South Africa - Pictometry® was officially launched in Africa at the Map Africa conference in Cape Town on the 25 and 26 August by AOC Geomatics’ General Manager, Ms Peta Hyam. "AOC, as part of the AAMHatch (Australia) Group, is pleased to announce the launch of Pictometry in Africa. Data capture across metro areas cities has commenced and planning is underway for the other cities and towns. AOC and AAMHatch are pleased to be the exclusive Pictometry supplier for Southern Africa, and will work with Pictometry and the various government authorities to ensure that the full benefit of this exciting technology is available throughout the region."

Pictometry is a unique information system that combines aerial imaging with an intuitive user interface and range of valuable measurement and navigation tools.

The user interface and tools have the ability to provide Intelligent Imagery unlike any other system available. A digital warehouse of oblique and nadir (vertical) images is the foundation of this product. Pictometry provides a new perspective in mapping by showing the built environment from a more intuitive angle. Oblique is the technical term used to describe an aerial photograph that is taken at an angle. This means that a feature, such as a house, building, street light or fire hydrant can be seen in its entirety, rather than the conventional top down (orthogonal) perspective of aerial photography. The result is a new revolutionary way to use aerial imaging.

Pictometry has broken new ground on providing metric oblique images that are accurately georeferenced down to the pixel level.

Pictometry’s digital aerial photos allow viewers to see detailed information of building and land attributes such as doors, windows, number of floors, building composition, roads, trees, and many features, yet they cannot be used to identify people or read license plates. Pictometry’s georeferenced imagery can be loaded into common GIS platforms such as ESRI’s ArcGIS so that it seamlessly overlays and interacts with existing spatial datasets.

For further information on Pictometry, visit our website: www.aoc.co.za/pictometry

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Toronto , Canada – Optech Incorporated, a provider of advanced lidar survey instruments, announced today that all future deliveries of its CMS (Cavity Monitoring System) will include new enhanced features in all models.

The CMS is an ideal scanning solution for dangerous and inaccessible cavities, offering improved safety in standard mining operations. By extending the CMS head into hazardous or inaccessible areas, the user stands clear in a safe location. The user also achieves improved mine safety and efficiency by taking the CMS -acquired data to gain accurate insight of your mine's actual structure and the results of blasting. In addition verified actual cavity size, orientation and production improves profitability. The system is easy to transport and set up, and is fully programmable, allowing the user to define scan parameters including elevation step, azimuth step and scan limits.

The new CMS enhanced features include faster scan speeds—reducing current scan time by up to 50%, fully wired or wireless connectivity, a new Windows Controller for use with laptop/ultra mobile PC and operator service menus for improved diagnostics.

“Our goal with the enhanced features of the CMS was to build on the already popular Wireless CMS product by adding functionality that increases speed and robustness without sacrificing the qualities that users have come to rely on over the years,” says Dave Adams, Product Manager, Optech Incorporated.

For further information, please contact: inquiries@optech.ca or visit : www.optech.ca

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Newton, MA (USA) - September 17, 2008 - Caliper Corporation, a worldwide leader in GIS, transportation and mapping software , is pleased to announce the Table Chooser for the 2006 American Community Survey (ACS).

The Caliper Table Chooser is recommended as an excellent product for heavy users of census data. It automates the most tedious tasks associated with using census files in a GIS, including extraction, table formatting, and joining table data to maps for subsequent GIS operations.*

The Table Chooser for ACS 2006 includes a selection of the 1323 Detailed Tables that are available from the 2006 version of the ACS. The selected tables are representative of the Caliper Transportation Profile for use by transportation planners. The 2006 version of the ACS is the first to enumerate the entire population because it now includes people living in group quarters.

Data are available for State, County, County Subdivision (MCD), Place, Alaska Native Regional Corporation (ANRC), Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) Principal City, New England City and Town Area (NECTA) Principal City, Congressional District (109th), 5% Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA), School District (Elementary), School District (Secondary), and School District (Unified).

Only areas with 65,000 or more population are tabulated by the ACS. All states, Congressional Districts, and PUMAs are above that threshold.

