Enables building stakeholders to take accurate measurements based on point clouds
The latest release of the NavVis IndoorViewer 3D building visualization software features a new tool that lets building stakeholders take highly accurate measurements based on point clouds in the realistic 360° image view.
NavVis, global provider of indoor spatial intelligence technology and enterprise solutions, announces the release of NavVis IndoorViewer 2.6. This major software release includes a new measurement tool that lets users take highly accurate measurements based on point clouds in realistic browser-based digital buildings.
This release also makes additional features available to structured e57 point cloud files, including automatically generating highly detailed floor plans and routing.
NavVis IndoorViewer is a popular deliverable among building stakeholders without the technical expertise to work with point clouds and modeling software, thanks to the realistic digital buildings and intuitive interface.
One of the features that has proven to be useful among users across multiple industries is the measurement tool. It enables users to take measurements remotely on any device, saving time otherwise spent traveling to the site.
The release of version 2.6 of NavVis IndoorViewer marks a major advance in the accuracy of virtual measurement tools. The tool has been redesigned to overcome two of the biggest problems with virtual measurement tools – accuracy and usability.
On the one hand, point cloud measurements are quite accurate. But often these software tools are not accessible or even usable for a wide range of building stakeholders who lack the expertise in working with point clouds. If, on the other hand, the tool uses images or even meshes, which are much more user-friendly than point clouds, the tools are usually not reliable enough to produce accurate results.
The new measurement tool in NavVis IndoorViewer combines the best of both worlds, thanks to a patent-pending magnifying feature that appears when taking measurements in the realistic 360° view. The magnifying feature reveals the exact section of the point cloud behind the image and lets users pick the point cloud point as the basis for a measurement while benefiting from the intuitive interface of the fully immersive walkthrough.
“When redesigning the measurement tool in NavVis IndoorViewer, we wanted to make sure that a wide range of stakeholders in every industry that works with built environments could benefit from the accuracy of point clouds when taking virtual measurements,” said Georg Schroth, NavVis CTO. “We are confident that the new magnifying feature in NavVis IndoorViewer achieves our goal. Now even stakeholders that are unfamiliar with point clouds have an easy, intuitive way to take measurements based on this highly accurate real world data.”
In addition to making strides in the accuracy of remote measurements, the interface of the tool has also been fully redesigned. This includes a new slider function that lets users view the 2D floor plan and 3D walkthrough side-by-side or move from one view to the other.
The dual view provides an overview of the entire building so that users can easily locate an asset or area while also viewing the location in the realistic 360° view. The fully immersive walkthrough makes it possible to virtually move through the area being measured or inspect the asset, as if the user were on site. Measurements being taken show up in both views.
The release of NavVis IndoorViewer 2.6 also introduces new feature support for e57 point cloud files captured by static scanners. Previous NavVis IndoorViewer releases have included a popular feature that lets laser scanning professionals upload structured e57 point cloud files and automatically generate realistic, fully immersive 360° walkthroughs that can be published and shared with clients as a web-based link.
With the release of NavVis IndoorViewer 2.6, two popular features that were previously only compatible with scan data captured by NavVis hardware are now available for point clouds uploaded as structured e57 files. The first is the generation of a navigation graph, which makes it possible to turn static scans into a fully immersive indoor routing tool. The second is the automatic generation of highly detailed floor plans. Now point cloud files uploaded as structured e57 files can be turned into digital floor plans in a few clicks.
Dutch company NEO B.V. is using SimActive’s Correlator3D software to assess solar potential in multiple cities. (Image: SimActive)
SimActive’s Correlator3D software is being used by by Dutch company NEO B.V. to assess solar potential in multiple cities. Digital surface models (DSMs) are generated from WorldView and GeoEye satellite stereo images and serve to calculate solar panel capacity.
According to SimActive, DSMs covering hundreds of square kilometres are quickly generated by the software. Key metrics to estimate solar potential are then derived, including roof orientation, pitch and shaded areas.
“We have been impressed by the quality of SimActive’s DSMs, especially considering the limited spatial resolution of the imagery”, said Rob Beck, managing director at NEO B.V. “Another definite advantage of Correlator3D is the simplicity of the workflow, making it easy to use by our team.”
