Mapping start-ups are on a roll. CartoDB raises $23M in Series B funding

By Aleks Buczkowski

In June 2015 Mapbox reported raising $52.6 million from investors. YesterdayCartoDB shared a news about securing $23 million funding in Series B round. Mapping start-up are on a roll… and most importantly investors are finally seeing a potential in location-related start-ups which are not based on gathering user spatial data (like Foursquare) but giving people tools to analyze and visualize geographic phenomena in an easy way. This is important for all people in broad geospatial industry – to all of us.

For those who don’t know the company, CartoDB is online map maker and business intelligence startup which aims to make it easy for anyone to communicate information with a map. The company was launched in 2011 by two Spanish biodiversity and conservation scientists who wanted a better tool to communicate their results. CartoDB has since been used by over 120,000 users to make 400,000 maps.

The mapping projects created with CartoDB are for example: recent mapping of 36 million AshleyMaddison users, Living Cities project, crazy start-up mapping, smell map of London,UFO maps, river directions map, meteorites hit map.

The company will use the investment to strengthen key strategic areas: Product development, Data science, Business development, Marketing & Sales.

As of today CartoDB has over 1,000 paying customers — ranging from big banks to government departments, but anyone can create a free account to access the platform’s basic features. It seems that this features will soon get even better.

Congrats CartoDB!

APP6-C, Collada support added in Luciad V2015.1 update

Luciad has released version 2015.1, its mid-year update to its suite of geospatial software components.

The V2015.1 release includes multiple enhancements and numerous fixes requested by Luciad users.

The enhancements aim to increase performance, facilitate the development of current applications and help users meet current and future project requirements.

Notable new features in V2015.1 include:


Command and control joint missions with the latest APP-6C NATO military symbology
Turn any shape into a tactical graphic
Integrate 3D Collada into any operational picture
Side-by-side multi-feature comparison

“We are pleased to offer a great set of new features to our customers and the geospatial community with V2015.1,” said Luciad Chief Technology Officer Frank Suykens.

“These new features illustrate our commitment to remaining the technology leader in the Defense & Security realm, while also offering technology adapted for many other areas,” said Luciad Chief Commercial Officer Christoph De Preter.

“The side-by-side multi-feature comparison for instance is used by our customers from the intelligence community. Likewise, the feature also allows environmental and agriculture customers to rapidly detect and analyze changes in our environment.”Luciad customers with gold maintenance can receive the V2015.1 update at no additional cost.

More information on Luciad’s geospatial software components and the features included in V2015.1 is available at www.luciad.com or by contactingEmail Contact.

About Luciad
Luciad’s software components are designed for the creation of applications that tackle a range of tasks, from top-level strategy to tactical detail and mission planning to operations debriefing. By connecting directly to data sources, Luciad’s software not only analyzes and visualizes what is happening now, but also helps predict what will happen next – allowing users to act quickly and safely. “Connect, visualize, analyze, act” is both our method and our motto. www.luciad.com

Source

Hexagon Geospatial Visualizes Stories with the Hexagon Smart M.App®

"It’s clear that the future lies in the ability to build and deploy highly customizable apps that provide true operational and business value. Hexagon Smart M.Apps is our way of providing a better experience," President of Hexagon Geospatial.



Hexagon Geospatial is pleased to introduce the Hexagon Smart M.App®, providing a new way to understand and share your geospatial experience. These new light-weight applications cohesively combine data, workflows, and analytics. Hexagon Smart M.Apps are creatively designed maps to solve distinct business problems.

“Our world is more dynamic than it has ever been,” said Mladen Stojic, President of Hexagon Geospatial. “As such, we need to think about maps differently. It’s clear that the future lies in the ability to build and deploy highly customizable apps that provide true operational and business value. Hexagon Smart M.Apps is our way of providing a better experience.”

Hexagon Geospatial’s business partner network plays a critical role in the development of these applications. Utilizing components of the M.App Portfolio, business partners design, build and deploy Hexagon Smart M.Apps, using core technologies and tying in key data sources. The company has already announced content sharing programs with Airbus Defence and Space, and BlackSky Global, to integrate current satellite imagery and earth observation data with Hexagon Smart M.Apps development. Hexagon Smart M.Apps will be published to an e-commerce store, broadening their reach and applicability.

