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Aerial imaging market size is estimated to be valued at over USD 2.64 billion by 2022, as per a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc.
Increasing demand for this technology across various application areas is expected to drive aerial imaging market share over the forecast period. These systems are anticipated to offer efficient solution for various applications such as planning, route design, volume calculation, and map renovations
The technique is mainly used for a variety of purposes such as geospatial technology, construction & development, research & conservation, as well as disaster management. Rising technological innovation in aerial platforms and camera systems is anticipated to drive aerial imaging market growth over the next few years. Advancements in technology such as airborne GPS, Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) are projected to propel demand.
Personal Aerial Mapping System (PAMS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) are likely to offer growth opportunities to the industry. In addition, budding camera technologies such as Hawk and Eagle by Microsoft and UltraCam Osprey along with the rising awareness towards aerial archeology is predicted to provide various new growth prospects over the forecast period. Advent of improved image data sources and various new applications along with rapid advancement in sensor technology is predicted to positively impact the aerial imaging market size till 2022. continued…
first published week of: 12/12/2016
Amap Software Co., Ltd., a Chinese web mapping, navigation and location-based services provider since 2001, announced at the company's 2016 Computing Conference in Hangzhou on October 15 that it has made its HD map and data services free of charge for automakers during their development and testing of self-driving cars.
Amap's free HD map service offers an alternative solution for both automakers and map service providers to the traditional buyer-seller relationship of offline map data, by providing a real-time kinematic (RTK) data service platform that guarantees service continuity and clear pricing, while reducing the cost of app development and improving update speed.
"The new era of map data will see it move away from a specialist, heterogeneous product and into an ecological resource built and shared for the development of industries with an infrastructure similar to that of utilities," said Wei Dong, president of the automobile business unit of Amap and vice president of Alibaba's UC Mobile Business Group. continued…
first published week of: 11/14/2016
Software will be trained to label buildings in satellite images using a data set of images like this one.
A trove of satellite data could teach software to track our trash from orbit.
Why can’t computers watch the Earth from above and automatically map our roads, buildings, and trash heaps? Satellite operator DigitalGlobe is teaming up with Amazon, the venture arm of the CIA, and chipmaker Nvidia to try to make it happen.
In a joint project, DigitalGlobe today released satellite imagery depicting the whole of Rio de Janeiro to a resolution of 50 centimeters. The outlines of 200,000 buildings inside the city's roughly 1,900 square kilometers have been manually marked on the photos. The SpaceNet data set, as it is called, is intended to spark efforts to train machine-learning algorithms to interpret high-resolution satellite photos by themselves.9DigitalGlobe says the SpaceNet data set should eventually include high-resolution images of half a million square kilometers of Earth, and that it will add annotations beyond just buildings. DigitalGlobe's data is much more detailed than publicly available satellite data such as NASA's, which typically has a resolution of tens of meters.
Amazon will make the SpaceNet data available via its cloud computing service. Nvidia will provide tools to help machine-learning researchers train and test algorithms on the data, and CosmiQ Works, a division of the CIA’s venture arm In-Q-Tel focused on space, is also supporting the project. continued…
first published week of: 08/29/2016
Now that the 2016 UC is over and we’ve got a little more breathing room, we wanted to respond to some of the feedback that we got asking for more overview information on ArcGIS Earth.
If you haven’t downloaded ArcGIS Earth yet, it’s free to use to access local files and publicly shared data. Â You can get the current version here:Â http://j.mp/ArcGISEarthDownload
ArcGIS Earth is a lightweight, easy-to-use globe viewer that lets you interact with a variety of GIS information. Â Earth is now at version 1.2.1 and has had three full production releases on our quarterly production schedule. Â We intend to continue to release the application rapidly to allow us to respond to customer feedback. Â We also recently extended the support to make sure that each version will be in Mature Support for one year after the next version is released.
Instead of listing out all of the interface features of Earth, here’s a quick (3 min.) video that will give you a look at how to use Earth when you first launch it:
With Earth, you can:
first published week of: 08/08/2016
Apple is hoping drones can help the company compete more effectively against Google Maps, according to a new report.
The tech giant is building a team that will use drones to fly overhead and capture critical street information, including signs and traffic changes, Bloomberg is reporting, citing sources who claim to have knowledge of its plans. Apple has secured approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use drones to capture photos, videos, and other traffic data, the report says.
Drone capture could prove important to Apple AAPL -0.85% as it works to improve its Maps application running on iOS and macOS devices. After capturing the data from streets both in the U.S. and abroad, it can then be transmitted back to Apple’s team and its information uploaded to the Apple Maps servers, according to Bloomberg. Users, then, would get far more useful and recent data. The drones would replace the minivans it currently uses to collect similar data. continued…
first published week of: 12/12/2016
The Executive Director of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS), Dr. Michael Hauck, offered his resignation to the Board of Directors at the regular Board meeting on 11 September, held in conjunction with the UAS Mapping meeting in Palm Springs; the effective date is still to be determined. The Board of Directors voted to appoint Jesse Winch as Interim Executive Director.
Dr. Hauck's background, according to the association's website:
Michael Hauck has over 20 years of experience in the creation and application of remote sensing and geospatial information technologies. Reflecting the diverse membership of ASPRS, he has practiced in academic, government, Fortune 500, and start-up settings; and in industries that include transportation, energy, telecommunications, and defense. In addition to technical breadth, he is a versatile, collaborative, and adaptive leader with over a decade of general management experience that includes both board and executive positions in not-for-profit organizations. His volunteer work includes service on local, State, and National boards, e.g. the Venture West Network of entrepreneurs, the State of Wyoming Telecommunications Council, and the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. His key scientific accomplishment has been the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of the first-ever deep seismic reflection profiles through the Himalayas, which were part of his PhD dissertation in Geological Sciences at Cornell University. Beyond training in science and engineering, Hauck is also a student of science and technology communications, and a graduate of the Leadership Wyoming trustee leadership development program.
About Jesse Winch
What little I could find about Mr. Winch was on his Linked-In page, where he is listed as the Interim Executive Director of ASPRS and as a free-lance musician.
first published week of: 09/26/2016