The year 2016 was full of political, environmental and global events that will have lasting impacts all around the world.
In the spirit of pictures being worth a thousand words, DigitalGlobe is offering a top 10 list of satellite images that defined 2016.
Here is the first, for January. Click here to see the full list.
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) invites interested organizations to respond to its just-released Call for Participation (CFP) in the OGC Testbed 13 Interoperability Testbed. Responses to the CFP are due by Feb. 17.
Organizations selected to participate in Testbed 13 will develop prototype solutions based on the sponsors’ use cases, requirements and scenarios. These are described in detail in the CFP. Participants’ prototype solutions will implement existing OGC standards as well as new prototype interface and encoding specifications introduced or developed in Testbed 13. Prototype specifications may ultimately become official, member approved OGC standards, revisions to existing OGC standards, or best practices for using OGC standards.
OGC testbeds are part of OGC’s Interoperability Program, a global, hands-on and collaborative prototyping program designed to rapidly develop, test, innovate and deliver proven candidate standards into OGC’s standards program where they are formalized for public release.
In OGC’s Interoperability Initiatives, international teams of technology providers work together to solve specific geoprocessing interoperability problems posed by the Initiative Sponsors. OGC Interoperability Initiatives include testbeds, pilot projects, interoperability experiments and interoperability support services — all designed to encourage rapid development and mobilization of OGC standards.
This leading-edge standards work has enormous potential and value for testbed stakeholders — both technology users and technology providers. Shared investment in spatial standard prototype solutions brings improved sharing and integration of spatial information, which has widespread and longstanding value for the testbed sponsors and for society at large.
Technology providers gain market exposure, market intelligence and a chance to quickly take advantage of the business opportunities that arise with the introduction of new standards and associated technical capabilities.
Anyone interested in learning more about this opportunity should contact Scott Serich, Director Interoperability Programs ([email protected]). See www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/programs/ip for more information about the Interoperability Program in which OGC testbeds, pilot projects and interoperability experiments are organized, planned and managed.
Further information regarding Testbed 13 is available here. The CFP is available here.
Mapping firm adds nearly 2.5 million images to inventory
The Sanborn Map Company has added 35 newly available oblique imagery datasets to its inventory. Sanborn specializes in acquisition and processing of high-resolution oblique aerial imagery.
In 2016, the firm collected more than 2.5 million new images, covering more than 12,000 square miles.
Sanborn offers its Oblique Imagery Solutions as a licensed product available with Sanborn Oblique Analyst 2.0 and the firm’s cloud service, allowing customers to securely store, analyze and access their data. This complete package provides an end-to-end solution. Sanborn’s data licensing policy offers additional value for customers.
The new 2016 data also is accessible on a pay-as-you-go basis through Sanborn’s new Mezurit.com subscription oblique imagery service.
“As our customers continue to recognize how oblique imagery can streamline workflows through greatly enhanced visualization and analysis of all types of infrastructure, Sanborn will have one of the nation’s most current and accurate oblique data sets ready for them,” said Jason Caldwell, Sanborn’s vice president of business development and sales.
Aerial mapping company Bluesky has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Bird.i to provide online, instantaneous visualization of its high-resolution aerial imagery.
Bluesky has created and maintains a high-resolution, up-to-date and accurate archive of aerial images in the United Kingdom. Established in 2016, Bird.i has developed a platform for accessing satellite, airborne and UAV imagery with a plug-and-play API that works within mapping and location-based applications.
“The partnership with Bluesky will allow businesses across multiple industry sectors to exploit location information more accurately and efficiently,” said Corentin Guillo, founder and CEO of Bird.i. “Our commitment is to serve the most accurate and recent images available, such as those on offer from Bluesky, to our clients for mass consumption of instantaneously accessible ‘image views’. Working in partnership with Bluesky, we will streamline the overall process of image consumption and open new markets”.
“We are delighted to partner with Bird.i because we believe that instant visualization of our detailed and accurate aerial images offers great benefits to businesses,” said Rachel Tidmarsh, managing director of Bluesky. “We see in Bird.i an innovative way forward, simplifying online access and accelerating the visualization of our images for many applications that rely on evidence-based information.”
The agreement between the two companies will give subscribers to Bird.i’s API the ability to integrate Bluesky’s high-quality aerial images within its existing mapping applications and location-based services.
Caltrans — the California state agency responsible for highway, bridge and rail transportation planning, construction and maintenance — has taken delivery of the new Riegl VMX-1HA mobile mapping system.
The Riegl VMX-1HA is a high-speed, high-performance dual-scanner mobile mapping system. It provides high performance and dense, accurate and feature-rich data at highway speeds.
