New strategy for visitcity-City Portal getting three-dimensional, interactive and mobile

New development of portal solution visitcity / Extended Website now showing numerous video based demos for 3D application leads / Bitmanagement Software GmbH develops new release and website / visitcity powered by intergraph

Based on a revised strategy the city portal visitcity shows the complex offer of this city portal in a new structure. Center points are both the future 3D portrayal of city models and an interactive use, as well as the porting of this online application to mobile devices like Smartphones, IPhones and IPads. Transparent and user friendly the visitor of the visitcity website can click through a fairly detailed and well structured menu from visitcity to a favoured destination. The developer of visitcity GmbH, Achberg, Germany, payed extra attention on an online testing opportunity of the new release. The new website will be online in June 2011.

After one Year of development time the city portal has been rolled out in 2009 as an internet portal for marketing activities of municipalities and companies. The portal focused on substancial offers, which as this time are still limited to distribution to German speaking countries like Austria, Switzerland and Germany, now reached the first step of on the way to a global internet portal. An European wide online-application is under way which is already shown by the availability of an english Web version.

visitcity's special advantages are therein embedded Microsoft Bing data as well as the benefiting licencensing procedure. The systems partner Intergraph on whose data center “Terra Map Server” the systems is operating, has negotiated in close cooperation with Microsoft an extra pricing model, which makes the user independent from click rates. Instead of purchasing a single royalty for the Bing data from Microsoft the visitcity customer benefits from a flatrate royalty, which is covered by the user fees. Visitcity is powered by Intergraph.

Having won Bitmanagement Software GmbH, 3D software developer, as a new technology partner, visitcity now can offer its 3D content and can make features ready for interactive usage. Therewith the target of the online city portal to present as much as possible and reasonable visualized information, has been more refined. Scientific studies circumstantiate that human beeings memorize visualized informaton more easy and effective than just verbalized information. In this context geo referenced images play an extraordinary roll. Visitcity is approximately fully based on such images and thus increases the memorability of visitors of the portal when observing for instance highlights and points of interest in a geographical area.

The website demonstrates beside a number of examples of how interacive maps and city plans are shown and perform. The former examples imply images from points of interest like castles, historic monuments, sceneries or specific cityscapes up to public facilities like open air pools, which can be downloaded from a deeply detailled menu including respective acompanying text. Now some video demos from city models of e.g. Lindau at Bodensee lake, Honkong and Peking as well as on demand 3D applications showing Augmented Reality (AR) apps running on latest mobile devices too, deepen the clearness for visitors of the visitcity portal.

In respect of the overall supply of this internet application, visitcity is in the position to support cities and local authorities to optimize their regional marketing and advertising efforts. One special fact seems to be quite supportive that the POIs are offered on the one side as a standard menu and on the other side that a user also can create and enregister POIs also individually by using the administration portal. Moreover additional features like Geo RSS allow the integration of dynamic data like opening hours, prices or other changing information into the application. This offers an outstanding advantage, because visitcity can provide the user with permanent updated data and information.

Press
i.A. Norbert Böcker
Bitmanagement Software GmbH
Oberlandstrasse 26, D-82335 Berg

Tel.: 08151-97170-8
Mobile: 0171-3337719
norbert.boecker@bitmanagement.de
www.bitmanagement.de

About Bitmanagement Software GmbH, Berg near Munich, Germany

Bitmanagement is a provider of multimedia software with focus on online interactive 3D visualization. The multimedia technology for 2D/3D, audio and video is realtime and Internet ready. Based on the ISOstandard formats VRML/X3D, CityGML and COLLADA, MPEG-4 and Java, it allows an Interactive visualization of concepts and products.

Bitmanagement develops and markets a product portfolio of visualization software, which is composed of visualization software (BS Contact VRML / X3D, MPEG-4, Geo, Stereo and Mobile), documentation (BS SDK Package) for animation and different programming tools up to Workflow optimization such as BS Encrypt.

Bitmanagement was founded in 2002 by three former employees of the blaxxun interactive AG, Munich. The company achieved sales growth and positive result in 2009 and is "cash flow positive" since its founding."

Bitmanagement is board member of the "Web3D Consortium" (USA), which is responsible for the standardization and dissemination of 3D ISO standards for the Internet. Bitmanagement is simultaneously also a member of the" 3D Consortium "for the dissemination of stereoscopic visualization.

More information at: http://www.bitmanagement.com
Company Profile at: http://www.bitmanagement.de/de/company/profile

About visitcity, Lindau at Bodensee Lake

The visitcity portal has been founded and developed for local authorities and electric utilities. Visitcity is both, an online software solution, which offers based on Bing from Software or Google mapping material and research under the brand label 'visit®Portal' a geo-portal for cities and companies. This enables to present its local Points of interests (POIs).

Visitcity offers under the brand label 'visitcity ® Publisher' also a geo referenced visualization technology for interactive public GIS applications in 2D/3D - from online use on a PC to mobile devices ( e.g. iPhone, iPad).

The city portal visitcity can be integrated in own websites and adopts the look and feel of the website owner. Thus he completes his online offers with additional information which make ones life easier. Such information range from employment offices to additional important details. Presently

About Intergraph

Intergraph® is the leading global provider of engineering and geospatial software that enables customers to visualize complex data. Businesses and governments in more than 60 countries rely on Intergraph’s industry-specific software to organize vast amounts of data to make processes and infrastructure better, safer and smarter. The company’s software and services empower customers to build and operate more efficient plants and ships, create intelligent maps, and protect critical infrastructure and millions of people around the world.

Intergraph operates through two divisions: Process, Power & Marine (PP&M) and Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I). Intergraph PP&M provides enterprise engineering software for the design, construction, operation and data management of plants, ships and offshore facilities. Intergraph SG&I provides geospatially powered solutions to the public safety and security, defense and intelligence, government, transportation, photogrammetry, and utilities and communications industries.

Intergraph is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hexagon AB. Hexagon is a leading global provider of precision measurement technology systems. Hexagon was founded in 1992, is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and is publicly traded on the Nordic exchange (ticker “HEXA B”) with a secondary listing on the Swiss Exchange (ticker “HEXN”).

For more information, visit www.intergraph.com and www.hexagon.se.