Newsletters
LizardTales Newsletter – January 2009
FROM THE MANAGEMENT TEAM
As we start a new year, it’s a great time to look back at the previous one to reflect upon the past. Last January we released GeoExpress 7.0, the latest version of our flagship product which added support for integrating with LizardTech Express Server, a new “despeckling” tool that eliminates unsightly compression artifacts, 64-bit support, cropping by shapefile, and much more. We’ve been pleased by the reaction from our customers; nearly everyone has found the upgrade to offer some great benefits that make their day-to-day job easier.
Further, we released version 6.1 of our Express Server product. This upgrade was specifically targeted towards our Defense and Intelligence customers, and included support for serving NITF files and streaming JPEG 2000 via JPIP. Customers have reported they’re very happy with this functionality, as well as with our improved integration with ArcGIS Server.
We base our product roadmap on input from customers like you. One of the most effective ways we do this is by our yearly customer satisfaction survey. Be on the lookout for the next survey in February. We’ve taken your input in past years to add functionality to our products, and this year will be no different. Check back often to see what new products we’ll be releasing in the coming year.
GEOSPATIAL
From the Product Manager
While LizardTech always focuses on making sure that our products are of the highest quality, occasionally bugs do make it into our released software. Luckily, we have a great Engineering team that hunts these bugs down and fixes them with extreme prejudice.
Last December, we released patches for both GeoExpress and Express Server. Our Engineering team really went above and beyond the call of duty this time, however, as not only did they fix some outstanding bugs but also were able to add some new features at the same time!
GeoExpress 7.0.2 fixed some issues with image quality when compressing multispectral JPEG 2000 images, but also added support for CADRG files and for some advanced metadata editing via our command line tool. Express Server 6.1.1 improved our ArcGIS integration and added support for Google Earth’s projection system and compressed PNGs for images served via WMS.
Be sure to subscribe to LizardTech’s product updates RSS feed athttp://www.lizardtech.com/files/rss/updates.xml and visit our knowledge base and forums athttp://www.lizardtech.com/support/kb/ to keep up to date on all of our new releases and fixes.
Jon Skiffington
Sr. Product Manager
jskiffington@lizardtech.com
WHERE IS LIZARDTECH?
Upcoming Events:
Indiana Geographic Information Council
February 17-18, 2009 - Bloomington Monroe County Convention Center, Downtown Bloomington.
2009 ESRI Federal User Conference
February 18-20, 2008 - Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Washington, D.C. Booth #321.
North Carolina GIS Conference
February 19-20, 2009 - Raleigh Convention Center, Raleigh NC.
ASPRS 2009 Annual Conference
March 9-13, 2009 - Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel. Baltimore, Maryland, Booth #212.
2009 ESRI Worldwide Business Partner Conference
March 22-24, 2009 - Wyndham Hotel and Palm Springs Convention Center, Palm Springs, California. Booth #205.
Complete schedule of LizardTech Events.
Fun Discoveries
Express Server Serves up New Jersey
The State of New Jersey’s 2007 orthoimagery is now available for download from the New Jersey Geographic Information Network’s newly designed NJ Information Warehouse, which uses LizardTech’s Express Server to serve all compressed orthoimagery layers. Read all about it on our Blog.
Check out this video of Express Server in action using applications such as AutoCAD Map 3D and other programs supporting WMS.
Don’t forget to visit LizardTech’s Express Server Portal site. You can use this site to upload imagery from your copy of GeoExpress 7* and see for yourself how quickly your geospatial imagery can be deployed on the Web. Click here to get started!
* If you don’t have GeoExpress 7 yet, download a free trial.
Special Promotion
Now through March 31, 2009 purchase GeoExpress Level 1 or higher and receive a FREE copy of GeoExpress Tools. (SAVE $1,500!). Please contact our sales representative for more details.
UPCOMING WEBINARS
We’re offering free informative Webinars covering our line of geospatial products.
Register today so you can explore the powerful features in LizardTech’s Express Suite™ line of geospatial image products – GeoExpress for compression and manipulation, Spatial Express for storage, and Express Server for high-performance delivery and publication – focusing on the benefits these products bring to the managing, storage and distribution of geospatial imagery. Participants will discover how LizardTech’s software tools can individually benefit them in their workflow, as well as how all three Express Suite products work together as a complete package.
Following are the details for the upcoming webinars:
Date and Time:
Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:00 AM PST
Duration:
Who should attend:
If you have questions about this seminar e-mail us at info@lizardtech.com.
Case Studies and Customer Wins
T
he State of New Jersey’s 2007 orthoimagery is now available for download from the New Jersey Geographic Information Network’s newly designed NJ Information Warehouse, which uses LizardTech’s Express Server to serve all compressed orthoimagery layers.
The imagery is available in both MrSID format (compressed 8-bit, 3-band, RGB natural color, 5000′ by 5000′ tiles) and JPEG 2000 format (compressed 8-bit, 4-band RGB plus infrared, 5000′ by 5000′ tiles). The site looks great and is easy to use, and we’re pretty proud of the way Express Server performs on it.
You can add the WMS layer of New Jersey’s 2007 orthoimagery into any application supporting WMS by entering the following URL: http://njwebmap.state.nj.us/njorthos
Here is a partial list of recently added clients to our ever expanding customer base:
United States
Northrop Grumman
Lockheed Martin
BAE Systems
City and County of Denver
Continental Mapping Consultants
Apex CoVantage
Leading Edge Geomatics, Ltd.
t3 Global Strategies
IS Consulting
City of Frankfort
Beaufort County
Tennessee Department of Transportation
Pivotal Communications
City of Brentwood
Canada
Canada Department of National Defence
Quebec Ministry of Transportation
Ontario Ministry of Transportation
Mexico
IMT de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.
Secretaria de Marina
EMEA
National Library of Scotland
Geobasisinformation und Vermessung Sachsen
Bayersiches Landesvermessungsamt
NC3A
Israeli Airforce
Greater Amman Municipality
Reseller News
LizardTech has recently signed a reseller agreement with CADD Centers of Florida, Inc. to serve as a distributor of the LizardTech Express Suite consisting of GeoExpress, Express Server and Spatial Express. We are very excited to welcome CADD Centers of Florida to our ever expanding network of resellers!
Tips and Tricks
Tip:
You can use the command line utilities to batch process your images. No matter what features you require the command line tool, mrsidgeoencoder, has them all and enables batch processing to go very quickly without much intervention.
Tip:
You can edit the metadata of your MrSID files, including the projection information, coordinates, dynamic range and more without re-encoding the image. To do this, follow these steps:
- Add your image to the metadata tab from the “Images” menu: Images > add image to edit metadata…
- Click the “edit metadata” button (on the properties tab).
- From this screen, you can edit “user” metadata and “image” metadata. The image metadata allows you to define the projection of the image and more. “User” metadata allows you to add custom tags for your imagery. Please be careful when editing metadata as it could affect the positioning of your images.
- Click OK, then click “Apply metadata to selected images” or “Execute all jobs”
Hot Tips?
Do you have tips that you want to share? Send them to suggestions@lizardtech.com and we might publish your tip in the next issue of LizardTales.
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
LizardTech is always seeking great talent. To learn more about current opportunities to join a dedicated, talented and close-knit team, please visit our Careers Page.
