COMPUTER FACILITIES, SOFTWARE AND EQUIPMENT

Students have access to state-of-the-art software. The University of Maine has educational site licenses for Oracle, ArcGIS and ArcView, and offers Smallworld GIS,and a suite of Intergraph GIS and CAD software. Idrisi and Mapinfo are also available. Compilers and software development environments for the most common programming languages include object-oriented languages such as C++, web based programming in Java, fast prototyping environments such as Visual Basic, and fifth generation programming languages such as Prolog.

A GIS computing laboratory houses Pentium PCs. The Usability Lab is the focus for human-computer interaction, with an ImmersaDesk and two SMART Boards. The Digital Image Processing laboratory houses SGI workstations and high-end PCs. Another microcomputer laboratory contains Pentium PCs and a color plotter. Researchers have Macintosh Powerbooks and most graduate research assistants working on research projects use Power Macintoshes or high-end Pentium PCs.

The Target Research Center at the University of Maine's Research Park houses the Institute for Intelligent Spatial Technologies with researchers from the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) and the Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering. Offices are networked with 100Mbit (Fast) Ethernet switches on each floor. The building connects through UNet, the campus fiber backbone provider, also via Gigabit Ethernet to Internet-2.

The department library maintains a collection of the most relevant GIS journals, books, and many conference proceedings. This collection is complementary to the University’s Fogler Library. In addition to access to hard copy material, the University maintains an extensive electronic library catalog and access to major collections of electronic journals.

Cognate research units at the University of Maine with links to the NCGIA are the Institute of Quaternary Studies, the Image Analysis Laboratory of the Department of Forest Management, the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy, the Canadian-American Center, and the Fogler Library. Department and NCGIA members work regularly with faculty from computer science, mathematics, business administration, geology, and the school of marine sciences on various research topics.

Beyond the campus, the Department and NCGIA have excellent ties to the local GIS industry including AI Systems, Boeing-Autometrics, Blue Marble Geographics, BSB Electronic Charts, DeLorme, Digital Mapping Associates, Geo-graphics, Lucerne International, Northeastern Geomantics, Photo Science, and James W. Sewall Co. Also Bangor Hydro-Electric Co., Seven Islands Land Co., and Woodard & Curran have GIS groups. There are ties between UMaine and these companies, such as research collaborations (Bangor Hydro-Electric), consulting (DeLorme), employment of graduates (Boeing-Autometrics, Blue Marble Geographics, DeLorme, Northeastern Geomantics Photo Science, Seven Islands Land Co., James W. Sewall Co., Woodard & Curran), and spin-offs by former faculty or students (BSB Electronic Charts, Geo-graphics, Lucerne International, Photo Science). Due to this cooccurrence of a focused, high-tech industry and an ambitious, research-based academic program, a symbiotic partnership has developed between UMaine research and regional industrial software engineering in a focus market area.

Lists of Equipment and Software