GIS in Education

NOAA's National Marine Protected Areas Center has created a new interactive online mapping tool that, for the first time, allows users to view boundaries and access data for more than a thousand marine protected areas (MPAs) in the United States.

MPAs are conservation areas that include the marine environment, such as some National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges, National Marine Sanctuaries and similar areas managed by state, local and tribal governments. The mapping tool allows users to view all the MPAs in a specific location or across an entire region, as well as search for specific attributes, including conservation purpose, managing agency and level of protection, among others.

"MPAs are an important tool in conserving our ocean and coastal resources which are vital to our nation’s environmental health and economy," said David M. Kennedy, acting assistant administrator for NOAA’s National Ocean Service.

Data for the mapping tool comes from the newly updated MPA Inventory, a comprehensive database on existing U.S. MPAs. Originally launched in June 2008, the inventory contains a range of information on each of the 1,637 protected areas established or managed by federal, state, or territorial agencies or programs. Data was collected from most management agencies and programs and is current as of January 2010. The mapping tool can be accessed at www.mpa.gov/mpaviewer.

Today’s launch of the MPA mapping tool is part of a broader update of the MPA Center’s Web site, the leading source for information about U.S. MPAs. Comprehensive information on ocean uses for the entire California coast is also available on the Web site through the Ocean Uses Atlas. This data was collected through a series of workshops that brought together resource managers, stakeholders and scientists to map patterns of human uses of the ocean in California.

The Ocean Uses Atlas project is an innovative public-private partnership between NOAA’s National Marine Protected Areas Center, the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Resources Legacy Fund, and fills a critical information gap in ocean management. Atlas data maps are available at http://www.mpa.gov/atlas.

Please make plans to join your fellow IDL and ENVI users at VISualize 2010 in Washington, DC on May 19-20. VISualize is designed to bring together IDL and ENVI users to provide opportunities for networking, sharing ideas, and working on strategies that advance our scientific data analysis and visualization community.

Abstracts are now being accepted for VISualize 2010. If you have an interesting application, want to report success in furthering your research, or want to demonstrate a creative approach using ENVI or IDL, VISualize 2010 is the perfect opportunity to share it with your peers or to get feedback from other users in the community.

Suggestions for topic areas include, but are certainly not limited to:
* Atmospheric & Climate Applications
* Data Analysis & Visualization
* Astronomy, Astrophysics & Planetary Physics
* Remote Sensing, GIS and Geospatial Applications
* Medical/Biologic Applications

Abstract submission deadline is April 8, 2010. Your abstract submission should include the title of your presentation, your name and contact information, the organization you are representing, a short informal description of your proposed presentation, and a short biography. Please submit your abstract via email to hcline@ittvis.com.

When: 05/19/10 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM

Where: VISualize 2010, World Wildlife Fund, 1250 24th St NW #6, Washington, DC 20037
USA

Register Now.

Specialists of ScanEx RDC will partake in the VII International Industrial Forum GEOFORM+ 2010 that will take place on March 30 - April 2 at the "Sokolniki" exhibition center (Moscow).

Exhibition booth №C1163 of ScanEx RDC will be open during the Forum, where anyone can learn more about Russian space technologies in remote sensing. Company specialists will tell about modern firmware complexes for Earth observation data reception, processing and archiving, about the creation of customized Internet-portals using space images, and will consult about any aspects of remote sensing data processing.

A round table called "Victory Strategy: Cooperation or Competition", will be held within the framework of the GEOFORM+ 2010 Forum organized by Yandex media company. ScanEx specialists - developers of the popular Kosmosnimki.ru resource - will speak about the development of Russian geoinformation services, available via Internet to the public at large.

Thematic events called "GeoPower" will be held within the frames of the GEOFORM+ 2010 Forum:
- Contemporary Management Conference: Situational Awareness and Neogeography;
- Round table "Geoportal and Geo-interface: Geography for the Authorities";
- Round table "Internet and Technology Innovations in Geographic Education".

During the conference "Contemporary Management: Situational Awareness and Neogeography" on March 30 ScanEx Deputy General Director Alexei Kucheiko will speak about the possibilities of Russian space technologies in remote sensing for monitoring, mitigation and response to emergencies, related to both natural and human-induced disasters. Projects of practical application of space imaging and geoportals for informational support of emergency response services' operations will also be presented.

Imaging of the Earth from space to resolve emergency monitoring, mitigation and fast response tasks has undeniable advantages over alternative methods of getting geospatial information. Large-scale natural calamities (tsunami, earthquakes, tropical cyclones, etc.) along with mass mortality bring destruction of transport and telecommunication infrastructure, paralyzing the activities of government agencies and power structures, which in most cases prevents from making adequate onsite assessments and taking timely and reasoned decisions.

During the conference "Space Monitoring Systems and Technologies of Applying Space Activities Results", to be held on April 1 at the VNIIEM (All-Russian Research Institute of Electromechanics), ScanEx General Director Vladimir Gershenzon will talk about modern ScanNet technology of multi-satellite monitoring.

Integrated application of operational data of several RS programs using ScanNet technology will allow solving a variety of emergency monitoring tasks (floods, fires, etc.) and those related to region development, town planning and construction, forest management, new project constructions (Sochi Olympics facilities, interstates, pipelines, railways, etc.), remote monitoring of navigation and ecological maritime situations at the seas of Russia.

- ScanNet technology is a fundamentally new level of solutions for creation and introduction of information services into practice using a geospatial data complex, including satellite imagery data, - says Vladimir Gershenzon.

Vibal Foundation republished the pioneering work of National Artist for Historical Literature Carlos Quirino called "Philippine Cartography".

Considered a landmark history of Philippine maps and cartographers, as well as the only published comprehensive bibliography of Philippine maps and prints, the third edition of "Philippine Cartography" is part of Vibal Foundation’s Filipiniana Clasica line.

Only 100 copies of the breakthrough work were published when it first came out in 1959. An equally limited number was produced in Amsterdam in 1963 for the second edition. This third edition now incorporates the corrections Quirino introduced in the Amsterdam edition of the book, but also adds several new maps and foldout pages.

