Tag: technology

  • TomTom extends multi-year deal with MapQuest

    TomTom has extended its the multi-year partnership with AOL Inc. to power its core mapping services for MapQuest, a subsidiary of AOL.

    In addition to providing access to TomTom’s extensive digital map database, across all digital platforms including MapQuest.com and its iOS and Android apps, and MapQuest for Business API solutions, the new deal now includes TomTom’s leading traffic solution.

    “Every day, millions of people depend on MapQuest for maps, driving directions and location information to make their lives easier and thousands of business depend on MapQuest’s suite of geospatial solutions to meet their needs,” said Brian McMahon, senior vice president and general manager at MapQuest. “We truly value the partnership with TomTom, and we look forward to continuing to build upon and evolve our product suite with TomTom data. By expanding our agreement with TomTom, we are continuing our commitment to provide MapQuest users and business customers with the most innovative products and solutions.”

    “We are delighted to enhance our partnership with MapQuest,” commented Anders Truelsen, Managing Director of Licensing for TomTom. “Integrating TomTom’s mapping and traffic data into MapQuest products ensures millions of people can make better and more informed decisions about every journey.”

  • TomTom extends multi-year deal with MapQuest

    TomTom has extended its the multi-year partnership with AOL Inc. to power its core mapping services for MapQuest, a subsidiary of AOL.

    In addition to providing access to TomTom’s extensive digital map database, across all digital platforms including MapQuest.com and its iOS and Android apps, and MapQuest for Business API solutions, the new deal now includes TomTom’s leading traffic solution.

    “Every day, millions of people depend on MapQuest for maps, driving directions and location information to make their lives easier and thousands of business depend on MapQuest’s suite of geospatial solutions to meet their needs,” said Brian McMahon, senior vice president and general manager at MapQuest. “We truly value the partnership with TomTom, and we look forward to continuing to build upon and evolve our product suite with TomTom data. By expanding our agreement with TomTom, we are continuing our commitment to provide MapQuest users and business customers with the most innovative products and solutions.”

    “We are delighted to enhance our partnership with MapQuest,” commented Anders Truelsen, Managing Director of Licensing for TomTom. “Integrating TomTom’s mapping and traffic data into MapQuest products ensures millions of people can make better and more informed decisions about every journey.”

  • Aqua Map app released for water navigation

    aquamap-wAqua Map is an iOS and Android app for GPS marine navigation, aimed at boaters and fishermen.

    The app integrates official nautical charts for many areas in the world, including the NOAA, CHS (Canadian Hydrographic Service), British Admiralty and Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie as well as S-57 and raster cartography.

    The app provides users with a clear chart using the full power of the Retina display, intuitive realistic symbols and colors. No experience in water navigation is needed.

    Most of the functions are accessible with simple gestures on the map, and all are clearly described in the Aqua Map Tutorial and Help.

  • SimActive enables processing in the cloud

    Correlator3D photogrammetry software is officially supporting processing in the cloud. Users can subscribe to an online computing service, such as Amazon EC2, and run Correlator3D on a virtual machine, according to developer SimActive Inc.

    The main advantage is the capability to use multiple licenses as required. It permits an on-demand deployment of the software on several processing machines, without any computer hardware.

    “The new option allows our customers to continuously adjust their processing power,” said Louis Simard, CTO of SimActive. “Combined with our monthly subscription plan, clients have the cloud’s flexibility, while maintaining full control of their production workflow.”

    SimActive is offering a free trial as well as a webinar on Correlator3D in the cloud, to be held Tuesday, Dec. 6, 10 a.m. Eastern Time.

  • What3words adopted by 6 national mapping agencies

    Six national mapping agencies have adopted what3words, a location reference system that uses three-word addresses. Used to input and share locations within national online geoportals, what3words is making it simpler for businesses, governments, and citizens to find, share and remember addresses, the company said.

