From defense to ISR and tethered drones to highly intelligent vehicle sensors, geospatial developments are critical in the realm of communication of many kinds.
While much defense research and development involves the development of weaponry, this particular effort by Airbus Defence and Space focuses on communication rather than physical intervention.
A portable and autonomous dialogue device from Airbus
What do you do if you don’t have an actual physical street address and you want to vote? You are definitely eligible to vote, except for that one small detail that has become critical in North Dakota under a new statewide voter identification law.
Stewart Berry, vice president of Product Management, Mapping Software for Caliper spoke with GISCafe Voice about the release of free updated healthcare map layers that provide over 5 million medical and healthcare provider points-of-interest.
Among numerous announcements made this week at Intergeo in Stuttgart, Germany, by Trimble, the new Trimble X7 3D Laser Scanning System was introduced, a scanning system that enables professionals with little or no scanning expertise to capture precise 3D scanning data to produce high-quality deliverables.
With all the uses that have been discovered for GIS, humanitarian demining is one that has not gotten a lot of attention. Land mines and unexploded remnants of war are embedded in the soil and structures of one-third of the world’s developing countries. These abandoned time bombs affect innocent people long after the war has ended, making so many areas uninhabitable.
The FAA estimates that there will be nearly half a million registered commercial use drones in the U.S. by 2022 (FAA 2018 – 2038 Aerospace Forecast).
Drones in construction
Drones, or UAVs or UAS, are being used in the GIS industry for such purposes as military surveillance, real estate, searching for hurricane activity, search and rescue missions, public health and safety, agriculture and in construction and countless other industries. In some cases, drones can provide greater resolution than satellite imagery. Their size and affordability makes them a valuable choice for scientists, power companies, surveyors, military actions and civilians and many others. They are also environmentally friendly and provide a low-cost option for gathering valuable data that can then be fed into a GIS.
Since drones can autonomously collect a vast range of data they are appealing to many use cases. Besides, they are light-weight and high performance. Satellite imagery has provided remote sensing data for mapping, but can often display low fidelity or limited visibility from cloud cover. High precision and accuracy can be achieved with aerial imagery, with planes equipped with high tech remote sensors. Photogrammetry, which makes use of overlapping photos to identify exact measurements between objects, is a useful way of gathering accurate models.
Dublin Airport is a busy international airport with very restricted airspace, which makes it difficult for an aerial survey company to capture data. As a consequence, the airport has been using data collected by laser scanning aircraft from aerial mapping company Bluesky to accurately measure land surface elevation to help reduce the risk of flooding at the airport. Dublin Airport is the 11th busiest airport in Europe, serving more than 31.5 million passengers in 2018, travelling to almost 200 destinations in 43 countries.
GeoCue President and CTO, Lewis Graham, answered some questions for GISCafe Voice about GeoCue products and their new TrueView platform. TrueView is UAV/LiDAR fusion by design, according to company materials, an integrated LIDAR/camera fusion platform designed from the ground up to generate high accuracy 3D colorized point clouds.
David Smith, Senior Director Model Development at CoreLogic, spoke with GISCafe Voice about CoreLogic’s recent announcement of residential and commercial flood and wind loss estimates for Hurricane Barry before the event occurred. According to this data analysis from the company, flood loss for residential and commercial properties in Louisiana is estimated to be between $200 million and $400 million which includes both storm surge and inland flooding. Insured flood loss from private insurers is estimated at less than $100 million. Wind losses are estimated to be an additional $300 million to $500 million. In total, insured flood and wind losses, excluding National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) losses, are between $300 million and $600 million.
CoreLogic® is a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider. This information is directly drawn from company materials:
Dr. Ron S. Jarmin and other spokespeople from the U.S. Census Bureau spoke at the Esri User Conference 2019 Plenary Session about the enormous responsibility of the U.S. Census Bureau to administer the constitutionally mandated count of the U.S. population, a task that is done every ten years since 1790.