Integrating GIS and Earth Viewers

GIM International Interviews Johannes Kebeck, Technology Specialist, Microsoft Virtual Earth Business Unit

Microsoft's MapPoint Business Unit was formed in 1995. The Virtual Earth platform was launched in 2005 as an integrated set of services combining imagery with mapping, location and search functionality. In May 2006 the company acquired photogrammetric firm Vexcel. This month's interviewee, Johannes Kebeck, talks about Microsoft's aims and ambitions in the field of geomatics. â€œThere will still be a need for traditional GIS [â€¦] we will likely see tight integration between the traditional GIS and so-called Earth Viewers. How big is the geospatial division of Microsoft in terms of number of employees and share in turnover? What sort of... (read more)

2007-09-19 12:00:00

Downtown Dublin as a Lidar Point Cloud

A Highly Accurate, Diverse and Dense Annotated Laser Scanning Dataset of a City Centre

The advance of Lidar data acquisition technologies is substantially increasing the amount of spatial data obtained and it is becoming cost-prohibitive to process it manually. Artificial intelligence (AI) has now started to offer cost-effective solutions to analyse and utilize those big datasets. AI can be employed for scene understanding, accurately detecting objects and classifying 3D assets. These are the significant fundamentals of several applications including autonomous navigation, intelligent robotics, urban planning, emergency management and even forest monitoring. The most popular types of 3D spatial information for such applications are Lidar and imagery data. This article describes the dense annotated ground-truth... (read more)

2019-11-27 10:05:38

Geohazard Management on the Canadian National Railway Corridor

A Multi-sensor Approach

In Western Canada, substantial lengths of the transportation corridors are located within steep mountainous terrain and deeply incised river valleys. This is also the case for the Canadian National (CN) rail lines, which traverse the Rocky Mountain, Cascade and Coastal ranges from Edmonton, Alberta, to the ports of Vancouver, British Columbia (BC). Along this corridor the railway infrastructure is exposed to various slope geohazards including landslides, debris slides and rockfalls, all of which are problematic for the safe and efficient operation of the railway. In a recent case of rock slope failure along the CN rail line in British Columbia,... (read more)

2016-11-03 04:44:19

Good Land Governance is Key in Sustainable Development

GIM International Interviews Daniel Roberge

Good, transparent land governance will serve a country’s national resources management, the rights of its citizens, and the reduction of poverty. Daniel Roberge is chair of FIG Commission 7 on Cadastre and Land Administration, and is director of the Office of the Surveyor General of Québec, Canada. He is convinced of the significant role that good land governance and transparent land management need to play in the future. The role of the surveyor will evolve to keep pace with the rapid growth of new ways of land management. Having completed the first year of your four-year term as chair of... (read more)

2012-04-12 04:14:17

Need for New Players and Leaders to Enter the Land Sector

GIM International Interviews Dr Robin McLaren

Dr Robin McLaren is a widely known and recognised authority with more than 30 years of experience in the profession. Having developed GIS technology for a number of years, Robin set up his independent consulting company, Know Edge Ltd, in Edinburgh in 1986, providing GIS solutions for governmental and utilities clients across the United Kingdom. Following an introduction to international land administration and management during a UN-FAO mission to North Yemen in 1989, this became a major market for the company. 'GIM International' interviewed Robin to learn more about his involvement in many innovations and to hear his insightful opinions. Read... (read more)

2017-06-01 09:20:26

High-level Political Support Needed

GSDI and Land Administration within Europe

Administrative reform within Europe has had a tremendous impact on land administration all over the continent. Geo-Spatial Data Infrastructures (GSDI) may bring further improvements. The authors review land policy, land administration and the role of land information within society, and call for high-level political moves towards information sharing. Examples of administrative reforms within Europe are restoration of the primacy of politics, reduction in ministerial tasking to core business, and improving the output of public institutions by distance steering, decentralisation and de-concentration of institutions. Other methods of improving output include quality assurance programmes, special service projects, restoring democracy and reestablishment of... (read more)

2005-07-14 12:00:00

Sentinel-2A in Orbit: An Overview of the Features of the European Sentinel Family

The launch of Sentinel-2A in June 2015 signalled the start of the era of the Sentinel-2 twin constellation. The satellite has been constructed by Airbus Defence and Space for the European Space Agency (ESA). The Sentinels are a new family of missions in progress and a major asset within the European Copernicus programme, which is dedicated to providing a comprehensive picture of the ‘health’ of the Earth. To mark the occasion of the launch, the author provides an overview of the mission, the features of the sensors on board and applications of the images. Although rarely used in common speech,... (read more)

2016-05-02 09:36:51

Towards All-in-one Photogrammetry

A Case Study of Dense Image Matching Using Oblique Imagery

Modern photogrammetric camera architectures provide high-resolution imagery in nadir and oblique views. This case study sets out to prove the potential of oblique imagery to deliver dense point clouds to be used for DEM, 3D city model and true orthophoto generation – an important step towards ‘all-in-one’ photogrammetry. 3D point clouds for DEM or orthophoto production are typically collected using airborne Lidar systems. The recent development of dense image matching methods provides an efficient alternative by deriving point clouds from imagery. Within this fully automated image processing pipeline, corresponding pixels between multiple images are determined. Each pixel represents a sight... (read more)

2012-04-26 11:32:21

Spatial Data for Africa

GIM International Interviews Chukwodozie Ezigbalike

A love of mathematics set one of Africa's foremost geo-information specialists on a mission to drive the development of spatial-data infrastructure across the continent Partnership and communication lie at the heart of spatial-data infrastructure advancements. As civil servants, local communities, universities, NGOs and companies on the African continent adopt geographic information systems as a tool, they are increasingly able to exert pressure on governments for improved functionality, products, and services - all of which are essential for driving development and progress. Dr Chukwudozie (Dozie) Ezigbalike, head of the Geo-information Systems Section (GiSS) in the ICT Science and Technology Division (ISTD)... (read more)

2009-09-07 10:00:01

TIGER Tale

Uncertainty of US Core Geo-demographic Data

Core geo-demographic data in a GIS-compatible format derived from decennial US censuses has greatly benefited marketers, social scientists and governments. It has also inspired development of similar datasets in other countries. However, the US Census Bureau’s Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) data has many limitations, including missing or erroneous data, inaccurate or deliberately misleading responses, misinterpretation by casual users, and reinterpretation by various groups bent on teasing out information. There is also potential for criminal misuse of derived information. One of the biggest sources of uncertainty concerns undercounting of various groups, many but not all socially marginalised. So-called... (read more)

2007-01-02 09:23:23