On the floor at the ESRI user conference. It’s always a flurry of activity and it’s always one of my favorite things to do at the UC… browse the exhibition hall floor and see all the great new apps and gadgets, while getting the low-down straight from the ESRI partners and solution providers. Read on for details of just a few of the great things we found on the floor at the 2008 International ESRI User Conference.

The gang from Avenza had announced some new features planned for the next release of MAPublisher so I had to stop by and see for myself. Turns out the news was big… very big for MAPublisher users and pretty much anyone that’s interested in creating high-quality cartographic output and then export the output to the web via intelligent, data-rich Flash SWF files. The MAPublisher 8.0 export to Flash capabilities will enable users to export complete Adobe illustrator map documents to Flash without any additional coding or software needed… NICE! The app also enables embedding of attributes, creation of rollover effects and pop-ups, embed images, weblinks, and other custom information. Look for MAPublisher 8 in the not too distant fall season. Oh,and to give you an idea what you can accomplish with MAPublisher… Avenza customer National Geographic used the application to produce it’s award winning Atlas of China (http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/202/2981/114.html)  – see www.avenza.com

 One thing I always do at most shows is to stop and watch a large-format plotter grind away and check out the output… after all, I used to babysit a plotter for hours on end when I was in College so I find it amazing to watch how the technology progresses (I’m sure nobody misses the old pen plotters!)  I wrote a month ago about Oce and their sweet new ColorWave 600 plotter and incredible new inkless technology, well, unfortunately Oce didn’t have a unit with them (that’s how much in demand they are, even they can’t get one) but no worries, the team was touting the popular TCS300 and TCS500 plotters – these are true CAD/GIS plotting workhorses, fast, efficient, and produce amazing output. The company was even passing out $1500 discount vouchers – you can get one by visiting http://www.esri.com/esrioffers/ and be sure to tell em Glenn sent you ;0) If you happen to be from a shop that does relatively large volumes of output (say 10,000 square ft+ per month then you might want to check into the ColorWave 600, an affordable solution ($2500 mo. Lease option) that can handle 6 rolls of media, keep cranking for days solid, and generate high-quality, high-res output in a “green” environment (see article) - see also www.oce.com

 I bumped into a colleague form New Jersey on the floor and he shared details of the NSDmaps data product with me. Developed by datamapi, the data provides the latest housing developments and n ew construction along with a number of attributes including: builder info, year of development, home age, numbers, development address, and more. These data are provided as SHP files along with the newly created street segments, cul de sacs, street center lines, and address ranges. See nsdmaps.com

 Patrick, from BlueMarble Geographics, was promoting the company’s latest offering, a new, all-in-one geospatial data definition and transformation desktop. With this solution customers will find a bundled solution that includes a new raster tool ,Geographic Transformer R6, and a new version of the popular Geographic Calculator. New at R 6 you;ll find; dockable windows, saved workspace settings, improved handling of JPEG 2000, ECW, MrSID, and GeoTIFF data, new tiling, mosaic, and batch handling, as well as new admin tools. See www.bluemarblegeo.com/products/transformer.php - oh, and the crew was also handing out (to a select few) some way cool “shift happens” T-shirts.

 Seattle-based Lizartech was On hand passing out Lizards and boasting about the company’s new GeoExpress Remote Edition offering. This solution enables customers to purchase a new license option to provide for unlimited MrSID and JPEG 2000 encoding and manipulation. Users can install GeoExpress on a central server, log in and run GeoExpress remotely. Imagine, storing all your imagery in a central location, providing access to multiple, concurrent users, and run intensive tasks (like batch compression and reprojection) over the server. This release, according to the development team, provides better support for JPEG 2000. For more info see www.lizardtech.com/products/geo

Team Microsoft was thyere touting the benefits of Virtual Earth for the Enterprise user. I got a great demo of a custonmer app, The HArley Davidson Ride Planner, a cool swocial networking app of sorts where Harley riders can plan their trips, add hotspots, images, etc... share your journeys with other riders and more. The app also provides riders with a cool trip planning  app, with a map UI naturally, where users can see hotels, gas stations and more... very handy and all developed using the Virtual Earth APIs. See more at http://maps.live.com/

The Harley Davidson Ride Planner UI

 One of the really fun booths on the floor was occupied by Immersive Media – recall, these guys came on the scene with that way cool 360m degree camera made famous by google’s Street View product. The company is still out there using their cool technology to capture 360 degree immersive imagery and they were showing off some very cool imagery captured at the Grand Canyon. This is indeed a WOW technology!

 Metacarta was on hand showing the ArcMap extension for Metacarta. This add-on enables users to search for documents within their ArcMapUI. The clever app seeks out documents via the search terms provided, results are then returned within ArcMap on a map, cleverly displaying icons in every position where an document references some kind of geographic location or place name. Users can search, display results on the map, store results as a data layer within ArcMap. The application supports the following data types: ASCII files, html docs, PDF, PS, RTF, and Microsoft Office files. See www.metacarta.com for more.

