GPS World

Tag: GeoIntelligence Insider

  • what3words: The geospatial advancement of the year?

    In this screen capture of the what3words app, the pointer is on mouse's head at the Magic Kingdom. That grid cell is named "perform.heckle.comfortable" and will not change.
    In this screen capture of the what3words app, the pointer is on mouse’s head at the Magic Kingdom. That grid cell is named “perform.heckle.comfortable” and will not change.

    Early this year, I wrote a short column about what3words, one of the exhibitors at the Esri Federal GIS Conference. Since then, I’ve run into a fair number of geospatial professionals who hadn’t heard about what3words. This month,  I’m doing a deeper dive on it because I believe it will become part of our daily lives in just a few short years.

    What is what3words?

    what3words is a global location system using tessellated grid squares of the entire Earth. Each grid cell is roughly 3 meters by 3 meters, and each cell is uniquely named using a simple three-word combination such as “fork.lamp.book.” On initial consideration, one would think, “So what?” — until you understand the ramifications.

    First, this has already been done. More than 57 trillion 3-meter squares have been named using only 40,000 words.

    Second, the system is non-hierarchal, and the cells have no adjacent relationship, so minor errors are dramatically obvious.

    Third, unlike GPS lat/long, the United States National Grid (USNG), the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) or even street addresses, the three-word combinations are easy to remember and not easily misunderstood.

    Fourth, the system is not just a 57-trillion record database; it’s a compact app (10 mb) that accurately generates the same unique name for each unique location with identifiers that are locked in concrete.

    The what3words website has more information and a well-done video overview.

    How did it come to be?

    Surprisingly, what3words was developed not by a geospatial analyst, but by a musician who got tired of driving around trying to find the correct hotel loading dock or concert venue entrance using an address or verbal directions. Even GPS coordinates didn’t help, since it was easy to miskey numbers or misunderstand voice-relayed numbers. As a result, he and his team built an app that is easy to use, memorable and not error prone.

    Early radio analogy

    The system is so easy to understand that non-technical users can quickly adopt it. I believe that it will greatly speed communications, minimize mistakes, and reduce wasted time and mileage. To me, a good analogy is the World War I development of the phonetic alphabet.

    In the early days of radio, voice communications were difficult and error-prone because of static, noise and garbled transmissions. To prevent mistakes, the military adopted a fixed list of words to help with aural identification of individual letters. The words were used for transmission of critical information such as map coordinates or to spell out words. (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, etc.) A similar mind/ear relationship occurs with what3words. Here is a well-written technical appraisal and amplification by Prof. Robert Barr.

    Possible uses


    Military

    The implications for the military could be significant. When I served on a destroyer, one of my duties was Gunnery Liaison Officer, providing naval gunfire support for troops in battle locations. The 5-inch gunfire was called in by concealed spotters in the battle space. The coordination and conversion between the spotter location, the spotter’s point of view, and our offshore position and line of fire required significant calculations and diligence, because friendly fire was always a concern. Current developments in GPS and laser technology have helped significantly, but friendly fire mistakes from guns, missiles and bombing are still a constant concern. The use of what3words could be a simple and quick way to double check and prevent targeting friendly locations.

    Another issue that was a problem for some military bases was addressing, or E911. Some bases had buildings identified by numbers corresponding to the sequence of construction rather than street addresses, so building 245 might be next to building 1842 and next to building 38 (I’m not sure if this is still an issue). With what3words, help could be directed to exact building entrances or to exact locations in remote parts of a base.

    Disaster response would also benefit. In many disasters such as tornados or hurricanes, street signs and building were obliterated. What3words would provide “addressing” for relief supply drops and other needs.

    The location of the helo deck on the battleship Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia, is identified as "chew.sketch.hardly".
    The location of the helo deck on the battleship Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia, is identified as “chew.sketch.hardly”.

    First Responders

    Whether it be an air crash needing remote mountain rescue, a farm accident in a rural area, a capsized boat at sea, or a heart-attack victim in a shopping mall or home, response could be significantly faster with less chance for error. Even in urban areas, there are frequent stories of delayed medical aid because E911 street databases were not correct or updated with new construction. what3words provides complete location coverage and would serve as an easy and effective double check for street addresses.

    Government and NGO activity

    Some of you may be familiar with U.S. Census Bureau TIGER files and LUCA (Local Update of Census Addresses). I still can’t wrap my head around why census workers have to keep posted house numbers and street names confidential. Perhaps using what3words could provide a simpler, unclassified way to direct census workers. Additionally, many actions that currently use GPS may be better served with 3m grid locations, such as agricultural or environmental data collection.

    Business

    Mundane activities such as materials delivery to unaddressed construction sites or package delivery to homes and businesses will be more efficient. (Rumor has it that a prominent package delivery service is testing what3words.) Utility companies could locate cut-off valves, meters and other assets within 7 feet of their actual location. Meeting friends, getting an Uber pick up, or even having a pizza delivered to a specific bleacher location at a Little League game would become easy.

    Second and third world

    There are complex issues regarding the World Bank and economic development. To qualify for major economic development loans, countries have to demonstrate that they have viable property ownership and taxation system in place so loans can ultimately be repaid. We take our tax parcel system for granted, but may third-world countries don’t even have consistent and comprehensive street names and addresses. what3words can provide “addresses,” which could lead to more comprehensive parcel identification.

    On an even more basic level, the majority of citizens in the world don’t have an address for simple deliveries. When I was in a rural part of Haiti, just getting some simple wood screws was an all-day trip and ordeal. I learned to really appreciate being able to take a quick run to Home Depot or get two-day deliveries at my front door from Amazon. Those “luxuries” don’t exist in many parts of the world, and their lack really cripples those trying to start or run a business. what3words gives everyone an “address.”

    Try it

    iphone-WDon’t take my word for it; try it yourself. Download the app on your smartphone (I’m using an iPhone, so others may be slightly different). Launching the app will display a map with your location and its what3words name. Click the “eye” to view an ortho image rather than a vector map.

    If the padlock is locked, unlock it and you can move the map to different locations showing different what3words names. If you are sent a what3words location, you can click on the magnifying glass and type in the three words. The app will prompt “Near Me” or “Anywhere.” If there is no match near you, it will show possible options that come close by looking at alternate spellings or words. If you click “Anywhere” it will search the entire world for a match.

    Once it takes you to the location, you can use Maps or Google Maps to get directions.

    Other points

    what3words has been adopted by many geospatial firms, including Esri. Available online or offline, anywhere in the world, the what3words locator can be available to the GIS team or customers across the entire ArcGIS platform. Since what3words is grid-cell layer, it may be possible to do map algebra operations on the cells in Spatial Analyst. I’m not sure there would be a benefit to that other than not needing to transform the list of affected cells.

    what3words is available in several languages. The words are not simple translations, but developed for each language. Although the what3words team carefully scrubbed the words used to avoid offensive terms, I hope what3words doesn’t have to deal with lawsuits from individuals unhappy with the three-word identifiers of their location.

    Conclusion

    I predict that within a few years, our business cards will also include a what3words address. Simply put, I believe that what3words may prove to be one of the most significant geospatial advancements since Jack Dangermond spatially linked points, lines and polygons to a relational database.

    what3words is going to save time, money and, most important, it’s going to save lives.

    P.S.  If you read my March column reviewing Peter Zeihan’s book The Accidental Superpower, you may remember the importance Peter placed on 3D printing affecting the geo-politics of shipping manufactured goods from China.  If you haven’t seen the new CLIP technology 3D printers, you need to view this TED video to see how far the technology has progressed.

  • GeoQ: Robust homeland security tools for first responders

    Art Kalinski, GISP
    Art Kalinski, GISP

    When I was the GIS manager of the Atlanta Regional Commission, the most rewarding and important work we did was geospatial support for our first responders. The culmination of this effort was creation of a portable GIS that we could set up in the field on short notice anywhere in the region to provide situational awareness for first responders.