    Based on a global grid of 57 trillion squares, what3words gives a unique three-word address to every 3 square meters in the world. Available in 13 languages, what3words is used by consumers, delivery companies, navigation tools, governments, logistics firms, travel guides and NGOs. Its creators say it’s more precise than traditional addresses, simpler than descriptions, and easier to communicate and remember than long strings of GPS coordinates.

    Geoportals are an integral part of any national, cadastral or commercial mapping agency’s offering, providing businesses and consumers with vital geographic information, the company said. The datasets range from information about land ownership, taxing of land parcels and defining borders, to providing population statistics, changes in land use and integration of transport networks.

    Whilst geoportals offer a wealth of detail, the user experience can be complicated and confusing. Integrating what3words into geoportals systems makes it easier for individuals and businesses to share precise locations with a simple three-word address, the company said.

    “Geoportals provide users with a huge amount of data that can sometimes alienate all but the mapping expert,” said Chris Sheldrick, CEO and co-founder of what3words. “What3words is making it simpler and easier for individuals and businesses to discover and share locations, helping unleash the power of geographic data.”

    What3words has been adopted by Switzerland’s Federal Office for Topography, the French Institut Géographique National International (IGN), the Norwegian Mapping Authority (Kartverket), Finland’s Maanmittauslaitos (the National Land Survey), Geo-System Poland and Suriname’s MI-GLIS.

    As three-word addresses are fixed and unique, meaning they can always be found. The system works offline, using GPS without needing mobile data, and has built-in error detection to ensure the user always selects the location they intended.

    Since its launch in 2013, what3words has experienced tremendous success and with over twenty major awards has become one of the most lauded UK startups in recent times. In 2015, the company was awarded the prestigious Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Innovation and was named in the Nominet 100 alongside the likes of Google’s Project Loon. Earlier this year the business was awarded an exclusive D&AD Black Pencil, two prestigious Webby Awards and CEO Chris Sheldrick was named EY’s British Accelerating Entrepreneur.

  • Boundless introduces open GIS enterprise platform

    desktop-boundlessBoundless has introduced an open GIS “ecosystem” to unlock the business intelligence of location-based data.

    In response to market demand for more open and scalable GIS solutions, the company extended its proven GIS platform with Boundless Connect, a subscription service to the most comprehensive repository of GIS data, and Boundless Desktop, a full-featured, professional desktop GIS, bringing a powerful ecosystem of geospatial knowledge, tools and resources to the enterprise.

    “With the launch of Boundless Connect and Boundless Desktop, we have taken a major step forward in delivering the most complete, commercially supported open GIS platform,” said Andy Dearing, CEO of Boundless. “As the need for an alternative to costly, closed GIS systems grows, Boundless is proud to partner with the open source community to provide new tools and open solutions that foster growth of the largest repository of the world’s geospatial knowledge and resources.”

    Boundless offers an open GIS ecosystem through a combination of technology, products and experts that gives enterprises deeper intelligence and insights using location-based data. The Boundless platform is built upon open source technology and open APIs that generate actionable location intelligence across third-party apps, content services and plugins for enterprise applications.

    Eighty percent of today’s data includes a location component. Unlike proprietary, licensed solutions that are prohibitively expensive for the growing volume of geospatial data, Boundless wants to make the world of geospatial data available to any user. Boundless is open by design, immediately scalable and license-free, making it easy for developers, GIS and business analysts to access location-based data in a cloud-based GIS platform.

    Key features and benefits of the Boundless open GIS platform include:

    • The most comprehensive product line of commercially supported open GIS products including Desktop, Suite and Exchange.
    • Boundless Connect delivers an ecosystem of geospatial tools, content and services to the open source community.
    • Boundless combines 14 years of open source expertise with GIS resources including consulting, training and support.

    Boundless is operational in government and commercial environments, with customers including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Port of Seattle, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and TriMet, among others.

     

  • Going beyond GPS is the new order of the day

    The Trimble Dimensions conference.
    The Trimble Dimensions conference.

