If you are interested, I received an email yesterday. The conference proceedings from the 2008 Oracle Spatial User’s Group are available off of this web site (http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/spatial/htdocs/spatial_conf_0803_idx.html).

Got back from today’s Northern California Intergraph Geospatial User’s Community (NCIGUC) meeting. We had Vince Smith, the product manager for GeoMedia Desktop solutions out to do an “unofficial” GeoMedia 6.1 product launch. I’m hopefully going to be obtaining the slides and .avis from Vince in the next couple of days. I’ll post the slides on the http://www.nciguc.org web site and will post the .avis on everyone’s favorite http://www.youtube.com.

Vince really went over a lot of stuff and asked for a lot of feedback from the users. He took a lot of time to discuss Intergraph’s plans with the consolidation of the Intergraph GeoMedia, G/Tech, and CAD (computer aided dispatch) lines of products. I’ll get into much more detail over the days to come. However I can really say that Intergraph’s plans sound very interesting and very promising…if things go as planned.

Finally, I really want to commend Vince personally for coming out to the user’s group meeting. The NCIGUC was formed in September, 2001. However this is the first time we’ve actually had someone from Huntsville actually fly out and present. It really showed a dedication to the Bay Area users. Furthermore, Vince did his best to answer all questions (and there were plenty), take plenty of notes, and interact with the users. He wasn’t at all defensive and took feedback from the users. All in all, I really think it was a strong event.

BTW - congratulations to Leena Gautam for winning the free version of GeoMedia 6.1. The software is in the mail

Last week I attended GITA’s 2008 Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference in Seattle, WA. As a whole, I was really happy with the event. I attended a couple of pre-conference knowledge immersion seminars - one titled “Strategies for Enterprisewide Web Services” and one titled “Mobile Technology for the Enterprise”. I then attended the entire conference followed by the Oracle Spatial User Conference the day after the conference. I’m not going to go into great detail about the conference as I’m sure you can find a lot online that’s been covered by other users.

I must say that Oracle has done some impressive things with Oracle 11g and their support for LiDAR data, TIN exports, and overall 3D data storage. Additionally Safe Software has done some really cool things embracing Oracle 11g. At the Oracle Spatial User Conference, Safe demonstrated extracting 3D data from 11g, and transforming the data into a 3D PDF. Once in the PDF environment, you could pan, tilt, zoom, and fly around. It was really cool to be able to do a virtual flyover both around and into a building. You can see the demo on the Safe web site. Just look for the .wmv titled “FME and Oracle Spatial”.

Anyhow…I did have some time to sit down at the Intergraph booth and talk to a few people. I’ll cover some of the things I discussed in upcoming posts.

And finally, on a complete side note. I was really surprised at the size of the booth at the GITA conference. It was really great to see such a large presence at a conference. I’m used to seeing the one small table in the corner. Not this time…. Very cool.

The Northern California Intergraph Geospatial User’s Community (NCIGUC) will have its next meeting on March 25, 2008 from 10:00 - 3:00 at the City of Milpitas Community Center. This meeting will actually be the GeoMedia Pro 6.1 product launch.

Take a look at the meeting flyer, register for the meeting, and obtain more information at www.nciguc.org.

I’ve gotten a couple of inquiries into the release date for GeoMedia Pro 6.1. I don’t have an exact release date, but I’ve bee told that it should be sometime within the next month. I hope to get a more firm data soon and will post it here.

On a side note, I hope to get the Northern California Intergraph Geospatial User’s Community (NCIGUC) to host a 6.1 product launch. I’m thinking this would happen in early to mid March. I’ll post more on the product launch as January moves forward.

Not sure how many readers of this blog were able to attend the BAAMA educational meeting last week, but did want to post the slideshows here for those that are interested:

Wanted to post the information for the upcoming Bay Area Automated Mapping Association (BAAMA) educational meeting. It’s set for Thursday, September 27 in Oakland, CA at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) auditorium. The theme will be “GIS and CAD Integration”. You can take a look at the web site for all of the details.

Yesterday’s NCIGUC meeting was very good. Had a lot of very good presentations and the afternoon hands-on seminar were excellent. We even had a person come out from Nevada - very cool to see the user group going that far! We should have all of the presentations posted on the NCIGUC web site soon. Once we do, I’ll post a entry and let you all know.

Just a reminder that the next NCIGUC user’s group meeting will be on Wed, August 8 at the City of San Mateo. Please take a look at the NCIGUC web site for more information and to register for this great event.

Also, please be sure to take the NCIGUC survey available online right now!

Sorry - didn’t get a chance to update too often last week. Have been involved in a myriad of different projects over the last week. Will follow this post with a post on Queued Editing in GeoMedia 6.1

Will be covering a few more things this week including:

• New features in Oracle 11g
• Geocoding with GeoMedia
• Creating an MGE feature using GeoMedia Fusion’s Schema Remodeler

Finally, last, but not least. For those that are San Francisco Bay Area-based, there’s a couple of upcoming events I wanted to remind you of:

1) Thursday, July 26 is the next BAAAM Educational Meeting titled GIS in Transportation. Please go to the BAAMA web site for more information. This should be a fantastic meeting!

2) Wednesday, August 8 is the next Northern California Intergraph Geospatial User’s Community (NCIGUC) meeting. Please go to the NCIGUC web site for more information. This too should be great!

For those that are local to the San Francisco Bay Area, we’re having our next Northern California Intergraph Geospatial User’s Community user’s group meeting on August 8, in San Mateo, CA. Take a look at the NCIGUC web site for more information. It should be a great meeting!

GITA

I’m a big fan of the GITA Geospatial Technology Report and think it’s well worth the money. However do realize it’s a bit of money. If you’ve always wanted to receive the report, but didn’t want to pay…here’s your chance! If you participate in the 2007-2008 GITA Survey, they’ll send you a free copy!

Thought I’d pass the information along.