Post-Irma hurricane damage is captured in aerial imagery by EagleView.
EagleView Technologies has captured post event aerial imagery of two million properties in the state of Florida following Hurricane Irma.
EagleView is a provider of aerial imagery and property data analytics for government agencies, insurance carriers and other private-sector organizations,
With an image library dating back to 2002 in the state of Florida, EagleView is able to provide emergency services, public safety agencies, property assessors and county GIS departments with ample imagery from before and after Hurricane Irma occurred. Combining high-resolution imagery and advanced machine learning capabilities, EagleView can identify the severity of property damage following a hurricane or other extreme weather event.
“Hurricane Irma inflicted severe damage on properties all over Florida and affected millions of people throughout the state,” said EagleView President Rishi Daga. “With a view of more than two million properties in Florida, we are assisting the agencies that use our imagery with their efforts, so they can continue to help all of those who have been affected.”
The two million properties have been photographed via specialized camera rigs in fixed-wing aircraft. The images are taken from an orthogonal (top-down) perspective as well as at oblique angles from all four cardinal directions. Oblique aerial imagery enables insurance claims adjusters to view all sides of a home’s exterior and gives emergency response crews greater insight into the storm’s effects in their communities.
“Our goal was to begin capturing and processing imagery as soon as possible to assist in recovery efforts, and we have done so at record speed,” said Jay Martin, Senior Vice President of Operations at EagleView. “Our next phase is to put boots on the ground and complete property inspections up close using drones as part of our EagleView OnSite solution.”
Post-hurricane image capture and processing will continue to take place throughout the upcoming weeks.
EagleView is completing the phase of image capture via fixed-wing aircraft and will soon move in to completing property inspections with the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), bringing post-event data directly to insurance claims adjusters.
As of Sept. 18, thousands of drone inspections have been scheduled through Friday, Sept. 22.
To assist with Hurricane Harvey and Irma emergency response and damage assessments efforts, Remote GeoSystems is donating LineVision software licenses to official agency, volunteer and non-profit drone operators.
In addition to supporting a Texas A&M team responding to Harvey, LineVision is being pre-deployed to volunteers organized by Florida State University’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Program to help with the Hurricane Irma search and rescue and damage assessment.
Any other volunteer teams, first responders and non-profit organizations providing essential response and recovery services are encouraged to complete the contact form to request free copies of LineVision software for disaster relief efforts.
LineVision lets emergency response teams easily map drone video of Hurricane Harvey damage assessments. (Image: Remote Geosystems)
The LineVision solution is a commercial software suite for UAV, airborne and terrestrial mobile inspection and survey projects requiring geo-referenced video playback, analysis, collaboration and reporting using standard Esri maps and data, Esri ArcMap and Google Earth GIS applications.
Using the software, anyone with a GPS-enabled video camera, drone or geospatial DVR that can geotag video in the proper format can immediately load their videos and photos to Esri ArcGIS and Google Earth along with compatible geospatial data.
As the video plays, a position marker moves along an aerial or terrestrial GPS track positioned on a map, continuously indicating where the current frames were recorded. Users may also geospatially “navigate” a video recording by simply clicking a single point along an aerial or terrestrial GPS track.
The video then automatically advances to that point in the recording so that users can visually interpret what was recorded at that specific place and time. If something of interest is detected in the video, users may also “snap” an image from the video, which is geotagged and saved for future analysis.
In addition to video, users can import photos and documents from disaster survey and assessment projects. All these imported data types can be saved in a Remote GeoSystems “geoProject” file for data portability, reporting and future analysis in other versions of LineVision desktop, cloud and server applications.
Help with Harvey
Remote GeoSystems was contacted by the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), who was deployed with the Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management.
All parties involved moved quickly, and within a few hours after being contacted, drone video data collection teams were using various versions of the company’s donated LineVision video and photo mapping software to map and view interactive UAV flight tracks with corresponding videos in Esri ArcGIS and Google Earth GIS software.
The software is being used to help visualize, distribute and share the data available from a record 119 UAS flights that CRASAR conducted over 11 days, including 61 flights on a single day.