    The system consisted of two laptops, external hard drives, a HP “E”-size plotter, foam-board laminator and an LCD projector — all housed in a portable tent. We used ArcInfo and ArcView to build and overlay vector data on ortho/oblique aerial imagery to aid visualization.

    We found that police and firefighters especially liked our large laminated plots of imagery overlaid with street data, because the aerial images were easy to understand and the GIS data provided needed location references. The hard-copy plots required no computer and could be marked up with grease pencils.

    ARCUASI-W

    ARC_UASI-W

    Helping in our small way, we provided the same kind of large plots of New Orleans to the Louisiana National Guard days after Hurricane Katrina hit. We later learned that the plots were used by National Guard headquarters to keep track of search-and-rescue efforts by marking up neighborhood blocks with grease pencils and recording search results. They crossed off buildings that had been searched and recorded urban rescue information such as who did the search, and the date and number of live or deceased bodies found. The hard-copy plots were a low-tech embodiment of higher tech GIS data and imagery.

    Firefighter-W

    Nine years later, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) developed a similar but higher tech and more robust system called GeoQ.

    GeoQ: Geographic Work Queueing and Tasking System

    GeoQ is an open-source geographic tasking and management system that facilitates collection and display of diverse geographic and geographically tagged data across large areas to provide situational awareness for all involved. As needed, the large areas can be broken down into small grid squares and assigned to teams or team members for detailed analysis or tasking.

    The system is designed to be very transparent so all involved can view the workflow and assist as needed, while avoiding duplication of effort. This NGA video is a well done and rapid overview of GeoQ.

    GeoQ software was developed by NGA and the MITRE Corporation to leverage NGA tools and data to the benefit of Homeland Security personnel. In 2013, the leadership at NGA made a gutsy decision to share some of their unclassified geospatial tools with the nation’s first responders through GitHub, an open-source software developers’ online collaboration environment. With more than 2 million participating programmers, GitHub hosts more software source code than any other single service in the world.

    GeoQ was the first NGA product shared through GitHub, and was in keeping with a change in philosophy at NGA to take advantage of feedback and improvements generated by the huge and diverse talent pool available through GitHub. NGA was the first intelligence agency to share some of its work in this open-source environment, and the results have been extremely beneficial to all involved.

    The Huntsville Connection

    With more than 70 geospatial firms and agencies, Huntsville, Ala., has always been an early adopter of geospatial technology. Several years ago it was again a Huntsville team that developed a first-ever Google Earth Enterprise-based emergency response system called Virtual Alabama. The system was so effective that eight other states adopted the model. Work was underway to build a national version when Google announced the phasing out of Google Earth Enterprise. We now know that Google was not motivated to build authoritative geospatial systems, but was focused on building products and services that attracted customers so it could accomplish its primary business of selling advertising.

    Fortunately, the work of the Virtual Alabama team was not wasted. Team members became experts regarding first-responder operations and their unique situational awareness requirements. They learned that first responders needed much more than just a GIS. The best analogy I can think of is that one could use PowerPoint as a word processor, but that wouldn’t be a very efficient system. Likewise, MS Word could be used for presentations, but not as elegantly as PowerPoint. The same holds true for rapid dissemination, communication and perception of a common operational picture. Geospatial tools and analysis are part of situational awareness, but the work flow and many components are different, not necessarily spatial and need to be assembled and processed at their own pace.

    The timing was almost perfect, since GeoQ was released as Google Earth Enterprise was being phased out. Huntsville again seized the opportunity to build on its experience, and GEOHuntsville became a prime GeoQ testbed. I recently met with Chris Johnson, one of the early Virtual Alabama leaders and president of A Visual Edge, Inc., a Huntsville geospatial firm. She demonstrated GeoQ and Huntsville’s role in advancing the technology.

    GitHub has a very thorough description of GeoHuntsville, a non-profit 501c6, and its role with NGA to test and share lessons learned through a “Blueprint for Safety” pilot project involving other cities to improve rapid disaster response. The sharing of lessons learned, code sets and documentation through the multi-city collaboration is called “Exemplar City.”

    Another aspect of the Blueprint for Safety is support of rapid sensor deployment in support of first responders through common standards. Sort of a “plug-and-play” for complex devices. (See the GeoQ projects page and the OpenSensorHub.)

    There is quite an extensive collection of material on GitHub regarding GeoQ and other NGA, projects including support of FEMA and GeoQ technical specifications. NGA doesn’t directly support these efforts, with legal language such as “NGA assumes no responsibility for the use of the software by any parties, and makes no guarantees, expressed or implied, about the software quality, reliability, or any other characteristic.” Still, NGA is behind the creation of the software and is working on other tools and support that will expand the capabilities. Participation of both GeoHuntsville and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) bodes well for future use, since I don’t envision the same situation we ran into with Google and Virtual Alabama/USA.

    Update on What3Words

    In February, I wrote about what3words. The simple what3words system is now available as a locator, accessible via the Esri ArcGIS platform.

  • NGAUS 2015: National Guard Leaders Meet to Learn and Confer

    Art_NGAUS_still

    Three weeks ago I attended the National Guard Association of the United States Conference (NGAUS 2015) in Nashville, Tenn. Few people understand that — unlike the U.S. Army and Air Force, which are under direct federal control — each state has its own National Guard organization under the control of the individual state governors. They serve as the state’s local militia responding to disasters and civil unrest as directed by the governor.

    The National Guard is also part of the reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, and in that capacity many National Guard units have been called up to serve in overseas operations alongside their active duty counterparts such as in the Mideast. This dual control leads to countless discussions regarding Title 10 or Title 32 funding and jurisdiction.

    Additionally, the National Guard is administered by the National Guard Bureau (NGB), which is the communications channel between the states and the departments of the Army and the Air Force. NGB is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and is a joint activity of the Army and Air Force. NGB provides policies, training requirements and, most important, funds for the state units. This makes the NGAUS annual conference much more than a social gathering. It’s an opportunity for the leadership of each state to learn and coordinate, to view new technology and share best practices. It’s also an opportunity to provide official feedback to NGB regarding policies and all-important funding.

    Behind-the-Scenes History. A panel discussion I found especially fascinating was the Joint Domestic Operations session. One of the speakers was the former chief of the NGB, retired Lt. General H. Stephen Blum. General Blum was the NGB chief during Katrina, and shared some behind-the-scenes discussions he had with President Bush as Katrina unfolded. We now know that the New Orleans mayor delayed giving the order to evacuate the city, resulting in thousands stranded and hundreds dead. You may remember the photo of more than 100 school buses that went unused and ultimately flooded and unusable. The governor also delayed the order to evacuate, and the request for outside help from other National Guard units and the federal government.

    Anxious about the growing disaster, president Bush’s cabinet was pushing him to federalize the National Guard and take charge of the situation. However, General Blum was the single voice against federalization, telling the president that if you seize charge now you will “own the whole problem forever.” Fortunately, the call for help soon came from the Louisiana Governor, and military and National Guard action was almost immediate. General Blum was able to proudly draw the president’s attention to the TV news feed showing the military in action with the under caption “The Cavalry arrives!”

    Conference Exhibitors. The NGAUS conference is held in a different state each year. Last year it was in Chicago, and next year it will be in Baltimore. Although this is not a geospatial-centered event, a number of exhibitors and sessions involved geospatial topics, with the following being good examples. I was able to shoot video clips of some of the exhibitors, since seeing technology in action is always more informative than just writing about it.

    Esri. For years Esri ArcGIS has been the most common GIS platform used by most states. Several years ago, MajGen William Reddel, Adjutant General of New Hampshire, arranged to consolidate dozens of ArcGIS licenses to one enterprise license for all National Guard units. This greatly simplified GIS software procurement and saved taxpayers thousands.

    ForeFlight. For years you may have seen pilots dragging large document cases through the airport. These contained countless paper maps, charts and documents required for the safe navigation of aircraft. Finally, after years of work and the incorporation of digital content that many of you created, the FAA has approved electronic flight bags. See what they look like in this video.

