In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. has released a full-featured version of its Makai Voyager™ geospatial visualization software at http://voyager.makai.com. Version 1.2 enables users to import and visualize their own scientific and GIS data in a “Google Earth-like” viewer.

KAILUA, HAWAII – Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. has released a free trial version of its geospatial visualization software, Makai Voyager. This release represents a leap forward in advanced volumetric data visualization and analysis. Individual or group licenses are available on Windows (32- and 64-bit), Linux, and Mac OS X.

Originally developed for the US Naval Oceanographic Office’s large ocean models, Makai Voyager enables users to import, fuse, view, and analyze large earth, ocean, and atmosphere scientific data as it is collected or simulated in a global geo-referenced GIS platform. The key differentiator of Makai Voyager is its level-of-detail (LOD) technology that enables users to stream 'big data’ rapidly over a network or the web.

Features in Version 1.2:

•             Preprocessing LiDAR, GIS, & volumetric data from common formats into streamable files;

•             Volume rendering for large 4D (3D + time) data, such as NetCDF;

•             Analysis tools & customizable graphs;

•             WMS and other streamable formats;

See example project videos at http://voyager.makai.com/industries.php, or download the full-featured 30-day trial of Makai Voyager today at https://voyager.makai.com/products.php!

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode, covering a way too long time-span.

On the open source / open data front:

• GeoWeb Guru reviews the OpenLayers Cookbook by Antonio Santiago Perez: "The book is formatted as a series of 60 'recipes' that demonstrate how to perform various tasks." And here's another review on the same book.
• Some Province of Quebec open geodata and public WMS layers (in French)
• There was some OSGeo-Incubators announcements, the ZOO-Project, Opticks, OGC TEAM Engine and the Marble Virtual Globe are all part of the OSGeo incubation now
• The Cartaro CMS in now available as beta
• GeoTools 8.2 has been released
• Here's how to create a nice seafloor map using shaded relief and open source software

On the Esri front:

• Several sources pointed to the ArcGIS Online Service Credits Estimator

On the Microsoft front:

• For those interested, Bing Maps SDKs for Windows Store Apps Now Available

Geo-related stories discussed over Slashdot:

• Nokia Keeps Quietly Mapping The World
• The Case That Apple Should Buy Nokia
• 3D input device: Microsoft's Hand-Gesture Sensor Bracelet
• And Microsoft Patents 1826 Choropleth Map Technique
• Image classification crowdsourcing: ForestWatchers Lets Anyone Monitor A Patch of Forest
• LightSquared Wants To Share Weather-Balloon Frequencies for LTE
• An academic Android trojan that take pictures of your home and more, PlaceRaider Builds a Model of Your World With Smartphone Photos
• Can Foursquare Data Predict Where You Live?
• That candy bar that tracks you, Nestle's GPS Tracking Candy Campaign

More on Apple Maps from MacRumors and APB:

• Apple's 3D Maps and Imagery See Incremental Improvements
• Apple Turning to Select Retail Store Employees to Help Improve Maps for iOS 6
• Insiders Detail Steve Jobs' Role in Apple's Mapping Effort
• APB tells us Why is the Press Still Talking About Apple Maps

In the miscellaneous category:

• O'Reilly warns us of drones for warfare
• Yes, Wearable LIDAR Sensors for Mapping (via OR)
• APB informs us of MyDigitalGlobe cloud service to make DigitalGlobe imagery more discoverable with OGC catalog services (CWS): "A unique feature of the service is that alerts can be set to notify a user when a new image is added to the library of a specific area of interest."
• For those in hydrography, look at the U.S. National Hydrography Dataset Plus Version 2

In the maps category:

• It's worth taking a look at the Information is Beautiful Awards Winners, it's not all maps, but still pretty
• Via Mapperz, here's the CEC North American Environmental Atlas which is actually pretty interesting
• A Google Maps of Ancient Rome, via OR
• Here's a map of the The World’s Most Expensive Cities

A news article describes the plans of a New Zealand company, Terralink International Ltd, to capture all of the streets in the country in 3D using a vehicle mounted with a LIDAR device.

