GPS World

Author: Tracy Cozzens

  • CoreLogic expands location-based intelligence with building footprints

    CoreLogic has expanded its location-based intelligence data with the addition of structure footprint information to its other parcel and property characteristics data offerings.

    CoreLogic is a global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider. The company made the announcement at the 2016 Esri User Conference, being held in San Diego, California, June 27-July 1.

    CoreLogic Structure Footprint enables accurate roof-top geocoding and identifies the location and outline of relevant structures on a parcel, including all known sub-addresses, to provide a more granular and precise property description.

    Street, parcel and structure geocoding appear on a single map. (IMAGE: CoreLogic)
    Street, parcel and structure geocoding appear on a single map. (IMAGE: CoreLogic)

    CoreLogic residential and commercial structure footprint data covers more than 35 million rural and urban parcels throughout the U.S, including two-thirds of the largest 50 metro areas. When combined with other CoreLogic proprietary property data, including business financial health, natural hazard risks, occupancy information and building characteristics, the added structure footprint data provides a more complete picture of a property than was previously available.

    Accurate location data is a critically important factor for planning and operations in oil and gas, insurance, geo-commerce and other industries that need to understand what type of structures and building characteristics are associated with property addresses.

    The addition of structure footprint data complements the existing CoreLogic property characteristic data, which details attributes in 150 distinct categories that provide location intelligence on everything from zoning and land use to details about roof type and number of bedrooms.

    “The addition of this property data layer, which identifies individual structures within a single parcel, can improve efficiencies and risk segmentation for everything from geo-commerce to insurance,” said Steve Brewer, senior vice president of Insurance and Spatial Solutions at CoreLogic. “It’s exciting to see this level of granularity added to location intelligence that was previously not available — granularity that can be used in a variety of decision-making situations including natural hazard risk assessment, marketing, asset management and claims processing.

  • Geospatial Solutions reports live from the 2016 Esri User Conference

    The 2016 Esri User Conference, the mecca of geographic information systems (GIS) in the U.S., takes place June 28 to July 1 in San Diego, California. The conference is designed to give attendees practical advice and hands-on experience with GIS tools from Esri and other companies, as well as share ideas and best practices for improving our world through maps.

    The event encompasses 16,000 GIS users, managers and developers; 300 moderated sessions; 450 hours of technical training; and 300 software vendors.

    GPS World/Geospatial Solutions staff is on site, and we will be posting news, photos and videos live from the show on this page. Also follow us on Twitter at @GSS_NCM and @GPSWorld.

    NEWS

    Spectra Precision MobileMapper 50 combines smartphone design with GNSS capabilities (6/29)

    Golden Software releases Strater 5 well log, borehole and cross-section plotting program (6/28)

    Trimble unveils TDC100 handheld data collector at Esri UC (6/28)

    SAP debuts Geographical Enablement Framework at Esri UC (6/28)

    ArcGIS apps for the field launched at Esri UC (6/27)

    3DR to integrate Site Scan with Esri Drone2Map (6/27)

    CoreLogic expands location-based intelligence with building footprints (6/27)

    Laser Technology shares new time-saving mapping tools at Esri UC (6/24)

    Septentrio to spotlight drone GNSS solutions at Esri UC (6/23)

    PHOTOS

    VIDEO PLAYLIST

    Navigate the Esri UC playlist.

    Media: Geospatial Solutions / GPS World

  • Septentrio to spotlight drone solutions at Esri UC 

    Septentrio-PinPoint-GIS

    Septentrio will showcase its latest GNSS systems and software solutions for GIS professionals at the 2016 Esri User Conference in San Diego, June 28-30, with a special focus on the rapidly growing market for drone-based aerial survey.

    At center stage will be Septentrio’s suite of products designed specifically for aerial surveys. They include the compact AsteRx-m UAS onboard GNSS receiver and GeoTagZ high-accuracy drone positioning software, which is optimized for automatic interface with Esri ARCGis and Drone2Map platforms.

    “Demand for drone imagery is booming in the GIS marketplace as a fast and efficient alternative to ground-based surveys for applications such as mapping, photogrammetry, infrastructure inspection and natural disaster monitoring,” said Neil Vancans, vice president of Septentrio Americas. “To meet that demand, we are bringing to market a range of hardware and software solutions that will make it easier than ever for Esri users to capture, georeference, process and visualize drone-captured imagery.”

    Septentrio is also introducing new firmware for its versatile NR2 GNSS receivers and the PinPoint-GIS utility software for terrestrial applications. NR2 V1.2.0 offers a host of new connectivity features, including direct dial-up, dynamic DNS, base-rover Wi-Fi point-to-point connection and other new features that will streamline field work. PinPoint-GIS has also been enhanced to provide seamless integration with Esri’s Collector for ArcGIS.

