One of the coolest things I saw was Project Freewheel, a “zero-client” (AJAX-based) DWF viewer. The site has three services; the viewer, which you can easily embed into any web page; an imaging service, which returns a rendered PNG image from a DWF; and a Web Service (via SOAP protocol) that returns information about a specified DWF. The viewer will work on any device or browser that supports JavaScript, such as cell phones, BlackBerrys, etc. The demo at the main stage presentation showed the new “orbit” feature, which allows you to interactively rotate a 3d model using the viewer. In other DWF news, Autodesk announced a collaboration with Microsoft to seamlessly integrate DWF technology with Windows Vista.

The fact is that the level of developer and user support of open source geospatial software is growing rapidly. With MapGuide Open Source, Autodesk has demonstrated its commitment to the open source community. and with its fully supported fee-based product (MapGuide Enterprise) agencies have an easy path to a product that is backed by a well-established company.

The most important point that the article makes, is that enterprise GIS is within reach of even the smallest agency. With just a small amount of data and some free software, you can start sharing your data with others within the organization. As interest grows, so will the ability to justify funding to add more data and more functionality.

Performance of mapping servers, for me, has always been a key frustration. And I’m not alone. The Distributed Tile Caching wiki (on OSGeo) provides a very interesting discussion of the problem and offers a possible solution. In a nutshell, the solution suggests a series of tile servers that work together to serve publicly available base mapping, in the form of image tiles, and do it very fast. This has more recently sparked the development of a Tile Map Service Specification, which looks promising. Certainly worth taking a look at. This article from Directions Magazine also discusses this initiative.

Case in point: According to this article published in the Washington Post, most local police departments use GIS internally to plot crime incidents on a map. However Washington, DC recently began making this information available to the public through their online crime mapping application. The application allows you to specify a location, a radius and a date range, and then takes you to an interactive map that displays the approximate location of each crime, using a specific icon to indicate the type of crime. As the press release explains, providing this tool to the public should result in “a more informed and vigilant community, stronger police-community partnerships and, ultimately, safer neighborhoods.”

Another similar product I found recently is OpenLayers which appears to be a pure JavaScript API, similar to Google Maps API.