TomTom announced an updated agreement with BlackBerry to provide real-time traffic information for the maps app on BlackBerry 10.
TomTom Traffic provides customers with more precise traffic information, enabling faster journeys, more accurate arrival times, and a smarter navigation experience.
According to the announcement, BlackBerry 10 customers also have the option to anonymously help enhance the coverage and quality of TomTom’s world-class traffic information by sharing traffic data.
“Having accurate and up-to-date traffic information integrated in BlackBerry Maps is an important feature for customers, and TomTom is a recognized leader that provides traffic data to many companies in the market,” said Adrian Gould, VP of Handheld Software Product Management at BlackBerry. “We are pleased to expand our relationship with TomTom in support of BlackBerry 10 customers.”
“By integrating TomTom Traffic, BlackBerry’s smartphone customers will have access to the most accurate traffic information available,” said Charles Cautley, Managing Director of TomTom Automotive & Licensing. “We are proud to be supporting BlackBerry to deliver enhanced location-based services to its subscribers across the globe.”
The U.S. Geological Survey announced that advances in the technology of online map-based data collection platforms have made it possible for citizens of the U.S. to contribute to USGS topographic mapping efforts like never before.
The USGS is currently seeking volunteers to aid in collecting data for The National Map (TNM), which comprises a variety of products and services that provide the Nation with geospatial information to describe the landscape of the United States and its territories. The National Map Corps (TNMCorps) aims to improve this topographic information by updating existing and gathering previously uncollected data via volunteered geographic information (VGI).
Blue dots represent locations where citizen-mapping efforts are currently underway. Green states are currently available for editing with remaining states available around September
The National Map includes hydrographic features such as streams and lakes, elevation contours, geographic names, land cover, and structures. To improve and update The National Map, the USGS is turning to volunteers to map the location of important community buildings – such as police stations, schools, hospitals, post offices, prisons, cemeteries, and fire stations. Adding and verifying the locations of buildings to existing TNM datasets makes significant additions to the USGS’s ability to provide accurate information to the public.
After citizen input is peer-reviewed by fellow volunteers, the valid data are incorporated into The National Map databases. These databases are used to create many products, including US Topo maps – free and downloadable digital topographic maps that are released every three years.
Currently, the USGS is in the process of expanding TNMCorps; 35 new states have been added to the volunteer database and need mapping support from volunteers. These states are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Web Editor showing downtown Little Rock, AR. Red icons are structures that need to be checked or verified by volunteers. The green icon is an example of a structure that has been verified by a volunteer and which will be added to the National Map after it has gone through peer-review.
Similar to the way Wikipedia or OpenSteetMap allows users to add and edit information on the site, The National Map Corps web editing interface allows users to easily contribute geographic data that will eventually become part of The National Map.
A complete list of the types of buildings the USGS is looking to volunteers to verify throughout the country can be found here.
“Because of a lack of publicly available national authoritative datasets for some municipal buildings and infrastructure throughout the country, we are looking for volunteers who can fill in this information quickly and keep it up to date,” said Volunteer Geographic Information Project Leader Elizabeth McCartney.
In addition to adding previously unmapped community buildings and landmarks to The National Map database, volunteers are encouraged to remove structures that no longer exist, update existing buildings that have changed, and label correctly marked structures as correct.
The current platform used by TNMCorps is a customized version of OpenStreetMap, an online platform that enables users to edit, add, and access geographic data.
“The editor, like OpenStreet Map which has over a billion users worldwide, is meant to be accessible to non-professionals. Users don’t need to be professional scientists in order to contribute. Anyone who wants to volunteer can give it a go. There are a lot of people out there who love maps and are interested in improving information in their communities,” said McCartney.
Volunteer participants are not required to live within the state they review — the mapping technology used for TNMCorps allows anyone to update geographic data from anywhere.
Testing the feasibility of collecting VGI for the The National Map began in a series of pilot projects in January 2011. To test the viability of using volunteers to edit TNM map data, students at Colorado universities were asked to map structures in four topographic quadrangles around the Denver area. The results were impressive, as the structures mapped surpassed the quality standard maintained by the USGS. The success of the pilot projects confirmed that VGI is a viable source of data.
Since its start in Colorado, the program has expanded to 35 states. The National Map Corps hopes to have all 50 states available for mapping by September 2013.
Volunteer Recognition
The USGS has created a social media presence to support this program and reach new volunteers. Using Twitter , with more than 2,080 followers, and the USGS Facebook page, volunteers who contribute to The National Map Corps are awarded badges are recognized based on the number of points edited.