    ForceX. ForceX and Z Microsystems have numerous tools to register and incorporate full-motion video and imagery into geospatial environments. See their technology in this video.

    Rapid Composites. Rapid Composites builds high-end UAVs for the military and first responders.

    As a UAV user myself (DJI Inspire 1), I’m especially interested in the proposed UAV impact tests that will be conducted by the FAA starting in October. Currently, the FAA authorizes the commercial use of drones up to 55 pounds in non-restricted airspace. However, there is a growing concern that a “Sully on the Hudson” incident could severely curtail drone use. The Mississippi State-led Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE) will be doing such testing in conjunction with the FAA. ASSURE will test the effect of UAV impact on aircraft windshields, control surfaces and engines.

    Knowledge Center. The Knowledge Center has an overarching system that manages assets and personnel for first responders. See their system in operation.

    Other exhibitors included Soft Power Solutions LLC, which displayed a geospatial-based personnel and asset management system, and Ball Aerospace, which showed off its new compact real-time 3D collection system that I previously wrote about. The new system has been redesigned to be under 12 pounds and suitable as a payload for many military UAVs.

  • Is GEOINT Too Exclusive?

    Bacastow-W
    Dr. Todd Bacastow, PSU, talked with me about geointelligence in the broader business community. See the full interview below.

    Time for a Revolution — or Evolution

    In July at GEOINT 2015 I was talking with long-time colleague Dr. Todd Bacastow. Many of you may know him as the retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and Penn State professor heavily involved in the Geospatial Intelligence Certificate program and the lead for the GEOINT Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) series focused on GEOINT. He proposed a topic for my column that struck a nerve with me since I and others had danced around the potentially heretical issue — is it time to open and expand the GEOINT community to a larger audience?

    As retired military officers, Todd and I share a common overarching loyalty and desire to do what we can to make life better and more survivable for our colleagues on active duty. GEOINT has certainly helped by providing detailed and timely actionable intelligence for those at the tip of the spear. However, can we do even better? Most assuredly yes!

    The most advanced tip of the spear is our Special Operations community. Manycivilians picture Special Operations members as knuckle-dragging Rambos shooting up the countryside, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, they are without doubt the most intelligent, observant and capable people on our DOD team. They’ve learned over decades of experience that they can complete their missions and accomplish far more by winning the hearts and minds of individuals they deal with. Doing that requires hours, days and weeks of due diligence reviewing intelligence and any crumb of information that will make a difference.

    Gone are the days of just looking at aerial photography. Now we have countless sources and types of imagery, analytics, tracking, social media, signals and human intelligence. Putting that complex slurry of information together into solid actionable intelligence is everyone’s goal, and the business community is no exception.

    Looking around the GEOINT Expo, I saw countless three-letter agency reps, military and homeland security personnel. There were an equal number of defense contractors and related business personnel, but everything was focused on military/security applications. Other than Pitney Bowes showing MapInfo, primarily a business-focused GIS, there were few exhibitors showing technology not aimed at the traditional GEOINT community.

    Our military and other first responders have tasks and responsibilities that are serious, complex and becoming more challenging. Limiting the talent pool and body of knowledge to only the narrow GEOINT community is not something we can afford to do. The creative talent found in the broader business community is too valuable to neglect.

    Watch the video interview I shot at GEOINT 2015 with Bacastow and Dennis Bellafiore, Ph.D., both of Pennsylvania State University.

    My chief concern is bringing the business community in with the understanding that this would be an open and sharing environment. My first real use of GIS after retiring from the Navy in 1993 were some business applications, mostly site studies and trade area analysis. In those early days, GIS grew rapidly within the business community. There were trade shows aimed at business applications of GIS, and even a publication called Business Geographics. Much to my surprise, Business Geographics and associated trade shows died out after only a few years. Some said that everyone learned all there was to learn! I don’t think so. A more likely reason was that the geospatial technology gave businesses a competitive edg.e so there was little incentive to expose trade secrets. Everyone wanted to learn about GIS, but few wanted to open their own kimono.

    Would an all-inclusive GEOINT organization run into the same fate? Perhaps if we promote it as “we are all in the same boat” and this is your opportunity to help those at the “tip of the spear.” In this age of cyber warfare and corporate espionage, perhaps we might be able to make this happen by promoting mutual aid and security. I think USGIF and most geospatial industry partners would be interested and very supportive of the idea. But most important, can you imagine the explosion of ideas and the benefits to all geospatial users.

    Todd, Dennis and I would really appreciate your opinion. Please leave comments below.

  • GEOINT 2015: Rapid Data Sharing, Teaming and Transparency

    GEOINT-2015GEOINT 2015, like other major conferences, was both fascinating and frustrating. There was so much to see and learn and absolutely not enough time to take it all in. GEOINT 2015 took place June 22-25 in Washington, D.C.

    Fortunately, the USGIF staff along with the USGIF Trajectory magazine staff under CEO Keith Masback’s direction made the best of this mega event through superb event planning and top-notch documentation, both in print and video. This column is just one man’s view and covers highlights that I saw and documented.

    I shot video clips of technology that caught my eye, but with more than 300 exhibitors, keynote sessions, break-out and educational sessions plus special interest meetings (such as the Army Geospatial Center GeoPDF workshop), covering it all was not possible. However…

    Every day of the conference, the USGIF Trajectory magazine staff published and printed a Show Daily. This slick publication was available every morning and served as a guide to the day’s events, along with providing highlights of the previous day. You can view/download each day’s issue. These five documents are probably the fastest way to get a full overview of the conference.

    Below is a playlist of the videos I shot.

    Key presentations that are a must-read:

    • Retired General Stanley McChrystal talked about transforming the Joint Special Operations Command from a purely top-down organization to one of shared intelligence and responsibility. Thanks to this “shared consciousness,” local units were able to act quickly, responding to rapidly changing events with smart autonomy because everyone shared the same intelligence.
    • National Security Agency (NSA/CSS) Director Adm. Michael Rogers said that each component of the signals intelligence (SIGINT) world has a physical location, and described how he has directed a much closer working relationship with the National Geospatial-intelligence Agency (NGA) to further intel and cyber efforts. He said that humans are very visually oriented, and although NSA’s SIGINT tools and products are very powerful, a more complete picture could be visualized if enhanced with GEOINT.

    I was able to interview NGA Director Cardillo and Admiral Thad Allen, former commandant of the Coast Guard. I asked Director Cardillo about the NGA Emerald program and Adm. Allen about eLoran, one possible back up to GPS/PNT.

    The pre-conference included education sessions and a fascinating group of five-minute lightning talks (pecha-kucha).  I’m going to cover these in detail sometime in the next few months.

    Generally, when I attend conferences I try to visit the small booths on the periphery of the exhibit hall. I’ve found that many showcase emerging technologies or are uniquely interesting. One example at GEOINT was the “Cartographic and Geographic Information Society” booth manned by Dr. Eric Anderson and Dr. Lynn Usery. They really struck a nerve with me — in the massive exhibit hall packed with high-tech wonders was this simple booth with a simple message: promoting good cartography. In this day of computer mapping and electronic media, too many technicians produce maps and sites that are really terrible looking and hard to grasp, so I fully appreciate the importance of good cartography to communicate effectively. See my Powerpoint/mapping rant several years ago to get my perspective.

    Here are my videos of other exhibitors on the floor:

    • CACI — The ability to predict human activity with very high correlation using social media
    • GeoWeb3D — Very rapid display of imagery and 3D models
    • TerraGo — Edge, a disruptive technology for data collection
    • HeadWall — UAV systems
    • Pitney Bowes — A demonstration of the latest capabilities of MapInfo
    • Zebra Technologies — 3D hologram prints

    USGIF Trajectory also posted most of keynote speeches and many EXPO floor videos on its website, at geointTV. Two that caught my attention:

    USGIF-award
    USGIF CEO Keith Masback (right) presents Bosarge with the USGIF Academic Research Award.