[Editor's addition] From the article: "Unlike Google, Terralink won't be giving away all its StreetCam3D street-scape for free online. Some footage may go on the web, for example to help people research homes through its property information website Zoodle.co.nz, but Terralink hopes to sell much of the data it collects to the likes of utilities and local government - for example to help plan the $3.5 billion ultrafast broadband network."

SCALGO has released version 1.2 of the software package SCALGO Hydrology, which can be used to perform basic hydrological modeling on massive raster terrain models (containing tens of billions of cells) on a normal desktop computer.

The new version contains a number of new features that make it easier to perform large-area hydrological analysis. These features include handling of massive collections of polygon data, which e.g. allows for easy and efficient "burning" of a large number of features (such as buildings, bridges and culverts) that are important for hydrological modeling into a large-area terrain model. The release also includes functionality that allows for efficient computation of various measures (height, area, volume) of all depressions (including depressions inside other depressions) in massive raster terrain models, which e.g. allows for easy and efficient identification of the depressions and terrain areas most important for hydrological modeling.

As the previous version, all SCALGO Hydrology 1.2 modules can be run through a standalone graphical user-interface or from within ArcGIS. In SCALGO Hydrology 1.2 the newly released ArcGIS version 10.1 is supported and an ArcGIS viewer has been added that allows for easy visualization of the output of many of the package modules.

The new release also contains updates to the standalone user-interface and to some of the core algorithms, including the utilization of multiple CPU cores. Overall, the most significant updates in SCALGO Hydrology 1.2 include:

• Extension to the Bluespot module so that each bluespot cell contains the measure (height, area or volume) of the depression below the cell.
• New Clip module that clips a raster or a point cloud according to a set of polygons.
• New Burn module that burns elevation values from a set of polygons into a raster or a point cloud.
• New Calculate module that evaluates a function for each cell in a raster.
• New Masks module that generates binary masks from a raster (e.g. useful for post-processing Sea-Levels module output).
• Merge of TIN Conversion, Raster Conversion and Point Conversion into new Convert module.
• Addition of multi-core support in many core algorithms.
• Updated standalone user-interface, including options to monitor CPU, disk and memory use.
• Addition of ArcGIS viewer for visualizing the output from many of the package modules.
• Support for ArcGIS 10.1.

Information about SCALGO technology, products and services can be found at http://scalgo.com. Future information about SCALGO products and services can also be received directly through Twitter and Facebook.

Scalable Algorithmics (SCALGO) was founded in 2009 with the mission to bring cutting-edge massive terrain data processing technology to market. The SCALGO technology is based on more than two decades of basic and applied research on I/O-efficient and geometric algorithms at Center for Massive Data Algorithmics (MADALGO) at Aarhus University in Denmark and at Duke University in the US, in collaboration with industry LiDAR and environmental GIS application experts. Software based on the technology can handle much larger terrain data sets on a normal desktop than most current software and thus it eliminates the need for accuracy-decreasing data thinning. The use of novel mathematical and algorithmic techniques also means that the software works provably efficient on all input data sets, delivering a completely specified output without the use of cumbersome workflows such as those introduced by data tiling. SCALGO is involved in multiple research projects and offer special pricing for academic institutions.

Illustration showing the result of computing bluespots using SCALGO Hydrology 1.2, visualized using the SCALGO ArcGIS Viewer. A cell is colored blue if the volume of the depression in the terrain below the cell is at most 3236m³ (as set by the viewer threshold value). Prior to the bluespot computation, the SCALGO Hydrology 1.2 Burn module was used to add buildings and cut bridges in the terrain model covering more than 13000km².

It was National Holiday yesterday where I live, so it explains sharing this weekend story on a Tuesday, discussed by Slashdot: How Satnav Maps Are Made.