"It was a good idea for Vibal to publish a third edition with new maps and better reproductions," says the book’s editor, map collector and scholar, Dr. Leovino Ma. Garcia.

The book is also part of the exhibit "Pen, Paper, and Bookmaking: The Life of Carlos Quirino," housed at the Yuchengco Museum, located in RCBC Plaza, Ayala ave., Makati and ongoing until the end of the month.

Blue Marble Geographics will provide a free web demonstration of the Blue Marble Desktop on Wednesday March 31st at 9:00 a.m. EDT. This 60-minute webinar will outline time saving techniques to correctly define and transform custom local coordinate systems. For all of your grid to globe GIS data conversion challenges, learn how the Blue Marble Desktop accurately and efficiently references both vector and raster datasets within one easy to use interface.

Blue Marble's geospatial data manipulation and conversion solutions are used worldwide by thousands of GIS analysts at software companies, universities, oil and gas companies, civil engineering, surveying, technology, enterprise GIS groups, government and military organizations.

This Webinar will demonstrate the Geographic Calculator best-fit functionality, which allows users to relate their local coordinate systems to any standard geodetic or projected coordinate systems. With a set of control points, you can create a local fitted system. This fitted system is then permanently added to your custom datasource, and can be used for conversions between your local system and WGS84 or any other of the hundreds of coordinate systems that are part of Blue Marble's extensive datasource. Users can choose the mathematical model for their best-fit analysis, from affine up to fifth order polynomial. With dockable windows, enhanced workflow tools and the ability to export to other users, Blue Marble will save you time and money on every project. The Geographic Calculator allows users to work with raw survey data to conduct a best-fit transformation to take grid data to geodetic easily and correctly, also making use of the georeference tool. Learn why GIS analysts and surveyors that need to bridge the gap between highly accurate survey data and user-friendly GIS data turn to Blue Marble.

Space is limited, so sign up now, here.

Research developed at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid's School of Computing has brought us a big step closer to the application of self-organizing neural networks in the remote sensing field.

To be more precise, this research has developed new self-organizing neural network training and visualization algorithms for application in remote sensing, generating simplified models of large volumes of multi-spectral information.

Neural networks are mathematical models inspired by the operation of biological neural networks. They are now applied across a wide range of disciplines to solve a broad spectrum of problems. One of the most widely used neural network models is what is known as the self-organizing map.

Remote sensing is a discipline that is concerned with the acquisition of information about the Earth's surface without entering into physical contact with the object under observation. The development of tools for analysing and processing multi-spectral images captured by sensors on-board satellites has paved the way for automating tasks that would otherwise be impracticable.

Large data volume

The key problem related to remote sensing is the large volume of multi-dimensional data that has to be managed. The self-organizing neural network, and specifically Kohonen's model, has proved to be a versatile and useful tool for exploratory data analysis.

But Kohonen's model has some, primarily architecture-related, constraints. This has led to the emergence of new types of self-organizing maps, like the Growing Cell Structures (GCS) model, that tackle these issues.

Using the GCS model, the relationships of the information input patterns can be visualized without the topological constraints of Kohonen's model. On the downside, though, some training parameters are hard to configure, as, even if constant values are assigned, it is not clear what the permitted value range for these patterns is.

New algorithm

By proposing a new GCS model training algorithm that improves this network-input space topology fit, the research developed at the School of Computing comes closer to solving this problem.

The modification of the GCS algorithm makes this neural network model easier to use to generate simplified models of the large volumes of multi-spectral information typically associated with the remote sensing field.

With the aim of exploiting this paradigm within the remote sensing field, the research project has developed several GCS-based multidimensional information visualization methods, as well as a number of network labelling techniques for semi-supervised and unsupervised classification or multispectral information-based variable estimation processes. Additionally, as part of the research, several GCS-adapted measures have been developed to evaluate the quality of the trained network.

The developed methodology has been applied across a range of hot topics in the remote sensing field, like classification of land covers in semi-supervised and supervised processes, evaluation of the quality of training areas selection, estimation of the physical variables of aqueous covers or the analysis of spectral index validity for images with special features.

Application to other areas

The features of the developed tools make the proposed methodology a very useful tool in other research fields that, like remote sensing, have to manage multidimensional information.

For this reason, this research has included experiments related to DNA strand management, as well as the processing of medical data related to kinematic variables of walking gait in children. This served to validate the developed methodology.

Source Universidad Politécnica de Madrid's School of Computing [via]

The geodeveloper community's strong response to the ESRI 2010 Mashup Challenge created a quandary for the jury. "I was really impressed with the creativity and quality of all the applications that were submitted," says Michael Gould, ESRI's director of education for industry solutions. "It was difficult for us to choose the top four entries. This is a testimony to the immense possibilities afforded by the new ESRI Web APIs and the freely available ArcGIS Online content."

The guidelines for the challenge were simple: build a mashup using ESRI's ArcGIS Online content and Web APIs, publish the related URL, and post a video describing the application on YouTube.

Dave Bouwman, CTO and lead software architect at DTSAgile of Fort Collins, Colorado, took the top prize of $10,000 with Executive Compensation Mashup, which compares top U.S. executive salaries with the total income for selected counties in the United States.

Daniel Bradshaw, owner of DB MediaStudio, Springville, Utah, won second prize and $5,000 with Fluttr: The Human Story in Realtime, a mashup that automatically populates an international map with live feeds from Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube.

Mark Laudon, of LaudonTech in Surrey, Canada, took third prize and $2,500 for Floor Plan Mapping, an interactive building floor plan with employee search capabilities including a brief employee biography.

Ernesto Giron, GIS senior analyst for the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Cali, Colombia, won fourth prize and $2,500 for Drought Timing for Agronomic Screening. This interactive international soil map indicates soil type and quality in a specified area and its agricultural potential with respect to changes in climate.

Links to the winning mashups and related videos can be found at www.esri.com/apimashup.

The aviation industry is preparing to use European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) once it becomes certified for the sector later this year, said speakers at Galileo Application Days.

