GPS World

Tag: GIS

  • USDA aerial maps transitioning to new URLs

    As part of The National Map transition to cloud hosting, several of the National Map Orthoimagery Services will be provided under new URLs by early December.

    One major change involves links to USDA National Aerial Imagery Program (NAIP) orthoimagery. These new URLs have been available and running in parallel for many months and most applications have already made the change to the new replacement services.

    In addition, as part of this transition, USGS legacy Digital Raster Graphic (DRG) or Scanned Map service will also be retired.

    Orthimage of Glenn Canyon Dam, Arizona, taken Oct. 31, 2016. (USGS)
    Orthimage of Glenn Canyon Dam, Arizona, taken Oct. 31, 2016. (USGS)

    The National Map uses NAIP imagery as a key component of its US Topo map products. As part of this service, it also provides imagery compressed files for download and imagery web map services for visualization in applications. These imagery services and data download provide an imagery base that supplements the associated US Topo GIS-based product: the Topo Map Vector Data Product.

    The imagery web map services or imagery downloaded from TNM Downloader may both be used along with TNM vector products in the Topo TNM Style Template, providing GIS basemap layers and data in the cartographic style and layout of the US Topo maps.

    These dynamic imagery services are designed to provide visualization from local to national scales for a variety of use cases. The replacement “Imagery – 1 meter (plus)” service will contain NAIP orthoimagery along with other High Resolution Orthoimagery (HRO) to fill in areas where NAIP is not flown.

    Some of the services are scale-dependent, drawing only at the largest scales (below 18K scale), to facilitate zooming in past the levels currently supported in the faster USGS tile cached Imagery Basemap service. These capabilities are being maintained through the new URLs listed on the transition page.

  • NGA contracts with Planet for small satellite imagery

    The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has signed a $20 million introductory contract with Planet that will provide small satellite collection and coverage of most of the Earth’s landmass.

    The agreement is a step toward harnessing the potential, capabilities and services of the small sat and commercial imagery environment.

    The NGA will have access to a global imagery refresh every 15 days of most of Earth’s landmass through the new contract. Planet is a commercial imagery provider operating the largest constellation of Earth-imaging satellites.Its feed, known as the Planet Feed, will be used across the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG) and select members of the civil federal community. The NSG is the operating framework supported by producers, consumers or influencers of geospatial intelligence, or GEOINT.

    “Improving our profession means further committing to the use of innovative capabilities being developed and deployed by commercial data providers and analytic companies for mission accomplishment,” said NGA Director Robert Cardillo at the May 2016 GEOINT Symposium in Washington, D.C. “Our commercial space partners will provide meaningful, higher revisit capabilities this year and we look forward to turning their exciting potential into our mission reality.”

    The introductory contract includes a seven-month period of performance, beginning Sept. 15 and valued at $20 million.

    The Planet Feed includes multispectral imagery from constellations at 3-5 meter and 6.7 meter resolutions. The imagery products will include unrectified and orthorectified images and orthomosaic single-pass tiles. The global scope of coverage and high temporal frequency of collection from Planet provides NGA with new data sources to support the agency’s many missions including foundation GEOINT, humanitarian assistance, disaster response and intelligence.

    “Planet’s mission to provide timely, global imagery to empower informed, deliberate and meaningful stewardship of the planet is directly in line with our mission,” said John Charles, NGA commercial imagery lead. “We’re no longer simply admiring the potential of small satellites and their persistent capabilities, we’re harnessing that potential.”

    Autumn in New Hampshire on Oct. 17. (Photo: Planet)
    Autumn in New Hampshire on Oct. 17. (Photo: Planet)

    Planet designs, builds, and operates a constellation of Earth imaging nano-satellites. The global scope of coverage and high temporal frequency of collection from Planet will provide NGA with new data sources to use for geospatial intelligence analysis.

    Commercial GEOINT Activity. Earlier this year, NGA, together with the National Reconnaissance Office, also launched a new office to synchronize activities for collection and analytic capabilities that can benefit both agencies.

    Commercial GEOINT Activity (CGA) allows both agencies to assess current capabilities and develop strategies to ensure the timely and successful integration of commercial innovations that will benefit NGA and NRO.

    This activity serves as a voice for NGA and NRO to the commercial GEOINT enterprise. The CGA conducts joint assessments, recommends investment decisions, and engages user communities. It advises NGA and NRO on synchronizing joint acquisition activities for vendors who can provide both collection and analytic capabilities to benefit the agencies. The CGA also develops strategies to access, acquire and integrate commercial GEOINT capabilities.

    The CGA began operations on Sept. 30.

