Roy Nelson of Ball Aerospace discusses real-time 3D models created with flash LIDAR. See video below.
GEOINT 2013* – Day Three
I had the opportunity to interview Keith Masback, CEO of USGIF, about GEOINT 2013*. He discusses new technology, future combat systems, and plans for the 2015 conference. Watch the interview here:
I spent a good part of the day touring the GEOINT EXPO. Here are a few video clips that show technology I found especially interesting, from these exhibitors. (Scroll down to see each video.):
Ball Aerospace: Roy Nelson of Ball Aerospace discusses real-time 3D models created with flash LIDAR.
Consolidated Resource Imaging (CRI): Dr. Gregg Wildes discusses the company’s system of wide-area surveillance, including the WAMI, or wide-area motion imagery system.
Solid Terrain Modeling: Mark Fisher talks about how his company creates 3D models of terrain using geospatial data sets with its special inkjet printer.
TerraGo: Scott Lee shows off new developments with GEOPDFs on a mobile device, using the Terrago Edge application.
Thermopylae Sciences & Technology: Jamel Monroe, engineer at Thermopylae, demonstrates the Occulus Rift 3D virtual reality glasses, with the game Half-Life 2.
Art Kalinski, Geointelligence Editor, interviewed USGIF CEO Keith Masback about GEOINT 2013*, being held this week in Tampa, Florida. Mossback discusses new technology, future combat systems, and plans for the 2015 conference. Watch the interview above.
Kalinksi has been reporting from GEOINT* 2013 all week, with video reports. His coverage of Day Three includes visits with experts at six booths in the exhibit hall, including a demonstration of the Occulus Rift 3D glasses and an inkjet printer that produces 3D terrain models, as well as an interview with USGIF CEO Keith Mossback about the show and plans for next year.
Coverage of Day Two includes a press briefing with Lettitia Long, director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA); a demonstration by Airbus; and a visit to the Skyline booth.
Read his coverage of Day One of the symposium here. Included are videoclips from a DigitalGlobe presentation about the TomNod crowdsourcing efforts to find Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.
Today was the official start of the GEOINT 2013* Symposium. Attendance was estimated at 3,500.
Keynote speakers included James Clapper, director of National Intelligence (DNI), LTG Michael Flynn, director, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and Lettitia Long, director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
The full conference guide and videos of many keynote speeches will be available through the GEOINT 2013 website in about two weeks. The full conference guide is available now as a downloadable PDF.
I had an opportunity to attend a separate press briefing by Director Long (watch below).
Included is a large exhibit hall, and today I started touring the booths. In the video below, I talk with Matt Harrison of Skyline as he demonstrates the company’s technology to generate 3D models from oblique imagery.
Also, AirBus demonstrated its global DEM data set.
Today I attended the “GEOINT Forward” which is a pre-conference day consisting of over a dozen loosely related sessions. If there was a common theme it would have to be the increasing evolution of the GEOINT community toward Human Geography, Social Media, Big Data, Small Satellites and Chaos Management.
A most interesting keynote speaker was Dave Snowden (no relation to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden) founder and chief scientific officer of Cognitive Edge working to analyze complex issues relating to strategy and organizational decision making. He pioneered a science based analysis of organizations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience and complex adaptive systems theory. The key analysis tool they created is SensesMaker, a survey tool that extracts and organizes how respondents make sense of the world through micro-narratives in social settings. Using a patented method the respondent interprets their own story into a series of abstract constructs that feel more like a game than a survey, but allows profound meaning to emerge. This interpretation adds layers of meaning rather than simply interpreting the story and provides quantitative data which can always be linked back to the original material.
There were several sessions related to Chaos Management of disasters both natural and man-made. Dr. Shay Har-Noy of Digital Globe demonstrated TomNod (www.tomnod.com/nod/) which is a crowd sourcing effort of Digital Globe in which the public has access to thousands of images so that millions of eyes could help scour the imagery looking for signs of the missing aircraft. Once potential sites were indentified, experts could then focus their attention on the sites. Here is a short video clip of some examples. (Excuse the quality of the video, the room was dark, sound system poor and the built-in microphone less than ideal)
In the early 1990s, when I was the GIS manager for the Atlanta Regional Commission, I saw many counties and municipalities get into financial and political trouble by jumping into expensive “Cadillac” GIS operations without understanding the pitfalls. Occasionally the euphoria of the cutting-edge technology gave way to panic, as some local governments lost their GIS managers to fatter paychecks, leaving a GIS that no one could operate. That’s why I recommended that GIS newbies take baby steps first, starting with simple low-cost systems such as ArcView I and II fed with free GIS data from state or federal agencies. As their experience and comfort level grew, they could then ease into six-figure GIS operations with full aerial imagery collects. Although, to a lesser extent, the same pitfall still exists today.
A somewhat analogous situation existed in the early days of the Internet with organizations wanting their own websites. To have a website, an organization had to hire or have in-house HTML programming talent. The process was slow and expensive, and changes to the website could only be made by the HTML programmers. Today, numerous services such as www.wix.com or www.web.com permit anyone to build and update their own websites in the cloud without HTML experience.
The same kind of capability was needed for geospatial applications. ESRI, Intergraph, TerraGo, Google and others have provided online geospatial tools, but not the kind of environment that would encourage mass adoption. Digital Map Products, Inc., of Irvine, California, sort of backed into the vacuum with several web service solutions (LandVision, GovClarity and CommunityView) that embed GIS functions into real-world workflows to deliver geospatial capabilities for non-GIS professionals.
These services grew out of years of experience in the geospatial data business. In 1990, DMP started work as a data collector and integrator of parcel-level data. DMP developed public-private partnerships with county governments to continually update and share this valuable GIS data with a variety of public and private users. As a result, it now maintains one of the largest nationwide parcel boundary databases available. From these beginnings, DMP started creating applications around the data and deploying them through the Internet for the real-estate industry and local governments. DMP products became an authoritative and continuously updated source of parcel data that was quickly adopted by many counties, municipalities, home builders, commercial brokers, utilities and even some federal agencies.
Experience with cloud-based geospatial delivery services such as LandVision caused DMP to realize that it had a potentially powerful capability that could be expanded to meet broader local government needs. This led to the development of an entirely new generation of services, GovClarity and CommunityView, which drilled even deeper into the day-to-day work processes needed by governments. These two cloud-based services provide GIS capabilities that could only be matched by a strong in-house GIS team with considerable hardware and software support. GovClarity provides enterprise GIS tools and capabilities to municipal employees, while CommunityView improves public service by providing map-based query tools and information open to all public users.