The aviation sector is one of the primary reasons EGNOS was launched by the European Community. The EGNOS Open Signal became operational in October 2009. The safety-of-life signal is expected to be certified for use in civil aviation later this year, said Hans de With, Market Development Officer with the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA).

About 40 EGNOS procedures for landing aircraft with EGNOS have been designed in France in preparation for when the satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) can be used, he said at the event’s aviation session on 4 March.

“The European Commission is dedicated to extending EGNOS geographically and a range of organisations – including the GSA – are working to facilitate its market adoption,” he said.

Studies have shown that the full adoption of EGNOS-enabled flight procedures, such as localised performance with vertical guidance (LPV), could produce savings of up to €4 billion in Europe.

Stefano Scarda from the European Commission’s Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry stated that with EGNOS “the aviation community has been involved from the beginning” and that now there was a need to “implement all the steps needed to ensure that full use can be made” of the system. The quality of the EGNOS Open Service – available since October 2009 for general applications where safety of life is not an issue – is excellent, he said.

“The actual performance is much higher than the defined specification,” said Scarda.

Having a large-scale boreal forest biomass inventory would allow scientists to understand better the carbon cycle and to predict more accurately Earth’s future climate. However, obtaining these maps has been wrought with difficulty – until now.

A new processing algorithm has been developed using stacks of images from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) on ESA’s Envisat satellite that allows for the retrieval of boreal forest biomass well beyond the levels that have been previously reported.

Forests play a crucial role in Earth’s carbon cycle by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in biomass. Undisturbed forests are carbon sinks as they absorb carbon, while forests that are logged or burnt down become carbon sources as they release carbon into the atmosphere.

Boreal forests and woodlands are estimated to cover approximately 14.5% of Earth's land surface, comprising an area of nearly 16 million sq km (about the size of the contiguous 48 states of the US). The boreal forest ecosystem, which spans Russia, northern Europe, Canada and Alaska, comprises interrelated habitats made up of forests, lakes, wetlands, rivers and tundra.

Read from the source.

Geosoft announced the availability of its 2010 Software Release for geoscientists and exploration professionals. The release includes a number of important advancements that improve access to data and information, make mapping and reporting tasks more efficient, and expand 3D subsurface capabilities.

"We’ve listened to our customers, and have enhanced software usability to support greater productivity," says Louis Racic, Geosoft Product Director. "We’ve also incorporated new capabilities to streamline common tasks such as finding data, making maps and generating reports, and have expanded our capabilities for creating integrated interpretations in 3D.”

Enhanced Multidisciplinary Workflows
New capabilities, in the 2010 release, support generalists and specialists working across all disciplines – geology, geophysics and geochemistry.

* Statistical and reporting capabilities have been improved within Geosoft’s exploration geology workflow, Target and Target for ArcGIS. New capabilities make it easy to highlight, report and assess significant intersections in drilling projects.
* Enhancements have been made to several geophysical extensions. These include the addition of section support for crooked sections within montaj Geophysics; a new Gridfill Multistep algorithm option within MAGMAP; and the availability of Draped surface calculations within the GMSYS 3D gravity modelling extension.
* Significant enhancements have been added to the Geochemistry for ArcGIS extension. These include: new leveling capabilities, 3D topography draping, coloured histogram, multi-histogram and probability plots. The montaj geochemistry workflow now includes log options for Boxplots, a new duplicate sample ID scheme and multiple channel gridding to make grids of all your geochemical assay data.
* Improved dynamic linking capabilities include new shadow cursor support for all data views within a map. A map with a section view and surface view will now be linked with a shadow cursor. This linking applies to scatter plots and tri-plots, plan maps, section maps and 3D.

“Effective 3D rendering of the subsurface has become essential for presentation and collaboration,” said Racic. "We continue to expand 3D gridding options, within our core platform, and we have added utilities to make working with voxels easier. A great deal of exploration work is still completed in 2D plans and sections, and we now support the ability to work with crooked geophysical sections to help bridge this gap, enabling more accurate representations of the data in 2D and 3D. ”

Improved Data Access and Data Support
With the 2010 release, Geosoft has also expanded data access capabilities to address the challenges inherent in organizing, finding and accessing the increasing volumes of data used for earth exploration projects. This includes providing tools to easily find data, and expanding data format support to promote efficient exploration and integration of diverse data types.

Geosoft has introduced Seeker, a new tool designed to help explorers find and start using data quicker. Seeker provides a single interface for handling the entire data access workflow – from structured metadata querying to the viewing of results and from data extraction to the explorer’s desktop application.

Data support has been added for ODBC, JPEG 2000 and GOCAD voxet data files. ODBC support now includes a new filtering capability, for accessing drill hole databases or surface data without the requirement for SQL query knowledge.

More information on the 2010 Software Release is available at www.geosoft.com.

According to a press release, a “Web enabled Ground Water Information System” was dedicated to the Nation on “World Water Day”. Jointly developed by Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) and NIC, the System provides ground water related spatial and non spatial data in seamless manner to the users through internet. This web system has revolutionized the whole concept of ground water information availability to the citizens as well as other professional organizations. Now even a farmer can access ground water information for the village through the e-kiosks being set up all over the country.

Dedicating the Web Enabled Water Ground Information System to the nation yesterday, the Union Minister for Water Resources Shri Pawan Kumar Bansal said that the system would provide all the stakeholders access to various thematic layers as well as the nationwide database generated by CGWB on ground water level and water quality. This initiative would help more effective sharing of information relating to ground water resource availability and water level trend with user groups, planners and administrators.

The Minister asked all other Central and State Government Departments which are repositories of ground water data to come forward to pool it on the web based knowledge platform for the benefit of all stakeholders.

The Ground Water Information System provides access to various thematic layers as well as the nationwide database on ground water levels and water quality being monitored by CGWB. Efforts are being made to integrate the ground water related data from state agencies as well as various central agencies. The stakeholders involved in ground water development and management can have access and visualize the ground water condition in the country through Framework Service Oriented Architecture over Enterprise Spatial Data Infrastructure around Multi-layer GIS. The system is currently available in Government-to-Government (G2G) domain for planning and decision-making for management of ground water resource.