“We first learned about Remote GeoSystems’ LineVision software for mapping geotagged video from drones about a year ago, and at that time even did a proof of concept demo for the USCG and first responders,” said Justin Adams, Air Operations Branch Director for Fort Bend County Manned/Unmanned Ops and CRASAR director of operations for Harvey. “Now with the Texas Gulf Coast facing a long and difficult assessment and recovery process and Hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida, it became clear now was the time to deploy this valuable UAV solution to operators and volunteers working the affected areas.
“I have been involved in manned and unmanned aviation for the better part of two decades and Remote Geo offers not only the simplest, but most complete solution for rapid geospatial aerial and ground-based disaster assessment and reporting in the industry.”
Key Features of LineVision
Play videos from single and multi-camera data collection platforms
“Click-on-Map” video navigation
Set a custom geo-fence around the moving position marker
Load Esri ArcGIS or Google Earth-compatible geospatial data files
Save video and photo work as geoProjects for simple project reporting, archive and search
Agency9 has released free global 3D terrain and buildings in CityPlanner, its cloud solution for collaborative urban planning on the web. Agency9 is a provider of software for online 3D visualization of geographic information and maps.
“Agency9 currently serves many customers with web-based 3D visualization tools in CityPlanner. With the release of the free global 3D world in CityPlanner, we aim to further stimulate users transition to 3D using modern planning paradigms — as well as lower the financial hurdle of adopting such services. Bundling free 3D data with the service allows any city in the world to start using CityPlanner instantly, without the lead time of acquiring data,” said Håkan Engman, CEO Agency9 AB.
CityPlanner represents a new generation of 3D tools for the preparation of plans, project communication, and citizen dialogue in smart cities, according to Agency9. CityPlanner is used by many cities for urban planning, promotion, GIS presentation and crowdsourcing.
The free global 3D model has a terrain based on open satellite data and LOD1 buildings generated dynamically from OpenStreetMap building data. Buildings are currently available for the Nordics, expanding globally throughout the year.
“Later this year Agency9 will add large scale paid 3D premium content on a region, national, and continental basis. This further supports market adoption with easy access to 3D data and services.” continued Engman
CityPlanner is available as a subscription service with the new global data included at price plans starting at €220/month. In the Enterprise plan, customers can expand the number of users and capacity to suit organisational needs, as well as use their own 3D data of any size — including highly detailed textured 3D city models.
CityPlanner is available as a free 30-day trial, which includes the free global 3D data.
Boundless has partnered with the Global SOF Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that aims to build and grow an international Special Operations Forces (SOF) network of military, government, commercial and educational stakeholders.
The foundation fosters SOF objectives and partnerships to confront both global and networked threats.
“We’re honored to partner with an organization that supports national and international Armed Forces in such an important way,” said Andy Dearing, CEO of Boundless. “The work conducted by Global SOF plays an integral part in safeguarding national security and supporting critical decision-making; two initiatives that we’re proud to stand behind.”
The Global SOF Foundation aids the support and growth of the international SOF network. Besides working with its partners to promote SOF capabilities, it contributes to the unification of the SOF community through a variety of annual convening forums.
The foundation also informs national security policy to ensure the proper development, sustainment and resourcing of SOF.
“We are thrilled to have Boundless on board,” said Stu Bradin, president and CEO of the Global SOF Foundation and U.S. Army Special Forces colonel (ret.). “They were recommended to us by one of our long-term partners, so we know they are the real deal. We are excited to see what they can bring to the international SOF community.”
Boundless offers a complete open GIS solution through a unique combination of technology, products and experts, to give enterprises deeper intelligence and insights into their 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.
Hurricane Harvey is hitting Texas with wind speeds of at least 111 mph. Widespread flooding is a risk for Texas and neighboring states as public safety groups and communities prepare.
Public Information Map — identifies the current and recent location of Harvey as well as forecast positions and probable track; additionally, the shaded area is called the “cone of uncertainty,” the likely path of the center of Harvey.
Impact Summary Map — shows the storm surge by identifying locations most at risk for life-threatening inundation from storm surge; accordingly, to Esri’s data, the total population at risk is 248k people, 99k households, and 10k businesses.
Forecast Precipitation Map — forecasts the amount of rain expected within the next 72-hour period.
