We Have the Skills and Tools

Welcome to the first edition of a new year, with a refreshed layout and a renewed focus on how GIS can help people and organisations make informed decisions. We offer the tools, skills and data sources, but it’s up to others to draw the conclusions to make businesses successful, governments make the right decisions or deliver the right services and for people to gain the information they need to hold governments in check. The use of GPS and GIS to help track restoration work in Florida’s Everglades, one of the world’s important wetlands and centre for wading and migrating birds... (read more)

2017-02-16 10:29:46

Icaros Uses TatukGIS SDK to Develop New Aerial Geospatial Data Viewer

Aerial geospatial solutions provider Icaros has selected the TatukGIS Developer Kernel (DK) to develop the next-generation geospatial data viewer component of its OneButton software product, which is used to process raw aerial images collected from manned and unmanned aircraft into readily usable GIS-compatible maps. The Icaros OneButton product is used by some of the largest private and government organisations worldwide operating in a range of industries. In addition to licensing the TatukGIS Developer Kernel (.NET edition) for the Icaros software development team, Icaros collaborated extensively with TatukGIS on the early development and prototyping of the DK based version of the... (read more)

2018-02-16 04:21:52

UAS Platforms the Future of Successful Aerial Image Capture & Modelling

UAS (Unmanned Airborne Systems) are rapidly becoming a valuable source of data for inspection, surveillance, mapping and 3D modelling projects. Investment in the commercial UAS industry - estimated to increase by US$3.5 billion by 2024 – reveals the potential for UAS to aid or replace traditional methods of data collection. The catalyst for the high rate of UAS adoption is primarily the technological developments in microprocessor architecture and the falling costs of the manufacturing process. Even consumer-grade UAS - available for less than £1,000 – now feature sophisticated Internal Measurement Units (IMUs), GPS- and GLONASS-capable GNSS receivers, stabilised gimbals, and... (read more)

2018-11-21 12:05:17

Visibility Maps of Turin

Including Atmospheric Conditions in Viewshed Analysis of DSMs

High-rise buildings affect the skyline of a city and thus the human perception of urban spaces. From which points can a building, or parts of the building, be seen? The answer requires viewshed analysis of raster or vector 3D city models. Visibility is not just a geometric exercise in which lines of sight are calculated using standard GIS tools. Visibility and perception of space are also determined by atmospheric conditions, contrast between foregrounds and backgrounds including the sky, visual acuity and psychological aspects. Here, the authors present a simple but accurate method for generating visibility maps based on the above... (read more)

2014-04-30 11:50:47

Who Should Own a Drone Company?

The big boys are buying new toys. Why they’re doing this is perceptively explained by our regular columnist Adena Schutzberg. Have you been keeping up with which of the big non-defence focused geospatial companies are acquiring drone makers? Here’s a short list: In April 2012, Trimble acquired Gatewing, based in Belgium. In February 2014, Hexagon, owner of Intergraph and Leica Geosystems, acquired Aibotix, based in Germany. In April 2014, Google announced plans to acquire Titan Aerospace, based in the US. What do these companies have in common? They are involved in spatial data acquisition. They are also well-known as acquirers.... (read more)

2017-04-07 04:50:39

A Time of Creation and Change - UN-GGIM 7th Conference

At the beginning of August 2017, the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) (the official United Nations consultative mechanism on global geospatial information management) hosted its seventh annual session at the UN Headquarters in New York. Despite it not being as well publicised as other UN conferences, the event outcomes were nothing less than ground-breaking. Before going into detail about the conference, it’s important to note that the recent achievements in New York were based on many years of hard work. Consensus and agenda building required bringing together geospatial users within various UN divisions, stakeholders from UN Member... (read more)

2017-09-11 04:52:22

Monitoring, Mapping, and Modelling Saltmarsh

The UAV Way

Coastal and estuarine saltmarsh has long been recognised as having key physical, ecological, and recreational value, acting as sediment and nutrient traps and as natural coastal protection structures functioning as protective buffers between the land and sea. Additionally, they are important areas for shelter, feeding and breeding of diverse forms of wildlife (Doody, 2007). Recent work suggests that saltmarshes are particularly good for demonstrating how the coast can change in response to environmental influences, including relative sea level rise. The pace of current Scottish relative sea level rise (Rennie and Hansom, 2011) may lead to inundation of coastal saltmarsh, with... (read more)

2017-07-31 03:59:08

Ordnance Survey Ireland Shows New Perspectives for Workflows

The Republic of Ireland is leading the way in the international mapping arena, reports Frédérique Coumans. In September 2016, Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) became the first national mapping agency in the world with the capability to produce 1:1,000,000 cartographic products and services from its 1:1,000 topographic database in a fully automated flowline. OSi has populated a standards-based, object-oriented data model and implemented orchestrated, rule-based production workflows to achieve this result. One of the primary roles of a national mapping agency is to provide the authoritative view of the real world through the publication of mapping products and services. In OSi’s... (read more)

2018-11-29 12:08:05

Making Geospatial Opportunities Accessible to All - Interview with Dr Suchith Anand

Suchith Anand served as the founding chair of the ICA Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies. He is currently serving as the chair of Geospatial IG of Research Data Alliance (RDA). He is working for the establishment of Open Source Geospatial Labs/Research Centres in key universities worldwide as part of the GeoForAll initiative with the mission to make geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all. He is currently working as an Independent researcher for the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative. Before joining GODAN, he worked at the University of Nottingham where he established the first Open... (read more)

2017-10-10 09:03:30

Buzz and Balance - GEO Business 2018

This year’s GEO Business conference, held on 22-23 May in London’s Islington, was, according to Geomatics World editors Ian Dowman and Richard Groom, the biggest and best yet. The following is a summary of their report on the event which hosted 203 exhibitors from 25 countries, 100 exhibitor workshops, as well as many high profile speakers and seminars. It should provide a taste of the type of topics which were discussed during this excellent annual event. Digital Transformation Mark Enzer, Chief Technical Officer of Mott MacDonald, presented on the topic of digital transformation in economic infrastructure, with a particular focus... (read more)

2018-08-20 11:44:13