Autodesk Report 2007

Autodesk recognizes the benefits of a vibrant geospatial open source community, which fosters greater innovations that meet the specific needs of users. Throughout the year, Autodesk continued to support the open source community and encourage community participation—from helping develop applications, to technology donations and participation at FOSS4G 2007.

In 2007, Autodesk helped MapGuide Open Source graduate from incubation and saw the development of many exciting applications and general interest in open source GIS software increase. This was most evident at FOSS4G 2007. At the conference, Autodesk showcased several open source innovations: MapGuide Open Source 1.2 and Fusion technology, announced its intent to donate recently-acquired Mentor Software CS-Map technology to OSGeo and hosted several presentations and workshops.

One exciting application, the San Francisco Urban Forest Mapping Project (UFMP), was built on MapGuide Open Source by the San Francisco Department of Public Works and the non-profit Friends of the Urban Forest with the support of Autodesk. The application code for the map of the trees of the city’s urban forest was donated back to OSGeo, allowing other cities to easily adapt this unique application.

Open source geospatial software is revolutionizing the way GIS professionals can do their job; it is democratizing access to information and giving smaller organizations with smaller budgets access to top of the line technology for a fraction of the cost. What we find most exciting is the rate of activity with the code—users are building unique applications on top of open source projects to meet their specific needs—users are able to access the latest innovations backed by the support of an entire community of developers. Autodesk is incredibly proud to be involved with OSGeo and are excited to see what 2008 will bring us!

--Robert Bray & Nathalie Mainland, Autodesk