Talking with several users of the three services, I learned that GovClarity and CommunityView are seeing increased adoption by local governments. Just like current website publication services, the DMP cloud-based services are providing GIS capabilities to customers without the headaches and expense of maintaining their own in-house GIS team. DMP does the heavy lifting by combining established geospatial services such as Bing and Pictometry, overlaying locally produced data, and then delivering the total package with custom-designed interfaces. The service, delivered through the local government’s website, is designed to be intuitive even by non-GIS staff members and constituents.
The City of San Juan Capistrano, California, is a good example that you can view for yourself. The site integrates Bing ortho imagery with street centerline data, and parcels and links to oblique views from Pictometry. There are numerous local data layers such as tracts, neighborhood associations, trash pick-up, hiking trails, and many others. The interface is limited but very easy to navigate for non-GIS users.
A nice feature is linked videoclips of their trails so a user can do a virtual walk/ride through in preparation for actual use (see image below).
For those who want to extend the capabilities of GovClarity and CommunityView, DMP provides API access to its underlying platform for further customization. There is even a capability to connect GovClarity to ArcGIS to leverage all GIS assets within the organization.
Talking with San Juan Capistrano’s City Engineer, Ziad Mazboudi, PE, about his experience with GovClarity and CommunityView, he cited several uses and benefits that the city experienced. GovClarity is being used as a GIS viewing and analysis platform by all departments without the need for separate GIS software or dedicated GIS staff. Users can view imagery and city data, do measurements, and update both feature and attribute data. The city has one GIS technician who builds local data layers that are uploaded to DMP for inclusion in GovClarity and CommunityView. Additionally, use of both ortho and oblique imagery with change detection has proved to be a powerful tool for code enforcement. As you can imagine, GovClarity is also a strong visualization environment for commission and public meetings. They project maps, ortho and oblique imagery on a big screen as an interactive viewing environment so everyone can see and quickly comprehend the issues being discussed.
CommunityView is the city’s public access site. The city has terminals at the front counters of many public offices that permit citizens to view and print maps and imagery. This has significantly reduced the time and difficulty answering questions and responding to the public. The same site is available 24/7 through home computers, and has resulted in strong customer satisfaction.
Many large counties have sophisticated geospatial operations, but the bottom line being the bottom line, those kinds of systems are not always practical for small municipalities and agencies. Ziad was pleased to report that building the city’s geospatial capability using a traditional in-house GIS department would have cost four to five times as much as the DMP cloud service.
Does DMP have a perfect solution? I don’t know, but time will tell. A downside is the need to maintain Internet connectivity, but DMP is working to build a work-around by caching data locally for limited periods of time in its mobile and tablet-based applications. DMP may or may not be a perfect solution, but the company seems to have hit a sweet spot with local governments and other clients by meeting their needs with a low-cost, low-risk and easy-to-use option. I believe DMP is worth your serious consideration.
R/Art
P.S. I’m going to attend GEOINT in Tampa next month. If you see me, please stop and say hello. I enjoy meeting my readers.
Over the past decade, there have been numerous efforts to capture and deliver street-level imagery of major urban areas. The big players, Google Street View and Bing Map Streetside, are well accepted, and most of us use them regularly to get around. But as both indicate in their user agreements, they are for entertainment and marketing and not intended for critical applications. Other than geo-referencing the camera location, there is no metadata and no measurement capability.
More serious users such as tax assessors, transportation planners and emergency responders look to companies like iLookAbout, Facet, Tyler Technologies (formerly Yotta MVS), Geospan and others for imagery that is geo-referenced, measurable with good metadata. IMTS has even been used in overseas combat areas to gather baseline data for intelligence and tactical planning. Its accurately positioned imagery has been used to fill in detail and occluded areas of 3D models derived from aerial imagery.
Although most of the above systems produce excellent geo-referenced imagery, the imagery is not geo-referenced to the pixel, and measurements are generally derived from linked ortho, oblique or LiDAR data. The exceptions are earthmine of Berkley California and a Dutch firm called CycloMedia, which has been in the imagery business for more than 30 years. Both have similar technology, but CycloMedia seems to have significantly more coverage and a more refined toolset.
The patented CycloMedia system uses a process that captures overlapping ground-level 360° panoramic images, called Cycloramas, at 5-meter intervals. The company initially tried merging its imagery with LiDAR data to derive point locations, but that method proved cumbersome and not very accurate, so CycloMedia developed a system that used only its images. Using its system of stereo pair analysis, CycloMedia is able to derive 3D location information with accuracies of 10 cm. The automated system is fast enough to collect those 5-meter interval images at speeds up to 70 mph.
The car-mounted system simultaneously collects accurate location information for the camera system using IMUs, RTK GPS, temperature sensors and precise ground-tracking odometers. The detailed location information combined with imagery from high-resolution cameras then forms the basis of an accurate three-axis location and measurement system. Although this is a very sophisticated system, no special vehicle modifications are needed, and the entire equipment package can be installed and removed when not in use. The system can even be installed on boats and compensates for the boat’s motion.
Once captured, CycloMedia then uses its GlobeSpotter viewing software to accurately locate and measure features in the imagery. The system uses two or more Cycloramas to determine the location of any point in 3D space using geometry between different views and achieving 10-cm accuracy. Earlier versions of GlobeSpotter required the user to identify corresponding spots on two or more Cycloramas to accomplish the point location calculations. That process has now been streamlined with the single spot “Smart Click” selection tool and process. When a user clicks on an object or spot in a Cyclorama, algorithms identify the same spot in adjacent Cycloramas. This facilitates the geometric calculation of the spot in 3D space. The software can then calculate distance measurements in 3D space between the accurately located points.
There is a very good video that shows the process better than I can explain it in this short article. The video shows how the images are organized and accessed in an ArcGIS Desktop integration including measurements, GIS data overlay and polygon creation from the imagery. The creation of these precision 3D environments then opens the door to other capabilities such as 3D model creation and the ability to accurately overlay GIS vector data. Note this example of the Cyclorama footprint locations with planimetric data overlaid on this road and overpass. The same system accuracy also facilitates very accurate edge matching of imagery as a user moves along a road.