Their summary: ""PC Pro has a feature revealing how the world's biggest satnav firms create their maps. Nokia's Navteq, for example, has a huge database of almost 24 million miles of road across the globe. For each mile of road there are multiple data points, and for each of those positions, more than 280 road attributes. The maps are generated from public data and driver feedback, not to mention its own fleet of cars with 360-degree cameras on the top.There's an IMU (inertial measurement unit) for monitoring the pitch of the road, and the very latest in 3D surface-scanning technology too. This light detection and ranging (LIDAR) detector captures 1.3 million three-dimensional data points every second, mapping the world around Navteq's field vehicles in true 3D. The feature also investigates whether commercial mapping firms will be replaced by open-source maps." That last line makes me think of the difference between conventionally published encyclopedias and Wikipedia; "replaced by" is an odd standard in a big marketplace of ideas."

Blom CGR France, Blom’s subsidiary in France, has signed a contract with IGN, the French National Geographic and Forestry Information Institute, for an airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) survey and production of flood models in the south of France. This is a huge project for IGN and will cover all areas at risk from flooding. Blom’s data acquisition will start imminently and the project will be completed within one year.

Blom is proud to have been awarded this contract after a very demanding European tender process. “This contract is the third recent collaboration between Blom and IGN, proving IGN's belief in Blom's experience and commitment to deliver” commented Didier Mendel, Managing Director of Blom CGR France.

Flooding is a natural disaster that seems to be increasing in both occurrence and its impact on us. Each flood can put at risk homes, infrastructure and more importantly, lives. Last year areas in France saw devastating floods that were the worst since 1827. It is reassuring that flooding and its consequences now can be monitored, and the water flow can be predicted. Airborne LiDAR technology provides altitude data with an accuracy that can reach up to 10 cm on bare soil, providing an effective and low cost method to use when surveys of large geographical areas are required. These factors result in LiDAR being the best technology to use for flood risk mapping.

Producing flood models of areas at risk of flooding is part of an ambitious governmental project for improving the altimetric data base (RGE Alti) of the whole of France during the period 2010-2013.

“This strategic contract award has been achieved as a result of Blom’s unique skills base and a wealth of experience within LiDAR technology, which has given us a leading position in this market.”, comments Giovanni Banchini, CEO of Blom CGR.

Blom is able to provide a complete airborne solution, combining laser scanning with aerial imagery. The laser scanner gathers accurate data for terrain modelling while the digital camera provides imagery for quality control of the LiDAR point cloud. The imagery is also used to produce orthophotos over the area, providing IGN with a compelling solution to aide their flood mapping campaign.

For further information please contact:

Didier Mendel, Managing Director, Blom France & BeLux

Tel: +33 699 072 167

Email: [email protected]

About BLOM

Blom is a leading European service provider within acquisition, processing and modelling of geographic information. Blom maintains unique European databases with collections of map, images and models. With particular focus on online services, Blom provides data and solutions to customers in government, enterprise and consumer markets and enables partners to create applications using Blom’s databases, location based services and navigation solution. Blom has more than 900 employees and offices in 16 countries. The company headquarter is located in Oslo, Norway. Blom is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (ticker BLO). For more information, visit www.blomasa.com

IGN

IGN’s key missions are to produce, maintain and disseminate reference geographic and forest information in France. Heir to a long line of cartographers, IGN has been involved in all cartography-related operations in France and its territories, since 1940. For more information, visit http://www.ign.fr

At the recent Florida Floodplain Managers Association Annual Conference the engineering and environmental sciences consulting firm Jones Edmunds & Associates presented an evaluation of the SCALGO Flash Flood Mapping product. Using a detailed terrain model, SCALGO Flash Flood Mapping can be used to rapidly assess flood risk during extreme rain events on a local, regional or even national scale. Jones Edmunds compared SCALGO Flash Flood Mapping with the results of a recently completed Jones Edmunds flood study in Marion County, Florida, based on an advanced dynamic model (ICPR) used by the Florida authorities and listed by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a nationally accepted hydraulic model. They found that despite a cost of under 5% and a significantly reduced production time, the Flash Flood Mapping results were close to the results of the advanced modelling and the same time significantly more detailed. Another main conclusion was that SCALGO Flash Flood Mapping is a very cost efficient way of screening large areas for high flood-risk areas where very detailed dynamic modelling is justified.

