NSimTech - TechBlog

The geographic solution NSIM Contour™ is now deployed at the operation command center of Quebec Police Department

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:33:00 -0400

*Picture from State of Nevada

In recent years, a multitude of events has challenged governments at all levels as well as the private sector, stretching their ability to cope with emergencies and information management. Within this context, it became evident that the organizations must be better equipped to deal with the diversity of new events that they face.

In this context, NSIM Technologies, real-time collaborative geographic information system provider, is proud to announce that the solution NSim Contour has been successfully deployed in the new operation command center of Quebec police department. The interactive information management system provides a new way to capture, share and visualize strategic geographic information between decision-makers.

The solution ensures that special operations will be planned and managed with a maximum of useful information available with a collaborative platform. The solution includes integration of Quebec City geographic data, 911 incidents, road traffic and other applications to facilitate emergency responses. Quebec Police Department has integrated the solution in many major events so far: National Holiday of Quebec (St-john), Quebec summer festivals, and all special events to occur on its territory. Quebec Police department provides security and emergency operation management for 50 major events per year. The system allows faster access to organized information improving collaboration and efficiency of decision-makers.

The future of web mapping

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:37:00 -0500

The web mapping offers a major advancement in cartography and opens many new opportunities. Previously, geogrpahic information system (GIS) was restricted to experts using specialized applications. Now, the Web mapping provides opportunities to have realtime maps, cheaper dissemination, more frequent and cheaper updates of data and software, personalized map content, distributed data sources and sharing of geographic information. But what is the future trends of web mapping?

The web mapping can be categorized using different aspects, but essentially the objective is to provide access to geographic maps via the web. Nothing surprising! There are numerous technologies emerging which provide maps over the web depending the kind of map to diffuse. We can describe the current tends of web mapping as the raster one. All users around the world use well-known technologies such as WMS, or TileServer developed now by many companies and communities (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, MapServer, GeoServer, MapGuide, ESRI ArcGIS Server etc. ...). But the static raster map has some limitations: it reduce the interactivity level, the map customization, the rendering quality and the number of information available.

The maps combining both a vector and raster display begin to emerge. In the context of the Web 2.0 and collaborative maps (OpenStreetMap, Navteq, MapShare, etc ...) the availability of data vector makes sense. Users want to interact with the map, i.e. see the meta-data and edit the geographic features. They want the speed of a tile server combined with the flexibility of a WMS server. They want improved user experience, without waiting, without empty boxes during handling maps. Streaming maps combining vector and raster data can answer these expectations.

Obviously, vector streaming technology exists (WFS, KML) but are still not very popular and does not meet requirements in terms of amount of data displayed and performance. So, why not reuse the idea of the TileServer, which is able to stream raster efficiently, in the context of a vector streaming technology. The idea is to create a hierarchy and a set of tiles for each data vector layer. These tiles are stored in a cache and can then be diffused very effectively to a client via the web.

Currently, all products which provide a "Vector TileServer" technology propose different solutions for streaming with proprietary clients. It's normal since there is still no standards describing the Vector Tile Map Service. Currently, Navteq and Idevio provides a Java client to access their "vector tile server". Nokia OVI Contour Maps and NSim provides a plugin in the browser while other companies use the plugin Adobe Flash in the browser. Some proprietary clients are also available to stream data vector: Google Earth, Google Turn by turn directions, 3D Bing, Blackberry Map.

The race for the data vector streaming is started. Does the webmapping of tomorrow will combine vector and raster data framed by a general standard? In my opinion, yes and you, what do you think?

Introducing NSim Contour at Géomatique 2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:58:00 -0500

NSim Technology introduces a brand new product for vector webmapping and geographic data management over the web. The technology provides connectivity to several data sources (vector or raster) and provides streaming capabilities for any geographic data. The 2D/3D rendering engine of the web client is fully accelerated and a new real-time geocollaboration module is also available.

The presentation introduces all the features and describes the approach used for vector tiling:

http://www.slideshare.net/effrem/prsentation-nsim-contour-geomatique-2009