CycloMedia and GlobeSpotter are designed to operate as a web service with all imagery stored in the cloud, but the system can also be run as a thick client with the imagery stored on local media. GlobeSpotter integrates Cycloramas, aerial imagery, GIS vector data and documents. It performs the calculations and builds the visualizations. Currently, all leading GIS software suppliers including Esri have built interfaces that allow for the integration of CycloMedia’s GlobeSpotter software with their solutions.
Note this screenshot of an ArcGIS Online session showing the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue. You can view the same site and try navigating it yourself. Search for Washington, DC, and zoom in far enough to see and click on the silver balls linking to CycloMedia images.
Uses
The very robust and accurate thre-axis measurement capabilities of CycloMedia make it a natural for tax appraisers as well as a tool for city planning work. Features such as street lighting, road markings, bus stops, benches and other infrastructure are easily viewed, measured and inventoried. The extensive metadata, including location and date of capture, will help anyone needing accurate historic data or images for forensic work.
An especially strong capability of CycloMedia is signage inspection and inventory. When I was with the Atlanta Regional Commission, we spent considerable time and effort working with the Georgia Tech Research Institute to develop an automated video street sign identification and inventory system. The ability of CycloMedia to display each sign with high-resolution imagery, facilitate accurate measurements, and easily geo-locate and link each sign to a GIS database makes the system a powerful tool for transportation managers. The same capabilities could prove invaluable for firefighter pre-plans as well as police tactical planning.
Additionally, extensive work is underway to use the data rich imagery provided by CycloMedia to create photo-realistic and photo-accurate 3D models that could be interactively navigated. See more here.
CycloMedia seems to be a significant improvement in street-level imagery capture. The accurate geo-referencing combined with strong metric tools and the ability to build 3D models could prove especially valuable for military applications as well as disaster response and recovery. My thoughts jump back to Katrina recovery efforts. CycloMedia could have inventoried affected areas by car or boat. The resultant imagery could have been annotated and exported as a GIS layer. It would be interesting to measure the cost vs. benefits of CycloMedia compared to other technology and delivery platforms.
How will 3D printing and the geospatial community affect each other?
Many of us in the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) business chuckled at the publicity stunt Amazon pulled by demonstrating UAV doorstep delivery of packages. This was smart marketing by Amazon, and although the technology may not be farfetched, the institutional issues are and will create a long, steep hill for Amazon to climb. There is, however, a growing revolution that Amazon is not talking about that could give them some serious challenges in the not-too-distant future — 3D printing. Last August I wrote about significant improvements in 3D printing demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), including creation of metal parts. This technology will most likely affect the geospatial community in ways we haven’t considered, but we geospatial experts will also have an impact on the 3D printing community.
How far has 3D printing come?
The first 3D printer I saw in action was a terrain printer at the Esri User Conference about five years ago. The concept was very simple. The printer laid down a thin 12-x-12-inch layer of special powder, followed by inkjet print heads that laid down ink that both colored and fused the powder. The process took hours as layer on layer of powder and ink built the terrain model. When complete, the uninked powder was brushed away, revealing the solid 3D model. The model could have complex undercut shapes such as a highway overpass, but the material was also somewhat brittle like unfired clay. Users could create more durable objects by using the models as forms to make castings out of aluminum or epoxies.
Developers of the budding technology have not stood still. New printers use plastic filaments to build up 3D objects, and some even use exotic technology to build objects made of fused metal such as this example. Repair parts can be created by using a 3D laser scanner to create 3D CAD models that can then be modified to add reinforcement where needed to make the replacement part better than the original. Bio-medical printers are being used to create human body parts such as ear cartilage, artery sections and dental appliances like this replacement jaw. There are even some experiments planned next year as Performative Architecture to print buildings with plumbing and other components included. On a micro level, scientists are printing complex nano devices and chemical compounds to create objects that can’t be produced in any other way.
An 83-year-old woman has become the first person to have a 3D printer-created jaw fitted. (from The Telegraph).A 285 µm racecar, printed at the Vienna University of Technology (from Phys.org).
A common phase used by 3D printing practitioners is that “complexity is free” in that it takes no more effort to print something complex than it does something simple. In fact, 3D printing becomes more economical as complexity increases, because labor costs decrease and a greater number of voids reduces the amount of raw material needed to build objects. So, look for objects such as bikes or cycles that look very organic, perhaps made of titanium, with very strong and economic internal cellular construction that may mimic the bones of birds.
How fast are things moving?
Microsoft has just added a “direct pipeline” to 3D printers from 3D printing applications such as Autodesk. If you still aren’t convinced that 3D printing is going mainstream, consider this. Staples office supply is now offering 3D printing at some of its printing/shipping centers. Add to these developments the concepts of self-assembly and of use of nano devices and we are entering a very disruptive period and environment. I believe that geospatial aspects of our world will be significantly affected by this technology, but we will also play a significant part in the development and implementation of 3D printing. So let’s speculate on the possible impact on both communities.
Our impact on the 3D printing community
Those trained in geospatial tools and techniques are well positioned to develop and operate 3D manufacturing systems. Most of us have excellent computer skills as well as the ability to visualize complex 3D objects, while also working with abstract concepts. We also understand 3D modeling software, linked databases and web development tools. Many of us have sophisticated software development knowledge and the ability to manage complex systems and processes. If architectural printing actually becomes a reality, GIS/CAD/BIM will be an integral part of the total process. So whether you remain on a geospatial career path or evolve into these new technologies, your knowledge and skills will serve you well.
3D printing’s impact on the geospatial community
“The cheapest 3D printers, which print rudimentary objects, currently sell for between $500 and $1,000. Soon, we will have printers for this price that can print toys and household goods. By the end of this decade, we will see 3D printers doing the small-scale production of previously labor-intensive crafts and goods. It is entirely conceivable that in the next decade we start 3D printing buildings and electronics.” Slashdot
Transportation
My first speculation is transportation and city growth. You may remember from your geography classes that center cites and edge cities grew out of the need to centralize manufacturing, sales, specialized activity, meetings, etc. If 3D printing becomes ubiquitous, there will be less need for large manufacturing plants, little need for warehouses, and significantly less shipping activity. The primary need for shipping will be for bulk materials used in 3D printing. Since raw materials can be more efficiently shipped than finished bulky goods, there will be greater use of tankers and pipelines.