With two million measurements and five hundred scan lines per second, the turnkey solution is suited for survey-grade mobile mapping applications to meet the standards of departments of transportation nationwide, Riegl said.
The technology of the system comprises two Riegl VUX-1HA high-accuracy waveform lidar sensors and a high-performance INS/GNSS unit, housed in an aerodynamically shaped protective cover. Four 9-megapixel cameras, along with a LadyBug 5 camera, complement the waveform lidar data with precisely georeferenced images.
The Riegl software suite provides seamless workflows for mobile data acquisition, processing, adjustments and deliverables.
Riegl USA was awarded the contract of the Request For Quote (RFQ) on the open market.
Caribbean Island Sint Maarten has become the third country in the world, and the first in the region, to adopt what3words for its national postal system.
With a population of more than 40,000 people, Sint Maarten is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. As with many of the Caribbean islands, much of Sint Maarten has no official addressing. As a result, the postal service persistently experiences high rates of failed deliveries. The renumbering of houses over past decades has left many homes with multiple addresses, forced different homes to share the same address, or left others with none. As Sint Maarten continues to develop, this patchy system is holding back the growth of ecommerce, tourism and government services.
By using what3words, every location in the country now has an instant address. what3words provides an accurate and fixed address for every 3-x-3-meter square in the world.
As a first step, PSSNV is accepting three-word addresses from all customers, extending the service to both commercial partners and private clients. Customers will be able to identify any three-word address using the free what3words app or website and write it on an envelope.
This gives every citizen a reliable address, whether they live on an unmarked road in the center of the island at overlays.campfire.sometime, are over the bank — a particularly poorly addressed quarter — at inkwell.residing.seabirds, or are moored for the night at music.crunchy.electing.
what3words will be integrated across PSSNV’s internal systems, while postal workers will use a three-word address to navigate directly to the 3-x-3-meter square of a customer’s front door.
“PSSNV is proud to be one of the first countries in the world to adopt this new method of addressing,” said Antonia Wilson, Director of Operations and Commerce for Postal Services Sint Maarten. “With what3words, PSSNV can instantly provide universal access to the postal service. This instant solution will immediately make us more efficient and reduce customer frustrations. We’ve already begun training our staff on this new system and will be communicating three-word addresses to customers across the country through our new website, radio and TV advertising, via leaflets and on all existing mail.”
Disaster Relief. what3words is already being used in the Caribbean to support disaster relief. It was used to support Haiti’s recovery in the wake of October’s Hurricane Matthew in a project funded by the Roddenberry Foundation. Following the recovery work in Haiti, disaster response specialists IHS (Infinitum Humanitarian Systems) made what3words its default service for tracking teams and reporting problems back to the United Nation’s WASH Cluster, a water sanitation task force.
“The entire IHS team converted to what3words while we were deployed. It proved very easy to communicate locations of issues while we were on the move,” said Eric Rasmussen, CEO of IHS. “The team was traveling to support an area out west of Jeremie where about 4,000 people were living in the coastal forest. There we rebuilt a water system for a destroyed school and medical clinic at ruminant.stronger.regularity, providing both power and the first clean water in the area since Hurricane Matthew levelled the place.”
Available in 13 languages, including English, French and Spanish, what3words is used by individuals, delivery companies, navigation tools, governments, logistics firms, travel guides and NGOs. It is more precise than traditional addresses, simpler than descriptions, and easier to communicate and remember than long strings of GPS coordinates. The system has built-in error detection and is available both as a mobile app and API integration. The system works offline without a data connection, ensuring it can be used everywhere. It means
“We are on a mission to change the way people communicate location,” said Chris Sheldrick, CEO and co-founder of what3words. “Sint Maarten has become a global innovator, joining Mongolia and Cote d’Ivoire in leapfrogging the hundreds of other nations that still rely on inaccurate, inconsistent or complex addressing systems. With our partners, from postal systems to ecommerce companies and disaster relief teams, we are making the world a more efficient, less frustrating and safer place.”
Esri is partnering with GISinc to analyze customer behavior to help retailers increase sales.
Esri will integrate itsspatial analytics platform with GISinc’s indoor mapping capabilities to analyze data collected by sensor-enabled overhead smart lighting systems and from opt-in mobile data from customer phones. The solution will enable retailers to track behaviors, using information including customer locations inside the store and items selected for purchase. The store can then tap into such data to improve customer assistance and position merchandise in the places most likely to attract purchases.