The Salient Features of the system are :-

· Framework Spatial Data Service Oriented Architecture

· State of the art solution using latest GIS technology developed in web enabled environment around SOI reference system in 1 :2,50,000 scale

· Data mirroring and data update with staging server at CGWB

· Rich spatial & Non-spatial Data content on ground water resources

· Easy navigation based on administrative/hydrological boundary

· Derived Information on Ground Water

· Ground Water Potential

· Online access to base data on Ground Water across the country including water level and water quality

· Integrated watershed boundaries (as per CGWB)

· On-line help & support services

· Role based user management

· Metadata

· Pre-defined Queries

Ministry of Water Resources accords the highest priority to protect the water resources and emphasis is being given on collective responsibility of all stakeholders, whether individual, communities, institutions, non government organizations etc. Concurrently, steps shall be taken up to accelerate assessment and monitoring of water quality at local, regional and national levels using watershed as a management unit. Industries, Institutions and Government should work hand in hand in providing low-cost solutions for abatement of pollution in water resources.

Do you have a student deserving of a Macelwane Medal nomination? Have you been mulling over a nomination for the Bowie Medal but just haven't taken the time to submit it? If your work is in the field of seismology, do you have a person in mind worthy of consideration for the Lehmann Medal?

This is your time as the AGU nomination deadline for the 2010 medals and awards has been extended to 30 April, allowing for additional time for submissions. The medals and awards of AGU are among the most respected in the Earth and space sciences communities.

So consider nominating a mentor, a colleague, or a mentee for an AGU medal specific to their achievement or field of study.

Medals to be Awarded in 2010:

* William Bowie Medal
* James B. Macelwane Medal
* John Adam Fleming Medal
* Walter H. Bucher Medal
* Maurice Ewing Medal
* Robert E. Horton Medal
* Waldo E. Smith Medal
* Charles A. Whitten Medal
* Harry H. Hess Medal
* Roger Revelle Medal

Awards to be Presented in 2010:

* Edward A. Flinn III Award
* Excellence in Geophysical Education Award
* International Award
* Athelstan Spilhaus Award
* Charles S. Falkenberg Award

Journalism Awards to be Presented in 2010:

* Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism — Features
* David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism — News

Nominate here.

3rd International Conference on Geoinformation Technology for Natural Disaster Management and Rehablitation (GIT4NDM 2010)

Date: 19-20 October 2010, Chiang Mai, Thailand

You are cordially invited to attend, exhibit and sponsor the 3rd International conference and exhibition on "Geoinformation Technology for Natural Disaster Management and Rehabilitation (GIT4NDM&R)" .

The conference will focus on the use of geoinformatics for natural disaster preparedness such as earthquake, flood, landslide, drought, typhoon, tsunami etc., and for rehabilitation and risk management by exploring the various causative factors. There will also be deliberations on how to use GIS for better planning of risk areas and also rehabilitation.

There will be:

- Key Note and Plenary Speeches by peers
- Technical Sessions
- Technology Tracks
- Exhibition
- Workshops

The selected papers will be published in the Special Issues of International Journal of Geoinformatics (IJG).

For paper/poster submission, sponsoring and exhibition please contact Event Manager, Ms. Nitiporn Saardmaung, git4ndm10@gmail.com. Or you can visit the conference website.

The theme of the Map Asia 2010 conference is “Connecting Government and Citizen through Ubiquitous GIS”, with the theme the conference would seek appropriate methods in improving service delivery systems across all agencies. The conference will gather ideas and strategies from both the public and private sectors on improved and new ways to grow towards a connected government.

Map Asia provides a platform for the Asian Geo-Informatics community to realise, recognise, and reveal the stages of dissemination of Geospatial Information. It is an international initiative aimed to allow the convergence, sharing and use of Geospatial Technologies. Founded in the year 2002, Map Asia is the largest Annual International Conference and Exhibition on Geospatial Information, Technology and Applications in the region and offers a unique branding, networking and marketing opportunity to the local and international Geospatial Industry.

Submit an abstract of an intended full paper for the “Technical Sessions” of the conference. The abstract submitted should not exceed 250 words. The submitted abstract should be an original draft, one which has not been published before. Upon evaluation of abstracts, selected authors will be invited to send in their full papers.

Important Dates to Remember:

Abstract Submission - May 24, 2010
Abstract Acceptance Intimation - June 04, 2010
Submission of Full Papers - June 30, 2010
Author Registration - June 22, 2010

Visit the conference site.

Geographic Information System (GIS) software MapWindow GIS developed by faculty and graduate students in the Idaho State University geosciences department and from Utah State University is proving to be an international hit, according to the press release. It has been downloaded more than 260,000 times from users throughout the world and has 9,000 registered users.

This free, open-source software is so popular that the ISU geosciences department will host the 1st International MapWindow GIS Users and Developers Conference March 31-April 2 at Disney World in Orlando, Fla. At least 60 users and developers from around the world are expected to attend the conference. Attendees include representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several private companies and universities.

“It’s been great to see the growing interest in this software,” said Dan Ames, ISU associate professor of geosciences who leads a team of programmers working on MapWindow GIS. “MapWindow is unique in that it provides software developers tools that they can use to build their own map-enabled software, and they can do this free of charge since the tools are all open source.”

Ames, with the help of several master’s degree and doctoral students in the ISU Geospatial Software Lab at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies at University Place in Idaho Falls, developed the software that joins the multibillion-dollar worldwide GIS industry. MapWindow is used to view and analyze computerized map data. The software can be used to make maps of environmental, political, social, economic, or any other spatial data and has a set of add-ons specifically for water resources and hydrologic analysis.

The project started under funding from the Idaho National Laboratory at Utah State University in the late 1990s, then was taken over by ISU 2004. The product was first made available as free, open-source software in late 2004, and 10,000 copies of it were downloaded by July 2006. The products popularity has grown exponentially since then.