    Times have changed, and the technology landscape is much, much different today than it was as recently as ten years ago when GPS was the driving-force technology for geospatial users and geospatial equipment, and the exclusive concern of many companies in the industry. In that era, their challenges were to design the best performing receiver in terms of accuracy, size, weight, ruggedness and so on.

    Now, GPS technology has been commoditized in mobile devices (the GNSS chip in your smartphone costs about $1.50), and high-precision GNSS is heading in that direction. It’s hard to make a living designing “GPS boxes.”

    Sure, GPS is still a core technology offered in most hardware products that geospatial professionals use, but it’s not the centerpiece. It’s all about system solutions, of which software (and hardware besides GPS) is a major component.

    As just one example of this overall industry trend, let’s look at how the message of system solutions was abundantly clear last week at the Trimble Dimensions User Conference  in Las Vegas. This event reportedly drew 4,400 attendees from more than 80 countries.

    More than 4.400 attended Trimble Dimensions at the Las Vegas Venetial Hotel.
    More than 4.400 attended Trimble Dimensions at the Venetian Hotel.

    Virtual/Augmented (AR/VR) Reality

    The Trimble Dimensions general plenary discussion didn’t feature the latest GNSS technology. In fact, there was barely a mention of GNSS. Nonetheless, the cool factor was present, with the highlight being a live demonstration of virtually reality using Microsoft HoloLens goggles and Trimble SketchUp software.

    Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about augmented and virtual reality. This technology has a bright future for locating hidden assets (think underground and inside wall infrastructure) and visualizing design ideas. For this technology to work, it’s not just about having a set of goggles. One needs software and an accurate geo-database.

    During the plenary, architect Greg Lynn demonstrated the value of virtual reality technology by “displaying” a building concept on an empty table on the stage. Lynn and a colleague donned HoloLens goggles while a camera was set up with HoloLens goggles to display what they were “seeing” through the HoloLens.

    AR/VR reality are a step closer to being a practical technology to deploy in the field. In a way, AR/VR technology seems to be taking the same path as tablet computers. Tablet computers existed way before the iPad was introduced. They were expensive, and history is littered with failed tablet computer ventures, just like Google Glass failed in the AR/VR world.

    I remember paying ~$2,500 for a Fujitsu Stylistic tablet about 10 years ago for my work. Like the Stylistic, HoloLens isn’t cheap. It’s $3,000 for a development kit and $5,000 for the commercial version. It’s not priced for the average consumer, but the attraction is undeniable and due to the price tag; industrial markets will pick it up before the consumer market will.

    It might take a Steve Jobs-like push to punch it through the finish line, but it’s just a matter of time before AR/VR technology is commonplace.

    Solutions

    Hardware isn’t sticky. Software is. Even better, hardware and software bundled tightly together is the sweet spot. Dimensions showed how, more and more, geospatial technique is geared around solutions, not boxes.

    Trimble partner solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.
    Trimble partner solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.
    Trimble solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.
    Trimble solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.

    One case in point: I took a 45-minute ride from the Venetian Hotel on the Vegas Strip to the outdoor demonstration site in the desert east of Las Vegas.

    The demonstration site was a playground for heavy equipment utilizing Trimble hardware and software — from tractors to scrapers to bulldozers and paving machines. It’s difficult to imagine the scale of the outdoor demonstration site, so following are a few images.

    Demonstration site facing south with the Las Vegas Strip to the southwest.
    Demonstration site facing south with the Las Vegas Strip to the southwest.

    I caught a ride in a fully autonomous tractor that was outfitted with  guidance technology (GNSS using RTX satellite correction service), collision avoidance sensor and display console. It repeatedly stayed within the track defined by the orange cones you see in the above image.

    What good is autonomous guidance without collision avoidance? A sensor on the front of the tractor senses objects and either avoids them, slows down or stops. Trimble says they are working on perfecting the turns at the end of each line where traditionally a driver had to take control. This is a difficult task when the tractor is pulling an implement such as a planter or sprayer.

