You know you use desktop data..

Thanks Randy at NRGS GIS Blog for posting about this reality: In the ideal world, all data in your organization would be centrally organized, discoverable and served. But in the real world, so much data still lives on the desktop, for a variety of reasons. For Randy's customers:

"My biggest issue with server components is that all of my customers currently don’t deal with a server since they are all too small. For them life is about getting accurate data and sharing that data with customers and clients. they aren’t big enough to be able to afford a typical server solution."

Randy describes how TITAN solves this problem, noting that 'Titan is a component that ties things together - or ties data and people together."

"If I’m working on a project and someone two buildings over wants to use my data I can load it into Titan and they can see it. Say they are working in Arcmap and need to see it - I can publish it out as a WMS. I Instant message them and let them know what I’ve done and discuss the data with them."

Download and try TITAN and see why Randy knows it's so great.

OSM Mixer in ATL

OpenStreetMap (OSM) will be hosting a happy hour and social mixer on June 17th in Atlanta, at Front Page News in Midtown. There will be a brief intro to OSM, Q&A and then opening the floor to the community while we eat, drink and brainstorm ideas for a city-wide Mapping Party in late July.

OSM is the default basemap in the TITAN Viewer.


Event details are:

Link: http://community.cloudmade.com/event/custom/generic/show/209
Date: Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Location: The Front Page News – Mid-town (1104 Crescent Ave NE Atlanta, GA 30309)
Time: 6:30 PM to 8:45 PM

I also learned that OSM will have the entire roof top patio and CloudMade will be providing a huge spread of food and drinks. Folks are encouraged to RSVP.

TITAN in 2012 Olympics

Your organization is a national police force providing security and surveillance for UK railways, and is tasked to provide a transportation security monitoring system for the Olympics in 2012.

You must collaborate and share both real-time and static data with a dozen other police forces. You'll need to provide the means for data discovery and visualization into a variety of client applications. Your solution must allow for simultaneous monitoring of hundreds of CCTV feeds that regularly update in a 3D environment. Situational awareness is crucial, 24/7.

What do you do?

You implement a solution based on ERDAS TITAN and ERDAS APOLLO.

British Transport Police Implementing ERDAS TITAN 2009 to Share Data

Looking towards the 2012 Olympic Games in London, the British Transport Police (BTP) will build a transportation security monitoring system. To do so BTP is implementing ERDAS APOLLO 2009 to manage large volumes of geospatial data and ERDAS TITAN 2009 to quickly share and visualize dynamic data.

Preview the Future: ERDAS Labs

ERDAS Inc. just announced the launch of ERDAS Labs (http://labs.erdas.com/), an informative new site highlighting technology currently being developed. The site is regularly updated with short postings, screenshots, movie clips and other media showcasing projects as they progress through the developer cycle.

Whether it is an innovative new idea being explored or a major new feature being implemented for the next version of a product, ERDAS Labs provides a forum for discussion with the development team.

To see more, please visit http://labs.erdas.com/.

New Video: Query multiple APOLLOs and GeoHubs at once...directly from a 3D globe!

Take 2 minutes and watch how easy it is to query multiple data management systems at once from a 3D virtual globe!

Use the ERDAS TITAN Viewer 3D virtual globe (or you can use the Geospatial Instant Messenger as well) and simultaneously broadcast a query across multiple data management systems, including ERDAS APOLLO Image Managers (EAIM) and ERDAS TITAN Network GeoHubs. There are also advanced search parameters available for searching APOLLOs, including time stamp, type and availability.

Discover data and metadata, and immediately visualize layers in the TITAN 3D Viewer, or load layers directly into Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth.

TITAN Collaborative Environment

This slide does a nice job of summing up the TITAN solution:

Tracking Invaders

Was that funny looking bug I flicked off my arm while gardening this weekend a local...or is it an invader?!

Should we be concerned about the risk of invasive species? A study by UF professor Andy Tatem measures global risk of invasive species using an interesting mix of climate data and transport geography.

Check out the article and the map showing projected "traffic-scaled climatic similarity index" for international airports in April 2010. Tatem's map would suggest Europe has the highest risk.