In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

USA, California, December 11, 2012 – Open Spatial announced today the official release of Enlighten Business Intelligence version 3.0. Enlighten Bi is a powerful web based GIS and decision support portal enabling seamless integration of engineering, corporate databases, imagery, mapping data, and multimedia. The ability to drill down and drill through corporate data stores from a map is a main strength of the software.

Enlighten Bi 3.0 can be deployed in the cloud or on premise and can include a managed service offering operated to measurable outcomes.

The development center of excellence for Enlighten is located in Sydney, Australia, a region globally renowned for world-class asset management practices. Enlighten is used by customers to view and manage their assets to these high standards. Enlighten Bi 3.0 provides a portal combining CAD, GIS, BIM (building information modeling) and business data from a single point of truth.

Anthony Jahshan, CEO at Open Spatial, commented “Enlighten Bi 3.0 is our most exciting release of Enlighten yet. The software takes advantage of a number of new technologies, placing it miles ahead of any competitive product in its space. A feature coveted by our competitors is printing to scale from a browser in page sizes up to Architectural E.”

Enlighten Bi 3.0 requires no browser plug-ins and zero application software on the desktop. The software provides power user capabilities such as spatial analysis and editing directly from a browser. Template driven maps and report publishing minimizes the need for costly desktop licenses. Corporate applications can embed these maps and reports into their systems through web services.

Customers interested in how they can improve the quality of information delivered to their desktop  by better utilization of existing Autodesk products should send an enquiry email to [email protected].

About Open Spatial
Open Spatial is a multi-national company delivering geospatial engineering solutions based on Oracle and Autodesk technologies. Recognized for delivering applications to government, utilities, campuses, and ports, our solutions are based on internationally accepted open standards and world-class best practices. Open Spatial offers innovative spatial asset infrastructure solutions to managing the process from survey through to design, construction and ongoing spatial data management and city modelling. Our Clients efficiently manage cadastre, roads, water, wastewater, stormwater, electric, telecoms and fiber networks.

www.openspatial.com

Open Spatial, the Open Spatial logo and all brand and product names above are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Open Spatial Australia and in other countries. All other brand names, product name or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Oracle, AutoCAD, Autodesk and Civil 3D are registered trademarks of their respective owners.

© Copyright 2012, Open Spatial Corporation. All rights reserved.

You guessed it, that's the last 'batch geonews' entry for the next two weeks. This edition is much shorter than usual. 

From the open source front:

• The open source virtual globe Marble 1.4 has been released for MS Windows
• On scalability, Troubleshooting large GeoServer deployment

From the Google front:

• Nothing less than 130 smaller U.S. cities now with traffic on Google Maps, along with additions and improvements elsewhere
• Expect cities added to the new Google 3D display mode on a regular basis, this time, fly through Seattle and Denver with new 3D imagery on Google Earth for mobile
• Google Map Maker spreading, add your knowledge to the Poland and Ukraine maps (you know me, I am going to tell you you can also add it to OpenStreetMap ;-)
• Kurt shares two short entries on MSL/Curiosity in Google Mars and Gale Crater - Mars Science Laboratory / Curiosity

In the miscellaneous category:

• A demonstration of how things can be easy nowadays, a DM article named Georeferencing on a Budget: Using iPhone and Freeware Apps to Geotag a Mountain of Image Files

Here's the recent Google-related geonews.

From official sources:

• My iPad 2 invited me to update iOS's Google Earth to version 7: "With today’s release of Google Earth for iOS you can literally fly through breathtaking 3D city landscapes and images and follow virtual tours of places you’ve never been [...] The growing list of 3D cities include Boulder, Boston, Charlotte, Lawrence (Kan.), Long Beach (Ca.), Los Angeles, Portland (Ore.), San Diego, Santa Cruz, Tampa, Tucson, and the San Francisco Bay Area (including the Peninsula and East Bay) as well as Rome, Italy. [...] Also new in this release is a “tour guide” to show you interesting places to explore." This topic is discussed at Slashdot in a story named Google Outs 3D Maps For iOS Ahead of Apple.
• Google also announced more detailed maps in parts of Europe, Africa and Asia: "And today, we’re launching updated maps of Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lesotho, Macau, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore and Vatican City to do just that."