 Trimble was on hand (naturally) showing off their latest rugged, field GIS mapping/GPS units. Always a crowd pleaser, the GeoXH was on display front and center to the GIS crowd as was the pocket-sized Juno.  Like most of the Trimble handhelds, these devices sport windows Mobile OS (includes MS Word Mobile) as well as Bluetooth,  Wireless LAN, and a rugged hardware design.

Additional Specs:

GeoXH - <30 cm post-processing accuracy; integrated GPS, NMEA output, 520 Mhz processor, 128 MB RAM, 1 GB data storage, and it weighs in at less than 1.76 pounds. On down-side, the unit has no compact flash slots (although there is an SD slot)  or camera (would be a nice feature).

 Juno – 2-5 m accuracy, integrated GPS, NMEA output, 300 Mhz processor, 128 MB RAM, and weighs only .3 lbs. On the downside, there’s only 128 MB data storage provided and 6 hrs battery life. Thos in need of loads of battery life should check out the Nomad series! See www.trimble.com

 Imagery hounds on the floor of the exhibition hall would have enjoyed stopping by the SPOT booth. The company was there touting Spot Globe, a service designed to bring SpotMaps into your Google Earth Enterprise application. SpotMaps provide over 15 million km squared of seamless 2.5m color image mosaics (most data is post 2005). Countrywide datasets are available and delivered pre-processed and ready for use. Data are based on the WGS84 Datum, ½ degree x ½ degree, in TIFF format. See http://ww.spot.com or http://access.spot.com

 One of those booths that were truly fun and required first-hand demo was the Adapx booth where visitors could get a glimpse of the way cool Capturx technology. Essentially, Capturx for ArcGIS enables your field workers to mark up printed maps, bring them back to the office and have the data integrated directly into ArcGIS. Here’s how it works: your GIS tech prints out a paper map of your field study area on any kind of paper you like. The print is normal in every respect except for a background pattern of tiny dots (millions of them on a grid) on the map – these are used to geo-encode your field markups. Using the special, digital pen your field crew then marks up the paper with points, lines, polygons, and notes. The digital pen digitizes and stores the handwritten notes using a sensor, image processor, and memory. The paper with dots is the key here as it provides a digital watermark that is read by the pen. Upon return to the office, the digital pen is uploaded via USB (this also recharges the batteries). The data is then able to be easily incorporated into MS OneNote or ArcGIS (via the Capturx ArcGIS extension). This demo was fast, simple, and way cool… the technology essentially selling itself. A definite “WOW” technology – simple and it works! See www.adapx.com

 If you’re into hardware and want another cool data capture technology, the Wacom Booth was worth a visit. The company was showing visitors the Wacom DTZ-2100. The solution provides an interactive pen display and markup solution via a heads-up digitizing method – simply sketch on the screen to capture the data. Using the ArcSketch extension, data can be easily incorporated into ArcGIS. Foe more details see www.esri.com/wacomoffers.

The Wacom DTZ-2100

 One solution that I was definitely impressed with was ITT (see www.ittvis.com/envi) and their ENVI solution. ENVI is a solution enabling uses of imagery to prepare, digest, explore and analyze their imagery. The solution supports more than 70 data formats (HDF, GeoTIFF, NITF…)  and provides users with the ability to ortho-rectify, register, calibrate, and correct imagery. Additionally, users can create DEMS, mosaic, and perform pan sharpening. Users will find a host of data analysis and spectral analysis tools providing added functionality to analyze and add value to your data holdings – the company provides a feature extraction and DEM extraction module to users. Interesting to note that the company and their solutions were mentioned several times on the main stage during the plenary sessions after demonstrations were shown using their solutions – if I were a betting man I’d take a guess that ESRI and ITT could announce some cozy business relationships in the future!

 One of the most colorful and innovative booth displays on the floor had to be from Lakewood, CO-based DDS. Using a cartoon super-hero themed display, Scott and crew were painted up on the display to be super heroes coming to your rescue with data and solutions. The team also had some very cool and useful translation tables and unit conversion charts printed up in a fun and educational packet. The company welcomes schools and other users to take (or ask for) bundles of these to pass out to their students. Good on em! See www.usgsquads.com

How's that for a cool booth from DDS?

 I could go on and on about the displays that were presented but you get the idea… indeed 8 hours on the floor simply isn’t enough! Make sure you check out these solution providers the next time you see them on the floor at a Geo technology event near you.

Special Mention:

The new, Blackberry bold (with GPS) was on display at the RIM Booth along with their business partners.

It's always fun to watch the Getac rugged devices get put through the hoops!

Don't consider a Mobile mapping device without checking out the MobileMapper 6 from Magellan!

Another WOW device is the Ricoh 500SE, a GPS ready digital camera optimized for GIS field work. Supports mobile mapping software via a handy ArcMap plug-in, has barcode scanning capabilities, is rangefinder-ready, sports Bluetooth and much more.

Of note, that small image at the upper left near the intro paragraph is Warren Vick and crew from Europa Technologies... always on hand the ESRI UC!