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Satellite Image of Colorado's Hayman Fire Released by Space Imaging These reduced resolution satellite images show an overview of the Hayman Forest Fire burning in the Pike National Forest 35 miles south of Denver. The image was collected on June 12, 2002, at 12:14 p.m. by Space Imagingšs IKONOS satellite. The photo is comprised of several IKONOS images that have been reduced in resolution and combined to better visualize the extent of the firešs footprint. In the natural color image, the gray-green area underneath the white smoke is burned vegetation, and the darker green area shows healthy vegetation. The enhanced color image was taken with the satellitešs near-infrared sensor. In the enhanced color image, the burned area is purple and the green areas represent healthy vegetation. The burned area measures approximately 20 by 10.5 miles. According to the U.S. Forest Service, when this image was taken the fire had consumed 86,000 acres, becoming Coloradošs worst fire ever. This type of imagery is used to assess and measure damage to forest and other types of land cover. It also is used for fire modeling, disaster preparedness, insurance and risk management, and disaster mitigation efforts to control erosion or flooding once the fire is out. This type of high-resolution imagery can also be used to evaluate damage to individual structures. The 1600-pound IKONOS satellite travels 423 miles above the Earthšs surface at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour. It is the worldšs first commercial, high-resolution remote sensing satellite and can see objects on the ground as small as one square meter. For more information, contact www.spaceimaging.com. Geosystems and Miner & Miner Join as Business Partners
Geosystems has partnered with Miner & Miner to develop business in Latin America. This partnership will continue to offer enterprise GIS solutions to electric, gas and water/wastewater utilities throughout the region. Located in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Geosystems is an exclusive distributor for ESRI and a provider of applied geospatial solutions. Miner & Miner and Geosystems are already working together on a project in Santa Cruz. Cooperativa Rural de Electricidad (CRE) serves 400,000 electric customers and has successfully implemented ESRI's ArcFM 8.1. Certified Geosystems' professionals offer product support and customer service for Miner & Miner products, including onsite training and on-the-spot support in response to specific client needs. Geosystems is also responsible for the Spanish translation of ArcFM software and the data model that was recently implemented at CRE. As part of this partnership Geosystems will translate all product literature into Spanish.
Miner & Miner develops GIS software for utilities, with its ArcFM suite of products and services assisting electric, gas, water, and wastewater utilities to effectively manage spatial information. For further information, please contact Osnat Arbel at Miner & Miner, Fort Collins, Colo. Tel: (970) 223-1888. E-mail: [email protected].
Choctaw Geo Imaging Offers USGS Digital Ortho Quarter Quad (DOQQ) Photography Choctaw Geo Imaging (CGI), an enterprise of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (MBCI), now offers a seamless mosaic of USGS Digital Ortho Quarter Quad (DOQQ) aerial photography. This new product, titled "geoORTHO," is the latest addition to CGI's geoSPATIAL product line. The line also includes geoTOPO, which are seamless topographic maps for the United States. The geoORTHO dataset contains several enhancements over traditional DOQQs, including radiometric balancing, mosaicking, database formatting, and color standardization. CGI's geoORTHO is derived from the current USGS library of aerial photography. The imagery is orthorectified to a pixel resolution of one meter and meets national map accuracy standards at a map scale of 1:24,000. CGI operates under the broad MBCI business umbrella as one of a number of enterprise operations under the Choctaw tribe throughout the United States and Mexico. The enterprise is a technology integrator that provides digital mapping services and products to tribal, state, and local governments, commercial companies, and outdoor recreational professionals. CGI offers digital satellite and aerial imagery, topographic maps, conversion and digitizing, ground-control data, custom map production, feature-extraction services, and specialized software solutions. For further information, please contact Brenda Burroughs at CGI, Choctaw, Miss. Tel: (407) 273-4114. Web address: www.choctawgeo.com. DC Government Launches DC Atlas
