Photogrammetry software Correlator3D was used for a large-scale project by First Base Solutions, announced software developer SimActive Inc.
The software allowed the processing of 50,000 large-format images at 200 megapixels, collected at a 10-centimeter resolution, on a single standard PC, the company added.
The size on disk for each image was 765 MB, for a total of 40 terabytes of raw data. Aerial triangulation was performed and digital surface models (DSMs), digital terrain models (DTMs) and orthomosaics were created, leading to more than 100 terabytes of output.
“We are impressed by the software speed and capabilities on large datasets,” said Brian Leggat, project supervisor of First Base Solutions. “Another advantage is SimActive’s support to quickly help us during our projects.”
First Base has been a user of the software for more than 10 years.
The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena has produced a map showing the damage caused by the Camp Fire in Northern California.
After two and a half weeks of historic destruction, the fire is now 100 percent contained. Teams continue to search the destruction — including the destroyed town of Paradise — for remains. As of Sunday, the death toll is 85, making it California’s deadliest fire.
The map shows the damage as of Nov. 16.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The map was developed using synthetic aperture radar images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites operated by the European Space Agency.
The map covers an area of 48 miles by 48 miles (78 by 77 kilometers), outlined in red on left. A closeup view of damage to the town of Paradise is inset on right, outlined in white. The color variation from yellow to red indicates increasingly more significant changes in the ground surface.
The ARIA team creates its maps by comparing before-and-after satellite images of the fire region to see the extent of change between the two images. For this map, they compared the data for the image to a Cal Fire map for preliminary validation.
Although the maps may be less reliable over vegetated terrain, such as forests, they can help officials and first responders identify heavily damaged areas and allocate resources as needed.
Sentinel-1 data were accessed through the Copernicus Open Access Hub. The image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA and analyzed by the NASA-JPL/Caltech ARIA team.
“The benefits of geospatial technology are truly untold. However, when our federal agencies use geospatial data, different agencies can acquire duplicative information and waste precious taxpayer resources in the process. I am glad House leadership listened to industry stakeholders and included the Geospatial Data Act in the FAA Reauthorization Bill of 2018. This will streamline the collection of this data across the federal government while saving money, improving information accuracy, and providing a more modern system for collecting and sharing geospatial data.”
— Rep. Bruce Westerman, Arizona, introducing the Geospatial Data Act to the House of Representatives, 115th Congress
On Oct. 3, I was at a crowded after-hours event with friends in Washington, D.C., standing in a darkened corner of the room where I could both see and hear the speaker. A man approached me, a featureless silhouette in the dark tapping me on the shoulder. He introduced himself as an employee of the U.S. Geological Survey, and said he heard I was with the Federal Aviation Administration.
He asked if I knew anything about the FAA Reauthorization Bill because it had language from the Geospatial Data Act in it. His mention was the first I had heard of it. It came as a surprise. I expected a few passages from the Bill but nothing more; and, in fact, I did not expect it to even come up for a vote this year because of the divisive political atmosphere.
Two days later, on Friday, Oct. 5, President Donald Trump, along with 11 high ranking officials, signed the FAA Reauthorization Bill into law with overwhelming support. The Senate passed it 93-6, and the House passed it 398-23. The bipartisanship of this bill should have made the news – both sides of the contentious isles coming together to pass so important a piece of legislation. It happened without fanfare or recognition aside from certain circles, but within H.R. 302 was contained the entire Geospatial Data Act 2018.
An email from the Maryland State Geographic Information Committee (MSGIC) alerted me. Not even the FAA sent an email praising the aspects of the bill beyond what immediately applied to the FAA. If the stranger from USGS had not forewarned me I would not have been keen to the press release and overlooked its significance.
Most people are unaware that the Geospatial Data Act (GDA) is now law. Even fewer realize that the GDA applies not only to the FAA, but to all government agencies except for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community.
The Long and Winding Road of the Geospatial Data Act
Attempts at creating a unifying federal geospatial policy can be traced to shortly after the Civil War. There was no powerful, central, national unifying authority before then. The states were sovereign entities with their own maps, and place names did not have to be agreed upon between states.
