Top Stories
Safe Software adds support for Microsoft MapPoint 2002
Safe Software, the industry leader in data translation solutions, announces that it has added support for Microsoft MapPoint 2002 to its FME Suite 2002 software. FME Suite 2002 now includes a plug-in that will directly import 90 spatial data formats into MapPoint 2002. Safe Software's Feature Manipulation Engine (FME) Suite 2002 is stand-alone software that translates data formats, enhances information, and provides unparalleled access to and sharing of information. FME Suite can read, write, and transform spatial data, including many Geographic Information System (GIS), Computer-Aided Design (CAD), and database formats. The company's FME application extender allows MapPoint 2002 users to import and project their spatial data onto MapPoint's extensive library of maps. MapPoint 2002 is Microsoft's business mapping application that enables users to identify customer locations, illustrate business trends, and define new opportunities and areas of potential growth. With the creation of the FME application extender for MapPoint 2002, users of any skill level gain extraordinary spatial data import functionality and the ability to easily visualize business information, communicate key data using maps, and integrate maps into the work they do in Microsoft MapPoint 2002.
Visit:
http://www.safe.com/
USGS Partners with MapMart.com to Serve Geographic Data
The USGS and MapMart.com, (IntraSearch) have formed a partnership to distribute USGS geographic data to make more public domain data available at no charge while enabling the private sector to have a greater role in the distribution of USGS data. The USGS Spatial Data Transfer Standard Digital Elevation Models (SDTS DEMs) being distributed by MapMart.com describe the topography of the land surface. Private industry, government, nongovernmental organizations, and individual citizens depend on a common set of base information that describes the Earth's surface. They use this information as tools for economic and community development, land and natural resource management, health and safety services, emergency management, defense, and environmental protection. SDTS data contribute to The National Map--a seamless, continuously maintained set of geographic base information that will serve as a
foundation for integrating, sharing, and using other data easily and consistently. Additional information about USGS SDTS data are available at: http://mcmcweb.er.usgs.gov/sdts. The USGS is committed to meeting the Nation's needs for current base geographic data and maps. By working with partners, the USGS will continue to provide the Nation with access to current, accurate, and nationally consistent digital data and topographic maps derived from those data.
MapMart.com is the latest commercial vendor to partner with the USGS to distribute free SDTS DEMs on the Internet. MapMart is an online resource for the location and acquisition of a variety of digital map data. MapMart's interface allows users to zoom-in to an area of interest and to determine digital data availability and select quadrangles to be ordered. MapMart also sells numerous digital data products. The ordering of digital data can be done at different map scales, and in numerous mapping software formats.
Visit:
http://www.mapmart.com &
http://mcmcweb.er.usgs.gov/sdts
Space Imaging Releases IKONOS Image of Mogadishu, Somalia
In response to several requests, Space Imaging is releasing IKONOS satellite imagery of Mogadishu, Somalia. Columbia Pictures' film Black Hawk Down: Leave No Man Behind will be released at theaters nationwide this weekend. These images may provide content and a context that may be useful in reporting on the movie. These satellite images of Mogadishu, Somalia (see links below) were collected on Aug. 15, 2001 by Space Imaging's IKONOS satellite. The four-meter resolution image shows most of Mogadishu including the international airport, harbor and the soccer stadium. The one-meter resolution satellite image focuses on central Mogadishu including the market, the Olympic Hotel and the area where the two Blackhawk helicopters crashed. A third one-meter resolution image has been annotated to show key areas of interest portrayed in the movie.
Visit:
www.spaceimaging.com
Aeronautical Information Documents Unit has chosen Laser-Scan to boost air navigation
Geospatial experts Laser-Scan are proud to announce that No.1 Aeronautical Information Documents Unit (AIDU) has chosen Laser-Scan technology to deliver its new air chart production system. AIDU produces the charts by which all aircraft in the skies over the UK navigate, from microlights to jumbo jets. The latest Laser-Scan technology will enable AIDU to run an advanced multi-product, multi-scale, multi-format system. The new addition will also enable the programming of aircraft and will be used on Eurofighters, Jaguars and Tornadoes. The production of many different charts over one area is vital for AIDU; following the installation of Laser-Scan's high performance technology a single database will be used to derive as many charts as is necessary to meet operational requirements. AIDU will have a single seamless aeronautical database to serve all its products, no longer will each product have to be updated individually, a single change to the database will update all products. The system is also used to produce Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs); instead of receiving NOTAMs for the whole country, pilots will now be able to request the NOTAMs for any specified area, allowing aircrew to identify important changes quickly and easily, thus improving safety and saving both time and money.
Visit:
http://www.laser-scan.com/
The City of Northampton publishes interactive citywide maps on the Internet.
The website at Northampton Mass, now features an interactive citywide map of the town. Visitors can view a variety of map features such as aerial photographs, parcels boundaries,
zoning districts, bike paths, contour lines, flood plans and more. Their maps allow visitors to zoom, pan, select and find map features. Clicking on any map feature, such as a parcel, brings up the related database detailing lot numbers, dimensions, owner records, etc. Users can also search for parcels by any field in the database, which will highlight the parcel and return the associated database record. All this is available to site visitors - from their own computer through the Internet. anywhere, anytime. The interactive map is published directly into the City of Northampton's web site using BeyondGeo - a fully automated Internet-based mapping service offered by Blue Marble Geographics, of Gardiner, Maine. The City of Northampton joins BeyondGeo's growing and impressive customer list.
