New CarbonArc License Brings Advanced OGC SDI to Every ArcGIS Desktop

The Carbon Project announces a new affordable license that puts Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) usability within reach of every ArcGIS desktop user. OGC SDI is a suite of standards used by government agencies around the world to promote digital geospatial data sharing and exploitation.

The SDI User license is part of CarbonArc PRO 1.6, the most advanced tools available for OGC SDI usability on ESRI ArcGIS 9.2. Never before has the GIS user been able to combine ArcGIS and advanced discovery, analysis, transaction management and security tools for OGC SDI with such ease and speed.

ArcGIS users are the most powerful potential group of participants in national and international SDIs. CarbonArc PRO 1.6 provides these users with the most advanced tools for framework data, geoscience, climate change, cross-border, coalition operations, critical infrastructure, and regulatory SDI operations.

ArcGIS users that want to be on the vanguard of this movement can try the free download now and get the SDI User license online for just $295 at http://www.thecarbonproject.com/carbonarc.php.

CarbonArc PRO 1.6 includes the Secure SDI extension for unprecedented geospatial security including role-based access control, security by geographic area, security by OGC operations, and security down to specific geographic features.

CarbonArc PRO has been selected by multiple customers and featured in many recent SDI projects.

CarbonArc PRO was developed with CarbonTools PRO, an extension to Microsoft .NET that lets software developers add advanced geospatial interoperability to any Microsoft Windows application.

For more information visit www.thecarbonproject.com/carbonarc.php.

- Jeff

Free Download of SDI Extension for ArcGIS Now Available

A free download of the new SDI Extension for ArcGIS is now available at http://www.thecarbonproject.com/carbonarc.php A free Users Guide is also available.

Lots of new features we'll be covering in the coming weeks like enhanced support to OGC standards, including WFS, Filter Encoding, GML, and Secure SDI are included.

- Jeff

World's Most Powerful Geospatial Security Framework Added to SDI Extension for ArcGIS

We're pleased to announce the addition of the world's most powerful geospatial security framework to its Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) 1.0 extension for ArcGIS 9.2 desktop. SDI 1.0 is a selected suite of OGC standards endorsed by government agencies to promote interoperability.

The Secure SDI extension will be released this week as part of the CarbonArc PRO 1.6 update. The extension provides role-based access control and feature-level security for SDI in coordination with distributed security frameworks from CubeWerx, a leading provider of spatial data warehousing and OGC-compliant Web services software products.

The combination of CarbonArc PRO and Secure SDI functionality answers one of the primary challenges in deploying real-world systems based on OGC standards - making sure critical geospatial information goes to the people who are supposed to have it.

Secure SDI provides unprecedented functionality including role-based access control, security by geographic area, security by OGC operations, and security down to specific geospatial features. The technology is an important advancement for the geospatial community and can support coalition operations, cross-border SDI and regulatory interoperability between organizations.

Secure SDI is vital because OGC standards are strongly influencing development of the national and international SDIs, especially data access and collaborative production operations. But these efforts have reached the point where broad acceptance is dependent on securing online data resources including access control to OGC data services. These requirements will continue to increase as simple data access transitions into collaborative data management based on standards like the Web Feature Server-Transactional (WFS-T) from OGC.

CarbonArc PRO has been selected by multiple government customers and has been featured in many recent interoperability demonstrations.

CarbonArc PRO was developed with CarbonTools PRO, an extension to the Microsoft .NET Framework allowing software developers to add advanced geospatial interoperability to any Microsoft Windows application.

CarbonArc PRO 1.6 with Secure SDI will be available this week. For more information contact info@thecarbonproject.com or visit http://www.thecarbonproject.com/.


- Jeff

The Carbon Project Selected for US, Canada Cross-Border Initiative

The Carbon Project is pleased to announce it has been selected by the 2008 National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Cooperative Agreement Program (CAP) for a joint Canadian-United States cross-border initiative. The project will deliver the foundations of an online mapping environment that can help identify critical infrastructure during emergencies.

