In the Spotlight

Trimble introduced the first modern software package specifically designed to continuously monitor and control Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) broadcast sites for marine navigation—Trimble Coastal Center software. Developed to provide network operators the ability to monitor and control multiple DGPS beacon stations from one central location, Trimble Coastal Center software can save time by automating functions and tasks remotely.

Leica Geosystems, manufacturer of measuring and positioning equipment, announces the landmark sale of the 100th high definition 3D laser scanner in the UK and Ireland market. The 100th scanner, a Leica ScanStation 2 was sold to Surrey based topographic, architectural and hydrographic survey company Sterling Surveys who were presented with the accolade at the Geo 8 World of Geomatics Conference earlier this month in Coventry.

DigiTerra Explorer mobile GIS and field mapping software is now available pre-installed on an SD card with the Magellan MobileMapper CX handheld GPS/GIS receiver. Digiterra Explorer with the MobileMapper CX sub-meter real-time GPS receiver promises exceptional productivity at low-cost for field mapping and data collection applications. DigiTerra Explorer is gaining attention as a fast and easy-to-use GIS application package for visualizing, analyzing, editing and collecting digital topographical and descriptive data in the field.

More than 21, 000 users across industry, commerce and the public sector are benefiting from the most accurate link between every British property address and its location “on the map”. Figures released to celebrate the second birthday of Ordnance Survey’s nationally consistent spatial address data, OS MasterMap Address Layer 2, show growing take-up by central and local government, emergency services, utilities, insurance companies and logistics firms.

Last week Microsoft launched a new version of the Virtual Earth API. The release has a host of new features and takes advantage of some of the capabilities you've been envying on Live Search Maps. Below is a laundry list of new features in Virtual Earth 6.1 that has been added. The good news is that 6.1 is fully backwards compatible to Version 6.0. You just need to update you JavaScript Link URL string to get the new version. The Interactive SDK was updated, as well as, the SDK on MSDN.

The members of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) announced the approval of the OpenGIS KML Encoding Standard (OGC KML), marking KML's transition into an open standard which will be maintained by the OGC. Developers will now have a standard approach for using KML to code and share visual geographic content in existing or future web-based online maps and 3D geospatial browsers like Google Earth TM.

At the Fespa Digital Europe show, held in Geneva last week, wide-format inkjet printer manufacturer Mutoh Europe nv previewed its new wide-format UV inkjet printer, called ZEPHYR. The printer has been completely engineered and developed by Mutoh’s Belgian R&D centre.

Architects and urban designers Rosario Giusti de Pérez and Ramón A. Pérez spent years working on projects to revitalize barrios in their home country of Venezuela. In Analyzing Urban Poverty: GIS for the Developing World, their new book from ESRI Press, they explain how people can use geographic information system (GIS) technology to identify and manage ways of improving the quality of life in poor urban areas.

Geokosmos has completed a LiDAR project in Krasnodar Krai (Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, is located in this region). Imeretinskaya lowland and some parts of the extending mountain massif were surveyed by the Company specialists. The project was carried out in the framework of the engineering survey aimed at construction of Olympic objects in the Sochi region. Geokosmos provided the customer with a wide spectrum of output products: a topographic map (1:1000) of the lowland, a topographic map (1:500) of the mountain territory, an orthophoto (pixel size – 0,09 m), digital terrain and surface models as well as textured terrain models.