Caribbean Road Networks
Nevis Road Network 2019
Charlestown Nevis Road Network 2019
VerticalGeo spent time this past summer creating road networks for most of the islands in the Caribbean. The screenshots below came from our St Kitts and Nevis Road Network Update Map. You can view our work there on the simple webmap we have posted online. Every year the islands in the Caribbean get slammed with hurricanes and need humanitarian aid to help overcome the disaster. The people of the Caribbean are very resourceful and resilient, and we decided that we could help them by providing updated road network maps. We started with satellite imagery and began with Open Street Map files of the entire Caribbean. We then took these Open Street Map files and used them to show us where the existing road networks were at. When we came across Open Street Map files that weren't accurate we updated them. When we came across areas where we saw road networks on the satellite imagery, but no roads documented in Open Street Map, we added the roads. When we came across roads documented in Open Street Map that we did not find on satellite imagery we deleted them from our Open Street Map files. In the screenshot below the purple roads are the road network we created for the country of Nevis. Here is a close up of the road network of the town of Charlestown in Nevis. We have completed road network mapping for the following countries:
Anguilla
Antigua
Barbados
Barbuda
Bolivia
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands
Colombia
Cuba
Dominica
Ecuador
French Guiana
Grenada
Guyana
Malawi
Mozambique
Paraguay
Saint Barthelemy
Saint Martin
St Kitts and Nevis
St Lucia
St Vincent and the Grenadines
Trinidad and Tobago
US Virgin Islands
We see this as an opportunity to help out the international disaster relief organizations that need data like this to help plan relief efforts around the world.
QGIS Video #2: Digitizing Point Features
Welcome to our second QGIS training video. In this video we will show how to create a point feature shapefile and add cultural landscape icons a small portion of Route 66 in QGIS. We will be adding new videos to our YouTube channel frequently.
QGIS 3.0.0 (Girona) Available for Download
We have been using the free and open source Quantum GIS (QGIS) quite a bit over the last few months. The newest version of QGIS, version 3.0.0 (Girona), has been released and is available for download free of charge here:
https://qgis.org/en/site/about/index.html
It is amazing to see the capability of QGIS these days. If you are just getting started in the GIS world I would start by learning QGIS. If you are experienced in your GIS capabilities then give it a try.
The Value of Mapping Vertical Obstructions
We have been locating, documenting, and mapping vertical obstructions for one of our many customers. As a retired US Air Force C-130 Navigator I flew low level missions at 300 feet almost every day. I know the value of knowing where your vertical obstructions are located before you go fly. We recently worked on an area with an incredible amount of new obstructions. The red dots on the above screenshot represent powerline pylons and the blue dots represent light standards either along roads or within athletic areas. Every dot on the map represents an obstacle that is taller than 50 feet. Most are between 50 and 100 feet, but there are occasional vertical obstructions that reach up to 1,000 feet or more. Those could ruin your fun day of flying whether you are in a C-130 or a Cessna 172. We use a VerticalGeo proprietary process to determine the location and height of each vertical obstruction, increasing the accuracy and quality of the data we create. For safety of flight reasons it is imperative to know where these obstacles are. The work we do eventually makes it into FAA and DoD flight charts to help promote safety of flight.
VerticalGeo Exhibiting at SAME Industry Day
VerticalGeo exhibited at the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Industry Day in O'Fallon, Illinois on April 27. We met a lot of great military and civilian engineers and were fortunate enough to listen to the local United States Army Corps of Engineers Districts present their project forecasts for the near future. It was a very informative day with an opportunity to meet a lot of new people and see some old friends. We had so many people come up to our booth and talk about the UASs we had on display. We had a great time.
VerticalGeo at the Missouri GIS Conference
Last week we exhibited at the Missouri GIS Conference. We brought our large DJI S1000 Spreadwings UAS with the FLIR Thermal Camera attached to show conference attendees what you can learn from thermal imagery. We had a great time at the conference and met lots of wonderful people. We will see you again next time!
Surveying and Mapping with Fixed Wing UAS: A Fly-Off Between Leading UAS Providers
I just came across a great White Paper by Black Swift Technology that compares their Swift Trainer Fixed Wing UAS with the Sensefly Ecobee and the Trimble UX5. Of course, it shows how well the Swift Trainer does compared to the others. Shocker that their study shows it out pereforms the rest! If you are interested in Fixed Wing UAS Technology you should read the comparison.Here is a link to the White Paper: Surveying and Mapping with Fixed Wing UAS: A Fly-Off Between Leading UAS Providers
Using ArcGIS Online as Part of a Data Collection Workflow
Bethany Marshall is speaking about using ArcGIS Online in our workflow during a Tree Survey we recently completed at the next American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Heartland Region Technical Meeting. Here is a copy of the ASPRS Flyer. So proud of her!
