January 17, 2007

Location-based geography from Ricoh

It's good to see another GPS camera on the market specifically for the GIS workforce. I've never been able to figure out exactly why there's been a gap in this space for so long since there's definitely a huge demand for this product.. enter the latest from Ricoh - the Ricoh 500 SE - also billed as location-based photography. I recall it was back in 2000 that i tested and reviewed in detail a similar solution from Kodak called the FIS-265 (i think) this very cool product integrated your GPS until with a camera and it also came with an ArcView extension enabling seamless communication with ArcView.. i have to admit that in its day it was absolutely amazing.. the odd thing about it though was that nobody at koday knew anything about it and users really didn't know about it either - except for the fact that i was promoting it. Lets see if the Ricoh 500 SE catches on and is supported by the company. Of interest, this product is a follow up to a unit launched by Ricoh back in 2005 - the GPS-ready Ricoh Pro G3 (thanks to Anaonymous coward for the tip ;0) What sets these devices apart from the rest is the ability to encode location information and easily incorporate that information into GIS workflows. More on this device in the official blurb HERE

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