    Tipping my hat to my adopted state of Alabama, I was pleased to see a Huntsville booth touting the 70-plus geospatial firms in the city along with a keynote from Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle highlighting GEOHuntsville’s pending 2015 GEOINT Workshop August 12.  Additionally, native son George Stanley Bosarge, University of South Alabama, was awarded the USGIF Academic Research Award for his work in assessing post-oil spill recovery and reef habitat off the coast of Alabama.

    In general, attending GEOINT was like drinking from a firehose: lots of information in a very short period of time. However, I did build a list of great material for future columns, including a potentially small underground revolution growing in the GEOINT community.

  • Geospatial a Surprising Highlight of eMerge Trade Show

    Two weeks ago I helped a colleague with a trade show in Miami called eMerge Americas. This was a general-interest trade show focused on U.S. and Latin American trade and economic development. It wasn’t GEOINT or an ESRI users conference, so I didn’t expect any significant geospatial exhibitors, but I was wrong.

    In fact, there were so many geospatial-related displays, I decided to build my column around it — not because there were new developments, but to give you a feel for how business in general is being exposed to and shaped by our geospatial technology.

    I found so much visual content that under the “picture is worth a thousand words” philosophy, I shot video clips of exhibitors so that you could quickly hear and see their stories. I discovered a number of true start-up businesses, as well as a large area devoted to showing robotics from local school programs. You may not have the time to view each clip, so the following are brief descriptions of each exhibitor that caught my attention:

    Introduction to eMerge Americas

    Esri. Because Latin America is a large and growing market, Jack Dangermond had his team there.

    Indra. A large Spanish firm demonstrating their end to end solutions including building 3D models overlaid on Google.

    Cisco. Cisco had a very large display showing city management of transportation/utilities/ planning using geospatial tools and management systems.

    Fish. A company that tracks people and assets using RFID tags and indoor location technology.

    Florida International University. FIU had numerous technology displays but their autonomous catamaran doing bathymetry data collection and mapping was impressive.

    CartoData. This was a Mexican firm doing some very impressive end-to-end solutions including the use of Pix4D to build 3D models from UAV data.

    ImPlaces. A small start-up that builds Smartphone GPS location enabled applications for self guided tours such as museums, parks, real estate, etc.

    Baptist Health. Baptist Health demonstrated its 3D remote surgery system that was dimensionally scalable. These systems permit a surgeon to work at a macro level while the surgical tools operate a at microscopic level.

    ICONICS. A company that can zoom from a country or regional map down to the detail of an individual valve in a specific plant using CAD/BIM data.

    RangeVideo. A UAV company with a very flexible platform and 3D operator viewing goggles.

    ALTA Systems. An alternative to powered UAVs.

    SnowLizard Products. A small start up building durable waterproof Smartphone cases with Bad Elf GPS and solar panel recharging.

    Catbird. A data system security oversight system.

    VSN 360. There was a lot of interest in this product. VSN was showing a new 4K HD quality 360-degree video camera a little bigger than a coffee mug with many features. My video of a video didn’t do it justice, so here is a link to the demo video.

    For fun, view these non-geospatial exhibitors:

    Holography Box USA. A portable, rear projection, point-of-sale video display that looks like a 3D hologram.

    TeamSandTastic. A company that provides sand sculptors for trade shows or other events. Doesn’t sound exciting, but just like a Zamboni clearing the ice, you can’t stop watching as an artist turns a pile of sand into a sculpture.

    Robotics. Local students show off their robotic construction efforts and operational talents.

    Because eMerge has been so well received, I’m happy to see plans are in place to make this an annual event. Latin America is a large and growing market with many talented individuals, some of whom I met at this conference. As a country, we seem to take Latin America for granted, but this a region that shares our values. We need to nurture our relationships and work to prevent the kind of attitudes found in areas hostile to American values.

  • TerraGo Edge: Every Soldier a Data User and Data Collector

    For years, when I was the GIS manager for the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), I’d get an annual visit from the Layton Graphics sales rep trying to sell me something. Layton Graphics was an Atlanta blueprint company. I never needed blueprint services so I politely listened and sent the sales rep on his way. In 2005 that changed when the sale rep demonstrated his company’s eye-opener GeoPDF, a significant leap in GIS-enabled map publishing. With the invention of the GeoPDF, the company was reformed as TerraGo, and the rest, shall we say, is history.

    Screenshot of Edge on an iPhone showing data capture points in red and current location in blue.
    Screenshot of Edge on an iPhone showing data capture points in red and current location in blue.

    Until GeoPDFs, we published our GIS data as Shapefiles on CDs and relied on users to display the data correctly using their own GIS software. Since many new GIS users had no cartographic training the resultant maps frequently looked terrible or, even worse, completely misrepresented the data. As the publishers of the raw data, we frequently got blamed for some very crappy-looking maps- including those created by our own ARC transportation and land-use planners. GeoPDFs changed that since the cartography remained intact. Not until Esri’s Map Publisher, now ArcGIS Publisher, and subsequent cartographic tools was cartography preserved as the originator intended.

    A GeoPDF was a single Adobe document that bundled GIS data, imagery and resultant maps into one compact file with no lost data files, no improperly displayed data and no incorrect data pointers. The Acrobat file was, in effect, an interactive GIS map display that permitted a user to pan, zoom, turn layers on and off, view, import social media and navigate 3D models and many other functions in one single compact file. GeoPDFs proved so valuable that they became the Army’s and other federal agencies’ geospatial publication method of choice.

    The Next Geospatial Leap

    Recently, TerraGo made another geospatial technology leap, doing for geospatial data collection what the company did for geospatial data display. TerraGo streamlined and sped up geospatial data collection with its new product, TerraGo Edge. TerraGo Edge is a cloud-based application that works on PCs, tablets and even smartphones. A user downloads the app and can then build a data-collection environment that is completely tailored to the needs of an organization. Field personnel can then rapidly collect enterprise data using a PC, tablet or smartphone with very little training and no additional software. The application permits the collection of tabular data, photographs, video clips and more that are georeferenced using the mobile device’s built-in GPS to locate each data point. All data is saved in the cloud and instantly shareable with designated users.

    Now the even better news: If the network connection is lost or weak, the field collection can continue in the disconnected environment. The collected data is stored locally, then automatically synced when the connection is restored. The simplicity of the system and disconnected use may help make the Army’s Future Combat Systems vision, in which each soldier is a data user and data collector, a cost-effective reality.

    Field Test

    Bryan Burns of TerraGo collects data with his iPhone and Bluetooth-connected Bad Elf GPS.
    Bryan Burns of TerraGo collects data with his iPhone and Bluetooth-connected Bad Elf GPS.

    I had to see the system in actual operation, so I paid a visit to the TerraGo Atlanta offices last week. Scott Lee and Bryan Burns of TerraGo gave me a full demo. I previously loaded the TerraGo trial app on my iPhone, which you can also do by going to your app store and downloading the free trial application. The software is fairly intuitive, and I was able to shoot a georeferenced picture and record some notes on my own. Bryan and Scott demonstrated the more advanced Edge features, especially the creation of custom collection forms that greatly speed data collection by field users.

    Form creation is an important aspect of Edge, because it not only speeds data collection, it also reduces the chance of errors. As most of you know, sloppy data capture can really corrupt a database. Poor spelling, missed keystrokes, etc., can make database searches difficult and even result in missed records. Developers have found that entry errors can be minimized and collection speed enhanced with several simple data collection tools and techniques that are part of TerraGo Edge. Some of these include the use of pull-down menus for frequently used terms, numeric/alphanumeric entry key restrictions, checkboxes, the use of “radio buttons” for multiple choices, and others. As a result, field users can collect data as quickly as they can walk from one location to another with minimal data entry errors or corruption.

    How Much Does It Cost?