“We’ve embarked upon a new, transformative approach to delivering smart applications,” said Stojic. “Our global network of business partners are perfectly poised to understand unique local industry requirements. They are working with customers worldwide to develop applications that leverage our technological strengths, simplifying and customizing the experience for you.”

Business partner Sterling Geo in the UK are early adopters and are heavily involved with Hexagon Smart M.Apps technology. At HxGN LIVE, they shared the story around the urban planning apps that are currently being built or deployed across the UK government community.

“Every moment, it seems there are new thoughts, ideas, and opportunities, and this is exemplified with Hexagon Smart M.Apps,” said Andy Wells, Business Development Manager at Sterling Geo. “To me, this is the single biggest step in our industry and potentially for the application of geospatial data I would say in the last twenty years.”

Hexagon Geospatial is currently signing on new partners interested in participating in the Hexagon Smart M.App program. Find out more athttp://www.hexagongeospatial.com/smartmapp and sign up for a preview. Hexagon Smart M.App and the M.App Portfolio will be officially launched later this year.

About Hexagon Geospatial 

Hexagon Geospatial helps you make sense of the dynamically changing world. Hexagon Geospatial provides software products and platforms to a large variety of customers through direct sales, channel partners and other Hexagon businesses. For more information, visit http://www.hexagongeospatial.com.

Hexagon Geospatial is part of Hexagon, a leading global provider of information technologies that drive quality and productivity improvements across geospatial and industrial enterprise applications. Hexagon’s solutions integrate sensors, software, domain knowledge and customer workflows into intelligent information ecosystems that deliver actionable information, automate business processes and improve productivity. They are used in a broad range of vital industries. Hexagon has more than 15,000 employees in 46 countries and net sales of approximately 3.1bn USD. Learn more at hexagon.com.

© 2015 Hexagon AB and/or its subsidiaries and affiliates. Hexagon and the Hexagon logo are registered trademarks of Hexagon AB or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks or servicemarks used herein are property of their respective owners. Hexagon Geospatial believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. Such information is subject to change without notice.


Contact:


Jason Sims

Hexagon Geospatial
+1 202-262-3340

Source

Intermap's InsitePro Software Licensed by Global Reinsurer in Four Latin American Countries

(PRNewswire) — Intermap Technologies® (TSX:IMP), (ITMSF: BB), a leading provider of location-based solutions, today announced an agreement with a leading Global Reinsurer to license InsitePro™ software in: Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Chile. The adoption of flood insurance throughout South America is increasing and InsitePro serves the growing demand from insurance carriers. InsitePro will be delivered to underwriters so that they have the necessary software to evaluate locations, one-by-one or thousands at a time, using innovative and reliable risk models and analytics.



"Underwriting flood coverage is a location-based decision that depends on accurate integration of geospatial answers and flood risk information," saidIvan Maddox, Intermap's InsitePro Product Manager. "Intermap is delivering InsitePro to this Global Reinsurer to help them transfer their underwriting capabilities to their clients in the Latin American market."

InsitePro leverages Intermap's best-in-class NEXTMap® and NEXTMap World 30™ elevation datasets, together with powerful analytics, to produce a robust SaaS-based risk analysis tool. Configurable risk scoring allows users to go beyond flood models to better understand flood risk by combining heights above flood elevation, flow routes from rivers to buildings, and the latest flood models in a way that solves specific business problems. InsitePro can also display a customer's own proprietary risk data or any available government data.

About Intermap Technologies 

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Intermap Technologies is an industry leader in geospatial solutions on demand with its secure, cloud based Orion Platform®. Through its powerful suite of software applications and proprietary development of contiguous databases that fuse volumes of geospatial data into a single source, the Orion Platform is able to provide location-based solutions for customers in diverse markets around the world. For more information please visit www.intermap.com.