When I was at the Atlanta Regional Commission, a large portion of our efforts were geared toward regional transportation planning. Using GIS data layers that defined where people work and where they live were key components of these “Origin – Destination” models used to predict traffic patterns. Large manufacturing facilities were always key employment centers. If small local 3D print shops or even home 3D printers could manufacture almost any item, large centralized plants becomes obsolete and the transportation needs change significantly.
Retail
Commercial shipping could be relegated primarily to raw materials. What happens to WalMart or Amazon if everyone has a home 3D printer and all you need is to download a digital file and have some raw materials on hand?
Real estate
In my early GIS career, I spent considerable time doing ring studies, trade area analysis and targeted marketing. The reduced need for retail stores and corresponding warehouses could turn that process on its head. Couple this kind of manufacturing with other technology, such as video conferencing and robotic medicine, and location favoring city centers is reduced. This would certainly impact real estate values as location factors evolve away from crowded centers.
Energy, environment and resources
A very positive impact could be on the environment. Reduced transportation requirements will cut traffic and corresponding pollution. The more efficient use of raw materials and better direct recycling of many plastics is another positive factor. I’m not sure how the energy equation would work with mass production vs. individual replication and reduced transportation but my gut feeling is that it would be a net positive result.
Military and emergency responders
The U.S. Navy is already experimenting with 3D printers to reduce the number of repair parts that are stored on ships or in the supply chain. I personally experienced the early benefits of shipboard digital technology by reducing huge libraries of paper repair manuals. An average three-foot stack of international paper navigation charts on each ship recently went digital. First responders could replicate emergency equipment repair parts on demand at NIMS Area Command Centers providing logistics support for major incidents.
Geopolitics
Internationally, many large overseas manufacturing facilities could become obsolete. U.S. companies are bringing some operations back home. The geopolitical consequences could be significant. This even applies to the manufacture of clothing. Imagine having clothing that fits perfectly, printed on demand at a neighborhood 3D print store. A positive effect could be that less developed countries may have access to goods that currently are not affordable.
Unknown unknowns
Although 3D printing has made great strides in five years, it’s still far from being competitive with traditional mass production. Speed, object size and mixed materials/media are still an issue. There are many naysayers on 3D printing sites. Many believe that the technology is too slow and limited along with a myriad of other problems. I have no doubt that many if not all these issues will be resolved or augmented with other technologies. We are also viewing the technology in terms of our current knowledge and perspective. My first experience with digital mapping was a 286 PC driving a xy pen plotter that mimicked the job done by draftsmen. At the time, no one imagined that HP could spray micro drops of ink on paper to rapidly produce billboard-sized plots with color imagery as we do today.
I believe we are in for a wild ride as the technology evolves. The above speculations are just my preliminary thoughts. I’ll bet that many of you have additional observations and speculations. I’d like to hear from you in the comments section. To learn more, you may want to attend a key 3D Printing conference in New Your April 2-4.
A Report on the Annual GIS Conference of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)
By Art Kalinski, GISP
“Plexus is defined as any complex structure containing an intricate network of parts. The Spatial Plexus annual event elevates Geographic Information Science as the cross-disciplinary application of GIS and geo-technologies against so many interconnected issues.” — Spatial Plexus website
Two weeks ago, I attended Spatial Plexus 2013, a GIS conference put together by Danielle Ayan of GTRI. Her reputation of building well-organized conferences helped draw some very interesting and influential speakers. The conference was held at the historic Academy of Medicine at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The academy is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and even has a connection to the movie Gone with the Wind. Built before television and movies, the auditorium was designed for doctors to view medical demonstrations using actual cadavers on the stage. Fortunately, none of the Plexus presentations were cadaverously dull.
The conference opened with several pre-conference workshops, including Course Development Workshops to advance GIS-related education based on DACUM (Developing A CUrriculuM) and the Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM). This was tied in with a GeoTech Advisory Council Meeting. The GeoTech Center, funded in part by National Science Foundation, is a collaborative effort between colleges, universities and industry to expand the geospatial workforce by providing professional development and curriculum resources.
A workshop I attended covered new capabilities of ArcGIS Online. The hands-on workshop was conducted by Dr. Tom Mueller of California University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Rich Schultz of Elmhurst College, Illinois. If interested, you can go through the same tutorial online.
I liked the linear format of this conference rather than separate break-out sessions found in mega conferences, because I always get frustrated missing competing break-out sessions. Additionally, we tend to overly focus on our primary areas of interest to the exclusions of other topics. The linear format pulls your mind and attention through a variety of subject areas, expanding the breadth of your knowledge. That was certainly the case with Spatial Plexus — lots of variety. The following are just a sample of the presentations. You can go to the Spatial Plexus website for a complete list, including many of the presentations and associated SharePoints.
The opening keynote was given by Daniel Edelson, vice president of education for the National Geographic Society. He discussed “The Importance of Geo Literacy for College, Career and Civic Readiness.” His presentation was reinforced by Dr. Max Baber, the director of academic programs for the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF). He discussed the multitude of excellent positions in the geospatial intelligence community, both at NGA and associated contractors. He also stressed the growing need and demand for GEOINT analyst certification, which is becoming a way to ensure qualified personnel in government and contractor positions.
Tamarin Gullett-Tyrrell, GIS analyst for Cherokee County, Georgia, demonstrated the county geospatial Situational Awareness website. The Esri/Silverlight system by GeoCortex was designed to serve the public as well as emergency responders. Tamarin and Joe Woycke, Director of GIS and Mapping, built the well thought out and elegant system by bringing together all the county stakeholders early in the process. They determined that the complexity and diversity of stakeholder requirements pointed the way to two separate sites — one for tax work / county planning and the other for the public and emergency responder situational awareness including the sheriff, police, fire departments, EOC and the 911 call center. The early collaboration and consensus building saved a lot of time and expensive change orders. The result is two systems that all users are happy with. Shown below is . It not only incorporates county data and imagery, it toggles Bing and Google geospatial data.
Situational awareness website SAGE.
Joe Francica, editor-in-chief of Directions Magazine in Huntsville, Alabama, gave a rapid-fire summary of new technology he was following that he believed will impact the geospatial community. These include:
WiFiSLAM, an indoor location technology
geofencing, which sends location-based notifications to consumers approaching a store
In one of the open group discussions related to my presentation on Soft Power, I mentioned the 2010 Foreign Affairs magazine article on the disruptive effect of social media and mobile devices on second- and third-world countries. I discussed my amazement at the ingenuity of people who find a way to communicate without the benefit of a well-established communications systems. FabFi is a very low cost and simple wireless network developed by MIT students that is being used in Kenya and Afghanistan to provide wireless communications between villages. The system uses inexpensive $40 off-the-shelf wireless routers and home-made parabolic antennas of plywood and chicken wire to send wireless signals from one village to another. The networks are so quick and easy to establish that governments may no longer have the power to turn off the Internet when they feel threatened. This is democratization at its best.