This is visible today in the names of Civil War battles, many of which are named differently by each warring side; for example, the bloody Battle of Antietam is the same as the Battle of Sharpsburg, and the Battle of Bull Run is the same as the Battle of Manassas. Upon those hallowed grounds so many died that the dual names exist because they were paid for in blood.
War drives the need for intelligence. Geography is of paramount importance for generals. The 1860s was a boom time for surveyors and cartographers because of the Civil War and the American Indian Wars.
Additionally, in the 1860s Alaska was purchased from Russia and America built the first transcontinental railroad. Those geopolitical events changed the country, and the government needed to inventory the emerging nation.
Many companies were employed to do the work, but they were not coordinated, costing excess amounts of money. This prompted the establishment of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 1879 to oversee the survey companies.
Roosevelt on a digging machine during construction of the Panama Canal, circa 1908. (Photo: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
Problems were identified among the many maps created. Place names and spelling changed from map to map. The country needed a coordinated effort to deal with these discrepancies. President Benjamin Harrison addressed this with Executive Order 28 (27-A) in 1890, establishing the Board of Geographic Names.
In 1906, during the middle of building the Panama Canal, President Theodore Roosevelt — who had direct experience with survey and mapping companies — signed Executive Order 493 renaming the Board of Geographic Names to the U.S. Geographic Board and adding to its purpose reducing duplicative survey and mapping efforts.
In 1956 the National Interstate and Defense Highways Bill was signed, beginning the interstate network we enjoy today. Building the interstates was a huge expense, and like before, many survey companies were involved. Anticipating these challenges in 1953 President Eisenhower, the Office of Management and Budget wrote Circular A-16, which identified better coordination acquiring geographic information and reducing duplicate efforts as ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency.
In 1990 during the months leading up to Gulf War I, which showed geospatial precision’s awesome power and forever changed the face of war, also brought changes to OMB Circular A-16 for more domestic purposes. The circular was revised, reflecting the influence of the digital era and establishing the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to promote the coordination of geospatial data.
Recognizing the importance of geospatial information systems (GIS), on April 11, 1994, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12906: Coordinating Geographic Data Acquisition and Access: The National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). The executive branch continued to lead the government’s efforts to advance a unified geospatial policy.
When 9/11 Happened
Seven years later, in June 2001, Congress attempted to pass its first federal geospatial policy, but Sept. 11 changed everything. The greatest terrorist attack in U.S. history made everything else pale by comparison. National security and intelligence became the focus.
Congress tried again in 2003, the same year the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) changed its name to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), but Gulf War II and the Global War on Terrorism stole center stage.
In 2005, Congress tried again, but to no avail. The bill changed names several times. The contents evolved. Attempts to introduce the bill went dormant until 2012 when it stalled again without support. Proponents continued reintroducing the bill under various names in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
In 2015 it made a second debut with the name Geospatial Data Act (GDA) and maintained that name going forward. The GDA was reintroduced in 2016, twice in 2017 and again in 2018. In total, the bill was introduced more than a dozen times since 2001. Finally, 139 years since the founding of USGS, a federal geospatial policy is now the law of the land.
You Have an Opportunity
“This legislation will significantly address how location intelligence is organized and disseminated and will foster continued strength in our industry’s partnership with government users.” — Jack Dangermond, Esri founder and CEO
It takes courageous leadership to get legislation passed. We can all breathe a sigh of relief. This great “tech-tonic” shift happened during our working lives. We can all say we were there when the world changed. This is a golden opportunity. Knowledge is power; however, knowledge is only potential power — real power is action. Step up, volunteer, and lead the change. Your agency needs you. The country needs you. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by.
Your first step is to read the Geospatial Data Act 2018 contained within the FAA Reauthorization Act, Title VII, Subtitle F: Geospatial Data, Sections 751-759. Become familiar with the GDA. Learn who the points of contact are for your agency. Make yourself known. Be a leader. When others see chaos, leaders see opportunity.
