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Laser-Scan User Group Conference... Day 2

(July 3, 2002, Wyboston, Bedfordshire, UK) -- The second day of the Laser-Scan User Group Conference got off to a rather different start than expected. At the last minute the keynote speaker Niels Andersen, the Managing Director of KMS was unable to make the trip from Denmark to the UK. Following a swift reshuffle, proceedings got underway with a presentation from Warrant Officer Andy Fuller from No 1 AIDU. Andy talked about how his unit is using Laser-Scan technology to deliver improved services to pilots and aircrews. The development teams from both companies are collaborating to devise a web-enabled Internet and Intranet system for efficient delivery of NOTAMs (Notices to Airmen). Instead of having to work through excessive printouts of all NOTAMs for a particular country, the crew will be able to specify an area and receive only those relevant for their flight.

One of the major areas of discussion during coffee breaks and lunch was generalisation, which seems to be the new buzzword among mapping agencies and industry specialists alike. Generalisation is the process by which mapmakers derive small-scale maps from large-scale data; it’s a fine art of emphasising those features that are most important and removing irrelevant detail. The auditorium was full for a presentation delivered by Melanie Hayles from Laser-Scan, which detailed a new project to further develop generalisation capabilities in line with the demands of national mapping agencies, particularly those in Europe. The subsequent workshop attracted delegates from other GIS vendors, as well as those who would be more traditionally associated with this technology.

One of the most innovative presentations of the day came from Dennis Walker of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) in the USA. Dennis presented the use of voice recognition technology to operate a GIS solution supplied by Laser-Scan at NIMA. This was a fantastic demonstration of technology in action.

Text placement is known to account for up to 50% of the effort in producing a user-friendly map. Etienne Hauboin from Institut Geographique National (IGN), France, presented IGN’s own text placement solution, explaining how it could speed up text placement by a factor of six, representing a huge difference for map makers. This is an internal IGN product but has been shown to work in collaboration with Laser-Scan technology.

Mapping technology was very much the theme of the day, and this was continued by Brigitte Husen, who Talked about model generalisation. Model generalisation differs from cartographic generalisation because it is concerned with the simplification of the digital data in the storage model rather than the presentation of that data. Laser-Scan is currently involved in a project which is a collaboration of three of the German state mapping organisations (or Laender). In this project they are looking to apply model generalisation techniques to their cartographic datasets to allow data products of different scales to be produced automatically.

User Group Conference delegates are always keen to hear the latest news from Laser-Scan’s parent company Yeoman, and this year was no exception. Dan Ormsby provided delegates with a review of the past year’s activities at Yeoman Navigation and in particular developments surrounding Yeoman’s TravelM8 service and their recent announcement with Hertz.

To round up this year’s conference Gareth Patterson, Laser-Scan’s Director of Software provided an overview of Laser-Scan’s approach to the changing GIS market and the company’s evolutionary new approach to product development. From its 30 years of experience Laser-Scan is now extracting valuable components from its proven technology base and making them available within the world of mainstream IT. Radius Topology is the first in this new product family and is already causing a stir in the marketplace.

Closing the event, Laser-Scan’s Managing Director Dr. Michael Sanderson reinforced the message that has become apparent during the course of the conference, that is, that Laser-Scan is reaching phenomenal heights and it will only get better.

[ Day 1 ]

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