In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

With the population, urban sprawl, and irrigation demands grow in the world, the sustainable and efficient management of water has become a necessity and a concern in recent days. Therefore, properly managed water resources are essential to poverty reduction, socio-economic development, and maintenance of ecosystems.

Moalajah is a joint venture between Veolia Water and Besix. Serving as their subsidiary, Moalajah FZC LLC focuses on operation and maintenance of waste water services, facilitating customer billing and consolidation, and minimizing environmental impacts to protect water resources. Hence, recycled water can be used to replenish sensitive ecosystems or commercial uses such as irrigation and golf course maintenance.

Moalajah is also proficient in developing strategies to meet the needs of biological and chemical treatment, helping achieve savings in energy and chemical consumptions. Its carbon and water footprint initiatives have allowed clients to

satisfy stakeholders’ expectations and greatly reduce environmental resource impacts.

In the project, SuperGIS Server, the web-based GIS software, is used to assist higher management in obtaining reliable analysis, search results, and interactive visual information of the entire properties and assets located in the Ajman Emirate to make better decisions. The web application is developed with existing OGC-based geodatabase connected with Oracle based database and SuperGIS Server.

Moreover, various pop-up menus are created on the searching criteria, helping the management analyze the assets and properties in the Ajman Emirates, import data from CSV into the application, and then export reports to PDF and EXCEL formats. The application also performs advance searching tools based on multiple values and measurement tools to perform precise measures.

Due to the development of the e-map application system, the GIS layers can be easily overlaid on high resolution satellite imagery to provide Moalajah with in-depth analysis for improving its water and wastewater services in the Middle East.

For more information about the application story, please visit http://www.supergeotek.com/Library_2_201303.aspx

For more product information about SuperGIS software, please visit http://www.supergeotek.com/products_all_product_list.aspx

#  #  #

About Supergeo

Supergeo Technologies Inc. is a leading global provider of GIS software and solutions. Since the establishment, Supergeo has been dedicated to providing state-of-the-art geospatial technologies and comprehensive services for customers around the world. It is our vision to help users utilize geospatial technologies to create a better world.

Supergeo software and applications have been spread over the world to be the backbone of the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. Supergeo is the professional GIS vendor, providing GIS-related users with complete GIS solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms.

Here's the recent Directions Magazine articles I found interesting and that I wanted to share:

• Here's an excellent Q&A named Digging into the Open Source Geospatial Software and OpenGeo Suite 3.0, we're getting less and less good reasons not to consider open source geospatial solutions
• You have to deal with Oracle? Read this, Nokia, Oracle Create Tighter Integration between Nokia Location Platform (NLP) and Oracle Fusion Middleware
• Interesting if your into forest fires; Detection and Monitoring of Wildfires by a Constellation of Small Satellites with Infrared Sensor Systems
• An article on CityGML and The Netherlands’ Open 3D Modelling Standard: Building the Open 3D Information Infrastructure
• For US readers (and others), here's A Brief History of Red and Blue on U.S. Elections Maps

Direction Mag offers an update on Oracle and spatial.

From the article: "I met with Steiner later in the day and challenged him to share with me three ideas he wanted our readers to know about Oracle in 2012. Here’s his list:

• Spatial is in everything we do. It’s in the context, that is, in the very fabric of the Oracle technology.
• Oracle solutions scale. Oracle is literally working at a different scale from other IT and database companies. The support of some of the largest geodata sets, LiDAR point clouds, is testament to that.
• The technology and data are accessible and consumable. Oracle ensures this by supporting standards, working with partners and having a commitment to simplification.  Spatial technology should be presented to both developers and end users as “less of a professional GIS person’s thing” and more of a “just like other technology” kind of thing. This idea relates back nicely to “spatial is in everything,” above.
• Oracle is innovating. The company innovates not only in its databases and proprietary software but in hardware and open source as well."

We mentioned Oracle Spatial tons of times before.

Unless you're new here, you've heard of PostGIS several times. It's really hard to find documentation about spatial database benchmarks since, if I'm not mistaken, proprietary software licenses often prohibit publicly sharing such benchmarks (am I right?). And I guess there's at least one good reason for this: doing fair benchmarking is difficult to accomplish. But here's one (currently available) benchmarking report comparing PostGIS (PostgreSQL) and Oracle Spatial.

From the conclusions of the 46-pages report: "From the experimental results that we saw, we can conclude that Postgres performs better than Oracle 11g both in the Cold Phase and Warm Phase. Though in few queries Oracle 11g performed better but on the whole Postgres overpowered Oracle 11g. In the warm phase in 3 out of 4 queries Postgres performed significantly well, from this we can conclude that Postgres has better automatic memory management capabilities and page replacement policies. [...] Since Postgres uses the underlying GEOS (Geometry Engine - Open Source) library functions for implementing the geometric operations whereas Oracle 11g implements them on its own, and since in majority Postgres performs well, we can conclude that GEOS geometric algorithms are more efficiently designed than Oracle 11g. And also Postgres planner is more efficiently designed to take advantage of any available indexes to use in queries for achieving better performance whereas in Oracle 11g we saw that we have to specify them explicitly through functions."

