{"id":8892,"date":"2013-07-16T17:17:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T01:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/?p=8892"},"modified":"2013-07-30T08:45:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-30T16:45:14","slug":"esri-user-conference-2013-when-the-worlds-digital-information-met-digital-fabrication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/2013\/07\/esri-user-conference-2013-when-the-worlds-digital-information-met-digital-fabrication\/","title":{"rendered":"ESRI User Conference 2013 – When the World’s Digital Information met Digital Fabrication"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So I just got back from the ESRI User Conference 2013<\/a>\u00a0in San Diego and wow, what a trip.<\/p>\n

Founded by Jack Dangermond, ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an industry leader and international supplier of Geographic Information System (GIS<\/a>) software and geodatabase management applications. The company has an installed base of more than one million users in more than 350,000 organizations, including most US federal agencies and national mapping agencies, all 50 US state health departments, transportation agencies, forestry companies, utilities, state and local government, schools and universities, NGOs, and commercial business.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The user conference brought 15,000+ ESRI users from over 130 countries. Keynote presentations included Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information, Infrastructure, and Innovations Sam Pitroda<\/a>\u00a0and an inspiring discussion with pop culture icon Will.i.am. For the record I am a B.E.P. fan but this interview was something else.<\/p>\n

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This was my first time to attend the ESRI User Conference and I was amazed at the number of sessions, expo size (entire convention center floor), attendance, and diversity of the show. As an attendee pointed out, “GIS is everything” and it seems everything was represented at the event. Among what I saw on the trade show floor were a variety of mapping applications, LIDAR services (remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light) and drone data collection devices.<\/p>\n

I am not a geo-specialist but I did recognize a few things I am familiar with. Among those was:<\/p>\n

City Engine<\/a> – a procedural modeling tool for rapidly creating large urban environments<\/p>\n