GPS World

Tag: orthorectified imagery

  • Harris to offer Icaros OneButton for advanced UAS image processing

    Icaros Inc., a provider of aerial remote sensing services and software, has announced that Harris Geospatial Solutions, a division of Harris Corporation, will offer the Icaros OneButton family of image processing software as a front-end complement to its ENVI geospatial analytics solution for users extracting information from manned and unmanned aerial sensor data.

    “Together, OneButton and ENVI create a complete image processing and analytics workflow for aerial image data,” said Tom Bosanko, Icaros CEO. “Both packages are highly customizable to meet the needs of specific vertical market applications.”

    Icaros developed the OneButton family for geospatial end users to easily and automatically generate precise, fully orthorectified 2D maps and 3D models from frame-based aerial imaging systems. Originally engineered for manned aircraft sensors, the OneButton software has been modified to accommodate the collection conditions of unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

    “The combination of OneButton and ENVI provide best-of-breed, application-specific image processing and analytics, that enable customers to solve challenging problems related to everything from agriculture and forestry to utilities and city planning,” said Beau Legeer of Harris Geospatial Solutions.

    OneButton automatically processes raw raster imagery with onboard GPS/IMU data to stitch the individual scenes together into a seamless, color-balanced orthomosaic meeting photogrammetric standards.

    Outputs include digital elevation models (DEMs), true color 3D point clouds, multispectral mosaics and controlled oblique imagery — all ready for ingest directly into the ENVI software environment.

    OneButton comes in both Standard and Professional versions. The Standard package asks the end user to specify the application and terrain type for the project at hand. The software then intuitively sets parameters of the photogrammetric engine to perform the mosaicking to the level of precision required. For example, the processing algorithms would handle flat agricultural fields different from a rolling urban landscape.

    “The Professional version is more customizable, allowing end users to adjust the processing parameters themselves based on the precision they need, and then edit the resulting mosaic to remove anomalies, like an airplane moving down a runway. OneButton Professional was specifically designed to generate results with the efficiency and accuracy necessary for large scale projects and survey-quality results,” Bosanko said.

    OneButton is platform and sensor agnostic, and processes raster image data from small-, medium-, and large-format frame sensors capable of capturing visible RBG, multispectral, near-infrared and thermal infrared data.

    The OneButton solution for ENVI is available now to existing and new customers, and both companies expect further technology integration in the near future around cloud enablement of the UAS data processing and analytics workflow.

  • CompassData Granted ISO Certification for Quality-Management Systems

    CompassData, a worldwide provider of geospatial data and services, has received ISO 9001:2008 Certification for Quality Management Systems from Orion Registrar Inc.. The ISO 9001:2008 certification is well established in the United States and around the world as a quality-management system tool.

    CompassData completed a rigorous audit in which Orion Registrar reviewed each step in the firm’s quality-management methodologies used during the creation of GPS-surveyed ground control and other geospatial products such as orthorectified imagery, digital elevation models (DEM), sensor calibrations and GIS map products.

    This certification recognizes that CompassData has established a quality-management system that addresses the scope of the company’s core processes: supplying ground-control points and other high-accuracy products, services and content for the geospatial community. Superior ability to capture and satisfy customer requirements was a key element in the demonstration of the quality-management system to the registrar.

    “CompassData has set itself apart by becoming one of the few geospatial survey data providers in the world whose quality-management systems and processes are ISO 9001 certified,” the company said in a statement.

    ISO (International Organization for Standardization), the supplier of the ISO 9000 family of quality and management standards, is a network of national standards institutes from 163 countries working in partnership with international governments, organizations, businesses and consumer representatives.

    The ISO 9000 quality-management standards are designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders while meeting regulatory requirements related to a product. More than one million organizations worldwide are independently certified, making ISO 9001 one of the most widely used management tools in the world today.

    “This certification assures our customers of our commitment to meeting their needs by using standardized procedures that have been independently verified as being in conformity with ISO 9001:2008 requirements,” said Doug Braddock, CompassData’s quality manager.  “Our customers will know that the product they receive from us has been created in an environment where internal processes are consistent and continually improving.”