  • Does a city of the dead lurk near you?

    Just in time for Halloween, Esri is providing a Story Map of Cities of the Dead, featuring historic and notable graveyards, cemeteries and crypts. Find out what may lurk near you…

  • Eos introduces photogrammetry software for drone photography

    Eos Systems Inc. has introduced new photogrammetry software optimized specifically for photographs taken with drones or unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

    The new PhotoModeler UAS 2016 creates 3D models, measurements, and maps from photographs taken with ordinary cameras built-in or mounted on drones. It has numerous features for operation with drone photos, including post processing kinematics (PPK), volume objects, full geographic coordinate systems support, multispectral image support and control point assist.

    Eos Systems will be showcasing PhotoModeler UAS Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 at the Commercial UAV Expo in Las Vegas, and will offer the new software at 35 percent off the normal price Nov. 1-30.

    eos-photogrammetry-wThe new version of PhotoModeler is suited for drone photogrammetry applications, including surveying, ground contouring, surface model creation, stockpile volume measurement, mining and mine reclamation, environmental analysis, slope analysis, forensic analysis, construction and agricultural crop analysis.

    New applications for drone photogrammetry are developed monthly. Eos PhotoModeler was introduced 23 years ago and has become one of the leading photogrammetric software platforms with a wide range of users in fields such as architecture, engineering, surveying, research, manufacturing and forensics.

    PhotoModeler UAS 2016 software includes numerous features that provide higher performance in drone photogrammetry. Camera calibration is optimized for high accuracy with UASs and GPS. Post processed kinematics (PPK) makes it possible to correct a survey with GPS data after the fact for survey grade accuracy.

    Volume objects provide easy and accurate volume data for stock piles and mining operations. Full geographic coordinate system support enables users to work in their local geographic coordinate system for better compatibility. Support is provided for multispectral images including Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) surface models and orthomosaics for precision agriculture. An intuitive interface is provided for efficiently marking ground control points.

  • OGC requests comments on proposed Quality of Service and Experience DWG

    The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) requests comments on the charter for a proposed Quality of Service and Experience (QoSE) Domain Working Group (DWG).

    Spatial data now plays a critical role in the smooth functioning of contemporary society. From aiding emergency workers during crises to empowering businesses to make informed decisions, the reliable availability of the spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) that provide this critical spatial information is more important than ever.

    Yet, despite their critical nature, SDIs may suffer from sub-optimal configuration, malfunctioning hardware, or other factors that ultimately affect the accessibility of that data.

    The closely related fields of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) deal with estimating, reporting, and improving the experienced quality of communication between the components of distributed systems to inform the SDI users of the suitability of the service for the users’ needs.

    Organizations must establish a reliable SDI and measure, improve, and communicate information about QoS criteria — such as availability, performance, and capacity of SDI components — to end users. Mature tools for measuring and analyzing the QoS of these SDI components do exist, but there is little to no support for a standardized way of communicating the expected QoS level of the services to the end users and/or their analysis tools.

    The OGC QoSE DWG will provide a forum for discussing the evaluation of the QoS and QoE of an SDI as whole, and, when appropriate, propose corrections and enhancements to the existing OGC Standards (or externally governed standards) and guidance to make it easier to improve the experienced quality of Spatial Data Services.

    Further, the QoSE DWG will provide a forum for presenting, discussing, and sharing knowledge about evaluating and improving the QoS and QoE of Spatial Data Services from the perspective of the applications and organizations relying on these services for delivering timely and accurate spatial information to the end users.

    The draft charter for the QoSE DWG is available for download. Comments are requested by Nov, 15 and can be submitted to [email protected].

  • Incident software honored with Intergeo award

    Hotspot Map: Hotspots indicate some form of clustering in a spatial distribution. In this Incident Analyzer screenshot, the map layers are toggled on, showing how the hotspot layer provides insight into distribution and frequency of incidents.
    Hotspot Map: Hotspots indicate some form of clustering in a spatial distribution. In this Incident Analyzer screenshot, the map layers are toggled on, showing how the hotspot layer provides insight into distribution and frequency of incidents.

    The Incident Analyzer Smart M.App, by Hexagon, won the Wichmann Innovations Award 2016 for Best Software on Oct. 13 at Intergeo in Hamburg, Germany.

    The Smart M.App helps a variety of industries visualize trends and identify correlations in mapping incident data.

    Incident Analyzer provides an intuitive, user-friendly environment for consuming incident data in a dynamic information experience, according to Hexagon.

    With Incident Analyzer and a few mouse clicks, almost anyone can create, manage, disseminate, share, and host a wide array of dynamic intelligence reports that depict meaningful spatial patterns within incident data sets in an interactive fashion, Hexagon said.

