Thursday, February 4. 2010

Ski the Olympics Downhill Course...From you computer, of course

Spot Image released an interactive 3D image video that allows the viewer to be taken down either the men's or women's downhill ski run at Whistler that will be used for the 2010 Winter Olympic games near Vancouver, Canada. It's worth seeing. According to Spot, "the 3D view was produced by draping a KOMPSAT-2 satellite image (South Korean satellite designed with support from EADS Astrium) over a grid indicating the elevations of each point. The 3D image thus obtained, at a resolution of 1 metre, is then inserted in Google Earth Enterprise where users can visualize it interactively. This technology depicts relief very accurately."

Posted by Joe Francica in Remote Sensing, 3D at 09:04 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Advertising Meets Remote Sensing

Either some people are just downright clever or have a lot of time on their hands. But there it was, a double-page spread advertisement for Lexus in this week's Sports Illustrated magazine that utilized thumbnail-sized satellite imagery to spell the phrase "Further than they length of every paved road on the planet" to support how many miles Lexus hybrid automobiles have driven.

Each satellite image in the ad was cropped to show a road segment or other land feature depicting a letter of the alphabet. For example, using the image at right, you can see that it might be used for the letter "C" and so each word was spelled using a different satellite image.

The credits for the contributors to this ad read like a "who's who" of the geospatial data sector including the usual suspects such as GeoEye, Tele Atlas, DigitalGlobe, the USGS, Aerodata International, Spot, Map Data Sciences, Europa Technologies, and several others. And given this plethora of contributors, it is quite obvious that the imagery has an international flavor as well. So, indeed, someone spent a lot of time searching for that perfect image that had just the right configuration of terrain and man-made objects to spell success.

Posted by Joe Francica in Media & Maps at 08:11 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, February 3. 2010

DMTV#4: Will Your Personal GPS Protect You from Litigation?

It seems that eventually everyone will be carrying a GPS device. If so, will you ever need your location-aware mobile device to prove your whereabouts if you are the focus of litigation? From capturing the location of a car accident to something more sinister like being accused of a crime, information to prove your location may become more important and technology may be called upon to prove innocence or guilt. Editor in chief Joe Francica ponders the possibility and provides advice from a legal expert familiar with geospatial technology.

Posted by Joe Francica in Tracking, LBS, GPS, Routing, Tracking, Logistics, Crime, DMTV at 06:03 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, February 2. 2010

Technology, USGS and the President's 2011 Fiscal Budget

ZDNet dug into the president's budget looking for where the emphasis will be for technology expenditures. Some of the highlights that they found that were somewhat related to geospatial technology spending were as follows:

• The National Science Foundation is getting $766 million for a “cross-agency sustainability research effort focused on renewable energy technologies and complex environmental- and climate-system processes.
• Support for the modernization of the U.S. electric grid.
• NASA's budget will increase for funding to science, exploration and aeronautics and space research technology.

The USGS budget of $1.1 Billion has several areas where geospatial technology might be leveraged:

• Climate Change Adaptation - $11.0 million - Management and policy decisions made in response to climate change impact
• WaterSMART - $9.0 Million - The information will provide tools to address a new set of water resource challenges, including aging infrastructure, rapid population growth, depletion of groundwater resources, water quality impairments associated with land uses, and climate variability.
• Increasing Resilience to Natural Hazards -  $4.0 million - The USGS Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project in Southern California will continue to support emergency planning by developing earthquake early warning capabilities and conducting impact analysis of environmental, human-health and ecosystem responses to earthquakes and other hazards. This project will be expanded into the coastal communities of Alaska, and the USGS will invest in earthquake, tsunami and volcano science to support community planning in the Pacific Northwest.
• Landsat Data Continuity Mission - $13.4 Million - The USGS will accommodate ground-system requirement changes for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission associated with moving the Operational Land Imager to a free-flying satellite and the addition of a Thermal Infrared Sensor on board the spacecraft.
• Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning - $4.0 million  - USGS mapping, monitoring and research provide information to assess the status and vulnerability of ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources.

Posted by Joe Francica in USGS, Remote Sensing, Geospatial Business, Environment/Sustainable Development at 16:27 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, February 1. 2010

Bing Maps, Silverlight, ArcGIS Mashup for Workforce Automation

Accela released Accela GIS 7.0, an enterprise mashup of Bing Maps, Silverlight and ArcGIS to create a workforce automation solution that is described by the company as "map centric". Accela, itself a mashup of companies (Open Data and Sierra Computer, and then adding Tidmark and Kiva later), has made the interface to their new product easy to navigate from a map interface to forms and back to maps. After selecting work
orders for a single geographic area, there is a routing engine integrated with the
permitting module so work order personnel can ask for route directions. The Accela Mobile Office is nicely designed to provide the same functionality. But clearly, much work went into designing an interface that, with large icons and a map navigation panel (at right; click for larger image), helps non-GIS personnel create work orders in an intuitive fashion. 

Posted by Joe Francica at 18:08 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Designing Neighborhoods to Reduce Forclosures, Minimize Environmental Impact

I came across and excellent article that explains research published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund conducted by researchers looking at the foreclosure rate vs. transportation costs. In short, mortgage foreclosures were correlated with neighborhood "compactness" and access to public transportation. According to the abstract from the article, "With transportation costs accounting for roughly 17 percent of the average American household’s income, the need for better land use planning and better lending practices has never been more clear. NRDC recommends changes both to planning-related policies and mortgage underwriting procedures that can reduce transportation costs and risk of foreclosure while offering significant environmental benefits."

Posted by Joe Francica in Location Intelligence, Environment/Sustainable Development at 17:42 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |