GIS in Education

geoXMF LLC announced today the newest version of its industry-leading enterprise GIS performance monitoring and management software XMF Alerter Version 2.5. Benefits of the new version include:

· Support for ArcGIS Direct Connect XMF Alerter now allows you to set up monitoring for SDE availability via ESRI's Direct Connect support for Oracle, SQL Server and DB2. Alerts will fire when the SDE connection is interrupted so that you can proactively address the issue.

· Remote batch (file initiation) script support This improvement allows managers to remotely run scripts to manage ArcGIS Server services. For example, to restart services via a batch script.

· XML API for Alert status With this API the status of all alerts is available via a URL or "web service" which responds with XML. Using this web service, the Alerter can be integrated with other desktop applications or other web-based applications - such as an existing enterprise dashboard.

This latest version of XMF Alerter is available for download and evaluation at www.geoxmf.com.

XMF Alerter is a complete enterprise performance monitoring and alerting solution for ESRI GIS. XMF Alerter integrates with and enhances ESRI’s industry-standard GIS architecture to deliver a comprehensive tool to improve overall IT efficiency and productivity.

Campbell County, WY and City & County of Honolulu join a growing list of geoXMF clients, including The Nature Conservancy, City of Zurich, Deere & Company, Tallahassee –Leon County GIS, Honolulu Board of Water Supply, Providence Water Supply Board and United Power among others.

About geoXMF
geoXMF LLC is a leader in real-time GIS monitoring and services. geoXMF’s industry leading technology integrates with ESRI Internet mapping software and is used by organizations including transportation, agriculture, water and wastewater utilities, power distribution and local/regional governments. geoXMF provides products that enable GIS professionals to effectively manage their spatial enterprise and proactively monitor the key components of their GIS technology stack.

The company’s XMF Alerter software responds to the growing need for organizations world-wide to maximize GIS performance and reliability.

DigitalGlobe, a leading global provider of commercial high-resolution world-imagery products and services for defense and intelligence, civil government, and commercial customers, today announced it has signed an agreement with Microsoft Corp. to launch the Clear30 program, an initiative to distribute high-resolution, 30-cm aerial imagery of contiguous landscapes, initially in the U.S. and Western Europe. These orthophoto mosaics will be available through Bing Maps and through DigitalGlobe channels.

The Clear30 initiative is a new agreement that expands the current relationship between Microsoft and DigitalGlobe and reflects a commitment to increase accessibility and use of high-resolution digital imagery. To collect the first ever multicontinental aerial imagery from 30 cm, the companies will use the UltraCamG, a large format digital aerial camera manufactured by Vexcel Imaging GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, which is based on Vexcel’s UltraCam large format camera systems, the top selling large format aerial sensors internationally.

“We’re excited about the launch of the Clear30 program and our continued relationship with DigitalGlobe,” said Steve Stanzel, general manager of Bing Maps at Microsoft Corp. “By providing DigitalGlobe exclusive access to our advanced UltraCamG imagery, we can provide our mutual customers easy access and integration of high-resolution digital aerial orthophotos for vast landscapes around the world.”

“We are very pleased to be expanding our relationship with Microsoft and look forward to introducing the UltraCamG imagery into our world imagery solutions,” said Jill Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of DigitalGlobe. “The addition of large quantities of very high-resolution digital aerial imagery, collected quickly and published on a consistent update schedule, will further enhance our ability to distribute a comprehensive digitized globe to our customers.”

The companies did not provide financial details concerning the agreement.

Imagery from the UltraCamG will further expand DigitalGlobe’s industry leading ImageLibrary and will complement the satellite imagery products available from the DigitalGlobe high-resolution satellite constellation, including the recently launched WorldView-2 satellite. Current collection areas for the UltraCamG program include the 48 contiguous United States and Western Europe.

To learn more about advanced DigitalGlobe’s constellation of sub-meter satellites, please visit www.digitalglobe.com.

What is Geopublisher?

Geopublisher is an atlas authoring system which allows easy publication of geo-data, documents, images, videos, and statistics in form of digital multimedia atlases. These atlases can be understood as minimal, pre-configured end-user GIS which offer selected functionality only where its meaningful.

Geopublisher provides tools for quality assurance and multilingual meta-data management. No in-depth knowledge of HTML, SLD or XML is required to create an atlas. Atlases can be directly published on CD, DVD, memory stick, external hard-drive or the Internet. The software is platform-independent and Open-Source.
Features as a glance:

Geopublishing.org software has some unique features which make it especially applicable in the fields of international research, participatory GIS, capacity building, and development cooperation. These features include:

* Atlases created with Geopublisher are simplified end-user GIS with selected functionality available only where it's meaningful.

* Hybrid online and offline atlases make geo-data accessible in areas beyond the digital divide.

* Multilingual management of meta-data avoids redundancies and allows for the quick release of updated atlases.

* Integrated WYSIWYG editors for SLD and HTML allow geopublishing without knowledge of SLD, XML or HTML.

* All software is Free and Open-Source Software compliant with OGC standards.

* Geopublisher + QuantumGIS + OpenOffice provide a free Open-Source Geopublishing desktop.

The software is OpenSouce and can be downloaded free: Geopublisher and AtlasStyler development version, download ZIP file (67.43 Mb)

Installation

1. You need at least a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 6.

2. Uncompress the ZIP file. In Windows we recommend the folder C:\Programme, using Linux it could be /home/user/bin. The ZIP file contains a subfolder called Geopublishing.

3. Open the Geopublishing-folder and double-click start_AtlasStyler.bat or start_Geopublisher.bat. For Linux there are corresponding start_AtlasStyler.sh and start_Geopublisher.sh scripts.

Bjørn Sandvik of the Thematic Mapping blog shared his MSc research paper titled "Using KML for Thematic Mapping".

Paper Abstract
The use of geobrowsers has increased considerably over the last few years. Thematic mapping has a long history in cartography, but the new geobrowsers (like Google Maps and Earth) tend not to focus on this aspect of geographical information representation. This paper examines how Keyhole Markup Language (KML) can be used for thematic mapping. KML is not targeted towards thematic mapping, but it is possible to use KML elements in ways that were probably not intended. Current possibilities for making proportional symbol maps, chart maps, choropleth maps and animated maps with KML will be presented. These experiments show that KML and geobrowsers offer great potential for thematic mapping, but that there are gnificant issues that need to be resolved.

"Using KML for Thematic Mapping" paper is available for free download (PDF, 2.3 MB).

Lithuania's minister of education and science, Gintaras Steponavičius; ESRI president Jack Dangermond; and Linas Gipiskis, managing director of HNIT-BALTIC, UAB, ESRI's distributor in Lithuania, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) during the recent ESRI European User Conference. The MOU allows Lithuania's universities and colleges to obtain educational site licenses for ESRI's geographic information system (GIS) software products, providing access to ArcGIS core software and its extensions.

"This agreement opens the door to increased problem solving-based learning for university students across Lithuania, something that helps build valuable job skills," said Steponavičius.

Dangermond added, "Several Lithuanian universities have already demonstrated the value of GIS in their teaching and research activities. This agreement facilitates the uptake of the technology by a wider range of academic departments that are considering how spatial thinking and problem solving can impact their studies."

An apex body working under the Forest and Environment Department, Government of Gujarat, the Gujarat Ecology Commission (GEC) launched its GIS website. The commission's website is the first in the state of Gujarat to be developed based on GIS.

"It is for the first time in the state that a website has been developed based on GIS. The website will be offering database on environmental conditions in the state of Gujarat. While currently the information dates back to 2004, we are in the process of updating it continually", said SK Nanda, principal secretary, forest and environment.

The commission is engaged in various environmental conservation programmes along with strengthen of village level organisations. Nanda added that in order to create environmental data base commission had developed more than 300 GIS based maps on various parameters of environment along with more than 2000 tables.

The main features of the website include, up to date information on mangrove plantations and mangrove cover in Gujarat, and information on integrated coastal zone management programme funded by World Bank and to be implemented by commission, among other things.

Moreover, under its Environmental Information System (ENVIS) project, information on various environmental factors such as land, water, forests, agriculture, animal husbandry, health mines and mineral, coastal environment and energy has been uploaded.

WorldWinds, Inc. and the NASA Short–term Prediction Research and Transition Center (SPoRT) at the Marshall Space Flight Center have enhanced a product to track favorable conditions of certain pelagic fish species. The daily Chlorophyll–a composite product uses data from NASA’s MODIS satellite and has been applied in the XMWX commercial weather product which provides live, site-specific atmospheric and oceanographic information to motorists, boaters, outdoorsmen, commercial mariners, and emergency personnel allowing them to make more informed decisions while saving time and fuel.

Mariners are among those most in need of reliably available, quality meteorological and oceanographic information. The difference between reliable, quality data and otherwise can have a huge impact on completing a job, having a successful research cruise, the efficient use of fuel, safety, or enjoyable recreation. The equipment needed to receive and display the data, a small antenna, with embedded receiver, and a display device, can be installed in any type of home or vehicle. This weather data is available anywhere in the continental United States and up to 600 miles offshore in coastal US waters. An accompanying GPS option also makes it possible for users to plot their own position on the interface map, showing their movements in relation to storms and other features.

To provide mariners with all of the needed aspects of meteorological and oceanographic data, WorldWinds and partners WxWorx ( www.wxworx.com) and XM Satellite Weather, developed a suite of data products, dubbed XMWX, that includes: current in–situ measurements; sea surface temperature; significant wave height, period, and direction; current and forecasted wind, sea level pressure, and visibility; cloud cover mosaic; marine zone forecasts, additional in–house proprietary data, including FishBytesTM, and other pertinent information.

Funding and support for this project is from the NASA SPoRT group at Marshall Space Flight Center. WorldWinds has made this data available to the public. Data is posted to the public web site within one hour of the daytime MODIS/Aqua collection and can be accessed at: http://www.worldwindsinc.com/Chlorophyll.htm.

WorldWinds presented the results of the project at OCEANS ’09 Conference. The project is also included in the upcoming October issue of NASA’s Spinoff magazine.

Tele Atlas unveiled its first maps for Brunei and the Philippines and also increased coverage across Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Tele Atlas maps for Asia Pacific are now the most complete available, with navigable coverage of 15 countries and territories including more than 6.6 million kilometers of roadways and 8.5 million points of interest (POIs).

Tele Atlas maps for the Philippines cover more than 11 million inhabitants and offer over 10,000 POIs. The maps include coverage of nearly 10,000 kilometers of navigable roads, including fully attributed street network coverage of Manila. Tele Atlas maps of Brunei cover more than 2,700 kilometers of roadways, including complete street network coverage of the country.

Further building on its coverage lead in Southeast Asia, Tele Atlas navigable maps now include:

• Expanded coverage of Indonesia with 340,000 kilometers and more than 96,000 POIs, including detailed street network coverage in all major cities;

• Malaysia coverage with more than 32,000 POIs and 73,000 kilometers of roadways, including 10,000 new kilometers backed by Tele Atlas’ proprietary mobile mapping van technology;

• Thailand coverage of more than 765,000 kilometers and 476,000 POIs, marking an increase of more than 10,000 new POIs and more than 80 percent of fully attributable coverage;

• The addition of 110,000 kilometers and two million POIs in China, for a total of more than 2.1 million kilometers and 10 million POIs available for the country.

The new Tele Atlas maps are immediately available to all Tele Atlas personal navigation, wireless, Internet, automotive and enterprise customers worldwide. The latest updates also include a range of Tele Atlas enhancement products such as 3D Landmarks, 2D City Maps and Digital Elevation Models, which give local search application users maps that more closely reflect their surroundings.

AAMHatch is pleased to announce the popular Multi-Site product is now available for 50cm GeoEye-1 satellite imagery. Multi-Site, already available for 80cm IKONOS imagery, allows clients interested in multiple captures over small areas to acquire the higher resolution and more accurate GeoEye-1 satellite imagery.

“CTF Solution has reached the milestone of acquiring more than 1,000,000ha of submetre resolution satellite imagery to undertake property planning and mapping. The majority of the high resolution satellite data we have utilised has been IKONOS multi-site data, which we are sourcing from GeoEye’s Australian Reseller, AAMHatch”, says Tim Neale – Director, CTF Solutions.

Neale goes on to advise that, “Over the past year, AAMHatch has provided CTF Solutions with good advice and timely service, and we have been able to take good advantage of the cost-effective Multi-Site product for our clients, both in Australia and internationally.”

“As many clients wish to acquire imagery over multiple smaller sites or over multiple dates, this new option is really cost effective” says Lisa Dykes, AAMHatch Satellite Imagery Team Leader.

The benefit of this new offer is really that the minimum new capture area of 100km2 is slashed to only 50km2 if the same site is imaged 3 times annually or 3 separate sites of 50km2 are ordered at the same time. This equates to a 50% saving on each new capture order. The added advantage is that users still maintain the other benefits, i.e.

1. 2km x 2km guaranteed cloud free area
2. 15% cloud cover or less assurance policy
3. Unparalleled horizontal accuracy of 3m (excluding terrain effects) without ground control
4. 4 band multispectral imagery

For further information, visit the satellite imagery webpage here.

Remote sensing solutions provider DMCii has [today] been approved as a supplier of satellite imagery to the Office of Global Analysis, USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service (OGA USDA FAS) through its procurement agency Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC).

DMCii was invited to supply satellite imagery to the OGA USDA FAS because it provides a unique combination of technical advantages for agricultural monitoring. Firstly, its satellites provide 22m and 32m Ground Sample Distance (GSD) multi-spectral imagery with a large 650km swath width that is capable of monitoring large areas rapidly. Secondly, the company is able to acquire daily images of a given location by coordinating the multi-satellite DMC constellation. Finally, multispectral image data is ideal for monitoring crop growth and is delivered in a highly calibrated Landsat-compatible format for immediate use in crop monitoring applications. DMC data has long been in regular use by precision agriculture services in Europe, where the speed of acquisition, accuracy and very large image size are exactly what is needed for successful monitoring of critical crop growth stages across entire countries.

Bob Tetrault, USDA Satellite Imagery Archive Manager, commented, “The use of DMC satellite data allows the crop analysts to receive broad area, multi-temporal monitoring coverage which is critical in our operational global food security analysis.”

Dave Hodgson, Managing Director DMCii, added, “Our multi-satellite imaging service is ideal for frequent coverage and crop monitoring as the data is collected as large images and delivered in a highly calibrated Landsat-compatible format so applications don’t need to be reinvented.”

DMCii delivers highly calibrated ortho-rectified imagery that can be imported directly into GIS applications. It has delivered 32metre GSD multispectral imagery since the first DMC satellite launched in 2002. The recent launch of two new 22metre GSD satellites, UK-DMC2 and Deimos-1 has greatly increased the imaging capacity of the constellation and has also doubled the number of image pixels per hectare to boost the effectiveness of the system for monitoring agriculture.

By coordinating the constellation of satellites, DMCii covers vast areas within a very short space of time so that data shows the state of vegetation for a very specific period. For example, DMCii coordinated the imaging of 38 countries in Europe within tight time windows specified by each country. DMCii will provide a rapid delivery of data to OGA USDA FAS so that it can be used for rapid decision making during growth seasons.

Cross compatibility is another important consideration when using different satellite imagery. The multi-spectral imagers used on the DMC satellites provide exactly the same spectral bands as the Landsat bands 2, 3 and 4 (R, G, NIR). They are also specially designed to provide highly calibrated imagery, with negligible differences in radiometry between DMC satellites so that data can be combined seamlessly. The large size of DMC images saves considerable time and expense for end users, because they cover huge areas and reduce the need to process large numbers of datasets.

Through the agreement, DMCii data is now available on an approved supplier list from which the OGA USDA FAS and other Government departments coordinate data supply without the duplication of effort and expense.

About DMC International Imaging Ltd
DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii) is a UK based supplier of remote sensing data products and services for international Earth Observation (EO) markets. DMCii supplies programmed and archived optical satellite imagery provided by the multi-satellite Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). DMC data is now used in a wide variety of commercial and government applications including agriculture, forestry and environmental mapping.

In partnership with the British National Space Centre (BNSC) and the other DMC member nations (Algeria, China, Nigeria, Turkey and Spain), DMCii works with the International Charter: ‘Space and Major Disasters’ to provide free satellite imagery for humanitarian use in the event of major international disasters such as tsunami, hurricanes, fires and flooding.

DMCii was formed in October 2004 and is a subsidiary of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, the world leader in small satellite technology. SSTL designed and built the DMC with the support of the BNSC and in conjunction with the DMC member nations Algeria, China, Nigeria, Turkey and Spain.

TatukGIS has released the 9.0 upgrade of its GIS Developer Kernel product as managed .NET and native VCL editions. The TatukGIS Developer Kernel is a comprehensive Software Development Kit (SDK) for the custom development of stand-alone, embeddable, and client-server GIS applications using object-oriented languages.

The 9.0 version introduces important new features including:

• Advanced support for coordinate systems/projections reflecting EPSG codes and OpenGIS WKT definitions, with almost 3,000 predefined coordinate systems (including all U.S. State Planes) and user-defined coordinate systems.
• On-the-fly reprojection of image, grid, and vector map layers for display of map layers from different coordinate system on a single map.
• Automatic coordinate system recognition with most layer types.
• Image, grid, and vector map rotation.
• Support for additional vector/raster map formats: TAB/MAP, DWG2000, S-57, JSON, WMS, WFS, LandXML, OpenStreetMap, GSHHS, FME, GDL/OGR, Surfer Binary Grid.
• Support for additional spatial database map layer formats: Microsoft SQL Spatial Server, PostGIS, MapInfo SpatialWare, Oracle GeoRaster, ArcSDE Raster.
• Support for user-defined layers to read/write data from almost any source.
• Editing/storage of 3D shapes (Z & M values).
• Grid data export.
• Antialiased output for enhanced map rendering quality.
• HTML style rendering of labels.
• Unicode support.
• Hierarchical layers, layer grouping, sub-layers, sub-projects.
• Support for Delphi and C++Builder versions 2009/2010
• Support for touch screen interface with Delphi/C++Builder 2010

For a full product description and specifications, refer to the Developer Kernel product page on the TatukGIS web site.

Hemisphere GPS was awarded a position on the 2009 Cleantech 10 list by Corporate Knights.

The Cleantech 10 award, compiled by Corporate Knights and Cleantech Indices LLC, recognizes companies that minimize the impact human activity has on the environment. Hemisphere GPS does this by developing technologies that improve operational performance while lowering energy consumption and reducing the impact of chemical applications.

The 2009 Cleantech 10 awards are chosen based on a comprehensive screening process of the 122 Cleantech companies currently traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. A full list of the annual award recipients is published in the November issue of Corporate Knights Magazine which accompanies The Globe and Mail, Canada’s most circulated national newspaper.

Free LandSat Image News Update! Dr. David P. Roy, from South Dakota State University, and company, have came up with "Web-enabled Landsat Data (WELD): Landsat ETM+ composited mosaics of the conterminous United States."

The Web-Enabled Landsat Data (WELD) project will improve the consistency and quality of Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data through a fusion with MODIS land products to systematically generate “seamless” consistent mosaicked ETM+ data sets with per-pixel quality assessment information and derived land cover characterization at monthly, seasonal, and annual time periods. The resulting high spatial resolution Landsat mosaic products will be generated for the conterminous USA and Alaska for a 7-year period and made freely available to the user community. The WELD project is funded by NASA’s Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program.

A preliminary WELD data set is available here, specifically, a 12-month annual composite of the conterminous U.S. generated from ETM+ orthorectified and terrain-corrected data acquired December 2007 to November 2008. In the future, other annual, seasonal, and monthly, mosaic data sets will be made available for evaluation by the user community.

These data are defined with 30m pixels in the Albers Equal Area projection with standard parallels 29.5°N, 45.5°N, latitude of origin 23°N, and central Meridian 96°W. The data are stored in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) with HDF internal compression. HDF is a data file format designed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to assist users in the storage and manipulation of scientific data across diverse operating systems and machines. For example, it is used to store the standard MODIS products. Future product versions will have refined processing and content, most notably atmospheric correction, radiometric/BRDF normalization, improved cloud and ETM+ SLC-off gap-filling, and land-cover characterization.

The data are stored in tiles of 5000 x 5000 30m pixels. There are a total of 501 land tiles referenced using a two digit horizontal (HH) and vertical (VV) tile coordinate system reflected in the filename as conus.hHHvVV.2007dec-2008nov.v1.1.hdf. The image below illustrates the tile coordinate system.

A tile location tool is provided to locate pixels and tiles for given longitude and latitude coordinates. The tool is available for computers running Unix/Linux operating systems, the C source code and installation instructions can be downloaded HERE. A web-interface version of this tool will be available shortly. In addition, for each tile there is a static conus.hHHvVV.coordinates.hdf file that contains the geographic latitude and longitude for the center of each 30m pixel (datum WGS84).

The tile data are available from this EROS web site HERE.

Note that each mosaic tile is typically 240MB and the total size of all 501 mosaic tiles is 107GB, and that each static geographic latitude and longitude file is typically 110 MB and the total size of all 501 tiles is 53GB.

Update: October 20, 2010 - Free WELD Data - Latest Version Now Available

Data citation
Roy, D.P., Ju, J., Kline, K., Scaramuzza, P.L., Kovalskyy, V., Hansen, M.C., Loveland, T.R., Vermote, E.F., Zhang, C., 2010, Web-enabled Landsat Data (WELD): Landsat ETM+ Composited Mosaics of the Conterminous United States, Remote Sensing of Environment, 114: 35-49. Download the PDF.

The Landsat Earth observing satellites have assembled an essential record of moderate-resolution data sets of the planet’s surface features that can now be downloaded via the internet. The nearly four decades of data provide a valuable resource for scientists and decision makers concerned with changes to the land surface, as do the daily, current observations.

The Landsat Satellite Image series began in 1972. Each image in the archive covers an area of 185 by 185 km. Although technical changes have occurred over the 37-plus years of observation, the data in the archive are fully compatible with the current acquisitions. The series has maintained a consistent multispectral coverage using a range of instruments that were built specifically for the Landsat missions and that are upgraded regularly.

As of 31 December 2008, over 2.3 million individual scenes are available from the U.S. archive, and an estimated 4.7 million are available through a network of international ground stations.

Landsat data have recorded many of the natural and anthropogenic changes that have occurred in the global land surface. The effects of hurricanes, floods, tsunamis and wildfires, as well as urban growth, the Chernobyl incident and the clearing of tropical forests have been studied by scientists, resource managers, environmental planners and government agency representatives by using Landsat data.

As announced at the GEO-V plenary last November, all of the Landsat data in the U.S. archive are available for download at no cost over the Internet; images can be previewed and downloaded from http://glovis.usgs.gov or http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov.

The launch of three Glonass navigation satellites postponed last month due to technical glitch is rescheduled for October 29, Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said Monday.

"This launch is in our plans. The expected date is October 29," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying.

The launch, originally scheduled for September 25 from the Baikonurspace center in Kazakhstan, was postponed because of a malfunction in one of the Glonass-M satellites currently in orbit.

All six Glonass satellites required to complete the Glonass satellite grouping will be launched by the end of this year, head of the Roscosmos Anatoly Perminov said earlier.

Glonass, a Global Navigation Satellite System, is the Russian version of the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and is designed for both military and civilian use. Both systems allow users to determine their positions to within a few meters.

The Glonass project requires 24 satellites to provide navigation services worldwide, but currently has only 18 satellites in orbit that cover the entire Russian territory.

The City of Elizabethtown, KY Department of Engineering has selected Spatial Data Integrations, Inc. (SDI) to assist their staff in the transition to an enterprise Geographic Information System (GIS).

Founded in July 1797, Elizabethtown is located in the heart of Kentucky and is the Hardin County Seat. The growing population has attributed to the desire to more adequately represent the City’s infrastructure using its geographic location. Over the last several years as the City’s GIS has evolved, there has been a dramatic increase in the need for geospatial capabilities throughout other city departments.

SDI will be assisting the City’s GIS staff in migrating existing spatial and non-spatial datasets to an ESRI SDE/Microsoft SQL Server environment. In conjunction with this migration, SDI will provide a suite of custom tools along with training GIS personnel on the conversion process, geometric network development and SDE/SQL maintenance and administration.

Founded in 1994, SDI is a full service ISO 9001:2000 compliant GIS firm that provides a wide variety of geospatial solutions, including database design and maintenance, systems and data integration, military intelligence and homeland security, emergency management and response and application development to government, utilities and the private sector. SDI has headquarters in Louisville, KY and satellite offices in Bowling Green, KY and Greenwood, IN.

DigitalGlobe, a leading global provider of commercial high-resolution world-imagery products and services for defense and intelligence, civil government, and commercial customers, today released the first images from WorldView-2, the company’s most recent high-resolution, remote-sensing satellite. Initial images, issued after just 11 days on orbit, captured Love Field Airport near Dallas and the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas. More refinements to early-stage images can be expected as the ongoing check-out and calibration continues.

WorldView-2 was successfully launched on October 8, 2009, and is currently completing its routine calibration and check-out period. DigitalGlobe expects the satellite to be operational and delivering commercially available imagery products and services approximately 90 days from the launch date.

The launch of WorldView-2 marked another first for DigitalGlobe and the industry as the first high-resolution, eight-band, multispectral commercial satellite. WorldView-2 is expected to improve the speed and rate of imagery delivery to the government and commercial markets with large-scale collection capacity and daily revisit rates. WorldView-2 joined DigitalGlobe’s existing sub-meter satellites on orbit, QuickBird and WorldView-1, to enable an annual imaging capacity equivalent to three times the earth’s land mass.

WorldView-2 collects multispectral imagery at 1.8 meter resolution and panchromatic imagery at 0.46 meters.[i] The additional multispectral band capability supports improved levels of feature identification and extraction and more accurately reflects the world’s natural color.

DigitalGlobe will preview first imagery from WorldView-2 at booth #591 at the GeoInt 2009 Symposium this week in San Antonio, Texas.

More WorldView-2 first images here.

Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis:

Two funded research assistantships for PhD students

There are currently available two funded research assistantships in the Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering, University of Maine, USA. Students will be working with advisor Prof. Mike Worboys. Students will register for the degree of PhD. The funding will cover a stipend, tuition expenses, and a contribution to health insurance.

The first position relates to a recent project funded by the US National Science Foundation entitled "Information integration and human interaction for indoor and outdoor spaces". The project abstract may be found at http://worboys.org/projects/Title%20and%20abstract.pdf.

The second position relates to recent funding received on the use of spatial information systems and sensor technologies in emergency management.

The main focus of both assistantships will be the creation of underlying models and fundamental theories.

Candidates for either position should hold a master’s degree, or equivalent, in a subject that can be applied to spatial information systems and geographic information science (e.g., computer science, information systems, mathematics, or geography). The positions are available to be taken up immediately, but we are prepared also to wait for as long as it takes for the right candidates. Further information can be obtained by emailing Mike at worboys@spatial.maine.edu. The Department’s website is at http://spatial.umaine.edu/

The University of Maine is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

You may check our other listing for PhD opportunities and grants/scholarships here.

Subscribe to our email feeds for GIS Grant updates.

According to a report, India will soon join a select space club by launching two dedicated satellites in polar orbit to study climate change through atmospheric research and detection of greenhouse gases, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G. Madhavan Nair said.

"The satellites will be launched in 2010 and 2011. The first will be a 50 kg micro-satellite to conduct atmospheric research. The second will be a remote sensing satellite to monitor emission of greenhouses gases like methane and carbon dioxide," Nair told.

The dedicated satellites will make India one of the few countries in the world to have such advanced facility to study the impact of climate change due to emission of greenhouse gases.

The use of satellite technology will also demonstrate that India is serious about global warming and committed to protect the environment.

The Ares I-X now is secured on Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The test rocket, sitting on a mobile launcher platform, was “hard down” on the pad’s pedestals at 9:17 a.m. EDT. The rotating service structure is expected to be rolled into place at about 12:30 p.m.

Ground teams began rolling out Ares I-X and its launch platform aboard a crawler-transporter from Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building at 1:39 a.m. It arrived at the pad about 7:45 a.m.

Managers will meet at Kennedy on Friday for a Flight Test Readiness Review to thoroughly discuss whether the flight test is ready to proceed and set an official launch date. Currently, Ares I-X is targeted to launch Oct. 27 at 8 a.m.

Launch Vehicle: Ares I-X
Targeted Launch Date: Oct. 27
Launch Window: 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. EDT
Launch Pad: 39B
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

NASA's first flight test for the agency's next-generation spacecraft and launch vehicle system, called Ares I-X, will bring NASA one step closer to its exploration goals -- to return to the moon for more ambitious exploration of the lunar surface and to travel to Mars and destinations beyond. The flight test will provide NASA with an early opportunity to test and prove flight characteristics, hardware, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I.

Today, October 19, at 11 a.m. EDT (5 a.m. HST) Neki had maximum sustained winds near 40 mph, and was moving west-northwest near 14 mph. Estimated minimum central pressure is 1006 millibars. It was 825 miles south of Honolulu, Hawaii and about 830 miles southeast of Johnston Island near latitude 9.5 North and longitude 159.6 West. Neki is expected to shift slowly toward the northwest later tonight or Tuesday, at which time it is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane.

NASA's QuikScat instrument captured an inside look at Tropical Storm Neki's surface winds using microwave technology from its vantage point in space on Oct. 19 at 0425 UTC (12:25 a.m. EDT). QuikScat showed highest wind speeds near 40 mph.
NASA's Aqua satellite also flew above Neki and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured a visible, infrared and microwave image of the storm. The visible image showed a storm getting organized and developing the signature tropical storm shape. The infrared and microwave images confirmed some high thunderstorms, indicating some strong convection and a strengthening storm.

Neki is forecast to pass very close to Johnston Island on Wednesday, October 21 as a hurricane.

Source: JPL/NASA

SuperGeo Technologies, the leading global provider of complete GIS Software, announced a GIS application to farm roads and bridges information in Fu Hsing Township, Taiwan.

Surrounded by mountains, Fu Hsing Township in Taoyuan County attracts many tourists to the beautiful environment every year. However, the attractive natural environment takes the local government a great deal of budget to maintain the roads and bridges. Also, many minor roads are not recorded, so it is difficult for the staff to manage the road conditions. Therefore, Fu Hsing township office plans to build a GIS system to centrally store and manage data and also to help policy maker for better decisions.

"Farm Roads and Bridges Information System" is the Web-GIS system built for this project. The database is built by SuperGeo’s Internet Map Server, SuperWebGIS. To effectively apply the census and the result, this project designs a complete database of farm roads and bridges. With the map server, a complete set of WebGIS system is established to generate maps and provide GIS functions. In the future, users in related units can use the functions in the system simply through the browser software.

The system function architecture can be divided into four parts: Basic Map Manipulation, Thematic Layer Query, GIS Position, and Management.

1. Basic Map Manipulation:
The system provides various map browse tools. Users can select Zoom to Full Extent, Zoom In/Out, Pan or Measure tools to do basic browsing functions depending on their needs.

2. Thematic Layer Query:
The system provides various layer data, such as bridge, mile point, disaster point, suspension bridge, cadastral map, road, aerial photography, and terrain map. As users directly click any of the data, the surveying photography of the clicked centroid will show. Besides, if the user has the administrator authentication, the attribute data of the facility can be modified with the modification function.

3. GIS Position:
The system provides ten methods to position: Village Position, Cadastral Position, Coordinate Position, Mile Point Position, Farm Road Position, Bridge Position, Damaged Road Position, Damaged Bridge Position and Suspension Bridge Position. Users can select the suitable position method as the needs by clicking the list to rapidly and efficiently search the required centroid.

4. Management:
The system uses account authentication mechanism as the foundation of the web management. Through the account authentication, users can manage web, increase or modify disaster centroid, load road maintaining data or load farm roads according to the authentication; the data can be maintained and updated.

MELBOURNE'S bustling heart has been recreated in 3D for the city's sat-nav loving motorists.

Developed using aerial photography and state of the art digital mapping techniques, the ultra realistic 3D representation of the CBD is the most advanced recreation of the city's core yet.

Dubbed 3D City Models, the software will bring Melbourne's streets to life for drivers relying on sat-nav technology.

Sensis digital mapping subsidiary Whereis, will launch the feature on Monday.

Whereis spokesman Adrian Trout said the maps would be fully rendered and textured, allowing drivers to easily orient themselves to their surroundings and increase their situational awareness on busy CBD streets.

"Whilst providing extremely accurate and up-to-date basic road information remains our highest priority, the addition of 3D City models allows drivers to gain a sense of `realism' when navigating in dense urban areas," said Tout.

"This coupled with our photo realistic Junction Views takes the navigation experience to a new level and is an early sign of things to come."

HP has created the AIR App that will help students compare the best colleges and universities in America, based on the U.S. News & World rankings. The AIR App tool produces maps for visual comparison among colleges and universities.

The map can be customized using faculty ratio, cost of education, etc.

Space "Ribbon" Found at Solar System's Edge. NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, has just produced new images of the solar system that has shocked astronomers.

The first full-sky map of the solar system's edge—more than 9 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) away—has revealed a bright "ribbon" of atoms called ENAs.

The solar system is surrounded by a protective "bubble" called the heliosphere.

Video: Space Ribbon at Solar System

What you’re seeing here are sand dunes on Mars. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera takes high resolution images of the surface of Mars.

Awesome!

[source]

OSA Optics & Photonics Congress will be held in San Jose, CA, Oct 12-15. One of the topical meetings on Computational Optical Sensing and Imaging (COSI) will discuss recent advances in joint optical-digital system design - interesting new framework.

List of invited speakers:

Joint AO/COSI/SRS Session

JWA1, Innovative Adaptive Optics and Applications, Christopher Dainty; Natl. Univ. of Ireland Galway, Ireland

JWA2, Adaptive Regression Kernels for Image/Video Restoration and Recognition, Peyman Milanfar; Univ. of California at Santa Cruz, USA

JWA3, Light Field Photography and Microscopy, Marc Levoy; Stanford Univ., USA
JWA4, Adaptive Complex Field Control with an Array of Phase-Locked Fiber Collimators, Mikhail Vorontsov, Thomas Weyrauch, A. Beresnev, Gary W. Carhart, Ling Liu, Konley Aschenbach; Inst. for Systems Res., Univ. of Maryland at College Park, USA

Invited Speakers

CTuA1, Computational Photography, Ramesh Raskar; MIT, USA

CTuA2, Task-Specific Compressive Imaging, Mark Allen Neifeld; Univ. of Arizona, USA

CTuB1, Frequency Analysis in the Light Field and Time Space Domains, Fredo Durand; MIT, USA

CTuC1, Fundamental Limit for Optical Devices, David A. B. Miller; Stanford Univ., USA

CTuC2, Imaging Systems with Extreme Form Factors, James R. Leger, J. Burch; Univ. of Minnesota, USA

CTuD1, Three-Dimensional Superresolution Using Single-Molecule Photoswitches and a Double-Helix PSF, W. E. Moerner¹, Michael Thompson¹, Matthew Lew¹, Majid Badieirostami¹, Samuel J. Lord¹, Nicholas R. Conley¹, Hsiao-lu D. Lee¹, Sri Rama Prasanna Pavani², Rafael Piestun²; ¹Stanford Univ., USA, ²Univ. of Colorado at Boulder, USA

CTuD5, Illuminating Cameras, Srinivasa Narasimhan; Carnegie Mellon Univ., USA

CWB1, A Computational Compound Imaging System Based on Irregular Array Optics, Jun Tanida, Keiichiro Kagawa, Keita Fujii, Ryoichi Horisaki; Osaka Univ., Japan

CWB2, Multiscale Optical Systems, David Brady; Duke Univ., USA

CThA1, Holographic Ghost Imaging, M. J. Padgett¹, B. Jack¹, J. Leach¹, J. Romero¹, S. Franke-Arnold¹, M. Ritsch-Marte², S. M. Barnett³; ¹Univ. of Glasgow, UK, ²Innsbruck Medical Univ., Austria, ³Univ. of Strathclyde, UK

CThA2, Nonlinear Imaging, Alexandre S. Goy, Demitri Psaltis; Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

ESRI GIS' Live Online Training Seminars run approximately 60 minutes and are broadcast live from ESRI in Redlands, California. The seminars are free and there is no registration—attendance is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Introduction to ESRI Mobile GIS Solutions
Thursday, November 19, 2009
9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., & 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time (US & Canada)
12:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m., & 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time (US & Canada)
5:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m., & 11:00 p.m. UTC/GMT

Maximizing GPS Accuracy in GIS Data Collection
Thursday, December 3, 2009
9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., & 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time (US & Canada)
12:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m., & 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time (US & Canada)
5:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m., & 11:00 p.m. UTC/GMT

Ask ESRI to send you a reminder the day before the seminar that includes the seminar date, times, and instructions for attending.

China Information Security Technology, Inc., ("China Information Security," "CIST" or the "Company"), a leading total solutions provider of digital security,geographic information, and hospital information systems in China, today announced that three of the Company's projectshave been honored with high level awards in the surveying and mapping industry in China.

The Company's "Multi-source Spatial Information Network Sharing Software Platform and Engineering Applications" project was awarded first place for the Surveying and Mapping Science and Technology Progress Award by the Chinese Society for Geodesy Photogrammetry and Cartography (the "Society") while the Company's "Zhejiang Provincial Geographic Information System" project won second place. In addition, the Company's "Nanchang Digital Garden" project was awarded third place in the Outstanding Surveying and Mapping Engineering Award. These awards are granted annually by the Society to companies and projects that have created innovative technology, found innovative and beneficial applications for existing technology, successfully adopted and developed upon foreign technology or that have achieved excellence in technological information administration, as determined by the National Science and Technology Award Principles.

Mr. Jiang Huai Lin, Chairman and CEO of CIST, commented, "We are greatly honored to receive such prestigious awards, which are the highest level awards in the Chinese surveying and mapping industry. We are greatly encouraged by the wins, which we believe demonstrate our technological strength, recognized brand name and our leading position in the GIS industry. We expect that with the Chinese government's current support of the domestic GIS product market, we will be able to leverage these awards to capture more market opportunities in the domestic digital surveying and mapping space as they arise."

About China Information Security Technology, Inc.

Through its wholly-owned Chinese subsidiary, China Information Security Technology, Inc. ("CIST" or the "Company") headquartered in Shenzhen, China ("PRC"), is a leading application software developer, systems integrator and full-service Geographic Information Systems ("GIS") solutions provider to the public security and civil-use markets in China, dedicated to the use of information technology to improve public safety and information management. Its main business lines range from digital information security, to GIS, and digital hospital information systems. The Company provides a broad portfolio of fully integrated solutions and services, including its First Responder Coordination Platform, Intelligent Border Control System, Residence Card Information Management System, Police- and Civil-use GIS products, and Digital Hospital Information System, to serve the growing demand for digital geographic information, hospital and electronic medical record systems in China. Its commitment to leading-edge technology and quality assurance has won the Company numerous government and enterprise contracts throughout China. To learn more about the Company, please visit its corporate website at http://www.chinacpby.com.

NAVTEQ, the leading global provider of digital map, traffic and location data for in-vehicle, portable, wireless and enterprise solutions, announced today at Futurecom 2009 that it has significantly increased the amount of visual content available for its NAVTEQ map for Brazil. This content includes 3D Landmarks and 3D City Models for five of the ten largest cities in Brazil. In addition to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, content is available for Belo Horizonte, Curitiba and Porto Alegre. NAVTEQ customers incorporate this rich data into navigation systems to improve guidance in busy city environments.

This 3D visual content enhances the navigation experience by enabling detailed representations of reality in navigation systems at key decision points. In providing this level of detail, NAVTEQ customers can develop navigation systems that improve orientation and decision making by drivers while increasing their overall satisfaction with the system that they are using. For example a navigation screen displaying the Se Cathedral in Sao Paulo, the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro or the Government Palace in Belo Horizonte at the accurate position on the road network can provide a sense of confidence that end users associate with overall system performance and value as uncovered by NAVTEQ consumer research.

“Insights from NAVTEQ proprietary research reveal that consumers correlate visual detail with the ideal navigation device”, commented Cindy Paulauskas, vice president Americas map and content products for NAVTEQ. “These findings support our aggressive plan to increase the number of cities offering 3D visual content in Brazil and demonstrate why visual content is important for a premier navigation experience.”

All of the NAVTEQ visual content is geo-referenced to the industry-leading NAVTEQ map. And in keeping with NAVTEQ’s single database specification, these visual content products are offered in a consistent global format to help NAVTEQ customers quickly and easily move into new geographic regions by reducing application development time.

Beyond this global standardization, NAVTEQ provides technical customer support to assist customers with integrating its map and map products into their applications. Additional marketing programs are also available to provide support in launching these navigation applications and devices.

Planning Solutions Inc., a land-use planning company in Honolulu, has deployed GPS-Photo Link photo-mapping software to facilitate site assessment activities related to renewable energy and other development projects in Hawaii.

The Honolulu firm uses the software as a critical component in land-use permitting applications for wind, solar, and wave-energy development projects. Developed by GeoSpatial Experts of Thornton, Colorado, GPS-Photo Link displays photos in their precise geographic locations on digital maps for integration with GIS layers and the generation of documents and reports.

GPS-Photo Link is compatible with any handheld GPS receiver and digital camera. The software also works with the recently introduced models of GPS cameras from Ricoh and Nikon that geotag photos in real time as well as cell phones cameras with geotagging capabilities.

From report: Bing Maps, which was formerly known as Virtual Earth, is Microsoft’s answer to Google Maps. The maps service is directly available on the Bing homepage and offers a 2D mode by default. This mode can be used to zoom in and out of locations in the world or get directions from one place to another. The main difference between the two maps services is the third party support. Hundreds, if not thousands of Google Maps mashups exist which is one of the prime reasons for the popularity of the service.

Bing Maps 3D is an add-on for Bing Maps which activates the 3D mode. This mode adds the possibility to zoom and rotate in 3D. Probably the most interesting aspect of the add-on are the 3D models of buildings and sights that have been added to the map. Among the cities are New York, Las Vegas, Tokyo and Berlin.

Bing Maps 3D can be installed in two different ways. The first option is to visit the Bing Maps website and click on the 3D link in the upper left control panel. This will open a window with the possibility to download Bing Maps 3D. The second possibility is to download the add-on directly from a Microsoft server. The web browser needs to be closed and restarted after installation. The installation displays (preselected) options to switch to MSN as the homepage and Bing as the default search engine. Users who do not want this should ensure that they have unchecked the options.

A fast video card and Internet connection is advised to enjoy Bing Maps 3D.

Google took additional measures to let users crowdsource its Google Maps application, allowing U.S. users to point out gaps in the search engine giant's Google Maps coverage. When users search and scan map results, they will see a "report a problem" link on the bottom right of a the map. Google Maps' Street View also got a shot in the arm this week, rolling out to cover Canada and the Czech Republic. Google also agreed to permanently blur images on its internal database within one year of their publication on Street View.

Google this week took additional steps to let users crowdsource its Google Maps application, allowing U.S. users to point out gaps in the search engine giant's Google Maps coverage.

Now, when users search and scan map results, they will see a "report a problem" link on the bottom right of a the map, or by right-clicking on the map itself.

For example, if a new highway ramp opens up, or construction is being done on a particular highway, users can alert Google to those changes, helping the company keep its Maps results accurate, current, and therefore, more relevant. See a video demo of this feature in action here.

Andrew Lookingbill, Google software engineer, said Google will sift through users' submissions of this data, corroborate it with other users, sources and imagery, and make changes where they make sense. Google hopes to resolve each edit within a month and will keep users apprised of its editing process if they so choose.

This isn't the first time Google has enlisted the wisdom of crowds for Google Maps. In August, Google rolled out live reporting of traffic conditions on back roads for some cities.

When people who have enabled Google Maps with My Location on their smartphones use Google's traffic map tool, their phones sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast they're moving. Google compares travelers' speed across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, and send it back to users in the Google Maps traffic layers.

Google isn't just appealing to consumers for help mapping the United States on the Web. The company this week created a new base map dataset leveraging geospatial datasets from the USDA Forest Service and the US Geological Survey to boost parks and water bodies. There are also more maps of college campuses, and more maps of trails and paths for cyclists.

Google Maps' Street View, which provides providing 360° horizontal and 290° vertical street-level views of city streets, also got a shot in the arm this week by rolling out to cover Canada and the Czech Republic and offering new high-resolution imagery across the U.S., and several special destinations in Japan through the Street View Partner Program.

Street View, which is now available in 14 countries, is also being rigorously amended by Google to meet citizens' privacy rights. In August, Google created a Street View tutorial to explain how it works to users, and how to go about getting an image removed..

Earlier this week, Google moved to address concerns about Street View from the European Union, which in June asked Google to give advance notice to the public before collecting images and to jettison un-blurred images used to create Street View.

Google, which blurs faces and license plates before publishing them on Street View, agreed to permanently blur images on its internal database within one year of their publication on Street View. This means that Google will only keep the blurred version.

"We think one year strikes a reasonable balance between protecting people's privacy and our ability to reduce mistakes in blurring, as well as use the data we have collected to build better maps products," wrote Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel.

The Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence (GISCE) at the South Dakota State University is in need of an Associate Professor or Full Professor to fill up its faculty position vacancy.

An Associate or Full Professor with research interests in quantitative remote sensing, large-area terrestrial monitoring and/or modeling is sought for a position with the Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence. Specialization in one of the following areas is preferred: 1) land/atmosphere interactions and climate modeling, 2) active sensors (radar and/or lidar) for vegetation characterization, 3) modeling the dynamics of coupled human-environmental systems. The position workload is 80% research, 10% teaching, and 10% service. Research includes securing externally funded grant awards and recruiting and supervising grant-funded researchers. Teaching responsibilities include instructing one course per year and recruiting and advising students in the Geospatial Science and Engineering doctoral program. Service to international and/or national research organizations, the University, and the Center is expected. The successful candidate will hold academic rank at SDSU in Geography and/or other appropriate department. The successful candidate will be expected to train and advise graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and research assistants.

Required Qualifications: (Education, Experience, Knowledge, Skill, Aptitude)
• Earned PhD in appropriate field with a background in Remote Sensing and/or Earth System Science.

• Demonstrated record of successful externally funded research in area of specialty.

• Demonstrated scholarly activity, including a portfolio of prestigious publications and collaborative research.

• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with research colleagues, students, and nonspecialists.

Desired Qualifications:
• Minimum of five years experience in conducting externally-funded research.

• Demonstrated experience mentoring graduate students and/or staff in scholarship and research activities.

• Demonstrated leadership in professional service activities.

• Commitment to principles of affirmative action and equal employment opportunity.

Salary: Nationally competitive and commensurate with experience.

University/Community:
The Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence (GIScCE) is a collaboration with the USGS Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science. The GIScCE mission is to apply geographic information science capabilities, especially remote sensing, to advance the scientific understanding of the Earth System and, in particular, the characteristics and consequences of a changing global landscape. GIScCE faculty are expected to carry out collaborative research, seek professional development and implement educational programs in their area of study.

SDSU is a land grant institution and the state's largest institution of higher education with an enrollment of approximately 12,000 students. SDSU is located in Brookings, South Dakota, a community of approximately 20,000 near the east central border of South Dakota on Interstate 29. The city has an excellent K-12 education system, is accessible to major medical facilities, has an active cultural and social environment, and has numerous lakes and parks within driving distance. It is 50 miles north of Sioux Falls, a city of 124,000. South Dakota has a continental climate and four distinct seasons, ranging from cold winters to hot summers. In 2007 it was ranked the 9th most livable state by the CQ Press Annual Ranking based on 44 factors, including median household income, crime rates, employment, health, environment and education.

Application Deadline: Screening will begin December 21, 2009, and continue until the position is filled.

Application Process:
SDSU accepts applications through an on-line employment site. To apply, visit: https://yourfuture.sdbor.edu, search by the position title, view the job announcement, and click on “apply for this posting.” The system will guide you through the electronic application form. The employment site will also require the attachment of a curriculum vitae, cover letter and research statement, and the names and contact information for three professional references. Please contact SDSU Human Resources at (605) 688-4128 if you require assistance with this process.

For questions on the position, contact Dr. Michael Wimberly, Search Chair, at (605) 688-5350 or via email at Michael.Wimberly@sdstate.edu.

The Geoinformatics Forum Salzburg (GI Forum) is scheduled for July 6-9, 2010, at the University of Salzburg, Austria. The forum focuses on an international audience that shares an interest in Applied Geoinformatics.

This Call for Papers aims at researchers who design, develop and apply advanced methods and techniques of Geoinformatics to a broad range of application domains.

Geoinformatics Forum: Themes and Application Fields

GI_Forum solicits contributions on emerging topics and research outcomes related to current Geoinformatics methodology, and especially wish to attract submissions pertaining to the following topics:

• Advances in Geovisualization and Cartography (in cooperation with InterCarto-InterGIS)

• Spatial Data Infrastructure

• Mobile GIS and Location Based Services

• Digital Terrain Representation and Analysis

• Digital Cities and Urban Sustainability Digital Cities are meant to provide a collaborative platform based on modelling of existing and planned urban infrastructure. This concept supports applications of a wide scale range, from the whole city, a city quarter, or a group of buildings down to a single building. We welcome contributions focused on applications as well as conceptual views.

• Global Change: Monitoring and Modelling “Global change” – a short formula for a multitude of anticipated shifts in societal and environmental domains due to strong global drivers such as climate change – calls for monitoring and modelling techniques to better understand regional implications and potential dynamics of such changes in a geospatial manner. International programmes and visions (GEO, GMES, SEIS,...) envisage unified systems based on quality standards for data, products and services to establish optimized observation and forecasting capacity within Europe, and globally.

• Vulnerability: Spatial Assessment and Analysis This topic is expected to highlight different developed and currently investigated methodologies to spatially assess vulnerability. It will specifically address the issue of vulnerability assessment, independent from conceptual discussions. The focus will be on the review and discussion of different methods of GIScience employed to assess, quantify and represent vulnerability as integrated spatial phenomena. Within a workshop session, current achievements and future research challenges will be identified and formulated.

• Learning with Geoinformation We encourage contributions discussing various issues related to geoinformation in education. In 2010 a special focus is put on the concept of 'Spatial Citizenship' and the role of GI-based learning in developing the relevant competences. The bilingual conference on Learning with Geoinformation will host such contributions in sessions partially shared with GI_Forum. Please refer to the separate CFP (www.gi-forum.org/learning). These contributions will be published in separate proceedings.

• Submission: Types & Deadlines. GI_Forum 2010 gives authors choices about the type of submission they want to make in order to accommodate a variety of interdisciplinary contributions. Submissions are expected in English language according to the formatting guidelines published on the conference website.

Deadline for submission of full papers for oral presentation and publication in the conference proceedings; and extended abstracts for discussion sessions: February 1, 2010. Late deadline for submission of extended abstracts for poster presentation: June 7, 2010. Submissions are accepted starting from December 2009 here.

Winners of Be Inspired Special Recognition Awards by Bentley were announced in a press release. The winners will be awarded next week during its Be Inspired: Infrastructure Best Practices Symposium and Awards in Charlotte, N.C. The awards honor outstanding achievements in infrastructure and are judged by an independent panel of industry experts.

The winners of these awards are uniquely innovative and visionary infrastructure projects and organizations that were placed into nomination by the Be Inspired jurors for achievements embracing multiple Be Inspired Awards categories. The nominees were then reviewed by a panel consisting of Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley, CTO and founder Keith Bentley, COO Malcolm Walter, SVP Bhupinder Singh, SVP Buddy Cleveland, and Jay McGraw, Group Publisher, McGraw-Hill Construction. The achievements being recognized include: Attaining Return on Innovation, Sustaining Our Society, Sustaining Our Environment, and Sustaining the Professions.

The winners of the 2009 Be Inspired Special Recognition Awards are as follows:

- Attaining Return on Innovation – KBR/EOS Oil & Gas Services Joint Venture, the North Rankin Redevelopment Project. The project best represents innovation in the use of technology and creative workflows to create value and deliver better-performing infrastructure with quantifiable results.

- Sustaining Our Society – Hatch Associates Pty Ltd, Adelaide Desalination Project. The project best demonstrates the power of infrastructure to benefit society by improving quality of life, promoting economic development, and increasing resilience against natural disasters or climate change.

- Sustaining Our Environment – Olsson Associates, Antelope Valley. The project best illustrates how an infrastructure project can help reduce ecological footprint, increase biocapacity, and facilitate the wise use of nonrenewable resources.

- Sustaining the Professions – Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB). This organization has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to sustaining the infrastructure professions through continuous learning, professional development, mentoring the next generation of infrastructure professionals, and providing an exceptional environment for learning.

Today, you will be able to watch the launch of DigitalGlobe’s (NYSE: DGI) WorldView-2 satellite. The launch is scheduled for 11.38 a.m. PDT. The launch will be streamed LIVE over the Internet, accessible here:

Boeing through its commercial launch business is supporting the launch of DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 imaging satellite aboard a Delta II rocket procured from United Launch Alliance (ULA). The launch is scheduled for Oct. 8 at 11:38 a.m. Pacific time from Vandenberg, AFB, Calif.

WorldView-2 is the first high-resolution 8-band multi-spectral satellite commercially available. The new bands support greater levels of feature identification and extraction, more accurate change detection, and a realistic mirror image of the world's natural colors.

Tomorrow, watch the live TV broadcast of the LCROSS mission on NASA TV when NASA will bomb the moon to try to find water underneath the lunar surface. The moon blasting live streaming is scheduled to start at 6:15 am EDT/3:15 am PDT on October 9.

The first hour will include commentary and status reports. The actual impact should start at 7:30 am EDT/4:30 am PDT (11:30 UT).

Video:

As an ENVI or IDL user, you've already chosen the right tools to help you get important information from your data or images. Now, take the next step to success by attending a training class, led by our professional instructors, to learn how to use IDL and ENVI to achieve your project goals. Register now for one of the October - December 2009 classes below.

Processing SAR data using SARscape ENVI Module - Boulder, CO
October 12-15, 2009
Do you have SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) data you need to process? In this course you will learn how to use the SARscape module of ENVI to generate meaningful SAR products from different kind of SAR data. This four day course will focus on different aspects of SAR processing such as: Basic SAR Processing (focusing, multilooking, filtering, geocoding,…), SAR and DinSAR interferometry, Pertinent Scatterer (PS) approach, Polarimetry (basic polarimetry processing and PolInSAR).

Exploring ENVI - Vienna, VA
October 20-23, 2009
Exploring ENVI will teach you the basics of using ENVI for image processing and analysis. Topics include reading and writing files, basic analysis functionality, image georectification, GIS overlay, and multispectral classification. You’ll also be introduced to ENVI’s advanced spectral analysis capabilities with a wide variety of image types.

Introduction to IDL - Vienna, VA
October 28-30, 2009
Introduction to IDL is a three-day course that provides professionals and students with a working knowledge of the IDL programming language. The course is focused on using IDL for data exploration, visualization and analysis, with examples from astronomy, atmospheric science, remote sensing and medical imaging.

Exploring ENVI - Vienna, VA
November 03-06, 2009
Exploring ENVI will teach you the basics of using ENVI for image processing and analysis. Topics include reading and writing files, basic analysis functionality, image georectification, GIS overlay, and multispectral classification. You’ll also be introduced to ENVI’s advanced spectral analysis capabilities with a wide variety of image types.

Spectral Analysis with ENVI - Boulder, CO
December 01-04, 2009
This four-day course focuses on understanding the theory behind spectral imaging, and then how to use ENVI’s analysis and mapping algorithms for today’s image analysis applications. Topics covered include multispectral image classification, principle components analysis, spectral libraries, spectral signatures, whole-pixel and sub-pixel mapping, and ENVI’s powerful endmember extraction algorithms. We will use data from several of the most widely used sensors, including AVIRIS, AISA and HYMAP.

Scientific Programming with IDL - Boulder, CO
December 9-11, 2009
Scientific Programming with IDL is a three-day course on programming with IDL. In the course, we focus on programming methods and best practices in IDL. We also explore techniques for data access, analysis, visualization and output that make IDL useful for scientists in research settings.

To learn more about ITT training for IDL and ENVI you can visit the training link.

RapidEye, the only geospatial solutions provider to own and operate a constellation of five Earth Observation satellites, announced today a new strategic partnership agreement with Taipei City, Taiwan based Lotus (H&R). The partnership establishing Lotus as the only distributor for RapidEye products in Taiwan was signed earlier this week.

"We are pleased to welcome Lotus on-board as our partner in Taiwan," said John Ahlrichs, Vice President of RapidEye. "The Lotus team has a proven ability to identify and serve the needs of diverse customer segments and we look forward to working together to develop and grow the market for wide area imaging programs in this area."

Ms. Rubia Chen, Vice President of Lotus, said, "We are very excited about being able to provide our customers in Taiwan RapidEye's image products. The additional Red Edge spectral band offered by their sensors provides a unique benefit for Agricultural and Forest applications. The wide coverage and daily revisit of the constellation also provides timely information for our customers in the mapping, disaster monitoring and control fields."

RapidEye's worldwide network of distributors continues to grow to provide customers an avenue to purchase RapidEye products in their own region and in their own language. You can follow the progress of RapidEye's partner team by visiting this.

NAVTEQ, the leading global provider of digital map, traffic and location data for in-vehicle, portable, wireless and enterprise solutions, announced today at the 2009 American Trucking Associations Management Conference that it has enhanced its NAVTEQ Transport coverage to include the major highway network across the entire country of Canada.

NAVTEQ Transport is a set of navigable attributes included in the NAVTEQ Map specifically designed for trucks and large vehicles. These attributes enable NAVTEQ customers to develop a wide range of solutions to support the transportation and logistics industry for both truck management and the truck navigation. Content includes physical and legal restrictions such as height and weight, warnings, HAZMAT information and Points of Interest unique to the trucking industry.

Because NAVTEQ Transport is part of the highly accurate NAVTEQ map, it simplifies the application development process and supports quality truck management and navigation tools. Additionally, NAVTEQ's single global data specification design element strategy provides the foundation for applications that can cross country boundaries, further simplifying the development process for multi-national applications.

Known for its quality maps, NAVTEQ collects up to 260 attributes for its map, including Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) attributes that when used in either adaptive cruise control systems or in-cab navigation devices, can lead to significant fuel savings. ADAS attributes that can affect savings include slope and height data, traffic signals, railroad crossings and intersections. Research indicates these attributes support fuel savings when used to project upcoming changes in the terrain enabling adaptation of driving and vehicle behavior to optimize fuel consumption. Additionally, recently shared NAVTEQ proprietary research highlighted the fact that regular use of a navigation system can increase fuel efficiency by 12%.

The leading suppliers to the trucking industry are providing high-quality navigation systems that support accurate turn-by-turn navigations for Class 6-8 trucks. And trucking companies that adopt in-vehicle navigation have the opportunity to increase their profitability and maintain a competitive advantage.

“These leading companies recognize that truck navigation can provide a significant return on fuel economy, high driver satisfaction and increased fleet efficiency,” commented Roy Kolstad, vice president, Enterprise Americas, NAVTEQ. “NAVTEQ is proud we are providing the industry with the high quality data needed to support these applications.”

In Canada all NAVTEQ Transport content for the major highways has been verified. In the United States, coverage and verification includes all major highways and down to the last mile in dozens of high population counties. To further support the development of quality truck industry applications, NAVTEQ provides technical customer support to assist customers with integrating its map and truck attributes into their applications.

MathWorks' Chief Scientist, Cleve Moler, invites everyone to the MATLAB Virtual Conference 2009.

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The MATLAB global community will be gathering together on October 14th for the first-ever MATLAB Virtual Conference. This is a new style of conference, done over the web; it will give users from around the world a chance to hear presentations from MATLAB experts and interact with each other and with MathWorks staff.

Over 6,500 users – from many countries and in industry and academia – have registered already. I’m pleased to see such a strong interest in the event.

We have now published a full conference agenda, which you can see by visiting www.mathworks.com/matlabvirtualconference and viewing the conference presentations page.

I will be giving a keynote presentation, as I review Experiments with MATLAB, a new electronic book I am publishing directly to the web.

I hope to see you online on October 14th.
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On Friday Nokia unveiled a new feature on its online mapping portal Ovi Maps. Called “Good Things”, it allows users to share their favorite places around the world.

Good Things is made up of three key elements. The first is the ability to spot Good Things icons on the map, where you can click on each one to find out more information, add it to a route or to your favorites. There’s also a live Good Things feed which shows the latest of such POIs, as they’re added. Obviously the key part is the ability for users to add their own Good Things. This is particularly easy to do in dropping a pin at the right place and entering a few lines of text.

Later this month a new Nokia buzz campaign will kick off in London, with tower cranes playing host to giant signposts showing off the latest Good Things being added by users.

Google Maps plus Craigslist equals Yard Sale Treasure Map. Yard Sale Treasure Map is a free-to-use online tool to find Craigslist-posted yard sales in your area.

Just enter your Address, Radius of Search and the Day, and the Yard Sale Treasure Map browses Craiglist for your area, and returns a route that will take you to all the yard sales.
It is not very interesting if you live in a small town. Try it here.

A new world atlas which concentrates on population rather than land mass has been published, says report.

Researchers from the University of Sheffield created the online atlas of 200 maps that have been redrawn to show, at a glance, which cities are the largest, how all urban areas compare, and whether many or few people live in the countryside.

The images, which were created as part of a Leverhulme Trust project to remap the world and extend the Worldmapper project, have been created using population distribution data so viewers can understand how many people make up each nation.

The new world guides break with the 500-year tradition of conventional cartography which shows compass directions as straight lines.

Benjamin Hennig, a postgraduate researcher at the University's Department of Geography, was part of the team that created the maps by using the gridded population of the world database of the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project.

Mr Hennig said the new projections give an "interesting insight into different countries".

A range of new licences from Ordnance Survey provide users with free access to a wide range of mapping data for experimentation and development.

The move forms part of Ordnance Survey's new business strategy, which aims to further promote the innovative use of geographic information. Users can now download sample areas of premium products direct from the Ordnance Survey website, while even more data, up to 10% of anywhere in the country, is available for free to those that request it.

The three new licences, entitled "Discover", "Evaluate" and "Developer" make it easier for businesses, government agencies, social groups and entrepreneurs to experiment with Ordnance Survey data and realise the value of location-based information. Samples of 22 datasets are available, including the entire OS MasterMap product suite of topography, imagery, address and transport network layers.

Got a Hyperion image you want to view on ENVI program? I haven't used any Hyperion image before with ENVI. When I happen to download one, I had a problem viewing or opening using the software ENVI. ENVI could not read the file, it just says with an error window.

But there are always tools and some get-around to display or load the Hyperion image. The ITT Visual Information Solutions Code Contribution Library has links to the Hyperion Tools that you can download for free and use.

The Hyperion Tools plugin is designed to facilitate the use of Hyperion data in ENVI. Its most basic functionality is to convert Level 1R HDF and Level 1G/1T HDF and GeoTIFF datasets into ENVI format files that contain wavelength, full width half maximum, and bad band information. Also included are options specific to each input dataset format that further aid in using Hyperion data within ENVI.

To install the Hyperion import program simply download the file and move it to the "save_add" subfolder of the ENVI installation:

ENVI 4.3 and older:
- Windows : C:\RSI\IDL##\products\envi##\save_add\
- Mac OS X : /Applications/rsi/idl_#.#/products/envi_#.#/save_add/
- UNIX/Linux : /usr/local/rsi/idl_#.#/products/envi_#.#/save_add/

ENVI 4.4 and newer:
- Windows : C:\Program Files\ITT\IDL##\products\envi##\save_add\
- Mac OS X : /Applications/itt/idl##/products/envi##/save_add/
- UNIX/Linux : /usr/local/itt/idl##/products/envi##/save_add/

Once this is accomplished, restart ENVI and a new menu item will be added to the software: File > Open External File > EO-1 > Hyperion. This user function provides a custom input utility for Hyperion Level 1 data. The user function will automatically convert the data from HDF to ENVI Standard format, define wavelength / FWHM / bad bands list metadata, and provide an option to repair areas of bad data using an interpolation technique. As a byproduct of the data input process, this user function also outputs an ASCII text file that contains the appropriate scale factors for input into the FLAASH atmospheric correction module.

Find the free download file here.

Webinar: Connecting Your GIS to the Field: Office to Mobile Workforce Integration
Date: October 8, 2009
Place: USA
Start time: 10/8/2009 9:00 AM PDT
End time: 10/8/2009 10:00 AM PDT

Event Title: Connecting Your GIS to the Field: Office to Mobile Workforce Integration Webinar

Event Description: Mobile and web technology has greatly improved the field data collection process for virtually all departments needing to access the field data. By having easy access to data and easy deployment methods, crews today are able to react more quickly to changing priorities and provide a higher level of customer service. This has allowed companies to get rid of paper-based forms, plus upload and download project data digitally. The presenter will use case studies to demonstrate how companies have been able to take advantage of the web and mobile technology to promote data sharing across departments, which ultimately will save their projects time and money.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify how mobile technology can help the field and office
• Define the essential requirements to successfully deploy mobile applications
• Understand the advantages of using digital forms versus paper-based forms

Register here.