If you have not taken a look at Intermap (traded on the Toronto exchange as IMP.TO) lately you wouldn't be alone. The company has be flying stealthily into the world of web map portals, vehicle navigation, and the PND market. Look for them to make more noise in the enterprise GIS market very soon.

We first caught up with Intermap CEO, Brian Bullock in January to discuss the company's NEXTMap product and the announcement about how they have been capturing highly accurate 3D geometry for road networks for the automotive and insurance industries. If you did not get a chance to hear that interview, Bullock gave a very intriguing picture of his vision for why you need such accuracy, even for a consumer marketplace. In brief, the data is being incorporated into both automated suspension systems and in-vehicle nav devices to help cars in predicting changes in slope and elevation. The result: cars can improve gas mileage and help drivers literally stay "ahead of the curve."

Now comes word today that Intermap is working with Microsoft to enhance the Virtual Earth product for Great Britain using this highly accuract 3D data. Intermap's 3D data is being used by MSFT as the foundation for placement of imagery within VE.

By far, the hottest "tech toy" demonstrated at the ESRI UC was the Adapx digital pen or Penx. The pen can be used to mark-up a paper map with "redline" annotation, but the unique function is to be able to dock the pen in a USB port and have your mark-up appear on the same map that had been previously digitized. The paper is "watermarked" so that it knows the extents of the map prior to drawing on it. The user "strikes-through" an icon on the legend and then draws the feature manually on the paper map. Docking the pen transfers the information to a digital map. The demo was shown during the opening plenary and the Adapx booth has been inundated. Rather than try to explain further, click on the photo at right and watch the demo.