Inside Briefs Where on Eartha? If "most popular response" were the deciding factor in last month's Where on Eartha challenge, there would have been a three-way tie between those who suggested Phoenix, AZ, Salt Lake City, UT, and the correct answer...which was Cape Town, South Africa with Table Mountain forming a dramatic backdrop. Of those whose response was correct, Gene McDonough of IBM Global Business Services was the first name pulled from the hat and he will be receiving a copy of XMap 4.5. This month, our tour heads north to a land-locked country highlighted in red in this image. Hint: The graphic may not be north up. If you would like to be in the running for a chance to win a copy of XMap 4.5, simply send an e-mail to contest@delorme.com and tell us the name of this country. All entries must be received by May 31, 2006 and the winner will be announced in June's edition of the DeLorme Professional Insider. Good luck! XMap in Valuation Review The discipline of GIS has made significant advances into businesses and industries that, up until recently, would not have considered GIS to be a necessary tool nor even been aware of its benefits. An important reason for this dramatic shift is the increased availability of low-cost, easy to use GIS tools. As documented in a recent article in Valuation Review, the real estate and appraisal industries are great examples of industries that are on the verge of embracing GIS technology—with XMap from DeLorme playing a key role. Click here to read the article. We Want to Meet You! Visit Us At Upcoming Events New England GIS Sheraton Ferncroft Danvers, MA May 9-10, 2006 Be sure to stop by and enter the drawing for an Earthmate Blue Logger GPS! Congratulations! Congratulations to Nick Guerrero from Duke Energy Gas Transmission who won an Earthmate Blue Logger GPS device after visiting us at GITA! May, 2006 XMap Developments Can Your GIS Software Do This? XMap/GIS Editor, DeLorme’s GIS solution, has been rightly described as the culmination of 30 years of innovation in mapping technology. As a result, XMap has inherited and retained countless mapping tools that are not typically found in traditional GIS software: Door-to-door or office-to-work site route planning Advanced routing tools have been an integral component of all DeLorme software titles since the early versions of Street Atlas USA over a dozen years ago. With each successive product generation, the routing engine has been tuned up and the accuracy of the base map has improved so that highly accurate and detailed route planning is assured. In XMap, optimal routes can be created that provide detailed directions to critical field assets that are recorded in a GIS layer. GPS tracking and in-vehicle navigation After attaching a low-cost GPS receiver to your laptop computer, XMap adopts the mantle of a powerful in-vehicle navigation tool with such features as voice command capability, proximity searching using the innovative Radar tool, and trip recording/logging. XMap is the perfect fusion of GPS and GIS technologies, offering spatial data analysis capabilities and GPS-based location functions for use in the field. Document or file linking Using XMap, a symbol placed on the map can be used as a link to any available file, document, photograph, or even Web site. This function can be used to provide convenient access to a site-specific schematic diagram/report or even as a quick way to switch to an XMap Project file which contains GIS data layers that are relevant to that location. Nationwide phone data searching Wouldn’t it be convenient to have access to virtually every phone number in the country for both residences and businesses? The Phone tab in XMap, a business tool inherited from Street Atlas USA Plus, offers GIS administrators access to a whole new level of data: a nationwide, 16-million strong contact list. If, for instance, you are using XMap/GIS Editor to analyze the impact of a proposed pipeline, the phone search tool can be used to instantly generate a list of contact details for residents that live on an affected road or street, geocode the addresses, and create a GIS layer for inclusion in the overall plan. 3-D terrain modeling As with any map data, GIS data layers literally take on a whole new dimension when rendered in 3-D. XMap’s 3-D tab offers tools for exaggerating the terrain, adjusting the viewing angle, and rotating the 3-D view. When analyzing flood zones, creating an environmental impact study for a proposed dam, or researching the optimal location for a communication antenna, a 3-D perspective is an invaluable asset. The combination of XMap’s GIS tools and core mapping functionality offer a multifaceted mapping solution that is right for every situation. From spatial data analysis to voice-directed in-vehicle navigation, and everything in between, XMap does it all. Can your GIS software do all of this? Daytona Beach's Utilities Department Using XMap The Utilities Department of Daytona Beach, FL has recently selected XMap as their field-based GIS solution. As an integral part of the city’s expanding GIS infrastructure, XMap was chosen for its ability to deliver critical GIS functionality on a mobile platform. The software delivers spatial data and tools to the city’s laptop-equipped field crews who would otherwise be dependent on static maps and outdated technology. “XMap is the critical link between the city’s CAD and GIS databases and the Utilities Department field crews,” said Cary Smith, former Special Projects Coordinator for the city. “It offers us all of the GIS tools that we need, where we need them—in the field. Installing XMap on the crews’ laptop computers has improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the department and it has ultimately provided measurable savings for the tax payers of the city.” XMap’s feature list includes GIS viewing, analysis, and editing tools; it also provides full GPS support for routing and in-vehicle navigation—including verbal command recognition for hands-free operation. In addition, the automatic creation of GPS log files allows the activity of each field crew to be recorded and analyzed for efficiency. “As a mechanism for the communication of essential information, a GIS must be readily accessible and XMap has been designed and developed with that goal in mind”, says Geoffrey Ives, DeLorme’s Director of Professional Sales. “Many organizations and agencies wishing to fully utilize their GIS investment are turning to XMap as an ideal accompaniment to an established GIS. XMap is a cost-effective tool that allows GIS data to be efficiently shared with the people who need it most.” MobileDataforce® Integrates PointSync 3.1 with XMap/GIS MobileDataforce® Inc. of Boise, ID, a leading provider of customized mobile software applications and Rapid Application Development Solutions for Mobile Environments (RADS-ME)™, is integrating their PointSync mobile application development kit with XMap. This combined offering gives XMap users an even more powerful GIS mapping and field service development environment. "The integration with XMap makes it easy to add a graphical GIS interface to existing or new PointSync applications," said Dave Wasden, VP of Product Management of MobileDataforce. "The combined solution enables our field services customers to visually see on maps the location and status of service orders, jobsites, assets, and virtually any other point of interest. Work crew locations, job status, vehicle tracking all can be viewed graphically on maps. In addition, moving between the XMap interface and the PointSync application is now seamless and acts as a single mobile application." PointSync suite is an enterprise-grade software system for rapid deployment of database centric mobility applications on handheld computers. MobileDataforce PointSync provides customers and integrators the capability and software platform to rapidly develop and deploy mobility projects of all kinds. "Users can load their day’s job locations in XMap, click on the visual location flags, and see the relevant work order for that site in MobileDataforce’s PointSync," said Keith Gray, GIS Specialist for DeLorme. "As the user updates jobs in PointSync, the location flags are changed to give a quick visual indicator of progress. The ability to easily integrate XMap and PointSync provides a very powerful development tool for creating mobile applications with GIS capabilities."

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