    The app is useful for professionals in law enforcement, utilities, transportation, government, health and commercial enterprises.

  • Tethered UAV achieves simultaneous air-ground mapping

    Geonumerics reported a mapping benchmark achieved in June 2016: operation of a tandem aerial-terrestrial system conceived for simultaneous geodata acquisition in corridor mapping missions.

    The mapKITE system tests were carried out at the BCN Drone Center on 2,500 hectares of segregated airspace outside Barcelona. A 2-kilometer rural road served as a testing corridor and was operated successfully around ten times. The testing site was prepared with several ground control points for quality checking.

    tether-1
    Kinematic ground control point enables tandem ground-air mapping via sensor orientation and calibration.

    Tethering the UAS to the terrestrial vehicle. By means of a real-time navigation system, the terrestrial vehicle generates the basic source information for generating waypoints to be followed by the aerial platform. Schematically, for every terrestrial position, a geometrical shift is applied to keep a particular relative air-ground geometry. A “follow-me” scheme keeps the UAV coordinated as the vehicle moves; the tether is set to maintain a constant relative speed.  Additionally, the ground vehicle is observed in  most of the aerial images.

    tether-2
    Top, left and right: mapKITE aerial images from the corridor flown at the BCN Drone Center (June, 2016); bottom: 3D model extracted from aerial images only.

    Linking the two with an optical target. An optical coded target on the roof of the ground vehicle is automatically identified and measured in the aerial images in a fast and robust manner. Its goal is twofold: firstly, it enables a complementary guidance scheme based on target-tracking,  adding robustness to the virtual tether. Secondly, the image measurement of the optical target together with the high-quality trajectory of the ground vehicle introduces a kinematic ground control for a posteriori sensor orientation and calibration.

    By performing photogrametric pointing-and-scaling measurements of the optical target, and linking these with the precise terrestrial vehicle trajectory by means of image synchronization in a common time reference, mapKITE introduces an analogy to the conventional ground control points (GCPs)  ready-to-use kinematic ground control points (KGCPs) for every image.

    Equipment used in the first mapKITE campaign Fundamental mission parameters
    Aerial camera Sony NEX-5 (c=20mm) Gruond Sampling Distance 2,4 cm
    GNSS receiver (UA) Javad TRE-3 Flying altitude 100 m
    TV navigation system Applanix POS-LV420 Forward image overlap 80%
    TMM system Optech Lynx Image footprint 120 m across-track

    More information can be found in the following material:
    •    download the PDF mapKITE brochure with more information about the test campaign.
    •    The video of the mapKITE test campaign explains the system and the performance test.

    GeoNumerics is a research and development company specializing in geomatics and accurate navigation, located in Catalonia, Spain. The company licenses software and provides R&D services focused on applications of unmanned aircraft, Galileo satellite navigation and inertial navigation in remote sensing and mapping.

    tether-3
    Point cloud obtained with the terrestrial mobile mapping system.

    MapKITE is currently being developed by an international consortium within the frame of the project “mapKITE: EGNOS-GPS/GALILEO-based high-resolution terrestrial-aerial sensing system“. The project is funded by the European Commission (EC) through the European Union (EU) “Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation,” supervised by the GSA on behalf of the EC, and coordinated by GeoNumerics. The mapKITE consortium includes ten organizations from five European countries and Brazil.

    Watch a video here:

    mapKITE: Total 3D mapping – Simultaneous aerial and terrestrial from GeoNumerics on Vimeo.

    Photos: Geonumerics reported

  • Near-infrared insights: Phase One Industrial

    CIR imagery can determine the health of vegetation — useful for identifying plant species, estimating biomass and assessing soil moisture and water clarity. This image near Frankfurt, Germany, shows both agricultural and urban areas.(Image: GGS and Phase One)
    CIR imagery can determine the health of vegetation — useful for identifying plant species, estimating biomass and assessing soil moisture and water clarity. This image near Frankfurt, Germany, shows both agricultural and urban areas.(Image: GGS and Phase One)

    Adding a fourth band of near infrared (NIR) image data to three-band color (RGB) image data yields multispectral information useful in vegetation studies, such as crop metrics for agriculture, vegetation health and environmental contamination, and  even city observations for monitoring green space.

    A camera unit by Phase One Industrial, dubbed the 4-Band Solution, incorporates a batch-processing tool designed to automate and simplify the four-band aerial-image generation process. It is composed of two synchronized Phase One metric aerial cameras mounted side by side.