Visit:
http://www.northamptonplanning.org/ &
http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/
PlanGraphics Welcomes Systems Analyst Doug Williamson
PlanGraphics, Inc., a provider of professional spatial information technology services, announces that Douglas A. Williamson has joined the company as a Systems Analyst.
Williamson is working on-site in New York, NY. Williamson is assisting the New York Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications with implementation of its Citywide GIS Utility Project. Williamson holds an M.A. in Geography from Hunter College, New York City, NY, and a B.A. from Rutgers State University in New Brunswick, NJ.
Williamson has over six years of extensive GIS experience in private and public sector spatial project management and implementation, system administration, and design and planning. Williamson is skilled with a wide variety of GIS applications and tools and a host of operating systems and hardware and software products in networked and non-networked spatial environments.
Visit:
www.plangraphics.com
Asia News
NovAtel Delivers GPS Receivers for Phase 2 of Chinese WAAS Program
NovAtel Inc. has announced that the company delivered an additional 12 WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) receivers to Shenzhen Shenyuan Trading Company for use in the Chinese Satellite Navigation Augmentation System (SNAS). This order represents the first lot of receivers for Phase 2 of the Chinese SNAS program, and includes upgrades to mini-WAAS receivers previously delivered under Phase 1 in 2000. This latest sale has a value of $1.3 million US to NovAtel.
The first eleven Phase 1 Chinese SNAS reference sites have been installed in and around Beijing, and these latest receivers will be used to expand that existing ground network. These WAAS receivers are functionally identical to those used in the US FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) WAAS and Japanese MSAS (MTSAT Satellite-based Augmentation System). The Multipath Estimating Delay Lock Loop (MEDLL®) function, which minimizes multipath effects in the broadcast reference corrections, remains disabled in the majority of the fielded Phase 1 mini-WAAS receivers, but will be progressively activated as Phase 2 of the Chinese SNAS project continues to move forward. Further WAAS receiver sales are also anticipated as the ground network expands to cover all of China.
Visit:
http://www.novatel.com
Wanni: The land that time almost forgot
Mallavi, Sri Lanka: For Sri Lanka's surveyor general, the main access to this rebel-held region is along highest-rated "A" grade roads, but in a war-torn land where the clock stopped decades ago maps have no meaning.
Getting to this administrative centre of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 310 km north of the capital Colombo, is an A-class endurance that could equal any international cross-country motor rally.
The atlas of the surveyor general makes a mockery of topography where main roads are reduced to dirt tracks with patches of asphalt used decades ago still visible from time to time.
An 80 km stretch of road by minivan could take over six hours. No modern car has been seen here for ages. Only a few high-ground clearance jeeps of international aid agencies brave the tough terrain.
The vast Wanni region, of which Mallavi is a key facility of the LTTE, is like a land locked in a time capsule.
"It is beautiful scenery with the lush greenery, but the people are living in the middle ages," commented a western journalist, underscoring the problems in this area where 42 local and foreign reporters spent two days.
Like in most Sri Lankan villages the civilians here have no access to electricity and running water, but the conditions in Wanni are far worse. Prices are double or triple of what they are elsewhere. However, a fresh optimism has gripped the region following renewed efforts by Norway to bring the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government to the negotiating table and end the three decades of fighting.
Sinnathurai Kumaran, 50, who arrived here four months ago to visit his wife's family, hopes this impoverished region may see an end to the bloodshed with the latest peace moves. "We hope the talks will be positive this time," Kumaran said, echoing the wishes of most people in Sri Lanka.
There was similar euphoria here in 1994 when a previous government initiated a process of dialogue with the rebels, but it failed to usher peace and instead saw the fighting escalate. Kumaran believes it would be different this time. "There is a new government in Colombo," he said. "There is international pressure (on the peace process). The international pressure after September 11 has made a difference."
However, the Tigers deny they are under pressure because of the global coalition against terrorism following the September 11 terror attacks in the United States and argue that their push for talks began much earlier.
Source:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
Sentinel USA, Inc. is a provider of automated mapping, facilities management and geographic information system services for the utility and GIS industry launched Precision LandBASE, a GPS coordinate controlled vector GIS data product with matching aerial imagery sets. The vector portion of the product includes all major topographic layers and features such as primary and secondary roads, hydrology, railways, boundaries, etc. The vector layers are referenced and digitized to the coordinate using global positioning system (GPS) control point data to ensure the integrity of the landbase set. The aerial portion of the product includes 1-meter resolution digital ortho photo quadrangles (DOQQ's) geo-referenced to submeter accurate GPS control points. Standard DOQQ coordinate accuracy provided by the USGS conforms to the National Map Accuracy Standard, however it can yield a plus or minus 12-meter coordinate accuracy. The standard DOQQ's produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are either grayscale or color-infrared (CIR) images with a 1-meter ground resolution that cover an area measuring 3.75 minutes longitude by 3.75-minutes latitude, or approximately 5 miles on each side. The geo-referencing technicians at Sentinel USA convert and update the geo-position of the DOQQ's by using existing or new GPS coordinate control points. The imagery is imported into a GIS controlled environment and repositioned to match the sub-meter control points, re-sampled and exported into new geo-referenced TIFF image formats with corresponding NAD 83 State Plane Coordinate world files.