New Webinar Video Now On-Line

David Hancock gave a very informative demonstration of his ICSolution Emergency Management Software on today’s 101 Webinar.  You can watch it here.

Geo-coding Not Working on 1.4.2 Build 12450 or Before – New Build 12522 is Available

If you are running a version of Depiction before 1.4.2 or a version of 1.4.2 with a build number of 12450 or earlier then you are probably getting can’t geo-code errors when you try to start a new Depiction. Our geo-coding service  changed their API and so prior versions of the software no longer will geo-code.  You can find out what version you are running by going to the help menu and choosing about.  You can still start new depictions by entering a starting latitude and longitude.

A new build (12522) is available on the website and can be found here.

Become a Depiction Champion on our GetSatisfaction Forum

Have you visited our Get Satisfaction forum lately? Those in the know use the forum on a regular basis to ask questions, give answers, and participate in great conversations with other Depiction users and the Depiction team! Are you frustrated because you can’t get something to work or you know there is a way to do what you want but you can’t figure it out, well this is the place to ask the question.

Or maybe you are a Depiction user with unique skills — the forum needs you to help newcomers! We welcome your opinions, tips, and recommendations on best practices using Depiction. Maybe you have used Depiction in a unique way. It might be just the thing that someone else is looking to do. Want to ask a question or start a discussion? The forum is a great place to do that, too.

So come on, dig in! If the Depiction team spots you being particularly helpful in the forum, we’ll even make you an official Depiction Champion! We’ll add a sweet badge to your avatar but that’s not all – you’ll also be invited to beta new depiction versions, and if you participate a lot you will be offered free add-ons or discounts on products.

Being helpful could consist of answering someone’s question before the Depiction Team has a chance to, starting a topic to give people great ideas on different uses of Depiction – or anything else that we consider spectacular.

We really do think of Depiction as a community, and we strive every day to make this a great place for all of our map makers. The GetSatisfaction forum is a big part of that, and we’d love to hang out there with you too!

April 24th Webinar Video Now Available

In case you missed the April 24th webinar presented by Russ Deffner on using DepictionPrep and Depiction for personal and family preparedness, the recording is now available on our website and can be found here.

Evaluation of Depiction by a German Fire Department

Recently we worked with a German fire department to work through some of the issues using Depiction outside of the USA. Frank Ruegner of the Dornstetten fire department did a very thorough analysis of how Depiction could meet their department’s needs. The paper can be found here.

Some Reviews of Our Software by Hams from 2011.

Recently came across some reviews of our software at EHamnet.  For the most part they are very positive reviews and we thank the reviewers.  The second reviewer comments that our software is a resource hog.  He says that he got a bunch of files from his GIS department and they bogged down the system.  What he didn’t realize is that Depiction is not a full blown GIS.  It is a mapping tool that will allow you to do many  GIS tasks on a small scale.  Version 1.4 can handle effectively about 10,000 elements. When you start to get more than that you will see performance issues.  Most folks that use our software don’t need that many elements and are quite happy to spend only $199 to get the capabilities they need rather than the thousands of dollars for an ARCInfo system.  The version 2 of our software that is currently under development will allow a 100,000 plus number of elements.

Interesting Paper on GIS and Emergency Management by Dr John Pine of LSU

We have posted an interesting paper by DR. John Pine of LSU on the use of GIS in Emergency Management.  You can find it here.

In this paper Dr. Pine explores how a geographic information system (GIS) can be used to assist emergency managers in planning for and responding to emergencies. This includes creating situational awareness and common operating pictures.  Of course we think Depiction software is a great affordable and easy to use tool for Emergency Managers.

More quickstart sources are back.

We continue to restore the missing quickstart sources.  Now state, county and congressional boundaries are working again.

Quickstart Water bodies is now available again

The quickstart data source water bodies has now been restored. We are continuing to try and get the others restored.

Depiction Elevation Quickstart Working Again

We have restored our Geoserver and have the Elevation Quickstart working again.  The other quickstart data sources we provide from our server still aren’t available but we are working to get them restored.