Intermap Reader Advisory
Certain information provided in this news release constitutes forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate", "expect", "project", "estimate", "forecast" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Although Intermap believes that these statements are based on information and assumptions which are current, reasonable and complete, these statements are necessarily subject to a variety of known and unknown risks and uncertainties. You can find a discussion of such risks and uncertainties in our Annual Information Form and other securities filings. While the Company makes these forward-looking statements in good faith, should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary significantly from those expected. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits that the Company will derive there from. All subsequent forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, attributable to Intermap or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the forward-looking statements made herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities law.

SOURCE

Contact:
Intermap Technologies Corporation
Ivan Maddox, InsitePro Product Manager
Email Contact +1 (303) 708-0955

Study to Examine Road Widening, Signal Needs in Lewis Center

Delaware County has contracted with Woolpert for road improvement studies on a mile-and-a-half stretch of South Old State Road from Orange Road north to Lewis Center Road in Lewis Center.

Woolpert will collect and analyze data to determine whether the two-lane road should be widened, up to five lanes at select areas, and if intersections require signals, roundabouts or turn lanes.

“Our role is to look at traffic, accidents, delays, environmental issues, concerns for right-of-way, overall project cost, (etc.),” said Ron Mattox, Woolpert project director. “Then we can develop feasible roadway alternatives for two lanes or three lanes or five lanes to alleviate existing traffic and safety issues.”

U.S. Census data shows that Delaware has been among the fastest growing counties in Ohio for years, and multiple subdivisions have been built along South Old State Road.

“We’ll be looking at five major intersections to determine if a signal is warranted or a roundabout would provide the necessary capacity and safety,” Mattox said. “Plans also call for a 10-foot-wide multiuse path, with a sidewalk on the opposite side.”

Woolpert—a national architecture, engineering and geospatial firm headquartered in Dayton—has worked with Delaware County in the past. The firm provided aerial imagery and mapped this stretch of road three years ago as part of a countywide project using light detection and ranging (LiDAR).

Earlier this year, the South Old State Road corridor was reflown to get higher resolution imagery and more precise mapping.

“LiDAR produces better and tighter data, with more than three collection datapoints per meter,” Mattox said. “This will give us more detail regarding drainage and runoff, and more information on roadway issues like sight distance—whether drivers can see over an upcoming hill, if there are trees or a building blocking a turn, etc.”

Woolpert will use the LiDAR mapping to develop alternatives for South Old State Road improvements and create documentation for the county. The county will share its findings with the public once the study has been completed.

The study should take about eight months. Roadwork is expected to take place in 2019 and is dependent on funding.

About Woolpert
Woolpert is a national architecture, engineering and geospatial (AEG) firm that delivers value to clients by strategically blending engineering excellence with leading-edge technology and geospatial applications. With a dynamic R&D department, Woolpert works with inventive business partners like Google; operates a fleet of planes, sensors and unmanned aerial systems (UAS); and continually pushes industry boundaries by working with advanced water technologies, asset management, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and sustainable design. Woolpert’s mission is to help its clients progress—and become more progressive. For over 100 years and with more than 25 offices across the United States, Woolpert serves the needs of federal, state, and local governments; private and public companies and universities; energy and transportation departments; and the United States Armed Forces. For more information, visit woolpert.com or call 937-531-1258.

Source

FOSS4G-Europe 2015

July 14th - 17th 2015, Como

The second edition of the FOSS4G-Europe Conference will be held at Politecnico di Milano in Como, Italy, from July 15th to 17th, 2015. A day of workshops will precede the conference on 14th July, and a code sprint will close the event on 18th July.

The Conference aims to bring together FOSS4G users and developers worldwide and foster closer interactions with and amongst European communities in order to share ideas for improving geodata, software and applications openess.

For more information follow the link here.

New Ideas and Markets Emerging Based on Big Data from Space

The Copernicus Masters competition is inviting all interested participants to submit outstanding ideas, applications, and business concepts involving innovative uses of Earth observation data by 13 July 2015. Along with cash prizes, the winners will receive access to a leading international network, corresponding data, start-up funding, and other support valued at more than EUR 300,000 in total.

The tremendous amounts of data produced by the European Earth observation programme Copernicus and its Sentinel satellites hugely benefit science and public authorities and open the door to countless products and applications in a wide array of business sectors. The European Space Agency (ESA) and Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO) have thus initiated the Copernicus Masters competition to aid visionary entrepreneurs in bringing their innovations to market.