Each badge is represented by a different antique surveying instrument.
Volunteers can earn each successive badge by contributing structures through the editing or peer review process.
OpenGeo announced their plans to support QGIS and the open source community behind it. According to the announcement, QGIS is the most widely available open source GIS tool with a proven track record and an extensive plug-in ecosystem. It is widely regarded to have achieved feature parity with proprietary tools while being more stable, easier to use.
OpenGeo’s flagship product, the OpenGeo Suite, is a complete set of standards-based geospatial software that offers the fastest and easiest way to publish geospatial information on the web. The addition of QGIS incorporates a strong desktop tool into OpenGeo’s solid server offerings. Users of the OpenGeo Suite will now have a complete solution for creating, analyzing, publishing and consuming geospatial data and services without requiring any proprietary software.
Juan Marin, OpenGeo’s CTO, outlined the following areas of development:
Improve integration between QGIS and the OpenGeo Suite
Provide services such as maintenance, technical support, training, etc for QGIS
Enhance existing documentation, tutorials, and examples to make QGIS even easier to learn and use.
Help users collaborate around geospatial data with GeoGit, a scalable distributed versioning system for geospatial information.
Marin noted, “QGIS offers a truly open alternative that lowers barriers to entry and total cost of ownership. It’s also operating system agnostic and has no license fees. We feel it fits perfectly with our mission of extending the availability of geospatial open source software. But we’re not only impressed with the software, we respect the community that has built it and we look forward to supporting them however we can.”
CMTINC.COM announces the release of the Deed Calls Pro software application for the Apple iPad. This app expands on the popular Deed Calls – Area – Perimeter app from the same company. It will let the user easily create a land parcel by entering distances and angles, by importing data in Shapefile or DXF format, or by precise digitization over a background map. It will also create a deed plot from the angle and distance values stored in a text file. For an existing Line or Area Feature on the job map, the app can create a set of deed calls that can be saved into a text file or printed to a PDF file.
According to the announcement, Deed Calls Pro can display the acreage and perimeter of an area as well as label the line segments and corner angles with distance and angle values, respectively. It will let the users easily subdivide a land plot, or combine adjacent land plots into a larger area. Below are a few other highlights of this app:
* Ability to rotate the deed plot to align with the background map.
* Ability to select a coordinate system other than the Lat-Lon-Altitude system.
* Ability to adjust the deed plot using the Compass Rule or the Transit Rule.
* Ability to have multiple Features created on the map.
* Ability to tag the Features with descriptions.
* Ability to attach photos to a Feature to showcase a property.
* Ability to export data in DXF format and send out data files via email.
* Ability to make use of iCloud Storage.
The Deed Calls Pro app is now available at the iTunes App Store.
Supergeotek announced that the SuperGIS Toolkit in the newest version of SuperGIS Desktop 3.1a now supports Biodiversity Analysis functions to assist users in comprehending the relationship between distribution of species and spatial pattern.
According to the announcement, biodiversity Analyst in the newest update of SuperGIS Desktop 3.1a provides Diversity Analysis and Landscape Indices and is capable of assisting users in exploring features of spatial patterns of species distributions, including richness, diversity and evenness. Users who have the licensed SuperGIS Biodiversity analyst are allowed to employ Biodiversity Analysis in SuperGIS Toolkit.
The Sierra Club announced that the California Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision that geographic information systems (GIS) data must be provided to the public for a nominal fee under the Public Records Act. The decision has broad application, confirming that information not exempt from disclosure under the Act must be provided to the public for a nominal charge, regardless of whether it is kept in paper form or as electronic data. The Court also affirmed the public’s civil right under the California Constitution of access to government information, holding that it can be used as a tiebreaker in case such as this, where the public right of access is disputed.
According to the announcement, the case started in 2007, when the Sierra Club requested from Orange County a copy of its GIS parcel database, containing the location and layout of each legal parcel of land in the county. At that time, Orange County licensed copies of the parcel database to private companies and public agencies for $375,000. The county also required licensees to sign non-disclosure agreements preventing further distribution. The county supported its GIS operation in part with licensing revenues from the sale of parcel data and argued that this revenue stream would dry up if the county was required to provide copies of the data to the public for a nominal fee under the Public Records Act.
The Sierra Club sued in 2009. Orange County argued that the parcel database is “computer software,” as that term is used in the Public Records Act, because it is part of a “computer mapping system.” Under the Act, software is not a public record, and software includes “computer mapping systems.” The Orange County Superior Court agreed with Orange County, denying the Sierra Club’s request to compel the county to provide the parcel database under the Act. The Sierra Club appealed and lost on appeal in the Fourth District Court of Appeal, in Santa Ana, Orange County, California.