When it comes to renovating a building, unforeseen structural problems or lack of knowledge about the materials used can result in costly delays. Detailed site surveys help to highlight these issues before work begins — and digital technology is playing an increasingly important role in identifying them.
The GeoSLAM ZEB-REVO. (Image: GeoSLAM)
A project undertaken at a 112-year-old school highlights the advantages of using 3D mobile indoor mapping for rapid and simple site surveys.
“The beauty of scanning an historic building is that you find yourself delving into the stories behind its life,” said Stuart Cadge, sales and marketing coordinator at GeoSLAM. “As you peel back the layers you discover how the building has been used and altered over many decades of use.”
This was certainly the case at the Attucks school in Kansas City, Cadge said. The distinctive red-brick building was designed by local architect Charles A. Smith and built in 1905. It is known for its colonial revival influences and also played a key role in the educational history of the African-American community.
Two decades later, the school was suffering from over-crowding, and Smith was asked to extend it with a two-storey wing that connected to the east façade of the building. While the 1905 building had been symmetrical, the extension changed the floor plans considerably. Nevertheless, Smith delivered a sympathetic design that incorporated some of the original architectural details, ensuring the new wing was in keeping with the building’s aesthetic.
While details of the school’s building history are available on national and state registers, it would not have been possible to uncover problems in its structural condition without an accurate survey.
A Unique Challenge
Redeveloping and retrofitting a building like Attucks requires careful planning to uncover any existing conditions in its infrastructure. Civil engineering firm BHC RHODES was tasked with providing a 3D Revit building information model (BIM) of the building. The firm decided to use lidar 3D mobile mapping technology provided by GeoSLAM to achieve this.
The extremely rapid and efficient workflow of the GeoSLAM solution meant that possible setbacks in the project, caused by weakness in the structure, could be identified in advance, helping to speed up delivery time and reduce the overall project spend.
At Attucks, there were visible signs of deterioration to the wooden flooring, as well as concerns about ceiling collapses and air quality — specifically, asbestos.
The Value of Technology
“The process of mapping a historic building can expose site personnel to a number of risks, so BHC RHODES wanted to ensure they spent as little time on-site as possible,” Cadge explained.
As well as entering the Attucks building, personnel were required to move across the site safely, climb stairs and go into places that a trolley scanner could not.
On this basis, the firm chose the GeoSLAM ZEB-REVO, a handheld, lightweight, mobile mapping scanner, which employs 3D Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) technology. In this case, it was seen as a much more time- and cost-effective alternative to terrestrial, static or trolley-based systems.
The complete 3D scan of the building comprises four separate scans and over 160 million data points. (Image: GeoSLAM)
“The ZEB-REVO is an incredibly useful tool for indoor mobile mapping, particularly in buildings with multiple storeys,” Cadge said. “It enables users to simply ‘walk and scan’ the building, in order to generate building footprints, 2D plans, area measurements for real estate and facility management, 3D BIM models — the list goes on.”
In the case of Attucks, just four-and-and-half hours were needed to scan the whole building, with the ZEB-REVO recording more than 43,000 measurement points per second. This was helped by the fact that operation of the device requires minimal staff training.
Results
Data from the ZEB-REVO and a trolley-based scanner were registered with Cyclone 9.1.4 to a common coordinate system before being exported to Autodesk ReCap as a .pts file format. From this, data was divided into 10-GB files to be used in ReCap and Revit 2014, where a level 200 BIM model was generated. The smooth and hassle-free workflow resulted in the entire building model being completed two weeks earlier than predicted.
The Jazz District Redevelopment Corporation (JDRC) in Kansas City has plans to transform Attucks into a new community performing arts facility, with office space, paying tribute to its African-American history. By supplying the JDRC with the geospatial data, the organization was better able to understand the structural condition of the building and consider how the space could be used.
The 3D point data was used to build a level 200 BIM model in Recap and Revit 2014. (Image: GeoSLAM)
The development will form an integral part of the 18th and Vine historic district in Kansas City, known as the Jazz District. The area is recognized as one of the cradles of jazz music in the 1920s and 1940s, and a historic hub of African-American businesses.