The FabFi program brings the Internet to villages in developing nations.
There were several presentations on the use of GIS in medical applications, especially the work being done by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and even a presentation by Chris Smith, director of IT Services for the U.S. Architect of the Capitol on how GIS had streamlined the management of Capitol facilities.
Chris Smith, director of IT Services for the U.S. Architect of the Capitol.
The closing keynote was given by Major General William Reddel, the National Guard Adjutant General for the State of New Hampshire, who also serves as the chair of the U.S. Adjutant Generals Association Cyber/GIS/IT Committee and was the keynote speaker at last year’s ESRI Federal Users Conference. The General seems to be a good steward of our tax dollars, since he quickly realized and acted to reduced 54 separate state National Guard Esri licenses to one enterprise license, saving us 1.5 million dollars annually. He also discussed how the needs of the National Guard had evolved and are moving to cloud services such as Virtual USA and Web EOC. He closed with a slight redefinition. He said most people use the term “Common Operational Picture” (COP), but he prefers the growing reality of “User Defined Operational Pictures” as capabilities and user needs evolve.
As you can surmise from this short sampling, Spatial Plexus 2013 was a very diverse and interesting collection of GIS practitioners and presentations. The linear format exposed all us attendees to corners of the community that we might not otherwise investigate, so it was especially informative. The conference was certainly well worth the time, and I strongly encourage all who can to attend next year.
As you would guess, it takes a lot of planning and preparation to put on a technical conference of the scope of GEOINT. So imagine the hand wringing the USGIF staff went through deciding to postpone a conference of about 4,000 attendees and 300 exhibitors because of the untimely government shutdown. There really was no choice, with the majority of federal attendees canceling due to travel restrictions. Without their participation, holding the conference would have been futile. Since the city of Tampa was so accommodating and easy to work with, USGIF rescheduled the conference at the same Tampa venue, April 14-17. They tried their best to minimize scheduling conflicts with other geospatial and USGIF conferences such as the NGA Tech Showcase West (also scheduled for April) and USGIF’s GEOINT Community Week, including Tech Days.
Prior to a major conference, manufacturers send out press releases and invitations to see new products being shown on the exhibit floor. So, although GEOINT 2013 was postponed, I’m still doing my column as a “virtual conference” report. This is a very broad sample of new developments that I received from vendors who planned to be at the October conference, now rescheduled for April.
Thermopylae focuses on commercially-based knowledge-fusion capabilities in the geospatial, cloud, and mobile arenas. It has three solutions: iSpatal, a web-based collaborative framework that leverages Google Earth and Maps in a flexible, task-based approach to solve complex problems; iHarvest, a standards-based enterprise analytic service that organizes, analyzes, and reports activities to enable critical decisions; and Ubiquity, a proprietary platform for creating dynamic, customized, and geocentric native mobile applications. Thermopylae is also bringing back the popular Liquid Galaxy immersive virtual-reality display showcasing Google Glass and Leap integration, showing a unified demonstration of all of its products in the Liquid Galaxy display.
KEYW’s geospatial capability exploits cyberspace as a domain for collecting, processing, and supporting actionable imagery intelligence to the warfighter and for civilian and commercial uses. The company matches aircraft to mission requirements and modify the aircraft with integrated airborne sensor systems for onboard, geospatially referenced digital imagery collection and processing. KEYW planned to showcase its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) imaging and mapping; and its Precision Geo-location via handheld, backpack and mobile solutions, along with several other innovations.
Brocade provides networking solutions for government agencies and has expanded its product line with a new compact, fanless switch that simplifies network operations. It’s a secure, enterprise-quality network that is responsive to the complex needs of warfighter and civilian missions. The ICX 6450-C switch is deployable outside the wiring closet, without interfering with other critical activities. Using power over Ethernet, the switch can operate in remote locations, where access to an external power source is limited or not available.
TouchShare has extended its multi-touch solutions for immersive geospatial collaboration to anyone, regardless of location or device, through the TouchShare Mobile Access. The new TouchShare Mobile Access significantly improves teamwide productivity as it gives all collaborators the ability to simultaneously view and contribute to what other team members are seeing in real-time and interact with visual geospatial information (live data, 2D imagery, video, etc.) via any device. This allows all participants to easily and quickly see the big picture for making better decisions faster.
Surrey Satellite Technology provides small satellite solutions, applications, and services for Earth observation, science, technology demonstration, and communications. Since 1981, Surrey has launched 41 satellites as well as provided training and development programs, consultancy services, and mission studies for NASA, the United States Air Force, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and other institutional and commercial customers.
GameSim planned to show off its latest version of Conform, a software product for geospatial visualization. Conform imports, fuses and renders LiDAR content in near real time, while offering a variety of unique abilities, including an instantaneous 3D view of raw source data. Users are able to easily import large amounts of data (such as Shape Files, DTED, GeoTIFFs, LIDAR) and immediately view them in both 2D and 3D displays.
Hyperspectral sensing offers advantages over traditional multispectral imaging with respect to the number of spectral bands being covered. Use enhances target recognition, material identification, and elimination of false positive alarms. Hyperspectral imaging yields much more spectral data than multispectral by producing a continuous spectrum of data representing the chemical composition of objects or spectral “signatures” of everything within the sensor’s field of view. Headwall’s Micro-Hyperspec have been miniaturized and optimized for deployment aboard small, tactical UAVs, including small hand-launched versions.
Orbit Communication Systems provides ground-station solutions for Earth observation and remote-sensing applications. It has a new product family known as the Gaia series that supports a range of antenna sizes. These ground stations offer an ideal combination of high performance in a compact footprint. “With our new Gaia family, Orbit addresses a void in the market, and opens the door to new Earth observation markets that could not afford to purchase legacy ground stations due to their size and cost,” said Ofer Greenberger, Orbit CEO.
