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The GIS Lens

Archive for the ‘Topcon’ Category

Phoenix landscaping company conducts plant density study to optimize water consumption, tries mobile mapping to collect ‘Big Data’ quickly

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

By Don Talend

When the public thinks about landscaping, high tech doesn’t immediately come to mind. After all, this is work involving dirt, manual labor and plants. Mechanical engineering is represented in the form of a backhoe loader, for example, but that’s about as “technological” as the industry gets. Right?

Actually, anyone inside the industry would tell a different story. This is a field characterized by large inventories and a wide range of variables affecting product and service quality, starting with weather and soil. The convergence of these variables creates the need for a great deal of monitoring of growth. As a result, any landscaping company that seeks to be profitable over the long haul without relying on data for botanic maintenance decision-making probably should.

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Miami of Ohio engineering students build a lawn mowing, snowplowing robot, navigate it with GNSS in national competitions

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

By Don Talend

Anyone who has gone to college is probably familiar with the idea of a capstone course. A final hurdle to clear in receiving a degree, students take such a course to demonstrate their practical knowledge by pulling together all of the main concepts taught throughout the program of study.

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A GIS Laboratory, Indeed

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

Arizona State’s GIS master’s program thrusts students onto the leading edge of the field—and geospatial technologies

A good place to get a sense of where the geographic information system (GIS) field is headed is Lattie F. Coor Hall at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz. That’s the home of the 30-credit-hour Masters of Advanced Study in GIS (MAS-GIS) Program within ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. Here, students are exposed to not only the latest GIS concepts but also ever-evolving technologies.

ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning offers additional options for GIS studies, including an undergraduate certificate and an undergraduate degree program that is in development. Like all master’s programs, though, the MAS-GIS is designed to convey the most advanced concepts in its field.

The program was developed from 2002–2003 and launched in 2004 by Dr. Robert C. Balling, Jr., who had overseen ASU’s Office of Climatology for 18 years. Balling—the associate program director—and several faculty associates—including Nik Smilovsky, MS, GISP, product specialist for Topcon Positioning Systems dealer RDO Integrated Controls in Phoenix—part of RDO Equipment Co.—teach a total of 10 courses in the program, which also includes an internship and capstone GIS project in the final semester. Typically, students start in the fall semester and complete their studies in 12 months.

Dr. Robert C. Balling, Jr., associate director of the Masters of Advanced Study in GIS (MAS-GIS) Program at Arizona State University, developed the curriculum for a program that has provided advanced training for more than 250 students since 2004.

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Tags: Arizona State University, ASU, GIS, IP-S2 HD mobile mapping system, mobile mapping system, Topcon
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The Terrestrial Goes Extraterrestrial – National Geographic Channel UFO investigators get both scanning and surveying capabilities in one imaging station

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

Author: Don Talend

After decades—centuries, even—the question of whether or not life forms from other galaxies occasionally visit Earth remains unanswered. For the latest attempt to unravel this age-old mystery, the National Geographic Channel assembled a team of trained investigators to visit several sites where unidentified flying objects allegedly have been sighted. The network aired the investigations in its Chasing UFOs series in summer 2012.

Ben McGee (left), an investigator on the National Geographic Channel Chasing UFOs series, sets up a survey grid using the Topcon IS-3 imaging station while Scott Langbein, Topcon’s director of product marketing, provides technical assistance.

Whether or not the forensic investigations proved that some UFOs are actually spaceships transporting alien life forms is up to viewers to decide. As is the case with all programming on the network, viewers learn something about the planet in the process of being entertained. Among its own discoveries, the team learned something new about terrestrial positioning technology, too, having been equipped with an instrument that combines advanced imaging with high-accuracy surveying capabilities.

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Tags: GPS, IS-3, National Geographic
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Topcon GMS-2 GIS Mapping GPS Receiver

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Article Source: Topcon Positioning Systems

This is a promotional video from Topcon for GMS-2.

Topcon engineers have incorporated the industry leading integrated imaging and 50 channel dual constellation satellite tracking into a small hand-held GPS receiver, the GMS-2. This innovative system also incorporates an integrated electronic compass, replaceable/rechargeable battery, and an expandable memory card slot . This powerful combination of technology in such a small device has set a new standard for GIS field mapping. The internal GMS-2 digital camera allows users to snap digital photographs of GIS features. These photographs are automatically linked to the GIS feature so that extra time is not wasted linking images to features back in the office. The photograph itself can even be geotagged with the GPS coordinate for further detail.