vol 1 num 2


from VizMAP – letting you see where you stand…

Volume 1 – Number 2 
Contents

About VizMAP

VizMAP Pty Ltd, is a leading supplier of terrain Visualisation and related services to the defence, GIS, environmental, mapping, mining and exploration industries, engineering and construction firms, developers and planners, as well as government administration departments dealing with land, transportation and the environment. 

VizMAP's products are designed to be run on reasonably to highly configured graphics computers (PC, Linux and Unix) for public display, group training, mission rehearsal, environmental monitoring, etc. and to enhance management decision making. 

VizMAP is headquartered on Queensland's Sunshine Coast (Australia) with affiliation in Asia, Europe, Africa and the USA and thereby provides support and services to customers worldwide. 

If you need to visualise anything geographic, e-mail VizMAP herewith the details. 

For more information about VizMAP visit the VizMAP Web site at http://www.vizmap.com.au.

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A Moment's Notice

"May all your take-offs & landings be equal in number…" — Tom Gregor, Sr.

VirtualGeography – the newsletter


G'Day… and Welcome to VirtualGeography
from VizMAP
Welcome to another free VirtualGeography – a collection of interesting snippets from all over the place, dealing with industry issues concerning the computer based visualisation of geography and a few other associated (or otherwise) interesting bits and pieces. If some of you recognise vestiges of The Shortech and TDC E-News, you could be right: similar content, familiar format, same editor. 

A new VirtualGeography is pushed out about once per month, towards the end of the month, which shouldn't be too big a drain on your mailbox if you're not already subscribed (of course it won't be a drain on your mailbox if you ARE subscribed, either ).
You'll need an active internet connection to view any images that are in the content. We've done it this way to keep the size of the e-mail to a minimum.

If you know of anyone who might like to get VirtualGeography, let me know their e-mail address and I'll forward them a copy, or feel free to forward this to them and ask them to subscribe. By the way, subscription and unsubscription details are at the bottom (click here).

So, g'day to all fans, followers, supporters, surveyors, purveyors, promoters, proponents, exponents, experts, converts, conceptualisers, advisers, advocates, sophisticates and enthusiasts requiring to visualise and simulate both urban and rural geographic information (GIS), cartography, photogrammetry, remote sensing, digital elevation modelling (DEM) and general mapping.

By the spelling of "Visualisation" you may have already guessed that we're not US based – that's a good thing, or at least not a bad thing. This comes to you from the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia, where it's beautiful one day and perfect the next.

The link between visualisation and mapping may seem a little esoteric if this is your first encounter with this sort of stuff, but let me tell you, the bond is significant… but enough of that: on with the show… I hope you like it. Any feedback you might have is highly appreciated. E-mail me hereto make your comments.

Graeme Brooke
VizMAP Pty Ltd

 
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The Industry's Two Cents Worth…


A New Low Cost Rotary Wing Part-Task Trainer
from Geosim Technologies

A rotary wing part-task trainer, proof of concept demonstrator, has been designed & constructed by Geosim Technologies to demonstrate the feasibility of a locally manufactured low cost flight crew training device. 

The part-task trainer, proof of concept demonstrator, will be used to demonstrate a variety of training applications including: 

Both VFR & IFR procedural proficiency 

bullet Pilot screening & recruitment 
bullet Enhanced familiarisation & procedural preparation for ab-initio training leading to less time required in actual aircraft, lower costs & lower risks 
bullet Improved standards & instructor productivity 
bullet Initial route or landing site proving for pilots & other flight crews 
bullet Special mission introduction, familiarisation & recurrent training 

The out-of-window visuals of made-to-order geographic scenery compliment the on-board instrumentation and true-to-form helicopter controls and cockpit. All these factors combine to give an "uncanny" feeling of flight at a very affordable cost.

Helicopters are very expensive to operate, and because of their capabilities tend to conduct missions with a significantly higher risk than fixed wing aircraft. Most operators have to constantly balance the high cost of training with an even higher cost of not training. 

The primary design concept of the Aviation Australia – GeoSim Technologies part-task trainer is to achieve a highly viable training solution, for a very low cost, by effectively integrating proven off the shelf technologies. 

Read that full story here
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Hardcore Stuff (hardware bits)…


"Houston, We Have Lift-Off": Dell and Imax Blast Off On Apollo 13: The Imax Experience®
from Dell
Dell PowerEdge Servers with Red Hat Linux Help Make Movies Larger Than Life for IMAX®  Theaters 

San Francisco, August 13, 2002 – Linux World 2002 – DellTM PowerEdgeTM  servers running Red Hat® Linux®  will play an important role in IMAX's first-ever digital re-mastering of Universal Pictures' and Imagine Entertainment's Apollo 13, scheduled to hit IMAX theaters this Fall.