    In the not-too-distant future, tractors will be completely hands-free from start to finish.

    Wi-Fi radio.
    Wi-Fi radio.

    Back inside the Venetian Hotel, I saw this little beast. No, it’s not a funky GNSS antenna. It’s an industrial Wi-Fi radio. Yes, Trimble owns some pretty cool outdoor Wi-Fi technology vis-à-vis Fidelity Comtech, a company that Trimble acquired in 2015.

    I’ve set up outdoor Wi-Fi infrastructure before in relatively benign environments (think agriculture), but I didn’t use anything like this. This equipment is built to propagate outdoor, long-range Wi-Fi connectivity in nasty, noisy environments like shipping terminals and construction sites. It can reshape the antenna pattern on the fly in microseconds, and shape the beam width/range to cover a specific geographic area.

    GNSS Gear

    Even though I’ve been talking about how this isn’t a just a GPS or GNSS environment anymore, I can’t leave without investigating the latest GNSS gear.

    Check this out.

    Trimble Catalyst software GNSS receiver.
    Trimble Catalyst software GNSS receiver.

    In the past, I’ve written about GNSS software receivers. They exist, but require some serious computing power. Well, some smartphones have powerful CPUs, such as the Samsung Galaxy 6 and 7. Trimble has developed a software GNSS receiver called the Trimble Catalyst that uses the CPU of a Samsung smartphone as the GNSS receiver…dual frequency. The antenna on the range pole is just an antenna, albeit an L1/L2 antenna. Using an RTK network, Trimble says it can deliver centimeter accuracy. Wow.

    To be fair, it’s got some significant limitations such as it only uses GPS and Galileo, only runs on certain Android devices (it will likely never run on iOS devices), and eats up the smartphone battery. And although Trimble said it shares resources in a friendly manner, I must think that a rogue app or update might cause things to slow down. Although it won’t behave as snappy as RTK on an R10 and won’t recover as quickly from obstructions like trees, terrain and buildings, it most certainly could bring high-precision GNSS to a wide-array of previously non-RTK users.

    Thanks, and see you next month.

    Follow me on Twitter.

  • Going beyond GPS is the new order of the day

    The Trimble Dimensions conference.
    The Trimble Dimensions conference.

    Times have changed, and the technology landscape is much, much different today than it was as recently as ten years ago when GPS was the driving-force technology for geospatial users and geospatial equipment, and the exclusive concern of many companies in the industry. In that era, their challenges were to design the best performing receiver in terms of accuracy, size, weight, ruggedness and so on.

    Now, GPS technology has been commoditized in mobile devices (the GNSS chip in your smartphone costs about $1.50), and high-precision GNSS is heading in that direction. It’s hard to make a living designing “GPS boxes.”

    Sure, GPS is still a core technology offered in most hardware products that geospatial professionals use, but it’s not the centerpiece. It’s all about system solutions, of which software (and hardware besides GPS) is a major component.

    As just one example of this overall industry trend, let’s look at how the message of system solutions was abundantly clear last week at the Trimble Dimensions User Conference  in Las Vegas. This event reportedly drew 4,400 attendees from more than 80 countries.

    More than 4.400 attended Trimble Dimensions at the Las Vegas Venetial Hotel.
    More than 4.400 attended Trimble Dimensions at the Venetian Hotel.

    Virtual/Augmented (AR/VR) Reality

    The Trimble Dimensions general plenary discussion didn’t feature the latest GNSS technology. In fact, there was barely a mention of GNSS. Nonetheless, the cool factor was present, with the highlight being a live demonstration of virtually reality using Microsoft HoloLens goggles and Trimble SketchUp software.

    Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about augmented and virtual reality. This technology has a bright future for locating hidden assets (think underground and inside wall infrastructure) and visualizing design ideas. For this technology to work, it’s not just about having a set of goggles. One needs software and an accurate geo-database.

