The conference Geoinformatik 2010 took place from March 17 to 19 in Kiel at the Christian-Albrechts-University. A comprehensive and eclectic agenda induced approximately 400 people to visit the conference. Although the talk by terrestris regarding “OpenLayers, Geoext and MapFish” was located in the last session before the end of the conference on a Friaday it was attended by about 60 participants. The subject matter concerning interactive cartography on the internet using Web 2.0 techniques is a hot topic at this point in time, so the comparatively high number of listeners is attributed to this fact.
terrestris participated in Geoinformatik 2010
23. March 2010LINUX magazine reporting on FOSSGIS 2010
10. March 2010The Linux-magazine has three articles related to the FOSSGIS 2010 conference: first the Opening of the conference, secondly the lightning talks and the keynote and last but not least reporting about the OpenStreetMap focus.
Our impressions of FOSSGIS 2010 in Osnabrück
9. March 2010The annual FOSSGIS (Free and OpenSource Software for Geographical Information Systems) conference is a highlight of the year for terrestris.
The conference took place from March 2nd to 5th 2010 in Osnabrück on the campus of the University and College. This year one more day was added to accomodate the first german speaking OpenStreetMap-conference. Besides free software as a natural focus of the conference a second emphasis was on free geodata provided by the OpenStreetMap-project. We deem this development to be very positive.
What was the conference about? The whole OSGEO-software-stack concerning PostgreSQL/PostGIS, UMN Mapserver, Geoserver, OpenLayers, Mapbender, Mapfish (and others like GeoExt) was represented through high quality talks regarding applications and future potentials. From our point of view the program was balanced regarding the components used as well as the target audience. Attendance of the conference was surprisingly international: Of course there were lots of participants from german speaking countries like Austria, Switzerland and Germany but you could also meet people from the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
Besides the conference itself traditionally a number of user- and developer-meetings take place. As an example we can mention the Mapbender-Development-Sprint on March 05th where Marc Jansen represented terrestris. For a first time this year a “Birds of a Feather”-session (a presentation type known from the international mother conference FOSS4G) regarding “GeoJQuery” took place. Interested developers met here to discuss a new open source project that aims to combine the easy to use JavaScript-library jQuery with the geographical competence of OpenLayers.
We were delighted as every year to meet customers and colleagues and discuss with them the developments of the GIS business. Besides maintaining old contacts a significant number of new contacts were made. We look forward to the work involved in following up on the ideas developed during the conference. In addition to this we often received congratulations for having written a book on “OpenLayers – web development with dynamic maps and geodata (sorry in german only)“.
Conclusion: We would like to thank the organisers of the conference for a wonderful event (cue: catering). A demanding but very successful conference came to an end and we already look forward to the next FOSSGIS. When and where FOSSGIS 2011 will take place is as yet unknown but you can help find a location by joining the discussion on FOSSGIS e.V..
The company terrestris at the FOSSGIS (sorry, all talks in german):
- Lightning Talk “WebGIS and the honey-marmelade sandwich“, Till Adams
- Keynote “HTML 5, ECMAScript 5 and the cloud“, Marc Jansen
- Talk “Are there alternatives to OpenLayers?“, Till Adams
- Talk “WYTIWYS (What You Type Is What You See)“, Marc Jansen
- Workshop “Practical introduction to OpenLayers“, Marc Jansen and Ingo Weinzierl, Intevation
- Workshop “Raster data processing using GDAL“, Till Adams and Andreas Fischer, County Unna
- Workshop “Extended WMS-functions with OpenLayers – An insight“, Marc Jansen and Stephan Holl, Intevation
- Workshop “Practical introduction to MapFish“, Till Adams and Cédric Moullet, camptocamp
- BOF (Birds of a Feather) “GeoJQuery“, initiated by Till Adams
Successful start of FOSSGIS 2010
3. March 2010
Marc Jansen gives keynote speech
Yesterday, March 2nd 2010, the annual FOSSGIS conference got off to a good start and for the first time in its’ history covers a four day program. One major innovation this year is the prominent participation of the OpenStreetMap project, that is dedicated to producing free geodata. Through this participation a gap that was perceived by many is being closed since any information systemprofits from accurate and up-to-date data.
terrestris has helped to shape this years’ program, as we did in past years too, by submitting a number of talks. Marc Jansen gave the keynote speech of the conference titled “HTML 5, ECMAScript 5 and the cloud – Potencials for future WebGIS applications”, while Till Adams held a much noted talk on “There is no alternative to OpenLayers ….?”. All talks are in german only unfortunately but will be available for download at the end of the conference here.
New team member found!
1. March 2010We are glad to announce that our search for a new colleague was successful. Starting on March 01, 2010 Mr. Christian Mayer will complement our team initially on 2.5 days per week since he still has a contract with the University of Bonn until June 30, 2010. After this date he will work full-time for terrestris.
Christian Mayer studied geodesy and geoinformatics at the University of Mainz in the working group of Prof. Alexander Zipf. terrestris extends a warm welcome to Christian and looks forward to the collaboration!