SimActive’s Correlator3D software is a patented, end-to-end photogrammetry solution for the generation of high-quality geospatial data from satellite and aerial imagery, including UAVs. Correlator3D performs aerial triangulation and produces dense digital surface models, digital terrain models, point clouds, orthomosaics, 3D models and vectorized 3D features.
The contract is expected to include data acquisition, data processing, quality control and data analytics. Quantum Spatial has bee providing topobathymetric lidar services to NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey Remote Sensing Division since 2013, the company said.
“This is the fourth consecutive contract awarded by NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey to Quantum Spatial covering more than 20 years in support of its mission,” said Kurt Allen, vice president for federal programs at Quantum Spatial. “A joint dedication by NOAA and Quantum Spatial for research and development and applying significant advancements in technology has allowed numerous stakeholders to utilize the near-shore bathymetric foundational data generated by the program.”
Quantum Spatial, an NV5 Global company, is a full-service geospatial solutions provider in North America.
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) published the outcomes of its biggest research and development initiative of 2019, Testbed-15. Key outcomes, including engineering reports, presentations and videos, are available on the Testbed-15 website.
According to OGC, Testbed-15 research was conducted across several fields, including Earth observation data models, applications, catalogues and process delivery; data security in geospatial environments using encrypted containers; federated cloud environments incorporating OGC Open Web Services; secure delta updates to geospatial data in denied, disrupted, intermittent and limited situations; an open portrayal framework and APIs for sharing portrayals of geospatial content; and machine learning models and outputs integrating with OGC Open Web Services.
OGC Testbeds, an annual activity of OGC’s Innovation Program, are multi-vendor, collaborative efforts where participants follow a rapid prototyping approach to design, develop and test solutions to sponsors’ location-related problems. OGC Testbed results, documented in engineering reports, are provided to OGC’s Standards Program, where they are reviewed, revised, and potentially advanced as new international open standards.
Alongside the sixteen engineering reports, Testbed-15 resulted in advancements to the suite of draft OGC APIs, including APIs related to styles, maps, tiles, records and the OGC API-Common building block, OGC said.
OGC Testbed-15 was sponsored by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the European Space Agency, Natural Resources Canada, the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA.
The Open Geospatial Consortium is an international consortium of more than 530 businesses, government agencies, research organizations and universities driven to make geospatial information and services findable, accessible, nteroperable and reusable.
Kinetica simplifies active analytics with Kinetica Cloud
Kinetica, provider of the Kinetica Active Analytics Platform, has unveiled the Kinetica Cloud. Enterprises can use the full capabilities of the Kinetica platform in an optimal cloud environment, which includes historical data analytics, streaming data analytics, location intelligence and machine learning.
Kinetica Cloud was adopted by the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), which used the platform to detect trash in San Francisco Bay.
“The San Francisco Estuary Institute uses Kinetica Cloud for high-performance computing and to manage thousands of high-definition images of the landscape, which our machine learning algorithm studies to detect trash,” said Tony Hale, program director for Environmental Informatics, SFEI.
Photo: Thinkstock/Stockbyte/Getty Images
“With this more systematic way of monitoring when trash enters the landscape in uncontrolled ways, cities and governments that really care about the environment gain a remarkable resource to help them very quickly and effectively make decisions,” Hale said.
“With Kinetica Cloud, organizations across industries gain invaluable business flexibility and agility to direct their mission-critical initiatives,” said Paul Appleby, CEO, Kinetica. “Kinetica Cloud gives customers the ultimate flexibility in a hybrid, multi-cloud environment, empowering them to determine where it is optimal to deploy Kinetica.”
Organizations can use the Kinetica Active Analytics Platform on Kinetica Cloud without the complexity and wait times of deploying hardware systems and software.
“As customers adopt active analytics, they want to start their initiatives quickly to gain insight from their data,” said Karan Batta, senior director, Product Management, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. “We are very pleased that Kinetica Cloud is available for Oracle Cloud, allowing organizations to shift their focus away from infrastructure and towards bringing smart analytical applications to market faster.”
