Five Decades of Mapping the Moon

This year, NASA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first crewed mission – Apollo 11 – landing on the moon. Besides that, this September it will be 60 years since the first unmanned mission – Luna 2 – reached the surface of the moon. Both of these milestones reflect the great contributions of the USA and the Soviet Union/Russia to space exploration, but they would not have been possible without spatial data. National Geographic has always been at the forefront of lunar mapping. At the time of the Apollo missions, crews relied on its hand-painted maps based on photos... (read more)

2019-07-15 10:17:01

User-friendly Remote Sensing Data Infrastructure in France

New Services Will Stimulate Market Growth

Over the past decade, Geosud has contributed to successfully mitigating the various obstacles to the operational use of satellite imagery for environmental management and territorial development. Geosud’s role in the project will soon come to an end but the services will continue, embedded in an even better infrastructure: Dinamis. As of next year, Dinamis will provide satellite images of land, sea, air or underground, and even online image processing, for organizations related to the public sector in France. As you approach the Maison de la Télédétection in Montpellier, France, the first sight that greets you is a 5.5m-tall receiving station... (read more)

2019-07-11 10:41:00

Ordnance Survey Demonstrates BIM Potential with Pioneering Project in Singapore

By combining building information modelling (BIM) with geospatial technologies, Ordnance Survey (OS) is breaking down barriers in Singapore. OS has spent two years in the Southeast-Asian nation championing the use of BIM data and its potential to transform urban planning. Britain’s mapping agency lent its expertise to a project with the University of Singapore and the Singaporean government that aims to make Singapore a world leader in smart technology. OS’s role was to develop data processing and 3D data modelling to help Singapore plan its future city more effectively. It contributed knowledge about the CityGML data model, an exchange compatible with... (read more)

2019-07-11 09:55:02

Virtual Surveyor Puts Emphasis on Lidar Elevation in UAV Mapping Software

Virtual Surveyor has enhanced the Lidar elevation data handling capabilities in Version 6.4 of its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV or 'drone') surveying and mapping software. A new function enables Virtual Surveyor users to select specific feature classes from classified Lidar point clouds before converting the point cloud into a surface terrain. “The latest upgrades in Virtual Surveyor 6.4 are designed to meet the needs of UAV users who are increasingly equipping their drones with Lidar systems,” said Tom Op ‘t Eyndt, CEO of the company in Belgium. Virtual Surveyor, which has doubled its user base in one year, is popular... (read more)

2019-07-09 09:00:26

Weaver Consulting Adopts Delair UX11 UAV for Large-scale Surveying

Delair, a leading supplier of commercial drone solutions, along with one of its regional resellers, Seiler Instrument, has announced that Weaver Consultants Group has adopted the Delair UX11 high-performance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV or 'drone') for its work in large-scale volumetric surveying and topographic mapping. The US national firm provides a full range of engineering services and has particular expertise in solid waste and landfill projects. The firm’s initial use of the new Delair platform has been in developing digital twins of its clients’ sites – mainly large disposal and landfill operations – and performing regular volume calculations to assist... (read more)

2019-07-04 09:30:26

Taking the Stage at Intergeo

GIM International has been serving a worldwide audience of mapping and surveying professionals for more than 30 years. In addition to our print, online and social media channels, we are always on the lookout for other ways of highlighting all the innovation going on in the geospatial industry. Therefore, we are delighted to be taking the stage again during the conference programme at the Forum on the third day of this year’s Intergeo (Thursday 19 September). Over the decades, we have published countless features about state-of-the-art technical developments in our industry, shared challenging case studies employing the latest survey methods,... (read more)

2019-07-03 02:32:26

LandViewer Now Features Change Detection that Runs in Browser

The major utilization of remote sensing data has been to compare images of an area taken at different times and identify the changes it underwent. With a wealth of long-term satellite imagery currently in open use, detecting such changes manually would be time-consuming and most likely inaccurate. EOS Data Analytics has now introduced the automated Change Detection tool to its flagship product LandViewer – a cloud-based tool for satellite imagery search and analysis. Unlike the methods involving neural networks that identify changes in the previously extracted features, the change detection algorithm implemented by EOS is using a pixel-based strategy, meaning... (read more)

2019-07-03 10:37:30

Land Surveying: Towards a Smarter Life

FIG Working Week in Hanoi, Vietnam, 22-26 April 2019

Surveyors and land professionals from all over the world came together in April in the heat of Hanoi to take part in the FIG 2019 Working Week. This year’s theme was ‘Geospatial information for a smarter life and environmental resilience’. The conference had a strong focus on tackling climate change by working towards a smarter life, both through the development of smart cities and also in rural areas. Spatial information, big data, surveying, BIM, land administration and much more are recognized as being essential factors in this development. There is a strong awareness that Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are directly... (read more)

2019-06-27 09:25:08

Tackling the Challenges of Road Construction

As new technologies emerge with the promise to increase productivity and efficiency, costing is one of the most important criteria in a project life cycle. Construction companies are seeking more effective and cost-efficient methods to complete their work as accurately as possible. (This story is brought to you by Satlab Geosolutions; Click here to download this case study) Based in Korat, Thailand, Khunnon Construction, a subsidiary of S.P.T Construction, focuses on superhighways, road and bridge constructions. These projects require precise accuracy. With that in mind, Khunnon Construction purchased the Satlab Geosolutions SLC multi-purpose GNSS receiver after being appointed as the main... (read more)

2019-06-25 03:04:34

Taking Full Advantage of the Benefits of UAS Technology

Leveraging UAS technology across surveying and engineering sectors is demanding. The expectations of accuracy and accountability requires the best in expertise, methodology and equipment. Using the latest unmanned aerial system (UAS) photogrammetric hardware and software, surveyors are now capturing millions of survey measurements on the ground, where they would previously have measured only hundreds. It is essential to have the best-quality equipment, software and workflows to ensure this data is accurate, robust and defensible for professional use. Geosyntec is a leading consulting and engineering firm that works with private and public sector clients to address new ventures and complex problems... (read more)

2019-06-25 10:58:53