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Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced that it has acquired LEAP Software, a provider of analysis and design products for concrete bridges. The LEAP bridge solutions are the industry standard across North America, used by 37 U.S. state departments of transportation, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, a large number of city and county agencies, and top bridge engineering consultants.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Spatial Data Quality Working Group announces that there has been a great response to the survey on spatial data quality measures. The survey will close by the 25 th of January. This working group, under the leadership of Seb Lessware (Chair) from 1Spatial and Patrick Cunningham (Vice-Chair) of Blue Marble Geographics has been gathering secondary research information and requirements from OGC members for the past year and is now conducting a primary research phase. A survey on spatial data quality has been live since mid-October 2007, targeting thousands of geospatial data suppliers and users from around the world. Over six hundred responses have been received to date.

The 2008 ESRI Business GIS Summit will be held April 27–30 at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. This forum brings industry leaders and business professionals together to share best practices, ideas, and tools for helping commercial organizations and related industries increase revenue and operational efficiency as well as enhance communication and knowledge sharing.

James Pick, a professor of business in the University of Redlands School of Business, has written a book chronicling how companies can successfully use geographic information systems (GIS) to improve performance. Pick’s new book, “Geo-Business: GIS in the Digital Organization,” published by John Wiley and Sons, is one of the few business-oriented GIS books to be written in the last several years, according to Pick.

Enersource Hydro Mississauga, distributor of electricity in Ontario, Canada, has signed with Intergraph to integrate and automate the various assets and functions of its power grid. The new SmartGrid implementation will result in greater efficiency and safety, as well as more reliable power to Enersource customers.

Roger M. Hoffer has been selected as the next Honorary Member of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). His nomination was recently approved by the ASPRS Board of Directors. This is the highest award an ASPRS member can receive, and there are only 25 living Honorary Members of the Society at any given time. Candidates are chosen by a Nominating Committee made up of the past five recipients of the award and chaired by the most recent recipient. Dean Merchant served as the current chair.

After being part of Fugro-Inpark for more than 8 years, the Aerial Acquisition division, better known as the FLI-MAP division, will continue as a separate company called Fugro Aerial Mapping B.V. as of January 1st 2008. This new company will be headed by Huug Haasnoot MSc and concentrate their services on LiDAR and photogrammetry activities other airborne methodologies.

Spatial Wave announced today the release of Mapplet.NET 4.0, which is now shipping to new customers and those on maintenance.

PCI Geomatics, a developer of software and solutions for geospatial imaging applications, announced the release and free availability of Geomatica GeoRaster Loader, a desktop product used to load image data and associated metadata into Oracle 10g and 11g.