LizardTech, the creator of MrSID and provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has released GeoExpress 9.5.1. The company’s flagship product for compressing geospatial images and lidar data into high-quality MrSID files now has a streamlined interface, faster processing and support for .pix raster files.
“Last year, we introduced the ability to compress raster and LiDAR imagery to MrSID and LAZ formats,” said Robert Parker, LizardTech product owner. “With GeoExpress 9.5.1, we’re excited to introduce a beautiful new design, seamless mosaicking of LiDAR files and the added choice to compress .pix raster files to MrSID.”
GeoExpress 9.5.1 features include:
Intuitive User Interface (UI): An updated look and streamlined interface make this version more user-friendly while delivering top-quality compressed and manipulated images.
Seamless mosaicking of LiDAR files: Seamless mosaicking of LiDAR files supplements lossless compression that uses four times less storage space.
Faster default workflow for existing MrSID images: Processing of MrSID files is now faster by default when working with existing MrSID files, with cropping, editing, despeckling, AOI, tiling and more.
New Format Support: Compression of PCIs standard .pix raster files to MrSID for greater flexibility.
what3words will be providing its three-word address and location reference system to ArcGIS Marketplace. ArcGIS Marketplace is a destination that enables ArcGIS users to search, discover, and get apps and content from qualified providers.
what3words is an addressing and location reference system based on a global grid of 57 trillion squares of 3 x 3 meters. Each square has a unique pre-assigned three-word address. For example, recruiters.infusions.fastening is the location of a fire hydrant on inverness Drive East highway in Denver, Colorado. This what3words system is being used by Esri partner Metcom911 to manage 57,000 fire hydrants serving over a million people to ensure fast and effective response to emergencies.
With ArcGIS for AutoCAD from Esri, AutoCAD users can access maps and data from Esri ArcGIS software for use in computer-aided design (CAD) drawings. This free application makes it simple for AutoCAD users to find, create and edit content stored in ArcGIS.
To learn how to work with the application, tune in to the live training seminar Simplify CAD-GIS Workflows Using ArcGIS for AutoCAD on March 10. In the seminar, you will learn how to easily create data, edit ArcGIS enterprise geodatabases, and leverage ArcGIS web services—without ever having to leave your familiar AutoCAD environment.
After viewing the seminar, you will understand how to
Easily edit GIS data using AutoCAD and ArcGIS for AutoCAD.
Access and interact with ArcGIS for Server web services inside AutoCAD.
Configure and customize ArcGIS for AutoCAD to meet the requirements of a production environment.
Use ArcGIS for Desktop, web, and mobile applications from within AutoCAD.
AutoCAD users who want to use CAD editing workflows to create and maintain GIS data stored in Esri ArcGIS will find this live training seminar highly useful. The seminar also will be of interest to engineers and designers who want to access data stored in ArcGIS to make more informed design decisions and to GIS professionals who want to streamline their CAD-GIS workflows and easily share data with coworkers or consultants.
You will need a broadband Internet connection and an Esri Account to watch the live training seminar. Creating an Esri Account is free: visit esri.com/lts, click Login at the top right, and register your name and email address.
Mapillary, a community-based photomapping platform, has received an $8 million Series A funding round led by Atomico, with participation from Sequoia, LDV Capital and PlayFair.
Anyone can contribute photos to the Mapillary platform and mobile app (available on iOS and Android) with a smartphone or action camera. The company’s computer vision software automatically extracts geographic information, blurs license plates and faces, and detects traffic signs from each photo uploaded. Then, the photos are meticulously stitched together on the map alongside other users’ photos, creating a digital representation of each location through the eyes of those who have been there.
Mapillary’s growing global community has uploaded more than 50 million photos and mapped more than 1.2 million kilometers in over 170 countries to date.
“Mapillary is reinventing the way we map and navigate our world,” said Niklas Zennström, CEO and founding partner at Atomico. “Their ambition is to transform the way we plan our cities, develop transport networks, and understand all parts of the globe. We’re proud to invest in the next phase of their growth and we look forward to working alongside Jan Erik and his team as they advance their technology and scale the business.”
Cities, corporations, and nonprofits can access Mapillary’s platform through an extensive API, which holds multiple layers of visual data. Mapillary’s ArcGIS integration — built in partnership with Esri — lets governments, nonprofits and businesses see locations evolve in real-time, arming them with insight into infrastructural problems like inefficient public transportation and changes in road conditions.