SCALGO Flash Flood Mapping show how much rain has to fall during an extreme rain event before any given cell of a detailed (LiDAR based) raster terrain model is below water. Consequently, the mapping can be easily used to compute what part of each depression is below water after a given amount of rain, and thus effectively shows how water collects in depressions for all possible amounts of rain. The SCALGO Flash Flood Mapping product is being offered as a computation service. Based on the service and its national LIDAR-based terrain model, the major Danish engineering, environmental science and economics consulting company COWI has already successfully launched a new flash flood map product in Denmark, which is being used by several local governments as well as one of the five regional governments in Denmark (covering approximately 13.000 km²).

Information about SCALGO technology, products and services can be found at http://scalgo.com. 
Future information about SCALGO products and services can be received directly by signing up to the newsletter at http://scalgo.com/mailing_list.php.

Scalable Algorithmics (SCALGO) was founded in 2009 with the mission to bring cutting-edge massive terrain data processing technology to market. The SCALGO technology is based on more than two decades of basic and applied research on I/O-efficient and geometric algorithms at Center for Massive Data Algorithmics (MADALGO) at Aarhus University in Denmark and at Duke University in the US, in collaboration with industry LiDAR and environmental GIS application experts. Software based on the technology can handle much larger terrain data sets on a normal desktop than most current software and thus it eliminates the need for accuracy-decreasing data thinning. The use of novel mathematical and algorithmic techniques also means that the software works provably efficient on all input data sets, delivering a completely specified output without the use of cumbersome work-flows such as those introduced by data tiling. SCALGO is involved in multiple research projects and offer special pricing for academic institutions.

Illustration of SCALGO Flash Flood Mapping used to show parts of the terrain below water for 50mm (red), 100mm (yellow) and 150mm (blue) of rain, respectively. Map data ©2011 Google Imagery ©2011 COWI A/S, DDO, DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, Scankort.

Orbit AIM sneak preview at ASPRS

Lokeren, Belgium, March 21st, 2012.

Orbit GeoSpatial Technologies announces a sneak preview of the Asset Inventory Management product at ASPRS, Sacramento.

Orbit GT today announces that the upcoming release of Orbit’s Asset Inventory Management solution for Mobile Mapping will be showcased at the ASPRS convention in Sacramanto, CA, this week.  The sneak preview will be hosted at the Topcon booth.

“We are pleased to present a sneak preview of Orbit AIM at the Topcon booth”, says Peter Bonne, VP Business Development and Senior Product Manager at Orbit GT.  “We’ve been working hard on supporting really huge point clouds and this is a first presentation of our new release, due out in the next few weeks.  This update will give access to mobile mapping content, both imagery and point cloud, to the many.”

About Orbit GeoSpatial Technologies

Orbit Geospatial Technologies (Orbit GT) is located in Lokeren, Belgium, and operated since 1972 until 2010 under the name of Eurotronics.  Privately owned, Orbit GT has developed high level and multi-platform GIS solutions gaining market leadership in government, public safety and mapping industry businesses. 

For more information, please contact

Mr. Peter Bonne
VP Business Development
Orbit GeoSpatial Technologies
Industriepark E17, 2021
9160 Lokeren
Belgium
Phone     +32 9 340 5757
Fax           +32 9 340 5750

www.orbitgis.com

Bristol City Council have now gone 'live' and published an online map highlighting potential untapped revenue across the region. The map, freely available on the council's website, shows the expected solar power generation if PV panels were fitted to building rooftops throughout Bristol.

Produced in part by leading aerial survey specialist Blom, a map on this scale is the first of its kind in the UK, and was funded as part of a government grant.

Nearly a quarter of a million buildings have been assessed, with a surprising third of these understood to be suitable to take advantage of the Government's Feed-in Tariff scheme. It is hoped that it will encourage residents and businesses to invest into solar energy and further boost Bristol's credentials as a leading 'Green City'.