To secure approval on the plans for Attucks, JDRC must produce detailed drawings that show what materials will be used, as well as full dimension drawings, floor plans, site drawings and elevations. In addition, it must provide details, both graphically and in written form, on what parts of the building will remain and what renovation techniques will be used.
All this might present a number of challenges, but the scans produced by GeoSLAM’s ZEB-REVO show that the existing buildings are of exceptional quality. When the project does proceed, it will be able to do so quickly and efficiently thanks in part to the speed, simplicity and ease of use of the ZEB-REVO.
The Hexagon Imagery Program (HxIP) has updated its 2017 airborne imagery collection plans of Wide Area Coverage (WAC) at 30-centimeter accuracy and Urban Area Coverage (UAC) at 15-cm accuracy in North America and Europe.
By the end of 2017, the HxIP will update its content for more than 3.9 million km² in North America. This includes a refresh of 18 previously captured U.S. states and completes the full coverage of the continental United States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, and select areas of Alaska.
The HxIP announces updates to 2017 airborne imagery collection plans of Wide Area Coverage (WAC) at 30-centimetre accuracy and Urban Area Coverage (UAC) at 15 cm accuracy in North America and Europe.
In addition to the 30-cm program, the HxIP expands its 15-cm collection by 100 cities for a total of 347 U.S. urban areas covering more than 492,000 km². The HxIP also includes 23 Canadian cities at 30 cm with efforts underway to refresh and expand the Canadian library.
This year will see the addition of approximately 650,000 km² in Europe bringing, the Western European coverage to more than 2.2 million km². Including countries such as Italy, Germany, Spain, France and Poland, this coverage expands the HxIP on the global stage, making it one of the most comprehensive, imagery programs in the world.
“Over the last three years since we launched the program, we have been extensively growing our coverage through adding new imagery acquisition partners and increasing our resources to support the program,” said John Welter, Hexagon Geosystems Content and Engineering Services president. “We are well on track to meet our 2017 goals, and we are continuously improving our offerings to better support our users, including completing coverage and reducing the time it takes to refresh our content.”
Quality control by experts. Launched in June 2014, the HxIP provides valuable geospatial content and delivers professional-grade airborne images captured with Leica Geosystems’ airborne sensors, including enhanced-resolution, four-band orthos, rasterized point clouds, and stereo imagery.
Captured by a network of Leica Geosystems airborne users, the data is processed by experienced photogrammetry professionals who ortho rectify, and correct colors and seam lines. Using the latest processing technology, these experts clean the data to be used in various applications, such as corridor mapping, real estate assessments and flood planning.
Nearmap has announced a national survey program providing true, high-resolution oblique imagery and derivative 3-D products.
Nearmap provides cloud-based subscription access to up-to-date 2-D orthomosaic aerial imagery. Using its patented HyperCamera2 technology, Nearmap is applying the same access model to the oblique aerial imagery market.
Because this new camera system provides a high degree of overlap from different angles, Nearmap can reconstruct the real world in stunning detail, producing not only high-resolution orthomosaic and oblique imagery, but also surface and terrain models, natural-color point clouds and textured 3-D meshes.
“This level of detail and scale of coverage of oblique imagery has never been available as a ready-to-use service for commercial and government needs until now,” said Patrick Quigley, senior vice president and general manager, U.S. of Nearmap. “The HyperCamera2 process maps reality, by capturing the tops, sides and view angles of locations, buildings and objects, providing specific details of what’s exactly on the ground.
Screen capture from a Nearmap 3D fly-through of Austin, Texas, rendered from Nearmap oblique Imagery.
Users will be able to immerse themselves in 3-D textured mesh models, improving analysis and design activities. They can see different elevations and line of sight using the 3-D information.
These features become important in many use cases, including airport or utility planning, or to determine the best location for a crane before a construction project. Other applications include wireless telecommunications network modeling, solar panel design, tactical resource deployment, real estate development promotion, property valuation, insurance underwriting and smart cities.
“3-D brings a whole new aspect of mapping reality to both commercial and government organizations,” said Rob Newman, CEO and managing director of Nearmap. “This new service will help industries plan, design, estimate, communicate and execute their plans — everything from major construction projects to solar installations on homes and businesses.”
