Vertical GeoSolutions

This week’s ESRI International User Conference began with Jack Dangermond (ESRI President) stating that this year’s user conference was not only the largest ESRI User Conference ever, but also the largest gathering of geographers in history.  It will be interesting to see what the headcount ends up being.

ArcGIS 10 looks to be designed to make cloud computing its primary goal.  Sharing your maps with everyone and using pre-defined map templates seems to be the key processes imbedded in ArcGIS 10.  One of the biggest benefits and a pet peeve of mine is that you no longer have to open both ArcCatalog and ArcMap to do geospatial processing and map making in two different programs.  Now they are scrolling tabs on the side of the workspace.  Everything is included under one hood at ArcGIS 10.  Another big benefit is the Image Analysis Window.  Looks like it will be very beneficial to those of us who use imagery extensively in our maps and data creation.

I am downloading ArcGIS 10 as I write this and I am eager to try out the capabilities it provides.  I’ll get back and let you know what I find.

Dr. Rick Marshall of VerticalGeo attended the ILGISA (www.ilgisa.org) Spring Conference at the University of Illinois, April 15. Rick presented “ArcGIS Server and GeoPDF Solutions for Remote Airfield Visualization” during the GIS Tools breakout track. Rick also moderated the three sessions during the Historical Perspective track. The ILGISA Conference is a two day event held each Spring and Fall where GIS professionals gather and share best practices and lessons learned to others in the GIS community.  The Fall Conference will be held October 20-21, 2010 at  Northern Illinois University, Naperville.

VerticalGeo will be attending the ESRI Federal User Conference in Washington, DC, February 17-19. Dr. Rick Marshall will be presenting a paper titled, “ArcGIS Server and GeoPDF Applications for Remote Airfield Visualization”.   Rick’s presentation will explore the capabilities that ArcGIS Server and GeoPDF technology provide for mission and flight planning for Air Mobility Command mission planners and aircrews.  The presentation will be on Thursday February 18th at 10:30 in Room 149A.

The ESRI Events link for the Federal User Conference is located here. Link.

The Saint Louis University Center for Environmental Sciences will be hosting the next ESRI St Louis GIS User Group (SLUG) Meeting on February 25 in the SLU CES GIS Lab in McElwane Hall on the SLU Campus.  Further details for the user group meeting can be found on the CES webpage.

VerticalGeo and ESRI are co-hosting the ESRI St Louis Region Defense User Group (DUG) Meeting on November 10th from 8:00am until 1:00pm at the Drury Inn and Conference Center in O’Fallon, Illinois.   At the DUG we expect 60-75 attendees from a broad spectrum from within the public and private sectors.  We will have attendees from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, USTRANSCOM, the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command and 375 Airlift Wing, the Army’s Corps of Engineers St Louis District and Engineering School at Ft Leonard Wood, the US Coast Guard, and several Defense and Intelligence sector consulting companies.

To view the agenda and register for the DUG please go to ESRI’s DUG Webpage located here: Link

Directions to the Drury Inn and Conference Center in Shiloh, Illinois can be found here: Link.

If you have questions about the DUG or would like to host or or be a presenter at future DUGs please contact Rick Marshall at (618) 670-4259 or rick.marshall@verticalgeo.co.

VerticalGeo attended the ESRI User Conference July 11-17 at the San Diego Convention Center. We attended the Remote Sensing and GIS Summitt held on July 11, the ESRI Plenary Sessions on July 12, and numerous Defense and Humanitarian Relief Track sessions the rest of the conference.  Dr. Rick Marshall presented his “Creating Deployable Data for AMC’s CRWs” presentation on Wednesday July 15.

VerticalGeo also attended the Caribbean User Group meeting on Tuesday July 14 hosted by the good people of Spatial Innovations of Jamaica. VerticalGeo is interested in starting a non-profit foundation to provide hurricane assistance to the people in the Caribbean and we were attending the Caribbean User Group meeting as a way to judge interest and find out the availability and quality of geospatial data in the Caribbean. It was time well spent.

VerticalGeo has been attending the ESRI Federal User Conference in Washington, DC this week.  ESRI is a great company who really takes care of their employees.  They also do a wonderful job of taking care of their customers too and this conference is no exception.  They have gone all out to ensure this conference is full of exceptional training, technical sessions, papers, and exhibitors.  ESRI really knows how to put on a great conference.

ESRI conferences are always full of hype over the next release of the software and this one follows in suit.  Jack Dangermond, the President and founder of ESRI, delivered a great Opening Address yesterday.  Interspersed with Jack’s speach were some incredible demonstrations of what ArcGIS 9.3.1 will be able to do.

ESRI followed the Opening Address with a catered lunch.

The afternoon was full of GIS demonstrations, the Keynote Address from Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley, and a small, but very well attended exhibit hall.

My observations so far this year:

1.  I have heard more mention of Google this year than I have ever heard at any ESRI event in the past.  ESRI must no longer feel threatened by Google Earth, because not only did Jack mention Google in the Opening Address, but Google also had a booth in the exhibit hall.

2.  ESRI is getting deeper into providing Professional Services.  Who could be better at delivering GIS services than the experts who deliver GIS software.  Their dedication to this work is overdue.

3.  ESRI seems to be marketing several solutions in a box.  At the ESRI St Louis Defense User Group meeting that I hosted last month I saw the Commercial/Joint Mapping Tool Kit (C/JMTK) GeoSpatial Appliance.  This morning I saw the Situational Awareness Geospatial Appliance in action.  It is pretty impressive, but similar to the C/JMTK appliance, it offers the ArcGIS Online services in a huge, 4 TB, stand alone server on steroids.  It is very powerful, but I’m sure it comes with a steep price tag.  ESRI seems committed to providing streaming imagery, maps, information, and services online and offline, something that I believe is overdue.  Great job ESRI!

I’ll post again tomorrow after the conference is over and provide a complete overview.