    During the plenary, architect Greg Lynn demonstrated the value of virtual reality technology by “displaying” a building concept on an empty table on the stage. Lynn and a colleague donned HoloLens goggles while a camera was set up with HoloLens goggles to display what they were “seeing” through the HoloLens.

    AR/VR reality are a step closer to being a practical technology to deploy in the field. In a way, AR/VR technology seems to be taking the same path as tablet computers. Tablet computers existed way before the iPad was introduced. They were expensive, and history is littered with failed tablet computer ventures, just like Google Glass failed in the AR/VR world.

    I remember paying ~$2,500 for a Fujitsu Stylistic tablet about 10 years ago for my work. Like the Stylistic, HoloLens isn’t cheap. It’s $3,000 for a development kit and $5,000 for the commercial version. It’s not priced for the average consumer, but the attraction is undeniable and due to the price tag; industrial markets will pick it up before the consumer market will.

    It might take a Steve Jobs-like push to punch it through the finish line, but it’s just a matter of time before AR/VR technology is commonplace.

    Solutions

    Hardware isn’t sticky. Software is. Even better, hardware and software bundled tightly together is the sweet spot. Dimensions showed how, more and more, geospatial technique is geared around solutions, not boxes.

    Trimble partner solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.
    Trimble partner solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.
    Trimble solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.
    Trimble solutions area at Trimble Dimensions 2016.

    One case in point: I took a 45-minute ride from the Venetian Hotel on the Vegas Strip to the outdoor demonstration site in the desert east of Las Vegas.

    The demonstration site was a playground for heavy equipment utilizing Trimble hardware and software — from tractors to scrapers to bulldozers and paving machines. It’s difficult to imagine the scale of the outdoor demonstration site, so following are a few images.

    Demonstration site facing south with the Las Vegas Strip to the southwest.
    Demonstration site facing south with the Las Vegas Strip to the southwest.

    I caught a ride in a fully autonomous tractor that was outfitted with  guidance technology (GNSS using RTX satellite correction service), collision avoidance sensor and display console. It repeatedly stayed within the track defined by the orange cones you see in the above image.

    What good is autonomous guidance without collision avoidance? A sensor on the front of the tractor senses objects and either avoids them, slows down or stops. Trimble says they are working on perfecting the turns at the end of each line where traditionally a driver had to take control. This is a difficult task when the tractor is pulling an implement such as a planter or sprayer.

    In the not-too-distant future, tractors will be completely hands-free from start to finish.

    Wi-Fi radio.
    Wi-Fi radio.

    Back inside the Venetian Hotel, I saw this little beast. No, it’s not a funky GNSS antenna. It’s an industrial Wi-Fi radio. Yes, Trimble owns some pretty cool outdoor Wi-Fi technology vis-à-vis Fidelity Comtech, a company that Trimble acquired in 2015.

    I’ve set up outdoor Wi-Fi infrastructure before in relatively benign environments (think agriculture), but I didn’t use anything like this. This equipment is built to propagate outdoor, long-range Wi-Fi connectivity in nasty, noisy environments like shipping terminals and construction sites. It can reshape the antenna pattern on the fly in microseconds, and shape the beam width/range to cover a specific geographic area.

    GNSS Gear

    Even though I’ve been talking about how this isn’t a just a GPS or GNSS environment anymore, I can’t leave without investigating the latest GNSS gear.

    Check this out.

    Trimble Catalyst software GNSS receiver.
    Trimble Catalyst software GNSS receiver.

    In the past, I’ve written about GNSS software receivers. They exist, but require some serious computing power. Well, some smartphones have powerful CPUs, such as the Samsung Galaxy 6 and 7. Trimble has developed a software GNSS receiver called the Trimble Catalyst that uses the CPU of a Samsung smartphone as the GNSS receiver…dual frequency. The antenna on the range pole is just an antenna, albeit an L1/L2 antenna. Using an RTK network, Trimble says it can deliver centimeter accuracy. Wow.