The antennas are designed to withstand extreme weather conditions and to handle a broad range of applications, operated anywhere on Earth. The series comprises three different sized antennas: 2.4 meters (7.9 feet); 3.7 meters (12.1 feet); and 4.5 meters (14.7 feet). Each antenna supports X-band or S-Band (both transmit and receive) feeds, as well as a dual-band (S&X) feed.
Astrium’s Street Factory, an advanced 3D urban mapping solution, was awarded “most valuable product in the geo-information field 2012” at the World Geospatial Developers Conference. Building on that success, Astrium planned to demonstrate WorldDEM, a high-resolution elevation data set that covers the Earth’s entire land surface, pole to pole. The accuracy of the German high-resolution radar satellites TerraSAR-X produces data intended to replace SRTM data. It has excellent ground-position accuracy with vertical accuracy of 2m (relative) / 10m (absolute) in a 12m x 12m raster GSD. WorldDEM will be available in 2014 with data less than 2.5 years old. Shown above is a comparison of STRM 90 elevation data compared to WorldDEM.
Ever since my experience supporting Katrina recovery efforts, I’ve be a strong advocate for simple low-tech hard-copy imagery plots overlaid with vector data to support emergency responders. Many times this low-tech embodiment of our high-tech capability suits the needs of first responders better than computer displays. However, paper plots ideally need to be laminated on foam core to be useful in wet and windy environments. Epson has one solution, a plotter that prints on ridged media. Epson engineers developed the SureColor T-Series printers with an all-new design that prints directly on ridged substrates that have a thickness of 1.5 mm. This is especially important to agencies that have a need for fast print output on thick media eliminating the hassle of laminating or marrying to thicker carriers for immediate use. The SureColor T-series also features Epson UltraChrome XD pigment-based ink technology for smudge and water-resistant prints.
This is just a sample of the nearly 300 exhibitors that will be at GEOINT in April. I’ll bet you thought that GEOINT was just imagery and big data. Quite the contrary — it takes a lot diverse players and pieces to build a strong GEOINT capability.
Last week I attended the ION GNSS+ Conference (Institute of Navigation / Global Navigation Satellite Systems) in Nashville, touted as the largest GNSS conference in the world. Although Geospatial Solutions is closely aligned with GPS World, my focus is on GIS, and like most GIS people, we look at GPS devices as data collection tools and most of us don’t get heavily involved with the workings of the equipment or GPS community.
Since I only live two hours away from Nashville, my editor, Alan Cameron, invited me to attend so I could meet the GPS World staff and peek over the wall into the GPS community. It was time well spent, since I was exposed to the ongoing evolution and problems being addressed by the GPS community, which seems to have a higher percentage of Ph.D.s than any other conference I’ve attended. There was a lot of hardware and software outside my realm of experience, so some of my observations may be simplistic or old news to some of you. Please bear with me as I share topics that I believe may be of interest to the GIS community.
For starters, GPS is just a modern tool to do global navigation, not much different from when I was doing celestial navigation on a Navy destroyer in the ’70s and ’80s. The concept is fairly simple, although the execution is not.
Every star in the sky is fixed in space with an observer on earth either at the nadir point where the star is directly overhead at 90 degrees or most likely somewhere between 90 degrees and the horizon, 0 degrees. A sextant is used to measure that angle, and all possible points at that angle describe a unique circle on the Earth where that measurement can exist. Intersection of two other star circles can then locate a unique point on the earth. This sounds simple in theory, but the actual process is not, since the Earth is constantly rotating, wobbling and moving through its annual orbit. Additionally, cloud cover can obscure the stars, and rough weather can make precision observations all but impossible. Then, after shooting the stars, over an hour of work was required looking up data in celestial tables and doing tedious computations to get each line of position.
British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC).
Early electronic navigation systems such as Omega and Loran C helped made some navigation a bit easier. They used time delay and phase shifting between radio transmitters to create hyperbolic lines of position between two transmitters. Three transmitters produced two sets of lines, and the intersection was your position. Both celestial and early electronic navigation were not very accurate and not particularly easy to use. Both were phased out in favor of GPS, which sort of combines the concept of celestial with electronic navigation.
GPS even uses the term a “constellation” of satellites. The satellites provide very exact position information to GPS receivers, which calculate the observer’s position similar to celestial fix. Additionally, accurate and precisely measured time is so important that scientists actually take into account the theory of relativity and dilation of time caused by the very fast travel of GPS satellites to have system accuracy that is adequate.
New Players
GPS was developed in the ’60s and ’70s by the U.S. military, but opened to civil use by Ronald Reagan after the shooting down of KAL flight 007 by the Soviet Union. They thought the 747 was spying, but in reality the inaccurate navigation systems erroneously put the civilian airliner into Soviet airspace. In the late ’90s, the U.S. Navy moved to GPS and away from traditional celestial and land-based electronic navigation because it was so tedious and prone to errors. However, there are second thoughts about complete reliance on GPS. The Naval Academy and Navy navigation school currently teach a shortened celestial course using a sextant and specialized calculator that performs the complex and tedious calculations.
Although GPS was developed by the U.S. military, there are other players — the Russian GLONASS system operational in 1995, the more recent European Galileo, Chinese Compass (now called BeiDou,) and soon India’s IRNSS and Japan’s proposed QZSS. What that means for us users is cheaper systems with greater accuracy, redundancy and better coverage.
RTK (Real Time Kinematics)
Several years ago, RTK satellite navigation was developed to enhance the precision of GNSS, usable with GPS, GLONASS and/or Galileo. Rather than relying only on the GNSS position information, the RTK system also uses phase measurements of the GNSS carrier signals and combines that with a single or network of ground reference stations, similar to Differential GPS, which provides real-time corrections with centimeter-level accuracy. RTK hardware is becoming ubiquitous, and prices are dropping dramatically. A new entry, Piksi by Swift Navigation, is promising a complete RTK system suitable for UAVs for less than $900.
Geodesy and MSL
I never had a strong interest in geodesy, but talking to Kevin Kelly, ESRI’s geodesist, I was surprised to learn that something as basic as mean sea level is being challenged by GPS measurements. There has been a concern for years that the universally used datum has numerous intrinsic errors (See an ESRI paper for more information). The errors are caused by local conditions such as variations in the Earth’s gravitational field, sea currents, air-pressure variations, temperature and salinity variations, etc. Scientists are looking to move from MSL to a GPS-generated gravity model to serve as a more accurate datum.
