Airbus Defence and Space has launched its WorldDEM Digital Terrain Model (DTM), a highly accurate standardized representation of bare Earth elevation that can be made available for any point on the globe. This addition completes the WorldDEM portfolio, enabling Airbus Defence and Space to provide both surface and terrain elevation information in support of global customer projects.
WorldDEM DTM can be delivered for more than 90 Million km² of the Earth’s landmass.
The WorldDEM DTM is derived from the WorldDEM product (Digital Surface Model) by removing all man-made features and vegetation. The quality of the original WorldDEM product combined with a sophisticated editing process guarantees highly precise and consistent terrain information, Airbus said. While surface features (such as built-up areas and vegetation) are reliably removed, characteristic terrain features such as ridge lines or mountain crests are preserved.
The WorldDEM DTM provides an excellent foundation layer for a wide range of applications such as civil engineering (road design, earthwork calculation), the management of natural resources (such as flood modeling), mapping (such as derivation of contour lines) as well as military mission planning (vehicle trafficability analysis, 3D terrain visualization).
WorldDEM is based on data acquired by the high-resolution radar satellites TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X, which started synchronous data acquisition in December 2010 and completed coverage of the Earth’s entire landmass twice over in mid-2013. The satellites covered more complex terrain areas with a third and fourth acquisition campaign to ensure consistent high quality and accuracy of the final product. WorldDEM provides the first global, single-source, high-precision Digital Surface Model and has established a new standard of global elevation models.
Esri and Safe Software have paired to develop and openly share a Common Information Model (CIM) template for data exchange. The template demonstrates one approach to translating network data from an Esri ArcGIS database into CIM XML format. The XML can then be shared with other enterprise systems.
“The power behind a CIM is to provide a common language to share messaging among an electric utility’s information systems,” said Bill Meehan, Esri director of utility solutions.
The CIM comes in the wake of power industry deregulation and smart grid emergence. Utilities now share core network data more frequently than ever, and a CIM facilitates this. With a common format, a utility can share information internally across its enterprise systems, externally with other utilities, and externally with organizations such as regulators and independent system and regional transmission operators.
A CIM is based on the International Electrotechnical Technical Commission (IEC) family of standards, IEC 61970.
The Esri-Safe Software model also promotes faster decision making internally when data can be moved quickly from geographic information system (GIS) technology — the system of record for network data at many utilities — to destination enterprise systems, such as DMS, AMI, SCADA, OMS, and WMS, the companies said.
Users can download the template and test CIM XML data structures with their own data or a sample dataset that Esri and Safe Software provide. “With this template, we are providing another way for electric utilities to leverage their investment in Esri technology,” Meehan said.
The template works off of Esri’s ArcGIS (version 10.1 service pack 1 [SP1] or higher) and Safe Software’s FME software (version 2013 or higher). The sample template consists of an FME workspace; an ArcGIS Data Interoperability extract, transform and load (ETL) tool; and a sample dataset to guide users through testing how the translation process works. All the tools are provided as open source so users can adapt them to their needs.
“Utilities can use the template as a starting point for understanding how to translate data from an Esri database to the CIM XML structure to share with other enterprise systems,” Meehan said.
After exploring the sample dataset, users can also work to configure the template to work with their own network data.
Epson has announced the SureColor P800 printer, which it says represents a new benchmark in photographic print quality. Designed for professional use, the SureColor P800 is a full 17-inch wide borderless printer with Epson MicroPiezo AMC printhead technology. Leveraging an all-new Epson UltraChrome HD eight-color pigment ink set, the SureColor P800 is capable of producing the next generation of color and black-and-white prints, Epson said.
“We understand how important it is for our printers to produce exceptional output that not only accurately conveys a photographer’s vision, but also delivers on the promise of longevity,” said Larry Kaufman, product manager, Professional Imaging, Epson America. “The SureColor P800 redefines the 17-inch photographic printing market, providing robust photo, fine art and canvas media handling capabilities, all focused on delivering stunning exhibition-quality prints that stand the test of time.”
The SureColor P800 features advanced media handling, including a sheet feeder for photo or matte media, and a front-in and front-out paper path for printing on thicker fine art papers and poster board. An optional 17-inch wide roll paper adapter is ideal for canvas and longer print lengths of up to 10 feet for creating panoramas. Along with individual 80 ml high-capacity ink cartridges, the SureColor P800 is designed for professional use at home or in the studio.