Economic Impact of the Geospatial Data Act 2018
“The economic benefits of smart infrastructure investment are long-term competitiveness, productivity, innovation, lower prices, and higher incomes, while infrastructure investment also creates many thousands of American jobs in the near-term.”
— White House, National Economic Council and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, July 2014
Since Roger Tomlinson first created a geographic information system in the 1960s, GIS has become a multi-billion dollar global industry. By 2020, it is forecast to be nearly a half-trillion dollars annually. The global GIS market is expected to double in seven years.
GeoBuiz estimates that GIS influences 20 percent the world’s entire $80.7 trillion global annual production. According to the Countries Geospatial Readiness Index, the United States leads the world in GIS. What is amazing is that all these estimates were made prior to the passage of the GDA — the gale force winds that have thus far blown will soon become a hurricane.
The sweet spot of opportunity is the forward edge of a growing industry. In the mid-90, the growth of the geospatial industry was led by state and local government (See GeoIntelligence Insider: In Jack Maple’s Steps – Fighting Crime with GIS, May 2018). In the mid-2000s, growth accelerated due to the intelligence and military communities. The next big boom in GIS begins now as the federal government complies with the GDA. There will be an even longer growth trend internationally as other countries make their own conversions.
It is a common adage that forecasts usually overestimate the near term and underestimate the long-term, especially in regard to technology. Consider how one man’s idea to sell books online in 1995 made him the wealthiest man in the world 23 years later, or how a simple search engine in 1998 is now a global behemoth. Of course, those references are to Jeff Bezos of Amazon and to Google.
And, consider the impact GPS has made since May 1, 2000, when President Clinton discontinued Selective Availability, opening GPS to the masses. Four years later, in June 2005, Google Earth was launched. The iPhone came out two years later. Then, a year later, Google Maps with real-time navigation was released.
Businesses like Uber that depend on GPS and GIS began in 2012. Now, industries such as drones and autonomous vehicles are on the verge of exponential growth.
Apply a similar trajectory to GIS and combine it with smart technologies like the internet of things (IoT), open data, data science, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and other emerging technologies and the growth potential is unprecedented, not to mention the infrastructure rebuild of America about to take place.
An Economic Analysis of Transportation Infrastructure Investment – White House, July 2014, National Economic Council and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. (Image: WhiteHouse.gov)
Smart technologies will play a huge role in rebuilding the United States infrastructure like sensors, advanced materials, self-aware neural networks, IoT devices, energy recapture systems, smart lighting, and more; many such technologies will be connected geospatially.
This will require an advanced 3D Smart Grid Reference System (3D SGRS), a term I coined in 2015 when I worked at the Department of Transportation and began developing a crowdsource application for the National Address Database. I saw it becoming the framework for a 3D SGRS, enabling pinpoint accuracy of locations in X-Y-Z.
I can cover the 3D SGRS in a future article. I write about it here because it will be required in order to modernize America’s infrastructure.
Before passing any infrastructure bills, it is necessary to have a sound geospatial policy to avoid the misspending identified by the previous administrations mentioned earlier. The GDA, in essence, is the first step to modernize America. A brief overview of proposals sitting before Congress is an indicator of the economic tsunami about to be unleashed now that the GDA has been established.
Legislation has been introduced for establishing infrastructure bonds and banks for investing in infrastructure projects. Individual bills are for railroads, land, air, and sea ports; intermodal freight transfer stations, highways, critical infrastructure, rural development and stormwater systems, including water retention ponds and reservoirs that make up a large part of city and suburban green space. There are bills to fund pollution prevention programs.
Infrastructure cybersecurity is also addressed. There are bills for job creation, including employing disabled veterans in transportation. There is even a bill for proclaiming a National Infrastructure Week.
Once these legislative efforts begin getting passed, a tsunami of economic growth will be released unlike few alive have ever seen.
The Geospatial Data Act – A Matter of Necessity
“The Geospatial Data Act will save taxpayer dollars, increase government efficiency, and unlock innovation in the public and private sectors.” — Congressman Seth Moulton, Massachusetts, co-signer of the Geospatial Data Act to the House of Representatives, 115th Congress
Rebuilding America is one of the boldest, grandest and costliest undertakings the country has seen. Being one of the costliest, one has to ask where the money is going to come from.
