Tag: GIS imagery

Boundless partners with Planet to expand image access
Boundless, an open GIS company, has announced a strategic partnership with Planet, the integrated aerospace and data-analytics company that operates history’s largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites. The partnership enables Boundless customers to access the massive library of high-quality Planet imagery and fast-loading imagery basemaps within Boundless Connect.

Starting today, Boundless Desktop users can access this content through the Boundless Connect plugin. Planet content is also accessible through Boundless Suite and Exchange subscriptions.

“This partnership significantly advances the content available through Boundless Connect, and expands our ability to provide high-quality imagery to Boundless users,” said Anthony Calamito, vice president of product for Boundless. “This represents a major step forward in providing our growing user base with valuable insights through Planet’s content. We are excited about this partnership and all the capabilities that will be delivered to our users, now and in the future.”

A Planet image of Bingham Canyon Mine, Salt Lake County, Utah, taken March 10, 2013.

The partnership with Planet will provide access to:
- Basemaps – Automated basemaps optimized for clear seasonal coverage, completeness and visual quality, perfect for map backdrops. In addition, quarterly or monthly timelapse basemaps gives users access to the latest imagery.
- Image Tiles from PlanetScope – 4-band (RGB and NIR) imagery for visual or analytic use.
- Image Tiles from RapidEye – 5-band (RGB, NIR, and Red Edge) imagery for visual and analytic use.
“This partnership is a huge step forward in delivering the most extensive and up-to-date satellite imagery catalog and basemaps to the broader geospatial community,” said Alex Bakir, vice president of product marketing for Planet. “Boundless’ open, flexible platform pairs perfectly with Planet’s data and platform services, and gives Boundless users the tools and content needed to integrate seamlessly into their workflows. We are very excited to be working with Boundless and look forward to what is to come.”

Boundless offers an open GIS ecosystem through a combination of technology, products and experts that gives enterprises deeper intelligence and insights using location-based data.

The Boundless platform is built upon open source technology and open APIs that generate actionable location intelligence across third-party apps, content services and plugins for enterprise applications.

In November 2016, the company extended its proven GIS platform with Boundless Connect, a subscription service to the most comprehensive repository of GIS resources, and Boundless Desktop, a full-featured, professional desktop GIS, bringing a powerful ecosystem of geospatial knowledge, tools and resources to the enterprise.
May 31, 2017
Boundless Uses GIS Imagery to Search for MH370 Debris

Geospatial experts at Boundless, a geospatial IT company, discuss how GIS imagery can help find debris from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

The blog post Georeferencing Imagery in the Hunt for MH370 takes the complicated location of debris from MH370, and puts it through the open-source software used by Boundless to overlay two major ocean currents, the South Equatorial Current, and the West Australian Current. Prevailing winds graphics and additional vector data of the MH370 search areas and potential flight path are also included.

“While we wait for additional information regarding the missing Boeing 777, I wanted to examine if GIS could add plausibility that debris may have washed up this far west from the original search areas,” writes Anthony Calamito, solutions architect with Boundless. A piece of a wing known as a flaperon from a Boeing 777 was found on Reunion Island, thousands of miles from the plane’s flight path and official search area. No other Boeing 777 airplanes are missing. Flight MH370 vanished on March 8 last year with 239 passengers and crew.

Boundless says in the post that the georeferenced and digitized graphics illustrate how the debris could have washed on shore as the surface currents rotating around the Indian Ocean Gyre could have moved the debris in a general western direction.

According to Boundless, this is an example of how geospatial solutions can use existing data and intelligence to produce answers when none seem to be forthcoming, as it’s been during the search for MH370.

Read the full blog post here.

August 12, 2015
Esri Announces 24 Organizations to Receive $2 Million in GIS Imagery Grants

Esri and PCI Geomatics announced they have selected 24 organizations to develop and apply innovative methods for using GIS to analyze imagery for land-use management. Through the Esri Natural Resources Imagery Grant Program, Esri, the world leader in GIS, and PCI Geomatics, the world leader in geoimaging, provide each grant recipient with software and data valued at $100,000.

“Esri is committed to the development of tools and processes that advance the use of imagery for geospatial analysis,” said Lawrie Jordan, Esri’s imagery solutions director. “The applications that participants design will offer proof-of-concept models useful to imagery analysts worldwide.”

According to the announcement, participants are required to improve efficiency, productivity, or accuracy for detecting and analyzing land-cover change using MDA synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery from RADARSAT-2 and 5 m multispectral imagery from RapidEye. They will use Esri and PCI software to process and analyze imagery. Grant participants, project titles, and organizations are listed on the Esri Natural Resources Imagery Grant Program web page.

“Imagery provides a cost-efficient means to monitor and measure what is happening on the ground and can be integrated with GIS to make better decisions,” said Terry Moloney, president and CEO of PCI Geomatics. “Our partnership with Esri on this program will significantly change the GIS approach participants will apply to land-use management, planning, and policy making.

January 22, 2013