Beginning in April, Nearmap has already surveyed oblique images in Las Vegas; Indianapolis; Austin, Texas; Omaha, Nebraska; Phoenix; Seattle; Denver; Kansas City, Kansas; Chicago and New York, and continues to add new areas.
By the end of 2017, Nearmap plans to complete surveying the largest urban areas covering more than half of the U.S. population — about 150 million people.
Nearmap imagery will be refreshed up to three times per year in these coverage areas — with three orthomosaic captures incorporating one oblique capture. Nearmap’s orthomosaic imagery already covers nearly 70 percent of the U.S. population dating back to 2014. “This gives our customers the aerial imagery services they need for their businesses and projects,” Quigley said.
Nearmap’s oblique imagery can be accessed in the MapBrowser interface or integrated into a customer’s own web application using Nearmap’s industry-standard API. Digital surface modeling is also available for export into GIS / CAD tools, including Esri’s ArcGIS Pro. Nearmap will soon enable similar access to the 3-D products.
Orbit GT has released v17.1 of its UAS Mapping desktop product including the all-new Upload to the Cloud feature. It is available for download from the company website.
“This upgrade includes the capability to upload any UAS Mapping content directly to www.3dmapping.cloud, our SaaS based sharing and collaboration platform,” said Peter Bonne, CEO of Orbit GT. “It adds a great new feature for everyone collecting and creating drone based content.”
Upload to the Cloud allows for users to instantly bring their drone/UAS/UAV data online. The upload process is fluently integrated in the known workflows of the product, with the required checks and validations. Upload time depends on the internet connection.
Once uploaded, the data is immediately available for sharing on www.3dmapping.cloud. The new Catalog tool adds insight and overview of all data collection jobs done, indisspensible to manage large jobs.
The update is free for holders of a license with maintenance.
Brandon Jarratt took plenary attendees behind the scenes of city creation in Zootopia, using Esri CityEngine. (Photo: Esri)Brandon Jarratt, Disney.
Brandon Jarratt took GIS professionals behind the scenes of animated city creation at the Esri User Conference, being held this week in San Diego.
Jarratt served as general technical director for Disney’s Zootopia, which won the 2016 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Jarrett took the stage during the plenary session to describe how the Zootopia team used Esri CityEngine software to create the complex city that serves as the backdrop for the movie.
Jarratt said Disney animated features need three elements: compelling stories, appealing characters and believable worlds. That’s believable worlds, not realistic worlds.
Disney animated movie elements. (Photo: T. Cozzens)
In this case, the complex city of Zootopia had to be designed from the ground up as a complex city with various districts designed to accommodate the vast array of animal species.
In the world of Zootopia, humans don’t exist. Transportation systems, houses, streets and services need to accommodate animals as tall as giraffes and as small as a shrew. To meet these challenges, the designers turned to Esri CityEngine and its multi-scaling feature.
The Zootopia world also needed to incorporate various habitats, or in this case, districts. At the center a large complex city dominates.
The four burroughs of Zootopia. (Image: Disney)
CityEngine was used in the creation of the city in Big Hero 6 as well. In Big Hero 6, the base city geography used was San Francisco, upon which Japanese-style buildings were placed. In all, 80,000 buildings were incorporated into San Fransokyo.
San Fransokyo in Big Hero 6. (Image: Disney)
Zootopia, on the other hand, was built from scratch — including the terrain. The team started with research of various landscapes to create a basemap.
Zootopia concept map. (Photo: T. Cozzens)
At the city-building stage, CityEngine’s custom tool was used to lay down streets.
Buildings were designed for each district. The building styles couldn’t be repeated too often, or the city would look unrealistic, Jarratt said. The designers used carefully calibrated mix rules to keep the cities lively.
The desert area of Sahara Square is make of 61,000 parts, including buildings, wall segments and palm trees. (Image: Disney)
The ability in CityEngine to change the makeup of a city, adjusting the frequency of the various parts, made it easy for the illustration team to meet the art director’s requirements. When he wanted more skyscrapers, or buildings of a certain design, the team was able to provide new concept images the same day.