For an industry that makes its living identifying people and objects at a particular point in space, the geolocation industry — made up of applications providers, mapping companies and device manufacturers — has been very slow to make the move from two dimensions (2D) to three dimensions (3D). There is no excuse for this, as the ability to locate in 3D is fully tested and operable. What explains the holdup and what is being done to meet the growing need for 3D solutions?
Industry participants recognize the inevitable move towards 3D but give four main reasons for the delay:
There is a lack of awareness about some of the robust, scalable solutions that are available for deployment today
Businesses continue to make money from 2D applications
The investment required for 3D applications is too high
The eco-system for 3D applications is not fully developed
It seems that applications using location data simply rely on whatever information is made available through devices, mostly driven by GPS. There are more specific location technologies that offer fully tested, citywide vertical location solutions.
Despite years of deployments and generating effective use cases in two dimensions, the industry must do a better job of keeping up with technology advancements, especially those most likely to benefit from 3D location, and articles like this help!
But why is there a lag in the industry to move to a 3D world?
2D complacency
The explanation for the lag in moving to 3D is that the geolocation industry is still making money from 2D applications and, as the old saying goes, “If it’s not broken don’t fix it.”
While it’s true that many non-mission critical applications are getting along fine using 2D and will for the foreseeable future, the need for 3D is now. At a basic level, traffic directions don’t really require a 3D layout of the topography of your daily commute, although I could argue the traffic use case would benefit from knowing whether traffic on a map is on an overpass or ground level roadway. Certainly rideshare companies could benefit from communicating to their customers what level in a parking garage or airport they are on.
Other use cases are demanding more sophisticated 3D technology. One of the initial drivers for high-accuracy 3D (and indoor) location has been the needs of the public safety community. When lives are at stake, first responders require the most specific possible location accuracy in order to quickly find emergency callers and others needing help.
Beginning in April 2021, Emergency Communications Centers (911 call centers) will receive vertical location of emergency callers from wireless carriers. Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems are exploring how best to incorporate this information and direct first responders to the 911 caller’s 3D or floor-level location.
The benefit is obvious, as emergency callers cannot always provide their exact location to the 911 operator, so technology fills the gap. Other industries ranging from mining to healthcare to enterprise security similarly are also demonstrating demand for 3D applications, and we are seeing moves to meet this demand, but there is a long way to go.
High stakes
Another reason for the relatively slow development of 3D applications is the investment required. Even with a demonstrable demand across several industries, many players in the geospatial industry aren’t willing to invest funds to pioneer new solutions.
For every big player like Samsung or Apple, who have committed to developing state-of-the-art 3D sensors in their devices, there are many small players who must instead follow the market and adopt white-label solutions that don’t require as much upfront investment.
While it’s true that some 3D technologies can require significant investment and a committed strategy on the part of geospatial industry players, locating devices in 3D is possible today and there is a huge potential to serve new markets and improve business and consumer applications.
The 3D eco-system
As the market for commercial applications reaches a tipping point where 3D is not just a curiosity but is becoming a must-have for many consumers and businesses, the industry ecosystem must step up and deliver all parts of the solution. The mapping industry presents an interesting use case in this regard.
Digital maps have been in use for years, since the advent of the first fleet tracking devices in the 1980s, which led to the widespread use of consumer car tracking systems, and then onto Waze and other Smartphone-based mapping applications. Even these maps, which are huge advancements over their predecessors, do not fully reflect the 3D world we live in, and generally do not include accurate maps of the indoor environments in which we spend most of our time.
The next step in mapping is the digitization of entire buildings and other structures to create accurate 3D representations. However, even pioneers in this space aren’t fully utilizing 3D technology throughout their product roadmap, and, until there is a fully developed 3D ecosystem, it’s difficult for a company to go ahead alone.
As one leading company explained to us, without a consistent protocol for the use of 3D data and its conversion into 3D maps, they can’t justify converting their entire production from 2D, so they instead create 3D maps as one-offs where needed. They haven’t yet seen the critical mass in the industry required to go full 3D, and they are still working with, and making money from, 2D partners.
They are preparing for the time when the industry is fully 3D, which they believe will come soon.
A 3D world
Stepping back and taking a broader view of where we are, I think we are witnessing an industry in transition. With the deployment of city-wide, scalable location solutions that incorporate location data from a variety of sources, the initial building blocks are in place for the move to a fully 3D world.
