In this month's issue we have more positive news for you!  Apart from us taking on new staff members we have more free information events for you to attend, an INSPIRE master class on 8th October to come to, an announcement of a new millionaire in our midst, and some project news to fill you in on.

As part of our on-going initiative to provide useful information events to our clients we have two pre-GIS Ireland events at Compass on the 13th October:  A morning session on mobile mapping, and an afternoon on the ERDAS SDI solution, Apollo. Contact us to book a place or visit our events page. 

Before then we will run another INSPIRE Directive Master Class on the 8th October in our Dublin offices.  This Class provides an opportunity to get up to speed quickly on INSPIRE, what it means for you, and starts the process of tackling the tasks that arise.  View our INSPIRE page for more info and to book.

Gearóid

Gearóid Ó Riain, Managing Director, Compass Informatics

NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY DATA CENTRE BECOMES A MILLIONAIRE

We are now taking reservations for our standard INSPIRE Master Classes on October 8th - Thursday week.

The EU INSPIRE Directive places obligations on all public bodies creating spatial data.  Our Master Classes deal with the questions - What is required of me?  When ?  And how do I do it?  These are practical workshops allowing discussion of the particular concerns of those attending.

On October 8th we will hold our standard one day class.  Later in the year we will hold more advanced technical classes  that will deal with aspects of data transformations, latest data specifications, and technical aspects of web services development.  Classes are also being scheduled for Belgium and the UK.  Attendees have access to a documentation resource compiled and maintained by the team.

Ireland Update...
The Irish Spatial Data Infrastructure work group was reactivated in 2009 and is involved in assessment of datasets against INSPIRE Annex themes aswell as progressing plans for a national portal.  At a legislative level the Statutory Instrument to reference the Directive in Irish law is expected by end of October following a period of revision.  The related Reuse of Public Sector Information Directive Directive has been in place since 2003, and its SI in place since 2005, but remains relatively inactive despite the potentially significant impact it may have on public sector information holders and the information market.  See www.psi.gov.ie. At our Master Classes we provide a full update on both these Directives and detail the implications.

Technology Solutions...
You may also be interested in Open Source metadata editors and network services typically based on GeoServer & GeoNetworks.  Our staff have developed such INSPIRE compliant tools ready for your use.

Read more about the INSPIRE Master Class & INSPIRE » 

We look forward to seeing you at the following events & seminars:
See our events webpage for more details. For training course details including scheduled GPS/GIS and ERDAS courses see our training webpage.

Welcome back also to our eight attendees at the GeoImaging User Conference in Oxford whose attendance was supported via bursaries from Compass.

Ireland & Northern Ireland -
:: Magellan Mobile Mapping Seminar - Compass offices, Dublin, October 13th 11am-1pm.  Booking required.
:: ERDAS Apollo Seminar - a solution for cataloging, serving, and SDI-ing your enterprise - Compass offices, Dublin, October 13th. Booking required.
:: GIS Ireland - October 14th.  Two papers will present work undertaken by Compass and we will also have an exhibit.
:: AGI Northern Ireland - October 15th.  Meet Paul Mills at our stand.
:: GeoDATA Northern Ireland - November 18th.  We will present on land management information systems and bioenergy systems.

Europe -
Contact our European principal, Roger Longhorn, or MD Gearóid Ó Riain, to arrange separate meetings at your offices.
:: ESRI European User Conference - October 14-16th, Vilnius.  We will present two papers on the National Biodiversity Data Centre mapping system, and on approaches and tools supporting the EU Water Framework Directive.

Contact us to arrange a meeting » 

Our work continues in Compass, across many interesting activities that we are fortunate to work in:

// PROJECTS
Green Infrastructure: Green infrastructure is a planning method that seeks to bring consideration of biodiversity into the planning process through the identification, linkage and enhancement of areas that have an ecological function.  Often the 'Green' function also supports a recreational and agri, forestry or indeed economic function via 'green business' type activities. Following on past work in this area we have recently commenced a project for Comhar Sustainable Development Council, Ireland, that brings together planners, ecologists, and data analysts from Ireland and also Alterra, NL.

EPA Data Management & Reporting:  Building on a long-standing relationship with the Irish EPA we are currently engaged in the development of a central data managment system for most EPA monitoring data.  In addition we are undertaking the preparation of statutory reports from the EPA to the EU WISE reporting system.

Bioenergy Information System: Development contines apace on a bioenergy information system for Sustainable Energy Ireland.  This undertakes extensive modelling of data including landuse suitability, yield and supply chain costs, and at a technical architecture level makes good use of OGC web services to serve data and metadata to intranet and web browsers.

// PRODUCT SOLUTIONS
Mobile Data Capture using GeoField:  In order to expand our offering as regards field data capture, Compass have linked up with Sigma Seven, Edinburgh, to provide GeoField to those who need to undertake comprehensive data capture over and above that which can be undertaken using GPS data-logger devices.  Running on Windows tablets or field laptops, the GeoField product fits into the solutions that we already provide from Magellan. Read more about GeoField at www.sigmaseven.co.uk.

Low-cost Spatial Video:  We will soon make formal announcements regarding low cost spatial video solutions that will allow you to GPS encode your camcorder videos and allow these to be viewed in a range of browsers - from professional versions allowing extraction of features to GIS from video, to Web2.0 type public websites.

Contact us to discuss any actvity that interests you »