Over the past several years, substantial regulation has been passed mandating the “greening” of federal government buildings. Last month was no exception and saw the declaration of a new “gold” standard. In late October 2010, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) issued a new mandate requiring that all federal building construction projects and “substantial” renovation projects achieve a minimum LEED Gold certification in their quest to improve energy efficiency. Leadership in Environmental Efficiency Design (LEED) is an internationally recognized and widely-accepted third party green building certification program, established by the U.S. Green Building Council, that determines the energy efficiency and sustainability of building projects.

No technology has given us such a literal insight into the world around us than satellite imagery – from our everyday use of Google Maps to more serious applications in the local and national security community. This top down view of the world, combined with actionable data about the terrain, buildings and even persons on the ground, has transformed how emergency responders, law enforcement officials, and others in the security arena act on intelligence, plan and prepare for potential scenarios and adjust tactics from the field. However – traditional geospatial imagery and information has its limits. Say, for example you are a law enforcement official in Arlington, Virginia. While your geospatial app can give you a great view of the roof of a potential suspect’s apartment block, and probably also tell you which apartment your suspect lives in. What if you could use the power of multiple, yet integrated viewpoints, to measure the perimeter of the block, gauge the best surveillance points based on a clear line of sight, plan ingress and egress points, and share this information in pre-raid briefings. Imagine the time saved during the initial “Time on Target”?

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.