Boundless has released Boundless Suite 4.10, designed to streamline the creation of maps and applications using open GIS.
The company also released a new Boundless software development kit (SDK) and contributions to the community release of GeoServer 2.11.
The company also entered a strategic partnership with geospatial intelligence firm Spatial Networks Inc. to bring software and data solutions to government and defense customers worldwide. SNI and Boundless are delivering the capability to quickly support users locked into proprietary software architectures with limited abilities to connect to third-party data sources.
The SNI and Boundless teams will be at the GEOINT Symposium (Booths 731 and 961) June 3-6 to highlight this partnership.
Boundless Suite 4.10 includes enhancements designed to make working with open GIS easier. Users now have all the necessary installation files, tools, extensions and premium support options needed to ensure a successful deployment of open GIS.
Unlike proprietary solutions, Boundless Suite 4.10 offers flexibility and scalability, without complicated and costly licensing models, enabling organizations to scale up or out freely without being penalized.
Features of the new release
Support on the CentOS 7 operating system, giving users outside of the Windows ecosystem access to the most comprehensive open GIS solution.
Leverage modern symbology styles with Mapbox Styles, a modern way to style data that is designed to work across the entire Boundless product platform. This update lets users style applications quickly and consistently across desktop, web and mobile.
Designed to work in modern IT architectures, including virtual machines, elastic DevOps architectures and the cloud, allowing customers to maximize their GIS investment and lower total ownership costs.
“Boundless Suite 4.10 represents our continued commitment to releasing quality geospatial software on a regular basis,” said Anthony Calamito, VP of product at Boundless. “The new capabilities in Suite 4.10 make publishing spatial data easier, make it accessible on more operating systems and enable the simplified styling of data across the Boundless ecosystem.”
Boundless SDK. Boundless’ new SDK ships with Boundless Suite 4.10. It enables users to easily create web mapping applications that leverage the OpenLayers 3 library, using the React framework.
The SDK additionally powers the web application builder in Boundless Desktop, which allows users to quickly create quality applications without writing any code.
GeoServer 2.11. Boundless Suite 4.10 ships with GeoServer 2.11, which has been updated to include improved loading and OGC request times for large installations, making it possible to manage tens of thousands of layers in GeoServer with minimum load times.
GeoServer 2.11 comes with increased EPSG support and improved identification and handling of obscure .prj files and directories of shapefiles. These new updates greatly decrease the load time for shapefiles, and allow GeoServer to better support data from ArcGIS.
The Boundless open GIS platform includes Connect, Desktop, Exchange and Suite.
Fugro is enhancing its mapping services with the introduction of an integrated software package that creates realistic, yet spatially accurate, high-resolution 3D building models using oblique imagery.
The product will benefit emergency responders during critical infrastructure planning, as well as those involved in infrastructure development, utilities and property management.
Fugro, partnering with Skyline Software Systems, provides infrastructure management professionals with robust new capabilities in oblique mapping, including detailed 3D models and view shed studies for advanced visualization and analysis.
Announcing a strategic partnership with Skyline Software Systems Inc., Mike Wernau, Fugro’s Oblique program manager explained, “We are now able to take a 2D oblique product and deliver a realistic 3D environment with enhanced viewing, query, analysis and reporting options. The value that users are going to discover as a result of this software fusion is something the market has really never seen before.”
The new partnership offers clients an integrated oblique viewing and 3D modeling software. The integration of TerraExplorer and PX Mapper transforms the application of 3D environments by using 2D oblique imagery to create high-resolution building models that are both realistic and spatially accurate.
Fugro’s oblique mapping solution includes high-resolution 360-degree oblique imagery and the PX Mapper visualization and analysis software. The Fugro/Skyline alliance allows oblique customers to experience Skyline’s automated modeling technology along with TerraExplorer’s optimized analytics capabilities including terrain analysis for flooding, contours, slope and volume metrics, lines of sight and view shed queries and shadow analysis.
“By combining oblique imagery with our high-quality 3D modeling tool and integrating those models with the unlimited capabilities of TerraExplorer Pro, we’ve created the optimal environment for GIS infrastructure,” said Eatay Ben Shechter, director of production at Skyline. “This versatile product supports countless real-world applications, where time-critical decision making is required, from urban planning to real-estate management, and multiple different emergency response scenarios.”
A flagship project employing this integrated 3D environment is already underway with completion in Summer 2017.