    To be fair, it’s got some significant limitations such as it only uses GPS and Galileo, only runs on certain Android devices (it will likely never run on iOS devices), and eats up the smartphone battery. And although Trimble said it shares resources in a friendly manner, I must think that a rogue app or update might cause things to slow down. Although it won’t behave as snappy as RTK on an R10 and won’t recover as quickly from obstructions like trees, terrain and buildings, it most certainly could bring high-precision GNSS to a wide-array of previously non-RTK users.

    Thanks, and see you next month.

    Follow me on Twitter.

  • OGC seeks public comment on Indexed 3D Scene Layers

    The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is considering start of a new work item for a Community Standard: Indexed 3D Scene Layers (I3S), and is seeking public comment on the work item proposal.

    The I3S delivery format is used to stream 3D geospatial content to mobile, web and desktop clients.

    I3S, initially designed by Esri, was publicly released in April 2015 as an open specification for streaming large, heterogeneous 3D geospatial data sets, including discrete 3D objects, large continuous meshes, 3D vector points, point clouds, and other content. I3S is designed from the ground up to be cloud, web and mobile friendly.

    The I3S conceptual model is implemented using JSON. There is also an I3S Scene Service REST API specification for accessing I3S resources as endpoints. I3S is designed to stream very large 3D datasets and is designed for performance and scalability.

    A document has been prepared that provides a justification to the OGC Technical Committee (TC) for consideration of I3S as a Community standard. This justification, along with the submitted candidate Community standard, will form the basis for TC review and vote to approve the start of the Community standard process.

    Comments should be submitted to [email protected] by December 16.

  • Open Earth observation data now more accessible

    At the 13th Group on Earth Observation (GEO) Plenary Meeting, representatives from GEO’s 103 member governments and 106 participating organizations convened to launch a new look for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Portal. The meeting was held Nov. 9-10 in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation.

    Participants also addressed how best to advance GEO initiatives linked to its sustainable development goals and, for the first time, to engage with the commercial sector through a plenary panel session.

    “Open data not only maximizes tax payers’ money in government infrastructure, it promotes economic growth, education and capacity building.” said GEO Secretariat Director Barbara Ryan. “GEO brings all sides of the conversation together so that data is broadly and openly available, free to the user and can be used to create value-added products and services to benefit society.”

    The plenary meeting was held for the first time in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region. New member governments announced at the plenary were Uruguay, United Arab Emirates and Mongolia. Among the new participating organizations approved in 2016 are the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC); the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT); the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS); the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS); and the World Health Organization (WHO).

    The plenary opened with a message from the International Space Station. In the recorded video message, the cosmonauts observed it is easy to understand the interconnected nature of the planet. Space technologies help to understand Earth’s complicated processes and problems. Humankind is facing global challenges today, and international cooperation plays a crucial role in tackling these issues. The work of GEO makes Earth observations more widely available and meaningful, for the benefit of humanity.

    https://youtu.be/C7nmvNb1z14

    “We express our pleasure at the success of the GEO-XIII Plenary due to strong cooperation between the GEO community, Roshydromet and Roscosmos,” said co-host Alexander Frolov, head of Roshydromet. “Numerous side events organized by members and participating organizations clearly demonstrate the constantly evolving influence of GEO as an intergovernmental body.”

    “Coordination of activities, and the joint harvesting and usage the data of Earth Remote Sensing (ERS) that was organized at the GEO-XIII Plenary is very relevant for all of the GEO community,” said Mikhail Khailov, deputy director general for Automatic Space Complexes of the State Corporation Roscosmos. “We are developing the technologies of ERS data processing and thematic services to benefit the people of the Earth through improved coverage, increased volume, quality and promptness of acquired ERS data.”