    Images are captured in NIR and RGB bands simultaneously, and processed automatically to generate distortion-free images and perform fine co-registration of the pixels from NIR to the RGB images — including processing different image sizes — with seven different output options, including multispectral color-infrared (CIR) images.

    Synchronized Phase One metric aerial cameras.
    Synchronized Phase One metric aerial cameras.

    Moving up into space, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) onboard NASA’s Terra satellite also captures infrared images.

    In the false-color image below, vegetation appears red, snow and dry salt lakes are white, and exposed rocks are brown, gray, yellow and blue. Rock colors mainly reflect the presence of iron minerals and variations in albedo (solar energy reflected off the surface).

    Soil Composition: Near-infrared data can help identify types of rock and soil. This image of the Saline Valley area in California was acquired by the ASTER. (Image: NASA, GSFC, MITI, ERSDAC, JAROS, and the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.)
    Soil Composition: Near-infrared data can help identify types of rock and soil. This image of the Saline Valley area in California was acquired by the ASTER. (Image: NASA, GSFC, MITI, ERSDAC, JAROS, and the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.)

  • Airbus selects Google Cloud for One Atlas basemap

    Airbus Defence and Space has launched One Atlas, a new basemap streaming service delivering access to its satellite imagery over the world, fully refreshed within a 12-month period. It is powered by Google Cloud Platform.

    This service is a major leap forward for enabling access to satellite imagery for customers by leveraging the power of Google Cloud Platform and Airbus Defence and Space technologies, Airbus Defence said.

    A new approach in data storage, hosting and dissemination has been implemented using Google Cloud Platform to ingest the several hundred Terabytes of data annually required by One Atlas. This will bring value to clients for a wide range of applications such as infrastructure preparatory studies, land management, agricultural lands and crop-species mapping or even tree cover change detection in regions prone to deforestation.

    “Our team at Google Cloud is dedicated to helping businesses find success with public cloud and innovative technologies, such as cloud machine learning. We’re excited to collaborate with Airbus Defence and Space to create new products and transform existing business models through the power of Google Cloud Platform,” said Carl Schachter, vice president of Google Cloud Platform.

    Image from TerraSAR-X, a radar Earth observation satellite. (IMAGE: Airbus Defense and Space)
    Image from TerraSAR-X, a radar Earth observation satellite, of Barra da Tujica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (IMAGE: Airbus Defense and Space)

    Google Cloud Platform was selected from seven public cloud providers because of its high-end technology, security resilience and strategic fit with Airbus Defence and Space’s business and development roadmap.

    “All satellite data collected each day are automatically processed and made readily-accessible in a global imagery library that is stored in Google Cloud Platform,” said Bernhard Brenner, head of the Intelligence Business Cluster at Airbus Defense and Space. “Google Cloud Platform’s global scale, low latency and infrastructure capacities in Europe give us the required performance, flexibility and scalability for current and future data volumes, ensuring a high level of service for our customers.”

    Additional investigations into the use of Google Cloud Platform and other Google tools are ongoing at Airbus Defence and Space, such as the integration of other datasets like TerraSAR-X radar data and WorldDEM into One Atlas, or the development of analytics services such as change detection and automatic object extraction. Very promising results have already been obtained from using Tensor Flow, an open source library for machine learning, and Cloud Machine Learning for automatic cloud detection.

  • LandWorks upgrades Web AutoMapper service with USLandGrid

    LandWorks Inc., a developer of innovative land management solutions, has improved its Web AutoMapper online service that translates land legal descriptions into GIS-ready map polygons.

    The updated Web AutoMapper features a new interface that is easier to use, including a job detail webpage that lets users review and edit polygons before purchase. Clients can now have their property polygons mapped against USLandGrid’s national land base, with the option of buying land grid townships containing the mapped property.

    “These changes make the Web AutoMapper even easier and more cost effective to use,” said LandWorks President Jerry Bramwell. “Anyone with a need to create land maps can do so in just a few minutes at minimal cost.”

    For about 20 percent of the cost of manual mapping, Web AutoMapper has simplified land records mapping in the oil and gas, renewable energy, mining, banking, utility, pipeline, state/local government, telecommunications, transportation, water and real estate sectors. The cost to map a legal parcel description with Web AutoMapper is $2 per polygon with the USLandGrid offered at $7 per PLSS Township.

    “The USLandGrid data provides the tie between a legal description and the geography of that parcel of land,” said USLandGrid Vice President of Sales Anthony Ford. “Producing polygons this way allows you to get your land positions on a map for critical analysis using the GIS.”