Mapillary partners with several nonprofits to help them improve infrastructure in developing countries around the world. The World Bank trains university students and local community members to use Mapillary in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, to create accurate maps of the most flood-prone areas of the city, and the Red Cross has been mapping Haiti so NGOs and individuals can use the data to better respond to crises affecting the area. Mapillary allows nonprofits to allocate resources more efficiently and to empower communities to contribute to the growth and development of their cities and towns.
From backyards to Antarctica, Mapillary allows anyone to be immersed in places both familiar and unknown. This funding is bringing the company one step closer to accomplishing its goal of creating an open and complete digital representation of the earth to benefit governments, businesses, nonprofit organizations and curious explorers alike.
Like thousands of water utilities across the U.S., the City of Sebring, Fla., Utilities Department is tasked with providing a safe and reliable water supply, while managing all the dispersed assets of the water distribution and wastewater systems. This means regularly locating, mapping and inspecting assets to maintain service levels and operations.
This City of Sebring storm drain runs down the center of a street. (Photo: TerraGo)
When Sebring evaluated this approach, the city received a quote for geographic information system (GIS) software that was more than $30,000 and bids for surveying services that were as high as $300,000, which didn’t include the mobile tools to collect the data or integration with the existing CAD system.
“We could see the traditional GIS and GPS approach was going to eat us alive cost-wise,” said Mark Kretz, water plant operations, Sebring Utilities.
Sebring Utilities then researched mobile products to see if other organizations had field success using iPads and iPhones to do the work. Sebring still needed to achieve survey-grade accuracy — sub-meter, centimeter-level in some cases. This is impossible with an iPhone or iPad out of the box, which delivers 5 meters at best.
Installation of a storm drain in Sebring. (Photo: TerraGo)
Some tasks, such as mapping an underground valve, need sub-foot or better accuracy. Other tasks, such as locating an aboveground valve, could be seen within 3 to 5 meters, so just the iPad would work.
Mark Kretz, Water Plant Operations, City of Sebring, conducts water asset inspections and maintenance. (Photo: City of Sebring)
CAD integration. Sebring also needed to be able to utilize computer-aided design (CAD) diagrams on its mobile devices to identify and locate valves and other assets in the field. In the past, the utility relied on printed CAD drawings, a cumbersome and costly solution. Plus, with time of the essence when containing a leak, workers wanted on-demand access on their mobile devices.
With the multitude of assets from fire hydrants to valves to sewers, the data collection and maintenance work varied greatly. Sebring needed a way to create custom forms and workflow processes, and be able to modify them over time or create new ones when needed.
In the end, the city opted to deploy TerraGo Edge on iPads. With TerraGo Edge, Sebring was able to integrate with GPS receivers that pair to iPads or iPhones via Bluetooth because the product is fully integrated at the software level with Apple-certified GPS receivers. This enabled the city to cut costs, bring surveys in-house and improve response times for repairs. TerraGo Edge also delivers custom forms, CAD diagrams and survey-grade accuracy.
“On a day-to-day basis, the biggest benefit is that we get the ease of use of an iPad, and didn’t have to buy and use proprietary GPS handhelds, which are more complex and vastly more expensive,” Kretz said.
CAD on iPhone with TerraGo Edge. (Image: TerraGo)
Edge benefits
Cost savings of 90 percent over traditional GIS and GPS systems
Leica Geosystems has released the Leica Ultra underground service locating system for site engineers and underground utility specialists who need to trace buried utility lines accurately for safe underground excavations and utility surveys.
The locating systems helps users attain the highest accuracy to avoid costly mistakes, such as cutting utility lines or delaying project schedules during excavation work. By providing a wide range of transmitter mode frequencies, operators in segments such as power, water, gas or telecom can easily and quickly optimize the locator performance in any operating condition.
Users save time and effort by tracing utility depths and distances, Leica said. Multiple utilities in close proximity requiring a combination of adjustments can also be traced efficiently and with confidence.
Clear visualizations of line direction and depth indication are displayed on a large LCD interface. Users can easily interpret signal displays in all light conditions. Bluetooth enables quick connectivity so users can easily transfer data to a GIS data collector.
Epson recently announced in a news release the launch of its Pro G7000-Series large venue projectors for simulators, mapping, digital signage and command centers.