IMAX's new patent-pending technology, IMAX® DMRTM  (Digital Re-mastering), uses the processing power of Dell PowerEdge servers to re-purpose individual frames of 35mm film into IMAX's 15/70mm format in a matter of seconds. IMAX films are projected on screens eight-stories high and 120-feet wide with high caliber sound and image quality. Apollo 13 is the first theatrical live-action film to be digitally re-mastered for The IMAX Experience.

The IMAX DMR technology resides at IMAX's Toronto data center which processes several hundred gigabytes of data daily and is one of the largest rendering farms in Canada. IMAX uses dozens of Dell PowerEdge 2550 servers running Red Hat Linux for its DMR process, as well as an additional cluster of Dell PowerEdge 2550 servers for testing. IMAX chose Dell PowerEdge servers running Red Hat Linux for its IMAX DMR process because of the easy-to-use industry-standard platform, outstanding price and performance, and superior Dell support.

"With the help of Dell's technology, we have successfully transformed 'Apollo 13' into a larger than life movie experience. Star fields that were three points of light in 35mm become full galaxies in IMAX theaters," said Brian Bonnick, senior vice president of technology, IMAX Corporation. "These Intel-based systems running Red Hat Linux have provided the high quality of performance, availability and scalability necessary to handle our data-intensive applications. Dell's service and support have been invaluable and have helped keep our system running smoothly throughout this ground-breaking project."

Read that full story here
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Softcore Stuff (software and data bits)…


Interactive Arctic Environmental Atlas facelifts 
from GISDevelopment
8/23/2002 -The Arctic Environmental Atlas has presented environmental information on the Arctic region in an interactive map on the Internet since December 2000. The map has been updated with a new interface, more extensive data themes and new features. It is accessible at: http://maps.grida.no/arctic/

The themes in this map primarily concentrate on issues like biodiversity and conservation where the Arctic has a special status, with vast expanses of still untouched nature, important fish stocks and large seabird colonies. Other environmental problems that the map touches upon are ecological footprint, land based pollution and climate change.

The major sources used are some of the best global publicly available collections of data and maps that have been collected and projected to show a polar view, and implemented in this interactive map service. The Arctic Environmental Atlas also draws from work that UNEP/GRID-Arendal has done for various Arctic projects over the years, in everything from conservation to pollution monitoring.

Read that full story here
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A Recent Outing…


Brisbane City Council
from VizMAP
Brisbane City Council contracted VizMAP to produce an interactive 3D visualisation of the Brisbane CBD, concentrating the modelling on Brisbane City Hall with the surrounding buildings generically textured. Sample still images from the completed dynamic visualisations are displayed here. An active internet connection is required to be able to view these scenes.
 

Click on these small resampled images to view the full screen images on the VizMAP website. Bear in mind that these are just screen dumps from a dynamic, interactive, 3D "flythrough". 

 

 If you have a need to dynamically visualise your geographic data, let VizMAP knowyour requirements…
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OK, That's Different…


Help
from Chris Pirillo
As a software developer for nearly ten years now, I believe the comments RE: documentation are more than slightly misleading insofar as they ignore a fundamental truth. Printed manuals have been discontinued or marginalized because market research reveals a fact we all intrinsically already know: virtually no one reads the manual. The pejorative 'RTFM' uttered by frustrated tech support personnel points out the challenge is, whether on screen or on paper, end users of the abacus through the zither are loathe to be bothered with the instructions. Recall that Christmas morning where the handlebars were on backwards. Before you rail against software developers as simply sharing a sample sans exquisitely detailed documentation, how about gazing around Wal-Mart and asking yourself just how many of those people will ever read the instructions. There's a clue. Even electronic manuals get ignored routinely. I suffer from oversightitis, too. Take an F1 and call me in the morning.
Read that full story here
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Whazzup Next – with 20/20 Foresight…


Stuff to look out for in September & October This calendar of events has been collated from: 

