GISCafe will focus on specific editorial for 2019, so be sure to check in with our Editorial Calendar to find out when might be a good time for your story to be shown. Throughout the year, we provide space for Current Events, as the technology industry is evolving, and we can’t know at the time of this writing just what will be new, groundbreaking and/or disruptive in the coming year.
As our U.S. Census nears its next collection in 2020, Hexagon Geospatial takes on the globe with its latest Census launch that takes into account the UN sustainable development goals.
“Going digital” has been a Bentley Systems theme that evolved further in London at the Bentley Year In Infrastructure 2018 conference, held at the Hilton London Metropole this past week.
While it’s still early for most of us to be thinking about the 2020 Census, it is not too early for the U.S. Census and most technology providers of Census software to be considering how to prepare.
Michael Ratcliffe, Asst. Division Chief, Geographic Standards, Criteria, Research, and Quality, Geography Division, US Census Bureau, spoke with GISCafe Voice about what the 2020 Census requires, and the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA).
With regard to the 2020 Census, an accurate address file for each state is essential, otherwise each state could lose millions of dollars in federal funding. It can also affect state budget obviously, and number of seats in Congress (determined by count).
What are ways the Census can ensure everyone gets counted in 2020?
Our goal is a complete and accurate census.
An accurate count helps determine how the nation allocates tax dollars to pay for services used by the entire local population — citizens and noncitizens alike and accurate data are crucial for determining how many congressional seats each state gets.
We need communities to help us spread the word that all census responses are confidential and we will continue working with trusted voices in local communities to encourage people to participate.
What are any new requirements for the 2020 LUCA program for identifying individuals and how do they contrast with past requirements?
Will townships, tribes, cities and counties submit their Census figures to the state or submit them independently?
The Census is self-response only. Census numbers are not compiled by any organization other than the Census Bureau. Residents should provide their 2020 Census responses to the Census Bureau only.
Will citizenship status be included in this collection?
The U.S. has been rocked by tragic school shootings and other violence over the past years, with very little deterrent to this increasing trend.
At the Esri User Conference 2018, a talk entitled “School Safety GIS – Survey123” was conducted by GIS specialist for Detroit Public Schools, Randall Raymond, and Officer Adele Gardner, Detroit Public Schools Community District Police Department, who outlined the work they have been doing over the past year to use social media and other geospatial tools to detect, analyze and visualize potential dangers to kids in schools.
“We were able to create a social media mapping feed that was out-of-the-box Esri available and discovered while it did what we wanted it to do in some ways, it was very manual and labor intensive,” said Raymond. “You needed someone to constantly be looking at the feeds that were coming in. We partnered with Esri and they suggested a company named DataCapable, that was doing social media for event detection, event notification and event mapping for the power and gas industry. We figured it was the same for a big power company and they would be interested in what we’re doing. They retasked some of what their software does to give us more analytics and give us more understanding of potentially dangerous situations happening at schools by monitoring for specific events. We could use machine learning and artificial intelligence to go through messages and quickly determine the validity of them, confidence in them and decide if there is action that needed to be taken.”
Raymond retired from upper administration in the Detroit Public Schools in 2013 and has continued the work with the school system since that time, helping with high school programs and consulting with their police department. He works with Officer Gardner helping them to continue to learn to use their ArcGIS tools and do more strategic thinking about deployment of police resources.
The value of social media has been long recognized by Officer Gardner, who has extensive examples of problems with kids in Detroit Public Schools and social media being used to organize the meetings where kids to go to events in the city and rob people and steal from cars, etc. But privacy is obviously a very big issue, according to Raymond. (more…)
UK laser scanning and monitoring companies 3D Laser Mapping Ltd and GeoSLAM Ltd have merged to create a highly innovative mobile mapping and monitoring technology provider. While geospatial technology supplier and innovator, 3D Laser Mapping, works with its customers to capture and analyze their world in 3D, GeoSLAM is a “go-anywhere” technology with its state-of-the-art 3D handheld mobile mapping technology solutions.
3D Laser Mapping’s customers include governments, universities, large mining companies, blue-chip firms and operators of highways, power lines and railways. GeoSLAM takes 3D mobile mapping to challenging environments: underground, indoor or difficult to access, removing the need for GPS.
Shareholders agreed to merge the businesses to take advantage of new world market opportunities, increased R&D capability and ensure greater market reach. Shareholders include Graham Hunter, the founder of 3D Laser Mapping and CSIRO’s Data61, Australia’s data innovation network, part of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency. The contribution of CSIRO since the formation of GeoSLAM in 2012, has been significant in creating the market for handheld mobile mapping.
Graham Hunter, CEO of GeoSLAM, spoke with GISCafe Voice about the merger and what it means for customers of both products.
In May, Trimble announced version 4.1 of Trimble® Business Center office software designed for surveyors and geospatial professionals to simplify the creation of cadastral, GIS, infrastructure inspection and tunneling deliverables. Using new cloud-based data synchronization and workflow task management capabilities, Version 4.1 provides seamless integration with Trimble Access™ 2018 field software to improve field-to-office productivity.
Data providers abound in the GIS and geospatial industry. Choices range from mapping, built and natural terrain modeling, survey, GIS/LIS technologies, geospatial web, and asset inventory, mapping, geodetic and engineering surveying, photogrammetry, satellite imagery and real-time satellite data, remote sensing, aerial and ground-based LiDAR surveys, geographic and land information systems (GIS/LIS), 3D scanning, and spatial computing and analysis and much 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.
email
Facebook
Twitter
RSS Feed
