AMFORA is the Dutch acronym for Alternative Multifunctional Underground Space Amsterdam. At a meeting of the Enlightened Underground international conference on Jan 29, the engineering firm, Strukton, revealed a plan for building a new Amsterdam, under the canals. Together with the architectural firm, Zwarts & Jansma, they released a concept book (PDF, 16mb) illustrating this underground future. The plan would reduce traffic in the city, providing underground parking, park-and-ride facilities, shops, entertainment, and sports facilities.
There would be a positive impact on the environment, health, and quality of life with the crowded canal-side roads transformed into broad foot (and bike) paths. Somehow, a by-product of the process would be cleaner canals, clean enough to swim in. This is truly an ”adaptation” scenario for global warming, as the land of Hans Brinker, turns into the costa del sol of the future. The project images are wonderful, the idea is fantasmagoric.
Now this is really, really cool. MERL (Mitsubshi Electric Research Labs) showed a tabletop ”touch-and-gesture-activated” screen, hooked up to an ordinary laptop and ordinary projector (suspended above). It is billed (in the online fact sheet) as “the world’s first multi-user touch technology”. Maybe gaming will be the killer app for this product, but disaster response is the GIS-related application which brought MERL to EUC2007. Continue reading ‘EUC2007: Diamond Touch’
An exhibitor at EUC 2007 in Stockholm was HNIT Baltic from Lithuania, makers of Cellular Expert, an ArcGIS extension for wireless telecommunications networks planning, optimisation and data management. A technical article in an ESRI’s Telecom Connections Winter ‘07 (see page 4) publication describes research done by Ball State University, using Cellular Expert together with ArcGIS and various extensions.
Continue reading ‘EUC2007: Cellular Expert’
At ESRI EU conference in Stockholm, 3DConnection, a division of Logitech, demo-ed SpaceNavigator for use with ESRI’s ArcGlobe (but of course, it works with Google Earth, too). Its a 3D mouse priced for consumers (59€ or $59, so guess where I’ll buy it.) This has been available for a year, launched in Australia, so maybe I’m the last to know about it. Beautifully constructed and intuitive, there are various more expensive models with more features . This works with SketchUp and other 3D design applications.
The CCsP conference September 12 and 13 in Den Haag included many fascinating presentations by climate experts from the Netherlands, other European countries, Brazil and the US. Many ongoing projects are looking at risks, costs, and even opportunities, focusing on two concurrent approaches: mitigation and adaptation. Dr. Jeroen Aerts from the Vrij Universeiteit discussed Climate adaptation: cross-sectoral approaches in relation to land use and spatial planning (ppt, 17.8Mb) .
The 2007 ESRI Nederland GIS conference will be held September 19-20 in the Doelen in Rotterdam. Theme translates approximately to “Geo links the chain”. Last year it was “Geo at the foundation”. The conference keynote address will feature Paul Smits, member of the Spacial Data Infrastructures Unit of the EC Institute for Environment and Sustainability, talking about INSPIRE, the “Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community.” Setting standards leads to greater cooperation and understanding, and maybe problem-solving.
AMFORA is the Dutch acronym for Alternative Multifunctional Underground Space Amsterdam. At a meeting of the Enlightened Underground international conference on Jan 29, the engineering firm, Strukton, revealed a plan for building a new Amsterdam, under the canals. Together with the architectural firm, Zwarts & Jansma, they released a concept book (PDF, 16mb) illustrating this underground future. The plan would reduce traffic in the city, providing underground parking, park-and-ride facilities, shops, entertainment, and sports facilities. 
There would be a positive impact on the environment, health, and quality of life with the crowded canal-side roads transformed into broad foot (and bike) paths. Somehow, a by-product of the process would be cleaner canals, clean enough to swim in. This is truly an ”adaptation” scenario for global warming, as the land of Hans Brinker, turns into the costa del sol of the future. The project images are wonderful, the idea is fantasmagoric.
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