Commercial GIS software capable of this type of data analysis has been available since the 1980s. However, the commercial software is typically expensive for the average user, costing as much as $5,000 – $15,000 for a single license. The ISU MapWindow GIS tool is unique as a free “open source” software package. This means that, like the popular open-source Linux operating system, MapWindow GIS is available for no charge, and users are free to manipulate or change the source code to improve it or modify it as needed. The software is also unique in the world of GIS as it is the only fully Microsoft Windows-based, open-source GIS software available for use on personal computers.

The creation of the successful special mapping software is a surprise byproduct of the offering of ISU’s new master’s degree program in Geographic Information Science that was begun in 2004 and is offered in Pocatello, Boise and Idaho Falls. Graduate students in the new program worked on creating the MapWindow GIS software as part of earning their masters degrees.

More information about MapWindow GIS is available at the website www.mapwindow.org.

The technical issue with the second stage of the Dnepr rocket that delayed the launch of ESA's Earth Explorer CryoSat-2 satellite in February has now been resolved – and the new launch date of 8 April has been set.

The launch of CryoSat-2 was originally scheduled to take place from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 25 February, but had to be postponed owing to a problem with the fuel reserve in the launcher's second stage. The problem had surfaced a week before the scheduled launch date and after the 'space head module', encasing the CryoSat-2 satellite, had been mated to the rest of the rocket in the launch silo. Consequently, the space head was returned to the integration facilities pending an investigation and new launch date.

During the investigation, the Ukrainian company responsible for the overall design of the Dnepr launcher, Yuzhnoye SDO, and the company that develops the launcher's control system, Hartron-Arkos, confirmed that the ratio of fuel to oxidiser could be adjusted to improve the performance of the second stage engine. This small adjustment involved modifying the software that controls the fuel usage. The modifications have since been made and validated, and consequently the new launch date of 8 April at 15:57 CEST (13:57 UT) has been agreed with ESA.

Richard Francis, ESA's Project Manager for CryoSat-2, said, "When we visited Dnepropetrovsk in Ukraine we had a thorough briefing on the problem and solution from both Yuzhnoye SDO and Hartron-Arkos. We are confident that the change implemented increases reliability and has been properly validated."

CryoSat-2 is currently being 'babysat' in the integration facilities by two team members. However, the rest of the campaign team will return to Baikonur on 23 March to resume preparations for launch.

CryoSat is Europe's first mission dedicated to monitoring Earth's ice fields. The advanced observation techniques being employed by the CryoSat mission will provide precise measurements on variations in the thickness of floating marine ice as well as the vast ice sheets that overlie Antarctica and Greenland. This information will lead to a better understanding of the relationship between ice and climate change.

TeleNav, one of the largest global wireless navigation services providers with more than 14 million subscribers, today announced the upcoming launch of TeleNav GPS Navigator 6.0. With this new version, customers will receive several new features including one-touch speech recognition, lane assist, red light traffic camera alerts and speed limit alerts. In addition, customers can receive turn-by-turn directions to their destination even if they drive out of wireless coverage.

With this launch, TeleNav introduces single-click speech input which allows the user to press one button and use common phrases such as "Drive to 1130 Kifer Road, Sunnyvale, California," "Search for Starbucks," or "Show me a map of Sunnyvale, California." Customers can also say "Drive home" to launch directions to their home or use a new shortcut option, "Home" in the "Drive To" menu of the application.

Other new features include:

* Lane assist for major roads and intersections to help drivers perform upcoming maneuvers
* Audio alerts for upcoming intersections reportedly equipped with red light traffic cameras
* On-screen freeway speed limit information with visual warnings when drivers exceed the posted speed limit
* "Local Apps" option in the application's main menu, giving customers quick access to local movie information, weather and commute alerts

Using unique, patent-pending technology, the new release of TeleNav GPS Navigator now downloads the entire route and surrounding map data onto the driver's phone. This ensures users will continue to receive turn-by-turn directions to their selected destination if they drive out of wireless coverage -- even if they miss multiple turns along the way. In addition, the service will allow customers the ability to start a route back to their original location while out of wireless coverage. Once they drive back into wireless coverage, they will again have full service access in order to get directions to a new destination as well as receive real-time information such as traffic alerts.

TeleNav announces its new version after recently being recognized as the Top Handset Navigation Supplier by ABI Research(1). For the second year in a row, the firm has ranked TeleNav as world leader based on overall innovation and implementation.

"The most important thing we can do is listen to feedback from customers. This new version incorporates many features that they've asked for," said Sal Dhanani, co-founder and vice president, products and marketing for TeleNav. "Our team is committed to providing the absolute best in mobile phone navigation."

The new version of TeleNav's service will be available this Wednesday, March 24 on select devices.

About TeleNav, Inc.
TeleNav, Inc. is a leading provider of location based services, or LBS, including voice guided navigation, on mobile phones. TeleNav's LBS solutions provide consumers and enterprises with convenient and easy to use location specific, real time and personalized features and functions. TeleNav's flexible and proprietary LBS platform enables it to efficiently provide its LBS to millions of end users, across more than 500 types of mobile phones, all major mobile phone operating systems and a broad range of wireless network protocols. TeleNav's service providers include Alltel, AT&T, Bell Mobility, Boost Mobile, China Mobile, Cincinnati Bell, NII Holdings, Rogers, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile UK, T-Mobile USA, Telcel, Telecom Italia Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Vivo Brazil.

TeleNav's other partners include Ford Motor Company, Hewlett-Packard, HTC, INRIX, LG, Motorola, NAVTEQ, Nokia, Palm, Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Samsung, Sanyo and Tele Atlas. TeleNav is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

For more information on TeleNav, please visit www.telenav.com. Follow TeleNav on Twitter.

Trimble has formed a new industry solutions group within its Mapping and GIS Division. The new group, known as the Market Solutions Team, will work with strategic customers in key industries such as utilities, natural resources, transportation and municipal government to develop advanced data use solutions for field workers involved in the collection, management and utilisation of geospatial information.

Over the last 30 years, Trimble has developed a portfolio of market-leading hardware and software products focused on the field data collection of fixed assets using Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) technology.