    $360 per year, with up to three devices. If you want TerraGo to host your operation, storing and backing up your data, that’s another $360 per year. The only additional cost, assuming you already have a smartphone, is additional GPS hardware to achieve better accuracy than the native 5 meters of a smartphone. The additional hardware cost depends on your accuracy needs. A Bad Elf plug-in device gives you 2-meter accuracy for $300 and 1-meter accuracy for $600. Better is a sub-meter accuracy iSX Blue II for $2,000, and even an RTK centimeter system, the EOS Arrow 200, for $6,000. This graph shows the hardware comparisons.

    Keep in mind that the GPS units permit data collection even if disconnected, and all available GPS metadata is captured with each fix, so additional post-processing could be done at a later date if needed. The system also comes with a ton of GeoPDF maps, vector data such as OpenStreetMap, WMS feeds and imagery to serve as a backdrop for your data collection. As you would expect, the data you collect can be saved and exported in popular formats such as Esri Shapefiles, KML and GeoPackage, the new OGC handheld standard being supported by AGC and NGA.

    How Good Is It?

    This image shows the water fountain in front of the TerraGo offices. The green dots show the data points I captured with the Bad Elf Bluetooth GPS.
    This image shows the water fountain in front of the TerraGo offices. The green dots show the data points I captured with the Bad Elf Bluetooth GPS.

    We then went outside for a short data-collection test using the Bad Elf Bluetooth GPS. It was easy to pair the Bad Elf to my iPhone, and I was able to collect data as fast as I could walk from one location to another.  Since this was a short test in the open, I couldn’t judge how quick data collection would be in less than ideal conditions such as building canyons or tree canopy cover. I’d certainly want to spend a day collecting under different conditions to get an accurate feel for the speed, accuracy and reliability of each hardware option in a production environment.

    Go to the TerraGo website for a much deeper dive. Edge looks like it will give the competition a real run for the money, not to mention the very significant smartphone accuracy improvements being tested in the labs. So, in short, you can have in your hand a networked GPS datalogger with up to cm accuracy that can operate in a disconnected environment. It seems like smartphones are slowly replacing our stand-alone devices — watches, media players, digital/video cameras, car navigation, compass, level, PC and flashlight. I can even use my iPhone as a magnetometer. Now, even high-end GPS dataloggers are in the smartphone crosshairs.

    A good way to see TerraGo Edge in action will be the GPS World webinar at 1300 EDT May 28. Registration is free.

    P.S. With Mother’s Day and Memorial Day coming up soon, I’d like to call your attention to my column last year. We frequently read about the bravery and hardships of our military, but the families at home not so much. The mother in the column was so selfless I can’t forget her. You won’t either.

  • Georeferenced Full Motion Video: Mitigating a Difficult ‘Big Data’ Problem

    Global-Hawk-W
    The unmanned drone RQ-4 Global Hawk in flight in 2007 (Image credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Bobbi Zapka)

    By Art Kalinski, GISP

    For more than a decade, the military has been struggling with cataloging and retrieving its huge libraries of full motion video (FMV). The video, captured by both manned and unmanned aircraft, rapidly reached unmanageable levels. If you have ever tried to organize vacation photos after returning home from a long trip, you know that it’s easy to lose track of where each photo was taken. Date/time stamps help, but the effort is still difficult if your vacation took you to numerous locations.

    The U.S. Air Force Beech King Air 350-ISR and 350ER-ISR MC-12W PLA (Project Liberty Aircraft). Courtesy PLA.
    The manned U.S. Air Force Beech King Air 350 and 350ER MC-12W Project Liberty Aircraft are designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).

    Now imagine trying to retrieve several critical minutes out of thousands of hours of video of barren land or repetitive-looking villages, and you get a sense of the magnitude of the problem. Without some way to catalog the video, critical details can be lost, because finding the right video clip becomes impossible in a reasonable period of time. Everyone agreed that the solution to the problem is to index the video clips by date/time and location, preferably with an exact georeferenced footprint. This is now possible with tools from Esri, Hexagon Geospatial and others.

    Several years ago, at the USGIF GEOINT Tech Days, Sarnoff (SRI) demonstrated a system that pinned aerial video to its geographic footprint and maintained that registration despite the movement of the aircraft. It was an achievement that impressed everyone in the audience. I changed jobs soon after that conference and lost track of developments in the FMV field.  At the February Esri Federal Users Conference, I was thrilled to see Jack Dangermond briefly demonstrate the same kind of FMV georeferencing capability in ArcGIS 10.2 during his opening plenary session. I learned that Esri developed the capability in 2013, and later learned that Intergraph (Hexagon Geospatial) also developed a similar capability in 2010.

    MISB: The Critical Improvement

    The key technical development that made this possible was NGA’s creation of “Motion Imagery Standards” and the Motion Imagery Standards Board (MISB). The MISB developed standards for a consistent way to capture and record telemetry data during the video capture as metadata that becomes part of the video stream. This “Open Standard” metadata includes information such as the accurate xyz location of the aircraft, attitude, tilt, camera angle, and camera characteristics. This information travels with the individual video frames and permits the GIS/viewing software to perform the georeferencing.

    This process is very similar to the oblique imagery capture system used for years by Pictometry, which at 20 FPS was technically FMV. MISB like Pictometry requires accurate GPS and IMU data to continuously capture and record the metadata. The MISB also gets involved with video compression standards such as the newer H.264 used on Blu-Ray discs and streaming video. H.264 has, for the most part, replaced MPEG2 and older MPEG4 as the video compression standard of choice. Much of the video captured by low-end small UAVs is just a simple video stream with no MISB telemetry data. However, I’m sure that lower prices, increased capability and smaller size of sensors will fix that with time. Sorry, no one has yet figured a way to “hack in” the metadata for legacy video captured without the MISB telemetry data. The one exception is those videos that contain usable telemetry data that was burned into the video and can be read with OCR. It might be possible to insert that information as MISB-compliant data.

    The ArcGIS Full Motion Video Add-In

    The ArcGIS Full Motion Video 1.2 Add-In (for ArcGIS 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3) is a free tool for ArcGIS users. It permits users to play georeferenced live or previously recorded video files in the map view.  The screen capture below shows several features of this tool and is from an online video.

    The re-sizeable smaller window displays the video as it runs. The map view shows a changing footprint (green trapezoid) of the video as the aircraft flies over the site.  The short green line shows the flight path of the aircraft.  Demonstrating the interconnectivity of the two data sets, the user in the demo video drew a light blue polygon on the map view.  Note that the Esri Intersect function re-projects and displays the same polygon correctly in the video view.

    Frames from the video can be extracted as single georeferenced images or groups of images and stored as a mosaic dataset. Playback of time-stamped video data can be synchronized with other time-enabled data and played together on the map. Features can be digitized directly on the video player and will appear on the map and vice versa.

    The extension supports playback and management of multiple simultaneous video feeds. The Add-In also allows you to record the sensor, frame center, and footprint data in a geodatabase so the Bookmark Manager can perform searches for bookmarked video scenes. For more information regarding the Esri FMV tool, visit this ArcGiS site.

    esri-FMV-W

    Hexagon Geospatial GeoMedia Motion Video Analyst Professional

    Another robust FMV system that takes advantage of MISB telemetry is GeoMedia Motion Video Analyst Professional (MVA) from Hexagon Geospatial. The Hexagon Geospatial system includes tools to catalog videos as geospatial features with attributes extracted from the metadata, and has some elegant graphic selection tools that help an operator search and retrieve needed video clips.

    In the screen capture below, you can see the map view with the geo-registered color video overlaid on the black-and-white ortho base image. As the video plays, the georeferenced video footprint continuously moves to the correct location as the tracking graphics in red show the position of the aircraft. The transparency of the video can be adjusted so an operator can compare features between the base image and the video and digitize directly in the map window.

    MVA also includes a full set of tools for placing clipmarks as geospatial features with attributes and linked to the cataloged video, extracting snapshots and videos clips, on-the-fly enhancements, stabilization, registration and more. The system also facilitates rapid report generation so as an operator searches and plays appropriate video clips, the same operator or a partner can rapidly generate reports as documents or PowerPoint presentations in minutes. Another feature of the system is a “de-hazing” tool that removes a surprising amount of haze or smoke.