Boundless, an open GIS company, has announced a strategic partnership with Planet, the integrated aerospace and data-analytics company that operates history’s largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites. The partnership enables Boundless customers to access the massive library of high-quality Planet imagery and fast-loading imagery basemaps within Boundless Connect.
Starting today, Boundless Desktop users can access this content through the Boundless Connect plugin. Planet content is also accessible through Boundless Suite and Exchange subscriptions.
“This partnership significantly advances the content available through Boundless Connect, and expands our ability to provide high-quality imagery to Boundless users,” said Anthony Calamito, vice president of product for Boundless. “This represents a major step forward in providing our growing user base with valuable insights through Planet’s content. We are excited about this partnership and all the capabilities that will be delivered to our users, now and in the future.”
A Planet image of Bingham Canyon Mine, Salt Lake County, Utah, taken March 10, 2013.
The partnership with Planet will provide access to:
Basemaps – Automated basemaps optimized for clear seasonal coverage, completeness and visual quality, perfect for map backdrops. In addition, quarterly or monthly timelapse basemaps gives users access to the latest imagery.
Image Tiles from PlanetScope – 4-band (RGB and NIR) imagery for visual or analytic use.
Image Tiles from RapidEye – 5-band (RGB, NIR, and Red Edge) imagery for visual and analytic use.
“This partnership is a huge step forward in delivering the most extensive and up-to-date satellite imagery catalog and basemaps to the broader geospatial community,” said Alex Bakir, vice president of product marketing for Planet. “Boundless’ open, flexible platform pairs perfectly with Planet’s data and platform services, and gives Boundless users the tools and content needed to integrate seamlessly into their workflows. We are very excited to be working with Boundless and look forward to what is to come.”
Boundless offers an open GIS ecosystem through a combination of technology, products and experts that gives enterprises deeper intelligence and insights using location-based data.
The Boundless platform is built upon open source technology and open APIs that generate actionable location intelligence across third-party apps, content services and plugins for enterprise applications.
In November 2016, the company extended its proven GIS platform with Boundless Connect, a subscription service to the most comprehensive repository of GIS resources, and Boundless Desktop, a full-featured, professional desktop GIS, bringing a powerful ecosystem of geospatial knowledge, tools and resources to the enterprise.
The 5G network, augmented reality, machine learning and other innovations are delivering a wealth of options to rapidly advance the power of Smart Cities technology.
The Smart Cities Technology Roadmap helps city planners know what’s on the horizon for tomorrow so that they can start developing their technology vision today. The report is developed by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), an organization that brings together the top global information and communication technology (ICT) companies.
The roadmap is the first ICT industry publication designed for city decision makers including CTOs, CIOs and technology advisors that provides an overview of the network-enabled technologies to have the greatest impact on the evolving Smart City.
The goal is to foster better budgeting, purchasing and staging decisions. The end result will be to position city decision makers to more effectively manage their upcoming technology investments as they create the connected cities of the future.
ATIS’ Smart Cities Technology Roadmap was developed through extensive discussions with city leaders, solution providers and manufacturers — all heavily invested in creating successful Smart Cities environments. It is available free of charge on the ATIS website.
“Rapidly advancing capabilities to collect and analyze constant real-time data are starting to help better manage many citizen-centric functions, improving traffic flow monitoring, public safety, and more,” said ATIS President and CEO Susan Miller. “The Roadmap is a much-needed focal point for dialogue between city planners and the ICT industry. It can enable planners to turn their Smart Cities projects into a comprehensive Smart Cities vision.”
Plans being made now will be more effective if they consider the introduction of 5G solutions in the next few years. These deliver the promise of high bandwidth, low-latency and pervasive connectivity offering Smart City ecosystems a new generation of applications.
The Roadmap helps planners look ahead to leverage advancements such as these. It provides an overview of Smart Cities technology challenges and benefits and offers a high-level technology framework and summary of key technology enablers.
The Roadmap also includes a deeper analysis on the current state of standards, a review of technology choices, and an assessment of critical factors that may impact future deployment.
Following publication of the guide, ATIS will gather feedback on collaborative activities that can advance Smart Cities technology investments. Input from city planners is welcome. ATIS is engaging cities to develop prioritized next steps, whether it be developing data exchanges, building on ATIS’ Internet of Things registry or another business framework. Opportunities are being explored to standardize foundation-level aspects of Smart City infrastructure, allowing customization and innovation to meet each city’s unique vision.
