IDELIX in the News & Reviews 2001

On the Exhibit Floor

by Adena Schutzberg, GIS Monitor Editor
Reproduced from the 06/21/2001 edition of the GIS Monitor on TenLinks.com.

As I toured the show floor, I saw a few new things worthy of mention.

Safe Software has recently created a Geographic Data Object, GDO (the code Intergraph uses to access external formats) that allows GeoMedia to use data from any Safe supported formats. Let’s be clear how that works: the data is translated via Safe’s tools then loaded into an Microsoft Access data warehouse, which GeoMedia can use. So, it’s not live exactly. The company also offers tools (SpatialDirect) that allow web viewers of maps to pull the data down in any of their supported formats.

MapText’s new labeling software make you feel that any user need, no matter how special, can be accommodated. Want your text not along a line, but perpendicular to it? MapText will do that. The company is entitled to certain bragging rights: the US Census Bureau used their software for 12 million maps!

The Bentley folks were showing off their newly acquired Intergraph imaging and engineering products as well as fielding questions about V8.

The hottest thing on the floor? My pick is Pliable Display Technology from IDELIX Software Inc. This is not a product, but technology that would find a good home in a GIS or any other product that uses "zooming and panning." IDELIX argues that the current tools for moving around the map, such as “magnifying glasses” and “overview maps” remove map context by hiding a large part of the map.

Their viewing lenses retain spatial context by showing detail of the area in question "connected" to the rest of the image. So, what does that mean? It’s tough to describe, but I’ll try.

Picture a circle with a thick border. The inside of the circle magnifies the area of the image it is over, 20 times, for example. The inside edge is magnified a little less. The middle of the border may be magnified 10 times and at the outside edge of the border, it is close to actual size. The effect is a strangely warped, but still contextually connected zoom area.

The technology is embeddable – I saw it working in MapPoint, using its API. I also saw it in GeoMedia. And, the company is working on an extension for ArcView. It works equally well in raster or vector data. Check this one out if you get a chance.