    “LandWorks selected USLandGrid for inclusion in Web AutoMapper because it is the best basemap available for any industry or profession to use in mapping property legal descriptions,” said Bramwell. “An important benefit of the USLandGrid is that its data layers are continuously updated as more accurate survey data becomes available.”

    landworks_webautomapper-o

    LandWorks first introduced Web AutoMapper in 2013 as an inexpensive, fast and easy method of processing many types of standard property descriptions and converting them into digital map polygons. Legal descriptions that would take days or weeks to map manually can be processed in minutes with this online software-as-a-service application.

    A customer simply logs onto Web AutoMapper and creates an account. The user then submits an Excel spreadsheet containing one or hundreds of legal descriptions in Jeffersonian Township/Range or Texas Survey/Abstract formats. Within seconds, Web AutoMapper provides an onscreen report detailing which polygons can be generated, which cannot, and shows an overview of the mapped polygons aligned to the USLandGrid.

    If the customer decides to proceed, a credit card is provided. For customers who don’t already own the Grid, they have the option of buying it by the township along with their mapped polygons.

    Web AutoMapper generates a zip file of the purchased polygons and USLandGrid townships either in Esri shapefile or file geodatabase format in NAD 83 or 27 for direct download into Esri ArcGIS software as well as other popular mapping systems, such as IHS Petra, IHS Kingdom and LMKR GeoGraphix.

    As a cloud-based application, Web AutoMapper brings the full power of the standalone LandWorks AutoMapper software to every level of digital map user via the Internet. Introduced in 2002, the onsite AutoMapper package is purchased by an organization and sits behind their firewall as a production-grade GIS mapping tool. The software is used extensively by organizations that own or lease many land rights and must keep their property records up to date, such as local governments, energy companies and natural resource management entities.

  • LizardTech’s latest GeoExpress includes Geiger-Mode support

    lizardtech_gx953_sthelens_rgb-o

    LizardTech, the creator of MrSID and provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has released GeoExpress 9.5.3. The company’s flagship image asset handling product to compress, manage, distribute, integrate and deploy geospatial images and lidar point clouds as high-quality MrSID files now has expanded format support and improved capabilities.

    What’s new:

    • BPF Support – GeoExpress now supports Binary Point Files often used in Geiger-Mode lidar data.
    • NAD83(2011) Support – Reprojection tools now support EPSG CRS and Coordinate Transformations in support of NOAA’s NA2011 Project.
    • Better Color Balancing – Now apply correction to each band in the image.
    • Custom Watermarks – No longer be restricted by a size limitation for custom watermark files.
    • Simpler Licensing – Import a license file for single workstation licensing or add License Server Utility to add floating licenses with ease.

    A fully functional free 30-day trial of GeoExpress 9.5.3 is available.

     

  • Proteus Geo wins ESA backing to advance bathymetry data service

    Proteus Geo, a leading provider of satellite-based mapping services and data, together with DHI, the world renowned consultant group within water environments, has won the backing of the European Space Agency (ESA) to create a new bathymetry data service that leverages DigitalGlobe satellite imagery to allow everyone to explore the shallows around the world’s coastlines.

    Over the last four years, Proteus Geo has worked in partnership with DHI to provide a vast range of customers with bathymetry data, derived from satellites.

    This new and affordable service has allowed engineers, defense forces and environmentalists (among other users) to remotely learn about the sea and lake beds under shallow water, where access has previously been difficult and expensive.

    proteus-esa-o

    ESA has now awarded Proteus Geo and DHI with substantial financial backing to improve the efficiency of the data processing chain and encourage the wider use of this source of vital information.

    Starting now, the companies will use high-accuracy, high-resolution satellite imagery captured by DigitalGlobe’s satellite constellation to create a dataset that will show the depth of water in over 100,000 km2 of both salt and fresh water coastlines.

    Alongside the creation of the data, Proteus Geo will also develop an online portal that will allow simple and fast access for customers from all over the world.

    Richard Flemmings, director of Proteus Geo, explained the advantages of providing affordable, off-the-shelf bathymetry data to anyone who needs it. “There is currently a lack of bathymetry data around the world due to the high costs, lead-time, and health and safety issues involved in collecting this data using boats and aircraft.This project and service will be a practical step to break down the barriers to easily accessing the data in a standardized format.

    “High-resolution imaging satellites are ideal for this purpose, as the data can be created quickly and consistently over large areas and leveraged for many applications. This exciting project presents a paradigm shift away from bathymetry data being delivered on a project-by-project basis, to data being available off-the-shelf through an instant online portal.”

    The project is being supported by ESA’s ARTES 20 programme (Advances Research in Telecommunications Systems), which responds to users’ needs using a combination of different space assets such as Earth Observation, navigation and telecommunications.