Companies participating in the roadmap include AT&T, Bell Canada, C-Spire, CenturyLink, Cisco, Cox Communications, Ericsson, Fujitsu, HPE, iconectiv, InterDigital, JMA Wireless, Motorola, NextNav, Nokia, Oracle, Qualcomm, Sprint, TELUS, Verizon, Viavi and West Safety Services.
Wantman Group Inc. has completed a 9-square-mile UAV project using SimActive’s Correlator3D. Initially meant to be acquired using manned aircraft, the dataset comprised 3,056 images with full processing completed in less than two days.
Wantman Group,is a Florida consulting firm founded in 1972 to provide a comprehensive range of infrastructure services.
“You might think a UAS is not the most efficient way to cover such a large area,” said Eric Andelin, UAS program manager at Wantman. “However, if time is a factor, a UAS on-site becomes more efficient than an airplane in a hangar. For such large projects, SimActive is the way to go for efficient processing.”
“Wantman has the expertise to acquire data using both manned aircraft and UAV,” said Philippe Simard, president of SimActive. “Correlator3D allows users the flexibility to rapidly process data, regardless of acquisition platform.”
The app provides a new way to measure marine environments on a 3D interactive map for more cost-effective fishery planning and informed conservation.
Esri has released an Ecological Marine Units (EMU) app for mobile devices. The app is a resource for scientists, educators, governments and industries seeking accessible information and imagery about the ocean’s long-term physical and nutrient properties.
The EMU app puts data such as temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen from 52 million locations throughout the world’s oceans at any user’s fingertips. This data informs how livable marine environments are for ocean-dwelling species as well as the overall health of the ecosystem.
Organizations involved in fishery planning, for instance, can use the EMU mobile app to review proposed boundaries with a better understanding of which habitats will likely harbor certain species and manage fisheries more cost-effectively.
By using the EMU mobile app, industries that depend on fishing yields can spend less time and money on areas that are less profitable. Conservation groups that need easy access to information on the environments of marine protected areas (MPA) to more effectively regulate them now also have a mobile tool for understanding the chemical makeup of these areas.
“The EMU mobile app will serve as a fresh, widely available resource for professionals who benefit from a deeper understanding of the ocean’s structure — its salinity, temperature, oxygen levels and nutrients,” said Dawn Wright, Esri chief scientist. “Scientists and nonscientists alike who must study and understand the ocean now have the freedom of a convenient mobile interface with this vast wealth of environmental data.”
The primary data source for the EMU mobile app is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) authoritative World Ocean Atlas, with marine chemistry information from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and topographic data from GRID-Arendal.
The app provides access to this globally comprehensive, data-driven 2D and 3D data and serves as an educational tool for easily understanding marine environments and how they are affected by climate change.
The EMU mobile app is free from the App Store and Google Play.
President Donald Trump has proposed a $922.2 million Fiscal Year 2018 (FY18) budget for the U.S. Geological Survey. The proposed FY18 request reflects a savings of $137.8 million in appropriated funds from the FY 2017 CR baseline and a continued commitment to the bureau’s core mission.
The USGS proposed budget provides science support for disaster alerts and rapid response, producing high-resolution geospatial data, addressing new and emerging invasive species and disease, tackling water challenges and supporting development for the Landsat 9 satellite ground system.
According to a USGS press release, the request ensures that the USGS will continue to focus on conducting leading-edge research and providing impartial scientific data to key stakeholders and decision-makers to help promote stewardship of public lands and waters and protect the health, safety and prosperity of the nation.
The USGS will also conduct work on environmental impacts of resource extraction and understanding how mineral resources interact with the environment to affect human and ecosystem health.
The agency will also continue to develop and apply new methods to forecast, detect and understand health implications of toxins produced by harmful algal blooms. Additionally, the USGS will continue research to understand contaminants and pathogens related to drinking waters.
The USGS budget also places strong emphasis on assessing the occurrence, quality, supply and use of energy and critical mineral resources. The FY18 budget request for the USGS Energy and Minerals Resources Mission Area is $74.4 million.
The agency will continue to assess energy resources and provide publicly available scientific data and tools to inform energy policy discussions as well as to support science-based decisions that facilitate responsible resource management, including oil, gas, coal, geothermal, uranium and gas hydrate energy resource activities. This request will also allow the USGS to focus on understanding the genesis and distribution of the nation’s critical mineral resources, particularly in Alaska, mid-continent and southeast regions of the United States.
