Geospatial has responded to the past year’s calamitous changes with what it already had in place as well as shifted gears at the spur of the moment. GNSS advancements, bring-your-own-data, geospatial data acquisition, location analytics, supply chain logistics, Covid and dashboards, tracking trends, turning data into actionable information – all took front and center stage as far as technologies that surge forward into 2021 and beyond.
This week, our Geospatial Industry Predictions includes Linda Loubert, Interim Chairperson and Graduate Coordinator, Economics Department, Morgan State University; Seb Lessware, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of 1Spatial; and George Mastakas, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions & Corporate Partnerships at Cityworks. These industry spokespeople cover where they see the industry going – and how to apply geographic knowledge to economics, politics, data sharing, visualization, city and country planning using sensors, Digital Twins, machine learning and artificial intelligence and much more. With GIS and geospatial, the matter of being able to provide accuracy and validity in data is paramount. The technology is already there; yet finding the ways to use the technology in even more promising ways is the way of the future.
Nearmap Aerial Image of the Presidential Inauguration January 20, 2021
Looking forward to 2021 brings with it a necessary looking backward at what geospatial organizations and providers have had to deal with in 2020. On a regular basis throughout the next two months, GISCafe Voice will post industry predictions from professional geospatial organizations, looking at what vectors are influencing the industry and what directions the technologies will take. This week we will hear from spokespeople from Maptek, Nearmap, Septentrio and Sinclair Industries. Autonomous solutions, partnering with other technology providers, mapping critical care centers such as testing centers, cybersecurity and increased accuracy and analytics are all areas that geospatial and mapping have stepped up to as a result of Covid-19. The technology was there, ready to meet the sudden and unanticipated demand. What does that mean going forward? Greater resilience and growth, innovation at a more rapid pace, and much more, according to these industry professionals.
While many industry markets saw a decline during 2020, geospatial and GIS remained steady and are projected to grow. According to Research and Markets’ report, “Geospatial Analytics Market – Global Forecast to 2025” the Geospatial Analytics Market Size is Projected to Grow from USD 52.6 Billion in 2020 to USD 96.3 Billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.9% During the Forecast Period.
INTERGEO Digital experienced an exciting first day on October 15th with 232 exhibitors who uploaded 2,700 products and data files to the platform. Participants from 150 countries signed in online.
Pix4D of Lausanne, Switzerland recently announced Pix4Dmatic, a digital standalone desktop photogrammetry software for accurate and fast corridor and large scale mapping. Demand by professionals for this type of large scale mapping has been high. Previously mapped by aircraft, the types of projects are now mapped and surveyed with drones. Pix4Dmatic can make these projects much easier.
Pix4D is a Swiss company that develops a suite of software products that use photogrammetry and computer vision algorithms to transform RGB, thermal and multispectral images into 3D maps and models.
Tammy Owen, Global Director of the Defense and Intelligence business area for L3Harris Geospatial, introduced speakers on the first day of the 6th annual ENVI Analytics Symposium held August 25-27th, which for the first time, was held virtually rather than in person in Boulder, Colorado as had been initially planned.
In a webinar recently presented by Emesent, the discussion was entitled “Smarter Lidar Technology for Infrastructure and AEC: better data, greater insights.”
Peter Dickinson, project manager for Emesent and Business Development manager for the Americas Dave Jaunay introduced customers who were using Emesent’s Hovermap sensor system for various challenging environments. It has been used extensively in mining and underground environments and land surveying.
The company Emesent is based in Brisbane, Australia with a staff of 38 but rapidly growing to meet global demands. The company aims to solve the problem of collection of data – in GPS-denied or challenging environments. The need to automate the collection of data, gave birth to the Hovermap for mine and roads, tunneling, indoor mapping and search and rescue, anywhere where maintaining a signal for GNSS solutions is problematic.
Becky Tamashasky, Vice President of Vision & Product Engineering, Cityworks® | Azteca Systems, LLC, replied to our questions at GISCafe Voice in addition to her interview with GISCafe CEO Sanjay Gangal:
When is your new release of Cityworks coming out?
Becky T: As part of a public company, I can’t provide exact details, but I can say with anticipation that it is coming soon!
Do you want clients to think of Esri and Cityworks as all one solution or are you looking to have them view the solutions separately?
Many of our clients already view Cityworks and Esri as one cohesive solution. As the leading GIS-centric solution for public asset management and community development, we have worked to provide a seamless experience for organizations, and we support the Esri identity for user authentication across Cityworks platform and mobile native apps. (more…)
Normally approximately 17,000 people attend Esri User Conference held in San Diego, California but this year, the conference has attracted upwards of 80,000 people online as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. While it is sad not to be gathered in San Diego, the sheer volume of people who are able to participate online makes it quite a phenomena for Esri, a 50-year-old company spearheading the GIS movement globally.