New features include increased brightness and motorized lenses, uncompromising image quality, low total cost of ownership and $199 replacement lamps, Epson says. Eight models deliver up to 8,000 lumens of color brightness and 8,000 lumens of white brightness.
The series also features the world’s first zero-offset ultra short-throw lens with 0.35 throw ratio for space constrained venues and digital signage applications. The Pro G-Series will be on display at ISE 2016 in Amsterdam from Feb. 9–12 at Epson’s booth, No. 1-H90.
“The Epson Pro G-Series offers bright, brilliant images combined with advanced features, making them our best-selling large venue projectors,” said Phong Phanel, product manager of large venue projectors, Epson America Inc. “The new Pro G7000-Series raises the bar with higher brightness, 4K Enhancement resolution, new motorized lenses and advanced technology to captivate any audience, underscoring our commitment to delivering a broad portfolio of solutions to the large venue projector market.”
Epson projectors offer three times higher color brightness than competitive 1-chip DLP models to ensure vivid colorful images. The Pro G Series 3-chip 3LCD projectors are ideal for large venues, including events staging, auditoriums and sanctuaries.
The Epson Pro G7000-Series will be available in May starting at $3,799 MSRP. The projectors come with a three-year limited warranty with next business day replacement, including free shipping both ways7, and a 90-day limited lamp warranty.
The color brightness specification — measuring red, green and blue — published by the Society for Information Display (SID) allows consumers to compare projector color performance without conducting a side-by-side shootout.
From (L to R) John Palatiello, MAPPS executive Director; Jim Green; Mike Sitar and Michel Stanier of Optech Teledyne.
Teledyne Optech‘s ALTM Titan lidar sensor earned the 2015 Grand Award in the ninth annual MAPPS Geospatial Products and Services Excellence Awards, MAPPS recently announced in a news release. The awards ceremony was held Feb. 2 at the Green Valley Ranch in Henderson, Nev.
Teledyne was also presented with an award in the Technology Innovation category.
The company said in a news release that Titan is easy to handle in complex scenarios, such as acquiring three wavelengths simultaneously; incorporating a metric camera imbedded in the system; creating a sensor that fits in a 16-inch gyro-stabilized mount; and increasing the depth penetration of the bathymetric sensor. To achieve this, Vaughan, Ontario-based Teledyne Optech had to develop new fiber lasers and a triple wavelength receiver which allowed for the collection of bathymetric lidar, topographic lidar and multispectral lidar in one single sensor.
“Teledyne Optech’s ALTM Titan is a marvel in lidar engineering,” said Robert Burtch PS, CP, professor emeritus at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., and chairman of the panel of judges. “This development allows the collection of bathymetric lidar, topographic lidar and multispectral lidar in one single sensor.”
The MAPPS awards competition recognizes the professionalism, value, integrity and achievement that member firms have demonstrated in their projects and technology developments over the previous year.
MAPPS also honored winners in six technical categories.
Woolpert of Dayton, Ohio, was selected in the Photogrammetry/Elevation Data Generation category with the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Headstone Mapping Project that utilized lidar to locate and map 4,320 headstones and 280 battlefield markers.
The winning project in the Remote Sensing category was by Aerial Services Inc. of Cedar Falls, Iowa, for The Race for Now: Maximizing Crop Yields Using Innovations in Remote Sensing project, which acquired imagery using multiple sensors during the critical growing phases to produce a web-based precision agriculture service in the State of Iowa.
In the GIS/IT category, Merrick & Company of Greenwood Village, Colo., was selected for GIS Models Visualize Ancient Flooding Problems in the country of Columbia. As project manager, Merrick provided technology transfer and GIS data and training, and introduced a new methodology, “monotonicity,” which guarantees that acoustic bathymetry, lidar and breaklines are correctly integrated.
The winner in the Surveying/Field Data Collection category was the Baltimore, Md., office of AECOM for its Protocol for Determining Grass Channel Credits project. Using GIS, lidar and aerial imagery, AECOM worked with the Maryland State Highway Administration to identify roadway ditches to assure compliance with the Department of the Environment grass channel treatment criteria.
TerraSond of Palmer, Ark., earned the award in the Small Projects category for the Bradley Lake Hydro Power project. TerraSond teamed to perform an inspection of a diversion tunnel to a dam and power tunnel inlet in Homer, Alaska to identify the quantity of debris that was covering the inlet screen by comparing the debris profile with the as-built drawings to determine the amount of debris that needed to be removed.