Details on the SureColor P800 The SureColor P800 offers these features:
UltraChrome HD Ink: Pigment ink technology delivers outstanding color with improved black density and print permanence.
Professional Features: Advanced black-and-white print mode for professional-level neutral or toned black-and-white prints.
True Productivity with High-Capacity Ink Cartridges: Nine 80 ml ink cartridges with auto-switching photo and matte black ink.
Advanced Media Handling up to 17-Inches Wide: Print on fine art and roll papers and create panoramas more than 10 feet long; front-in and front-out paper path for media and poster board up to 1.5 mm thick and optional rear-mounted 2 or 3-inch core roll feeders.
Modern Case Design: Professional look and feel; compact printer design optimized for desktop placement.
Connectivity: USB 2.0, Ethernet, Wireless N, Wi-Fi Direct, Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print support.
The SureColor P800 will be available for purchase in June through authorized resellers; pricing follows:
Epson SureColor P800
$1,295.00 MSRP
Optional Roll Paper Adapter
$199.95 MSRP
UltraChrome HD 80 ml Ink Cartridge
$59.95 MSRP
The printer is supported by a one-year, whole-unit-exchange, limited warranty plan, and specialized technical support staff.
The map of Vietnam has been developed in cooperation with DDG Technology JSC, a provider of cartographic solutions for navigation in Vietnam.
The map contains 325,972 kilometers of road graph, 147,255 Points Of Interest (POI) and 86,370 settlements. Coupled with the address search in residential and industrial areas of settlements, the map includes the detailed road network with streets, directions, interchanges, roundabouts and other important road information.
The map contains 10 three-dimensional POI, including St. Joseph’s Cathedral, the VNPT Tower, the Vimeco tower block, Diamond Plaza, Kumho Asiana Plaza, the Petrovietnam Tower and more.
SimActive Inc., a developer of photogrammetry software, has released Correlator3D version 6.1, now with point cloud generation.
The new feature builds on SimActive’s autocorrelation techniques using the GPU. Point clouds are generated in parallel with digital surface models (DSMs), with virtually no added processing time. As with previous versions, digital terrain models (DTMs) can also be automatically extracted in a matter of seconds.
“Although the DSM remains the de-facto deliverable for all mapping projects, an increase in interest from our UAV users led to the added functionality,” said Louis Simard, CTO of SimActive. “This further solidifies Correlator3D as a one-stop solution.”
The Hexagon Imagery Program, or HxIP, has released captured airborne imagery for approximately 25 percent of the U.S. with various regions of Canada and Europe. As more content partners join the HxIP in 2015, program coverage is rapidly increasing with full coverage of the coterminous U.S. expected by the end of the year.
Launched in June 2014, the HxIP streams valuable geospatial content and delivers professional-grade airborne images captured with Leica Geosystems’ airborne sensors, including enhanced-resolution, four-band orthos, streamable and rasterised point clouds, and stereo imagery, through two service categories:
Basemap offers cached background maps of current 30 centimeter orthorectified imagery that will be updated on a regular basis.
Multispectral Imagery supports image analysis and exploration activities with 30-centimeter, four-band orthorectified imagery and related digital surface models (DSM).
Imagery for a full 11 states plus portions of six other states in the U.S. have been provided in the HxIP as part of its airborne imagery offerings from the 2014 flying season. Portions of Canada and Europe are also available in the recent release.
“We’re pleased to have met our 2014 program goal, providing access to quality and consistent airborne imagery for thousands of clients around the globe,” said John Welter, president of Leica Geosystems Geospatial Solutions Division and director of the HxIP. “We are well on our way of realizing our 2015 goals with collection currently underway in Europe and North America.”
The HxIP airborne imagery content is available through the cloud via multiple content service providers:
Through a distribution partnership with Esri in February, the 2014 collection is now available to even more users on Esri’s ArcGIS Marketplace.
“Serving HxIP via Esri’s ArcGIS Marketplace gives geospatial professionals another choice in accessing the most current and accurate geospatial imagery available,” said Juergen Dold, president of Hexagon Geosystems. “The focus of our new partnership is to provide imagery in a simple and efficient way across a wide array of professional consumers.”