Here's what Paul Ramsey of the PostGIS fame has to say about it: "Methodologically there are two obvious issues: one is that the Oracle database was on Windows while the PostGIS database was on Linux; the other is that neither database got any tuning, they were both installed and run with default parameters. However, this is one of the nicer comparisons I have read: concise, focussed and with enough technical detail to evaluate what's going on."

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode. Some of those news seem important enough to deserve their own entries, but I dare share them in a single one. Yes, that's another unusually long post. Normal posting frequency should resume next February!

From the open source / open data front:

• SS shares an entry named MIT Releases Smartphone Data Tracking Tools as Open Source Software, it's called Funf
• There's now an OpenStreetMap Inspector, a quality evaluation service to help improve OSM data
• Here's a short entry on using OpenStreetMap data, tidbit: the entire database is 250GB
• Here's an entry on generating contours using GDAL (via shell or QGIS)
• Paul explains Indexed Nearest Neighbour Search in PostGIS
• Here's the FOSS4G 2011 WMS Performance Shootout 2011 slides, and I haven't shared this yet, James Fee's Guide to what was important at FOSS4G 2011

From the Esri front:

• Mandown reports that Esri updated their deprecation plans for ArcGIS 10 and 10.1
• SS indicates Esri Releases a Map Story on Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions

From the Google front:

• Finally, single-language labels made their way to Google Maps, that's making it much less confusing
• Here's in simple words why Google offers Google Maps / Earth
• Ogle Earth shares an entry on using Google Earth to hunt illegal mining in Goa, India

From the Microsoft front:

• Bing Maps added detailed airport maps, 42 U.S. airports so far 

In the miscellaneous category:

• SS reports that TomTom Launched a Geospatial Platform with Oracle: "The service will offer geocoding, vehicle routing and mapping information, all hosted on Oracle’s 11g database."
• V1 writes about INTERGEO, the German geospatial conference that attracted 17,000 attendees, making it one of the largest geoconferences in the world (the largest?)
• James Fee linked to the U.S. and Canadian top 10 largest cities GIS web maps
• We mentioned it before, but here's another article on the completion of the ERS satellite missions after 20 years
• O'Reilly shares an entry named Why indoor navigation is so hard and another entry on the state and future of local news
• If you have interest in the GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification), here's data model diagrams
• MapQuest launched a Mobile Flash Maps API
• VerySpatial mentioned the National Geographic Challenge game for the PS3, XBox360 and Wii
• On a more serious topic, VS shares an entry on The Geography of the Death Penalty

Slashdot discussed a few geospatial-related stories:

• Don't you wish you were a student again, Put On Your 3D Glasses — Class Is About To Start
• Not the first time we hear such news (from any OS phone), HTC Android Backdoor Leaks Private User Data, including GPS locations
• US Military Seeks Non-Cooperative Biometric Tracking Technology
• A story named California Governor Vetoes Ban On Warrantless Phone Searches, including GPS logs
• An on the same theme, a Senator Goes After 'Brazen' OnStar Privacy Shift
• With a search, you'll find plenty of similar stories, German Researchers Crack Mifare RFID Encryption, in other words, RFID can be of great use, but can't be considered secure 
• There's also a story about using stereo-vision mapping to visualize the oldest submerged city

In the maps category:

• TMR shares a few map books for Fall 2011
• Here's the first global map of ocean salinity
• Here's the Japanese tsunami mapped in detail for the first time

In the coming days, I'll be at Géomatique 2011, the major geospatial event in the province of Québec. Slashgeo is a media partner of the event.

Here's the geonews in batch mode, covering the last two weeks, and thus, longer than usual. But first, a quick note to let you know that we updated our open budget after the last donation from WebMapSolutions.com.

