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Blog: Chris Harlow on ITSearch The Harlow Report Archives
Australia is to shift its longitude and latitude to address a gap between local co-ordinates and those from global navigation satellite systems (GNSS).
Local co-ordinates, used to produce maps and measurements, and global ones differ by more than 1m.
The body responsible for the change said it would help the development of self-driving cars, which need accurate location data to navigate. Australia moves about 7cm north annually because of tectonic movements.
Modern satellite systems provide location data based on global lines of longitude and latitude, which do not move even if the continents on Earth shift. However, many countries produce maps and measurements with the lines of longitude and latitude fixed to their local continent. continued…
first published week of: 08/01/2016
Last week Dutch startup Birds.ai announces that its app will be available on the DroneDeploy App Market, the first drone industry app store. The Birds.ai app identifies, measures, tracks, and reports the status of objects in aerial imagery taken by drones. Because the Birds.ai app learns to track whatever the user directs it to, it can be used for a broad range of purposes and industries – from reporting the condition of wind turbines, to measuring plant growth.
CEO Camiel Verschoor said: “Launching our app in the DroneDeploy App Market will make our revolutionary object detection technology available to the worldwide community. This is a first great step in our efforts to distribute our services to everyone around the globe.”
DroneDeploy is the leading cloud-based drone software platform. Through the App Market, Birds.ai’s services will now be available to DroneDeploy’s 10,000+ users across 135 countries, online and on mobile devices. The Birds.ai app is $14 per map and customers can request unlimited image trials and one free map trial.
Daniel Rasmusson of DroneDeploy said: “The value of drone imagery is equal to the decisions it enables. Birds.ai is such a valuable launch partner because they equip our users with the information needed to take action.”
Joining Birds.ai in the inaugural launch are over 10 apps from companies like Box, John Deere, and Verifly. The App Market was created to allow users to more seamlessly integrate drone data into their workflows, and will act as a one-stop-shop for all aspects of cloud-based drone data analysis. see our related article about DroneDeploy APP Market…
first published week of: 11/14/2016
The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Geological Survey have published a hub to enable easy visualization and access to geospatial data about the west’s “sagebrush sea.” This will help guide sagebrush conservation efforts during the 2016 fire season and beyond.
“We have the benefit of a tremendous amount of scientific information to help us conserve the sagebrush ecosystem that hasn’t always been organized in a way that makes it easy to find,” said Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management Janice Schneider. “This hub provides a simple way to reach the most definitive information from the USGS, the BLM, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service, all in one place. It will provide the many groups working to conserve the sagebrush sea and greater sage-grouse with a shared understanding of this landscape to help facilitate coordination in setting priorities for conservation and fire prevention at all levels.”
Geospatial data is critical for understanding how local conditions fit into the overall landscape. Steve Hanser, USGS sage-grouse specialist
The sagebrush geospatial framework includes a catalogue of geospatial data for the entire sagebrush ecosystem, as well as a series of visualization tools. The hub allows users to view or create printable maps, download Geographic Information System data, and compare local data sets with larger regional data sets. The wildland fire community can, for example, use the free online tools to help select areas for preventative actions that will reduce the potential for future fires in sagebrush habitat.
The new common access point for this sagebrush data is the Secretarial Order 3336 tab at https://www.landscape.blm.gov/geoportal. Additional entries to the data catalogue and analysis and decision support tools will be added to the framework as they become available.
“Geospatial data is critical for understanding how local conditions fit into the overall landscape.” said Steve Hanser, USGS sage-grouse specialist. “The data access, visualization, and decision support tools developed through this effort will help provide a landscape-scale understanding and context for decision makers, which are important when dealing with the vast area of the sagebrush biome.”
This geospatial framework is a component of the comprehensive, science-based strategy announced by Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell in January 2015 to address the more frequent and intense wildfires that are damaging vital sagebrush landscapes and productive rangelands in the Great Basin. The goals of this strategy include reducing the size, severity and cost of rangeland fires, addressing the spread of cheatgrass and other invasive species, and positioning wildland fire management resources for more effective rangeland fire response.
Schneider noted that the hub will provide access to the data used to develop the Conservation and Restoration Strategy, another element of the Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy called for by Secretary Jewell in 2015. This strategy is intended to inform a multi-year plan for conservation and restoration actions across the sagebrush ecosystem.