“Start-ups and SMEs in particular stand to benefit from the virtually limitless scope of the data Copernicus provides,” affirms Prof Dr Volker Liebig, Director of Earth Observation Programmes and Head of ESRIN, European Space Agency (ESA). “The ideas submitted to previous editions of the Copernicus Masters have already demonstrated this to impressive effect, as has the constantly growing number of companies that are developing products and services based on Earth observation data in ESA’s business incubation programme.”

These companies operate in a diverse range of fields, where they address subjects like resource efficiency in agriculture, the construction industry, and renewable energy. The Copernicus Masters, meanwhile, is also looking for new services and products in forward-thinking segments such as big data, cloud computing, crowdsourcing, data visualisation, and mobile applications, to name just a few.

In this year’s edition, prizes will be awarded in topic-specific challenges sponsored by a number of world-class partners, including: ESA, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), T-Systems International GmbH, Satellite Applications Catapult Ltd., Greece’s National Cadastre and Mapping Agency (NCMA), CloudEO AG, and European Space Imaging GmbH. In addition, the new University Challenge specifically addresses students and research assistants around the world.

“We and our partners are offering the participants space for innovation in areas that are already shaping the future – the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, smart cities, and renewable energy, for example,” states AZO managing director Thorsten Rudolph. “We want to support them in realising their creative solutions to these global challenges.”

“Taking part in the Copernicus Masters gave us the chance to make some key contacts and gather valuable feedback,” reports John Smedegaard, a co-founder of Ceptu, which won the CloudEO Farming Challenge in 2014. “The whole process was a huge help in advancing our idea and developing it into a commercial product through our new start-up.”

Experts from the realms of research and industry will be tasked with selecting the winner of each challenge. The overall winner – the 2015 Copernicus Master – will receive (along with their challenge prize) EUR 20,000 in cash and a satellite data package worth a further EUR 60,000, which is being provided with the financial support of the European Commission.

All of the winners will be announced this autumn and recognised as part of a festive awards ceremony.



For all of the details on this year’s prizes, partners, and terms of participation, please visitwww.copernicus-masters.com.



Additional information on the Copernicus programme is available at:

http://www.esa.int/copernicus & www.copernicus.eu

Source

HxGNLIVE 2015

An extravaganza of new technology, future visions, opinions, synergetic collaborations and a great deal more was presented during HxGNLIVE in Las Vegas, which ran until June 4th 2015. The event has attracted thousands of users from a variety of industries and organisations, many of whom work in surveying, GIS, building, metrology, security, mining, cadastre or government. 

Attendees witnessed pioneering performances from Leica Geosystems, whose innovations will result in high precision measurements executed by UAV's (drones). Ground Penetrating Radar is now being combined with Mobile Mapping: underground/above ground integration whilst driving. The term ‘Wearable Reality Capture’ refers to the miniaturizing of 3D scanners. Future Hexagon conferences will surely boast scanning teams equipped only with a backpack. The prefix 'Smart' has also landed within the Hexagon family of companies, but it still might be synonymous with 'how we really would like stuff to run'.

Another hot topic is the crowd sourcing of map data. “We can't rely on a few professionals, we have to ensure everyone contributes to making the best maps possible.” Folks who still feel that crowd sourced data is useless, might want to reconsider if they want to make it work. “See it as a big lump of data, find trends in the volume and not so much in the detail”, said Mladen Stojic of Hexagon Geospatial. David Glenn, of Intergraph fame, elaborated in a dedicated session on Geomedia GIS about upcoming versions of GeoMedia 15.0 and what could be expected from "16.0" 

Geospatial

Mladen Stojic refers to the new M.App Chest cloud space, which is hosted by Amazon, 'The Dropbox for Geospatial'. The official launch of the Smart M.App portfolio and the Geospatial 2016 release will be at HxGNLIVE in November 2015, in Hong Kong. Purpose built applications for end users, localised by partners, are going to be a part of the M.App Portfolio. GEOApp: UAS is another new product from Hexagon's Geospatial division. It's a fully automated workflow using photogrammatic data from UAV's. A collaboration between Hexagon and satellite image vendor Airbus Defence & Space integrates content into the software.