Pioneering companies are going after growing demand (and in some cases creating that demand), even with limited resources, and seeding an ecosystem for others to build upon. I would in fact challenge the industry to produce a use case that would not benefit from improved location and 3D awareness — from the daily commute through complex freeway systems to shoppers navigating a multi-story mall to find a specific retailer, to protecting workers running large hotels, and more, the applications are endless and promise to multiply as users realize the benefits of 3D technology.
It is only a matter of time until the location industry will fully embrace the fact that the world indeed is not flat.
About Matt Rothschild
Matt Rothschild
Matt Rothschild is the Mountain View-based Head of 3D Location Customer Engagement for Polaris Wireless. He is a wireless and telecommunications industry leader with more than 20 years’ experience leading sales, marketing, product and operations organizations internationally. Rothschild successfully led sales and marketing teams for Nokia in Asia (Singapore), the Middle East & Africa (Dubai) and the Americas (Miami/Silicon Valley). Most recently, Rothschild led the Nokia/Microsoft acquisition and integration for North America, building partnerships with key mobile operators and channel partners, as well as building important ecosystem and developer relationships for the Windows platform.
Communities in need of resources can access location intelligence technology at no cost with six-month trial
Location intelligence company Esri is making its software available to public and private sector organizations fighting the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The COVID-19 outbreak has escalated rapidly across the globe, and with municipalities struggling to respond, Esri has built out resources to help organizations understand the potential impact of the disease on public health, as well as potential community risk areas and their capacity to respond.
A COVID-19 GIS Hub site provides much of this essential data, including case locations and social vulnerability, that communities and health organizations can use to inform their response.
To help public health agencies and other organizations jump-start their response, Esri is providing the ArcGIS Hub Coronavirus Response template at no cost through a complimentary six-month ArcGIS Online subscription with ArcGIS Hub. The template includes examples, materials, and configurations to rapidly deploy a local ArcGIS Hub environment. ArcGIS Hub is a framework to build a website to visualize and analyze the crisis in the context of an organization’s or community’s population and assets.
“Esri has always prioritized assisting communities during large-scale emergencies and natural disasters,” said Jack Dangermond, Esri founder and president. “For the past 25 years, our Disaster Response Program provides data, software, configurable applications, and technical support for emergency operations. We consider it part of our mission to provide these services free of cost during this time of national crisis.”
For more information on the complimentary software and the disaster relief support, visit esri.com/disaster.
TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS Desktop and Server 7.7.0 is now available, according to the company. It supports ArcGIS versions 10.4 to 10.7.1.
TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS is an extension to Esri ArcGIS that allows users to produce and consume GeoPDF documents with ArcMap. TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS gives you unmatched capabilities for configuring and optimizing the PDF documents you create with ArcGIS, TerraGo said. In addition, the GeoPDF documents made with TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS can be used with the TerraGo Toolbar. They also can be extended to Adobe Acrobat Reader to provide a host of GIS-lite capabilities. These capabilities include an Identify Tool, simultaneous display of multiple geographic coordinates, measurement and geospatial markup.
Other release updates include support for ArcMAP 10.7.1, the addition of Publisher for Server Toolbox and expansive naming capabilities.
Version 7.7.0 also includes a page insert feature, as well as support for Network Common Data Form data formats. It adds Python tools for creating and working with TerraGo GeoPDFs and now handles non-Roman characters in GeoPackage table names rather than replacing the characters with underscores.
Streaming 3D geospatial technology company Cesium will support the Smithsonian Institution by streaming 3D models of massive objects in its collection, such as the Space Shuttle Discovery. The models will be streamed over the internet in high resolution for the first time.
The collaboration is part of the Smithsonian’s Open Access Initiative. Through the initiative, the Smithsonian will release about 2.8 million 2D and 3D images, public collections metadata, and institutional research data sets as Creative Commons (CCo) for any purpose, such as education, research, commercial endeavors, creative reuse, computational analysis, and innovative explorations.
“The Smithsonian Open Access Initiative aligns perfectly with Cesium’s vision to make the world’s collection of data more useful and accessible,” said Cesium CEO Patrick Cozzi. “We are proud that our technology will give researchers, educators, and the public the ability to study 3D models in the Smithsonian’s collection in the highest resolution detail from anywhere in the world.”