The District of Columbia's Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) has announced the launch of DC Atlas, the District's first and only standardized resource for mapping and location-based information. The DC Atlas is a Web-based suite of tools that works by pooling data from agencies across the District, acting as a central, easy-to-use source to find detailed, useful data for sophisticated planning and analysis. The DC Atlas is available for use by all District employees who have Web access over the intranet. Roughly 90 percent of the District's data is geographically based; however, until the DC Atlas was created, each agency lacked a central repository of standardized GIS data. The DC Atlas allows District employees to visualize the way data relates to a specific location, enabling them to more quickly and thoroughly perform needed analysis. The DC Atlas contains more than a hundred detailed mapping layers categorized by such themes as administrative, education and recreation, planning and economic development, public safety, environmental, real property, socioeconomic and demographic, and transportation. The mission of OCTO is to develop and enforce policies and standards for information technology throughout the District of Columbia. For further information, please contact the Office of the Chief Technology Officer via the public Web site, located at www.octo.dc.gov. ImageSat Cuts Archived Satellite Imagery Pricing Once the privilege of the world's superpowers and wealthy national organizations, high-resolution satellite imagery can be nowadays be purchased commercially for only $5 per square kilometer and delivered within a week when ordered from ImageSat International's Web-based imagery archive. The company recently announced that it is slashing its prices by 50 percent in an effort to put high-resolution EROS imagery in the hands of commercial organizations and private individuals. The new commercial promotion enables customers to sub-select portions of archived imagery as small as five square kilometers for a minimum fee of $25. Commercial customers find ImageSat's panchromatic images suitable for such applications as infrastructure planning and management, mapping, 3D models, simulation, environmental monitoring, and search and rescue operations. For the year and a half since the EROS A satellite has been in orbit, ImageSat has primarily served the national security market, which relies heavily on high-resolution, panchromatic imagery. High-resolution imagery, generally considered to be two meters or better, is offered commercially by only a few vendors worldwide. ImageSat offers imagery from its Earth Resources Observation Satellite, known as EROS A, in standard 1.8-meter and over-sampled one-meter resolutions. ImageSat International N.V. is a provider of high-resolution Earth imagery for commercial applications. The company's global network of acquisition, archiving and distribution ground stations enable ImageSat to provide worldwide coverage and Internet access to imagery collected by its EROS A satellite. The EROS B1 satellite, which will offer higher-quality resolution and a significantly higher data link rate than does EROS A, plus multispectral capabilities, is due to be operational in 2004. For further information, please contact Karen Gold Anisfeld, ImageSat International, Limassol, Cyprus. Tel: (972) 3-796-0604 (Tel Aviv, Israel). E-mail: [email protected]. Thai Forestry Department Buys Leica Geosystems Receiver Systems The Forest Engineering Division of Thailand's Royal Forestry Department has purchased 100 units of Leica Geosystems' GIS & Mapping Division's GS5+ data collectors from its distributor, ESRI Thailand, for use in helping demarcate forestry boundaries. The Leica Geosystems GS5+ is an all-in-one GPS/GIS receiver system that provides highly accurate GPS input into field mapping packages, features a two-channel beacon receiver and offers one-meter accuracy in DGPS mode. The Forest Engineering Division also purchased 12 units of the Leica Geosystems SR530, 24-channel, dual-frequency survey receivers. These SR530 units will be used in the creation of new large-scale topographic mapping. With the recent integration of ERDAS and LH Systems, Leica Geosystems has expanded its product areas to offer four ranges of GIS and mapping solutions: airborne data acquisition, geographic imaging, GPS/GIS, and land information systems. For further information, please contact the GIS and Mapping Division, 2801 Buford Highway NE, Atlanta, GA 30329. Tel: (404) 248-9000. E-mail: [email protected]. Swedish Nova Naturgas Signs Contract with ABB Nova Naturgas AB (Sweden) has signed a contract with ABB Utility Automation Systems for delivery of their new asset documentation system. The utility has selected the product Facilplus Spatial for all gas transmission pipeline documentation. This system is expected to be fully operational in early 2003. Nova users will be connected to a central server that will support them in their daily tasks of planning, preparation and project work for the gas transmission pipeline. Facilplus Spatial is a joint development project between ABB Utilities and Digpro AB, built on the latest spatial database technology for handling of geographical data. The system handles all aspects of a gas transmission pipeline including as geographical positioning and topological characterization, and it further offers applications such as asset management reporting and customer management. Full Web enabling is one of the latest enhancements for Facilplus Spatial, which also incorporates advanced functions such as map editing, rule-based editing of pipelines and graphical analysis of extension alternatives. The web enabling also adds new flexibility to the