“Analyzing customer choices and mapping go hand in hand,” said Sonny Beech, Internet of Things (IoT) business development manager at GISinc. “Why a person bought something where they did is an example of spatial data. Using ArcGIS analytics, we can enable retailers to make more strategic decisions about where to place merchandise and in-store marketing materials.”
With more than two-thirds of consumers using smartphones while shopping in brick-and-mortar stores, retailers have to deliver more relevant experiences by becoming more precise in how they interact with shoppers. In-store location technologies provide opportunities for retailers to increase touch points in the aisle and on the shelf by delivering messaging and services in real time based on a customer’s location in the store.
Studies show that the spatial customer behavior analysis Esri provides can boost the probability of purchase by up to 70 percent and increase basket size by up to 60 percent for smartphone-enabled shoppers, Esri said.
“Esri enables retailers to access vast amounts of customer information while allowing the customers themselves to take advantage of advanced analytics,” said Gary Sankary, retail industry manager at Esri. “With the widespread use of smartphones during in-store shopping, indoor mapping provides businesses with a tool to understand shopper behavior and improve sales accordingly.”
Indoor-mapping initiatives and smart lighting systems, like other IoT implementations, have become more affordable and accessible — in fact, much of the technology can be integrated directly into the infrastructure of a brick-and-mortar store. Customers benefit by downloading mobile apps and opting in to shared-data environments that make the shopping experience more efficient and enjoyable.
As high-precision GNSS horizontal and vertical data becomes less expensive to collect, greater attention must be paid when reconciling vertical datasets. In 2013, I wrote two articles entitled “Nightmare on GIS Street: Accuracy, Datums, and Geospatial Data” and “Part 2: Nightmare on GIS Street – Accuracy, Datums, and Geospatial Data” as well as conducted some webinars on horizontal datums.
Reconciling data with disparate horizontal datums is a headache, sometimes a big headache, and sometimes a brutal migraine, especially with large enterprise databases. NAD83? WGS-84? ITRF08? The acronyms seem endless. Then there’s different variations of NAD83, WGS-84, ITRF08. Combine that with the myriad of datum conversion options in GIS software, and you’ve got a perfect opportunity to really mess up your 2D data.
The idea behind a horizontal reference frame (datum) is that anyone whose data is tied to that reference frame should be spatially “compatible.” Some pretty solid horizontal reference frames exist. In the United States, it’s NAD83/2011.
For vertical reference, it’s not so easy.
A common term used when referencing elevations is Mean Sea Level (MSL). If you’re interested in high-precision elevations, MSL is a dangerous term because it’s a regional reference and tends to be referred to as a global reference. The fact is that MSL is different depending on where you are located. MSL in Boston is different than in Miami, different than in Galveston, and different in Seattle so it’s not a suitable reference in a generic sense.
So, what does one use for a vertical reference in order to combine various datasets?
In the United States, the current vertical datum of the National Spatial Reference System is NAVD88. We can get into an entire discussion about how NAVD88 was created, but in an attempt to keep it simple, let’s talk about how to check if your elevation data is referenced to NAVD88. In the United States and other countries, there are survey marks on the ground that serve as points that you can reference.
In the United States, a database of survey marks can be accessed via the NGS Data Explorer website. To use it, simply type in the name of the city and click on Find Marks.
To choose an area within a city, you can use your mouse to pan to where you want, then click Find Marks again to refresh the survey marks. A legend on the right side gives you a definition of each symbol. Focus on the GPS-specific symbols because GPS is the easiest way for you to check the accuracy of your vertical data. For this example, I clicked on a symbol for a “GPS and Approx Height” survey mark. Following is what is displayed:
Above is the standard NGS Data Sheet format for all survey marks in the database. The PID (Permanent Identifier) code is a unique number for the survey mark. In this case, it is AI2002.
The Current Survey Control section on the data sheet provides the key information, including the latitude, longitude and height (elevation) information for the survey mark. Notice the NAVD88 height under the latitude/longitude.
The easiest way to check the accuracy of your vertical data is to use a high-precision GNSS receiver and collect a point on the survey mark. By high-precision, I’m referring to a standard RTK GNSS receiver capable of centimeter accuracy such as pictured below:
You could use a sub-foot or sub-meter GNSS receiver as long as you understand that your elevation accuracy error will be about twice that of your horizontal accuracy. For example, a sub-meter GNSS receiver elevation accuracy will be about 2 meters. For this discussion, let’s assume you’re using an RTK GNSS receiver.
Even though the vertical datum in the United States is NAVD88 and the NGS Data Sheet clearly shows that value, GNSS receivers don’t typically output NAVD88 elevation values. GNSS has its own vertical reference, a reference ellipsoid that approximates the shape of the Earth (GEOID). So, when your GNSS receiver reports elevations, it generally reports them as the Height Above Ellipsoid. This value, as you can see below, is quite different than the NAVD88 elevation….about 23 meters different.