The USGS FY 2018 Budget Justification is available here, and additional details on the President’s FY 2018 Budget are available on the department’s website.
Icaros Inc., a provider of aerial imaging software, has released version 5.0 of OneButton Standard and Professional image-processing software for unmanned aerial systems. The 5.0 release contains a significant number of major new features and hundreds of other improvements, including a new 2D and 3D map and model viewer.
Icaros developed the OneButton family for geospatial end users to easily and automatically generate precise, fully orthorectified 2D maps and 3D models from frame-based aerial imaging systems. Originally engineered for manned aircraft sensors, the OneButton software has been modified to accommodate the unique collection conditions of unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
OneButton is application platform and sensor agnostic, and processes raster image data from small-, medium- and large-format frame sensors capable of capturing visible RBG, multispectral, near-infrared and thermal infrared data.
New features and capabilities in version 5.0:
Provides both traditional and true orthomosaics
Maintain original pixel values for multi-spectral and thermal analysis(traditional)
Creates composite imagery for urban areas and tall structures(true)
Provides new viewer capabilities:
View 2D and 3D outputs such as orthomosaics, point clouds, and photo meshes
Create fly-through videos
Generate contour lines from GeoTiff terrain models
Label features and control the appearance of you maps and models
Add other georeferenced data as layers for reference
Scalable
No restrictions on image size and project size
Checkpoint restart
High performance / processing speed
Other additional improvements include:
Support for all the major sensors (multispectral, thermal),
All industry standard output formats (e.g., big TIFF)
Higher levels of ASPRS accuracy
Higher quality of feature extraction
In release 5.0, the Professional Edition is now much easier to use. Professional Edition extends the Standard Edition with quality enhancement tools for more refined, professional results. It includes an innovative and easy-to-use photogrammetric dashboard giving you fine tuning control over the photogrammetric process. Other tools in the Professional Edition let users enhance output results.
“We have worked with many UAS image processing products, and OneButton sets a high standard. The Professional Edition is easy to use and provides many of the advanced photogrammetric options essential for producing the high-quality, accurate results that customers expect from AeroVironment,” said Seth Merickel, Senior Software Engineer at AeroVironment.
Current users of OneButton Standard and Professional editions can download and install the latest version. New OneButton software clients qualify for a free 30-day trial available at the following links:
OneButton creates a complete image processing workflow for aerial image data and can front-end both GIS and analytics workflows to enable customers to solve challenging problems related to everything from agriculture and forestry to utilities and city planning. It is highly customizable to meet the needs of specific vertical market applications.
OneButton automatically processes raw raster imagery with onboard GPS/IMU data to stitch the individual scenes together into seamless, color-balanced orthomosaics meeting photogrammetric precision and quality standards. Outputs include digital elevation models (DEMs), true color 3D point clouds, and multispectral mosaics — all ready for ingestion directly into GIS and analytics software environments.
Quantum Spatial Inc., an independent geospatial data firm, has worked with the U.S. Forest Service to continually improve its Interactive Visitor Map over the past year, giving the visitors access to easy-to-use, searchable resources through which they can discover and explore recreational opportunities in national forests.
Using feedback from a variety of stakeholders — including forest rangers and the public — Quantum Spatial and the Forest Service have improved navigation, expanded search capabilities, and added alerts about severe weather, fires and floods.
They also have integrated social media — including Twitter feeds from 120 national forests and grasslands, geolocated Tweets from forest service personnel and crowdsourced content from Yonder, a social media app for outdoor enthusiasts.
The Interactive Visitor Map provides information about 193 million acres of National Forest System land, including 371,000 miles of roads, 158,000 trail miles and more than 24,000 recreation sites.
“As summer approaches, vacationers are looking forward to hiking and camping in national forests,” said Kurt Allen, Quantum Spatial’s vice president, federal vertical lead, public sector. “The Interactive Visitor Map we developed in collaboration with the Forest Service and other partners gives the public a convenient, easy-to-use online resource from which they can learn more about their destinations and plan their trips.”
The Interactive Visitor Map was developed by a cross-functional team of contractors, with Quantum Spatial leading the architecture redesign portion of the project. Quantum Spatial focused on presenting maps and data in a way that is logical and easier for users to navigate, as well as adding social media functionality.
