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Blog: Chris Harlow on ITSearch The Harlow Report Archives
Geospatial technology is increasingly important to the public and private sectors, according to Pitney Bowes
Insurance companies, telcos, retailers and others are "embracing geospatial technology" to turn data into actionable information, according to Pitney Bowes ANZ managing director Nigel Lester, because they need to bridge the gap between the digital and physical worlds. Examples include deciding where to target particular services, or where to open a new store.
The technology is also important for the public sector – 70% of local governments use Pitney Bowes to support decisions about putting services such as childcare in the most appropriate places.
If those can be considered macro decisions, Pitney Bowes' technology is also used at a micro level in various sectors. Location-based services can be used to deliver marketing messages to people in particular places — whether that's in terms of being physically present in a certain shopping centre or having an address within a particular area — or for operational purposes, such as directing a pizza order to the most appropriate store. continued…
first published week of: 10/24/2016
Simulation results for a unmanned drone over downtown Los Angeles: true trajectory (red line), from GPS only (yellow line), and GPS aided with cellular signals (blue line)( UCR)
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a great navigation aid – unless you lose the signal while negotiating a complicated spaghetti junction. That's bad enough for conventional cars, but for autonomous vehicles it could be catastrophic, so the University of California, Riverside's Autonomous Systems Perception, Intelligence, and Navigation (ASPIN) Laboratory under Zak Kassas is developing an alternative navigation system that uses secondary radio signals, such as from cell phone systems and Wi-Fi to either complement existing GPS-based systems or as a standalone alternative that is claimed to be highly reliable, consistent, and tamper-proof.
Today, there are two global satellite navigation systems in operation, the US GPS and the Russian GLONASS, with the European Galileo system set to become fully operational in the next few years, and plans for the Chinese Beidou system to extend globally by 2020. These have revolutionized navigation, surveying, and a dozen other fields, but GPS and related systems still leave much to be desired. By their nature, GPS signals are weak and positions need to be confirmed by several satellites, so built up areas or mountainous areas can make the system useless. In addition, GPS signals can be deliberately or accidentally jammed or spoofed due to insufficient encryption and other protections.
In military circles, various supplementary systems are employed with everything from submarines to foot soldiers also using Inertial Navigation System (INS) that emply accelerometers and compasses to calculate positions from the last good GPS fix, but these only work for a limited time before they start to drift.
Despite the promise of future centimetric GPS systems, even a combination of GPS and INS is still inadequate for autonomous vehicles like self-driving cars and drones. Designers have fallen back on using radar, lidar, cameras, and other sensors to make up for these deficiencies, which Kassas calls an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach and is overly complicated to say the least. continued…
first published week of: 10/24/2016
3D data is becoming more ubiquitous nowadays and is especially promoted throughout the ArcGIS Platform. From web scenes, to CityEngine, to ArcGIS Pro, there are many different applications to import, manage, model, and share your 3D data. To get the output you are looking for, it may require numerous steps and tools. To navigate some of these steps and tools, here are some tips and tricks for working with 3D data in ArcGIS.
3D File Coordinate Systems
The majority of 3D formats do not store a coordinate system. GeoVRML and KML are the lone exceptions. KML will use a WGS 1984 coordinate system and meters for the unit of measurement. All other types (DAE, 3DS, OBJ) must be placed properly, otherwise they may import at 0,0 (off the coast of Africa).
Trick #1
If you are using CityEngine, you can drag and drop your shape from the Navigator window into the scene (this workflow assumes a scene coordinate system is already set). When you export the shape to a multipatch feature class, the coordinate system is created with the data so you can bring it into another ArcGIS product. continued…
first published week of: 11/21/2016
Boundless is betting that open source, non-proprietary and license-free is the future of the geographic information systems (GIS) market.
It’s a bet wagered in the form of dual product launches this week. Boundless, which already offers a GIS platform and sells to government, is filling out its offerings to move from a platform to an “ecosystem.” The first, Boundless Desktop, is a desktop GIS tool filled out with analytics, plugins and various other tools. The other, Boundless Connect, is essentially a hub capable of connecting Desktop, other Boundless services and even third-party GIS programs.
All without a user license.
“We’re selling support, we’re not selling licenses,” said Andy Dearing, Boundless’ chief executive officer.
That means the company is putting its stake in helping its clients make the platform work for their own specific uses — its biggest customers thus far have been at federal agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but it’s beginning to work more with state and local customers. continued…
first published week of: 11/14/2016
For people who own or work in small businesses, time and resources are at premium. Obviously, software is a big part of their business – whether they know it or not. Today small businesses use an array of Internet accessed, cloud-based software tools to make conducting business as easy and as affordable as possible.
We all use tools like Google Analytics, Twitter and LinkedIn for free or for a fee. Some of us subscribe to services like eRelease, WordPress or Join.Me. Without doubt all of us are constantly accessing search engines through web browsers. Even our phone systems are becoming Cloud services. These Cloud-based tools have gradually become the platform upon which we all conduct business.
Online software tools have streamlined traditional workflows. I used to be a purchasing manager. My career spanned the time of entirely paper-based (1982) procurement process to the web-based workflow (2000). Web software has significantly shortened the typical purchasing workflow. It used to take weeks to source products and services. Today, accurate procurement analysis is often completed in a matter of minutes. Order placement and invoicing is virtually instantaneous, once decisions have been made. Thanks Google!
These affordable and accessible cloud software tools help small businesses to be more efficient and thus more competitive. New Internet-based business models present opportunities for small businesses that were unimaginable just five years ago.
I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to keep up. Yet, “Keep up, we must,” said Yoda, just before hand-wave dropping a hot water heater on Darth Maul.
I respectfully recommend the introduction of one more tool that will serve your growing small business very well. Cloud based business mapping software can provide your organization with a new perspective on customer lists, help define market coverage areas, and will inform your strategic plan.
Apply business mapping software to your small business work flows to:
first published week of: 10/24/2016
Starting next year, all crowdsourced map edits will take place in Google Maps itself.
Map Maker, the editing tool for Google's crowdsourced Maps, will disappear early next year, the search giant announced this week.
Introduced in 2011 in the US, Map Maker lets you add places, "lines" (like railroads or back alleys), and "shapes" (like a parking lot or laundromat) to a map. It's open to any cartography enthusiast or business owner who wants to make sure they appear on the map, but unlike Wikipedia, changes must be approved before they go live.
In a blog post, Google said that it will integrate Map Maker features directly into Google Maps by March 2017, at which point it will retire the standalone editing product.
Google Maps already offers basic editing capabilities, including suggesting updates or reporting a closed business. It does not offer the ability to edit roads or other geographic features. Google said it will update Maps to add road-editing capabilities and other features in advance of Map Makers' retirement. Starting this week, edits made in Maps will no longer show up in Map Maker for approval. continued…
first published week of: 11/14/2016