Brazilian GIS Market Meets at MundoGEO Connect

At the largest geospatial conference in Brazil, geospatial technology users are meeting at MundoGEO Connect 2011 in Sao Paulo this week. As the photos from the exhibit hall reveal (see photos below; click for larger image), this is a vibrant community focused on data collection, image processing and related data management issues.

MundoGEO Connect is a three day conference and exhibition sponsored by the publisher of InfoGEO and InfoGNSS. Emerson Granermann, conference chairman, said that over 2500 attendees have registered for the event.

Clearly, the healthy Brazilian economy has led to widespread growth of the geospatial technology marketplace. The solution providers here represent the major geospatial software solution and surveying hardware providers.

With this growth comes an emphasis on coordinating geospatial activities within the government. Luiz Paulo Souto Fortes, PhD, director of geosciences for the Insituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE) provided the keynote address to the delegates and addressed the need for a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). He discussed the recommendations of the 6th Regional Cartographic Conference for the Americas United Nations to establish and coordinate policies and technical standards for SDI. Dr. Souto Fortes was also representing the OGC and discussed the importance of establishing a set of standards and technical specifications from which to manage data and metadata.

Joel Campbell, president of ERDAS, also keynoted the opening session where he discussed "Dynamic GIS" (see video) that is comprised of four key elements. These four key concepts include geospatial technology that is Internet enabled, interoperable, mobile and and leverages cloud computing. He added that it requires data that is timely, accurate and authoritative.

The conference continues with keynote speakers from Safe Software, Topcon, Leica Geosystems, RapidEye, and ISPRS later this week.

What’s the next ESRI Summit?

The ESRI Surveying and Engineering GIS Summit is in its fifth year this August. The ESRI Remote Sensing and GIS Summit debuts at the same time, just before the formal Monday opening of the ESRI International User Conference. Also occurring before the main event are the Executive Summit (invitation only) and the Education User Conference, EdUC.

Of these, I’ve only managed to attend EdUC (I have a standing commitment to ride in or volunteer at the Pan Mass Challenge bike event, which often occurs the Friday/Sat preceding UC). It’s just great and I hope I can attend again somehow, now that I’m teaching again. The Executive Summit, which my colleague Joe Francica has attended (his 2005 review), is all about helping executives “get” or “get more” out of GIS.

But these “new” summits are different. They are, from what I gather, opportunities to build bridges with related disciplines. I use that term with care. A discipline has its own rules, its own tools and technologies, in these cases, tools and technologies allied with GIS. I want to contrast disciplines with “industries” or “business areas.” While ESRI does have a “surveying industry manager,” Brent Jones, who hails from the Northeast, somehow it doesn’t fall into the same space as other ESRI “industries.” It’s more like the “industry” I used to manage at ESRI, the one called “CAD.” Surveying, like CAD and remote sensing, is horizontal and serves many industries. Other ESRI industries, oil and gas, pipeline, water, insurance, forestry, agriculture and others tap into GIS to better serve their customers and their bottom line. Surveying, photogrammetry, remote sensing and even CAD are more about data creation and preparation. They are sometimes thought of more as “inputs” to spatial databases and analyses. 

So, what will be the next summit ESRI will announce? Will it be LiDAR? CAD? GPS? Location determination? User generated data? With what other technologies does ESRI and by extension the rest of the GIS establishment need to build bridges?

Podcast: What to Expect in Geospatial as 2007 Closes

As summer ends our editors look ahead to the remaining months of 2007. We will share some expected events including satellite launches, regulatory decisions and business rollouts that we expect may impact our work in geospatial. Let’s have a look into the future. The podcast is 14 minutes long as was recorded on August 31.

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Podcast: Leica Takes Bold Steps with Multiple Acquisitions

This week Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg explore Leica Geosystems three recent acquistions. Why did the company, itself acquired in 2005 by Hexagon of Sweden, purchase Acquis Technology, ER Mapper and IONIC Software? What do the three have in common and what are Leica’s future plans?

The podcast is 14 minutes long (5 Mb) and was recorded on June 25, 2007.

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Podcast: Directions on the News - January 30, 2007