system, e.g. for use of hand-held computers and wireless communication to the central system and outsourcing of documentation. ABB Utility Automation Systems is a Swedish company that offers complete IT solutions in power and automation technologies to utilities and customers in general industry. Digpro AB provides geographical information technology, with their primary business focus on developing spatial databases in combination with Web technology. For further information, please contact Peter Axelsson at Digpro, Stockholm, Sweden. Tel: (48) 8-545-42620. E-mail: [email protected]. SPOT and Iunctus Ink Exclusive Contract SPOT Image Corp. and Iunctus Geomatics Corp. have signed a channel partnership contract whereby Iunctus has the exclusive rights to sell SPOT satellite products and services throughout Canada. This is the third global channel partnership, and the second in North America for SPOT, which has similar agreements in place with DigitalGlobe in the U.S. and ImageONE in Japan. Iunctus will have exclusive licensing rights for the entire archive of Canadian SPOT imagery collected since 1986. In addition, they will provide Canadian customers with worldwide imagery from the SPOT constellation of satellites. SPOTs 1 through 4 provide medium-resolution, 10-meter and 20-meter imagery. SPOT 5, launched on May 3, 2002, provides high-resolution, large-area 2.5-meter imagery, high-quality five-meter imagery, and 10-meter multispectral imagery. Iunctus Geomatics Corp. provides geomatic services and software for the application and processing of imagery, as well as software and systems development in geospatial technologies. SPOT Image Corp. is part of the SPOT World Group (SWG), which consists of a growing and interconnected network of subsidiaries, receiving stations and processing centers acting as a single entity that provides imagery and geospatial information. SPOT launched its first satellite in 1986. For further information, please contact Clark Nelson at SPOT, 1897 Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 20191. Tel: (703) 715-3131. E-mail: [email protected]. DigitalGlobe(tm) Unveils Plans for Next-Generation System DigitalGlobe(tm) has announced its plans to launch its next-generation remote sensing system -- M5. The company has been working with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and ITT Industries for the past two years to develop M5. The M5 constellation will consist of four satellites, each of which will collect five-meter-resolution multispectral data over a 185-kilometer-wide area. Images will provide visible, near-infrared and shortwave-infrared spectral ranges. The first M5 satellite is scheduled to be operational in the first quarter of 2006, and all four by the third quarter of 2007. The full M5 system will collect images of the Earth's land surface plus coastal regions every four days at nadir. Nadir refers to the satellite's ability to collect images by pointing the camera directly over the area to be imaged, ensuring highest possible resolution. M5's off-nadir pointing capability -- collecting images from an angle -- will give DigitalGlobe the ability to revisit any point on the Earth's surface multiple times per day. This will be valuable for time-sensitive applications such as natural disaster assessments. Data from M5 will complement DigitalGlobe's current offerings of sub-meter resolution images from its QuickBird satellite and lower-resolution images through the company's exclusive North American reseller agreement with SPOT Image Corp. DigitalGlobe is an imagery and information company that provides highest-resolution satellite imagery products derived from its QuickBird satellite. For further information, please contact Herb Satterlee at DigitalGlobe, Longmont, Colo. Web address: www.digitalglobe.com. IntelliWhere(tm) LocationServer Gains Momentum as LBS Platform IntelliWhere(tm), a division of Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions, is seeing significant industry momentum for its IntelliWhere LocationServer product. Available since September 2001, IntelliWhere LocationServer is a scalable server platform for location-based services (LBS) deployment for a variety of applications worldwide. IntelliWhere LocationServer is a server-side software platform that provides spatial information and processing to applications. It offers built-in functionality that allows users to add LBS capability without the necessity for specialized expertise in spatial systems. Uses include mobile workforce applications, carrier services that provide location-based information to users of mobile devices, and spatial enhancement of existing software applications. IntelliWhere's focus is on the rapidly growing location-based technology and services market. The division combines more than 30 years of experience in spatial and location-based technologies with a global infrastructure that supports solutions around the world. For further information, please contact Rita Roberts at IntelliWhere Americas, Huntsville, Ala. Tel: (256) 730-1430. E-mail: [email protected]. ESRI Japan Opens Its Doors ESRI has entered into a joint venture agreement with Pasco Corp. to form ESRI Japan. Originally founded in 1953, Pasco has long