Well, as I said yesterday, I had a morning flight today which was going to prevent me from taking in most of the sessions today. I did however manage to take in Jonathan Mark’s presentation titled: VanMap and the Olympics. Jonathan is the GIS Manager for the City of Vancouver and his presentation today focused on the web mapping application that was developed specifically for the Olympics. Jonathan discussed how Host City VanMap site was limited in scope and did not go outside of the Vancouver city boundary, and provided a limited set of purpose built maps. The City of Vancouver has an extensive investment in the Autodesk MapGuide 6.x platform, but this was the cities first major application built on the new Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise framework. Initially there were concerns regarding the cities lack of experience with the new framework, and also concerns about performance. This concern about site performance turned out to be a non-issue as the site performed very well. Jonathan provided some statistics on peak traffic, and noted that they found it interesting that the site visits peaked in the week leading up to the Olympics, and actually decreased during the Olympics. Jonathan also briefly discussed the the City of Vancouver’s Open Data initiative, and gave some insight into the Terms of Service of using the cities data. All-in-all a very good presentation.
Other notes from the Conference:
Stantec consulting was showing off some new 3D Scanning technology that they have added to their service offerings, and Kevin Grover was nice to enough to provide me with some sample scanned data of the interior of the conference center. I wanted some different samples, and file formats to see how the data works with the Point Cloud functionality of core AutoCAD, and AutoCAD Map.
That’s all for now as I make my way to the airport to head to Winnipeg.
Until next time,
Take Care
Warren M
Jeff Danielson, Editor of GeoPlace, kicked things off by taking care of a few house cleaning items, and then presenting the Geospatial Leadership Awards for 2010. Kathleen Hastings, Managing Editor and Conference Program Manager took to the stage to introduce Markham Mayor, Frank Scarpitti. The Mayor welcomed the attendees and discussed how Markham has been a leader in using and implementing geospatial technologies.
Josh Knauer followed with the Keynote Address titled: Embracing the Future of Geospatial Data Collection & Sharing. Josh is CEO of Rhiza Labs who:
Are dedicated to putting people at the center of complex technology. We don’t think that powerful tools for visualizing, analyzing, and sharing data need to sacrifice simplicity, elegance, or usability
Josh’s presentation was a very incite full and thought provoking discussion on “crowd sourcing”. Rhiza Labs are the brains behind the FluTracker website which tracks the progress of the H1N1 swine flu. Another very interesting project Josh discussed was the Surui Carbon Project. In summary, the project enabled the Surui tribe to be able to capture and map their lands for the purpose of identifying the potential for their forest to be entered into the global carbon trading market. This project fascinated me a number of levels, including the moral aspect, but it was also a great example of what is possible when the technology is made simple enough for users to use.
In the afternoon session, where I was presenting, there was 2 great presentations by the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), and the GIS team from The Weather Network. The GTAA demonstrated a Properties Information Management System (PIMS) used by the Properties group for managing property and tenant leases, and all documents related. The GTAA space data is stored in an Oracle Spatial database, and also incorporates the floor plans as background information. The ROI for the PIMS application has been huge, with process no being performed in minutes as opposed to hours. The team from The Weather Network described how they implemented a centralized GIS warehouse for managing the base information for all of the various platforms; TV, Web, Mobile. The massive amount of data, and variety of data providers, was the driving force behind this initiative, as a better, more streamlined system had to be found, and one of the main components to their solution is FME from Safe Software. FME has become one of the core applications for transforming all of the data in useable formats for The Weather Network.
The final session I attended was a panel discussion on Cloud Computing. The panel was being moderated Kevin Macdonald of Thinkwrap Solutions, and the panel consisted of: Mano Marks (Geo Developer advocate for Google), Chris Pendleton (Bing Maps technical evangelist for Microsoft), David Stanley (CTO for PCI Geomatics), and Kris Woodbeck (CTO for Incogna GIS). This was a great session with Mano and Chris describing how their respective companies view cloud computing, and what is available for technologies today. A couple of the terms and phrases that resonated with me as how to describe cloud computing were: ‘offloading processing’ and ‘scales with need’. Offloading processing refers to the ability to offload your required computing processing power to ‘someone else’, and scales with need refers to the ability for a system to scale up and down depending on the need. High on the list of the attendees questions and concerns were around the topic of data privacy. It’s obvious that there is no easy answer to this topic, but Microsoft and Google both believe that data in the cloud has the potential to be more secure than locally stored data. It was also discussed that the privacy issue might just dissipate with time.
All in all, a very good day.
Until next time,
Take care
Warren M
Travel day today as I’m heading to Toronto to attend the GeoTec 2010 Conference, one of Canada’s premier geospatial technology conferences.
This years theme is “Increasing Productivity, Potential and Profits” and the conference will attempt to address current and significant issues facing the geospatial community.
Now in its 24th year, the 2010 event continues the tradition of offering an exceptional program focusing on the latest trends in technology and applications.
GeoTec caters to a wide audience of business experts, senior academics and technology specialists. We consistently develop a program that addresses the concerns of all users of GIS, imagery and geospatial data.
I will be presenting this year during the Tuesday afternoon session on Interoperability: Data Considerations. My presentation will focus on identifying challenges and solutions to improving collaboration between GIS and Engineering departments. During the presentation I will show how AutoCAD Map 3D and Autodesk MapGuide can be used to easily access, and share data residing in an ArcSDE data warehouse.