Titan, Teledyne Optech’s multi-spectral lidar sensor, also won in the Technology Innovation category.
A panel of independent judges evaluated projects submitted by MAPPS members for the awards program.
Topcon Positioning Group has released the latest addition to its line of compact digital laser sensors — the LS-100D. The sensor digitally displays the offset value to on-grade, which is designed to help make elevation and vertical alignment control easier and faster for any application.
“The LS-100D features an extra-wide beam capture sensor that also rejects annoying interference from strobe-light exposures,” said Kris Maas, director of construction product management. “The large and bright LCD displays (front and back) feature nine channels of grade information and digitally display the distance to on-grade. By pressing the hold button, the display is locked so the user can conveniently read the results.”
The sensor offers three colored LED’s and a magnet mount for vertical operation, which is designed to be useful for steel erection or operator grade-checking while excavating. Alert icons appear on the LCD if the accompanying Topcon rotating laser instrument is disturbed (HI alert) or when the laser battery is low.
The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) seeks public comment on its candidate OGC Land and Infrastructure Conceptual Model Standard (LandInfra). Deadline for comments is March 2.
LandInfra defines concepts for land and civil engineering infrastructure facilities.This conceptual standard will provide a basis for one or more implementation standards for encoding infrastructure data. Developers will use the encoding standard to implement software and services that enable users of diverse technologies and vendor platforms to efficiently exchange information about land and civil engineering infrastructure facilities.
The extended stakeholder community for this standard spans civil engineering (such as road and rail) and surveying; land parcel; facility and asset management; and government information communities. It is applicable throughout the entire facility lifecycle, including planning, design, construction, operations, maintenance, and removal. It represents a seminal venture into GIS-CAD-BIM integration.
After evaluating the LandXML 1.2 schema, the OGC Land and Infrastructure Domain Working Group (LandInfraDWG) recommended the development of an alternative standard to be part of the OGC standards baseline. With shared interest by the buildingSMART International Infrastructure Room, it was agreed that this would be a concepts-only document — encodings such as GML, IFC, and possibly others would follow as separate implementation standardization efforts. An anticipated GML encoding will be compatible with other GML standards such as CityGML. Having a common underlying Conceptual Model across all LandInfra encodings will help ensure compatibility across multiple encoding standards.
The OGC is an international consortium of more than 515 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled.
The Japan District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded the Woolpert-KZF Joint Venture (W-KZF JV) three task orders totaling approximately $6.95 million to support the design of a $150 million CV-22 complex at Yokota Air Base in Fussa, Japan.
The facilities, which will support the bed-down of CV-22 Osprey aircraft at the base, include an aircraft maintenance hangar, a squadron operations building, an MRSP warehouse, a flight simulator facility and a headquarters building.
W-KZF JV is working closely with Jacobs Engineering of California. Jacobs is providing design services in support of the horizontal infrastructure improvements for the CV-22 campus development.
Woolpert is a national architecture, engineering and geospatial firm headquartered in Dayton, and KZF Design is an architecture, engineering, planning and interior design firm based in Cincinnati. The Ohio firms’ joint venture also was selected this summer to provide full design and construction services for the schools serving U.S. military families in Japan.
Jacobs, headquartered in Pasadena, is a large and diverse providers of technical, professional and construction services.
Project Manager Rebecca Knolle said Woolpert has been working on the CV-22 campus development plan with Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) since 2013.
“We’ve been with this endeavor from the outset,” Knolle said. “What’s novel about this project is that it will require the W-KZF JV and Jacobs teams to work collaboratively. We see this as a good opportunity for knowledge sharing.”
Construction is expected to begin on the complex in 2017 and will be completed in 2020-21.
By measuring and signaling tilt from a level position, the inclinometer helps to ensure precise execution in applications such as semiconductor manufacturing, satellite dish alignment, robotic controls, aerial lift platform leveling and wheel alignment systems. It is designed for measuring position in industrial applications to ensure accurate performance and consistent production.
The inclinometer uses RS-485 communications, which allows up to 32 sensors on a single network to reduce wiring requirements. Additional benefits include low power consumption, small size, long life and excellent resolution and repeatability. It has a supply voltage of 5 V DC, ±10˚ dual axis range and operating temperature of -40 °C to +70 °C.
“The Dual Axis RS-485 Inclinometer provides reliable tilt measurement for a wide range of applications where high precision leveling is critical,” said Heidi McKenna, president of The Fredericks Company.