Geosystems

Creating 3D models, the newly released Leica Captivate enables measurement professionals across a wide array of industries, working in various applications, to capture and manage complex data. By combining software, precision measurement instruments and services, it's an all-encompassing solution with the look and feel of a smartphone. With Leica Captivate onboard, the new Leica total stations and MultiStation 'learn' any environment, deliver accurate positions regardless of difficult conditions and offer a fast relock in case of interrupted line of sight. The new instruments include: Leica Nova MS60 MultiStation, Leica CS20 Controller, Leica Nova TS60 Total Station, Leica CS35 Tablet and Leica Viva TS16 Total Station. When integrated with the Hexagon Imagery Program through Leica Infinity office software, basemaps can be viewed in Leica Captivate. 30 centimetre, 4-band georeferenced imagery helps users be more visually aware of what is at any jobsite, allowing for better decision making in real time. This results in increased productivity, fewer errors and a reduction in return trips to the site. Additionally, this saves time during post processing. 

Technet Rail

Geosystems elaborated on the acquisition of Technet-Rail 2010 Gmbh, a software development firm specialising in geospatial big data applications for the rail transportation industry. Incorporating technet-rail’s specialised knowledge, the acquisition should extend Leica Geosystems’ offerings, specifically in the mobile mapping segment and enable the bundling of direct or hosted market vertical solutions for the rail industries. Technet-Rail’s highly-mathematical and probability-perception approach to analysing large 3D datasets is in use on rail networks with mobile mapping data, including applications such as dynamically extracting clearances and rail gauges over whole rail networks. With this technology, Leica Geosystems is now able to further extend existing mobile mapping solutions into the rail industry. This includes developing specific monitoring tools for dedicated pit-to-ports rail networks, solutions for timely and cost-effective rail bridge refurbishment, and enabling monitoring of the growing high-speed rail networks. Offering full geo-referenced rail network maps, technet-rail 3D data tools can be used to calculate maximum train speeds – a process that until now was without an as-built basis.

Esri

The newly launched Hexagon Imagery Program, which provides ready-to-use imagery services, will be available to Esri users through the ArcGIS Marketplace. These services deliver high-resolution aerial imagery such as ready-to-use basemaps and analytical subscription services. Esri, Hexagon, and Leica have joined forces to provide this imagery to Esri users. These images are powered by the ArcGIS platform, deployed into the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. As these services are powered by the ArcGIS platform, the user has the support of a powerful, dynamic web GIS. The Hexagon Imagery Program includes two imagery services that are live and available now on the ArcGIS Marketplace as basemap and dynamic image services. The Basemap Service is a cached basemap imagery service consisting of 30-centimeter true colour imagery that is updated on an ongoing basis. The Multispectral Imagery Service provides access to the original pixel values for all four bands (red, green, blue and near infrared) of the 30-centimeter imagery. This dynamic image service is ready to use for rich image analysis and exploitation activities in ArcGIS for Desktop, ArcGIS Pro, web and mobile apps, and supported Esri partner applications. Through the Hexagon Imagery Program, the collection, storage and serving of imagery have been streamlined through a set of cloud-based subscription services, freeing up staff to perform the critical tasks that keep our communities running smoothly. These services are sold on a subscription basis for specific areas of interest. A single subscription includes access to both the Basemap and Multispectral Imagery services. This bundling of capabilities allows organizations to deliver both fast-performing basemaps and analytically capable multispectral services using just one subscription.

Autodesk

Leica Geosystems announced a collaboration with Autodesk to provide wider access to premier reality-capture and BIM-to-field layout solutions for professionals involved in laser scanning, building construction layout and related markets. The collaboration should create new opportunities for professionals working with Autodesk software to leverage the high-accuracy data from Leica Geosystems’ sensors directly within popular Autodesk authoring tools. Multiple technology integrations are being explored as both companies investigate ways to create synergies that will benefit their joint customers. 

Next HxGNLIVE events: Hong Kong 18-20 November 2015, Anaheim, CA 13-16 June 2016.

Source