From the open source front:

• Quantum GIS is being ported to Android tablets
• Here's SpatiaLite for Android smarphones
• The Java Topology Suite (JTS) is being ported to JavaScript as JSTS
• Paul Ramsey shared his PgCon notes #1 and notes #2, from a PostGIS developer perspective
• We mentioned a few times the 'PostGIS in Action' book, here's a new review from Geoweb Guru this time. Here's the book on Amazon: 
  PostGIS in Action
• We also previously mentioned OpenLayers 2.10, a Beginner's Guide, here's a new review from James Fee, here's the book on Amazon:
  OpenLayers 2.10 Beginner's Guide
• MapGuide Maestro 3.1 has been released, along with its SDK
• Here's about Turning GeoServer into an ImageServer
• EasySDI V2 is now available

From the Google front:

• Today Google announced Google Wallet, enhancing mobile payments with smartphones
• Google Maps 5.5 for Android has been released
• The new Google Correlate tool supports geographic data as input

From the Esri front:

• SS offers a sneak peek at ArcGIS 10.1 improvements
• Via APB, ESRI offers a Live Severe Weather Map
• SS also has an entry named Jack Dangermond Addresses the Origins and Future of GIS
• The latest Arc2Earth allows you to legally use Google Earth imagery in ArcMap
• ArcGIS API for JavaScript 2.3 is now available

In the miscellaneous category:

• APB shares an Oracle Spatial User Conference 2011 Wrap Up and two related entries named Oracle Spatial Clients Have ‘‘Big Data’’ Issues and Oracle Exadata Database Machine the Focus of Oracle Spatial User Conference
• V1 reports on the CNN and Nokia Partner to Map More News and informs us the Ovi Maps brand has died in favor of the Nokia Services name
• MapTogether mentions the Stats America data portal
• James Fee recap GIS on the BlackBerry Playbook tablet from WebMapsSolutions
• APB offers three updates on LightSquared GPS jamming
• MapQuest integrated gas prices in their main maps
• The GEB has an entry on Pix4D, turning 2D aerial photos in 3D
• Here's the track of a tornado seen by the ASTER satellite and from GeoEye

Recent geo-related stories discussed over Slashdot:

• Wikipedia Edits Around the World and Places With the Most Wikipedia Articles
• "Space Archeology" Uncovers Lost Pyramids
• 3D Aerial Photos For the Common Man
• From Austria, the World's Smallest 3D Printer
• Hack Targets NASA's Earth Observation System
• How Companies Are Using Data From Foursquare

In the maps category:

• Ok, not exactly a map, but this world countries OCDE Better Life Index is still pretty and interesting, and you can specify what matters to you and see the matching countries (via IiB)

Oracle Spatial and mapping products to support Mapfluence, Leading Hosted Mapping Platform

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- May 19, 2011 -- Urban Mapping, a leading provider of web services and on-demand data for interactive mapping applications, announced today an agreement that enables Oracle’s products to include direct access to Urban Mapping’s Mapfluence platform.

The ability to access Mapfluence, Urban Mapping’s hosted mapping platform with on-demand data, will be integrated into Oracle Fusion Middleware’s MapViewer feature. Oracle customers will be able to easily leverage Urban Mapping's expansive catalog of on-demand data across many industry segments. For more information, Oracle customers may visit www.urbanmapping.com/oracle.

"Oracle customers have an insatiable appetite for high-value content within their applications,” said James Steiner, Oracle Vice President for Product Management. “Our relationship with Urban Mapping allows the Mapfluence platform to overlay thematic data, creating instant location intelligence, a critical component in our content strategy."

The Mapfluence on-demand data catalog is industry’s most comprehensive, offering over 10,000 data variables across dozens of categories including demographics, firmographics, crime, educational performance, transportation infrastructure, environment and more. Urban Mapping maintains relationships with premium data providers and offers access to all Mapfluence on-demand data under one license, available in a software-as-a-service model.

Oracle Database 11g delivers the next generation of enterprise information management, helping customers tackle the demands of rapid data growth, changing environments, and the need to deliver higher quality of services while reducing and controlling IT costs. The location features in Oracle Database 11g and Oracle Spatial 11g enable Oracle to manage all data from traditional business information to XML and 3D spatial information and make it the ideal choice to power transaction processing, data warehousing and content management applications.

“As enterprise markets have shifted to become more nimble, Oracle Spatial customers have increasing need to analyze proprietary data with commercial-grade demographics, business analytics, transportation infrastructure, environmental and other data,” said Ian White, Urban Mapping CEO. “Because Mapfluence offers lightweight web services, Oracle Spatial customers can leverage their IT investment with rapid deployment."

Urban Mapping is a Gold level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork.

About Urban Mapping
Urban Mapping, Inc (UMI) is a leading provider of geospatial data and technology services to simplify the development and deployment of online mapping and data visualization applications. With Mapfluence, UMI’s flagship product, organizations can access an on-demand catalog of 10,000+ high-value variables to query, visualize and analyze data using maps, tables and charts. Since 2006, leading interactive publishers like Microsoft, MapQuest and Yahoo! as well as leading enterprises like CoStar Group, Tableau Software and CoreLogic have been utilizing Urban Mapping's geospatial data and technology. For more information, please visit us at www.urbanmapping.com.

Trademarks
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Media Contact: Josie Mulberry 415-946-8170