Voice & Vision

Data Distribution with Autodesk MapGuide 6
Interview with Terry Davis

By Susan Smith

Autodesk is the fifth largest PC software company in the world, with four million plus customers. Over half Autodesk’s sales are outside the U.S., and they range over 160 countries, with software translated into 20 languages.

GISVision interviewed Autodesk’s Terry Davis, Product Manager for Autodesk MapGuide, regarding the new MapGuide 6, Autodesk’s internet data distribution solution.

In 1992, Autodesk acquired the Calgary-based company Argus. The acquisition included an engineering team and technology, which has evolved into the Web-based mapping solution for Autodesk know as Autodesk MapGuide. With previous releases of Autodesk MapGuide there was only support for direct access to spatial data files (SDF), the native file format, so customers had to convert DWG file format to SDF. Autodesk MapGuide 6 allows for the Autodesk customer base that uses the DWG format to now use them in MapGuide as they would with any of the other AutoCAD based products without any type of data conversion. The result is consistent data and workflow in addition to product and data interoperability. Customers can now make changes to their data in Autodesk Map and see those changes in MapGuide.

What percentage of those four million Autodesk customers are using MapGuide?

Terry Davis: It’s difficult to determine the exact percentage, however, I feel very confident in stating that a significant portion of Autodesk Map customers are using MapGuide as their Web-based mapping solution. The key to MapGuide’s success is giving our customers the ability to distribute data to their users anytime, anywhere resulting in the ability to make smarter and faster decisions. .

Terry Davis: Our customers want solutions that model their workflow processes. They want solutions that distribute accurate and consistent data from the back-end, to the front end, and extending to the field. They want to use products that are interoperable in order to minimize time spent on data conversion giving them the ability to focus on what they do best: design and deliver value to their organizations. Autodesk is delivering on these needs with a variety of products that address the entire design workflow process, which includes capturing data, editing, facility design, building, managing and planning. Some product examples are Autodesk Map, MapGuide, and OnSite. For example, you can take MapGuide to the field as a standalone application on a laptop, add redline or markups to your design data, then return to the office, and synchronize your redline and markups to the original design files and view with the Autodesk products that create and manage the data.

Terry Davis: MapGuide is really about delivering interactive designs to thousands of users anytime, anywhere. A good example of this are DWGs, which are created in Autodesk Map. MapGuide enables these files to be distributed to various data sources or user groups within your particular business function and according to your particular needs. It’s about delivering information even if you’re mobile, walking around with both your spatial and attribute data.

Customers are frustrated with data conversion and need tools that enable them to create, maintain and distribute data in consistent formats. With MapGuide, users have a wide array of options for data storage. Key to this is the support for standard OLE DB. Basically a customer can have their data stored in any database format that is either ODBC or OLE DB compliant. This includes but is not limited to Microsoft SQL server, Oracle, INGRIS, IDBM.

One side note, MapGuide’s greatest strength is its flexibility and adherence to standards. Virtually any organization that has design data and wants to distribute this data to their users can benefit from MapGuide. MapGuide is a very flexible application and although it is not focused on a particular industry, we do aggressively tackle the utility, communications and the government markets, which is were some of our greatest customer success stores come from. A good example of a MapGuide application is the Oakland website, http://www.oaklandnet.com/maproom/default.html. This application is called Crimewatch, which allows anybody with access to the Internet the ability to query on criminal activity within the city of Oakland. These individuals do not need to know GIS or CAD , or even how spatial data is modeled - like what’s a parcel, what’s a polygon, polyline, what’s a point; all they need to know is a black and white car represents a police car, a square represents a house, etc. This makes it easy for anybody to know what type of criminal activity is going on in their area or any other area of the city.

Terry Davis: Easy. GIS managers want to build and deliver mapping applications to their end users without having to train them in the complexity of a CAD or GIS application. They simply want them to be able to utilize the data and have its complexities transparent to the end user.

For the IT or GIS professional, they really want to be able to build applications that are easy to deploy. They don’t want to use products or technology that require high-end or expensive programmers that require developing in C++ or UNIX. MapGuide is a flexible solution, which allows developers to use their development environment of choice, whether that is Visual Basic, Cold Fusion, active service pages, or any other web based development language. The idea here is not to force a particular technology on developers.

I should note that the real key technological benefits are:

Rapid application deployment

Data integration with wide variety of formats

You can render your Oracle spatial data through the web without data conversion.

Customers managing their data with any of the ESRI products, can use Autodesk MapGuide technology as their Web-based mapping solution to distribute their data without any data conversion efforts. This really means leveraging the performance and scalability benefits that are the real strengths of the MapGuide technology.

Terry Davis: No. Users have the ability to run spatial queries, intelligent queries using something as simple as a browser.

Terry Davis: It has direct support for shape, Oracle Spatial, DWG, and Autodesk GIS Design Server. For additional spatial formats such as MapInfo or MicroStation, we have a data support utility that will allow a customer to convert from those formats to the native file format for MapGuide SDF’s. An analysis of our existing customer base and market has proven that Oracle Spatial and SHP are the priorities. Another interesting note is that traditional ESRI customers using desktop products such as ArcView are actually buying the Autodesk MapGuide technology including the SHP provider which means direct access to ESRI data format SHP in order to leverage the flexibility and ease of deployment that the MapGuide technology offers.

Terry Davis: Yes, you did. Now it is a simple matter of installing the provider and then you can read the Oracle spatial tables, the geometry, without any type of conversion.

Terry Davis: Yes, absolutely. Our customers have told us that the ability to take design and mapping data into the field and use it effectively is very important to helping them get more value out of their data and make fundamental changes in how they work. You can expect to see us continue building on these capabilities to truly help our customers improve the way they work and the value they can create for their organizations.

*With raster symbol support customers can use symbols that were created with an external drawing package, which is something that couldn’t be done with previous releases.

*Symbol manager allows users to organize their symbols in a logical form, giving them relevant names and organizing them within specific libraries or specific directories.