This vision was reinforced by Esri Director of Imagery Lawrie Jordan. “Leica Geosystems is recognized globally as providing the highest quality and most accurate airborne imagery available, and Esri is delighted to offer this content to GIS professionals through our ArcGIS Marketplace,” Jordan said.
GIS map provider Mapmechanics has boosted the number of African countries for which it offers HERE vector (scalable) map data.
HERE mapping from Mapmechanics consists of street-level vector map and includes major highways, main roads and also some minor roads and city streets, and is useful for route planning, drive-time analysis, vehicle tracking and geo-demographics. A key feature of the data is that its structure is consistent across many countries, enabling users to adopt the same analytical and display strategies from one country to another.
The new African countries added to the Mapmechanics portfolio are Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Republic of the Congo, São Tome and Principe.
Because it is in a standard and widely recognized format, the mapping lends itself well to use with other data such as traffic speed and density where this is available. It can also be used for techniques such as reverse geocoding (finding a location by its coordinates).
The mapping also enables users to add a sense of place to activities such as geo-demographic studies, store location analysis, leaflet distribution territories or depot management, and ensures that users can overlay just the features they need on shaded maps.
Mapmechanics already offers HERE mapping for many of the more prominent African countries, including for instance Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Tunisia. Altogether around two dozen African countries are now covered, and more will be added in future.
HERE mapping is just one of a wide range of mapping products offered by Mapmechanics for the UK and the world, all of which can be obtained directly from the company or through its transactional website.
In efforts to leverage each other’s expertise in government, transportation and utilities markets, CycloMedia developed the Street Smart web application. Customers who have purchased CycloMedia’s HDstreet level imagery can utilize an ArcGIS-compatible application for viewing and analysis. Users can now visualize and edit their data from a street-view perspective with the goal of enhancing their GIS database while reducing costly field-based collection practices, CycloMedia said.
CycloMedia began capturing its 100-megapixel HD-Cycloramas for customers in January 2015. With Street Smart, users can overlay their own GIS data layers, precisely capture location, record dimension measurements and edit attributes all from within a street-view perspective. Links to “information-tagged” images can be shared among ArcGIS Online subscribers within the enterprise and pictures shared with the wider community.
“CycloMedia’s Street Smart app allows customers to visualize and share information about the built environment from a new perspective,” said Joe Astroth, CEO of CycloMedia USA. “Street-level imagery adds a new dimension to a GIS database by enabling the overlay and measurement of geographic features directly inside our HD Cycloramas.”
Through Esri’sArcGIS Marketplace, geospatial professionals can learn about CycloMedia’s products and services, request new data collection and add comments and feedback to help improve the user experience.
GIS software company Caliper is offering 114th Congressional Districts data for the United States for its Mapitude software. The data package is aimed at corporate legislative affairs departments, lobbyists, political consultants, political parties, and anyone else involved in political affairs.
The 114th Congressional Districts data contains a nationwide area database with boundaries of the 114th (January 2015-January 2017) Congressional Districts. It also includes demographic data from the 2010 Census and from the 2013 American Community Survey (ACS) five-year estimates.
Country Packages
Also available are eight new 2015 Country Packages for Maptitude. The 2015 Country Packages include fourth-quarter 2014 map content. Updated map layers, such as refreshed streets and landmarks are provided for each country. In addition, postal boundaries, postcode points, and demographics are included where available. For detailed information on each Package, including those for countries not mentioned here, visit the Maptitude Included Data page.
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 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.
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.
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.
CoreLogic has introduced wind verification technology that will improve the accuracy and timing of insurance claims related to severe wind damage. The new technology combines proprietary three-dimensional storm models, storm-tracking models and artificial intelligence models with radar data, on-the-ground observations and actual damage reports to analyze wind conditions.
The scientific and observation-based Wind Speed Maps and Wind Verification Reports from CoreLogic provide updated wind activity analysis at the property level every hour, drawing from data going back as early as 2006. CoreLogic Wind Speed Maps and Wind Verification Reports provide granular wind speed magnitudes that allow insurance professionals to verify if and when severe winds were detected at or near a specific location in order to make more precise damage assessments and, in some cases, avoid an on-site inspection.
Previously, insurers relied on airport-based and private weather observation station measurements, which can lead to significant ambiguity, as these observations represent a single stationary location and are not representative of activity at the property level. Instant report delivery, as well as custom workflow integration, enhances the ability of insurers to reduce time for claims decisions and processing, CoreLogic said.
To help adjusters verify what the loss was during a particular policy period and corroborate policyholders’ claims, the Wind Verification Reports provide data on every severe windstorm event dating back to January 2006, including hurricanes, thunderstorms, straight-line winds, Chinooks, Santa Ana winds, coastal lows and “derechos,” which are widespread, long-lived straight-line wind storms. The reports include estimated maximum wind speed magnitudes within one, three and ten miles of a location enabling accurate assessment of when and where severe winds likely impacted properties.
More timely and accurate wind data, together with the new technology, will help mitigate against fraudulent claims which have traditionally been prevalent with wind-related storms given the broad geographic assessments of wind activity that were previously relied upon.
“Insurance carriers and adjusters are responsible for making difficult decisions, and it helps to have an objective source to guide the decision-making process, whether it’s for evaluating entire books of business or processing individual wind-related claims,” said Lindene Patton, global head of hazard product development for CoreLogic. “This unique technology provides an element of quality assurance that simply hasn’t been available to the industry before now. Wind verification through scientific observation is going to mean more efficient and effective claims, which will reduce time, mitigate fraud and improve bottom-line results for claims adjusters.”
Wind and hail claims are one of the largest categories of property damage expenses each year. In fact, $30 out of every $100 collected for a homeowner’s insurance premium goes toward wind and hail claim payments, with the majority of claims involving roof damage. From 2007 to 2011, the average claim was $7,177, according to the Insurance Information Institute.
“Wind is one of nature’s most difficult hazards to measure, and for the past century, the industry has depended on unreliable sources,” Patton said. “Wind speeds and direction reported from an airport weather vane can be 20-100 miles away from where a specific wind event occurred and do not represent actual conditions and storm impact at the property level. Wind speeds can vary dramatically over very short distances because of variance in topography and land use, so it’s important to evaluative activity at the granular level.”
IDV Solutions’ Visual Command Center is a physical security and risk visualization (PSRV) software that unites data from external sources, enterprise systems and internal devices into a real-time, common operating picture of risk and security.
IDV Solutions, a corporation that specializes in business intelligence, physical security and risk visualization software, has formed a technical partnership with Geofeedia, producer of a cloud-based social media monitoring platform. Through the partnership, Geofeedia’s location-based social media monitoring data will now be integrated into IDV Solutions’ Visual Command Center Enterprise Risk Visualization (ERV) software.
The companies say the combination of the two technologies enables security, supply chain and business continuity teams to gain instant intelligence from multiple social media networks for a myriad of risk events — from a political demonstration to a natural disaster. The location-based visualization filters out excess noise to show important social media posts in the context of locations of interest, such as facilities, employee locations, supply routes or traveling executives.
“Companies are looking for ways to efficiently gain actionable intelligence from social media,” said Ian Clemens, chief technology officer and co-founder of IDV Solutions. “The immediacy of social media combined with the alerting and locational context offered by Visual Command Center enables organizations to make more effective use of social media to protect employees, facilities and business continuity.”
The Visual Command Center provides a real-time, common operating picture of assets, personnel and operations in relation to potential threats to those assets. It unites information on global sources of risk — such as weather, terrorism and natural disasters — with data from internal data stores and physical security systems on an interactive map and timeline. When a risk is detected near an asset or employee location, the Visual Command Center automatically generates an alert and provides tools to assess whether the risk is a threat and take immediate action to mitigate the impact of the threat.
The Geofeedia integration complements the Visual Command Center’s Twitter Visualization and Alerting Module by providing information from more social media networks and visualizing all posts within a selected area.
Geofeedia enables organizations to filter and analyze social media content by location in real time across multiple sources. Users search for a city, address or location name, draw a virtual perimeter around the specific area of interest,and access geo-tagged social media content from within those boundaries.
“Location resolves the challenge of monitoring the massive amounts of cluttered data to identify meaningful, real-time on-the-ground intelligence when and where it matters most,” said Phil Harris, CEO and co-founder of Geofeedia. “We are thrilled to be able to help more organizations take advantage of our real-time, geotagged social media data to prevent, protect and respond to valuable intelligence.”
