The European Lidar Mapping Forum (ELMF) was held at The Hague, Netherlands Nov. 30 - Dec. 1, 2010. Although the city endured the largest snowfall and plunging temperatures in 40 years, the environment inside was much more comfortable where over 600 attendees from 42 countries were in attendance displaying and discussing state-of-the-art lidar mapping devices and associated technologies. The ELMF also featured two presentation tracks together with a workshop series oriented toward educating users on the use and applications of lidar.
Autodesk University 2010 took place in Las Vegas, Nevada from Nov. 29 through Dec. 2. This year's event attracted 7,000 people to the live event, and 40,000 virtual attendees via the live Internet broadcasts of the content. The event theme, "The Power of the Possible," placed an emphasis on the ability to turn dreams into reality using the Autodesk product line.
The theme for the 2010 Trimble Dimensions event of Converge, Connect, Collaborate was the focus of the welcoming address by Steve Berglund, president and CEO of Trimble. Berglund took to the stage in front of more than 2,400 attendees at this fifth annual event, and recapped the company's philosophy, as well as their plans for continued growth.
The 5th International 3D GeoInfo Conference was held in Berlin, Germany on November 3-4, 2010. The event included a wide range of speakers from government, industry and educational research who are involved in the use and application of 3D geospatial technologies and development. Held at the Technical University in the center of the city, the event also included a poster session and a industry exhibition of new products and services.
The annual ESRI EMEA User Conference was held in Rome, Italy October 26-28 at the Ergife Palace Hotel. With 1500 in attendance, the event featured a wide variety of presentations connected to the new features in ArcGIS 10, user applications, demonstrations and a well attended exhibition that included many business partners who are building applications upon ESRI technology.
It has been a few years since Bentley Systems last held a large event in Europe, and one might think that the middle of an economic downturn would be an unlikely time to hold such an event. Not so. If the last few days in Amsterdam, The Netherlands are any indication, the infrastructure market continues to grow. Data shows users are deploying Bentley MicroStation software for more hours per week and the number and kinds of infrastructure projects operating continues to intrigue, interest and demand creative, intelligent modeling solutions.
The annual INTERGEO was held in Cologne, Germany last week where about 15,000 people were in attendance for the event under the theme 'Knowledge and Action for Planet Earth'. Professor Karl-Friederich Thone, President of the German Society for Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management (DVW) initiated the event. He spoke about the strength of INTERGEO and also indicated that patron of the conference, German Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere also understands the value of geoinformation value in society.
The annual Association for Geographic Information (AGI) conference in the United Kingdom was held last week in Stratford-Upon-Avon. With about 490 registered for the event, the conference was split into six sessions including Geospatial Foresight, The Power of Free, Geoweb and the Cloud, Governance and Management, Environmental Concerns and Delivering on Policy.