OSGeo News

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. Aug. 4, 2008 — Autodesk, Inc., (NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced that it has donated the source code for CS-Map coordinate system technology to the open source community and is seeking to establish it as part of an official OSGeo Foundation project for coordinate reference systems. The contribution represents Autodesk’s third major contribution to the open source community, following its MapGuide Open Source and Feature Data Object (FDO) Data Access Technology donations.

"This contribution advances OSGeo’s mission of supporting and building the highest quality open source geospatial software," said Frank Warmerdam, president of the OSGeo Foundation. "Opening the CS-Map source code will ensure that all organizations and developers have access to this industrial-quality comprehensive library of map projections and coordinate systems, including several capabilities not previously available in open source."

“Autodesk recognizes the central values of open source community and enterprise development, including faster innovation, more frequent product updates and lower overall cost of ownership,” said Lisa Campbell, vice president, Autodesk Geospatial. “By contributing the code for CS-Map, Autodesk hopes to meet users’ needs while continuing to encourage community participation in software and application development.”

Coordinate System Technology Integral to Geospatial Analysis

CS-Map is a coordinate system and map projection library that enables users to more easily support geographic coordinate conversions and allow accurate and precise geospatial analysis. It currently supports a library of more than 3,000 map projections and coordinate systems. Coordinate systems are fundamental pieces of any mapping or geospatial application and are constantly being added and updated. With open source code, the open source community will be able to develop coordinate conversions as needed and give organizations and developers access to this critical piece of technology.

Autodesk acquired CS-Map through its acquisition of Mentor Software in September 2007. CS-Map is currently embedded in most Autodesk geospatial products, including AutoCAD Map 3D and Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise.

Open Source Geospatial Projects See Further Adoption

OSGeo currently hosts 15 open source geospatial projects, including MapGuide Open Source and FDO Data Access Technology. Since the organization's founding in 2006, its projects now represent code contributions from more than 200 developers including a base of more than 6 million lines of code.

The MapGuide Open Source project also announced the addition of MapGuide Maestro to the project, which is a new map authoring tool for MapGuide Open Source. MapGuide Maestro is a free application that eases the management of spatial data in MapGuide Open Source and has specialized interfaces for editing the following components of MapGuide Open Source: feature sources, Layer definitions, Map Definitions, Web Layouts and Fusion Layouts.

Organizations large and small are reaping the benefits of the continual updates from the community. The Resort Municipality of Whistler, British Columbia has adopted MapGuide Open Source to help promote Whistler2020 —a program aimed at preserving Whistler’s environment with sustainable, eco-friendly practices. KidsGIS, an eco-friendly GIS portal developed by volunteers from the geospatial field to teach children about the environment, includes an online mapping application built on MapGuide Open Source. Both projects also draw on FDO Data Access Technology to incorporate data from multiple sources.

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc. is the world leader in 2D and 3D design software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk has developed the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art digital prototyping solutions to help customers experience their ideas before they are real. Fortune 1000 companies rely on Autodesk for the tools to visualize, simulate and analyze real-world performance early in the design process to save time and money, enhance quality and foster innovation. For additional information about Autodesk, visit http://www.autodesk.com.

___

Autodesk, AutoCAD and Autodesk MapGuide are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. OSGeo and Open Source Geospatial Foundation are trademarks of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation in the USA and/or other countries. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

© 2008 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

Here are the final results from the past two weeks of voting for the
open seats of the OSGeo Board of Directors. There were four seats
open and they have been filled by, in alphabetical order:

• Ari Jolma
• Arnulf Christl
• Frank Warmerdam
• Howard Butler

Frank and Arnulf were re-elected - Ari and Howard are two new
members. Thank you for running, I look forward to your participation
in the Board. There was excellent voting participation at 93% and no
tie scores to arbitrate. The top 4 nominees captured 78% of the vote.

Thank you Paolo Cavallini and S. Narendra Prasad for being part of
the election! As always, it was a tight race - I hope we can see you
stand again in the next round.

Please also join me in thanking our outgoing directors Chris Holmes
and Dave McIlhagga - their participation has been vital during these
first two years.

