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Laser-Scan User Group Conference... Day 1

(July 2, 2002, Wyboston, Bedfordshire, UK) -- The Laser-Scan User Group Conference is underway with delegates being treated to a plethora of presentations from influential industry experts as well as from Laser-Scan’s own team of specialists.

This year's conference kicked off with a keynote presentation from Mike Turnill, Oracle’s EMEA Product Manager for Spatial and LBS. Mike discussed the benefits of interoperable and open solutions and delivered a sound argument for the case of spatial data integration: universal, fast access; same utilities; same SQL access language; same features for security, backup and recovery, reduced training. As more and more customers demand integrated solutions it’s up to the industry to provide them; Oracle is doing just that with its Oracle9i database and its strategy to address new markets and promote technology partnerships. A string of use cases, from land management systems to tracking, showed just how active Oracle has been in this arena. Mike described Laser-Scan as the market leaders in topology, working alongside Oracle as the market leaders in delivering spatial data in relational databases. With Radius Topology, Mike said, Laser-Scan is further enabling Oracle to deliver new solutions that will add value to its offering across many different markets.

Presentations followed from Laser-Scan’s Oracle Programme Director, Steven Ramage and its Oracle Programme Technical Manager, David Allen on the subject of the day, Radius Topology. Steven ran through the history of Radius Topology (less than a year!) and explained the thinking behind it; essentially to open up the benefits of spatial data to the IT world. This proven technology has been in use at Laser-Scan for more than a decade, most notably in the reengineering of Ordnance Survey Land-Line data to produce OS MasterMapÔ, the digital database for Great Britain. Now Laser-Scan is sharing it, allowing businesses to benefit from huge performance improvements and enhanced data quality. Steven also gave delegates an insight into how Laser-Scan is planning to take its new product to market. A recent announcement that Autodesk is to trial Radius Topology speaks for itself, the company is also working closely with channel partners, resellers, system integrators and hardware vendors. Laser-Scan is the only company that offers topology in an Oracle9i database. Laser-Scan is working together with Oracle on the topological capabilities that will be in the next release of the Oracle database to ensure Radius Topology is complementary.

David Allen discussed Radius Topology in more technical detail, something for the geospatial experts in the audience to get their teeth into! He neatly demonstrated exactly what the benefits are and how they work, from error-free data to massive query enhancements. One of the key advantages of Radius Topology is that it works on the server-side, therefore allowing ultra-thin clients. Since Radius Topology is client agnostic, it will also add value to whichever client(s) is/are already in place.

Presentations from Laser-Scan’s partners GDC and Snowflake Software gave delegates a chance to see how Radius Topology is already adding value to solutions. Steve Feldman, General Manager of GDC showed how they are integrating Radius Topology into their successful PlanWeb2 product, a web-based GIS, to deliver e-portal functionality at a sub-regional level to their customers, mainly in the local government sector. Steve also discussed the importance of spatial data, and indeed, topology, within local government and its role in enabling e-government. Ian Painter, a Director of Snowflake Software, discussed how the users of the new GML (Geographic Markup Language) standard, which includes topology, will benefit from extra intelligence inherent in the data. Snowflake have developed GO Loader which streams GML data directly into the Oracle database. The integration of Radius Topology with this product will confer added benefits such as speed of data handling and guaranteed data integrity. GML is XML was the message.

Also appearing on the Laser-Scan stage was Nigel Mason, a Business Consultant from Informed Solutions and Graham Ward, UK Country Manager, Navigation Technologies. Nigel talked about how GIS have progressed from proprietary to enterprise wide systems and how businesses can take advantage of that shift. Graham discussed the benefits of spatial data in delivering valuable location based services to drivers.

More updates to follow throughout the conference.

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Register for regular email updates - contact helenm@lsl.co.uk

Visit the Laser-Scan User Group Conference website www.laser-scan.com/2002conference/index.htm

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