Inside Briefs Where on Eartha™? January's Where on Eartha contest proved to be more of a challenge than we had expected. No less than 27 state capitols were suggested from Juneau, Alaska to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Nonetheless, most respondents were able to identify the Florida capitol building in Tallahassee, which was depicted using DeLorme's latest imagery dataset (see accompanying article). Thanks to all who responded and especially those of you who supplemented your responses with fascinating accounts of the architectural peculiarities of the capitol complex. The first correct entry pulled from the hat, and the latest winner of a copy of XMap 4.5, is Art Noto. This month's Where on Eartha challenge pays appropriate homage to St. Valentine. Tell us the name of this heart-shaped lake and you could be the next XMap winner. To enter, e-mail your response to contest@delorme.com before February 28, 2006. We Want to Meet You! Visit Us At Upcoming Events Tech Advantage 2006 Conference & Expo Orange County Convention Center Booth 110 Orlando, FL February 16-20, 2006 Be sure to stop by the booth on Saturday, February 18th from 9-9:30am for a hands-on training session with Keith Gray of DeLorme. You will learn how to get your mapping data out of the corporate office and into the hands of the engineers and technicians in the field, increase the ROI on your company's GIS investment through responsible data sharing, develop an understanding of how to easily import GIS data and build useful symbolization and classification, and develop custom queries that can be shared with mobile associates. GITA's Annual Conference Tampa Convention Center Booth 706 Tampa, FL April 23-26, 2006 Be sure to stop by and enter the drawing for an Earthmate Blue Logger GPS! Feb. 2006 XMap Developments BoatU.S. Chooses DeLorme XMap Software BoatU.S., the nation's largest recreational boat owners association, has selected XMap/GIS software with XMap USA Street Level 2006 base data to provide emergency location and routing services to its growing network of boaters. BoatU.S. will use DeLorme professional software with key emergency service provider PCs to enhance response times and response effectiveness. XMap will also aid BoatU.S. in providing better Marine Insurance support. BoatU.S. chose XMap for its ability to import boating points of interest and public safety data as well as its ability to import scanned images, including nautical charts and other imagery datasets. It was also chosen to locate and display: Repair facilities capable of repairing marine vessels. BoatU.S. marine centers throughout the United States. Hurricane impact areas and debris fields. United States Coast Guard facilities for member emergency preparation. Click here to receive a free, 45-day trial of XMap/GIS Editor. For more information on BoatU.S., visit www.boatus.com. One-Meter Color Imagery of Florida...To Go! XMap users in Florida have yet another reason to unplug their laptop and take it for a drive in the car. DeLorme has just completed the processing of a one-meter resolution, color aerial imagery dataset for all of the Sunshine State. Now as you track your trip using XMap's GPS tools, you can literally watch yourself driving along a high-resolution image of the road right on your laptop screen. This XMap base map option is being made available in a series of seamless regional mosaics, each of which fills a DVD. For the real road warrior, DeLorme can even provide the entire state on a single USB hard drive offering uninterrupted coverage as you drive from Pensacola to Key West. This ortho-rectified imagery, which was derived from Florida's DOQQ files, was captured in 2004 and early 2005 and provides the most complete and up-to-date aerial coverage for the state. According to Geoffrey Ives, DeLorme's Director of Professional Sales, "The processing of this imagery into XMap format was undertaken in response to numerous requests from XMap users in Florida. Because a significant percentage of our customers work in a mobile office setting, with no access to online mapping and imagery sites, it was important for us to offer them a readily-available, mobile alternative. This imagery is a perfect compliment to the XMap/GIS toolset in use by field technicians across the USA." The advantage of having the imagery in XMap format is that it allows field workers to quickly pull up an image of a location without the need for an Internet connection and without having to manage dozens of individual image files. Used in conjunction with XMap's renowned in-the-field mapping tools, this dataset is perfect for utility workers, insurance adjusters, realtors, first responders, law enforcement officers, and anyone who appreciates the value of high-quality aerial imagery and an easy-to use yet powerful mapping application. For more information or to download a sample file for use in XMap, visit www.delorme.com/professional/floridaimagery. Did You Know...Tuning Up Your XData Most XMap or Street Atlas USA Plus users are familiar with the versatile and powerful XData tool. Whether you're using it to manage your real estate listings, keep track of your customers, or geocode data for use as a GIS layer, chances are, it's one of the functions you use the most. The process of matching each of the addresses in your database to the precise point along one of literally millions of roads in DeLorme's mapping database is a formidable one. However, there are certain steps that you can take to ensure that the process is smooth and efficient. The fundamental function of XData is similar to merging two previously unrelated databases into one. Anyone who has attempted to do this using a standalone database program will appreciate the importance of cleaning up the data before beginning the process. For XMap users, there are several ways in which the data can and should be cleaned: Make sure your data includes actual addresses. P.O. Boxes, for example, cannot be tagged to a precise location and will be located to the center of the ZIP Code instead. Remove unnecessary headers or footers (such as a document title or description) from your address list. Try to ensure that the column headings in your data accurately describe the contents of each column. If this is the case, the XData importing tool will automatically assign the correct locating parameters making the import process quicker and more accurate. If possible, sort your address list by ZIP Code before beginning the import process. While importing addresses, the XData tool will cache a certain amount of map data for the purpose of matching addresses within that area. If your data is randomly sorted, the map data in the cache will probably be replaced with each sequential address in your list, slowing the import process. By grouping your database geographically, all of the addresses within a particular area can be matched at the same time. The result can be a ten-fold increase in the speed of the import process. A little time spent preparing your data before importing it to an XData dataset will ensure that the process will be smoother, quicker, and more accurate. Note: If you have installed Street Atlas USA Plus or XMap, a variety of sample files (called "KeyWestCharter") were installed in the C:\DeLorme Docs\Datasets folder. These files provide examples of correctly-formatted datasets. Welcome, Jim Ragonese! Jim Ragonese is DeLorme's latest addition to their Professional Product Sales and Marketing Team. In his role, Ragonese will be responsible for sales and marketing of XMap software to DeLorme's target vertical market segments as well as to original equipment manufacturers in the fast growing mobile device marketplace. Jim brings over 25 years of experience in the high-tech software and hardware industry to his new role, most recently as Director of Sales, Embedded Systems for ScanSoft, a leader in speech recognition software. Want to contact Jim? E-mail him at jim.ragonese@delorme.com.

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