After a series of successful product launches, Trimble realised the need for a complementary set of solutions for an ever-growing number of field workers who leverage those assets in their daily business operations. The market solutions team will work closely with customers in selected industries to deliver easy-to-use and customised GPS and GIS solutions. It aims to deliver innovative solutions that improve the efficiency of the field workforce and foster the development of new products that can be distributed through Trimble's global network of authorised mapping and GIS resellers.

The team will initially focus on projects in North America where Trimble has identified a number of opportunities to collaborate with organisations that have large numbers of field workers managing geospatial information. It will also work with the UK-based Trimble professional services (TPS) group already focused on the European market.

Peter Large, general manager of Trimble's Mapping & GIS Division, said, "The market solutions team will provide an advantage to our customers who realise that providing geo-enabled solutions to their field workers can result in a significant return on investment. The new group's industry experience, background in positioning technology and focus on solving customer problems are important criteria for delivering compelling applications of geospatial technology in the field, such as planning and design, asset management and inspection and mobile GIS."

Africa Agriculture GIS Week (AAGW) 2010 will be held during June 8-12, 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya. Call for presentation is closing on April 12, 2010. The event is inviting members of the GIS fraternity including professionals, students with a keen interest in the discipline and all enthusiasts for GIS in agriculture.

AAGW is jointly being organised by the Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), HarvestChoice and the Agricultural Geospatial Commons (AGCommons) Programme. This event will provide an opportunity to learn from some of the industry’s leading experts. One can share experiences, knowledge and ideas. It could be a platform for networking with the people in geospatial domain.

However, AAGW 2010 has a broader scope and will be presented as a “GIS ShareFair”, complete with a market place that will include exhibitors, training sessions, thematic workshops, presentation sessions, CGIAR Spatial Science Sessions, the third gathering of WhereCampAfrica, and the unveiling of the AGCommons service bureau.

Here, one can get chance to win prizes in following categories:
- First time presenters (including students and young professionals),
- Most innovative idea,
- Most innovative medium for presentation delivery,
- Overall best.

Leica Geosystems announces that Jürgen Dold will assume the position as President and CEO of Leica Geosystems AG as of 1 April 2010.

Dr. Jürgen Dold has an excellent track record and a keen understanding of the geospatial and geomatics markets. Mr Dold has been with the company since 1995 and currently holds the position as President of Geospatial Solutions Division of Leica Geosystems. Jürgen Dolds successor in this responsibility will be announced in due course.

Jürgen Dold has been with Leica Geosystems since 1995. He began his career at Leica Geosystems as a product manager and general manager for several business areas of the Metrology and Surveying divisions. In 2008, Jürgen Dold was appointed President of the Geospatial Solutions Division which involves the three-dimensional data acquisition in high-resolution and mapping the earth and its infrastructure. Before he joined Leica Geosystems, Jürgen Dold acted as an academic council and a lecturer at the Technical University of Braunschweig (Germany). Jürgen Dold holds a University Degree in Surveying of the University of Bonn (Germany) and received his doctor's degree from the University of Munich/Germany.

The 2010 CISME exhibition, including three GNSS-related symposia, will be held at the Shanghai EverBright Convention Centre from 8 April – 10 April, 2010. "Digital China Based on Innovation" is the theme of the 2010 China (Shanghai) International Mapping and Surveying Equipment exhibition.

The three symposia covering GPS, GIS and remote sensing technologies, are:
- 2010 National Survey Technology,
- 2010 Shanghai Remote Sensing Technology,
- 2010 Shanghai Geophysics.

Driven by technological developments and China's major investment in infrastructure development, conference organisers expect that the total output value of China's geomatics industry will be CNY 100 billion in 2010, and related industries to go over CNY 500 billion.

The events are approved by the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai and the Shanghai Administrative Office of Survey and Drawing. They are sponsored by the Shanghai Society of Infrared and Remote Sensing, Shanghai Geophysical Society and Shanghai Technology Transfer and Exchange.

Visit this for more info.

With about 4,000 visitors from Turkey and the whole region, INTERGEO East will be the region’s most important trade fair and conference for land management, geoinformation, building industry and the environment in 2010. From 20 to 21 May 2010 (Conference starts: 19 May 2010 ), the Istanbul Convention and Exhibition Centre will be the vital forum for exchange of information, knowledge and technology.

Set the course for success now by taking part in the unique INTERGEO East communication platform. Register now – whether as exhibitor or as visitor: Be welcome and take your place in the international INTERGEO East Community!

The Conference presents the latest international and national knowledge, experience and achievements.

Main topics 2010 are:
- Urban regeneration
- Data acquisition technologies
- Cadastre
- Spatial technologies
- Spatial Information Systems
- International outreach
- Successful studies in the sector
- Map production and updating
- Terrestrial and aerial laser scanning applications

Registration is here.

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 that the elevation data gathered from its latest high-resolution satellite, WorldView-2, has been verified as accurate within 30 centimeters by PhotoSat based on data collected by MWH Geo-Surveys.

To conduct the test, PhotoSat constructed an elevation grid using automatic geophysical processing of 50-centimeter ground resolution stereo satellite images taken by DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 satellite. The resulting elevations were then referenced against more than 20,000 gravity survey stations which had previously been established as being accurate to better than two centimeters.

"As one of the most technologically advanced high-resolution commercial satellites in orbit, WorldView-2 continues to hit all of our planned milestones, and we are thrilled with the assessments made by PhotoSat," said Walter Scott, Founder and CTO of DigitalGlobe. "For our customers, the quality of the image is only half the story. Equally important is the data the image represents. Having WorldView-2's elevation data verified as accurate to this degree enables our customers to make decisions more confidently than ever before."

"We are delighted with the quality of the imagery from this new satellite and are amazed by its massive collection capacity. WorldView-2 will enable PhotoSat to provide timely elevation mapping to our resource customers everywhere in the world," said Gerry Mitchell, President of PhotoSat.

To learn more about DigitalGlobe's advanced constellation of sub-meter satellites and aerial network, please visit digitalglobe.com.