Cesium Stories enable 3D storytelling
Cesium Stories enable creation and sharing of 3D geospatial presentations on the web, without requiring any writing of code. An intuitive interface enables story creation using Cesium’s 3D world terrain basemap, the user’s own 3D data, or a combination of multiple datasets, fused into interactive scenes. Learn more here.
Making massive high-resolution 3D models shareable begins at the intersection of Cesium’s core competencies of computer graphics, 3D data and open standards. With Cesium, glTF models are converted to 3D Tiles, an open specification developed by the company and adopted by the Open Geospatial Consortium (“OGC”) to make sharing massive amounts of 3D data as simple as sending a link.
Cesium develops, supports, and promotes open standards with organizations like the OGC and The Khronos Group to advance technology, encourage collaboration and fuel cross-disciplinary innovation.
The Space Shuttle Discovery — on display at the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia — is one of the largest objects in the Smithsonian’s collection. It is more than 122 feet long and weighs more than 4.5 million pounds.
Now, a shareable, high-resolution 3D rendering will enable anyone to rotate, zoom in, and study its details from anywhere in the world.
Men wearing white bio-suits entered the market from the main entrance. A panic ensued at the sight, and a commotion quickly spread through the crowd.
Shop keepers, sensing the worst, hurriedly gathered their belongings. People rushed towards the exits. More armed soldiers in white bio-suits pressed in, sealing off escape. Screams and weeping filled the market with the din of anxiety and fear. The Huanan Seafood Market was under lock down. The order was not to hurt anyone, but no one was to leave. The quarantine had begun.
Empty semi-trucks lined the main road. The trucks entered the parking lot one by one, and masked soldiers guided people into the backs of the empty trucks. Once filled, the trucks drove away until the market was empty. The people were transported to “isolation centers” several hundred kilometers outside the city.
Image: Duncan A Smith, CASA UCL. Data from Global Human Settlement Layer, https://ghsl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.php
In Wuhan, the situation had deteriorated rapidly. A month earlier videos went viral about a mysterious flu with pneumonia-like symptoms. Most of the information was coming from citizen journalists. People speculated the Huanan Seafood Market was the source of the illness, but no official statements had been made.
Anxiety spread. People began fleeing Wuhan ahead of the Chinese New Year, which is the world’s largest annual human migration. Making matters worse, Wuhan is a major transportation hub in Central China, servicing 400,000 commuters per day through the Hankou Railway Station, a short, 15-minute walk to the Huanan Seafood Market.
Alerting the world
On Dec. 31, 2019, China notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of the infection. The cause was a new strain of coronavirus along the same viral spectrum as the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The next morning, on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020, the WHO declared the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) a public health emergency. It was also that morning that the seafood market was shutdown.
Above: One of the first and only videos coming out of China that covers the outbreak. Copyright: DW News, posted 23-JAN-2020
Twenty-three days after China notified the WHO, the city of Wuhan and the entire province of Hubei were quarantined and cut off from the rest of the world — an area comprising 57 million people, unprecedented in the history of public health.
Still, even with such extraordinary measures, it was already too late. The people moved faster than the system could adjust. Five million people, almost half the residents of Wuhan, had already evacuated. Many traveled to other parts of China to stay with family while others left China altogether, some finding themselves in countries they were banned from entering.
Containment and quarantine
China is now dealing with a containment issue at some level in every one of its provinces. In total, 174 million people in China are under some level of travel restriction. By comparison, that is equal to more than half the population of the United States.
China immediately began leaning on its massive surveillance network and facial recognition technologies to control the outbreak. Using these technologies, Chinese authorities could narrow the search for those most likely to carry the virus. The situation transitioned from a medical emergency to a national security emergency on Tuesday, Feb. 11, when China fired its two highest ranking medical officials in Hubei province, replacing them with a senior Chinese government party official.
Additionally, China continues working with the three cellular phone carriers in the country to gain access to users’ location data. This information will enable China to conduct geospatial analysis at an individual scale to identify those who have come into contact with infected areas. This practice is very controversial, placing privacy and human rights in conflict with public health security.