    “Septentrio is pioneering the way by which Esri users collect data,” said Gustavo Lopez, product manager at Septentrio. “GeoTagZ and PinPoint-GIS bring more accuracy and flexibility into the field by combining the power of Septentrio’s GNSS products with the user-friendly interface of Collector for ArcGIS. From the air to your own device, you are guaranteed accuracy and reliability in your GNSS positioning by using GeoTagZ to georeference aerial photos and PinPoint-GIS to harness the power of GIS data.”

    Esri User Conference attendees are invited to visit Booth 2633 for a first-hand look at Septentrio’s solutions for the full range of aerial and ground-based GNSS solutions for GIS, including the new-generation APS-3G multi-constellation RTK receiver, which was just introduced to the market.

  • Septentrio to spotlight drone solutions at Esri UC 

    Septentrio-PinPoint-GIS

    Septentrio will showcase its latest GNSS systems and software solutions for GIS professionals at the 2016 Esri User Conference in San Diego, June 28-30, with a special focus on the rapidly growing market for drone-based aerial survey.

    At center stage will be Septentrio’s suite of products designed specifically for aerial surveys. They include the compact AsteRx-m UAS onboard GNSS receiver and GeoTagZ high-accuracy drone positioning software, which is optimized for automatic interface with Esri ARCGis and Drone2Map platforms.

    “Demand for drone imagery is booming in the GIS marketplace as a fast and efficient alternative to ground-based surveys for applications such as mapping, photogrammetry, infrastructure inspection and natural disaster monitoring,” said Neil Vancans, vice president of Septentrio Americas. “To meet that demand, we are bringing to market a range of hardware and software solutions that will make it easier than ever for Esri users to capture, georeference, process and visualize drone-captured imagery.”

    Septentrio is also introducing new firmware for its versatile NR2 GNSS receivers and the PinPoint-GIS utility software for terrestrial applications. NR2 V1.2.0 offers a host of new connectivity features, including direct dial-up, dynamic DNS, base-rover Wi-Fi point-to-point connection and other new features that will streamline field work. PinPoint-GIS has also been enhanced to provide seamless integration with Esri’s Collector for ArcGIS.

    “Septentrio is pioneering the way by which Esri users collect data,” said Gustavo Lopez, product manager at Septentrio. “GeoTagZ and PinPoint-GIS bring more accuracy and flexibility into the field by combining the power of Septentrio’s GNSS products with the user-friendly interface of Collector for ArcGIS. From the air to your own device, you are guaranteed accuracy and reliability in your GNSS positioning by using GeoTagZ to georeference aerial photos and PinPoint-GIS to harness the power of GIS data.”

    Esri User Conference attendees are invited to visit Booth 2633 for a first-hand look at Septentrio’s solutions for the full range of aerial and ground-based GNSS solutions for GIS, including the new-generation APS-3G multi-constellation RTK receiver, which was just introduced to the market.

  • Icaros releases update of OneButton UAS image processing software

    Icaros-merge-W

    Icaros Inc., a provider of aerial imaging software, has released version 4.2.2 of OneButton. The release contains new features and improvements as well as a new flight planning software module. Here are the highlights:

    • Additional parameters have been added to enable users to create enhanced quality output products.
    • Users can now create their own parameter templates to run similar projects repeatedly with the same parameter set.
    • The image stitching algorithm has been enhanced to generate higher quality outputs for projects with high overlap.
    • Projects covering smaller areas can now be solved more accurately by utilizing a higher resolution terrain model of the area.
    • UgCS flight planning software is included free of charge with each installation.

    Current users of OneButton software can download and install the latest version.

    Those new to OneButton software can download a free copy to use until Oct. 31.

    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 unique collection conditions of unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

    OneButton creates a complete image processing workflow for aerial image data and can front-end both GIS and analytics workflows to enable customers to solve challenging problems related to everything from agriculture and forestry to utilities and city planning. It is highly customizable to meet the needs of specific vertical market applications.

    OneButton automatically processes raw raster imagery with onboard GPS/IMU data to stich the individual scenes together into a seamless, color-balanced orthomosaic meeting photogrammetric standards. Outputs include digital elevation models (DEMs), true color 3D point clouds, and multispectral mosaics – all ready for ingest directly into GIS and analytics software environments.

    OneButton is application 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.

    “This version of OneButton comes with significant improvements, from a more intuitive user interface, to more robust processing and output options. I am very pleased with the update,” said Eric Andelin, president of VERTX.

  • myWorld Inspection & Survey v2 supports iOS, Android and Windows

    UbiSense-MyWorld_Survey-W

    Ubisense Group plc, an enterprise location-intelligence solution company, has released version 2 of myWorld Inspection & Survey. Version 2 of the software offers a host of new features to transform the way utility and telecommunications teams conduct inspections and surveys.

    myWorld Inspection & Survey enables field workers to collect inspection data on any mobile device, eliminating paper-based processes and is a dramatic improvement on first-generation software solutions, Ubisense said. Users now have the flexibility to run the system on iOS, Android or Windows and dynamically push both data and application code updates, significantly reducing IT management costs, UbiSense said.