    See a very good video overview of GeoMedia Motion Video Analyst Professional on this Hexagon Geospatial page. Like the Esri video, both are far better at explaining the capabilities than I can in this short column.

    hexagon fmv

    Other defense contractors are taking advantage of the MISB metadata, so check with your provider. Although these systems found their first home with military analysts, the Esri and Hexagon Geospatial reps indicated that many other users are finding the capability valuable in their work. Emergency operations centers come to mind first, but more mundane uses include rail and utility property management, the news media and video used in court proceedings. So, if you shoot lots of aerial video and need to catalog and retrieve video clips quickly, consider using MISB in your capture process.

  • The Accidental Super Power

    Geography Paints Both Rosy and Grim Picture of the World

    In the late ’80s, as a graduate student at UNC Charlotte, I was learning about “New Geography” using a cutting-edge technology called GIS (Geographic Information Systems). One of our professors coined a perfect definition of what made this New Geography different from traditional cataloging of locations and attributes. Quoting Dr. Gerald Ingalls, “Old geography dealt with the simple question: What is where? New geography, using analytical tools such as GIS, is now able to answer: Why what is where.” So knowing the quantifiable “why” hopefully gives us insight into ways to shape and mitigate geography-related problems.

    bookIt’s easy to focus on the technology aspects of GIS and forget the reason for our tradecraft. I was reminded of that reason when I recently read a book that took me back to our geospatial roots and demonstrates New Geography exceptionally well. The book, The Accidental Superpower by Peter Zeihan, effectively uses geography and analytics to explain how the world has been shaped and is evolving. In his book, Mr. Zeihan links many current geopolitical events to geography, demographics and the 1944 Bretton Woods settlement which to me is one of the clearest examples of American exceptionalism.

    Bretton Woods

    For those of you not familiar with Bretton Woods, it was pretty much the United States telling the rest of the world how things will be after the pending end of WWII. The U.S. had turned the tide of war, built up its own industrial power while not suffering home-front damage, and had fashioned the world’s strongest Navy. You can imagine the shock of world leaders when they learned that the U.S. was not looking for reparations or even new land other than enough to bury their dead. Instead, the U.S. was going to open its markets to the world, use its Navy to protect free trade, and even help rebuild devastated countries with programs like the Marshall Plan. All has been pretty good for the past 70 years as Bretton Woods created a global holiday from instability. However, according to Mr. Zeihan, the forces of geography, demographics and new technology will unravel Bretton Woods and slowly change the world.

    The Bretton Woods Conference, 1944.
    The Bretton Woods Conference, 1944.

    Geographic Factors in the Analysis

    We all learned in high school geography that severe climates such as frigid or oppressive tropical climates stifle civilizations, while more temperate climates help civilizations advance. Those are very broad generalizations, but the world is more complex than that, and Peter Zeihan has woven detailed geography into a complex picture of the world. He cites many factors that uniquely and collectively benefit the United States but are shortcomings to a greater or lesser extent in other countries. Key factors included farmable land, rivers and coastal ports for economic trade, oil, industrial capacity, education, demographics and others. In the lottery of world geography, the U.S. has been blessed. I would add that the character of its citizens also plays a key role.

    MS "E.R. Shanghai"

    Although there are critics of some of Zeihan’s conclusions and predictions, there is no doubt that his book is an exceptionally detailed compendium of countries and the geopolitical pressures that affect them. He focuses strongly on the presence of rivers, since they provide very cheap transportation of commodities thus reducing the need for many transportation infrastructure projects. The book gets into great detail about countries that most of us can’t even point to on a world map such as Kazakhstan, Turkistan, Uzbekistan and other stans. He explains why many factors bode well for Uzbekistan, but not so much for Russia and China. He shows why Russia considers keeping Ukraine in its camp absolutely vital to its own survival.

    One surprise was the case he built that Alberta, Canada, may be motivated to leave its non-supportive national government to join a more like-minded and geographically connected United States. This would completely open the U.S. market for Alberta grain and oil while providing seamless transportation throughout the U.S. Additionally, as a state, the Keystone pipeline would not fall under State Department or executive review.

    Demographics

    Mr. Zeihan addresses the importance of demographics using a well-known example, Japan. Low birth rates and limited immigration have placed Japan into the difficult position of supporting an increasingly older population with fewer and fewer young citizens. This inverted population pyramid is a pure numbers issue that cannot be solved quickly. He shows how many European countries are trending in the same direction on a slightly later schedule. Russia is suffering from both lower birth rates and decreased education of its population. By contrast, better birth rates and better educated immigrants are preventing an inverted pyramid here in the U.S.

    Technology

    Mr. Zeihan highlights technology as playing an important role in raising or lowering the importance of some geographic factors. Two in particular have snuck up on the radar: fracking and 3D printing. Who would have thought that the U.S. would be on a path to becoming the world’s largest energy producer thanks to fracking? This will obviously diminish our need for Mideast oil and have a very serious effect on small unfriendly oil producers such as Venezuela, who is already seeing a drop in sales of its relatively hard-to-refine black oil. (Note the political unrest there this week as oil revenues decline.)

    I wrote about the potential impact on industry of 3D printing last year, and Peter Zeihan seems to share that opinion. As manufacturing moves closer to the consumer, jobs in China will decline, as will the need of transoceanic shipment of finished goods. The result: the U.S. will see a rebirth of local manufacturing.

    Rings containing superconducting magnets will confine the plasma inside the reaction chamber. (Credit: Eric Schulzinger/Lockheed Martin)
    Rings containing superconducting magnets will confine the plasma inside the reaction chamber. (Credit: Eric Schulzinger/Lockheed Martin)

    If fracking and 3D printing are going to be significant factors, imagine what will happen to the world order if the recent announcement by Lockheed Martin that its researchers have cracked compact fusion comes to fruition. This was announced too late for inclusion in Mr. Zeihan’s book, but my guess is that he would consider it to be the quintessential game changer. It would affect many geographic factors — lower the cost of all transportation, expand industry, desalinate water cheaply, make marginal land farmable, negate the limitations of oil/gas access and do all of this while reducing pollution, increasing safety and eliminating the ability to militarize this form of nuclear power.

    Conclusion

    I was only able to touch on a few key points in Peter Zeihan’s book. The total picture is very complex. It was clearly well researched and logically thought through. I have only two criticisms. First, Mr. Zeihan stated that he has “always loved maps,” but this book has mediocre black-and-white maps that are less than ideal to display complex geography. It screams for decent color maps, if not in print at least as supplemental website PDFs.

    Second, the book delves into significant predictions that I believe should be read with a very critical eye. There are many wild cards and personalities that can steer geopolitics. As a former analyst for the geopolitical security firm Stratfor, Mr. Zeihan worked for George Friedman, the co-author of the 1991 book The Coming War with Japan. I’m glad that didn’t come true.

    I know that for many of you working in the intel community this will be very basic information and analysis that is your daily bread and butter. For the rest of us, it’s a good overview and I recommend getting this book. It will be a handy reference, if for no other reason than to sound knowledgeable at water cooler debates. However, I believe that its value is more serious than that and will prove repeatedly useful as an overarching insight as history unfolds.

  • what3words: A new way to identify any 3-meter location gains traction

    what3words

    what3words (w3w) is such a simple concept that I’m kicking myself for not think of it first. Developed in 2013, what3words is gaining traction with many non-GIS users as a more user-friendly way of identifying locations. It’s a system of 3-meter grid cells covering the Earth’s surface, with each cell identified with a unique three-word group.

    The three words don’t mean anything, but like the phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta…) used in radio communications, the words make it easy to communicate and easy to remember. By contrast, a long string of lat long degrees, minutes and seconds, or MGRS characters are tedious to copy, hard to remember and easy to screw up.

