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Begin februari 2011 het Kadaster de nieuwe dataset TOP50NL ter beschikking gesteld aan haar klanten. Wellicht heb je inmiddels een CD ontvangen met een landsdekkend bestand, opgedeeld in blokken van ca. 300MB en vraag je je af wat je hier nu mee moet doen.

GO Loader
Om deze GML bestanden snel en eenvoudig te laden in je ruimtelijke database, is Snowflake's GO Loader product de beste oplossing. GO Loader laadt niet alleen razendsnel de GML data in je database, maar creëert ook direct het database schema (tabellen, ruimtelijke indexen, joins, etc.).

Omdat GML bestanden vrij groot kunnen zijn, worden ze regelmatig gecomprimeerd geleverd, bijvoorbeeld in een zip-file. GO Loader leest de data direct uit het gecomprimeerde bestand. Hierdoor hoeft het gecomprimeerde bestand niet eerst uitgepakt te worden, wat weer schijfruimte scheelt.

De unieke technologie achter GO Loader zorgt er ook voor dat er tijdens het laadproces geen tijdelijke bestanden worden aangemaakt. GO Loader laadt direct de data van het GML bestand de database in.

Om je snel op weg te helpen, wordt GO Loader geleverd met een voorgedefinieerde configuratie voor de TOP50NL dataset, het zogenaamde GO Loader project. Je hoeft slechts de databaseverbinding in te stellen en je kunt de data gaan laden.

Voor de ontsluiting van de TOP50NL data in externe GIS applicaties zoals Esri ArcGIS of PBBI MapInfo bevat GO Loader standaard een GIS Registration Tool. Deze tool genereert automatisch de juiste ArcSDE registratiescripts en creëert de gewenste tabelstructuur voor MapInfo.

GO Loader ondersteunt verschillende databases zoals Oracle, SQL Server 2008 en PostGIS.

Door de generieke technologie in GO Loader ondersteunen we standaard alle Nederlandse GML datasets, onder meer IMRO2008, TOP10NL, IMWE, IMWA en IMGeo. Maar ook andere GML datasets zoals alle verschillende Europese INSPIRE datasets worden ondersteund.

Nieuwsgierig geworden? Vraag dan onze gratis 30-dagen evaluatie licentie aan op onze website  en kies voor Evaluation. De evaluatie versie biedt de volledige functionaliteit van GO Loader. Natuurlijk bieden we ook support via ons eigen Support Team.

GML Viewer
Mocht je een TOP50NL GML bestand (of elk willeukeurig GML bestand overigens) willen bekijken, dan biedt Snowflake de gratis GML Viewer.De GML Viewer kun je downloaden op onze website.

Snowflake Software
Snowflake Software is de "data exchange company" en is gespecialiseerd in het ontwikkelen van standaard software voor het uitwisselen van (geo)data volgens open standaarden. Ook bieden we trainingen op het gebied van XML, GML en INSPIRE.

Snowflake is al vele jaren actief in Nederland. Zo maken onder meer organisaties zoals het Kadaster en Geonovum gebruik van onze oplossingen en expertise.

Contact
Mocht je meer te weten willen komen over GO Loader, of over onze andere oplossingen, neem dan gerust contact met me op via richard.rombouts@snowflakesoftware.com of telefoonnummer +44 (0)23 8038 6577.

Richard Rombouts | Technical Sales Manager | richard.rombouts@snowflakesoftware.com |

www.twitter.com/sflakesoftware | www.twitter.com/richrombouts |

Summary in English:

The Dutch national Cadastre recently released the TOP50NL dataset as GML. The TOP50NL is a mid-scale (1:50k) topographical dataset that covers The Netherlands.
With GO Loader you can load the TOP50NL dataset in your database. To get you started quickly Snowflake provides a pre-defined GO Loader project which contains the full translation between the GML and database schema. Try it out now with our free 30 days evaluation licence. Visit www.snowflakesoftware.com/goloader/ to obtain your licence.

If you read my last blog (Snowflakes in Southampton) you might remember me mentioning the new Customer Portal that we've been busy working on?