The GDA will create entrepreneurs, new products and services, and job growth, which will generate revenue. Many infrastructure-related bills have tax incentives built into them. Money will come from the economic restructuring of trade deals currently taking place with many of the United States’ trading partners. Money will also come from America’s oil and gas renaissance.
Outline of the Geospatial Data Act 2018
This article put the Geospatial Data Act into context, but it would not be complete if it did not at least outline the major provisions of the new law.
These are the primary tenets of the GDA:
It establishes the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
It establishes the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC)
It establishes the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)
It establishes the National Spatial Data Asset data themes (NSDI-dt)
It establishes GeoPlatform as the clearinghouse for geospatial data
It sets Geospatial Data Standards.
Senator Orrin Hatch, who introduced the bill to the Senate four times since 2015, called it, “…a good-governance bill that will bring structure and Congressional oversight to federal geospatial data spending, accounting, and usage. The GDA will:
Dramatically reduce duplicative spending and, according to the Government Accountability Office, save the federal government billions of dollars;
Bolster federal emergency response capabilities by enabling smarter, more efficient disaster relief;
Improve infrastructure planning nationwide by providing state and local governments with access to higher-quality, more robust data.
The bill is supported by over 65 universities, industry groups, trade associations, companies, and state and local stakeholders, including the National Association of Counties and National League of Cities.”
Some of the stakeholders Sen. Hatch referred to are Bert Granberg, president of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), who stated, “From transportation, to natural resources, to homeland security, map-based digital information has quietly become mission critical to how work gets done and to future economic growth. We need an efficiency and accountability framework to build, sustain and share geographic data assets for the entire nation. The GDA delivers just that, and our members appreciate Representative Westerman’s leadership.”
Molly Schar, executive director of NSGIC, shared her thoughts, saying, “The Geospatial Data Act has been a top legislative priority for NSGIC for several years. We have worked with state governments, Congressional offices, federal agencies, and many other stakeholder groups committed to building more resilient communities by ensuring they will have access to the consistent high-quality data they need to do their jobs,”
And, after the bill’s passage she proclaimed, “It was a big win for the entire geospatial community and quite a team effort!”
For more information
This report has given you the background and the context of the Geospatial Data Act. To become intimately familiar with the GDA, I highly recommend reading the Congressional Research Service Report about GDA 2018, released Oct. 22.
Drone surveying software Virtual Surveyor now eliminates the need for clients to use third-party applications to prepare data for processing. Released this week, Virtual Surveyor 6.1 now handles on-the-fly projections that previously required a separate software package to set the data in the proper coordinate system.
“We have developed a completely new project experience for users of UAV data,” said Tom Op ‘t Eyndt, managing director of Virtual Surveyor in Belgium. “Version 6.1 will save our customers time and money once spent converting their drone data for processing in Virtual Surveyor.”
Virtual Surveyor bridges the gap between UAV photogrammetric processing applications and engineering computer-aided design (CAD) packages. The software generates an interactive onscreen environment with UAV orthophotos and digital surface models where the surveyor selects survey points and breaklines to define the topography, creating highly accurate topographic products for CAD input up to five times faster than otherwise possible.
“Our value proposition has always been to enable surveyors to derive topographic information from drone data and deliver the light-weight meaningful CAD model that engineers need,” said Op ‘t Eyndt.
Prior to Version 6.1, users always had to start from an orthophoto and digital surface model (DSM). Now, surveyors can drag and drop all kinds of files into Virtual Surveyor: points, raster, vectors and point clouds. The point clouds are converted to a DSM for manipulation and processing, dramatically accelerating the time required to generate the CAD model.
“Not only is this faster, but it eliminates the expense of purchasing additional software,” said Op ‘t Eyndt.
Some customers asked to work only with a CAD file, he explained. Although they work with drone data most of the time, they occasionally had to create a surface or contours from a traditional survey. They asked if this could be done in Virtual Surveyor as it would save them from paying for a subscription to a CAD software.