    Additionally, because the w3w cells are small, communicating an exact location is easy. So, if I wanted to meet someone at a large sporting event in the parking lot or particular gate, the unique 3-meter cell puts me face-to-face with my colleague. Since the words follow no particular hierarchy or grouping, an error in one word would be very obvious or show zero return.

    See the video at the what3words website for a full explanation. My guess is that very soon your business card will not only list your address, but the three word location of the right door to enter your building and perhaps even your cubical location, once indoor location technology is perfected.

    My column is short for now because I’ll be attending the Esri Federal GIS Conference in Washington next week.  I’ll be posting video clips from the conference and expo, so watch this space Monday and Tuesday for highlights.

  • Geospatial Technology 2015: One Man’s View of Life’s Swinging Pendulum

    Navy OCS Newport. (Photo by Photographer's Mate Second Class Mark A. Ebert)
    Navy OCS Newport. (Photo by Photographer’s Mate Second Class Mark A. Ebert)

    In 1971, I was traveling from Navy boot camp to OCS at Newport, Rhode Island.  While walking through Logan Airport, I passed some Vietnam protesters. A young hippie girl came up to me from the group and looked at my red National Defense service ribbon (a generic ribbon given to everyone for merely being in the service). Flicking the ribbon she scowled and asked “How many babies did you kill to get that medal?” Taken aback by her question, I answered the only way I could to someone so naive and clueless. I said, “To be honest with you, I lost count.”

    Fortunately, the public-perception pendulum swung back, reaching a high point after Desert Storm and more so after 9/11. Everyone remembers what they were doing when the Twin Towers were hit. I was in the middle of teaching an ArcView II class at the Atlanta Regional Commission. That week, I made three predictions to my colleagues.

    1. We are going to war. We did.
    2. We are going to take a 10% economic hit. We did, although later than I thought.
    3. Although almost everyone, including Rosie O’Donnell, was waving the flag, wearing NYPD caps, and extolling the virtues of our first responders and the military, I predicted that within 7-10 years they would forget the horror and be calling us baby killers again. The recent dissing of the NSA, CIA and, most recently, the police, is putting us on track for that prediction.

    Although real statistics show that life continues to get better for everyone despite the doom and gloom media, I do believe that we will see setbacks as the world faces numerous asymmetrical threats. So what does all this have to do with our geospatial community? A lot. No matter where the pendulum is, our country has to use every intel tool at our disposal to maintain vigilance. Killing bad guys with drones and taking no prisoners certainly doesn’t help our HUMINT (human intelligence) efforts, so more has to be accomplished by other means, with geospatial technology playing a key role. In 20 years we’ve seen significant changes in geospatial technology, and 2015 should be no exception.

    Oblique Imagery and 3D Models

    I believe that 2015 will see an explosion of oblique imagery and 3D models. Moore’s Law proves valid as hardware speed and capabilities expand. There are numerous overhead and ground-capture systems, manned and unmanned, that are driving costs down and resolution up, with significantly more imagery available. Countless programmers are working night and day to develop the preeminent tool to build 3D models. 3D navigation and exploitation tools should also continue to improve.

    I’ve written on how many people have difficulty orienting themselves with abstract maps or even ortho imagery. By contrast, oblique imagery and 3D models help non-GIS personnel with rapid perception of an operational picture. Some ask why bother with the expense and effort needed to create 3D models when four-way obliques are almost as good? The key reason is police, military and first responders frequently need to be able to measure angles, distance, lines of sight and visibility within a 3D environment, such as one rooftop to another. That’s difficult to do without a metric geo-referenced 3D model. Additionally, if UAVs, micro UAVs, and even nano UAVs see expanded use, interior navigation will be critical. Perhaps someone will finally develop a reliable interior-location tracking system with LiDAR data, BIM Models or accurate 3D models as the navigation map.

    For over a decade, Pictometry International has been the key provider of georeferenced metric oblique imagery, but the Pictometry patents have expired and many new players are entering the market with both aerial and ground-capture systems, plus 3D model creation. Here is a partial list of oblique and 3D model players to watch in 2015:

    • Acute3D. This French company offers software that produces high-resolution 3D models from simple photographs, without any human intervention.
    • AEgis Technologies Group, Inc. Builders of detailed 3D models for military and major security applications.
    • Agisoft LLC. A Russian company that created Agisoft PhotoScan, a photogrammetric software for 3D reconstruction, visualization, surveying and mapping.
    • Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. This Denver-based office developed a new technology that creates real-time 3D models by shooting and merging a co-bore-sighted LiDAR and optical image to create real-time 3D models.
    • BlomOBLIQUE. A former Pictometry partner now on its own, primarily in Europe.
    • CyberCity 3D, Inc. CyberCity 3D specializes in 3D GIS buildings focused on urban planning and analysis, visualization, real estate, solar, rainwater, and sustainability.
    • CycloMedia Technology, Inc. A Dutch-based U.S. firm doing ground-level metric oblique imagery. I wrote about them in February.
    • Euclideon Geoverse. An Australian firm that developed tools that permit almost instant access to massive point cloud or imagery data. Watch the video.

      • Fugro. Fugro’s PanoramiX imagery and PX Mapper software look promising.
      • GEOSPAN, Corp. This firm is capturing imagery of Cook County Illinois and planning to release automated 3D modeling software this year.
      • ICAROS. This well-established mapping firm has expanded into metric oblique imagery. Watch the video.

    • IDAN Computers Ltd. An Israeli company that developed the tools to capture metric oblique imagery almost at the same time as Pictometry, but were only a few months behind Pictometry in filing a patent. IDAN’s Oblivision technology has seen extensive use overseas, and its IMPS (IDAN Mission Planning System) was used in real-world homeland security and military actions in the Middle East. IDAN was recently awarded a U.S. patent for automatic generation of 3D models of structures using real facade textures obtained from its geo-referenced oblique images. Watch the video.

    • MosaicMill, Ltd. This geospatial technology company in Finland was established in 2009. The company is the developer of the EnsoMOSAIC aerial survey system and EnsoMOSAIC photogrammetric software designed for UAV captured data.
    • NearMap. This Australian firm has been doing very high refresh rate ortho imagery focused on construction, but is now getting into the oblique market. Read more here.
    • Pix4D. This company has generated a lot of buzz related to its Pix4Dmapper, which automatically creates 3D models from imagery captured by any type of camera or platform, including small UAVs.
    PLW Modelworks 3D model of San Francisco.
    PLW Modelworks 3D model of San Francisco.
    • PLW Modelworks. In my opinion, PLW Modelworks 3D models are still the gold standard of 3D models. Although not quick or cheap, nothing comes close to these photo-realistic and photo-accurate 3D models. Note their key role in Birdly, discussed below.
    • Raytheon. I wrote about Raytheon’s automated system to build 3D models from satellite imagery in August.
    • Sanborn. Founded in 1866, the Sanborn Map Company is expanding significantly into oblique imagery and 3D models.

    The Cloud

    No discussion of 2015 would be complete without mention of “The Cloud.” I wrote about one cloud-based application last year. We still have a long way to go to achieve the grand vision, but the Carbon Project may come closer to the dream than any application I’ve seen so far.

    The Carbon Project is building a unified cloud-based system for the State of North Carolina that will roll out this spring. The project addresses two key issues that have been a problem for years — data disparity from multiple sources and loss of connectivity. The system will continuously ingest geospatial data from all NC counties and seamlessly correct formats and data labels to one standard without changing the original data. Additionally, for those of us who have experienced paralysis during critical events due to loss of connectivity, the Carbon Project can automatically cache data locally once an area of interest is defined.

    Note this example using Carbon Project technology to test an Electronic Flight Bag for the FAA. Some pilots no longer have to lug around a 40-pound case of paper charts and manuals, just a tablet.
    Note this example using Carbon Project technology to test an Electronic Flight Bag for the FAA. Some pilots no longer have to lug around a 40-pound case of paper charts and manuals, just a tablet.