Well, we've contacted the majority of our customers, partners and colleagues and let them know that the new Customer Portal will be going live on Saturday 11th December. That's this Saturday!

Support that's even better - A brand new Customer Portal

We’re committed to providing a great customer experience. And making sure that customers get the best possible support is one way we can do that.   The new Customer Portal provides customers with exclusive access to new and enhanced support tools, all in a simple-to-use, easy-to-navigate, website interface. And here's a preview of just some of the new functionality you can expect.

My Profile - A secure area to manage your contact details

My Entitlements - Manage your account details, software and maintenance

Documentation - get up and running quickly with User Guides and Product How To's.

Cases - Raise a direct support request and track progress

Installers - Download the latest product, upgrade or Early Access version

Solutions - Search the knowledgebase for answers

Answers - ask the community for help or answer community questions

Ideas - Get involved with product development - suggest improvements or vote for existing ideas

(The Customer Portal is currently in development so final version may differ slightly from above)

When

The new Customer Portal goes live on Saturday 11th December. 

The current support site will be unavailable during the upgrade period (Friday 10th - Saturday 11th December). 

If you require support on Friday 10th please contact the team via phone: 0044 (0) 23 8023 8232

What to do

If you're an existing customer, you should have received a letter to let you know about the changes; if you haven't yet received this, please let us know. We'll also send a reminder email on Thursday 9th December together with an email when we go live which will contain your unique username and password.

Look out for the educational webinars that we'll be running in January

Not got a current Support & Maintenance contract?

Don't worry. If you're not currently signed up to our Support & Maintenance but you'd like to be, get in touch with a member of the team: 0044 (0) 23 8023 8232 and we can discuss the options with you.

If you're not sure, why not take a trial of the portal and we'll show you around? 

If you have any questions in the meantime, please get in touch.

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com | 0044 (0) 23 8023 8232

Along with our fellow OGC members; Cadcorp and EDINA, we've initiated an OGC Web Services (OWS) Shibboleth Interoperability Experiment (IE) to advance best practice for implementing standards on federated security in transactions involving geospatial data and services.

The IE will demonstrate use of Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) with OGC Web Services, including use of Shibboleth. This IE will build on practices from the European Spatial Data Infrastructure Network (ESDIN) project and on results from previous OGC initiatives on authentication.

Yes, it's true. Our technical team here at Snowflake have started blogging. 

Affectionately known to us as 'Techies', they've only gone and created their own blog as well.  Which is great news for anyone who wants to get the lowdown on anything more technical from Snowflake. Just be sure to bookmark it.

The 'Techie blog' is free for anyone to view and is an information rich source of technical content that will help you get the most out of GO Loader and GO Publisher as well as some hints and tips for standards based data exchange.

We'll also post news and announcements on product updates and new releases so you can be sure you're running the most up to date version.

You can visit the blog here or subscribe to the Technical Blog RSS feed for hassle free updates.

Publishing to Google Earth using GO Publisher Community Edition

The latest pearl of wisdom to emerge from the technical arm of the team is a fantastic user guide for publishing to Google Earth.

Specifically designed for our free product, GO Publisher Community Edition, the KML user guide covers the basics from;

• Setting up the project;
• Configuring the translation;
• Converting 2D to 3D placemarks;

right through to the more advanced features such as;

• Creating multiple styles;
• Screen overlays;
• Creating balloon styles.

View the full document by reading Dan's blog post on the new Technical Blog.

The team will also be posting a 'Tip of the Week' on the Techie Blog so watch this space!

We'd love to hear from you as well. If you've got any technical questions you'd like to see answered or any topics you'd like the Techies to cover in their blogs, please add your ideas as a comment to this post.  We'll try and get through as many as we can.

Happy reading!

P.S. If you haven't yet downloaded your copy of GO Publisher Community Edition, or you'd like to find out more, visit www.snowflakesoftware.com/gpce/.

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager (non - techie person!) | www.snowflakesoftware.com | www.twitter.com/sflakesoftware