Roots of GIS in epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of people, place and disease, perfectly suited for geospatial technologies. Not surprisingly then, the true origins of geographic information systems (GIS) are founded in epidemiology, harkening back to John Snow’s Cholera map in 1854. The location of infected people clearly pointed to the Broad Street water pump as the cause. That changed the scientific understanding of the time from believing cholera was transmitted in the air to realizing it was a waterborne disease.
John Snow’s 1854 map of the London Broad Street Cholera outbreak. (Image: public domain)
Similarly, the scientific consensus of COVID-19 has also changed since it first emerged. When the outbreak began, it was believed to be zoonotic, meaning the virus originated from animals and transmitted to humans. It was then believed the virus could only be transmitted directly from person to person. Now, it is known to be carried through the air or by touching infected surfaces.
Each of these modes changes the transmission rate of the disease. This is known as the reproduction number, written as R0 and referred to as the R-naught number. The larger the R-naught, the more infectious the disease. COVID-19 is estimated to have an R-naught between 1.4 and 6.6, which is similar to its cousin the SARS virus; however, SARS only infected 8,096 people and this virus is already more than 10 times that amount.
In terms of GIS, the higher the R0, the greater the geographic area potentially infected. Narrowing the area to concentrate resources more efficiently requires improved modeling and collecting more data, both of which increase the time required before effective measures can be taken. This creates a dilemma between acting swiftly and acting accurately. This explains some of the images coming out of China showing people forcibly removed from their homes and placed in quarantine.
Image: John Hopkins CSSE, https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov/
Controlling the spread of the virus also requires knowing the source of each outbreak. The originating source, called the reservoir, once discovered can be cordoned off. Afterwards, through a process called “contact tracing,” all potentially infected people are tracked down and monitored or quarantined if necessary.
Probability models based on geospatial analysis use factors such as age, sex, pre-existing health conditions and distance from the reservoir overlaid with data such as population density to create an intensity map showing the areas most favorable to the spread of infection. People in the defined areas can be isolated and monitored, preempting further spread.
Click to enlarge. (Maps: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
In the United States, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) requires data be aggregated at the zip code or county level, which is useful in defining regional trends, such as the CDC maps above of heart disease (red) and the areas of least physical activity (teal). Comparing the two visualizes the premise that exercise and good health go together. However, at this scale the information is not useful in fighting a dynamic and evolving situation like an infectious outbreak.
Ultimately, the goal is real-time feedback at a high-scale resolution. Smartphones and other mobile devices offer unique opportunities to combat epidemics. South Korea is using location information to help contain the outbreak. People use a special number to text where they have traveled. This is to assist in contact tracing if necessary.
Mobile devices can also report location data along with vital signs to monitor overall health and instantly identify individuals who may be a risk. The mobile device can also alert individuals if they are nearing an infected area and show the infected zones on their phones.
COVID-19 reporting via GIS
Systems can be established to report live events like Waze does for reporting traffic hazards, which have proven to report accidents faster than 911 calls. Also, the use of social media live feeds can help identify evolving situations and monitor existing ones.
Perhaps the government, working with mobile application mapping companies, should create a layer specifically for the epidemic that provides critical information, such as healthcare centers, some of which might be established specifically for the care of the disease outbreak.
Also, included in that public health layer would be high-risk areas, prohibited entry locations, areas under quarantine, and more, in order to provide an integrated interface to communicate with the general public. This is similar to how the departments of transportation, public works, and emergency response units provide information to the public to reroute traffic around congestion, accidents or closed-off areas.
Image: Coronavirus story map by Maria Laturnas, University of Potomac
A former U.S. Navy healthcare executive, Ben Boccuzzi, Ph.D., shared his thoughts on the matter with me. “The actual mortality rate of COVID-19 (in the U.S.) is hard to determine until mass testing can be done,” Boccuzzi said. “As of now, the true denominator (all people that would test positive for the virus) we only know of symptomatically and those that died from the disease. So, with these small numbers, the real mortality rate is not fully known. When testing begins on a grander scale, and more people are known to have the virus and do well, the actual rate of mortality will become much smaller.”
It is now more than two full months since the WHO declared a public health emergency. The number of known cases worldwide stands at 105,941 with 3,569 deaths affecting 100 countries.