The following graphic depicts the relationship between the ellipsoid, geoid and NAVD88 (surface height).
Remember, GNSS reports in Ellipsoidal Height (HAE). In order to convert this to NAVD88 height, you need to add the GEOID height. It starts to get a little complicated here because the model that defines the GEOID height is updated every few years.
Notice in the above graphic that the GEOID height refers to GEOID03. GEOID03 is the United States GEOID model released in 2003. The current GEOID model was released in 2012 (GEOID12B). The GEOID model changes because better data is being collected to further refine the GEOID model. The changes in the GEOID value from one GEOID model to the next (such as GEOID09 to GEOID12B) can be significant (many decimeters). Note that the ellipsoidal height will not change when the GEOID model is updated, only the GEOID height and the resulting NAVD88 height.
Since the GEOID models change somewhat frequently (every few years), most GIS data-collection software doesn’t incorporate the latest GEOID model, or any GEOID model at all. GPS receivers have a rough GEOID model built in so they can output a “surface elevation” that gets it close (within a few meters) to NAVD88 elevations as opposed to outputting ellipsoidal height, which is many meters in error.
Lastly, all GPS receivers output NMEA data strings, which are consumed by GIS data collection software. GPS receivers typically display this data (or output via Bluetooth or serial port) once per second. One of the key data strings, the GGA message, contains elevation data and looks like this:
$GPGGA,181908.00,3404.7041778,N,07044.3966270,W,4,13,1.00,495.144,M,29.200,M,0.10,0000*40
If you would like to see a complete description of this NMEA data string, I wrote an article describing it here. Otherwise, I’d like to focus your attention on the elevation part of the above data string.
The ninth field of the string (495.144) is the elevation is this case. It is the surface elevation value, but not an accurate representation of NAVD88 elevation. The reason is due to the 11th field of the string (29.200), which is the GEOID value used in this example.
The GEOID value in this example is derived from a rough GEOID model built-into the GNSS receiver. It’s not accurate. Each receiver is different, but this value can be off by a few meters.
Interestingly enough, the GNSS receiver doesn’t output ellipsoidal height (HAE), which is the native elevation reference for GNSS receivers. To compute the ellipsoidal height, you need to subtract the inaccurate GEOID value (29.200) from the surface elevation the GNSS receiver is reporting (495.144), which in this case would be 495.144 – 29.200 = 465.944 meters. Clear as mud?
Now, let’s say you wanted to use an accurate GEOID value from the latest GEOID model and apply it to your data. You would have to perform the following calculation:
495.144 – 29.200 = 465.944 Ellipsoidal height. ###this is to remove the incorrect GEOID value.
Now, you would need to add the accurate GEOID value to the Ellipsoid height (let’s assume the accurate GEOID value is 31.45 meters).
465.944 + 31.45 = 497.394 meters (NAVD88).
Now, when 497.394 refers to NAVD88, this is assuming your GNSS receiver is accurate to a few centimeters in elevation. Of course, applying an accurate GEOID value to an elevation being output by a Garmin handheld doesn’t make much sense because the inaccuracy of the Garmin elevation is much greater than the rough GEOID model used by the Garmin.
Well, this concludes my stepping-off point for a discussion about elevations in what is sure to become a series of articles about the accuracy of GIS elevation data and how to check the elevation accuracy of your GIS data, as well as how to collect it.
Follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GPSGIS_Eric
Sources: NGS Data Explorer
The organizers of International LiDAR Mapping Forum (ILMF) has announced the 2017 keynote lineup. The event takes place Feb. 13-15 in Denver, Colorado.
ILMF is a technical conference and exposition covering the newest airborne, terrestrial and underwater lidar as well as emerging remote-sensing and data-collection tools and technologies,
The keynote speakers are:
“We’re honored to have such a stellar lineup to kick off the ILMF conference,” said Lisa Murray, event director. “These keynotes demonstrate the incredible breadth of uses for lidar technology — from mapping the ocean floor to mapping the ancient city of Pompeii, to using lidar for global sustainable development and for risk management and reduction.”
These leaders are among 60 aerial mapping experts at ILMF 2017 who will share their knowledge at ILMF. Other sessions will cover topics including:
View the complete Conference Program here.
Running alongside the conference is an exhibition featuring the world’s top providers of lidar and new and complementary solutions. See the exhibitor list here.