Long-time Virtual Surveyor clients will find the entire project experience has been streamlined and improved with new capabilities in V6.1:
Start from any data set. Projects can now be initiated from Orthophotos, DSMs, Point Cloud or CAD files.
Convert coordinates on the fly. Users can input data in any coordinate system and convert it during processing to another system after the project has begun.
Developers of Virtual Surveyor have also added these features to V6.1:
Automatic creation of section lines. V6.1 automatically generates sections from road surfaces to survey transportation routes in minutes.
Transparent layers. Users can add topographic or cadastral data to their project and view it through the orthophoto layer to annotate or draw boundaries.
“Overall, users will experience a faster processing environment in Virtual Surveyor 6.1 especially during complex tasks, such as making terrain modifications or calculating volumes,” said Op ‘t Eyndt. “Our goal with this version has been to make professional land surveyors more efficient.”
Current subscribers to Virtual Surveyor will see their software being updated automatically.
Update: The Camp Fire is now the deadliest fire in California history, claiming more than 50 lives.
DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite collected new imagery of the deadly Camp Fire near Paradise, California.
The Camp Fire, which broke out Nov. 8, destroyed 90 percent of the town of Paradise. At least 29 people have died, making it the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history in more than 85 years, while more than 200 people are unaccounted for. Firefighters are still trying to contain the roaring blaze.
Here is a link to download a set of satellite images as well as a map graphic (PDF file). The satellite images include a couple of different views of the fire including:
A natural color overview of the area. The smoke from the wildfire obscures much of the area around Paradise and the surrounding communities.
Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) images of the area. SWIR images from our satellite can penetrate smoke caused by the fire and help clearly identify the fire lines and areas that have burned/are burning.
A rotated SWIR view of the fires, in case the orientation would be more useful for your graphic teams.
A reference image/map graphic (see PDF file) that should help you correlate the images to the locations on the ground.
UUV Aquabotix Ltd. has been granted a United States patent for a “Remotely Operated Vehicle Camera Apparatus.”
Many underwater vehicles operate with a single stationary camera, an interior-based moveable camera or multiple cameras. Each of these configurations may have significant drawbacks and ultimately limit their functionality and usefulness, the company said.
For example, a forward-facing camera can be used for navigation but is limited if the operator would like to record information around the vehicle in a reconnaissance mission.
To address this challenge, Aquabotix developed a fully rotatable camera apparatus for attachment to its own or other vehicles. The camera apparatus can be mounted to the side of a vehicle and configured to rotate, enabling an operator to have a completely unobstructed 360-degree view in an underwater environment. This connector can also be used for mounting rotatable underwater light sources.
Based in Sydney, Australia, and Fall River, Massachusetts, Aquabotix is an underwater robotics company that manufactures and sells commercial and industrial-grade underwater drones for commercial, high-end consumer and military applications. It also offers commercially available swarming underwater drones.
The 2018 DACH Country Package for Maptitude includes 4th quarter 2017 map content for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. (Photo: Caliper)
Caliper has lunched a 2018 DACH Country Package for its Maptitude mapping software. According to the company, Maptitude country packages bring the power and flexibility of its Maptitude product suite to a global audience and enable its customers to make geolocation-based decisions internationally.
The 2018 DACH Country Package includes fourth quarter 2017 map content for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The updated map includes refreshed streets and landmarks, as well as updated travel times and improved address matching.
According to the company, users can seamlessly switch between the countries purchased, and doing so will refresh the Maptitude interface with country-specific tools, such as those for territory and sales mapping, finding, pin mapping, routing, displaying demographics and Create-a-Map Wizard.
Caliper develops geographic information systems software, and its Maptitude software is designed to be a cost-effective, professional mapping software product. Maptitude also enables organizations to leverage their location-based data to improve decision making and planning, while minimizing expenditure through competitively priced solutions, the company added.
Airbus Defense and Space’s edited WorldDEM database, along with the WorldDEM4Ortho dataset, are now available for streaming. WorldDEM is a single-source digital elevation model.