Typically in contracts for projects such as this, the parameters are set in advance, leaving very little flexibility to adapt as the project evolves and the needs change over time. The Forest Service took a different approach, calling for agile software development in its contract, to help speed development and enable them to quickly pivot to make unanticipated improvements to the map.
The approach, which is unconventional among government agencies, enabled the team to deliver new features of the map on an incremental basis.
“The Forest Service has taken a very visionary approach in using agile development. During the past year, we have been able to systematically improve the map’s usability and deliver richer content, based on feedback from a range of real users,” said Cherie Jarvis, eGIS practice lead at Quantum Spatial, which has been providing geospatial services to the Forest Services for 15 years. “We are honored to partner with the Forest Service on this project to achieve its mission of quickly delivering in-demand resources to the public.”
Since the map was initially introduced, usage has grown from an average of 1,000 page views a day to more than 2,000 page views a day now, with an upward trajectory anticipated to continue as the summer season approaches.
“The latest iteration of our Interactive Visitor Map has been very well received, and usage has grown considerably,” said Donavan Albert, national web manager for the Forest Service’s Office of Communication. “We have gotten great feedback from our rangers, who use it as a primary resource to answer visitors’ questions, as well as the public who find useful information for planning their trips and have the ability to share images and details about their favorite destinations.”
The Forest Service expects to continue making refinements to the map. Improvements planned for the future include the ability to more precisely geolocate Tweets and expansion of the content into a mobile app that is functional in environments where there is limited or no internet connectivity.
Consulting firm Michael Baker International has partnered with the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to use unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to inspect runway conditions.
The mission’s use of drones on the airfield of an international airport in the United States during daily airport operations is a first, according to the company.
Michael Baker is partnering with ATL on a pavement evaluation project and identified an opportunity for the innovative use of UAS to collect information on the condition of the runway pavement. This method provides a large amount of data for the teams to analyze and can help document the runway for future rehabilitation and improvement decisions.
It also presents a time and cost savings for the airport as it would take less than half the time to complete compared to the traditional approach of manually photographing the physical condition of the runway, which can take more than four hours.
The Michael Baker UAS team used a Topcon Falcon 8 aircraft to conduct the drone flight in mid-March and surveyed more than 3,000 linear feet of runway. The mission was conducted on the international Runway 9L/27R and was completed in less than 20 minutes, gathering approximately 630 photos of the airfield. This runway, the longest at the airport at 12,390 feet, typically carries the heaviest aircrafts, which cause the most pavement damage and safety concerns.
“Michael Baker and the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport have had a strong relationship for more than 14 years, collaborating on innovative and effective projects,” said Quintin Watkins, aviation program manager in Michael Baker’s Norcross, Georgia, office. “This was a great opportunity for our experts in geographic information systems to assist the airport with a unique challenge. The information we successfully gathered during this flight will give the airport valuable insight on the ongoing safety and maintenance of the airfield. We hope to find ways to conduct similar missions with the airport in the future.”
To plan for the project, Michael Baker obtained approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct UAS operations in Class B airspace at ATL. The FAA waiver is active for four months and requires the airport to be in a west flow condition, to establish two-way radio contact and to close the runway at the time of the flight.
During this and future missions, the team can generate contours, orthomosiac imagery, RGB 3-D textured mesh and a digital terrain model (DTM). This data can then be analyzed by the Michael Baker and airport teams using engineering software such as Autodesk, Esri and Bentley, and can help determine future needs to improve and maintain the runway conditions.
Earlier this year, ATL also conducted a drone flight over its parking deck to identify areas for reconstruction. ATL, known as the world’s busiest airport, serves more than 104 million passengers annually and offers nonstop service to more than 150 domestic and nearly 70 international destinations.
EagleView, provider of aerial imagery and data analytics for government and commercial industries, has acquired OmniEarth, developer of machine learning technologies and decision-making tools for the water resource management, energy and insurance markets.
With the acquisition, EagleView gains OmniEarth’s machine learning capabilities, resulting in higher accuracy and precision of existing automated datasets.
OmniEarth’s ability to extract data from geospatial imagery will enhance EagleView’s property reports and Pictometry imagery classification of land areas such as impervious surfaces or irrigated farmland. It will also better identify roof shape and condition, tree overhang, decks, pools and other notable property features, EagleView said.