    Based on discussions with existing customers, Ubisense has also incorporated a range of new workflow and data capture features to make day to day inspections and management even easier.  Users of myWorld Inspection & Survey are now able to:

    • Carry out multiple surveys concurrently, significantly improving productivity.
    • Assign multiple crews or surveyors to a single survey or inspection order, enabling support of a wider range of existing business processes without requiring any product customization.
    • Support for “dual pass” surveys, in which each survey item needs to be visited twice in order for the survey to be regarded as complete.
    • Enhanced map filtering, to allow users to only display items relevant to the survey(s) that they are currently working on.
    • Process checks to automatically turn off surveying when the vehicle speed exceeds a specified value, avoiding accidentally marking something as surveyed incorrectly.

    “We know that our customers want the flexibility to use any device in the field,” said Peter Batty, Geospatial CTO at Ubisense. “We allow them to run iOS, Android or Windows with a single application giving them more flexibility in device selection and future proofing their hardware decisions.”

  • LandWorks introduces spatial alignment tool at Esri UC

    LandWorks Inc., developer of land management software, has advanced its integration with Esri technology by creating a new Spatial Alignment Tool that runs as an ArcGIS Desktop extension and automates polygon editing tasks for land mapping professionals and land asset managers.

    LandWorks will demonstrate the product at booth #2404 at the 2016 Esri User Conference, June 27-July 1, at the San Diego Convention Center.

    The new software can be used in any country and in any industry that maps land boundary polygons using Esri’s ArcGIS Platform.

    Previously, when a more accurate version of land grid (Public Land Survey sections, Texas abstracts, etc.) or tax parcel data was made available by a data vendor, any polygons in an updated area of the grid had to be manually realigned to snap to the more accurate grid. With LandWorks’ Spatial Alignment Tool, manual realignment is no longer necessary.

    “Land grid and parcel data providers typically deliver quarterly updates to customers. The labor intensive task of realigning mapped land polygons to the updated version has been a long-term challenge that many companies choose to forgo rather than implementing the more accurate version of the land grid or parcel data,” said Jerry Bramwell, President and CEO of LandWorks. “With our new Spatial Alignment Tool, what once required months to complete now takes hours, resulting in more accurate land agreement polygon boundaries without the high cost of manually snapping them to the updated grid or parcel data.”


    The Spatial Alignment Tool works with any vector land grid or parcel data. Users need an original source land/parcel grid and an updated source land/parcel grid. The tool detects vertex movements between the original land/parcel grid and the corresponding updated layers, then automatically aligns the selected polygons based on those detected changes.

    Users can easily adjust the tolerance and alignment settings if not satisfied with the results. Once the alignment process is complete, users can review the aligned polygons before committing them to the enterprise geodatabase.

    In addition to easily maintaining the accuracy of GIS data for better analysis, the new software also saves companies significant time and money if they choose to switch land grid or parcel data suppliers for quality, supply or budgetary reasons.

    “Traditionally, companies have been hesitant to change land grid or parcel data vendors because of the seemingly Herculean task of transferring the polygons from one land grid or parcel layer to another,” said Bramwell. “Automating this task using the Spatial Alignment Tool now makes switching suppliers a viable option.”

  • National Map Viewer adds topo template for GIS

    A new geographic information systems (GIS)-ready topographic-map-style template is now available from the USGS National Geospatial Program.

    The Topo TNM Style Template can be readily used with the Topo Map Vector Data products and other data available for download from The National Map (TNM).

    The template and TNM data are intended to be used together to quickly provide an advanced  user with a fully customizable map in the style of US Topo maps using the most current TNM data available.

  • Esri observes World Refugee Day with new Story Map

    In celebration of World Refugee Day, Esri has revealed a Story Map, “The Uprooted,” which provides insight into the Syrian displacement. Syria accounts for a large portion of the world’s refugees and internally displaced people.

    World Refugee Day is held every year on June 20 to commemorate the strength, courage and perseverance of millions of refugees.

    Check out more data on displaced people on Esri’s website.

  • NSGIC joins NG911 NOW Coalition

    The National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) has joined the NG911 NOW Coalition, a coalition focused on rapidly accelerating the deployment of Next Generation 911 (NG911), as a strategic partner.

    NSGIC is actively engaged in NG911 issues, NSGIC President Chris Diller said in his response to NG911 NOW Coalition’s invitation to partner. He cited NSGIC’s own NG911 committee, resources found on its website, various position papers and formal presentations at its annual conference.

    “Joining the NG911 NOW Coalition is the right thing to do,” Diller said.