You're looking for a career opportunity that will keep you challenged—one with an innovative company that offers a great working environment and excellent benefits.

ESRI is looking for outstanding individuals who are passionate about their work and driven to succeed. Think you might be the perfect fit? ESRI invites you to explore the possibilities.

Find GIS jobs at ESRI here.

Present Your Latest Work in Remote Sensing including Next-Gen Satellites, SAR Image Analysis, and LIDAR.

SPIE Remote Sensing 2010
20 - 23 September 2010
Centre de Congrès Pierre Baudis
Toulouse, France

SPIE Remote Sensing is the premier European meeting focused on the latest developments in remote sensing, including next-generation satellites, SAR image analysis, and LIDAR technologies.

SPIE Remote Sensing abstracts are due 22 March 2010.

Papers are being accepted in these areas:
• Atmospheric Sensing
• Earth Surface Sensing
• Platforms and Systems
• Environmental Monitoring and Application

Advantages of Participating. You will:
• Present to experts in the field
• Network with your peers
• See where your works fits into the global
effort to monitor the earth

Registration information and online registration will be available June 2010 on the SPIE Conference page.

Manama company ICON working with the Kingdom of Bahrain Survey and Land Registration Bureau, and Bahrain International Circuit officials released an interactive online map of the home of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The result is a detailed and highly accurate cartographic hot map based on extensive on-site surveying at BIC in Sakhir by the Survey and Land Registration Bureau – Topographic Survey Directorate, and complimented with information from Bahrain International Circuit officials. Mapping is by Germany’s Kartographie Huber, and online map technology company hot-maps produced the interactive version available here. A high-resolution aerial image of BIC, previously not available to the online public, goes with the map.

Bahrain International Circuit is the first motorsports venue worldwide to be depicted in the advanced mapping technology hot-maps. “The interactive map of BIC is an exciting way to explore the details of the circuit, choose an area to buy tickets for the Bahrain Grand Prix, and plan the trip to BIC, or even race it with your mouse! It is complemented by being linked to the official interactive tourist maps of Bahrain www.hot-map.com/bahrain, on which visitors can see where BIC is located and how to get there. Also motorsports teams, officials and organisers will appreciate being able to precisely see the track online year round before the Grand Prix.” said Rashed Shaheen, chief executive of ICON. News editors, formula one fans and bloggers can link directly to their favourite turns and places on the track with a crosshairs tool.

The 2010 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix will be the first race of the 60th anniversary season of the FIA Formula One World Championship, and the comeback of multiple F1 champion Michael Schuhmacher. BIC features a new track layout as it extends its existing 5.412km circuit to 6.299km. The new track extension now offers a challenging loop of corners and height changes reaching out into the Sakhir desert.

American Geophysical Union's continuing success depends on dedicated members who volunteer to serve the Union.

Dedicated volunteers represent an essential ingredient of every Union program. Union staff works flexibly and responsively in partnership with volunteers to achieve Union goals and objectives. AGU members are invited to volunteer for any committee based on their skill set and knowledge.

The success of AGU depends critically on the work of over 30 committees responsible for overseeing meetings, publications, finances, elections, awards, outreach and other activities. Committees are the lifeblood of AGU and committee members serve in a variety of indispensable roles. They are advisors to the president, the new Board of Directors and the Council; they provide continuing guidance for all AGU programs, review ongoing and proposed programs, and suggest new ones. As an organization, the Union can not operate effectively without a strong core of committee volunteers who give so generously of their time, talent, and energy.

AGU members are invited to volunteer for any committee based on their skill set and knowledge. The Union president-elect will appoint committee members and chairs. Read more in President-elect Michael McPhaden's 2010–12 call for volunteers in Eos, Volunteers: A Critical Element in the New AGU.

Please fill out the Committee Volunteer Form to indicate where you would like to volunteer!

Travel grants are available for a limited number of students to attend the 2010 Meeting of the Americas to be held 8–13 August in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. Meet and mingle with your colleagues, sharpen your networking skills with an international assembly of scientists.

Eligibility: Current AGU student members who are first authors presenting a paper/poster, and who have not attended a previous AGU sponsored meeting are eligible to apply for funding of up to $1000 (USD).

Applications are available on the AGU web site or contact Charles Dorch by e-mail at: cdorch@agu.org

Application Deadline Date: 31 March 2010

DO NOT wait for acceptance of your abstract to apply. Your acceptance letter may arrive after the grant application deadline date.

Undergraduate Students Are Encouraged To Apply

Getmapping has launched a new online Planning Maps service. For the thousands of architects and individuals who have to submit site location plans to comply with local authority planning regulations this is an affordable and simple to use service that removes much of the pain otherwise involved. An enhanced ‘Planning Maps Plus’ service also offers the ability to annotate and mark up plans.

To obtain an Ordnance Survey site plan with optional aerial photography a new user simply has to register and login. A registered user can choose from ‘Planning Maps’ or ‘Planning Maps Plus’. Simple Postcode location centres the map display on the property or area being searched for. Three different scales are available, 1:500, 1:1250 and 1:2500. The plans can be centred as required with the option of placing a location marker. Once selected the user proceeds to the checkout. Plans and aerial imagery can either be ordered for delivery by post or sent immediately as PDF files via email.

The enhanced ‘Planning Maps Plus’ option enables the user to annotate the plan using the online tools. Along with familiar pan and zoom there are additional tools to centre the map, draw areas, lines and edges. Existing map outlines such as building and plot extents and user created areas, lines and edges can be coloured and infilled. Full online help makes producing professional results a simple task.

Every planning application needs a plan showing the location and boundaries of the site you are planning to work on but getting hold of precisely located maps is now more straightforward than ever. By adding aerial photography applicants can provide a better and more convenient context for planning officers to work with. The new mark up tools available with Planning Maps Plus enable applicants to produce a really professional job. The application is also available for Local Authorities to embed within the planning pages of their own websites, enabling them to benefit from a share of the income.

More of the product here.

