AirPhotoUSA will offer for sale to its client organizations EarthScan's Image Distribution Service technologies, which enhances the value of the data through ease of use, and data sharing efficiency. AirPhotoUSA has over forty major metropolitan areas covered with their digital aerial imagery within the United States that will be offered for resale through this agreement.
Visit :
www.AirPhotoUSA.com &
www.EarthScan.com
North America's First Complete Routing Street File
DMTI Spatial, producer of CanMap®, Canada's premier digital street map file, have announced a ground breaking strategic alliance with Tele Atlas NV, the world's largest digital mapping company. Both companies have embraced the opportunity to capitalize on the other's highly accurate street file to create North America's first complete seamless routing solution. DMTI Spatial and Tele Atlas North America are recognized as leaders in their respective geographic domains and this joint initiative will set the standard in route logistics planning and digital street mapping. The comprehensive North American solution will provide users with a single source for location-rich, highly accurate, quality street map data for North America.
Visit :
http://www.teleatlas.com &
www.dmtispatial.com
Asia News
UK may go slow in recruiting techies
THE US slowdown may not mean better job opportunities for Indian techies in Europe as widely believed, but it isn’t bad news either because India is soon going to be the software outsourcing capital of the world,” says a British expert. There is a shortfall of about 50,000 software professionals in UK, yet British companies might not want to recruit Indian techies because of the slowdown.
But, the slowdown is short term because the momentum behind modernisation is very strong.
And with Indians doing very well handling GIS-related projects innovatively and creatively, British companies are very keen on investing in outsourcing GIS mapping and analysis projects, which would be worth hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars,”Dr Robert Barr, School of Geography, University of Manchester, and chairman of Association for Geographic Information says.
Thanks to a large English speaking technically skilled workforce, India will be hub of GIS activity beating even China and any other Asia Pacific country.
Though hard to estimate the exact figures, Britain is heavily investing in GIS-related projects pertaining to UK, for which it’s seeking technical expertise of Indian companies here, and outsourcing the projects, Dr Barr adds.
Source :
The Economic Times
Hong Kong Maps Out Ways to Develop Skilled IT Workforce
Hong Kong should adopt a multi-dimensional approach with short and longer term measures, focusing on both supply and quality, to address its IT manpower issue. In a draft report tabled at the Legislative Council Panel on Information Technology and Broadcasting Monday, the Task Force on IT Manpower noted that IT workers were required not only in the IT industry but in almost every other sector of the economy as well. In the Report on Manpower Projection to 2005 commissioned by the government, it was revealed that the overall demand for IT personnel in Hong Kong would grow from 50,000 in 1999 to about 98, 000 in 2005, at an average annual growth rate of 11.8 percent. These figures, representing an average additional demand of between 8,000 and 11,000 annually, illustrate that there is a clear need to adopt immediate and longer term measures to address the shortage of IT manpower in Hong Kong, the Task Force noted.
Source : Xinhua News Agency
Sindh Minister for Finance calls for promotion of IT sector
Sindh Minister for Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has said the provincial government is going to appoint Project Director of Sindh Information Technology Board (SITB) in a couple of days. Talking to newsmen after the launching of Xenon Solutions here on Saturday he said previously this was not possible due to paucity of funds, but after the allocation of Rs100 million in the Sindh budget it was the right time to appoint the project director.
At present, there is no project director and existing chairman is holding the charge. The minister said not only the project director would be appointed, but his staff too so that the board could have a full-fledged team that could work more effectively. To a question, the minister said the Sindh government along with the private sector would also set up endowment centres for assisting poor, needy and deserving students in the field of IT.
Source :
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/
