Blog

By Shankar Lakshmanan, GIS Software Developer

The Snow*Mobile conference was held earlier this year in Madison, Wis. There were interesting presentations on how various web and mobile technologies are helping and empowering people. Here are outlines of a few talks that stood out to me as interesting and informative.

 

By: Adam Conner, Senior Developer

The 2013 Esri^® International Developer Summit is officially underway, but the 2013 Esri Partner Conference is still winding down. The evidence of this strange crossover conference day can be found on Twitter. It also means that the Developer Summit Plenary Session is on the morning of day two. That will be the plenary session when all of the new features of ArcGIS 10.2 will be discussed and how all of the APIs and SDKs have been simplified and enhanced to take advantage of 10.2 features. Today, we heard all about those features and changes, and how they will be released in June 2013. We don’t get to see it all at once until tomorrow in the plenary. It seemed like day one was a warm up, and Esri didn’t expect everyone to arrive in Palm Springs until tomorrow. So what did we see and hear on day one?

By: Adam Conner, Senior Developer

Throughout the next week, three team members from GeoDecisions will be visiting the Esri^® Developer Summit in Palm Springs, Calif. In between our time lounging at the pool and exploring the desert, we might even attend a few sessions at the conference. I will be blogging all week from the conference, providing summaries of the sessions I attend, and attempting to provide insight and information about what is happening at the conference. A few of the topics I am most interested in for the coming week include the new updates to ArcGIS Online and all of the interesting ways people are including location and maps in mobile applications.

By: Mark C. Lecher, Senior Project Manager

Research and development is often times a hard task to manage in service-oriented organizations. Project responsibilities and remaining current on core technology changes can take priority over exploring new ideas. How organizations remain fresh and innovative – and keep their employees motivated – becomes a tricky juggling act. At GeoDecisions, we decided to meet this challenge head-on and conducted a Hack-A-Thon event to, explore new innovations.

By: James Frank, Project Manager/GIS Analyst

GIS is becoming a mature technology with regards to the typical 2D data created to make maps and perform GIS analysis. For cartographers and analysts, 3D GIS is quickly becoming the next frontier. As demand increases for 3D visualization based on GIS data and analysis tools in industries like emergency services, facility management, augmented reality, and even entertainment – I am envisioning a future with 3D GIS on the web, without a plugin. Hopefully. I know I’m not alone in this thought.

By: Kevin Yount, Senior Project Manager

Superstorm Sandy might be a unique, once-in-a-lifetime event for residents of the mid-Atlantic coastline. But for emergency management officials, the challenges remain the same regardless of the event: define priorities and mobilize the right resources toward the right place, at the right time. However, public expectations and the tools available for responders to meet those expectations are changing.

By: Brian L. Jensen, GISP, Director of Midwest Operations

Many people are aware of GeoDecisions’ involvement and development of the Fishidy.com website and mobile application. However, what most may not know is that Fishidy is much more than just a cool website for anglers.

Fishidy.com is a platform that uses some of the most innovative and forward-thinking geographic information system (GIS) technologies and concepts.

By: Jonathan Greiner, Project Manager

Numerous utilities that have previously relied upon the institutional knowledge of key staff are beginning to realize the importance of building a geographic information system (GIS) for capturing assets in electronic form. Oftentimes these “key” individuals are solely able to pinpoint asset locations based on their acquired system knowledge. As these staff members near retirement, reality often begins to set in regarding the level of information they maintain that is not easily accessible anywhere else. As utilities shift toward initiating a GIS, there are many factors that need to be considered.

By: Mark C. Lecher, Senior Project Manager

I have always loved printed maps. I would stare at them for hours, imagining what a faraway place would be like. Those printed maps were used to take family trips for many generations. They helped you get from point A to point B, and trip planning meant hours hunched over an atlas. When I graduated college in 1996 with my geography degree, I wanted to make printed maps. And I did. But a lot has changed since then. We have entered a new era in technology.

By: Roger P. Boissonnas, Technical Architect

The options for developing mobile GIS applications with Esri^®-based software are numerous. There are so many options out there that it can sometimes be overwhelming to know what’s best for you. Take a look at what I consider when sorting through my options for developing a mobile application.