I’m sure most people don’t think of Alabama being the pinnacle of geospatial research and imaging, but Google Enterprise is developing a GIS system for a “Virtual Alabama” and ESRI is building the “Virginia Interoperability Picture for Emergency Response”. GCN’s Wyatt Kash sits down with Jack Dangermond of ESRI to discuss advances in GIS.
Virtual Alabama copies data from different state and local agencies into a central server for visualization in the Google environment. In contrast, the VIPER system uses a distributed Web service architecture that dynamically integrates a network of real-time authoritative source services. Distributed servers integrate various maps as mashup applications, not just visualization. While some of these services are simply mapping and visualization, many others integrate analytic services and support sophisticated applications.
via The next step for agency GIS: shared services — Government Computer News.
@Dan I. Great link!
There’s a great video about Virtual Alabama here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-1I0JTWiIY