In September, 2011, the California Supreme Court agreed to review the case. Amici curiae filed briefs on behalf of the Sierra Club, including the Media and Open Government coalition, representing newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register, a coalition of companies that provide value-added services based on electronic public records, the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group of academic researchers at UCLA, Jack Cohen, and a coalition of GIS professionals.
Attorney Sabrina Venskus, the Sierra Club’s lead counsel, argued the case in the California Supreme Court in early May. Today, the Court ruled that the lower courts got it wrong. The Court’s seven justices decided unanimously in favor of the Sierra Club, ordering that the County be compelled to provide the Sierra Club with a copy of its parcel database for the cost of producing the physical copy. Orange County will now join the other 49 out of 58 California counties that provide their parcel data to the public for a nominal charge.
The Sierra Club reported that the Angeles Chapter’s GIS Committee will use the data to make maps for its conservation campaigns. GIS Parcel data previously obtained from Los Angeles County under the Public Records Act was used to map land parcels in the Verdugo Mountains in the cities of Los Angeles, Glendale and Burbank, color-coding each parcel as to whether it was publicly or privately owned. This allowed a task force including the Sierra Club and agencies from the three cities to prioritize the acquisition of open space in the Verdugos. The club continually produces GIS maps in support of its conservation campaigns, and will put the Orange County data to good use in fighting for the environment.
The Supreme Court decision focused on GIS parcel data, but its holding applies to all types of computer mapping data. GIS data is becoming increasingly important as state and local agencies continue to incorporate it into their operations. Some agencies have requirements that all street addresses in their databases be geocoded, i.e. converted into latitude and longitude, i.e. GIS data. Applications go beyond purely environmental issues. For example, public health agencies use computer mapping technology to track the spread of infectious diseases. Following today’s decision, all this information will be available to the public, who can use it for their own purposes, at a nominal charge.
Attorney Sabrina Venskus stated: “This is great day for California’s citizens: the public will now have appropriate access to important government mapping data – government records which are only used and useful in electronic format – and taxpayers won’t be required to pay for data they already effectively paid for with their tax dollars when the County compiled and organized those records in the first instance.”
Though the information at issue in the case was GIS data, the decision affirms a previous Supreme Court holding that electronic databases are subject to the Public Records Act disclosure requirements when they contain data that’s not exempt under the Act. This is important because agencies increasingly keep their records in databases. “The move from paper to electronic recordkeeping shouldn’t affect the public’s right to the information,” says Dean Wallraff, another lawyer representing the Sierra Club in the case.
Ms. Venskus added: “It is extraordinarily gratifying that the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of my client after having litigated this case for almost five years and suffering through two losses in the lower courts. Yet Mr. Wallraff and I felt so strongly about the public having access to this important information, and that Orange County was in violation of the law, we forged ahead despite the fact we took this case on contingency and ran the risk of working thousands of hours with no compensation. Everyone’s hard work, including amici curiae’s has been vindicated on this day.”
SAP AG today announced it has joined forces with Esri to more deeply integrate Esri’s geographic information system (GIS) solutions with platforms and enterprise applications from SAP. The move is expected to improve business efficiency and decision-making for SAP customers. The announcement was made at the 2013 Esri International User Conference, being held July 8-12 in San Diego.
enrich SAP Business Suite applications with geographic content.
rapidly process spatial, location and enterprise data using SAP HANA in real time.
visualize geographic information in maps, graphs and charts using tools from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio.
deliver applications to field workers that effectively process geospatial and business data using SAP Mobile Platform.
“SAP plans to provide real-time high-performance processing of spatial data with SAP HANA, a single platform for transactions, analytics and big data,” said Steve Lucas, executive vice president and general manager, Analytics, Database and Platform, SAP. “By integrating with the Esri ArcGIS platform across SAP HANA, SAP BusinessObjects BI platform and SAP Mobile Platform, and by enriching SAP Business Suite applications with spatial content, we want to enable customers to combine the added dimension of location information with enterprise data, in real time. This will give businesses a new level of immediacy in their decision-making capabilities and will increase their competitive advantage.”
SAP plans to expand the SAP HANA platform with the introduction of spatial data processing capabilities that combine location data with enterprise data to enrich and enhance real-time business applications. Furthermore, Esri and SAP intend to optimize connectivity between Esri ArcGIS and SAP HANA via Query Layers, which will allow Esri ArcGIS users to push spatial processing into SAP HANA, unleashing high-performing and real-time capabilities.
