"On-the-fly" interoperability for GIS data across networks and the Internet. (Products and Services).

Global Geomatics, Inc., has introduced MapFusion, the first commercial off-the-shelf software that permits access to geospatial data from diverse sources and formats without requiring complex preprocessing or time-consuming translations. MapFusion's "on-the-fly" ability to access, visualize, share, and disseminate GIS data across the Internet or IP-based intranets means that even non-GIS specialists can reap benefits from geospatial data created by other departments or organizations.

MapFusion seamlessly and dynamically merges heterogeneous and distributed geospatial data files into a single map, literally "fusing" maps together. Multiple vector or image files, regardless of their source coordinate systems or formats, can be combined to form a single map. The product uniformly displays tactical overlays atop geospatial data from any source.

Designed to meet demanding military and commercial requirements, MapFusion supports interoperability among prevalent geospatial military standards, including VPF, RPF, ADRG, and DTED, as well as among popular GIS business packages from ESRI, Informix (an IBM subsidiary), Intergraph, MapInfo, ObjectFX, Oracle, and Virtual Prototypes. MapFusion can also retrieve data from proprietary and open GIS file formats. In true "any-to-any" fashion, it operates in a broad variety of computing environments including Microsoft Windows 98/NT/2000, Sun Microsystems Solaris, and Linux.

MapFusion is easy to use: It can be learned in less than three hours. The product itself can be installed and be up and running in a heterogeneous computing environment in less than 30 minutes.

Software pricing for a typical single-server installation running under Microsoft Windows with five workstations and a small array of MapFusion adapters is about $25,000.

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