been the ESRI distributor for Japan. The newly formed company will continue as ESRI's international distributor in Japan. Having localized ESRI's new ArcGIS family of software products, ESRI Japan will enhance its services by offering training for the installation and expansion of GIS technology with a goal of helping new users. Furthermore, to support GIS in education the company will work closely with primary, junior, and senior high schools. The company also intends to provide solutions and services in fields such as environment, disaster management, medical, and social welfare. Pasco is a specialist in aerial photogrammetry and all aspects of aerial surveying, GIS and consulting services. ESRI is a developer of GIS software that also provides consulting, implementation, and technical support services. For further information, please contact Jesse Theodore at ESRI, 380 New York Street, Redlands, CA 92373. Tel: (909) 793-2853. E-mail [email protected]. Cartosur II: Ortho Radar Images of the Rainforest Infoterra GmbH, a subsidiary of the European space group Astrium, will begin mapping the Venezuelan rainforest in late summer 2002. The company has been awarded a corresponding contract by the Ministry of the Environment of this South American country. The flight missions of the project, called Cartosur II, will take about four months to complete and will be conducted with regional partners Orbisat, and Mercator. From an altitude of approximately 10,000 meters, a radar sensor will cover more than 250,000 square kilometers, or about one fourth of the country's surface. Because thick cloud cover is often found over tropical and sub-tropical forests, the only way to obtain high-quality data is through the use of radar. However, this is not a problem for the SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) sensor: it ensures all-weather operation and penetration of clouds. The SAR sensor employed by Infoterra's partner, Orbisat da Amazônia S.A., operates in two frequencies. These are the X- and P-bands respectively. The X-band data will deliver the first visible surface elevation model, while the P-band data will deliver the terrain elevation model (bald earth model). Only the combination of both frequencies can provide proper biomass determination. Image evaluation will last for a further six months. Infoterra and Orbisat will produce geo-corrected images (orthophotographs) and a digital elevation. For further information, please contact Astrium GmbH, Friedrichshafen, Germany. Tel: (49) 7545-89248. E-mail: [email protected]. San Jose Airport Selects GeoMedia(r) Technology for Infrastructure Management Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions has announced that the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) has chosen Intergraph's GeoMedia(r) technology to help manage and support the unique assets and operational functions of the SJC. The airport is in a transition phase from a MicroStation-based CAD environment to a fully functional geographic information system (GIS) using GeoMedia, GeoMedia WebMap, and an Oracle Spatial database. Located two miles north of downtown San Jose, Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) is a completely self-supporting enterprise, owned and operated by the city of San Jose. SJC is the 37th busiest airport in North America in total passengers, with airport activity growing from 6.8 million passengers in 1990-91, to more than 13.9 million passengers in 2000-01. Once all existing SJC map elements are merged into a GIS environment, airport personnel will be able to read several different GIS formats and re-project datasets on the fly. This system will provide intranet access to a computer-based system built on GeoMedia WebMap, and will give greater access to all mapping data on airport grounds. The implementation of this program will enable storage, organization, retrieval, manipulation, and graphical visualization and presentation of all airport drawings, documents, and spatially referenced asset information. Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions (Huntsville, Ala.) serves government agencies and commercial enterprises with end-to-end geospatial solutions for cartography and map production, plus enterprise-wide mapping and GIS. For further information, please contact Intergraph by telephone at (800) 791-3357 (in the U.S.), or at (256) 730-7191 (international). The company's Web site is located at www.intergraph.com/imgs. Leica Geosystems Provides Access to EROS Satellite Data Leica Geosystems has entered an agreement with IIT Ltd. to sell and support the EROS imagery import module to customers worldwide as part of SOCET SET(r), the advanced digital photogrammetry solution. The module enables users to access EROS-A1 satellite data in order to triangulate the imagery, extract data in stereo including DTMs and features, and make end products such as ortho-mosaics. With the IIT EROS import software and the SOCET SET Multi-Sensor Triangulation module, users can import and read satellite imagery into rigorous sensor models, and triangulate data from EROS, SPOT, QuickBird and other satellites. SOCET SET handles triangulation, orientation, feature collection, digital terrain