According to the company, access to the WorldDEM and WorldDEM4Ortho of the entire Earth’s landmass facilitates a wide range of applications, such as line-of-sight analysis, hydrological modeling, satellite imagery orthorectification and more.
The WorldDEM dataset corresponds to a hydro-enforced digital surface model with water surfaces of lakes and reservoirs set to a single elevation. Rivers and canals are flattened with monotonic flow, oceans are set to zero and coastal infrastructure features are removed.
WorldDEM4Ortho, which is based no the global WorldDEM dataset, is tailored to orthorectification of high and very high- resolution optical and radar satellite data. According to Airbus, it enables corrections of all distortions induced by the topographical variations of the Earth’s surface and the satellite orientation when acquiring the image.
Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus responsible for defence and aerospace products and services.
GeoDecisions, Gannett Fleming’s geospatial technology division, has acquired WorldView Solutions, a geographic information systems (GIS) consulting firm based in Richmond, Virginia.
The acquisition, which became effective Oct. 26, expands the geospatial data services that GeoDecisions provides to commercial clients as well as federal, state and local governments.
“Consolidation of the geospatial marketplace is necessary for firms to remain competitive and provide the most robust and seamless solutions to clients,” said Brendan Wesdock, MCP, GISP, president of GeoDecisions. “We’ve collaborated with WorldView on many projects, and our corporate cultures, client-centered approach, and long-term business goals are in lockstep. The acquisition makes great sense because, by combining forces, we are better equipped to invest in creating products that push the boundaries of geospatial technology and bring greater value to our clients while advancing an aggressive growth plan to expand our geographic footprint.”
WorldView has offered geospatial technology solutions for nearly 20 years, providing resource and asset management, machine learning, artificial intelligence and consulting capabilities to the private and public sectors and nongovernmental organizations. The firm’s 45 employees have been retained and there are not any immediate changes in project management or technical staff for existing WorldView projects.
“Through this acquisition, WorldView’s employees have access to the enhanced capabilities and expanded resources that GeoDecisions and its parent company, Gannett Fleming, bring to the table as a 2,300-person company,” said Jamie Christensen, former president and CEO of WorldView. “Together, we are strengthened in our ability to work with our clients to define their needs and identify the most effective geospatial solutions to solve their complex challenges.”
GeoDecisions will continue to offer ready-to-install products created by WorldView, including PracticeKeeper, a comprehensive web-based solution that enables soil and water conservation districts, departments of environmental protection, and private entities to track all data related to conservation planning, nutrient management, watershed management, erosion and sediment control, and compliance and complaint management.
OrbWeaver, a cloud-based geospatial data-mining tool that provides location-based insights to clients across industries, will also remain available. The software uses specified geospatial parameters and datasets along with machine learning algorithms to discover, integrate, and map other relevant target data sources such as environmental conditions, demographic characteristics, transportation infrastructure, and existing businesses.
For instance, a real estate agent may use the tool to discover, mine, and rank relevant data sets for a full-scope analysis of properties they are considering for purchase.
According to the companies, WorldView has successfully undertaken many assignments for municipalities, districts and counties, as well as state and federal projects. Recent projects in their portfolio include: the development of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Land Application Tracking Module to better track the permits and biosolids land application activity throughout the Commonwealth; the implementation of Spotsylvania Utilities Department’s new asset management system, Cityworks; the implementation and maintenance of the Virginia Department of Transportation’s SMART Portal, a web-based solution that collects funding applications and supports statewide prioritization for transportation project selection; the implementation of PracticeKeeper to help Durham County Soil & Water Conservation District develop and manage conservation plans, document best management practices and improve reporting; and processing more than 20 terabytes of raster data for the University of Vermont to categorize the Chesapeake Bay watershed into 12 land-cover types to support the Chesapeake Conservancy’s watershed and storm water management and conservation efforts.
Eos Positioning Systems has donated an Arrow Gold GNSS receiver to Haiti Outreach, a 21-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Haiti become a developed country.
Haiti Outreach collaborates with individual Haitian communities to create and maintain access to potable water through community outreach, well digging and distribution-network development.