27 August – 5 September 2002 Eight UN Conference on the Standardisation of Geographical Names Berlin, Germany
August 26 – September 4, 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development  Johannesburg, South Africa
September 2-5, 2002 Society of Cartographers 38th Annual Summer School Middlesex, UK
2-6 September 2002  ISPRS Symposium of Commission V  Corfu, GREECE
September 2-6, 2002  11th Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Conference  Brisbane, Queensland Australia
2-6 September 2002 GIS ODYSSEY 2002 – International GIS Conference & Exhibition Dubrovnik & Korcula, Croatia
2-11 September 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development Johannesburg, South Africa
September 3-6, 2002 CARIS 2002 – Seventh International CARIS Users' Conference  Norfolk, VA USA
September 3-6, 2002 Second International Symposium on GIS/Spatial Analyes in Fishery and Aquatic Sciences Brighton, UK
September 6, 2002 3rd Annual California University (PA) GIS Conference  California, PA USA
September 8-10, 2002 IMTA Americas Annual Conference & Trade Show  Minneapolis, MN USA
9-12 September 2002  Intel Developer Forum (IDF), Fall 2002 San Jose, CA, USA
9-12 September 2002  National States Geographic Information Council 2002 Annual Conference Park City, UT USA
9-13 September 2002 ISPRS Symposium of Commission III PCV'02 PHOTOGRAMMETRIC COMPUTER VISION  Graz, AUSTRIA
9-13 September 2002 GTC East 2002 Albany, NY USA
9-13 September 2002 OGC's 42nd Technical Committee  Noordwijk, The Netherlands 
11-13 September 2002 The Open Source Free Software GIS – GRASS users conference 2002 Trento, Italy
11-13 September 2002 2002 International Space Symposium  Toulouse, France 
12-13 September 2002 Spatial and Temporal Analysis Training  Ann Arbor, MI USA
12-14 September 2002 39th Annual Symposium and Map Curator's Workshop Portsmouth, United Kingdom
September 12-15, 2002  EUGISES 2002 Girona, Spain
15-18 September 2002 e-Safety Lyon, France
16-18 September 2002 ISPRS Symposium of Commission VI  São José dos Campos, BRAZIL
16-18 September 2002 Coastal Environmental 2002 Rhodes, Greece 
16-19 September 2002  Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference "GSDI 6 Conference – From global to local" Budapest, HUNGARY
17 September 2002  Product Insight Seminar – CanMap® Streetfiles V6.2 & CanMap® Rail V1.1 Markham, Ontario Canada
September 17-18, 2002  GITA Southeast Conference  Atlanta, GA USA
September 17-19, 2002 GIS 2002 London, United Kingdom
September 17-19, 2002 GeoSolutions 2002 London, United Kingdom
17-20 Septmber 2002  X Congress of Quantitative Methods, Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing  Villadolid, SPAIN
19-21 September 2002 Missouri Society of Professional Surveyors 45th Annual Convention St. Louis Missouri, USA 
19-23 September 2002 EnviroMount 2002 – GIS and Remote Sensing in Mountain Environment Research Zakopane, Poland
20 September 2002  Success GIS Metropolitan Milwaukee, WI USA
20-28 September 2002  The 27th General Assembly of ICSU & Associated Meetings  Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL
September 23-25, 2002 GITA's 11th GIS for Oil & Gas Conference  Houston, TX USA
23-26 September 2002 International Symposium on Geographic Information Systems "GIS2002"  Istanbul, TURKEY
23-27 September 2002 9th International Symposium on Remote Sensing "Remote Sensing 2002" Crete, GREECE
23 September – 4 October 2002 Training Program on the use of Geographical Information Systems in Natural Resource Management  Texcoco, D. F. Mexico
24 September 2002 GIS in Slovenia 2001-2002 – 6, biannual symposium Slovenia
September 24-25, 2002  Commercial Vehicle Telematics 2002 Atlanta, GA USA
September 24-26, 2002  Mobile Commerce World Europe London, United Kingdom
September 24-27, 2002  ION GPS 2002  Portland, Oregon USA
25-26 September 2002 GIS Conference 2002 Rotterdam, The Netherlands
September 25–27, 2002  9th Annual ESRI and ERDAS Latin American User Conference Mexico City, Mexico 
September 25–27, 2002  17th Annual Northwest GIS User Conference  Sunriver, Oregon, USA
September 25-28, 2002 GIScience 2002 Second International Geographic Information Science  Boulder, CO USA
September 26 – 28, 2002 VIII International Fair for Geodesy, Geoinformatics and Spatial Information Technologies GEA'2002  Katowice, Poland
29th September – 2nd October 2002  International City/County Managers Association-Annual Meeting Philadelphia, PA USA
30th September – 2nd October 2002  Mobile Location Services 2002  London, United Kingdom
1-5 Oct 2002  Celebrating 50 Years of Geodetic Science ISPRS Commission II  Columbus,Ohio, USA