“We’re excited to welcome OmniEarth’s strong research-oriented management team, who will add to the innovative work that we’re doing at EagleView,” said EagleView President Rishi Daga. “This acquisition aligns perfectly with our mission of transforming industries by providing answers and saving time and money.”
Water authorities and government agencies rely on the water resource management tools from OmniEarth to determine budgeting and water cost savings for individual parcels as well as identify the overuse or abuse of water. Like EagleView, OmniEarth also supports the insurance underwriting market through its property feature identification capabilities.
“By gaining access to EagleView’s world-class Pictometry image library and product infrastructure, the OmniEarth team will be able to accelerate its development of advanced analytic solutions,” said Lars Dyrud, President and CEO of OmniEarth. “EagleView and OmniEarth have a shared goal of problem-solving and will be able to work together to achieve that vision.”
The acquisition gives EagleView opportunities to offer additional property data solutions for roof rating, virtual inspection, vegetation mapping, impervious surface mapping, solar suitability, and insurance prefill.
“OnmiEarth’s machine learning capabilities will create new opportunities for EagleView to use our imagery and property measurements to create a large prefill database,” said Frank Giuffrida, EagleView’s Executive Vice President of Engineering. “Additionally, marrying our high-resolution imagery and existing technologies with this machine learning system will help us accelerate our product development in existing markets as well as enter into new markets.”
EagleView is enthusiastic that the OmniEarth technologies will accelerate time-to-market on new product enhancements and greatly improve customer workflow capabilities. These innovations align with EagleView’s goals of capturing more frequent, higher-resolution imagery that covers more physical area and scaling through automation.
This e-newsletter marks the sun setting on the career of GeoIntelligence Insider columnist and contributing editor Art Kalinski, long active in geospatial circles. Art is handing the journalistic reins to William Tewelow, a former intelligence specialist with the U.S. Navy. He also served a special assignment at the U.S. Department of Transportation and is currently a manager with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The following discussion muses about the direction of our geospatial tradecraft in the coming years.
Tewelow’s Geointelligence column will alternate monthly with Mike Jones’ Defense PNT column. Every issue of this newsletter also brings you the latest news on both expanding fronts, hardware and software, in the defense and security realm.
Passing the torch
A conversation between retiring GeoIntelligence editor Art Kalinski, GISP, and his successor, William Tewelow, GISP.
Counter-drone technology research and operation efforts are helping to prepare for the potential threat of drone swarms. This Lockheed Martin concept is explored in “Technology That Counters Drone Swarms.” (Image: Lockheed Martin)
Art: A factor of life is that you just can’t predict with certainty where technology is headed or what the issues will be. Several weeks ago I attended a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) users group that seemed like a glimpse of the Wild West. I thought the key discussion topics would be the latest technology which seems to change almost weekly. That was not the case. The key discussions were the same as the early days of GIS: legal liability, jurisdictions, data ownership, administrative issues and so on, as the FAA changes the rules and regulations. I began to see that there will be more employment opportunities for lawyers than techies and pilots.
Although most of the attendees at the conference were geospatial/first responder users, I’ve learned of a growing community of non-traditional users such as power line inspectors and even tower painters. Yes, a tower painting company using tethered UAVs to paint in dangerous locations such as bridges, tanks and towers. At first I thought that would be difficult but by using a tethered system, heavy batteries are eliminated and bigger UAVs will permit heavier hoses, etc. Although the FAA had little interest in tethered balloons and UAVs, that could change as the size, altitude and potential crash radius expands.
This is just one example of how our technology is moving in many unplanned directions, everything from UAVs with new ways of collecting imagery to more exotic topics such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality (VR) and gamification. The entire trade craft is evolving in ways I don’t think anybody could have predicted just a few years ago, much less a decade ago. It will be interesting to see where it goes.
William: You mentioned several new technologies mixing things up. Small sats are also making a significant impact. They are game changers. Imagine the traditional 2D satellite imagery base map. With the tech we have now 3D base maps are possible and have been for a long time with DEMS. Now, small sat imagery can be overlaid atop the 3D basemaps providing fresh imagery with periodicities of 24 hours or less, including multi-spectral. I’ve even seen small sat video overlays. That’s game changing.
Art: Not only small sats but the work being done with drone swarms is an exciting new area. If data needs to be collected in a hostile area or if flight clearance in a busy air corridor was limited, a swarm of maybe 100 drones could capture a wide swath of data at high resolutions, with multiple spectrums in very short order.
