You may already have heard, but now you can view imagery compressed to MrSID and JPEG 2000 formats on your iPad. Folks in the industry are excited and we’re already getting positive feedback about the functionality this application brings to users. Glenn Letham at GISuser picked up our news item today and Matt Ball at Spatial Sustain even wrote a little thing about how the app extends image portability. Thanks guys!

Here are some of GeoViewer’s intuitive, easy-to-use features:

• Open MrSID and JPEG 2000 images.
• Select bands to view from a multispectral image.
• Explore imagery by panning, zooming and zooming out.
• Add vector overlays (Esri Shapefiles and KML files) to get more out of image layers.
• Center on your GPS location so you can see what’s nearby.
• Measure the distance between a series of points.
• Identify geolocation by touching on any image.
• View layer properties, including coordinate reference system, geo bounding box, dimensions, colorspace, datatype, and resolution.
• Search by geographic coordinates in WGS 84 (Lat/Long) or the image’s native coordinate reference system.
• Set viewing preferences (band selection, layer line color, etc.).

The GeoViewer application for iPad is free and can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store. Get busy!

Folks, we’d like to introduce you to a new Lizard. Travis Applegate joined us before the holidays as our inside sales support rep, renewing licenses for our existing customers. He fits right in here — we put him through an ordeal by fire at our holiday white elephant gift exchange and he came through with flying colors — and we think you’ll like him, too.

New Lizard Travis Applegate.

Travis is a Portland native who’s spent some effort trying to find the city that’s the right fit for him. He found Portland a touch confining, while Chicago had a little too much echo (and snow). He settled in Seattle, where he has worked for the Cobalt Group as an order manager, the University of Phoenix as an enrollment counselor, and Seattle Weekly as an account executive. Since the Weekly‘s offices are directly above us (in fact, from a geospatial viewpoint he works in the exact same position in the building as he did before, just fifteen feet lower on the Z axis), we can tease him that coming to us represents a downward move. That’s not the way Travis sees it, though, and we’re glad to have him on our team as he brings enthusiasm and dedication and his sales and other experience to the job.

Travis is big into music in many forms, but in particular live shows and vinyl records. His prize platter is London Calling by The Clash — he would prefer it if it were the UK import first pressing, which it’s not, but since it’s his favorite album in any format he still ranks it at the top. He also loves to dabble with musical instruments and jokes that he has failed to master a great many of them. He also likes to get out into the woods and mountains and other remote places, proximity to which is one reason he cites for having hunkered down here in Seattle, where, in case you haven’t heard, we’re surrounded by mountain ranges, islands, bodies of water, and forests.

Welcome to the team, Travis!