Council Leader Barbara Janke said: 'This is another example of Bristol leading the way on the green agenda. Were the first local authority to produce a solar map, the first to be building our own wind turbines and the first local authority outside London to be setting up our own energy services company.

The work we've done on the solar map pulls together a full picture of the city's solar potential. Anyone who lives in Bristol who is thinking about the possibility of installing solar electric or hot water panels can use this map quickly and easily to find out whether it's going to be viable for them.'

Blom have always enjoyed a successful working relationship with Bristol City Council, and have previously awarded them an Ordnance Survey 'Innovation Award' for the use and integration of Blom's oblique aerial photography; BlomOBLIQUE.

'With the data now published the technology behind it has faced the first 'acid test,' and has been proven to work. Interestingly, it shows that the government's previous methodology underestimated the solar potential of Bristol by approximately 75%. We're keen to show councils across the UK just how much untapped potential there may be in their region and, with our recently captured off-the-shelf libraries, the proposition is more cost-effective than ever.' said Andy Fleetwood, Business Development Executive for Blom UK.

For further information on Blom's solar potential surveys please contact Andy Fleetwood on [email protected]

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode. My challenge in life is to find out what not to do - too much enthusiasm impacts focus. But don't worry, I'm not dropping Slashgeo just yet ;-)

From the open source and open data front:

• Here's an open source Kinect hack named Depthcam, doing live streaming of 3D points cloud via your webcam
• Via Simon, I was reminded about Graphserver, an open source multi-modal trip planner (we mentioned Graphserver in early 2009), on the same topic, here's OSM Explorer, for basic routing and spatial functions using OSM data on Windows (via OGD)
• MapQuest updated their OpenStreetMap tiles and mentions more OSM switchovers, such as FourSquare and in another entry, they updated MapQuest for Android
• Here's an entry on light styles for OSM layers in QGIS, making OSM great as a base map
• Quebec City is the latest city to open its data, with layers in shapefiles and kml, and here's an entry on Honolulu opening its data
• The OSGeo-Live DVD version 5.5 is now ready

From the Google front:

• Street View on Google Maps now available for Russia
• The GEB introduces Diorama, a presentation tool for Google Earth, helping you tell a story in Google Earth
• The same blog also look a the Power of Ten, the Google Earth version
• Google explains the enhanced search in Google Earth 6.2
• Here's an entry on the iNaturalist app and website using georeferenced pictures to document nature
• The GEB wonders if historical imagery is coming to Street View?
• And yes, there was fresh imagery released about two weeks ago and another round today

From the Esri front:

• Here's why ArcGIS 10.1 will be the “Biggest Release Ever”
• Here's Esri’s Federal GIS Conference Wrap Up
• Here's the recommended System Requirements For ArcGIS 10/10.1
• Mandown also shares an entry named Using ArcGIS.com For Quick Visualisation Of GPX Files

From the Microsoft front:

• Microsoft announced the Bing Maps and Nokia Release of a Unified Map Design

In the miscellaneous category:

• DM asks an interesting question, Should All GIS Users Learn to Code?
• While not all are geo-aware, this is an awesome categorized list of infographic tools and resources, because beauty matters when conveying information (via Thierry)
• The book "How Maps Change Things: A Conversation About the Maps We Choose and the World We Want" by Ward Kaiser is free in pdf for this month
• We previously mentioned that the world time zones database was in jeopardy, well, it's not anymore, EFF Wins Protection For Time Zone Database
• Here's an entry on OGC mobile case studies
• Here's a Product Review of BusinessWebMap by TexMobile
• Slashdot mentions the link between GPS navigation and in-car voice commands in Siri To Power Mercedes-Benz Car Systems
• APB informs us that DigitalGlobe published an image of damage to Homs, Syria

In the maps category:

• APB shares the map of sleep in the U.S.
• Slashdot discussed a story named LIDAR Map Shows Height of Earth's Forests
• Another story from the same source is named Need To Find a Hackerspace In Africa? Check This Map
• If your into astronomy, check this TMR entry on Moon maps
• Mapperz mentions Bristol's solar power hotspots map