“ILMF is the best opportunity of the year for mapping professionals to learn about the newest lidar solutions, raise their technical competence, network with other practitioners, and see the latest technology,” said Ms. Murray.
Early-bird registration ends Jan. 31, with $175 in savings. Registration is available online here.
LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has unveiled lossless compression of Harris Geiger-Mode lidar data in the newest release of its GeoExpress software.
Users of GeoExpress 9.5.3 can now convert massive Geiger-Mode point clouds directly from their native binary point file (BPF) format to industry-standard MrSID files without losing data.
“Direct conversion from BPF enables GeoExpress clients to fully leverage the rich information content of Geiger-Mode lidar data sets,” said Terry Ryan, LizardTech federal government sales manager. “In addition, the compressed files are easier to process, archive and share.”
Harris has provided airborne Geiger-Mode lidar data to the U.S. government for two decades and recently rolled the technology out to the commercial sector for a variety of large-area mapping applications. Geiger-Mode employs a multi-angle illumination method to capture extremely dense point clouds of the Earth’s surface. Compared to traditional LiDAR, Geiger Mode offers higher resolution and greater information content, but in much larger data sets.
BPF is the native format used for raw Geiger-Mode data because it readily accommodates enormous files with multiple metadata and attribute fields. However, the BPF format is not supported by most commercial lidar processing software packages.
As a result, Geiger-Mode customers had to convert BPF to the more common LAS format for generation of surface models, digital elevation models and other map products. This BPF-to-LAS conversion was time consuming and lost data in the process.
GeoExpress 9.5.3 eliminates the intermediary step of converting to LAS and compresses directly to MrSID files, which can be easily processed by all commercial LiDAR software packages.
“The full information content of the Geiger-Mode LiDAR data is retained, and processing time is reduced with GeoExpress 9.5.3,” Ryan said.
GeoExpress is LizardTech’s flagship software product, enabling geospatial professionals to manipulate digital image and LiDAR data sets and compress them to MrSID or JPEG2000 files for cost-effective processing, storage and transmission. In addition to the new Geiger-Mode handling capabilities, GeoExpress 9.5.3 offers other enhancements, including advanced color balancing, default RGB transformation and easier licensing.
A free trial of GeoExpress 9.5.3 is available.
Details of latest GeoExpress release are discussed and demonstrated in a recorded webinar:
DigitalGlobe has released the first image from its new WorldView-4 satellite.
Captured on Nov. 26, the first image shows the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Shibuya, Tokyo, and can be downloaded from the WorldView-4 microsite. The site hosted events during the 1964 Olympic Games and will again host international competition when the games return to Tokyo in 2020.
The successful launch of WorldView-4 on Nov. 11 marked the culmination of months of planning, including unforeseen delays caused by the nearby Canyon Fire that impacted Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
WorldView-4 is the fifth and most advanced satellite in DigitalGlobe’s active, industry-leading constellation, and will more than double the company’s capacity to collect the world’s highest resolution commercial satellite images for its customers.
The SpaceView 110 camera aboard WorldView-4, and the satellite’s primary payload, was developed by Melbourne, Florida-based Harris Corporation. From an altitude of 617 kilometers, SpaceView is capable of collecting imagery with a panchromatic resolution of 31 centimeters and 1.24 meter multispectral resolution, meaning it will be able to distinguish data points just a foot apart.
At this year’s AWS re:Invent, Esri announced that customers can now deploy select ArcGIS licenses from Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace instantly, using a pay-per-use pricing model available through hourly or annual subscriptions.
AWS re:Invent is being held Nov. 28–Dec. 2 at the Venetian and the Mirage in Las Vegas.
Automated software provisioning allows users to launch new projects, respond to emergency requirements, address spikes in usage, and respond seamlessly to business needs without being tied to restrictive enterprise licensing models, Esri said.
Esri also offers a full suite of managed cloud services to support customers that do not have the resources to design, deploy, and manage cloud-based geographic information system (GIS) implementations in-house. Esri has the skills, staff, and experience to manage complex public and private cloud environments.
Esri managed services professionals not only design and configure ArcGIS implementations, but they can also provide ongoing management of the environment, allowing internal resources the freedom to focus on the mission.
“Esri is excited to join AWS Marketplace,” said Dean Angelides, head of international alliances and partners at Esri. “Flexible pay-as-you-go deployment models and service options make launching GIS in the cloud simple, unleashing the power of maps, geographic analytics, and comprehensive developer tools to users around the world.”
Developers and starts-ups require innovative, productive technologies to support high-growth businesses with limited capital. Using Esri software on AWS enables developers to share assets and build new applications that take advantage of a range of ready-to-use content with location and mapping services.