Indoor Location Technology
I’ve had a long-term interest in indoor location technology after learning how critical the need was in tracking first responders inside buildings. Two years ago, I wrote about a promising device by NAViSEER that combined GPS with a new microchip-based IMU (inertial measurement unit). The IMU contained three accelerometers and three gyroscopes capable of measuring inertial acceleration and movement in three axes. Regrettably, drift of the IMUs have limited their usefulness.
Another approach is reading of RFID tags, but these have to be installed and mapped in advance.
A technology I was able to test was a Time Domain ranging radio. The low-cost device has 2-mm accuracy and is being used in many robotic plant operations. Although very accurate, it is a line-of-sight device. Bottom line: There still is no overarching solution to indoor tracking.
GNSS Problems and eLoran
There were several presentations on how vulnerable satellites were to jamming, spoofing, cyber attacks and even severe solar storms. Several presenters discussed defensive strategies and equipment. Other presentations discussed current efforts to reestablish Loran as an alternative to GNSS. A new Loran system, eLoran, seems to have strong following in some foreign countries, with serious ongoing discussions with U.S. users. Enhanced Loran (eLoran) is built with modern transmission and receiver design that increase the accuracy and usefulness of traditional Loran, with reported accuracy as good as ± 8 meters. Not great, but a good alternative if GNSS goes down.
Other Non-Satellite Positioning Systems
A keynote presentation that created a stir with the GNSS crowd was given by Nunzio Gambale, founder of the Australian firm Locata. His thesis was that satellites have run their course and are potentially vulnerable to numerous hazards and limitations. You can view his keynote speech video.
His firm invented a radio-location technology that gives precise positioning in environments where GPS is either marginal or unavailable, or to use during GNSS outage. Locata also offers a precision indoor navigation solution using a patented VRay antenna technology that defeats errors in high-multipath environments.
Locata antenna as White Sands.
The basic system consists of a local network of terrestrially based transceivers that provide well-synchronized signals that operate in combination with standard GPS or totally independent of GPS. The system has the ability to replicate a GPS satellite constellation locally — on the ground. He envisions a cell-phone-tower-like system that could back up GNSS. The system is especially useful in mines, construction sites, warehouses, airports, strategic infrastructure, and heavy urban canyon cities that suffer from multipath interference. A Leica/Locata system is being used by Newmont in open-pit gold mining with better than 10-cm accuracy. The Air Force installed Locata at the expansive White Sands Missile Range as a reference system that can provide truth reference data during GPS vulnerability testing (jamming experiments). The Locata system delivers <18-cm 3D positioning over 2,500 square miles.
A Geospatial Vendor
There was one geospatial vendor in the Expo, so my attention was caught. Consolidated Resource Imaging, LLC (CRI) was demonstrating its LodeStar real-time camera system. It’s a persistent wide area airborne surveillance system similar to Gorgon Stare that is touted as offering smaller size and lower weight, power and price. Dr. Gregg Wildes, CRI’s senior program manager, demonstrated examples of Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) with their tracking and analysis tools.
Shown here is a CRI LodeStar wide area imagery screen capture with tracks and a time playback feature.A CRI LodeStar wide area imagery screen capture showing zoomed-in tracks of vehicles.
The system has the ability to track and back track vehicles to their origins within the motion imagery footprint. The geo-referencing is accomplished by mounting a high-accuracy CRI NAV 100 GPS/IMU navigation system to the camera plane. This approach is similar to the system used by Pictometry to capture geo-referenced oblique imagery. The actively stabilized sensor system provides improved resolution and accurately geo-referenced imagery exportable to Google Earth and other WMS GIS applications.
Conclusions
My key takeaway was that, like Moore’s Law, GNSS equipment continues to get faster, cheaper and more accurate while other location technologies grow in use and capability. My one nagging concern is the potential vulnerability of satellite systems. We’ve become extremely dependent on GNSS and I don’t need yet one more thing to worry about.
Two weeks ago, I attended a USGIF workshop in Huntsville sponsored by GEO Huntsville, through the considerable efforts of Directions Magazine Editor-in-Chief and Vice Publisher Joe Francica and his staff. The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) is a non-profit dedicated to promoting the geospatial intelligence tradecraft across industry, academia, government, professional organizations and individual stakeholders.
GEO Huntsville’s Geospatial Intelligence (Geoint) Workshop was held August 14 at the Von Braun Center Civic Arena in Huntsville, Alabama.Keith Masback, USGIF chief executive officer.
The workshop was a collection of geospatial-related presentations starting with Keith Masback, the USGIF chief executive officer, who gave an interesting history of NGA based on his extensive experience in the geospatial community. He reviewed that NGA had a somewhat shaky start that grew out a vision of Rear Admiral Bill Owens, which was part of the 1996 “Joint Vision 2010” that formed the concept of network-centric operations. Looking at the past, the Joint Vision participants saw that the future would require a new way of doing intel business. They determined that information had to be brought near the user, not at some distant command center. It would need to be as close to real time as possible. It would have to be precise and able to ID combat targets. It would have to be integral with missile defense and provide detailed urban data.
So in 1996, the NIMA (National Imagery and Mapping Agency) was formed by combining the DMA (Defense Mapping Agency) and the CIO (Central Imagery Office). The merging of mapping and imagery communities proved very difficult as the two cultures collided. Even the internal NIMA commission was bent on dissolving the marriage. Fortunately, after working through the issues, the commission came to the conclusion that the marriage was really in the best interest of the country and both communities.
It was also at the same time that Jim Clapper took over the week of 9/11. That event sharply focused everyone’s minds. General Clapper decided that the best way to unify the command was to get rid of the separate words “imagery” and “mapping” — thus was born the new title National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, and to put it in the same company of other three-letter agencies, it was dubbed NGA. NGA really worked hard to meet the vision set in 1996. Keith cited the Bin Laden apprehension as a good example.
He then explained how NGA felt it needed to evolve. He cited the example that our troops needed to be as location enabled as kids are with their mobile devices. Crowd sourcing is playing an ever-increasing roll, and despite the belief that the cyber world is locationless, location is a very real aspect of cyber warfare. Users have locations as well as servers and the interconnecting framework. Asymmetrical urban warfare demands even more precise location mapping, including building interiors. Keith cited Robert Scoble’s keynote at The Next Web Conference Europe as a must-view video by everyone in the geospatial community, to place his comments in context. Robert Scoble and Shel Israel are going to be keynote speakers at GEOINT 2013.