The goal of my presentation is to hopefully demonstrate some options that could be employed to break down some of the barriers that are present in many organizations between GIS and Engineering departments.
Until next time,
Take care
Warren M
Wow! Is it that time of the year already? Seems to come faster every year, but alas, that is just part of the aging process I suppose…
So, if you enjoy sharing your knowledge, and feel you have a great idea for a class, or presentation, on any Autodesk products, be sure to check out the Call for Proposal page.
For you veteran AU presenters out there be sure to check out the What’s New This Year page. It’s important to note that Autodesk is looking for NEW content, so simply submitting the same presentations you’ve done before won’t work this year. There are also many changes to the types and lengths of classes/sessions taking place this year and the honorariums will also be modified to reflect these changes.
Don’t delay! Get working on those submissions and be sure to submit them by May 14th!
Don’t wait… because you know it’s going to be May 13th before you know! 
Until next time,
Take care
Warren M
So… I had to miss the start of the Canada – Russia Men's Olympic Hockey quarter-final yesterday because I couldn’t stream the Canadian broadcast from a US based IP while sitting in the Minneapolis airport! But I’m Canadian!! it shouldn’t matter ‘where’ I am? but alas it does matter where you are which would seem to be a serious flaw in broadcast copyrights if you ask me… But I digress…
My travels were bringing me to Wisconsin, so, hello from the Wisconsin Land Information Association 23rd Annual Conference in Appleton, Wisconsin.
This year’s theme is ABC’s of GIS: ACCESS, BUILD, COMMUNICATE. We all are faced with challenges regarding information and education at our workplaces. We need to get information, work with information and disseminate information to others. We educate by presenting to a county board or oversight committee the benefits of a new technology investment, explaining to a customer how an investment in a specific software or service will benefit their organization, learning a new process to streamline our workflow or showing a public user how to navigate a GIS website. We are constantly working with these challenges.
The conference is 3 days of training and education opportunities for the attendees. Day 1 kicks-off the conference with a series of 1/2 day workshops on a variety of topics. The following 2 days consistes of dozens of classes broken up into 5 different tracks:
My role is two-fold at this conference: in addition to presenting a class Friday morning in the Surveying, Mapping and Data Development track, I am also doing booth duty in the exhibit area as technical resource to support our sales team. The traffic through the exhibit areas has been pretty steady, and we’ve met some great people, had many good conversations.
I’m busy making some final tweaks to my presentation, and looking forward to the Women’s Olympic Hockey Final tonight between Canada and the US. Should be a great Game… I apologize to my US colleagues and friends, but…. Go Canada! 
Innovate… Connect… Learn…
This is the slogan for the SPAR 2010.
What is SPAR 2010 you ask?
I had to ask the same question when I received an email from Tom Greaves, the CEO of Spar Point Research LLC, informing me of the event. Tom came across my post referring to Point Cloud technologies from Autodesk University and informed me of the upcoming event.
SPAR 2010 is the 7th annual conference on 3D Imaging and Positioning for the Engineering, Construction, Manufacturing, and Security industries. Topics include: 3D laser scanning, mobile, surveying & mapping, LIDAR, dimensional control, asset management, scan-to-BIM, CAD/GIS integration, security planning & forensics and digital heritage preservation.
As I mentioned in a previous post, 3D scanning, and point clouds in general, are showing up in a wide range of disciplines. Obviously, as the 3D scanning hardware costs fall, the availability of data and service offerings increase, and Tom indicated that there are going to be over 30 different companies will be in attendance, including the major players in the industry.
The conference schedule includes over 30 different classes separated into Tracks for various disciplines., and the agenda looks like there is some great content to take in at this conference.
Besides, what better place to be at the beginning of February than Houston, Texas? At least from my perspective, because as I sit here writing this article it is a balmy –26C (-15F) outside, with no end in sight for the cold front…
Until next time,
Stay warm!
Warren M
The latest release of MapGuide Open Source was officially released the other day.
In addition to many bug fixes, some of the highlights include:
You can find the MGOS 2.1 download here.
Design Week ‘09 has been running this week in Saskatoon.
What is Design Week you say?
Design Week is an open invitation to the public to learn about the different areas of design through a series of free lectures and other educational events such as tours, open houses and symposiums, all open to the general public.
The Design Council of Saskatchewan hosted this event, and by all accounts the week was a great success. The DCS is a collection of six organizations that represent design professionals from a wide range of disciplines, including: engineering, architecture, community planning, landscape architecture, interior design, and graphic design. The council was established to: promote public awareness and understanding of applied design, and Design Week is a major initiative of the council.
The week provided an an opportunity to take in a wide variety of speakers discussing topics ranging from: renewable energy resources, urban planning, sustainable design practices, and more.
The Design Week ‘09 wrap up was held last night with the Premier’s Awards of Excellence in Design Gala. These awards recognize applied design being done right here in Saskatchewan. The evening included a Pecha Kucha style presentation, which included some fantastic presentations, and then the presentation of the awards.
IMAGINiT was a sponsor of this event, and I was attending the gala to present the role of Autodesk geospatial products such as AutoCAD Map 3D and AutoCAD Civil 3D in verifying and documenting LEED certification points for Neighborhood Development. Those in attendance were very attentive, and the presentation was very well received. However, I cannot take the full credit for this… 
A huge thanks goes out to Mike Schlosser for providing guidance and content for this presentation. Thanks Mike!!!
Until next time,
Take care
Warren M
