Recently, ArcGIS Pro specialists at the company Mapillary answered a few questions for GISCafe Voice:
How long has Mapillary been in existence? What is its primary focus?
Mapillary is a street-level imagery platform powered by collaboration and computer vision. The company was founded in 2013.
Mapillary combines images from any device into a visualization of the world to generate data for improving maps, developing cities, and progressing the automotive industry. Mapillary’s tools enable anyone to collect, share, and use street-level images. Computer vision technology reconstructs locations in 3D and recognizes objects from the images to generate map data at scale. Today, people and organizations all over the world have contributed over 250 million images toward Mapillary’s mission of helping people understand the world’s places through images and making this data available.
What does the new Mapillary for ArcGIS Pro beta contain – what are its primary features?
The Beta focuses on bringing Mapillary public imagery into ArcGIS Pro. In short, it lets customers:
view Mapillary imagery as visual reference,
view, edit, and create features in street-level imagery,
compare imagery to see how places change over time.
What was in the previous release and why did you make certain feature upgrades?
The latest version, available in Public Beta, contains the same general functionality as earlier releases. However, we’ve made considerable performance improvements.
Earlier releases of Mapillary for ArcGIS Pro faced a challenge when rendering the large number of features required to show our imagery coverage. Our previous method of serializing vector tiles into a feature layer came coupled with a decrease in performance. For the Public Beta, we’ve notably increased performance and reduced system overhead by serving vector tiles directly into ArcGIS Pro. This means a faster and more efficient experience using Mapillary Imagery from the add-in.
Is a specific type of camera used?
The imagery on Mapillary is contributed collaboratively by Mapillary users all over the world: individuals, companies, non-profits, and governments. The platform is device-agnostic so every contributor uses a camera setup that suits them best, from Mapillary mobile apps to action cameras to professional 360-degree cameras.
What kind of geotagging of photos is used?
The Mapillary mobile apps (including integrations with some common action and 360-degree cameras) save location information into the image EXIF during capture and is then uploaded to Mapillary directly via the app. In addition, any geotagged images can be uploaded with help of our web uploader or command line tools. It’s also possible to upload image files together with a .gpx file that’s used for geotagging during the upload process. (more…)
Both large full size satellites as well as small satellites are now being used for various purposes around the globe. In addition, constellations of satellites are being developed for specific purposes, such as internet satellites. We also include here maritime surveillance that relies on Satellite Automatic Identification System (AIS) payload.
This week’s GIS news includes a wide variety of announcements, from IBM’s PAIRS Geoscope to redistricting data from Caliper, of the 2018 edition of Congressional Districts.
There is a great need for services that facilitate working with large amounts of geospatial data from disparate sources. IBM addresses that need with their announcement of PAIRS Geoscope, a new experimental cloud-based service that makes it easier for developers to work with large amounts of geospatial data from across a wide variety of sources. The service handles ingesting, integrating and managing the data and allows developers to focus on their queries.
Recently, I began to receive maps pertaining to income, immigration, unemployment and related impacts. It made me consider putting together these maps to show a broader story of what these maps can show us in terms of current as well as historical timelines in terms of income or lack thereof. The following maps also displays communities where the highest number of non-citizen residents and DACA recipients live.
Trimble announced the release of the Trimble® MX9 mobile mapping solution, completing Trimble’s mobile mapping portfolio. A next-generation mobile mapping system, the Trimble MX9 combines a vehicle-mounted mobile LIDAR system, multi-camera imaging and field software designed for efficient, precise and high-volume data capture for a broad range of mobile mapping applications such as road surveys, topographic mapping, 3D-modeling and asset management.
Trimble MX9 Back Perspective
According to company materials, the Trimble MX9 is characterized by its ability to capture dense point cloud data along with 360 degree immersive georeferenced imagery using an industry-leading spherical camera, GNSS/INS technology and dual-head laser scanning sensors. The system’s lightweight design makes it easy to install and setup on a variety of vehicles. Spatial data can be captured at highway speeds from inside the vehicle for safe operation in transportation corridors. The intuitive, browser-based field software, accessible via most tablets or any notebook, enables operators to quickly establish and conduct data acquisition missions, monitor the status of the system as well as assess the quality of the acquired data in real time.
