Vertical GeoSolutions

Thanks to the Free Geography Tools Blog (www.freegeographytools.com) for posting on the CIA World FactBook availability in KML format.  The CIA FactBook is a great source for information on manydifferent topics.  As a former Air force navigator I would use the CIA World FactBook whenever I would travel overseas to a new country in order to get an idea of what the country was like.  The KML version of the World FactBook is located at: http://www.kmlfactbook.org/, and is a great tool.  There are several pre-defined reports  you can run with 2-D, 3-D, and Pie Chart outputs visualized by Google Earth.  Try it out.

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.

Dr. Rick Marshall will be representing VerticalGeo at the ILGISA Conference on October 5-6 at Northern Illinois University, Naperville.  Rick is a member of the ILGISA Publications Committee.  If you have any news that you would like to have included in the next copy of the ILGISA Illinois GIS Notes please let Rick know.  Your success stories are important to ILGISA and we are particularly looking for Southern Illinois success stories.

Thanks to the Free Geography Tools Blog for pointing me to the free online KML to Shapefile Converter offered by Zonums Software.  The download version has some bugs in it, but the online version is good to use.  It is free to use and can be found here:

http://www.zonums.com/online/kml2shp.php

How many times have you found something great on Google Earth and would like to show the same feature in your GIS?  This online application allows you to do that.  It is a great tool.

Dr Rick Marshall of VerticalGeo is at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, assisting the US Air Force in their effort to re-write the curriculum for the Expeditionary Site Survey Process (ESSP) Course. ESSP is the process used to collect and analyze data for airfields that might have strategic use in the future. VerticalGeo’s part is to add value to the Expeditionary Site Mapping (ESM) section of the ESSP Course. ESM is using imagery and geospatial data to plan operations and contingencies at these airfields; using this information to map out airfield surfaces, roads, infrastructure, and environmental resources so that we can more easily use them when/if we find a use for the airfield. We participated in the last re-write 2 years ago, but the technology has changed substantially and it is time for an update.

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.

Dr Rick Marshall, President of VerticalGeo, will be attending the Department of Defense (DoD) Installation Geospatial Information and Services (IGI&S) Conference in Dallas June 7-13, 2009.   Rick will be presenting a paper during the Expeditionary Operations Brreakout Session called Creating Deployable Data for AMC’s Contingency Response Wings.  The presentation will be on  Tuesday from 1400-1430 in the Lone Star A2  Conference Room.

The presentation will outline the Expeditionary IGI&S workflow to acquire and process pre-deployment, employment, and post-deployment information for Air Mobility Command (AMC) Contingency Response Group (CRG) operations at potential Forward Operating Bases.  Headquarters AMC and the CRGs work hand-in-hand to ensure current information is acquired, processed, and shared for pre-mission planning, collected and validated during the mission, and verified and disseminated after the mission is complete.  This workflow ensures the end-users receive the highest quality and most current products available.

This will not be a technical presentation, but one that focuses on information the discovery and sharing techniques that make this program successful.  All conference attendees are welcome to the presentation.

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.

The below post in the Google LatLong Blog is a revolutionary concept.  Google has taken a huge market share of organizing the world’s data by offering free tools that most of us use.  Google’s tools seem to work better than those that we pay top dollar for.  Now they are offering to serve up partners imagery for free.  That is an incredible offer.    I can hardly wait to see the results.  Municipalities can get their imagery served up for free which will dramatically increase the quality of the images on Google Earth and Maps.  That is a win/win situation for everyone.  Bravo for Google.

Posted by Rick Marshall

Taking in the view: Introducing Google’s Imagery Partner Program

Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 12:05 PM

When people think about Google Earth, they often think satellite imagery.  Yet, since the early days of Google Earth, we’ve been working with local governments and other public sector organizations to add their aerial imagery as well.  Thanks to this data sharing, we’re able to offer our users a more current representation of thousands of communities and a higher resolution view of countless geographic features.  With this week’s launch of the historical imagery feature in Google Earth, we’re now able to partner with public sector organizations and other imagery content providers to present users a view of their community or geographic features, such as mountains or lakes, evolving over time.

For organizations that would like to share their aerial imagery, we’ve just put out the welcome mat — a new website for our Imagery Partner Program where you can learn the ins and outs of adding your organization’s imagery to Google’s services.  As you’ll see, we’ve learned from our partnerships with many governments and have structured this program to make it as easy as possible for your organization to license and deliver your data to Google.  Wondering what aerial imagery formats we welcome or how we handle data transfer or other details?  Visit the site and check out the FAQ.

Vertical GeoSolutions, Inc (VerticalGeo) will be attending and blogging from the ESRI Federal User’s Conference (FedUC) February 18-20, 2009 in Washington, DC. Our FedUC blogs will be posted on our Vertically Thinking Blog. If you will be attending and would like to link up please send me an E-Mail at:  rick.marshall@verticalgeo.com.