Image: Coronavirus story map by Gangesh Khadka, University of Potomac
If you have read this far, thank you. I would like to leave you with the most important information in this article.
When I began covering this story it was early January, the virus was just beginning to make the news. Fear was in the air. I began to worry. As I immersed myself deeper into the topic, I became even more concerned; so much so, I bought two months of supplies preparing for a long-term self-quarantine situation.
If you’ve been watching the news, you may be nearing the same state of mind I found myself in. If so, I’ve got good news for you.
Paradoxically, people are attracted to fear. Fear is a potent biochemical rush. The horror movie industry rakes in $11.7 billion per year. Most media’s primary business is not information. It is using information to increase its readers and viewers, and fear captures people and holds their attention. The media is a profit-driven business. Facts tell. Fear sells.
The following is what is reported by the WHO based on 55,924 laboratory-confirmed cases since the coronavirus began. The study was published on Feb. 28. At that time, there were 86,992 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,979 deaths, equating to a mortality rate of 3.4%, but those numbers were mostly in China, specifically Hubei province. Outside of China, the number of cases were only 7,166 with 109 deaths having a fatality rate of 1.5%.
Image: Coronavirus story map by Zaid Alshaboul & Kush Shah, University of Potomac
These numbers do not reflect the whole story. If you are below age 50 and in good health, recovery is 99.1%, so there is almost no reason to be concerned. For those older than age 50 the mortality rate is 1.3%, and over age 60 it increases to 3.6%. For those over age 70 it doubles to 8.0%. The most vulnerable populations are those over age 80 with a mortality rate of 14.8%.
Additionally, those with pre-existing conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or respiratory disease are also at high risk. If you fall into either of those categories, take great care with your hygiene and personal protection. However, if you are below 60 and in moderately good health, there is less than a 1.3% reason to be concerned and more than 98.7% reason not to be concerned.
Unless something significant changes, the virus is a reason for caution, but should not be a cause for panic. The fearmongering has gotten out of control. We may or may not get COVID-19, but for those of us who do, most of us will only experience muscle aches, fever and a dry cough, about the same as catching a bad cold.
Ironically, be grateful in times like these. They give us reasons to take pause, love our family, appreciate what we have, realize life is worth living, and get our house in order. The truth is not the story we are being sold.
TerraGo unveiled Publisher for Raster, an application for publishing geospatial raster maps and imagery as GeoPDF documents for use with TerraGo Toolbar.
According to TerraGo, information otherwise locked away in arcane geospatial raster formats can be made available to a much wider audience as GeoPDF documents that can be measured, analyzed and annotated with TerraGo Toolbar.
The new release, version 7.1.0, features an improved output naming scheme when processing CADRG and other RPF formats with multiple images. It also reports the same application version number for the online help, processing data using the command prompt, using version, user interface and the installer. Finally, it now pulls the WKT from the GCP tag when the WKT is not listed in the standard
tag.
Version 7.0.4 adds support for Windows Server 2016 and Server 2019. It also addresses installation and license activation issues seen on some systems, TerraGo said.
Users can now install and test Touch GIS, a mobile field data mapping app, for as long as needed with a free license tier. Previously, users were able to install the app and sign up for a 14-day free trial period.
“We realized some users needed more time to evaluate the many features of Touch GIS,” said Joe Wilson, head of product for Touch GIS.
Touch GIS, a mobile app available on iPhones and iPads, can be used for geologic exploration, utility mapping, farming, real estate, search & rescue and other applications.
Touch GIS features point, line and polygon drawing features; an offline workflow; WMS/WMTS support; customizable attribute forms; custom feature class creation; SHP, KML, KMZ, GeoJSON, GPX support; and more.
“We’re really excited to be able to offer this new tier,” Wilson added. “We love working with our users to support their needs in the field. The free tier will allow us to do this better. We also hope this will encourage new users to jump in and really kick the tires. We’re proud of what we’ve built and are excited for more people from a variety of industries to discover the apps capabilities.”
Users who wish to unlock offline map caching and exporting capabilities can purchase an annual or monthly license, the company said. In addition, discounts are available for educational institutions, qualified non-profits and credentialed U.S. federal government employees.
