Autodesk, today announced the availability of Autodesk MapGuide® Release 5, the leading solution for developing Web-based CAD and GIS applications

Autodesk MapGuide delivers interactive designs, maps, and related data to a company’s intranet or the Internet, allowing anyone, anywhere with a Web browser to access and interact with real-time, dynamic information. The software also serves as the backbone for Autodesk® OnSite, the latest mobile map, design, and location-based technology that helps users access their enterprise data in the field.
By extending design, mapping, and location-based information to users across the enterprise and into the field, Autodesk MapGuide software helps organizations such as Boeing, PG&E, and AT&T compete better through faster, more informed decision making, reduced operational expenses, and improved customer service. Autodesk MapGuide enables @Road (see separate announcement) to provide its subscribers with a mobile resource management solution that helps them achieve these goals as well.
“Autodesk is helping companies extend the value of their design and mapping information across the enterprise and out to the field via Web and wireless technologies,” said Joe Astroth, executive vice president, Autodesk. “Autodesk MapGuide Release 5 is a key technology to enabling this strategy.”
Customers Reap Valuable Business Benefits
Business benefits of Autodesk MapGuide software include reduced operational costs because it is less expensive to distribute design and map information via the Web than through traditional methods such printouts and mapbook publishing. New features improve support for public Internet sites that want to serve maps without requiring a plug-in viewer and extend the software's access to data stored in central enterprise databases like Autodesk VISION*Ò and Oracle8i Spatial. Additional benefits include streamlined data maintenance; users can now quickly incorporate data edits and redline markups with the central database.
“With Autodesk MapGuide, users have access to timely and up-to-date information, including spatial, from a central database. This can translate into reduced costs, lower risks, and improved customer relations as users make better decisions with more complete information,” said David Sonnen, senior consultant for spatial information management at International Data Corporation.
Customers worldwide are deploying Autodesk MapGuide software for applications that require real-time distribution of and access to current and integrated map and design-related content. For example, AT&T’s Autodesk MapGuide application, GEOLink, serves as the “network portal” into all of AT&T’s data, networks, fiber cables, and wireless locations. Additionally, AT&T's Autodesk MapGuide solution works in concert with data stored in Oracle8i Spatial.
@Road, a leading Internet information services company that provides location-enhanced wireless Internet solutions for mobile commerce, is embedding Autodesk MapGuide into its FleetASAPSM online fleet management solution. Users of this service, such as PepsiCo, City of Oakland Public Works Department, and JB Trucking, receive superior geographic reporting capabilities, visualization, and performance as they track and manage their fleet of vehicles.
New Feature Highlights
New features of Autodesk MapGuide Release 5 include the following:
Mobile and Wireless Support for solutions built with Autodesk’s mobile and wireless technology, Autodesk OnSite, which enables users of mobile and handheld devices (Palm OS, Windows CE) to access interactive maps and other data stored in a central database.

No Plug-in Required with a new, additional viewing option that serves pure raster maps dynamically to users with any Web browser, without needing to install a plug-in viewer. This capability vastly broadens the number of potential users who can view an organization’s maps and designs, especially across the Internet. In addition to viewing, users can dynamically pan, zoom, and identify features and objects in the intelligent maps and designs.

Direct Data Support for new Autodesk MapGuide Data Extensions with support for native data formats including Oracle8i Spatial and Autodesk VISION*. Direct support for DWG and SHP will be available for purchase later this Fall. In addition to these data formats, Autodesk MapGuide Release 5 is fully compatible with AutoCAD MapÒ 2000i and many more industry-standard data formats (see www.autodesk.com/mapguide for details). Release 5 also includes enhanced support for DWG and other symbols and cartographic placement so maps and drawings appear online exactly as they were intended to appear when originally created by the designer or cartographer.

Redlining/Intelligent Markup via a new Viewer API (application programming interface) facilitates rapid development to offer Viewer users the ability to digitize features or to create redline notations on a new spatial data layer. This capability extends the end-user and workgroup functionality and significantly reduces the effort required to build an advanced, mission-specific redlining application.

Availability
Autodesk MapGuide Release 5 is available today at an estimated U.K. street price of £4,795 for a 10 user intranet suite. Throughout the world, the Autodesk MapGuide Server Release 5 software will only be offered in International English. Autodesk MapGuide Viewer and Autodesk MapGuide SDF Loader will continue to be available as free downloads from the Autodesk MapGuide website at www.autodesk.com/mapguide. Autodesk MapGuide Release 5 can be purchased through Authorized AutodeskÒ Resellers or through Authorized Autodesk MapGuide Systems Integrators.

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