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Technology: 3DGIS Cityvu 0.9.6.3 Released

posted by lxnyce on Thursday July 02, @11:47AM

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Eduard Roccatello writes "3DGIS has released a new minor version of Cityvu, a multiplatform CityGML viewer.
Cityvu is a 3D GIS data viewer able to load CityGML data format from any compatible data source.
It runs on mainstream operative systems as Microsoft Windows XP and Vista, Apple Mac OS X and GNU Linux.
Cityvu offers comprehensive support to the Internet without need of installation, as it only requires Java Runtime.

This release comes after the UDMS symposium with new features:

* Stereo view
* Wireframe outline (useful for DTMs)
* User selectable face culling
* Improved scene tree
* CityGML attributes support (not yet complete but we are working on it :-) )
* Item highlighting and focus
* Screenshot support
* Lot of bugfixes

URL: http://cityvu.3dgis.it/"

Technology: GeoMaker - Geo Locations As Microformats

posted by lxnyce on Thursday July 02, @10:44AM

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from the what-a-confusing-title dept.

Found on Ajaxian, go there to check out the screencast and a lot of other info : GeoMaker allows non-developers to enter some text or a URL, filter the results (using YUI datatable) to remove false positives (no system is perfect) and get the embed code for a Yahoo Map or a list of microformatted locations as copy+paste. See the screencast to get the end user experience

Application Domains: GPS-Based System For Driving Tax Being Field Tested in the U.S.

posted by Satri on Wednesday July 01, @12:13PM

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from the your-location,-my-taxes dept.

Slashdot discusses a story named GPS-Based System For Driving Tax Being Field Tested. Their summary: "Apparently, since gas consumption is going down and fuel efficient cars are becoming more popular, the government is looking into a new form of taxation to create revenue for transportation projects. This new system is a 'by-the-mile tax,' requiring GPS in cars so it can track the mileage. Once a month, the data gets uploaded to a billing center and you are conveniently charged for how much you drove. 'A federal commission, after a two-year study, concluded earlier this year that the road tax was the "best path forward" to keep revenues flowing to highway and transportation projects, and could be an important new tool to help manage traffic and relieve congestion. ... The commission pegged 2020 as the year for the federal fuel tax, currently 18.5 cents a gallon, to be phased out and replaced by a road tax. One estimate of a road tax that would cover the current federal and state fuel taxes is 1 to 2 cents per mile for cars and light trucks.'"

Application Domains: Browser Geolocation - FireFox 3.5

posted by lxnyce on Wednesday July 01, @05:08AM

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from the big-brother-is-watching dept.

As a couple of blogs are reporting (Henri Bergius, Mapperz, GeoWeb Guru) there is a new major release of FireFox (version 3.5). The GIS related part of this release is the new support for browser geolocation. To quote Henri Bergius blog : "With both Firefox 3.5 and iPhone OS 3.0 out, a significant number of browsers suddenly have geolocation support. It will be interesting to see how quickly web services start to follow up, providing more meaningful content through the location context. "

Industry: ArcGIS Online Open For Public Beta Access

posted by lxnyce on Wednesday July 01, @04:59AM

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from the give-me-your-data dept.

From the GeoWeb Guru blog referencing ESRI's announcement : "Have you ever wanted to share some of your great maps with the rest of the world? Or maybe just easily share some of your work with a colleague? Well, the new ArcGIS Online sharing application, now open for public beta access, can be used as a system for sharing, finding and using GIS content across the Web. With ArcGIS Online, you can upload maps, register online map services, create and save Web maps as items for others to share, and discover and use maps published by ESRI and other ESRI users. You can organize and control access to the maps you share by making them public or private, and you can create and join groups."

5th gvSIG Conference: We keep growing

posted by Satri on Tuesday June 30, @01:16PM

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from the growing-software-with-tentacles dept.

News Office. gvSIG Project writes "The 5th Edition of the gvSIG Conference, organized by the Regional Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (CIT), will be held from December 2nd until December 4th at the Feria Valencia Convention and Exhibition Center, and will once again host the eclipseDay.

In these difficult times when collaboration is most important, we cope with the adversities together with the aim of coming out strengthened by them. We continue moving ahead together. This is part of the gvSIG project and through this approach we keep on growing. This is our slogan for the fifth edition of the gvSIG Conference: We keep growing.

The call for papers for the Fifth Edition of the gvSIG conference is now open. As of today communication proposals can be sent to the email address: contacto-jornadas-gvsig@gva.es; they will be evaluated by the scientific committee as to their inclusion in the conference program.
There are two types of communication: paper or poster. Information regarding to regulations on communication presentations can be found in the report's section. Abstracts will be accepted until September 21st .

Organizations interested in collaborating in the event can find information in the section: How to collaborate?"
gvSIG has been mentioned several times in the past, see selected stories below.

Technology: METI and NASA Release ASTER Global DEM Version 1

posted by Satri on Monday June 29, @02:09PM

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from the whole-world-in-3D-at-high-rez-now dept.

This is potentially major news for many geospatial experts. The METI and NASA released today version 1 of the ASTER Global DEM (GDEM). From the 2-pages announcement: "Consequently, the ASTER GDEM is available at no charge to users worldwide via electronic download from the Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center (ERSDAC) of Japan and from NASA’s Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC). [...] The ASTER GDEM covers land surfaces between 83°N and 83°S and is composed of 22,600 1°-by-1° tiles. Tiles that contain at least 0.01% land area are included. The ASTER GDEM is in GeoTIF format with geographic lat/long coordinates and a 1 arc-second (30 m) grid of elevation postings. The GDEM is referenced to the WGS84/EGM96 geoid. The GDEM’s pre-production accuracy estimates were 20 meters at 95% confidence for vertical data, and 30 meters at 95% confidence for horizontal data." The spatial extent covered and the spatial resolution are both higher than the also freely available CGIAR-CSI SRTM-DEM Version 4 which is still very pertinent since the ASTER GDEM announcement say "METI and NASA acknowledge that ASTER GDEM Version-1 should serve as an “experimental” or “research grade” product".