models (DTMs), orthophotos, mosaics, fly-throughs, and other photogrammetric processes for scanned film imagery, airborne digital imagery, and satellite data. SOCET SET can also export the triangulated imagery to ERDAS IMAGINE(r) or other post-processing systems to produce products such as perspective scenes in IMAGINE VirtualGIS(r). With the recent integration of ERDAS and LH Systems, Leica Geosystems has expanded its product areas to offer four ranges of GIS and mapping solutions: airborne data acquisition, geographic imaging, GPS/GIS, and land information systems. For further information, please contact the GIS and Mapping Division, 2801 Buford Highway NE, Atlanta, GA 30329. Tel: (404) 248-9000. E-mail: [email protected]. OrthoMaster V.1.2.0 Goes Live! Inpho GmbH recently released OrthoMaster, its software package for fast and rigorous orthorectification of digital imagery. OrthoMaster V1.2.0 comes with extended support for importing and exporting of orientation parameters from other systems, as well as some new image and DTM formats. OrthoMaster V1.2.0 eliminates the relief displacements of man-made objects -- such as buildings and bridges -- that appear on ortho imagery following the standard orthorectification process. OrthoMaster V1.2.0 includes advanced DTM tools for precise integration of 3D man-made objects with their basic DTM. The resulting new DTM is then analyzed by advanced computation algorithms to detect and fill all occluded areas with valid image patches from neighboring imagery. Inpho GmbH is a technology company involved in photogrammetry and digital elevation modeling. For further information please contact Inpho, Smaragdweg 1, (D-70174) Stuttgart, Germany. Tel: (49) 711-228810. E-mail: [email protected].
Intermap Announces New Mapping Projects
Intermap Technologies Inc. has received a contract from the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) to acquire data for watershed research, and another customer has requested thematic line maps from data available in Intermap's GLOBAL Terrain archive of terrain elevation data. The University of Alaska has previously used Intermap terrain elevation data for research they performed regarding watershed drainage on the North Slope of Alaska.
"Intermap has demonstrated its ability to create accurate topographic and thematic mapping products using its proprietary IFSAR imagery" said Michael Bullock, Intermap's Vice President of Sales and Business Development. "With this new contract, Intermap will be creating detailed thematic line maps for areas that are difficult to map due to persistent cloud cover." Bullock added that "We can deliver these products very quickly and reliably, adding to the value and demand for these products."
"Intermap has developed proprietary techniques for producing topographic line maps from our image and elevation data" said Tony Brown, Intermap Vice President of Operations. "With this data already within our GLOBAL Terrain archive, we can service the needs of our clients in a very timely fashion."
Intermap is employed by governments and private industry to acquire data over large areas. The company uses this data to generate maps, terrain elevation data, and orthorectified images in several highly automated production facilities. For further information, please contact Garth Lawrence at Intermap, 400 Inverness Drive South, Suite 330, Englewood, CO 80112. Tel: (303) 708-0955. E-mail: [email protected].
San Jose Fire Department Selects STM for Wildfire Training
The San Jose Fire Department has purchased from Solid Terrain Modeling (STM) an STM model to aid in the training, fire pre-planning, and actual fighting of wildfires. A state-of-the-art, full-color, 3D solid-scale model of San Jose's eastern foothills and the Alum Rock vicinity includes the area where a dangerous and costly wildfire occurred in October 2000. This four-foot by four-foot model is an exact replica of the entire area and includes access roads, hazards and jurisdiction boundaries. This model will help firefighters create strategic and tactical training plans for fighting fires in the geographic area where wildfires are most likely to occur. The model represents this area far more accurately than any maps or photos otherwise available to the department. During an actual wildfire, it is possible to bring the model directly to the incident-area command post and use it to plot the fire as it burns, give the commander a real-life picture of the area, where the fire is, and where it is going. STM uses satellite digital elevation and photometric data for the selected geographic area to produce each of its models. The digital elevation data is used to control STM's highly calibrated cutting machine as it carves the model into high-density plastic foam. The photometric data is used to guide STM's printing machine as it applies a satellite photograph directly onto the model's surface. The result is an exact replica of the geographic area -- with breathtaking detail and in brilliant color. For further information, please contact Gary James at Solid Terrain Modeling, 340 Fillmore Street, Fillmore, CA 93015. Tel: (805) 524-7307. E-mail: [email protected].
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