Feeling It Out At FedGIS
We’ve learned a lot from cities and municipal services since we released Mapillary for ArcGIS back in October last year. FedGIS this week was one of the first opportunities to engage with GIS professionals at the state and national level. Here’s what we took away from the conference:
Open Data is an imperative at all government levels
We’ve spoken to Smart Cities about how Open Data initiatives drive civic participation and public awareness. We heard the same sentiment across federal agencies that approached us at FedGIS. Big news was the Department of Homeland Security's announcement of the public release of 250 datasets -- previously For Official Use Only.
Deep experience with professional capture and LiDAR
People that came by our booth asked lots of questions about SfM based on previous experience with LiDAR point clouds. They didn't need to be sold on how street imagery would come in handy, and were more interested in finding fast, easy solutions for updates between expensive and protracted annual captures.
Back to basics
On the other end of the spectrum, many emergency management professionals stopped by our booth to learn about making maps for developing communities using Mapillary photos. Some had heard of our work with Missing Maps and the American Red Cross and wanted to bring our attention to more efforts in humanitarian aid.
FedGIS was a great way for us to showcase our existing work and gather new customer feedback. Many thanks to Katie Decker and the Esri team for arranging this for us and for supporting us on the ground!
The Esri Startup Program
/janine