At 5,500 miles, the United States and Canada share the world's longest common border and identifying critical infrastructures is a vital function for organizations in the cross-border region.

This project brings together a collaborative group committed to joint US-Canadian Spatial Data Infrastructure including: the Montana Department of Administration; the Centre for Topographic Information, Natural Resources Canada; Canada's Department of National Defense; United States Federal Government partners, and industry partners CubeWerx, L-3 Communications GS&ES and The Carbon Project.

Both CubeWerx and The Carbon Project are leaders on this project.

The project team will deploy online mapping services based on Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) Web Feature Service (WFS), Filter and GML standards and CubeWerx software. The new mapping services will be located in Montana and Quebec. The project will also initiate work that begins integrating critical infrastructure data models used by Montana with the National Infrastructure Data Models (NIDM) from Canada and the DHS Geospatial Data Model.

Cross-border users will be able to access the two data services across the U.S.-Canada border, navigate through its content, and identify/ access critical infrastructure data through CarbonArc PRO, an SDI interoperability extension for ESRI's ArcGIS from The Carbon Project and CubeWerx Web server products.

The NSDI CAP was established by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to help form partnerships to implement the NSDI. The United States NSDI includes the technology, policies, criteria, standards and people to promote geospatial information sharing throughout all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and academia. GeoConnections is the Canadian organization coordinating the implementation of this project for the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI).

For more information or to learn how cross-border organizations can participate, please contact info@TheCarbonProject.com.

- Jeff

Gaia 3.2 is here!

Gaia 3.2 accessing Microsoft Virtual Earth, Intergraph WFS and the new NSDI WFS

Gaia 3.2 is now released. This version includes many enhancements and is based on the latest CarbonTools PRO 3.0.2 assemblies.

We improved the support to OGC services as well as KML. We also added new features, such as a legend panel for features and labeling. The most exciting thing about this release is the new extensions API (see developer's guide). Expect to see new extenders soon, as we'll release new components such as GPS tracking, Lat-Long to National Grid conversion and more...

You can find the new Gaia and an updated Users Guide in the Downloads section of The Carbon Portal.

- Jeff

CarbonTools PRO Update Enhances OGC, Google Support

We are proud to announce the latest and greatest build of CarbonTools PRO.

In addition to many updates and corrections we also added the full source code to our Microsoft and Yahoo content handling assemblies. This release also includes the source code for Gaia 3.2.

The release notes are available here.

Highlights include -

- The CarbonTools.Content.OGC.WFS.QueryBuilder can now override the default 'Within' spatial operator for WFS 1.1.0 feature queries using the new SourceWFS.BoundingBoxSpatialOperator. We did this because there is some disagreement among OGC about whether the default response of a WFS should include everything within the bounding box or whether intersecting the bounding box is adequate.

- We added property a SourceWFS.AutomaticDecompression control

- Lots of updates to the CarbonTools.Windows.Forms Assembly

- We improved handling of local files (e.g. as saved by Google Earth) and updated the internal decompression engine for KMZ

For Gaia 3.2 we've added many new features including -

- The Extender API mechanism

- Ability to select a bounding box filter Spatial Operator when using WFS 1.1.0

- Legend panel

- Labeling option in features properties

- Mouse wheel used to zoom in/out

- Export to 'My Notes' only or layers only to GSF

Check it out.

- Jeff

OneGeology - Mother Earth naked

Canadian geology WMS from NRCAN and other sources in the new Gaia 3.2

Ever wondered what our world would look like stripped bare of all plants, soils, water and man-made structures? Well wonder no longer; images of the Earth as never seen before have been unveiled in the world’s biggest geological mapping project ever.

Earth and computer scientists from 79 nations are working together on a global project called OneGeology to produce the first digital geological map of the world. This project is doing the same for the rocks beneath our feet that Google and Virtual Earth maps do for the Earth’s surface.

