Over the years, we GIS users have acquired data from a number of sources. No matter what was obtained or from where, we had to be certain the data were suited for the task at hand. Positional accuracy, vintage, coverage area, price and other elements had to be evaluated.

But sometimes merely look

The salesman said, with pride, that his company had the best rating engine
in the business. His software compares the ZIP Code of the applicant’s
address and determines the correct automobile rating territory. This was
modern science at its best.

He might have been pleased, but I was depr

Nearly every time we have friends over for dinner, we end up in my home office using a GIS program. Sometimes it is to show where we are going on vacation or to look at a trail map I developed for horseback riding. We change the colors and scale, and add new layers. When requested, I print my dinner

Trade shows and conferences are excellent forums for discovering where the software hockey puck has been, and occasionally, where it might be headed

Over the past year I have greeted over more than 5,000 visitors to ESRI Health Solutions booths at no less than 10 industry events.  Each event, fro

MapPoint may be the leading edge of a new direction in mapping technology and pricing.

Like most people who enjoy spending time with mapping programs, I have tinkered with Microsoft’s’ MapPoint 2000.  And like most people who spend time with mapping programs, I have read the reviews.  M

In demographics as in investing, the fundamentals shed light on the future.  Simple population processes determine the growth or decline of an area’s population. Take the Chicago metropolitan area, for example, the terrestrial home to Directions magazine.

Projecting Census Bureau estimates o

Discussing the cost of data is a lot like discussing global politics: It virtually ensures the onset of spirited debate.

Yet this debate is unavoidable in our industry because data is vital to mapping software.  Running a GIS application in the absence of accurate and timely data is about as prac

Imagine a world where all of your geographic data is compatible with other geographic data.  You might think that I am dreaming, but that was the original idea behind the Spatial Data Transfer System (SDTS) standard that was put into place a few years ago. 

SDTS was designed as a data interchang

Directions Magazine is going through a rapid growth phase as our staff continues to create a global resource for people who understand the power that geography imparts to ideas.

A lot of new features are running on our site: “My Industry” now has areas that focus on agriculture, healthc

I have often had the need to view geographic data from several file formats to complete a single project.  That task has never been easy—until recently. 

As you know, the lack of cross-format compatibility can be extremely frustrating.  I have handled projects where the zip code boundaries