For more information please visit Caliper Corporation: www.caliper.com

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The ASPRS Foundation has been chosen to take over administration of the newly created John O. Behrens Institute for Land Information (ILI) Memorial Scholarship. The award was established by the Institute for Land Information as a tribute to the many contributions of Mr. Behrens to the field of geographic and land related information and technology. John O. Behrens was a founder of the ILI and the author of many articles about the value of spatial information, land assessment and taxation, and land information policy. In recognition of Mr. Behrens' outstanding contributions over his distinguished career, funds remaining in the ILI treasury when it was dissolved earlier this year have been donated to the ASPRS Foundation for this scholarship.

The purpose of the Award is to encourage students/persons who have an exceptional interest in pursuing scientific research or education in geospatial science or technology or land information systems/records to enter a professional field where they can use the knowledge of this discipline to excel in their profession. Initially, this annual scholarship will consist of a certificate and a check in the amount of $1,000 and a one-year student membership (new or renewal) in the Society.

The short-term goal will be to increase the annual award amount to a minimum of $2,000. Future award increases, or the addition of multiple annual awards, will be considered in accordance with the policies of the ASPRS Foundation, with the intent to maintain a fully endowed level at all times.

The Scholarship is made to an under-graduate student currently enrolled or intending to enroll in a college or university in the United States for the purpose of pursuing a program of study that prepares them to enter a profession in which education in geospatial science or land information disciplines will advance the value of those disciplines within that profession.

The deadline for application is October 10, 2008. Applications about this scholarship and all others awarded by ASPRS can be found at http://www.asprs.org/membership/scholar.html.

Founded in 1979, The ASPRS Foundation, Inc. is an independent 501 (c) 3 organization established to provide grants, scholarships, loans and other forms of aid to individuals or organizations pursuing knowledge of imaging and geospatial information science and technology, and their applications across the scientific, governmental, and commercial sectors. The Foundation is the primary funding source for all non-sponsored awards and scholarships recognized by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.

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Toronto , Canada – Optech Incorporated, a manufacturer of advanced lidar survey instruments, announced today that it will unveil a new ALTM sensor at INTERGEO 2008 in Bremen , Germany . The result of direct input from lidar survey professionals, this highly innovative system represents a new era in lidar design and technology.

See this remarkable new sensor at the Optech stand #5.121 on September 30, at 2 P.M.

For further information, please visit: www.optech.ca

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Redlands, California—September 23, 2008— Bayerische Staatsforsten (BaySF), the largest timber supplier in Germany, with a staff of more than 3,000, vastly improved its image management practices using ESRI's Image extension to ArcGIS Server. The company recently completed 16 months of operational use with zero downtime. Even while BaySF created, edited, and published new services, its 1,400 Web users and 20 concurrent local area network clients experienced no service interruptions. Formerly named ArcGIS Image Server, ArcGIS Server Image extension is now fully integrated with ArcGIS Server 9.3.

Over the years, BaySF has collected terabytes of aerial imagery, satellite imagery, topographic maps, scanned maps, elevation models, and lidar data to document its landholdings and forest inventory. From these datasets, a number of image services were created and optimized for different forest and land management applications. The ArcGIS Server Image extension directly reads a wide range of formats and serves mosaicked imagery on the fly. This eliminates the need for duplicate data and saves BaySF the expense of costly storage upgrades.

For its mobile staff, BaySF created a customized application that facilitates disconnected viewing. This allows foresters and technicians to take compressed extracts of the imagery and store it on mobile devices for use in the field without having to connect to a network.

The ArcGIS Server Image extension also easily handles multitemporal data. This significantly widens BaySF's perspective and greatly improves the company's ability to make timely decisions based on more accurate and up-to-date information. Over the corporate intranet, foresters and field technicians access imagery and raster data relevant to surveying and planning. This archived data gives land managers a topographic perspective of historic forests and stand structures for managing entire ecosystems. The integrated features of ArcGIS Server also allow the fast creation of customized access and resource maps by nontechnical personnel.

This software leverages the power of today's multicore CPUs, allowing multiple images to be derived on the fly from a single set of raw images. This has considerably streamlined workflows at BaySF by virtualizing the imagery into a few services, enabling direct access to customized imagery products.

"The Image extension to ArcGIS Server saves BaySF money because it is a powerful and reliable system for managing imagery data," says Bernhard Müller, GIS manager of BaySF. "It plays a pivotal role in giving us rapid access to terabytes of orthophotos, digital terrain models, topographic maps, and lidar data without the expense of increasing our database management resources."