Christian Hoffmann, Market Manager, Mobile Mapping Solutions, Trimble Geospatial spoke with GISCafe Voice about the recent announcement:
GISCafe Voice: Has Trimble had a mobile mapping solution before the MX9?
The Trimble Mobile Mapping portfolio has been in the market for more than a decade with popular products like the MX2 and MX7, which we currently sell. The MX9 completes Trimble’s mobile mapping portfolio, adding a high-end system that is designed for efficient acquisition of survey-grade dense point cloud data and imagery. The lightweight design and a focus on easy, tablet-based operation lowers the learning curve and contributes to maximize ROI.
Trimble MX9 Top View
GISCafe Voice: Is there a limit to how much point cloud data the MX9 can gather?
The system collects up to 2 million points per second plus various imagery, which is one of the highest data rates in the market. 2 x 2 TByte SSD drives allow recording a lot of data, typically for 7-8 hours of constant data recording. Details are dependent on the project specifications. Customers can use additional sets of disks in order to maximize acquisition capacity. (more…)
Troy Taggart, president of Geospatial Corporation, spoke with GISCafe Voice about the company’s integration with the popular Blockchain technology, the software behind Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrency, with their cloud-based GIS platform, GeoUnderground. GeoUnderground provides energy companies a secure way to manage contracts, assure provenance and track asset maintenance.
Recently, Scottish Geographic Information Systems (GIS) company thinkWhere announced the launch of a new cloud-based platform for GIS and geographic data, theMapCloud. theMapCloud allows maps, open data and business records to be accessed anytime, and anywhere, through a web-connected computer or mobile device. Using standard web browsers, users can view, retrieve and share maps, geographic data and other open datasets and, as well as providing a platform for GIS and other web applications, theMapCloud can be used for a host of data services and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications.
This questionnaire is aimed toward those who do research and development on traditional artificial satellites and “smallsats,” as well as those customers of satellites, and companies providing third party solutions for them. Since companies of larger satellites produce small satellites as well, larger satellites, their features and their pros and cons are included in this questionnaire.
McMurdo Station Iceberg, Antarctica, NASA, taken from a small sat.
In a recent BBC TV broadcast, EarthSense Systems, in close collaboration with resident groups, television producers and personality Dr Xand van Tulleken, went to the Kings Heath suburb of Birmingham, UK in December 2017 to demonstrate the air pollution challenges faced by typical urban communities with busy shopping areas and congested major streets.
EarthSense Zephyr sensor
According to the press materials, as part of a day long campaign of action, residents were urged to leave their cars at home, instead using public transport or walking or cycling for the daily commute and school runs. Volunteers carried out people and traffic surveys and Dr Xand van Tulleken showed his support presenting for the BBC TV programme “Fighting for Air” which aired on January 10th. The experiment utilized special air pollution sensors, developed by EarthSense, which monitored changes in air pollution on the day compared to recordings elsewhere in Birmingham.
Air pollution causes 40,000 early deaths each year in the UK. It has been determined that 16 of UK cities have illegal level of toxic fumes. It is estimated in one study that air pollution costs the UK £20 billion a year in medical costs and lost labor.
In a demonstration, Dr. Xand van Tuileken donned a military grade mask with filters designed for chemical warfare. He said that, “at the moment I am breathing the cleanest air possible.” The air contains high levels of harmful pollution, from industry, construction, but in there in Birmingham, mostly from vehicles.
“To test just how dangerous the air we breathe is, I am first having to “detox” . Free my body from pollution,” said van Tuileken. (more…)
This questionnaire is aimed at those who do research and development on “smallsats,” as well as those customers of small sats, and companies providing third party solutions for them.
McMurdo Station Iceberg, Antarctica, NASA, taken from a small sat.
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