Technology: Hackable In-Car GPS Unit?

posted by Satri on Monday June 29, @10:45AM

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from the hack-your-way-in-life dept.

Slashdot runs a discussion named Hackable In-Car GPS Unit? Their summary: "I'm in the market for a new, in-car GPS/sat nav. I am preferably looking for one that has live, up-to-date traffic information and route planning that doesn't make you want to cry. I'm not quite dumb enough to drive off a cliff, but something that doesn't even try and lead me to watery doom is preferable. The only thing I absolutely must have is the ability to hack it. It would be preferable if it ran GNU/Linux, but given a convincing argument, I would be swayed to another OS. Without wanting the Moon on a stick, what is the best device that would offer a decent modding community and a good feature set?"

Technology: Geo-Spatial Solutions in Challenging Economic Time

posted by Satri on Monday June 29, @09:57AM

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from the solutions-seen-from-our-hills dept.

Matt Sheehan writes "At the recent excellent Where 2.0 conference, I noted a number of repeated themes; the challenges of the current economic downturn, the development of rich internet mapping applications (RIA's), new tool releases and mobile. I thought it might be useful to write an article on low cost solutions to building rich mapping applications across multiple platforms. I have posted the article on my blog" The summary: "There are many low cost solutions available for building geo-spatial applications. This article walked through the GIS stack, discussing some of these options. Increasingly, as budgets tighten, companies are turning to these open source development tools. Often they are surprised by what they find." See also related stories below.

Technology: Real-Time Pollution Maps in Cambridge

posted by lxnyce on Monday June 29, @09:34AM

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from the that's-dirty dept.

From The Map Room blog : "Cambridge Mobile Urban Sensing equips volunteer pedestrians and cyclists with pollution sensors linked via Bluetooth to mobile phones; the result is a real-time map of Cambridge’s air quality — or at least the air quality along the routes the volunteers travelled. The Guardian has more on the project and its implications — I don’t think we’ve ever had pollution maps so fine in resolution, or with data so immediate. Thanks to Richard Akerman for the link."

Application Domains: United Maps Premiers Hyperlocal German Map

posted by Satri on Friday June 26, @10:52AM

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from the map-and-real-life dept.

This submission is of commercial nature but can be interesting for the very high spatial resolution invoved. Stefan Knecht writes "a little bit of shameless self-promotion announcing United Maps that deploy algorithms to automatically match and merge line vector sets with a precision of 95% correct matches. The goal is to produce hyperlocal vector maps on large scales up to 1:2'000 and sell them in B2B markets. Technically, geometries and attributes of primary datasets from Navteq or Tele Atlas are completed and enriched with original content from secondary data sources and professional cartographic editors. Density of streets, pathes and trails is enhanced for up to 300% in rural and up to 50% in metropolitan areas and vector map products remain fully navigable. A comprehensive dataset covering Germany on a nationwide and hyperlocal scale of 1:2'000 is ready now. Besides missing streets and squares, public buildings, building footprints from cadasteral sources and exact point addresses are included. Public mass transport is integrated and thousands of touristic, cultural POIs have been added. See a full feature set here. Tell us what you think — feedback warmly welcome."

Industry: ArcGIS 9.3.1 Desktop Download Layer Package Patch

posted by lxnyce on Thursday June 25, @10:47AM

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from the patch-those-holes dept.

The mapperz blog has a pretty good summarization of this patch. From their article : " This patch addresses issues with downloading secure content from ArcGIS Online when using ArcGIS Desktop. Content that is not shared with everyone cannot be downloaded. This patch allows all content from ArcGIS Online to be downloaded. We recommend that all Desktop users download and install this Patch at their earliest convenience to ensure the highest quality experience when working with ArcGIS 9.3.1."

Technology: AGI Announces Insight3D

posted by lxnyce on Tuesday June 23, @02:47PM

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Deron Ohlarik writes "AGI announces Insight3D — a .NET control that lets developers add 3D visualization to their aerospace and GIS applications. Based on AGI's time-tested, astrodynamically accurate STK 3D engine, Insight3D supports terrain, imagery, 3D models, satellite orbits, aircraft routes and more. Objects can be animated and also interacted with through picking and flexible camera control. Insight3D is free for development and non-commercial use. Visit Insight3D.com and our blog for more information."

Industry: Google’s Computer Vision Aids Augmented Reality

posted by lxnyce on Tuesday June 23, @02:29PM

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from the big-brother-is-watching dept.

From the spatial sustain blog (go there for the full story) : "Google has announced on their Blog that they’ve made inroads in computer vision, enabling computers to quickly identify images of 50,000 landmarks with 80% accuracy. Google mentions in the post that the effort is aimed at unlocking information from pixels now that they have such a strong handle on unlocking information in text. The ability to catalog and recognize images of the real world plays into the idea of augmented reality and also has implications for building digital city models."

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Technology: 3DGIS Cityvu 0.9.6.3 Released

Technology: GeoMaker - Geo Locations As Microformats

Application Domains: GPS-Based System For Driving Tax Being Field Tested in the U.S.

Application Domains: Browser Geolocation - FireFox 3.5