• As part of the 40th anniversary  of the Landsat satellite program, Google now includes more Landsat imagery: "We’re working with the USGS and Carnegie Mellon University, to make parts of this enormous collection of imagery available to the public in timelapse videos of the Earth's surface. With them you can travel through time, from 1999-2011, to see the transformation of our planet."
• There's new additional panoramic imagery of historic Antarctic locations
• Google also shared an entry named Maps for good: Google Earth Outreach Developer Grants 2012

From other sources:

• The GEB shares an entry on exploring the 2012 London Olympics in Google Earth
• The same source mentions 'Google Earth Studio', a tool for the media, in an entry on Google Earth's relevance for news
• The GEB also shares an entry on exploring fake deserts of the world in Google Earth

• Slashdot ran a discussion named Ox Bow Lake Formation, As Seen By the Google Earth Time Machine
• Tens of sources mentioned that Marissa Mayer, Google's former vice president of Local, Maps & Location Services was appointed CEO of Yahoo

We don't usually make much noise when there is new imagery is provided, but in that case, Microsoft announced Monday 165TB of New Imagery Added to Bing Maps.

From the entry: "Today we’re thrilled to announce the publication of our largest satellite release to date. In fact, this release is larger than all of our past Aerial releases combined! The latest Aerial release includes new Satellite imagery as well as Global Ortho photography. Both releases total 165 terabytes of new data live on Bing Maps. Prior to this, our existing Aerial footprint was 129 terabytes total."

Follow the link to see several screenshots.

Here's the recent Google related geonews in batch mode.

From official sources:

• With 100$ kit you can get your own balloon and kite imagery for display in Google Earth, this was also discussed over Slashdot
• You can now easily snap your photos to a location in Panoramio
• There's an entry on remembering the Titanic in Google Earth
• There's a map example from the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG with Google Maps API
• The dev blog also shared a Zombie Survival Map that uses Google services!
• Maybe be useful is visualizing U.S. demographics using Google Maps API for Business and a related announcement of Analytics for Google Maps API for Business
• And there was an imagery update to Google Earth & Maps this week, tons of areas impacted

From the GEB:

• The GEB informs us on ways of using Google Earth on Earth Day
• There's New Street View imagery in Israel and Ukraine
• Also on the Titanic topic, the voyage of the Titanic in Google Earth
• And you can now fly a jetpack in Google Earth
• Still from the GEB, view the recently discovered animal-shaped mounds in Peru
• The GEB finally informs us that the unofficial Google Earth Flight Simulator gets a new home and a slew of enhancements

Here's the recent Google-related geonews.

From the official sources:

• Google announced another imagery update for Google Earth/Maps
• Google detailed their Latitude and Places apps updates for iPhone
• There are new Google Maps domains for 11 countries
• Google shared an entry on marine debris and a kml made by NOAA

From other sources:

• The GEB informs us on four new cities added to Building Maker: Rome, New Orleans, Long Beach, Malibu
• The GEB has an entry on Gigapixel panoramas, a mix of gigapixel images and 360 degrees panaromas
• The GEB shares an entry on the Global Heritage Network: "The Global Heritage Network is the product of successful partnership with Google, Esri and DigitalGlobe, with those companies having donated millions of dollars in critical support, satellite imagery and GIS-mapping technologies to enable early warning and monitoring for 500 global heritage sites."
• The GEB offers an entry on a 3D model of the traditional tomb of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan, Iran.