"ESRI has a long history of creating image management solutions," says Peter Eredics, ESRI's forestry manager. "This technology enables dynamic server-side processing, on-the-fly mosaicking, and flexible dissemination of raster datasets, solving the traditional image management challenges that organizations face. Its speed, reliability, and storage efficiency deliver measurable benefits for ESRI's forestry customers around the world."

For more information about the ArcGIS Server Image extension, visit www.esri.com/image , or for information about Bayerische Staatsforsten, visit www.baysf.de .

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BOSTON, MA, USA; September, 2008 - Caliper Corporation is now shipping the latest version of Maptitude for Redistricting, the leading software for congressional, state legislative, and local government redistricting. Maptitude for Redistricting has defined the redistricting software market since its introduction in 1997. Designed with the help of redistricting professionals from many of the state legislatures, Maptitude for Redistricting is reliable, feature-rich, and easy to learn.

Maptitude for Redistricting was used by a majority of state legislatures during the 2000 redistricting cycle. Caliper Corporation has continued to improve Maptitude for Redistricting each year, and this new version represents a major leap into the next redistricting cycle with new features, the latest Census geography and data, one-button conversion of existing redistricting plans to the latest TIGER geography, new and enhanced reports, an updated manual and context-sensitive help, a state-of-the-art mapping software interface, open access to industry-standard file formats, interoperability with Google Maps and Google Earth, network options, web solutions, and more. Whether you are an existing client or new to Maptitude for Redistricting, you will greatly benefit from this new version of the software as you prepare for 2010.

Maptitude for Redistricting is a special edition of Caliper Corporation's Maptitude Geographic Information System software. Maptitude is a full-featured GIS that has set new standards for performance and value. It provides a complete set of desktop mapping and spatial analysis functions, as well as nationwide geographic data sets including streets with address information, plus ZIP Codes, states, counties, census tracts, and other census boundaries with over 600 demographic variables.

Maptitude for Redistricting 5.0 is available for Microsoft Windows 2000, XP and Vista, and is compatible with a wide range of other GIS and database software.

For more information, go to www.caliper.com/redistricting

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Redlands, California— September 23, 2008 — ESRI announced today that NAVTEQ, a leading provider of premium-quality digital map data, has signed an enterprise license agreement (ELA) for ESRI's ArcGIS suite of software products. This worldwide agreement allows NAVTEQ to utilize ArcGIS technology across the enterprise to build products beyond the core map database.

“We are pleased that ESRI and NAVTEQ are expanding their relationship with the execution of this long-term ELA,” says Amreesh Modi, chief technology officer, NAVTEQ. “The integration of ArcGIS technology and NAVTEQ GIS [geographic information system] tools helps us meet the data requirements of developers and solution providers across a wide variety of applications. ”

The agreement ensures NAVTEQ has access to the most current suite of ArcGIS products worldwide for data development. Additionally, NAVTEQ has developed and implemented tools that allow interaction between the company's proprietary editing tools and ArcGIS.

“NAVTEQ brings more than 20 years of experience to its long-standing alliance with ESRI,” says Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI. “The signing of this agreement illustrates the close, collaborative relationship we have with NAVTEQ, which is instrumental to both companies' continued success in meeting our customers' needs and providing the best possible solutions.”

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Longmont, Colo., September 25, 2008 – DigitalGlobe, a leading global content provider of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery and geospatial information products, today announced that it has extended its service agreement with Google to provide high-resolution satellite imagery for Google Maps and Google Earth.  The new multi-year, non-exclusive content agreement continues DigitalGlobe's relationship as one of Google's leading providers of global high-resolution satellite imagery, with ongoing commitments for imagery on Google's current and future imagery platforms. 

The signing of this agreement marks the continuation of Google and DigitalGlobe's relationship to pioneer wider accessibility of global imagery started back in 2002.  

“Our relationship with Google has provided DigitalGlobe with the ideal showcase for advanced earth imagery,” said Marc Tremblay, Senior Vice President and General Manager of DigitalGlobe's Commercial Business.  “As businesses and consumers become more location aware in their day-to-day activities we are seeing increasing demand for imagery to become embedded in many online mapping and mobile applications.  DigitalGlobe is uniquely positioned to satisfy this increasing demand from its own sub-meter satellite constellation, with QuickBird and WorldView-1 fully on orbit (with WorldView-2 launching next year), together with our unsurpassed ImageLibrary, containing over 460 million sq km 2 of accurate, highly detailed imagery.”

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

For more informations: http://www.digitalglobe.com

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