    NSGIC members serve the entire geospatial community in their respective states. They coordinate data development projects to ensure that the data will meet the majority of needs for local, state, tribal and federal agencies. The NG911 community has the highest level business requirements which are related to their life-saving activities. Creating data for this purpose and then sharing the data with all government agencies is efficient and effective government in action.

    In early March, NSGIC formally announced its support of the NG911 NOW Coalition’s position to “accelerate the implementation of NG911 services by the end of 2020.” In a statement released at that time, NSGIC noted, “This move to a nationwide interconnected NG911 system will require the integration of robust GIS datasets produced at the state and local levels and will require the creation of data governance policies and procedures to ensure data available to the NG911 system is both current and active.”

    NSGIC joins the Internet2 Technology Center, the 911 Education Foundation, the NG911 Institute and the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association in the NG911 NOW Coalition partners program. The Coalition was established by the National Association of State 911 Administrators, the National Emergency Number Association and the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies.

  • Esri and Hexagon promote joint collaboration at HxGN LIVE

    In 2015, Esri and Hexagon jointly announced a series of ready-to-use imagery services to Esri users through ArcGIS Marketplace. ArcGIS Marketplace delivers high-resolution aerial multispectral and basemap imagery services as a subscription through ArcGIS Online. In light of the collaboration, Esri will be participating in HxGN Live June 14-16 in Anaheim, California.

    Another collaboration with Leica Geosystems, a brand within Hexagon Geosystems, addressed the market for high-accuracy mobile field collection, which was released this year. It integrates Esri’s Collector for ArcGIS, a configurable mobile app for collecting and editing data in the field, with the high-accuracy Leica Zeno 20 from Leica Geosystems.

    “We’re excited to raise mobile data collection solutions to the next level of precision and interoperability through rigorous connectivity between our survey-grade Leica Zeno series and Esri’s GIS solutions,” says Hexagon Geosystems president Juergen Dold. “This industry collaboration between Leica Geosystems and Esri is another joint commitment to make it easier for professionals around the world to capture, manage, and share their data, regardless if they’re in the office or the field, without sacrificing precision or interoperability.”

    The new solution, ZenoCollector, is an Android-based, professional-grade handheld. ZenoCollector connects to ArcGIS Online, automatically synching high-precision field changes to enterprise information and giving everyone access to the latest data gathered on the project sites, as well as access to high-resolution basemap services and Hexagon imagery services through ArcGIS Marketplace. This innovation of online content connected to mobile field tools and back-office systems now provides rapid synchronization to streamline field job planning, collection, and postprocessing of data.

    Esri For more information and demonstrations of these new offerings, visit Esri at booth No. 506 at HxGN LIVE.

  • Topcon, Bentley Systems integrate Magnet 4.0 and ProjectWise

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    Topcon Positioning Group and Bentley Systems have announced a new level of direct communication between Bentley’s design applications and Topcon mobile work force products with the upcoming Magnet 4.0 release.

    With the direct communication from Magnet Enterprise to Bentley’s ProjectWise, users of Topcon’s family of Magnet and 3D-MC software solutions can, while working in the field, access or receive i-models created by Bentley’s OpenRoads design modeling technology.

    Furthermore, the survey data and as-built conditions captured by Topcon’s field devices can be brought back into Bentley’s design applications using the same Magnet to ProjectWise direct connection.

    Topcon_Bentley_man-at-desk-W“The direct connection to Bentley’s ProjectWise in Magnet Enterprise allows project managers to distribute i-models directly to their Topcon field devices,” said Jason Hallett, Topcon vice president of global product management. “With this drag and drop functionality, i-models from ProjectWise easily move from the Magnet Enterprise Data Manager to your mobile work force.”

    The integration will allow for direct import and export of i-models in Magnet Field and Magnet Office products.

    “With the simplified workflow from ProjectWise to machines with a Sitelink3D connection from Magnet Office or Enterprise, updated models can be quickly sent to a machine, reducing the chance of rework and ensuring the most current data can be sent to project teams,” Hallett said.

    With the upcoming release, users will be able to deliver any Magnet project files as i-models into ProjectWise for the purpose of capturing “as constructed” conditions of infrastructure projects.

    Dustin Parkman, Bentley vice president of product development, said, “We are excited to offer the industry-first ability to ‘round trip’ i-models. Soon operators will be able to send i-models directly to their mobile work force, who can consume the models, update them directly on the job site, and then send the updated i-models from the field back to ProjectWise with selected data (points, point lists, layers library) directly to an i-model.

    “The integration between ProjectWise and Magnet Enterprise has opened up endless new possibilities for construction-driven engineering workflows using OpenRoads and Magnet Office,” Parkman said.

    Magnet 4.0 is expected to be available in late June with additional upgrades and functionality for users.