SAP plans to enable customers and independent software vendors (ISVs) to consume, process and analyze spatial, transactional and text data within one unified platform for predictive, location-based solutions based on big data. In addition, the company intends to offer SAP HANA customers a native application development platform, including geo-content and location services, to quickly develop and deploy spatially-based solutions. SAP HANA is an open platform allowing BI tools, as well as customer, partner and SAP applications, to leverage the breadth and depth of real-time, spatial processing capabilities.
The SAP BusinessObjects BI suite and SAP applications share a common HTML5 visualization platform and software development kit (SDK). The SDK is planned to enable organizations to extend their visualizations with 50 pre-built chart types, geographic maps and advanced visualizations. SAP is enhancing the SDK to include the Esri API for Javascript. SAP aims to help customers leverage existing Esri ArcGIS server and licensed online Esri maps inside BI tools from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio. SAP Lumira™ software is planned to be the first SAP product to offer the embedded Esri API.
SAP plans to add new integration using the SDK for SAP Mobile Platform to extend companies’ geospatial data from ESRI ArcGIS systems to mobile field employees. Similar to desktop systems, SAP Mobile Platform is planned to enable application users to manipulate interactive maps and to obtain extremely detailed information on the geographic region in question. By tying into SAP Business Suite, mobile apps like SAP Work Manager and SAP CRM Service Manager are intended to effectively combine business process information like work orders, parts inventory levels and historical asset information with geospatial data to give mobile users an extremely rich, multi-system work environment. For instance, SAP plans to enable mobile users to efficiently find jobs and assets nearby, filter for equipment by location and view work orders from a map. Such use cases can serve to completely eliminate paper data entry and the hunt for the right information.
“Esri ArcGIS is the leading platform for organizations implementing a location analytics strategy through the geo-enablement of their enterprise business systems,” said Chris Cappelli, director, Sales, Esri. “By working with SAP to integrate ArcGIS across SAP HANA, analytic solutions and SAP Mobile Platform, intends that customers can easily leverage Esri within their SAP landscape.”
LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, announced the launch of GeoExpress9 at this week’s Esri International User Conference in San Diego, California, where the company is also a Platinum Imagery Sponsor and exhibitor in booth number 1704.
GeoExpress enables geospatial professionals to compress and manipulate satellite and aerial imagery and the latest version features a significant performance improvement from previous versions, LizardTech said. The latest version is four times faster than before with support for spanning multiple jobs across multiple cores. This increase in speed enables users to complete projects faster than ever before within the application.
This release also introduces Intelligent Encoding, with the software automatically reconfiguring itself for optimal performance. GeoExpress 9 automatically chooses to Encode, Optimize or Update based on the encoding operations that the user chooses, which results in high performance with minimal training, LizardTech said.
In addition, Jon Skiffington, LizardTech’s director of product management, will introduce GeoExpress 9 to the Esri attendees by giving a Demo Theater presentation titled “LizardTech – What’s New with MrSID and GeoExpress” on Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. at the Imagery Island Exhibit in Exhibit Hall C.
“This is going to be an exciting week for LizardTech,” said Skiffington. “We’re launching the latest version of our flagship product, GeoExpress with its new features, faster performance and updated user interface. We look forward to showing our customers the new features and receiving feedback from our users and partners.”
LizardTech will also host product demonstrations in its booth to showcase the new features of GeoExpress 9. These presentations will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., with a final presentation held on Thursday at 10 a.m. Product demonstrations of Express Server software for high-performance delivery and publication and LiDAR Compressor software, which turns giant point cloud datasets into efficient MrSID files will also be available.
HERE, a Nokia business, announced that it is bringing its real-time traffic information to Esri, a market leader in Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping software used by enterprise and government fleet management companies around the world. With HERE Traffic, Esri will enhance its web and cloud location platform with more precise location data for intelligent routing. Fleet operators will be able to better manage problems as they occur in real time, re-routing fleets when traffic unexpectedly hits, and providing alerts when pickup or delivery delays occur.
With congestion in the top 100 highway bottlenecks getting worse, real time traffic information helps fleets avoid traffic hotspots so that they get can get to their destinations faster and more safely.
“For 10 years, Esri and HERE have had the shared goal of enhancing safety and increasing the efficiency of fleet operations by offering the most accurate transportation information on more roads than any other provider across the world,” said Chris Cappelli, Director of Sales at Esri. “Launching real-time traffic from HERE on Esri’s platform for our ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS for Transportation Analytics software products will offer a deeper level of logistic and analytic capabilities for enterprise and government fleet companies.”
