In August of this year Autodesk made quite a splash when they announced they would release a new version of its most popular computer-aided design software and engineering tool, AutoCAD for the Mac OS X operating environment. The news broke and the web was abuzz. Our sister blog even wrote an entry about AutoCAD’s return to Mac. After all, AutoCAD hadn’t been available on Mac since 1992. Despite Microsoft Windows’ rise in popularity – both for personal use as well as business use – Mac has remained a popular choice for designers. Which got us thinking. How are you using technology in the workplace? What do you hope technology will be able to do for you in the future? Is a Mac environment an option for your agency?

It’s really easy to drown in the alphabet soup of stormwater management regulations. I spend a lot of my day knee deep in water projects, and I still get confused. If you are a town manager, elected official or concerned citizen, I can only imagine how difficult it is to understand the regulations from the EPA on NPDES and MS4. If you aren’t sure what I mean, never fear. Autodesk and DLT Solutions are releasing a new guidebook called “MS4 for Dummies”. This easy to read text will help you understand how to manage your municipal separate storm sewer system (or MS4) to meet the ever increasing regulations handed down by the Environmental Protection Agency as part of the Clean Water Act.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend the Autodesk See the Advantage Virtual Event back on October 5th – don’t worry! All of the webcasts and documents were archived on the Website for you to view on demand. You can access the archive here: www.dlt.com/seetheadvantage . The archived event is a little hard to find, but your best bet is to navigate straight to the Auditorium in the virtual event hub where you’ll find the webcast archives. If you’re looking for a good read, go to the Exhibit Hall and click on your professional track (Buildings, Utilities, Civil Engineering, etc.) Each “booth” has its own resource section including white papers and videos. I found the Buildings booth to have the most – but all provided some useful resources.

The blog entry below contains excerpts from ‘Putting Virtual “Boots on the Ground” – Law Enforcement Gets Intelligence on Demand,’ originally written by Caron Beesley and published on

Virtual USA, Virtual Alabama, and Virginia Interoperability Picture for Emergency Response (VIPER). What do these three geospatial tools have in common? They are all geospatial emergency management tools that are making the promises of Gov 2.0 a reality. As I’m sure you’re aware, Gov 2.0’s purpose is to socialize government services, processes and data through IT. So what does this mean for geospatial technology? I recently read an article entitled, Geospatial tools offer killer app for Gov 2.0 that discusses the future of geospatial technology and the direction it must head in order to stay viable. That direction, according to the article, is making the data actionable. In other words, designing applications that keep the end user in mind, providing for the accessibility and use of that data by both the data gatherers and end users, and making sure the collaboration between the two is sustainable. But how is this achieved in best practice?

From the latest TV meteorological reports to the local police department efforts to reduce crime in your neighborhood – geospatial data affects our everyday lives in some capacity. Generally speaking, however, the public hasn’t traditionally needed to access this information or even know how to interpret it. This is about to change. I recently came across a blog entry on techpresident.com, entitled “Feds Launch New Geospatial Platform”, that describes the launch of a new website, GeoPlatform.gov. This new site is a part of the Obama administration’s push for open government and is intended to bring place-based products and services to the American public. According to the site, The Geospatial Platform is a managed portfolio of common geospatial data, services, and applications contributed to, and administered by, authoritative sources. The platform data is hosted on a shared infrastructure for use by government agencies and partners (academics and other organizations) to meet their mission needs and the broader needs of the Nation.

Location, location, location. Historically, the saying is like the real estate agent’s mantra. Have a good location and boom, your house practically sells itself. More recently though with the increased availability of cutting edge location-based technology, these three words have taken on a whole new meaning. That’s the basis for Episode One of the four-part online miniseries, Geospatial Revolution. Created by Penn State Public Broadcasting, Geospatial Revolution is a web-based project that aims to educate viewers about the recent rise in geospatial and location-based technologies.

If you are a law enforcement official, you’ll understand the power of geospatial imagery as an essential enabler of location and terrain intelligence gathering. But while traditional satellite imagery and GIS systems provide invaluable situational awareness capabilities, they don’t always provide all the answers. For one, traditional geospatial imagery is orthogonal, i.e. “a top down view”, which flattens the landscape and gives no perspective, making it tricky to gain a true representation of terrain or buildings – after all it’s hard to pre-plan a mission or understand potential risk factors about a structure or location when all you see is an anonymous tiled roof and vague perimeter.

Green building has been a hot topic for a while, but new building projects aren’t the only thing getting attention. In fact, according to the Green Building Retrofit & Renovation SmartMarket Report, only 1.5% - 2.5% of building stock in the U.S. is new each year. To add to that, green building comprises 5-9% of current building projects and that number is expected to increase to 25% -30% in the next five years. The report, found here, details data collected from market research and qualitative case studies (there are 20 highlighted in this report) showing the highly positive trend of green building projects, even in the government sector.

We’re all used to regular software patches and security updates, but oftentimes if you want to benefit from the latest and greatest product features, you usually have to fork out for the latest and greatest software release. Not so with Autodesk, if you are a customer on Autodesk Subscription. Autodesk offers early access to new Autodesk software features through its Autodesk Subscription Advantage Packs (ASAP) program. With ASAP, users can download and install the latest product features and enhancements on the 2010 and newer software versions.