However, instead of a proprietary mapping method OneGeology is based on the OGC/ISO Web Map Server (WMS) - and organizations from around the world are being invited to deploy their own server contributions and plug-in.

OneGeology is supported by UNESCO and six other international umbrella bodies and is the flagship project for UN International Year of Planet Earth 2008.

- Jeff

What's behind the Gaia Extender API?

The extender mechanism was added to Gaia to provide a way to easily manage add-ons for tracking location with GPS, using US National Grid coordinates reference, working with Homeland Security Mapping symbology, and plugging the NSDI into networks like the EPA Exchange. We also wanted a way for programmers to develop enhancements to Gaia - with or without CarbonTools PRO.

So how does it work? The Gaia Extender API uses Microsoft .NET reflection to create a contract between Gaia and any assembly (a DLL) that is present at its running directory.

Once Gaia detects an assembly that implements a class called ExtenderImplementer the assembly is considered an extender and will appear in the extenders list. Gaia will then look for API commands by name to implement the extenders functionality.

Extenders can alter the Gaia user interface by adding new tools and items as well as add Gaia event-driven functionality.

We'll cover the following Extenders API Methods and Properties in the next few weeks - Legend, Tool Strips, CarbonTools Controls, and Events.

- Jeff

Gaia 3.2 with Extensions API almost here...

We're pleased to announce the upcoming release of our free Gaia software, Gaia 3.2, including an open API to allow developers to modify and enhance the application.

Developed as part of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Cooperative Agreement Program (CAP) Gaia 3.2 is a free Windows application for accessing, visualizing and sharing location content, including the latest NSDI Framework Data services.

“The new Gaia Extenders API allows programmers to develop enhancements to Gaia with or without CarbonTools PRO. Any developer can follow a simple set of API rules and drop the extension assembly in the Gaia folder. When Gaia starts it recognizes and implements the extender automatically - very cool,” says Nuke Goldstein, CTO of The Carbon Project. “A full walkthrough and reference guide is going to be freely available.”

With Gaia 3.2 we're also releasing a suite of extensions for incident response. These extensions include tracking location with Global Positioning System (GPS), US National Grid (USNG) coordinates reference, Homeland Security Mapping Standard symbology and interoperability with the EPA Exchange Network.

Gaia development is sponsored by the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Cooperative Agreements Program and executed in collaboration with the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NC DENR), the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other organizations. The NSDI Cooperative Agreements Program was established by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to help form partnerships among organizations to implement the NSDI.

Gaia 3.2 beta will be available in August 2008. For more information on Gaia 3.2 or the Gaia Extenders API please contact info@thecarbonproject.com or visit www.TheCarbonProject.com

Gaia 3.2 was built with CarbonTools PRO, an extension to the Microsoft .NET Framework that supports advanced location content handling, mapping and sharing.

- Jeff

(don’t?) leave the mapping to Google

The Bird's Eye imagery from Virtual Earth - shown above in Echo myPlace - can help you get your bearings much quicker than the straight-overhead satellite imagery at Google and other mapping sites

According to Rob Pegoraro, Consumer Technology Columnist over at the Washington Post, "Google Maps falls short of Microsoft’s Live Search Maps."

From Post Points - "Google Maps (maps.google.com), the cartography site run by the Web-search giant, can be your easiest Web-mapping option, thanks to the Google-search shortcuts in most browsers’ toolbars. But, for all its smart, sensible features, Google Maps falls short of Microsoft’s Live Search Maps (maps.live.com) in some areas.

One is accuracy of driving directions: Google’s site won’t route you on Interstate 66 inside the Beltway, for example, even if you’re heading to Dulles Airport, while Microsoft’s map trusts you to follow I-66’s HOV restrictions.

Another is photographic detail: Live Search Maps’ “Bird’s eye” views, with photos shot from an angle and only a few hundred feet up, can help you get your bearings much quicker than the straight-overhead satellite imagery at Google and other mapping sites."

- Jeff