According to the announcement, real-time traffic is one of the services that HERE delivers based on the data it gathers from a wealth of sources including, the world’s largest compilation of both commercial and consumer probe data, the world’s largest fixed proprietary sensor network, event-based data collected from government and commercial sources, and billions of historical traffic records.
“Dependable real-time traffic information is crucial to improving fleet operations strategy today and for the long-term,” said Roy Kolstad, Vice President for Mobile, Web and Enterprise in North America at HERE. “Our traffic offering will complement HERE map content, which Esri has been using for a decade. Through this combination of traffic and map content, Esri will be able to offer a richer location-based analytics offering that will help businesses make more informed decisions.”
HERE reports that the freshness of that data enables HERE Traffic to provide a more accurate picture of traffic conditions. HERE currently processes 20 billion real-time GPS probe points a month, with almost half of all the data less than 1 minute old and more than three-quarters less than 5 minutes old.
“Traffic data is the single most important telematics application,” said Roger C. Lanctot, Associate Director in the Global Automotive Practice for Strategy Analytics. “Whether for fleets or consumers, traffic data is essential to determining the fastest or most efficient route and HERE’s expanding relationships on the enterprise side are significant. Traffic information is core to maximizing uptime and essential for alternative fuel vehicles such as EVs.”
Geospatial Solutions Editor Eric Gakstatter, who is also a contributing editor to GPS World magazine, will be attending the 2013 Esri Survey Summit and Esri International User Conference, providing continuous new and analysis for the duration of both conferences. The conferences are being held this week in San Diego, California.
On Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. in Room 24A of the San Diego Convention Center, Gakstatter will deliver a presentation entitled “High-Precision GPS/GNSS on your Smartphone, Handheld and Tablet,” discussing trends and new product innovations for sub-meter and centimeter mapping on smartphone, handheld and tablet devices, including Windows Mobile, Android and iOS (Apple) devices.
Steve Copley, GPS World and Geospatial Solutions associate publisher and account executive, shared images of the event on his Twitter account. Here are a few of them:
Geneq Inc. announced it will be introducing two major product lines on Wednesday, June 10th at the 2013 Esri International User Conference in San Diego, CA.
According to the announcement, Geneq invites interested parties to attend the announcement at a lunch event on Wednesday, July 10th, 12:00p-12:50p, in Room 30C at the San Diego Convention Center. Lunch boxes and drinks will be provided and priority will be given to those who RSVP via email to Marcel Belanger [email protected].
The SXPad product line will be expanded with products that will set a new price/performance standard for sub-meter and centimeter accurate GNSS handheld devices.
The SXBlue product line will be expanded to include an interface to the Apple Ipad, for both sub-meter and centimeter accuracy.
Geneq reports that both announcements promise to introduce ground-breaking products that will set new standards for GNSS mapping and surveying receivers.
Laser Technology, Inc. (LTI) announced it will be unveiling two new TruPulse models July 9, 2013, at the Esri User Conference in San Diego, CA.
Currently in pre-production, LTI reports the new lasers will expand LTI’s TruPulse laser series that are already being used by tens of thousands of professionals worldwide. Listening to key market feedback, LTI has responded by addressing the need for both a lower cost professional measurement laser rangefinder and one that produces a higher level of accuracy.
Be among the first to see the newest additions to the TruPulse laser rangefinder family by visiting LTI’s Esri UC booth number 2517. Another new product to be showcased will be an LTI exclusive FotoMapr L100 GPS unit that integrates with the TruPulse and stores remote offset data. This is low-cost alternative to other GPS handheld devices.
LTI will also be demonstrating other mobile mapping solutions that delivers efficiency to field work, such as LaserGIS for ArcPad, ArcGIS for Mobile, a new LaserSoft Measure app for the iPhone and MapSmart that is packaged with a new lower-cost BAP data collector.
Esri UC attendees can learn how to map with smartphones, tablets and lasers by attending a lunch and learn session Wednesday, July 10 from 12:00– 1:00 p.m., in Room 28C. LTI will be co-hosting the session with GeoSpatial Experts, the leader in photo mapping software.
The presentation will walk through the entire process of capturing geo-tagged photos, remotely positioning your target and measuring additional height data using GeoJot+ and a TruPulse laser.
The field data can then be synced to the cloud and GeoJot+ Core can process everything in the office to create ArcGIS and Google Earth compatible files.
Professionals in forestry, natural resource management, public works, utilities, mining, telecommunication or any other discipline that collects and reports GIS data, will walk away from the Esri UC with knowledge about the most advanced laser measurement and mapping tools available.