    Philemon Mjwara, director-general, Department of Science and Technology, Republic of South Africa, reiterated the benefits of having access to EO data as an “enabling resource that allows us to begin addressing the Water-Food-Energy nexus, and other nexus, as a stepping stone to clearly understanding how the Earth’s systems work, and ultimately realizing GEOSS.”

    “Downscaling implementation of GEOSS at national and regional levels has become extremely important to ensure broad engagement and sufficient resources to realize our ambitious vision,” said Pengde Li, deputy director general, National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation of China. “Fortunately, we see more and more members start establishing national inter-ministerial coordination and using regional initiatives as a vehicle for broad engagement.”

    The Group on Earth Observations (GEO). The intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is comprised of 103 Member governments, and 106 Participating Organizations. Established in 2005, GEO strives to improve the world’s observation systems and provide policy makers and scientists with accurate and useful data that can be used to make informed decisions on issues affecting the planet. GEO’s primary focus is to develop a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) to enhance the ability of end-users to discover and access Earth observation data and convert it to useable and useful information. GEO is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

  • Avenza Maps Pro now available to industry professionals

    Avenza Systems has announced that its mobile mapping app, Avenza Maps, will now come in a Pro version. Avenza Maps Pro is an annual subscription designed to meet the needs of professionals of businesses, government agencies and educational institutions.

    Avenza Maps Pro is the most powerful version to date of the application. It benefits from years of development and commitment to the mapping community, Avenza said.

    Features of the Pro subscription include commercial, government and other professional use rights (not available with other versions), allowing an unlimited number of maps to be imported, Shapefile import and export, data collection and management and enhanced support.

    The subscription also allows for enterprise-level management of the Avenza Maps app across mobile devices for organizations of any size using a new subscription management system.

    “We have plans to build out additional professional features to increase the value proposition of Avenza Maps to the professional community,” said Doug Smith, sales director of Avenza Systems.

    The Avenza Maps app is an all-inclusive mapping platform for iOS, Android, and Windows mobile devices. Consumers can download the app for free, get georeferenced maps from the Avenza Map Store, and use them completely offline with a variety of tools. Map publishers can register as a vendor in the Avenza Map Store and generate revenue by pricing their maps and making them available for purchase. Businesses and organizations can upgrade to a cost-effective Avenza Maps Pro subscription which allows for commercial use, includes enhanced tools and features, and enhanced support.

  • Trimble offers TX6 and improved TX8 for 3D laser scanning

    Trimble’s TX6 and improved TX8 high-performance 3D laser scanning solutions offer a fully integrated high-dynamic range (HDR) camera and Wi-Fi remote control. The high-speed 3D laser scanners provide increased productivity and versatility for users.

    The TX6 and the TX8 leverage Trimble’s patented technology, combining microsecond time-of-flight distance measurement with advanced on-board signal and 3D data processing, designed to provide the best combination of productivity, range and accuracy in all conditions.

    TX8 3D laster scannr by Trimble.
    TX8 3D laster scannr by Trimble.

    Integration with Trimble RealWorks allows geospatial professionals to produce high-quality deliverables to pair with CAD software or Trimble SketchUp and EdgeWise for advanced point cloud modeling solutions.

    The Trimble TX6 is a medium-range 3D scanning solution designed to quickly capture detail in applications such as public safety, forensics, building for as-builts, mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP), Building Information Modeling (BIM) and quality control during construction.

    The Trimble TX8 is designed best-in-class for geospatial professionals that require enhanced versatility and longer ranges to effectively support a variety of applications in urban environments, civil infrastructures and challenging terrains.

    “The new TX6 and improved TX8 3D laser scanners provide our customers with a range of options to fit their application needs without compromising data quality, accuracy or efficiency,” said Ron Bisio, vice president of Trimble’s Geospatial Division. “The power and versatility of Trimble’s scanning solutions allow construction, surveying and geospatial professionals to meet the needs of even their most demanding clients.”