The accelerated invasion of non-native grasses and the spread of pinyon-juniper, along with drought and the effects of climate change, increased the threat of rangeland fires to the sagebrush landscape and the more than 350 species of plants and animals, such as greater sage-grouse, mule deer and pronghorn antelope, which rely on this critically important ecosystem. The increasing frequency and intensity of rangeland fire in sagebrush ecosystems has significantly damaged the landscape on which ranchers, livestock managers, hunters and outdoor recreation enthusiasts rely. This unnatural fire cycle puts at risk their economic contributions across this landscape that support and maintain the Western way of life in America.
first published week of: 08/29/2016
Aerial survey specialist Bluesky has announced the start of the 2016 flying season. Following a cold start to meteorological Spring, warmer temperatures and below average precipitation has allowed Bluesky to mobilize its dedicated fleet of aerial survey aircraft on more than 50 occasions. This advantageous start to the 2016 flying season has seen the capture of more than 20,000 square kilometers – the size of Wales – of high resolution aerial photography, representing nearly a third of the company’s ambitious annual target. In addition to aerial photography, Bluesky’s survey planes have also been capturing data for the creation of detailed 3D height models and Colour Infrared imagery.
“This has been a positive start to the 2016 data capture season,” commented Rachel Tidmarsh, Managing Director of Bluesky. “We have a number of large contracts – each with their own demanding targets, so an early start to the season is essential if we are to keep up with the growing demand for up to date, high resolution, high accuracy and high quality geographic data products.”
Bluesky, in partnership with Getmapping, is a supplier of high resolution aerial photography, detailed 3D Digital Terrain and Surface Models (DTMs / DSMs) and Color Infrared imagery to Central Government organizations under the multi-million pound Aerial Photography for Great Britain (APGB) contract. Setting a new standard for the capture of geographic data in Great Britain, Bluesky, with a three rather than five year update program, plans to capture in excess of 60,000 square kilometers of data in 2016.
The 22,500 square kilometers, an area larger than the whole of Wales, captured to date includes large parts of Northumberland and Snowdonia at 25 centimeter resolution as well as the urban areas of Birmingham, including Dudley, Wolverhampton and Solihull, and Nottingham at 10 cm and 12.5 cm resolution respectively. continued…
first published week of: 09/19/2016
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GPS trackers allow you to never lose track of anything by working out exactly where it is. Its an ultimate gadget to prevent a vehicle from being stolen, monitoring the route of a delivery vehicle over its journey, or even to monitor high-valued assets in transit. Modern trackers available on the market can work in different ways. While some passive tracking systems store data locally, for instance, on an SD card, others can send this information via modem to a centralized database regularly or at specific times upon request. Some even support large color map displays to visualize this data. GPS trackers have improved considerably in terms of size, power and other capabilities with methods to correct errors in measurement and advanced signal processing techniques.
If you are looking for latest techniques and tricks for reducing time, cost, and complexity in developing a real-time tracking device, here we have put together all downloadable reference designs from leading industry players in one spot. Each design is equipped with complete documentation including user guides, bill of material, application notes, and hardware and software design files. Let’s get started! continued…
first published week of: 10/17/2016
As our cities and rural areas get smarter and the volume of data generated by IoT-enabled devices increases, so does the potential for Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to transform project planning and service delivery and business strategy across many sectors.
The beauty of GIS mapping technology is not just the ability to provide visual representation of datasets in an easy to digest format, but the potential to combine or correlate this information with all kinds of other data to enrich analysis and understanding.9This means the role of GIS is rapidly expanding from traditional mapping of the urban or rural environment and static infrastructure, to becoming a vital tool to analyse the wealth of data being produced and updated on a regular basis from IoT devices (including smartphones), and increasingly being made available on an open data basis for anyone to access. This expansion is in part fueled by the pervasive availability of location data, collected by most smartphone apps for example, and the ease of sharing such data through apps and platforms and open standards.9At FarrPoint, a lot of our consultancy work involves telecoms and broadband infrastructure data analysis, mapping and modelling. Sitting at the comfort of my desk in Edinburgh, GIS makes it possible for me to access and visualise everything from the precise location of every premise in Scotland, ducts and other infrastructure on a site, and which properties in an area or community have access to broadband services. GIS technology is even more powerful when combined with the swathes of information available in the form of open data. For example, I can overlay information on existing telecoms assets and infrastructure with the type of properties, their area of business and socio-economic profiles to enable significantly improved analysis and decision making. continued…
first published week of: 11/07/2016