Zooptopia being built in Esri CityEngine. (Photo: T. Cozzens)
Esri’s CityEngine GIS technology is used by city planners to design our future smart cities. “It’s so similar to how city planners create real cities,” said Esri President Jack Dangermond. He then presented Jarratt with Esri’s first-ever Best Animated Feature Using GIS award.
senseFly will showcase how to integrate drone imagery into current workflows at the Esri User Conference, which takes place July 10-14 in San Diego. senseFly is hosting a series of workshops designed for surveying, mapping and GIS professionals.
As a producer of mapping drones and an Esri Silver Partner, senseFly will present the innovative ways in which its drones are being used with Esri’s Drone2Map for ArcGIS software to deliver on-demand high-resolution imagery and robust GIS projects.
Drone Surveying 101 – Wednesday, July 12
This workshop will be led by Francois Gervaix, surveying project manager, and is aimed at visitors wanting to know more about drone mapping and surveying. He will explain how senseFly solutions can be used as a surveyor’s own imagery sourceanytime, anywhere — as well as how Esri’s Drone2Map for ArcGIS makes the creation and integration of drone imagery into workflows even easier.
The session takes place 12-1 p.m. in room 30 B of the San Diego Convention Center. Refreshments will be provided. To register, go to https://dronesurveying101.eventbrite.com.
senseFly User Meeting – Thursday, July 13
With the geospatial market needing specific and integrated solutions, Briton Voorhees, sales engineer, will give existing senseFly customers an in-depth look at its latest features. This includes senseFly Corridor, a new platform enhancement that vastly simplifies the drone mapping of linear sites, for applications such as utilities monitoring, as well as the newest release of eMotion 3.
Briton will also speak at the pre-conference Imaging and Mapping Forum on the various sensors available to senseFly users and detail how they can apply to imaging applications.
senseFly’s drones offer full compatibility with Esri’s Drone2Map for ArcGIS mapping and spatial analysis software.
senseFly is also exhibiting at the UC Expo and encourages visitors to stop by booth 2126 to speak to its team of experts.
Avineon Inc. has launched a new portion of the Avineon Innovation Lab dedicated to articles, white papers and videos highlighting the impact of Esri’s Network Management System in the ArcGIS Platform. Avineon is a provider of geospatial, information technology and engineering support services.
The new section focuses on Avineon’s contributions, expertise and partnership with Esri on the next evolution of GIS Network Management: the Utility Network.
Part of the ArcGIS platform, the Utility Network is available on any device.
GIS services and solutions have been a part of Avineon’s success for the last 25 years, which is keeping pace with evolving technology and the impact GIS has on companies in the utility and telecommunications industries.
The Utility Network lets users create, manage, and share electric, water, wastewater, gas, district heating, and telecommunications asset data. The beta release of the Utility Network comes with base data models for electric, gas and water networks.
The technology is capable of supporting other networks — such as district heating, telecommunication and wastewater — but, for now, users need to build their own data models or rely on partners. Esri will provide base data models in some of these areas in later releases.
“Avineon has been a valuable partner and contributor to Esri’s Utility Network throughout the early adopter program, providing valuable feedback to our product teams,” commented Bill Meehan, Director of Utility Solutions for Esri. “The resulting Network Management System in the ArcGIS Platform will support utility and telecommunication companies as they execute their business plans for innovation, digital transition and transformation, sustainability, and smart ecosystems (smart grid, smart buildings, smart transportation, smart cities, etc.). We believe Avineon’s partnership with Esri and offerings like Avineon’s Head Start program, as well as observations into the practical applications of the Utility Network, through their Innovation Lab, will help industries understand the strategic and tactical pathway to maximize the value of their GIS now and into the future.”
Joel Campbell, Avineon’s vice president of Commercial Systems, added, “As an Esri business partner, it is exciting to support our customers and contribute to Esri’s vision of the ArcGIS Platform. These new capabilities serve as the foundation for delivering a new generation of business applications leveraging web and services patterns as well as evolved network management capabilities. We at Avineon look forward to utilizing our Innovation Lab as an outlet to share the lessons learned, best practices, and case studies around the newest evolution of GIS and its impact on the utility and telecommunication industries.”