Virtual reality and augmented reality are two areas which have always intrigued me and they are coming to fruition. When I started out in GIS, I told people working for me to do the best we could building our regional database because at some point we would have construction workers wearing goggles that will augment the reality of what they are seeing with GIS data. That day is here and people are finally starting to do that. So, the entire concept of AR (augmented reality) and VR I find extremely exciting.
William: Yes, absolutely, in fact I believe they used drone swarms in the hostage situation in Algiers in 2014. And you are right. VR and AR use for first responders is especially critical. Say you’re a disaster relief person at night in a smoke-filled building. Night vision and thermal vision reach a practical limit. However, combining the vision devices with AR you may be able to navigate through the environment well enough. AR shows at least what should be there so accurate and timely data is critical. I can see this is where things are headed. Additionally, more mundane tasks such as design and modifications of structures could be enhanced. Work is already being done using AR and VR to facilitate the design process.
Art: VR started as fun and games but to me serious use VR is where the new and exciting action will be for geospatial practitioners. Virtual trainers I saw recently included small arms and artillery trainers for the military to a less exciting but equally impressive virtual trainer to teach arc welding and even spray painting a car. Significantly more critical was a VR surgical trainer where the muscle learning and hand eye coordination required is significant. It’s obviously quicker, easier and cheaper to practice virtually than on a real human or real equipment and the VR environment is just one short step away from surgical robots operating in remote locations.
William: Right, and you are touching on gamification, where VR can be used to train toward certain results. Take the military, for example, gamification can save all manner of resources – bullets, people, buildings the environment. Additionally, users can also scale up or down. The VR environment doesn’t just mean roads, maps or mountains. You can get down to a micro level.
Art: It’s interesting you mention that. One aha! moment I had years ago was at the first Esri User Conference in San Diego. I went through the map gallery. A lot of examples of different uses for GIS were on display and one person had created a map of the human circulatory system using ArcView Network Analyst. Looking at it I thought, of course, whether its blood vessels or interstate highways, it’s a network; so, this individual was using a geospatial tool to map the entire blood vessel network.
William: We are now in the realm of nano technology, where things are small enough to work on blood cells. Imagine steering straight towards a cancer cell by pinpointing a location in relation to the body.
Art: It’s almost like the movie “Fantastic Voyage” except in a virtual environment.
William: Yes. Being able to put the nano technology right where it needs to be means entering an age of focused medicine so that a pill releasing nano particulates doesn’t impact the whole body just the area needed. That’s another discussion in itself. Of course, all of that will have to be controlled, mapped and understood in terms of what it’s doing and where it’s going in relation to the body.
Art: One area that is very concerning to me is cyber. All of this stuff we’ve talked about is very vulnerable whether stealing data or doing damage to a society. Thwarting those threats is getting into machine learning, AI and other topics bordering science fiction.
William: Yes, and you are getting into artificial intelligence. IBM, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and our three letter agencies are all investing into the world of Geospatial AI. I am not sure where GeoAI will end up but we can already see some hints. The amount of geospatial data is overwhelming and imagine the explosion happening with IoT. How will all that be managed? GeoAI will do pattern recognition so in effect GeoAI is assisted intelligence.
As an example let’s consider a high profile event. There are 1000’s of parameters that need to be tracked such as surveillance cameras, social media feeds, a suite of sensors, etc. Identifying critical patterns is crucial so Geospatial Assisted Intelligence can monitor the parameters of the event then notify the analyst when a triggering event occurs. That’s where the technology is going where it has to go.
Art: One has to have a truly dizzying intellect to keep track of all aspects of our technology. At the last NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) conference, Director Cardillo talked extensively about open systems and open sources which are growing directions for the agency. I believe it’s good to get away from everything being “inside the tent” and taking advantage of the extensive capability in the broad geospatial community. The stated goal is to be able to develop needed geospatial tools, in an unclassified environment, not in months or weeks but literally in minutes to provide those tools to analysts in the field. Things have come so far from the day I was just happy to get a pen plotter to print a simple map.
William: It really is mind boggling. I was there when full motion video began and that was dynamic 2D imagery but then it made the jump to 3D dynamic imagery and my circuits fried. I still have a hard time comprehending all the data crunching that goes into it and it is now almost standard. The future is amazing. That is the direction I want to continue to explore.
