Blue Marble Expands Projection and Datum Shift Support with GeoCalc 6.2 Release

Gardiner, Maine - June 16, 2006 - Blue Marble Geographics (www.bluemarblegeo.com) announces an update to their GeoCalc 6.2 developer tool kit. This fully object-oriented, cross platform version of Blue Marble's coordinate conversion libraries was created to meet the accuracy and data conversion needs of GIS and mapping programmers. Blue Marble's coordinate conversion technology is used worldwide by thousands of GIS analysts at software companies, universities, oil and gas companies, civil engineering, surveying, technology, enterprise GIS groups, government and military organizations.

GeoCalc 6.2 is an expansion of the existing GeoCalc libraries. The developer kit now supports over 50 projections including Bipolar Oblique Conformal Conic and Oblique Mercator Azimuth. It has over 12 Datum Shifts including Molodensky-Badekas 10 Parameter Shift and the Ordnance Survey National Grid Transform of 2002. Two new height models were added: Colombia Geoid Model of 2004 and Earth Geopotential Model 1996 (EGM 96). Many new objects and methods have been added along with speed optimization for data source load, browsing and querying. Finally, the library supports the latest version of the OGP's EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset, v6.10.

As an object-oriented component, GeoCalc 6.2 relies upon an XML data source and provides the latest support for WKT (well-known text) definitions per the Open GIS Consortium specifications. This product will support all previous GeoCalc coordinate system classifications, and will support any other coordinate system library definitions. Simply add a new issuer ID, attach codes to fully-defined coordinate systems and those definitions can be translated into our libraries. Now your old definitions will work in the latest development environments and across multiple platforms if you so choose.

"GeoCalc 6.2 is a step in the process of building the fastest, most powerful and most comprehensive coordinate conversion tool available," stated Kris Berglund, Director of Sales and Marketing for Blue Marble. "It is the only XML based tool for this work that is human-readable, searchable and constantly updated and supported."

The human readable capabilities of the XML data source in GeoCalc are important for ease of use in development. This allows the GIS expert in your company to work with a developer who may know very little about coordinate systems. The GIS expert can easily read the coding to make certain that all the necessary parameters and tasks are included in the software developed with GeoCalc.

About Blue Marble Geographics: Blue Marble Geographics of Gardiner, Maine is a leading developer and provider of geographic software products that provide sensible solutions for users and developers of geographic data. Blue Marble has been writing GIS software tools and solutions for over 13 years and currently serves over 130,000 customers in over 120 countries. Learn more at www.bluemarblegeo.com.

Contact Information:
Kris Berglund
Blue Marble Geographics
Gardiner, ME, USA
kb@bluemarblegeo.com
800-616-2725 / 207-582-6747