A Free GIS Tool Just Got Better

A few months ago, I wrote a little about ArcGIS Explorer (AE), a free GIS viewer from Esri. It’s a nice tool for non-GIS users who want to view GIS data. Looks like another feature is creeping into AE to make it a bit more powerful. Bern Szukalski, product strategist and evangelist at Esri, blogged earlier this week about new functionality in AE that will allow direct GPS support. In other words, you can connect a GPS receiver (Bluetooth or otherwise) to a device running AE and be able to visualize and record GPS data as its tracking.

Borrowing from Bern’s Blog, following is a 2D map as he was driving, showing the waypoints and tracks as he was moving. He said he set AE to collect a GPS point every 10 seconds, centering the map as he moved. GPS waypoints and tracks are stored as notes.

(Click to enlarge.)

The next screen shot shows his path in 3D. Green represents GPS points/paths collected by mouse click. Yellow represents GPS points/paths collected at 10-second intervals.

Bern blogged that he was using a borrowed $18 USB GPS receiver in this example. Don’t pay much attention to the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the GPS positioning. He could have just as easily connected a sub-meter or centimeter-level GPS receiver (outputing NMEA 0183 messages) and had enough precision to accurately position the center of a 6-inch water meter cover plate on the sidewalk. That’s where this is headed, folks.

I didn’t attend the annual GITA (Geospatial Infrastructure Technology Association) conference this year, but I received several reports that this was the last GITA annual conference. That’s pretty sobering (but not surprising), given that it was the 34th such conference that started in the late 1970s. I blogged last year that I thought this years was going to be a really tough one because it wasn’t co-locating with another conference as it was last year with ACSM (American Congress on Surveying and Mapping). Although the demise of the GITA annual conference was predictable, it’s still sad to see it go. Last year, I thought the technical presentations were quite good and clearly demonstrated a need for continuing promoting and developing geospatial apps in the world of infrastructure. Without the GITA conference, I wonder where these folks will go to share their knowledge and experiences. I’d like to reiterate that there are too many niche conferences related to GIS. GIS folks can’t afford the time or expense, and neither can GIS sponsors/vendors, to attend three different small GIS conferences in a 90-day window. What I wrote a year ago is just as relevant today.

Let’s discuss conferences for a minute

As good as the content was for both the GITA and ACSM conferences, the attendance was horrible. If there were 1,000 people there (for both), I’d be surprised. At this pace of decline, something’s got to give. I attended the annual GITA conference in Seattle in 2008. If I recall correctly, there were about 1,400 attendees. This year, in 2010, there were maybe half of that including exhibitors. Next year, the GITA conference is operating as a stand-alone conference in a suburb of Dallas, Texas. I predict it might be even worse than this year. The ACSM annual conference is not doing any better, but rumor has it will co-locate in 2011. The two conferences won’t be co-located next year. It’s a time for conferences to start working together.
Size Matters

It’s a vicious cycle. The fewer attendees there are, the less interested vendors are in exhibiting and sponsoring the event. Each year, attendance erodes until it doesn’t make sense any longer. Now is the time for conference consolidation, especially in the GIS industry. GIS is tough to segment because it stretches across so many industry boundaries. In April alone, there was the GIS-T (GIS in Transportation) conference in West Virginia, the GITA/ACSM co-located conference in Phoenix and the ASPRS (American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing) conference in San Diego. All of these are small conferences that are becoming increasingly difficult to justify, financially, for both the operators and the attendees. I can safely say that attendees and vendors certainly would prefer to attend one conference in one location that includes GIS-T, GITA and ASPRS rather than three separate conferences spread out all over the US. They need to consolidate at the same time in a single location.

I suppose the demise of the annual GITA conference is part of the consolidation I wrote about. Being accelerated by the current economy, people will just stop attending some conferences and pick/choose the conference(s) they feel fit their needs the best.

Upcoming Events/Publications:

Following are a few upcoming events you might be interested in:

Webinar: April 21st. “LightSquared and GPS: Our Story So Far”. I’ll be participating in a moderated discussion about this issue. If your organization relies on GPS, I strongly encourage you to register. If you aren’t available during that time, register anyway and you’ll be provided a link to view the webinar at a time that’s convenient to you.

Space Weather Workshop: April 26-29. I’ll be presenting at this conference and blogging about what I hear in order to keep you informed about space weather as the next solar cycle warms up.

Western Forester: April issue. Look for my article and accompanying articles on Lidar, laser rangefinders, GPS and other emerging technologies that concern the forester and other natural resource professionals.

Thanks, and see you next week.

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