Additionally, although the military is taking a lion’s share of sequestration cuts, the two areas that are not seeing significant cuts because of WMDs are ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) and cyber. He said that some people question the need for geospatial capabilities in a cyber world, but he quickly cited that servers have locations, that networks have locations, and most hackers/persons of interest have locations, which also point to the growing need for indoor urban tracking of users. And all this takes on even more significance with the proliferation of WMDs. Although not as immediate, NGA is also very supportive and promotes STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education so we maintain the pipeline of talent. He also talked about the growing drumbeat for geospatial intel certification, especially for contract work.
Randy Jones of the Missile and Space Command spoke of the much shorter timelines of intelligence and needed action, that we have a flood of information but have a poverty of attention. That there is a growing need for “object-based intelligence” or, as some refer to it, “activity-based intelligence.” The flood of data is overwhelming analysts, and NGA is looking for increasingly sophisticated algorithms to sort the massive data collections. The are many opportunities for small, innovative companies in this arena to help DIA, NGA, and NSA.
Robert Zitz of SAIC gave his take on current actions in Washington. He quoted James Clapper as saying, “We’ve run out of money, so now we have to think.” He also cited Latisha Long that although DoD was seeing 5% sequestration cuts, DHS may see increases to its budget due to WMD and cyber concerns, specifically power, water and transportation. (As a side note, I harp to all my family members and friends the need to heed the DHS warning for all citizens to maintain a two-week supply of food and water in their home.) There is also special attention being given to joint efforts of special operations, cyber security and border security. Those intel dollars are increasing especially for real-time data collection, multi-int fusion and predictive analytics.
A representative from Sierra Nevada and L3 talked about wide area air surveillance (WAAS), specifically Gorgon Stare and the domestic manned aircraft version Vigilant Stare, which is also being linked with full-motion video. The key issue is analytics to filter and provide timely actionable intelligence.
MIC cameras from Bosch Security Systems feed a Coastal Remote Monitoring Program for the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
A very clever use of lower cost, off-the-shelf hardware to solve a critical need was presented by Major Scott Bannon of the Alabama Marine Resources Division and Tim Erwin of Crystal Data International. Major Bannon’s small staff is tasked with monitoring more than 600 miles of Gulf Coastline. They installed a network of ruggedized video cameras, some in very remote locations, that were connected via a wireless network with all the cameras controlled by the users. This is not much different than many systems seen in urban areas, but the challenge was building a rugged system with some very remote locations lacking power or connectivity. The cameras were geo-referenced on Google Earth and controllable by his staff from mobile devices. Although the images are not directly geo-referenced, their position coupled with user knowledge permitted them to search and identify objects in the water accurately enough to task rescue assets to craft in distress. The night low-light imaging capability helped in several high-interest events. A new version will provide accurate azimuth data recorded with the imagery.
Dr. Michael Botts presented his work to develop common standards for web enablement of sensors. SML (Sensor Markup Language) is being backed by the OGC to permit sensor web enablement (SWE). See the OGC website for more details.
The workshop was closed by Sandra Broadnax, the NGA Small Business Programs director. Her presentation was probably the best received session because of her infectious enthusiasm. She explained how NGA Director Long was extremely supportive of small business innovations and contributions to the intelligence community. She explained how NGA maintains a very comprehensive list of changing requirements on both the high and low sides. She strongly encouraged all geospatial firms to monitor the NGA site, since there were many opportunities that are not published in FedBizOps. At the session she wasted no time building connections by identifying those who had SCIFs in Huntsville and those who might need access so they could view and respond to classified requirements.
So, the key topics that I believe will dominate GEOINT 2013 are:
Persistent wide area air surveillance
Social media, big data, human geography
Every individual a consumer and provider of intel data
“Object” or “Activity” based intelligence, even inside buildings
Integration of real-time actionable intelligence to users in the field
The geospatial links of cyber threats
As you can see, even in the short span of one year, the geospatial community continues to evolve significantly. I’m going to attend GEOINT 2013 in October and the GaTech Research Institute GIS conference Spatial Plexus in November. If you see me, please introduce yourself.
Over grits, coffee, and the airborne delicacy purveyed at the Flying Biscuit Cafe (right out of the oven, right into your mouth) in Sandy Springs, Georgia, I absorbed this high-tech homily.
You’ve heard of the European financial crisis. Trace it back to geospatial, from the Greek banking collapse, which in turn had roots in the implosion of the Greek tax system, due to a plethora of gaps, inconsistencies, and exceptions filed in a largely uncontrolled property cadastre — the register of real property, including details of ownership, precise location (by GPS coordinates), and value of land parcels.
Lose control of your cadastre (your GIS), lose the country. With global interconnections, soon the continent, if not perhaps the world economy.
For want of a nail, the battle was lost.
Jump forward, technologically, to flash lidar. Ball Aerospace created this ability to capture continuous rapid multiple laser interferometry detection and ranging (LiDAR) images/point clouds, merged with continuous high-resolution optical images, to create full-color 3D models in real time. Stitched together with GPS, this produces real-time full-motion video: interactive geo-referenced metric 3D models.
In field application, this can yield time-critical 3D mapping for urgent missions, enhanced situational awareness, battlefield characterization, and tactical mission planning. It can help with disaster-response planning and event forensics. Real-time models could be communicated with the public through easily comprehended moving images via television or the Internet. of the actual progress of a fire or flood, together with evacuation routes.
Jump again to fabfi. What’s a fabfi?
FabFi is an open-source, lab-grown system out of MIT using common building materials and off-the-shelf electronics to transmit wireless Ethernet signals across distances up to several miles. Communities can build their own networks for high-speed Internet connectivity, and access to online educational, medical, and other resources.
Simple, low-cost, and feasible in unstable environments: Afghanistan, Kenya, and any number of countries that leapfrogged telephone landlines to come quickly into the cellular era; now they can leapfrog Ethernet cable networks and even WiFi for virtual connectivity. Implement with locally available materials. Print out a 2D design file and create the pieces out of wood, metal, acrylic, clay, stone, or ice, as long as you can attach a metallic RF reflective surface to the front.
If you haven’t guessed the geospatial aspect of this, I assure you it’s there, but I’ve run out of room here.
Alan Cameron is editor-in-chief and publisher of GPS World magazine, where he has worked since 2000. He also writes the monthly GNSS System Design e-mail newsletter and the Wide Awake blog.
