CryoSat Rolling for Re-calibration

ESA's ice satellite is rolling left and right in orbit to help it continue its precise measurements of the vast ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica. This manoeuvre is to calibrate CryoSat's radar altimeter for measuring ice thickness, especially over the margins of ice sheets. The altimeter has two antennas mounted on a bench about a metre apart. When it is working in the ‘SARIn' mode, both antennas are used in parallel: one emits a signal and both receive the signals that bounce back. Normally, this bench is parallel to Earth's surface. But at the edges of... (read more)

2011-10-20 10:09:59

ASPRS Establishes First UAS Mapping Calibration Test Course

The first mapping calibration test course for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) will be established by ASPRS at the Reno Stead airport, an FAA-designated UAS test site. The course will include ground surveyed targets of varying height, radiometric targets, undulating surfaces, “surprise” targets, and simulated flight restricted areas. The first UAS flights of the test course will be conducted in conjunction with the UAS Mapping 2014 Reno symposium on 21-22 October 2014 in Reno, Nevada, USA. The UAS Mapping 2014 RENO symposium is focused on “Change is in the Air” with a mission to acquaint attendees with new technologies, demonstrate survey,... (read more)

2014-08-26 09:25:00

USGS to Continue Providing Analog Camera Calibration Services

As a result of considerable discussion at the recent American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) 2011 Annual Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the US Geological Survey (USGS) has reversed its original decision to discontinue film camera calibration. On April 27, 2011, the USGS Land Remote Sensing Program (LRSP) and the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center made the original decision to close the USGS Optical Science Laboratory (OSL) when the current supply of glass calibration plates becomes depleted in late 2012. That decision was made due to insufficient funding necessary to procure glass calibration plates and a limited... (read more)

2011-06-22 12:28:52

Calibrating Survey Instruments

A Modern Calibration Bench

The geomatics profession is implicated in several ISO standards. The important ISO9001: 2000 prescribes regular instrument testing and calibration. To help meet required stringent alignment tolerances, a modern calibration bench has been developed for the calibration of survey instruments under internationally recognised COFRAC accreditation. Surveyors must as professionals fulfil certain legal, regulatory and/or accuracy requirements for their clients. They will typically strive to do so in an optimally cost-effective way and with the most appropriate equipment for the job at hand. This naturally requires good understanding of and confidence in the instrumentation employed. Clients want the most from what they... (read more)

2007-07-07 12:00:00

Imagemaps Supports UltraCam Customers in Asia

Imagemaps, Singapore, is the first non-Microsoft calibration and support centre in the global UltraCam service network. With the addition of a Singapore calibration lab and service centre, Microsoft’s UltraCam business unit is able to field calls for support 24/7 from anywhere in the world. In the global support network, Microsoft and Imagemaps team members work together to provide a comprehensive knowledge bank and optimum response time to customers who often operate far from their home base. Depending on the time of day, customers needing support are connected to a team in Graz, Austria; Boulder, Colorado, USA; or Singapore. Since opening... (read more)

2014-07-29 03:09:25

Laser Technology Unveils TruPulse 360

Laser Technology (CO, USA) has released TruPulse 360, which combines an integrated compass, inclinometer and distance laser that delivers mapping-grade accuracy and the ability to shoot from any angle. The internal circuitry provides 3-axis monitoring of the earth's magnetic field and uses LTI's proprietary TruVector compass technology and calibration algorithms to produce the best possible azimuth accuracy, regardless of the instrument's orientation in physical space. The TruPulse 360 can be tilted, rolled or even used upside down, and it will still measure the correct azimuth in the direction that the user is viewing, allowing the ultimate freedom to ‘shoot from... (read more)

2007-06-15 02:40:04

EuroCOW 2016: Call for Abstracts

The organisers of the EuroCOW 2016 Workshop, to be held from 10-12 February 2016 at the EPFL campus, Lausanne, Switzerland, have issued a call for abstracts. EuroCOW 2016 is a meeting with a long tradition which is organised on behalf of ISPRS and EuroSDR. This biennial event intends to bring together the world's experts, both from public and private sectors, to present and discuss the recent findings and developments on navigation/optical sensor calibration and orientation. With the recent development of autonomous platforms, this traditional field of photogrammetry and geodesy integrates with robotics, computer vision and system control. The organisers are setting... (read more)

2015-09-02 09:58:58

How the Moon Holds the Key to Improving Satellite Views of Earth

Many Earth observation satellites make use of an added ingredient to ensure reliable, good-quality environmental data: the Moon. While the surface of the Earth is ever changing, the face of the Moon has stayed the same for millions of years, apart from occasional meteoroid impacts. This makes the light reflecting from the lunar surface an ideal calibration source for optical Earth-observing instruments. Now an ESA-led project has plans to make it more useful still. An instrument has been placed high on the slopes of Mount Teide in Tenerife, above the majority of clouds and airborne dust, designed to measure nightly... (read more)

2018-05-02 10:08:43

Lidar: Quality Assurance and Control

Lidar systems have been widely adopted for the acquisition of dense and accurate topographic data over extensive areas. Collected topographic data can satisfy the needs of several applications, such as environmental monitoring, contour mapping, transportation planning, emergency management, military simulation, ortho-rectification, oil and gas exploration, mining, hydrology, shoreline management, 3D city modelling, and forest mapping. This article presents the author’s suggested road map towards the development of commonly accepted procedures for ensuring and verifying the quality of derived products. Best Practices As in any mapping activity, a set of commonly accepted best practices need to be established to ensure the... (read more)

2011-04-27 02:34:15

Sensor Fusion for Precision Agriculture

Low-cost Lidar Camera System without GNSS

Precision agriculture has considerably benefited from the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, often combined with active ranging sensors like Lidar to gather information from underneath the crops, but existing systems are relatively expensive for the farming sector. In this project, researchers in Canada have used an integrated sensor orientation method for the local referencing of Lidar measurements. Their approach is based on loosely coupled, image-aided inertial navigation in which the pose of the camera replaces the GNSS measurements. The result is a low-cost solution that is useful for capturing topographic data of inaccessible areas as well as in GNSS-denied environments.... (read more)

2019-06-20 01:50:38