The Arrow Gold GNSS receiver helps Haiti Outreach build and improve potable water distribution networks by providing accurate subfoot elevations required for hydraulic modeling simulations, the company said. It uses Atlas satellite-based corrections to provide real-time decimeter (three to five centimeters) location throughout the country.
“Water is life, and making this basic necessity available to every person is at the foundation of Haiti Outreach’s work,” said Eos Positioning Systems CTO Jean-Yves Lauture. “I believe strongly in Haiti Outreach’s long-term vision to empower Haitian communities through development, education and cooperation.”
Haiti Outreach first began in 1997, with a mission to bring clean water to more people in Haiti and encourage them to take on the responsibility of maintenance and sustainability. In 2005, the organization shifted its focus toward greater community outreach and support, developing a program much more effective at producing the desired long-term outcome. Its community-led initiatives are heavily planned and prioritized, thanks to comprehensive field data collection and advanced geospatial analysis, Eos said.
“In most of these communities, there has only ever been a short-term vision, because the need has always been urgent,” Lauture said. “Haiti Outreach is changing that mentality. They are providing a development plan for now and the future. This is a slow process but is already proving successful. It is a true privilege to be able to support such noble efforts.”
TCarta, a global provider of geospatial products and services, was commissioned by the Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi (EAD) to carry out a landmark mangrove health assessment covering the entire Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The assessment contained mangrove condition information derived from high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery.
According to TCarta, the report showed 80 percent of the Emirate’s mangrove forests were healthy. The project also enabled EAD to designate conservation areas for immediate protection.
For the assessment, TCarta obtained high-resolution multispectral imagery acquired by the DigitalGlobe WorldView-2 and -3 satellites during from December through March. Computer algorithms were applied to the Coastal Blue, Visible Green, Visible Red and Near Infrared bands to differentiate mangroves from other vegetation across the Emirate.
The company then derived several vegetation indices from the spectral bands to rate the health of the mangrove forests, divided into small grids. From there, TCarta analysts obtained coarse-resolution Landsat imagery from 1987, 2001 and 2017 to chart mangrove coverage over three decades. According to TCarta, the combination of WorldView and Landsat data analysis clearly showed where mangrove loss had occurred over time. This data allowed the company to generate its disturbance index, which correlated health to external factors, such as urban development.
“The satellite-derived vegetation analysis process we developed for this project can be applied to large-area crop and forestry health mapping anywhere in the world,” said Chris Burnett, project manager at TCarta. “As part of the assessment, we created a disturbance index showing precisely where the most mangrove stress is occurring. EAD will use this to determine — and potentially mitigate — the external factors causing the mangrove conditions to decline.”
The company’s research proved that urban development near Abu Dhabi City was one of the primary threats to the Emirate’s mangrove forests. According to TCarta, EAD will use the report for remediation efforts, including the selection of more favorable areas to plant new mangroves to balance those that have already been lost.
Hexagon’s Geospatial division released a new version of M.App Enterprise for 2018, M.App Enterprise 16.5. This privately hosted solution allows organizations to deploy Hexagon Smart M.Apps that dynamically address their location-based business problems, the company said.
M.App Enterprise is the ideal platform to monitor assets, evaluate changes and take action, with the new release now including a native mobile client. The mobile workflow enables managers to assign tasks to field workers when it’s necessary to act. With the new mobile application, the platform is available from anywhere, including areas without internet access.
The new M.App Enterprise Studio comes with the Spatial Workshop user interface to manage spatial recipes. Its geoprocessing capabilities make it possible to make calculations with any type of geospatial data.
Updates to the Feature Analyzer component, such as thematic cluster markers, tooltips for boundary data and the option to share your views according to user type, make it easier to interactively derive insights from a variety of data, the company said.
The new product localization feature ensures that users are no longer lost in translation. New languages can be added to any local M.App Enterprise instance within minutes.
“M.App Enterprise provides a unified geospatial enterprise platform enabling customers and partners to create vertical solutions for their markets and industry segments,” said Georg Hammerer, chief technology officer of Hexagon’s Geospatial Division. “M.App Enterprise perfectly fits into the movement to the cloud and the trend towards self-service BI.”