Cleaning LiDAR Tiles: Tug and Barge
Tug and Barge near New Madrid, Missouri
Cleaning more LiDAR tiles today. This one includes a Tug and Barge combination that I found in the middle of the Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri. No one will ever know it was there when I get done with the tile. The top view is a cross section elevation and shows what the elevations look like from the side. The bottom view is an overhead look at the Tug and Barge.
International Year of Light
Thanks to our friend Brittany K. L. Mabry for putting together a great article on the International Year of Light for LiDAR News. Expect to hear lots of information regarding the use of LiDAR and other light-based technology over the next year. Here is a link to the article:http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/11124/136/
The White Board Doodles that Became Google Maps
Here is a link to a Sidney Morning Herald article that discusses how the doodles on the whiteboard of an Australian small tech startup called Where 2 eventually changed the world by morphing into Google Maps. The article shows what you can accomplish with a good idea and a good sense of timing. Even more than the lessons of technology Noel Gordon talks about the lessons of agility and flexibility small businesses bring to the marketplace. Here is the link:
Using Terrestrial LiDAR for Cultural Heritage Documentation
In July VerticalGeo hosted the ASPRS Heartland Region's monthly Technical Presentation. Brittany Mabry, a graduate student from the University of Arkansas' Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST), presented on "Using Terrestrial LiDAR for Cultural Heritage Documentation." It was a fascinating presentation that highlighted how Brittany, and the CAST team has used, and taught others to use, Terrestrial LiDAR to digitally capture 3-D imagery of cultural heritage resources around the globe. This is wonderful technology that will allow us to capture and preserve in 3-D those historic places that define our world. Here is Brittany's presentation:
US National Map Corps
Last week I attended a web-based presentation by USGS on the National Map Corps. I don't know if you are familiar with USGS's National Map or not, but it is a great resource for finding and downloading information. I had not heard of the USGS National Map Corps before, so this was good news to me.USGS has adopted the same editing environment for the National Map Corps that OpenStreetMap has used for a few years (Potlatch). It works well, is simple to use, and they use it to update a few features for the US Topo Map. The features you can currently edit across the US are: schools, fire, police, and EMS locations, state capitals, and cemeteries. Not a lot of features to update, but it is nice to see USGS opening up to crowd sourcing to keep features current and accurate. The updates you make on the map are reviewed by peers and then added to the new US Topo Map quads. The URL for the USGS National Map Corps Editor is:
Creating a File Geodatabase in ArcGIS 10.1
We wanted to add some video tutorials to show new ArcGIS users how to edit data in ArcMap. Step 1 is to create a File Geodatabase. In this video we cover creating a File Geodatabase in ArcMap 10.1 that we will use in our next video to add data to our project. To see all of our ArcGIS tutorials please visit out YouTube Channel.
Georeferencing Imagery in ArcGIS 10.1 Desktop Tutorial
We have had a lot of people lately ask us how to georeference imagery. So, as long as it is a hot topic, we just posted VerticalGeo's new video tutorial on "Georeferencing Imagery in ArcGIS 10.1 Desktop" on our YouTube Channel. Here it is:http://youtu.be/cAPykiB2YyA
Making Sense of Maps
Here's a great TED talk by Aris Venetikidis on the difference between the cognitive maps we use to navigate in our mind and the physical maps we use in the world.
Blaise Agüera y Arcas: How PhotoSynth can connect the world's images
Thank you to Charlene Turczyn for sharing this TED presentation. Amazing capability Photosynth brings to us that capture the world in photographs.
Dan Berkenstock: The world is one big dataset. Now, how to photograph it ...
Great TED video of Dan Berkenstock talking about the vision of SkyBox and what drives them. This is "game changing" technology that will force the mapping industry to evolve and produce more dynamic and increasingly important capabilities. I am very excited with what SkyBox and the other small satellite companies are doing.
How Micro-Location, Geofencing and Indoor Location are Driving the Retail Revolution
Thanks again to GISCafe for pointing us to this great article. The interior of stores have been mapped for a while. The difficult part has been determining your position in the store in 3-D. Sounds like there have been breakthroughs in that technology that will now allow us to use services similar to the GPS we use for driving, only now for indoor shopping. This is a game changer.
GISCafe's Top Geospatial Predictions for 2014
Thanks to GISCafe for posting their Top Geospatial Predictions for 2014. It is very interesting to see where they believe the industry is headed.