    Social Media / Cyber Warfare

    Initially, it seemed like “location” wouldn’t be a factor in the cyber world other than to monitor threats to our infrastructure such as the power grid, but we’ve all learned differently. There is a growing capability and need to map networks, nodes and server locations. Additionally, many tools have been developed that can identify location components within the content of social media, and the technology will continue to improve and grow in importance, especially for the intel community as HUMINT dries up.

    A seemingly small improvement comes from ClearTerra with its product LocateXT. LocateXT rapidly scans unstructured textual documents searching for location information such as geo-coordinates or place names, then automatically creates formatted geospatial files such as Shapefiles and KMLs. On first glance, this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, until one realizes the man-hours that manual searches and conversion would take on thousands of documents, including massive social-media files.

    birdly2Augmented / Virtual Reality

    So, what is this young lady doing? She is flying through a virtual but real-life 3D model. See what happens when you merge GIS, ortho/oblique imagery, PLW Modelworks 3D models, Occulus Rift 3D goggles, UAVs, GPS and virtual reality. By the way, don’t put this in the same category as a video game. Gamers use a lot of cloning and textures, so they don’t have to handle real-life data files. Birdly, a bird-flight simulator, uses photo accurate geo-referenced imagery and models. Perhaps Birdly is the future of UAV control and remote data capture. Learn more about Birdly:

    With this column, I felt like one of the blind men trying to describe an elephant, since my view of the geospatial community is limited. Most likely you have a different view based on your position and experience. Please share your predictions for 2015 in the comments section based on your view of our community.

    Hopefully, the public perception pendulum will start swinging back this year.

  • Is College Worth the Price? Yes, If Your Major is Geospatial

    Two weeks ago, CNN had a special airing of the two hour documentary Ivory Tower. The movie, which was released earlier this year, dealt with the growing problem of the increased cost of going to college, growing student debt — now approaching 1.3 trillion dollars, and the inability of students to find employment in their field. The movie raised some important issues and used the plight of the prestigious but small 950-student Cooper Union College in New York City as an example.

    The private engineering, architecture and arts college established in 1859 was funded by a very large endowment, and up until last year tuition was free for those lucky students who could get in. However, construction of a $170 million building, high administrative costs (the college president’s salary was reported at $750,000) and some less-than-ideal management decisions resulted in financial disaster and the need to start charging tuition last year. That action prompted a student revolt that is still unresolved.

    Original Cooper Union building.
    Original Cooper Union building.
    New classroom building.
    New classroom building.

    A Politically Incorrect Omission

    This example was used to highlight that perhaps colleges have lost their way by concentrating more on prestige rather than education. The size and cost of administration has risen significantly. Universities seem to be competing for bragging rights with each other through massive and luxurious construction projects while state funding diminishes. More time is spent doing high profile research by the faculty members while part time graduate students or adjunct professors actually teach the classes.

    The disappointing thing about the Ivory Tower movie was the hand-wringing and focus on the high cost and poor job opportunities. However, they seemed to avoid the gorilla in the room — the choice of majors. One would think that someone smart enough to go to college would be smart enough to research job opportunities resulting from chosen majors. I had a colleague who lamented that his daughter graduated from a well-known New England college $80,000 in debt and was only able to land a $28,000 a year position — her major, journalism. I heard similar stories for other non-technical graduates.

    It’s painful and it may not be politically correct, but some degrees are harder to earn and do pay more. I fault colleges for painting a rosier picture than is deserved for many non-technical majors. My son struggled through engineering school and his friends through computer science, accounting and pharmacy schools, but all got hired quickly and are doing quite well even in this weak economy. The real-life lesson, get a degree in a difficult and needed profession.

    Thanksgiving

    So what does this have to do with the geospatial community? This Thanksgiving I was thankful again that in 1989 I made the decision to pursue a master’s degree in GIS. I struggled with some of the course work, programming and learning ArcInfo 3.0 which was especially confusing at the time because it operated on Sun, DEC or Silicon Graphics workstations running UNIX, so one had to mentally separate the AI commands from the equally unfamiliar UNIX commands. For those of us who finished the master’s program it’s been full employment ever since. However, like other professions, the learning can’t stop, and we in the geospatial community are especially lucky, since there are many education opportunities ranging from brick and mortar schools to online and non-traditional education in subjects related to geospatial. Geospatial is also different from some professions in that there are many entry-level positions that don’t require a four-year college degree. Experience in those positions can be leveraged and ultimately expanded with online, college and graduate-level work to higher level positions.

    When I started work in GIS in the early ’90s, we were happy just to be able to digitize paper maps and reprint them with needed updates. We did some limited analysis using buffers and overlays but not at the level found today. Today, geospatial technology has evolved to a point of ubiquity. We regularly collect a variety of imagery sources including satellite, aerial, LiDAR, UAV and ground collection with optical/multispectral sensors. Operations and analysis include the use of multiple online data sources, live AVL GPS tracking, advanced statistical methods, social media overlays, interactive 3D models and virtual reality simulations. Delivery has evolved from single thick client workstations to web services and mobile device apps. All of this requires computer programming skills that are evolving daily.

    So?

    So what does this mean to you? First, if you have the ear of high school students, try to steer them to an education that will actually get them a job. An easy major may facilitate a lot of partying, but they may be living with their parents for years after graduation. On the flip side, not everyone is suited for college and there are many trades that pay extremely well and offer rewarding and secure careers including geospatial technology.

    Second, if you are in the geospatial field, don’t rest on your initial training. We all need to stay relevant, and there is a growing list of non-traditional online education that can build the skills and capabilities of new and existing geospatial professionals. When I was the GIS manager for the Atlanta Regional Commission in the ’90s. we needed someone who was an expert in dynamic segmentation, routes and linear referencing for our transportation planning and modeling. We didn’t have that talent in-house, and I would have hired anyone with that specific skill set — degree or no degree. We were fortunate in finding a graduate student with both the needed skills and broad GIS experience.

    Emerging Education Opportunities

    There has been a growing list of online education opportunities. For years Esri has been offering GIS classroom and online software courses, Microsoft programming courses and the Kahn Academy expanded online education with MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) in many subject areas. More recently, edX, Coursera and the well-publicized Udacity, co-founded by Sebastian Thrun inventor of Google Glass. Udacity offers many technical online classes including a Georgia Tech Massive Online Master’s Degree in Computer Science. Add to this UnCollege, a social movement aiming to change the notion that “going to college is the only path to success,” and you can see that traditional colleges are in a potentially disruptive environment. Just like Uber and transportation.

    Penn-State-GEOINT-W

    GEOINT Education Success Story

    For many years, Pennsylvania State University has been a leader in online geospatial education. Penn State offers both a United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) accredited post-baccalaureate certificate in GEOINT applications and a graduate certificate in GEOINT analytics. Continuing the tradition of providing open educational resources, recently Penn State began to provide free geospatial MOOCs through Coursera.

    The joint effort of Dr. Max Baber of USGIF and Dr. Todd Bacastow of Penn State puts Penn State among the eight universities that have achieved USGIF academic accreditation including Northeastern University, University of Redlands, the University of Utah, West Point, U.S. Air Force Academy, the University of Texas at Dallas, George Mason University and the University of Missouri.

    According to Bacastow, a West Point graduate and retired Army major, Penn State’s for-credit program has served more than 5,000 students with about 2,500 of these students having already completed. The mapping MOOC has served more than 70,000 students. The GEOINT MOOC will open on January 14, 2015. You can view a video of Dr. Bacastow explaining the GEOINT MOOC here.

    He cited numerous success stories including: a wife of a deployed sailor who earned her certificate and is now a lead geospatial architect at a three-letter agency; a severely injured Iraq Army vet who is now a contractor for NGA; a former infantry officer who now fills a key geospatial position at CENTCOM; and the stories continue with NGA currently trying to fill more than 1,000 positions.

    Bottom line — don’t stop learning.  The opportunities are there, especially geospatial.

    P.S. Lest you think that I don’t take my own medicine, I felt that I was behind the power curve regarding social media and just getting by, so I signed up for a comprehensive online social media course so I could do a deep dive into the systems.