Here's the recent Google-related geonews. I'm pretty certain most of you learned of the major 8.9 magnitude Japan earthquake near Honshu that happened a few hours ago. We'll share news of it when related maps and geospatial news will be available. You're always welcomed to contribute.

From the official sources:

• Google announced new 3D imagery of central London’s buildings and trees in Google Earth
• Japan's Hiroshima Peace Memorial in now available in Street View and the GEB mentions other new Street View imagery in Japan
• Google is encouraging Latitude adoption with check-in offers in Austin, Texas
• Google Maps now allows you to find electric vehicle charging stations
• A few days ago, Google shared post-earthquake images of Christchurch, New Zealand
• The Photos layer from Google Maps is now available to Maps API developers

From other sources:

• The GEB mentions another way to build 3D building models using satellite imagery via a stereographic pair
• The GEB has an entry on using Google Earth to map all facilities in Haiti that need Internet access
• The GEB mentions a detailed Shaker village modeled in Google Earth, head to Wikipedia to learn who Shakers are

SpatialCloud.com is happy to announce the inclusion of SpatialCloud linkages built into the iOS mapping library, Route-Me, making it easier for iOS developers to include SpatialCloud data layers in their applications.

Route-Me is an “Open source map library for iOS” which provides an alternate slippy map interface for iOS devices in addition to the native SDK’s Map Kit (i.e. Google Maps). Route-Me is completely written in Objective-C using CoreAnimation and runs just as fast as Map Kit. It includes a number of connections to “3rd party” tiled mapping services for use by developers, including any SpatialCloud hosted content. Route-Me contributors announced this integration on January 26, 2011, via their Mailing List.

“Just as Route-Me provides an alternative to the built-in map framework on iOS, SpatialCloud global and nationwide data layers provide an alternative source of aerial imagery for developers whose use cases prevent them from using existing aerial imagery sources due to cost or licensing,” stated Route-Me contributor Jon Hjelle of Pseudorandom Software. “Having this imagery easily accessible via Route-Me will help developers get up and running quickly with a custom aerial map solution.”

To get started, you may visit SpatialCloud Support page for Route-Me. From there you will find documentation on how to implement the code in your iOS application, links to the necessary Route-Me downloads, etc.

“We are excited to be included in the Route-Me community and look forward to having our scalable, flexible licence, and pay-as-you-go data sources appear within their iOS devices in the near future,” noted Joshua McNary, SpatialCloud’s Marketing Manager. “Not only will this be a useful solution for current Route-Me users needing flexibly licensed public data, but others looking to deploy geospatial-oriented iOS apps will now have the option to hosting their own custom geodata for serving to iOS devices via SpatialCloud.com.”

For more details regarding SpatialCloud.com, SpatialCloud & Route-Me, SpatialCloud public and custom 3rd party data hosting, or future service offerings, please visit www.SpatialCloud.com.

The Brisbane Times reports that an Australian firm, Nearmap has conducted a very high resolution aerial survey of the recent floods in Brisbane and has made it available online on its website. According to its CEO, the resolution of the survey in 2cm, or about 5 times higher than the resolution normally seen on Google Maps. According to Nearmap's parent company, the company's camera system "is designed to capture PhotoMap data at a small fraction of the operating and capital costs for alternative camera systems - and captures overhead and four oblique photos while doing so."

Here's a few recent Google-related geonews:

• Today Google announced that StreetView is now available on all continents: "[...] with the addition today of Brazil, Ireland and Antarctica. You can now see images from around the world spanning from the beaches of Brazil, to the moors of Ireland, to the icy terrain in Antarctica."
• The Photo layer in Google Maps has been revamped, it's much nicer now (link includes a before-after screenshot).
• The GEB explains how historical imagery works in Google Earth 5, nothing that "the newest imagery in Google Earth can often be found in this historical imagery feature."
• The GEB also mention that there's new imagery for Washington DC.
• APB informs us that in a test, half of Google's Android apps shared location data without user consent.