ESRI Fed UC and Commercial Imaging Conferences

March 7, 2010 By: Art Kalinski

Moving forward with a ball and chain on one foot

ESRI Federal Users Conference - Washington, DC, February 17-19, 2010

The ESRI Federal Users Conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center was surprisingly well attended considering the economy. But Washington is the one segment of the economy that is growing, so that shouldn’t be such a surprise. Attendance was near 3,000, even with lingering snow drifts that made navigating the sidewalks a bit of a challenge.

This conference was all about ArcGIS Version 10. According to Jack Dangermond, Version 10 is a major change scheduled for release this spring. Although not an earth-shaking change, it does seem to bring GIS software to a very sophisticated level with a speed, smoothness, and refinement not previously seen.

ESRI Fed UC Conference in Washington, D.C., February 17-19, 2010

The plenary sessions were remarkable in that there was not a bad seat in the house visually or audibly. There were several very large projection screens showing live video of the speaker next to a live display of the software or slides being shown. I was impressed at how good the audio and video were. One could see and hear well at any location without the typical muddiness of sound in some locations. An additional advantage of the video feeds is that the presentations were recorded and can be played back by navigating to the ESRI Federal UC website. This is an excellent way to see presentations missed because of schedule conflicts or to review material that was worth a second look.

The new features of Version 10 are quite extensive. Four that caught my attention were the especially smooth integration of different GIS platforms, from desktop to web apps to mobile tablets and even iPhone apps. Image server and processing was lightning quick, performing image analysis that formerly required a lunch break in seconds or less. Some production tools such as creation of vector data from imagery was quick and easy because the software anticipated what the user was tracing. And the extensive use of templates is a big help for the cartographically challenged.

The National Security session was heavily aimed at defense users. The easy integration of multiple data sources quickly and seamlessly made for a very rapid work flow. The extensive use of predefined templates speeded project creation, but most importantly it resulted in extremely professional-looking cartography. I’ve always flinched at the really terrible maps some of our GIS users produce. I taught ArcView classes for years and always felt that teaching people how to use the software was much easier than teaching good cartography and good taste.

The templates, like earlier efforts with MapPublisher and GeoPDFs, solve many of the issues by predefining good color combinations, such as weights and symbology. The starter base map that was used in the demo had a familiar USGS/Army map look. The look can be modified but one would be ill-advised to change it without good reason. Tuffti and McLuan would be impressed with some of the output that is produced using these templates.

The rapid assembly of different geospatial data sources, including web services, made “mash ups” fast and easy. Gone are the days of matching up projections and choosing line weights and colors. The creator can instead concentrate on finding appropriate data and assembling a compelling story. The end result is a professional map presentation with symbology matching Department of Defense standards.

During the demos, there was an impromptu interruption of the presenter by his colleague. It may have been an unrehearsed example of responding to rapidly changing events while doing a daily briefing. The example injected the breaking news of the earthquake in Chile. I couldn’t tell if it was a real, unrehearsed mash up or not but it went smoothly and quickly as the user assembled info about Chile and put a presentation together including maps, statistics, and even twitter locations with observations from local residents.

There are so many improvements and new features in Version 10 that I encourage everyone to explore it on the ESRI website. The video demos are especially informative and an efficient way to quickly understand the features and improvements. I’m sure that the main users conference in San Diego will be dominated by Version 10 since it will be released just before the conference.

Unfortunately, the location of the Expo area left many exhibitors cold. Unlike last year where the Expo was next to registration and in the middle of most activity, this year the Expo was some distance from the sessions and in the basement. They tried to entice the crowds by holding a social in the Expo area and having two lunches next to the Expo, but the inconvenient distance to the basement location made it hard to pop into the Expo between sessions.

Snow blocks the conference center in Washington, D.C.

International Commercial Remote Sensing Symposium (ICRSS 2010) - Washington, D.C., March 3-5, 2010

Two weeks later I attended the USGIF sponsored ICRSS conference at the Ronald Reagan Center in D.C. Co-sponsored by NOAA, this conference, as the title describes, focused on commercial remote-sensing vendors and the current state of technology. As the emphasis on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) procurement increases, this conference was very well attended by key federal decision makers.

International Commercial Remote Sensing Symposium, Washington, D.C., March 3-5, 2010

The opening session featured Mary Glackin, the Deputy Under Secretary of NOAA, followed by Rani Hellerman of ImageSat, Bill Schuster of GeoEye, Walter Scott of Digital Globe, and John Weeber of RapidEye. The U.S. presenters expressed their concern that government restrictions placed on U.S. companies to limit resolution to no better than .5 meters could put those vendors at a disadvantage compared to the growing capabilities of foreign competitors.

The steady march toward higher resolution was countered by John Weeber of Rapid Eye. He explained how their imagery, which is only 5-meters resolution, met a need for large swaths of imagery to form the “big picture” quickly. We both discussed how it was similar to the one-upmanship of digital cameras to have more and more pixels. There is a point where the overhead of very high resolution just gets in the way and is overkill. Additionally, the narrow view can hinder quick orientation similar to navigating around by looking down through a cardboard tube.

USGIF (U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation), a non-profit organization, always puts on professional and well organized conferences. This was no exception. Future USGIF conferences include GEOINT Community Week (formerly tech days) May 17-21 in several D.C. locations, GEOINT 101 courses (next one is March 23), and the mega GEOINT 2010 that will be held in Nashville November 1-4, 2010.

Both conferences were superb. The learning never stops.