Your complete resulting Board is:

• Ari Jolma
• Arnulf Christl
• Frank Warmerdam
• Howard Butler
• Jeroen Ticheler
• Jo Walsh
• Markus Neteler
• Paul Ramsey
• Robert (Bob) Bray

Best wishes,
Tyler

It is our great pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Quantum GIS (QGIS) Version 0.11.0. See below for press release:

Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats. QGIS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS lets you browse and create map data on your computer. It supports many common spatial data formats (e.g. ESRI ShapeFile, geotiff). QGIS supports plugins to do things like display tracks from your GPS. QGIS is Open Source software and its free of cost (download here). We welcome contributions from our user community in the form of code contributions, bug fixes, bug reports, contributed documentation, advocacy and supporting other users on our mailing lists and forums. Financial contributions are also welcome.

This release introduces several new features including python support and many new GRASS modules. The release also includes numerous bug fixes and stability improvements. QGIS is available is source form, and as binary executables for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. All versions can be obtained from our download page at http://download.qgis.org . As an open source project, we provide support for using QGIS via our mailing lists and bug tracker:

• For general inquiries subscribe to our users mailing list at http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
• For developer related inquiries subscribe to our separate developers list at http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
• If you think you have found a bug, please report it using our bug tracker. When reporting bugs, please include some contact information in case we need help with replicating your issue at https://trac.osgeo.org/qgis

Major changes in this release are:

• over 60 bug fixes
• legend improvements
• revision of toolbars and dialogs for consistency improved usability
• extended QML style support
• automated generation of projection information in srs.db
• improved view and filter for GRASS toolbox
• support for Qt4.2.x discontinued
• separation of python support into its own library

QGIS is a completely volunteer driven project, and is the work of a dedicated team of developers, documenters and supporters. We extend our thanks and gratitude for the many, many hours people have contributed to make this release happen.

The visual changelog is published at http://blog.qgis.org/node/119 - visit that page for more details.

The MapServer PSC is proud to announce the release of MapServer version 5.2. The source code is available for download at:

http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/download/current

Binary distributions will follow shortly. This is a significant release and users are encouraged to upgrade if possible. Nearly 200 tickets were closed as part of this effort. Major feature additions include:

• MS RFC 36: Simplified Template Support for Query Output
• MS RFC 37: Spatial Reference Improvements and Additions
• MS RFC 38: Native Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Support
• MS RFC 41: WCS_1.1.x Support
• MS RFC 42: Support for Cookie Forwarding
• MS RFC 43: Direct Tile Generation for Google Maps API

Full RFC text can be found at: http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc

Notable enhancements include:

• performance enhancements for large shapefile handling
• performance enhancements for AGG rendering (an order of magnitude faster in some cases)
• fuzzy label outlines for AGG
• style-level opacity for AGG
• quantization and palette support for PNGs and RGBA modes
• SOS_1.0.0 support
• WFS_1.1.0 support
• proxy and http authentication support for cascaded WMS requests
• pre-clip label point computation (helps in tile generation)
• extent (e.g. shpext, mapext) template tag attribute handling

The full 5.2 change log can be found at: http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/browser/tags/rel-5-2-0/mapserver/HISTORY.TXT

I would like to thank all the folks that worked hard on this release, your efforts are greatly appreciated!

Steve Lime

OSGeo is pleased to announce that the GeoTools project has graduated from the incubation process and is now a full fledged OSGeo project with Jody Garnett appointed as project representative (Vice President, GeoTools).

GeoTools is an open source (LGPL) Java code library which provides standards compliant methods for the manipulation of geospatial data, for example to implement Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The GeoTools library implements Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specifications as they are developed, in close collaboration with the GeoAPI project.

Graduating incubation includes requirements for open community operation, a responsible project governance model, code provenance and license verification and general good project operation. Graduating incubation is the OSGeo seal of approval for a project and gives potential users of the project added confidence in the viability and safety of the project.

OSGeo is pleased to announce that the GeoNetwork opensource project has graduated from the incubation process and is now a full fledged OSGeo project with Jeroen Ticheler appointed as project representative (Vice President, GeoNetwork).

GeoNetwork opensource is a catalog application to manage spatially referenced resources. It provides powerful metadata editing and search functions as well as an embedded interactive web map viewer.

Graduating incubation includes requirements for open community operation, a responsible project governance model, code provenance and license verification and general good project operation. Graduating incubation is the OSGeo seal of approval for a project and gives potential users of the project added confidence in the viability and safety of the project.