2-4 October, 2002 3rd Conference on Municipal Information Systems
"Digital town and local e-government"
Prague, CZECH Republic
2-4 October, 2002 2002 West Virginia GIS Forum and Exhibition Charleston, WV, USA 
2-4 October, 2002 The Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium 12th Annual Conference & Workshops  Duluth, MN USA
2-5 October, 2002 23rd Urban Data Management Symposium Prague, CZECH Republic
5-9 October, 2002 2002 Society of American Foresters Annual Convention Winston-Salem, NC USA
7-11 October, 2002 GEOEXPO 2002 – IV International Congress  Lima, Peru
8 October, 2002 Product Insight Seminar – CanMap® RouteLogistics V6.2  Markham, Ontario Canada
8-10 October, 2002 GIS in the Rockies 2002 Denver, USA
8-10 October, 2002 ESRI’s 6th Annual MEA User Conference  Dubai, UAE
8-10 October, 2002 GeoTech 2002: ASPRS Potomac Region Conference Silver Springs, MD USA 
9-12 October, 2002 NACIS(XXII)  Columbus, OH USA
10-11 October, 2002 18th Annual New York State Geographic Information Systems Conference Liverpool, New York, USA
10-12 October, 2002 Seminar about the results of three research projects of the European Organisation for Experimental Photogrammetric Research (OEEPE) Aalborg, Denmark
10-19 Oct 2002  IAF/COSPAR World Space Congress Houston, Texas, USA
11-12 Oct 2002  CACI InSite and Finance Conference North Warwickshire, UK
11-15 Oct 2002  AASHTO Annual Meeting  Anchorage, AK USA
14-15 Oct 2002  3rd International Workshop on Incremental Updating and Versioning of Spatial Data Bases ISPRS  IC WG II/IV  Frankfurt, GERMANY
14-16 October, 2002 17th ESRI European User Conference 2002 Bruges, Belgian Coast, Belgium
14-16 October, 2002 2002 ESRI Electric and Gas User Group Meeting  Coeur d'Alene, ID
14-18 October, 2002 Ninth World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems Chicago, Illinois
14-18 October, 2002 4th African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE) Conference  Abuja, NIGERIA
15 October, 2002 DMTI Spatial Product Insight Seminar Markham, Ontario Canada
15-17 October, 2002 GW02 – Geodatische Woche 2002 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
16-18 October, 2002 INTERGEO Frankfurt am Main, Germany
16-18 October, 2002 NC URISA 2002 FALL CONFERENCE Cherokee, North Carolina USA
16-18 October, 2002 CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & INTERNET 2002 Las Vegas, NV USA
21-25 Oct 2002  VII International Congress on Earth Sciences Santiago, CHILE
October 21 – 25, 2002 Southwest User Group (SWUG) 2002 Conference & Workshops  Taos, NM USA
20-22 October 2002 19th Annual MX Association Conference Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
20-23 October 2002 GE Network Solutions Americas Users Conference and Exhibition 2002 Keystone, CO USA
22 Oct 2002 DMTI Spatial Product Insight Seminar – Postal Code Products V6.2 Markham, Ontario Canada
22-23 Oct 2002  International Symposium on interaction between volcanoes and their basement and related geological hazards Santiago, CHILE
22-24 October, 2002 International Symposium and Exhibition on Geoinformation 2002 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
October 23, 2002 GITA Webcast  USA
23-27 Oct 2002  SPIE's Third International Asia-Pacific Symposium on Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere, Environment, and Space  Hangzhou, CHINA
24 October, 2002 The Fourth Annual One Day GeoBusiness Conference 2002 London, United Kingdom
26-28 October, 2002 3rd International Symposium on Sustainable Agro-environmental Systems: New Technologies and Applications Cairo, Egypt
October 26-30, 2002  URISA's 40th Annual Conference  Chicago, IL USA
28-29 October, 2002 Virginia GIS Conference 2002  Roanoke, VA USA
28-30 October, 2002 2nd International eCognition User Meeting Miesbach, Germany
29 October – 1 November, 2002 OSEA2002 Suntec, Singapore
30-31 October, 2002 Geomatics 2002: Everywhere for Everyone! Montréal, Canada
30-31 October, 2002 Asian GPS Conference New Delhi, India
 
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A Parting Gesture…


The New Ensign
from Jokeaday
The new ensign was standing his first night watch on the bridge of a destroyer. 

Far out on the horizon, the USS New Jersey was conducting a night gunnery exercise. The ensign, seeing the flashes of light from the battleship, ran excitedly up to the signal bridge and pointed out, mistakenly, the "Morse code" coming from the other ship.

Ensign:  "What are they saying? What are they saying?"

Signalman:  "Boom. Boom."

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…that's all, folks! (for now).