Australian Surveying and Land Information Group (AUSLIG) (now Geoscience Australia) introduced new version of gravimetric geoid model, AUSGeoid09. AUSGeoid09 is still undergoing final testing before its release in mid-2010. It allows Global Positioning System (GPS) users to convert between GPS heights and Australian Height Datum (AHD) heights. In Australia, heights above mean sea level (MSL) are referenced to the Australian Height Datum (AHD). It was established by setting the mean value observed at 32 tide gauges around Australia between 1966 and 1968 to a height of 0.000 metres. Levelling techniques were then used to transfer heights relative to MSL across Australia.

GPS receivers are now widely used for accurate positioning and navigation in Australia. They use a different reference surface known as the ellipsoid. It is a simplified approximation of the Earth that looks like a basketball which has been slightly squashed at the top and bottom. Unfortunately, ellipsoid is not directly compatible with the AHD. Consequently, there has been an increasing demand for a method of combining the speed of GPS data acquisition and the practicality of the AHD. Hence, AUSGeoid09 is the answer. It offers significant productivity gains for GPS users by allowing them to compute AHD heights either in the field in real time or back in the office.

AUSGeoid09 is a three dimensional model used to convert ellipsoidal heights (as observed by GPS) to AHD heights to within ±0.050 metres accuracy across most of Australia. Older versions of AUSGeoid are predominantly based on satellite and terrestrial gravity observations which were a best fit of The Geoid over Australia (Featherstone et al 2001). These AUSGeoid versions, referred to as gravimetric geoids, do not account for the one metre offset trend between The Geoid and the AHD. As a result, when using these versions GPS users can only retrieve AHD heights to within ±0.5 metres.

But, AUSGeoid09 is slightly different. Instead of only using gravity data, it also includes a geometric component developed from GPS and AHD data which describes the approximate one metre offset trend between the AHD and the gravimetric geoid. The gravimetric and geometric components are combined together into a single national grid with two kilometre resolution. The addition of the geometric component means that the AUSGeoid09 model is no longer a true representation of the Geoid because it is not an equipotential surface. However, the AUSGeoid name is retained for familiarity.

Check it here.

In the US, Google Maps now offers step-by-step biking directions; bike trails outlined directly on the map; and a new bicycling layer that indicates bike trails, bike lanes, and bike-friendly roads.

Video:

Applanix introduced today the latest LANDMark Marine mobile mapping solution. LANDMark Marine enables the creation of seamless models of near shore environments by providing a highly accurate georeferenced point cloud which integrates with equivalent multibeam sonar data.

“This is a significant advance for Applanix and our marine customers,” said Peter Stewart, Product Manager Manager of Marine Systems for Applanix. “Ports, harbours and other organizations involved in bathymetry and charting have used multibeam sonar to measure, image and analyze the surface below the waterline. LANDMark Marine produces a point cloud which complements multibeam sonar with proven LiDAR capability, enabling our customers to produce exceptionally accurate and seamless models, both above and below the waterline, in an efficient manner. Where access to the shoreline is difficult or dangerous, LANDMark Marine allows the acquisition of precisely georeferenced information from a safe and secure platform.” Fully integrated with the industry-leading POS MV and POSPac MMS georeferencing and motion compensation suite, LANDMark Marine is a complete solution that comes ready to mount and operate on any marine vessel. Key components include a 2 axis laser scanner with built-in digital camera, complete control software for Microsoft Windows-CE, XP or Vista, a boresighting software module for accurately and repeatedly measuring Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to LiDAR misalignment angles, as well as a data extraction and coordinate system conversion utility for outputting point cloud data.

In order to capture detailed information regarding an area of particular interest, LANDMark Marine offers a unique “stop and stare” capability where, with the vessel held nominally static, a raster scan is carried out over a period of a few minutes, producing a particularly dense point cloud to enable detailed analysis.

The solution has application in a wide variety of applications including:

* Environmental monitoring (erosion, disaster mapping, change detection, habitat)
* Structural analysis (docks, vessels, bridges, oil and gas platforms)
* Charting
* Port and harbor security
* As-built surveys
* Coastal zone management
* GIS source data

LANDMark Marine is available now through the Applanix sales network. For more information about the system, visit: www.applanix.com.

infoDev and the World Bank’s Finance, Economic and Urban Development (FEU) department are working together to advance the information and communication technology for the development (ICT4D) agenda in the area of GIS technology and Spatial data infrastructure (SDI). The project, Spatial Data Infrastructure for Millennium Development Goals (SDI4MDGs), will provide technical assistance to Jordan and Uganda on how they can use GIS/SDI for monitoring development outcomes.

The project combines three main elements:

- Learning from good practice: Two detailed case studies will be developed early in the project’s schedule, to understand the experience of two emerging economies (Brazil and the Republic of Korea) that are perceived as having performed well in establishing SDIs that meet their development needs.

- Learning by doing: At a second stage in its schedule, the project will fund two technical assistance (TA) sub-components to work with the relevant stakeholders in two countries with incipient SDI development (Jordan and Uganda) in supporting their institutional capacity and policy frameworks for SDI. These two TA components will tap global experience as well as the lessons from good practice emerging from the cases of Brazil and Korea and will be undertaken in close collaboration and consultation with country stakeholders.

- Synthesis and diffusion of knowledge: By the end of the project, several products will have been completed that would help to disseminate the lessons from this project including a global report on SDI, how-to guides, and a public website.

The principal source of funds for the project is the Korean Trust Fund (KTF) on ICT4D, which was established in 2008 and awards grants to World Bank projects and activities submitted along cross-cutting strategic themes. In terms of the aims of the KTF, this project is aligned with the theme of mainstreaming ICT for development, in this case the application of GIS and SDI for development. GIS could be applied in many different areas targeted by the MDGs, for instance in health, education, agriculture and rural development, clean technology and public administration.

According to a report, the National Disaster Council of the Solomon Islands with support from a team from GNS Science (NZ) Pacific Disaster Center, and SOPAC will be collecting building and other infrastructure data in the Solomon Islands during March 2010.

This project is a joint Asian Development Bank/World Bank Regional Partnership for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Preparedness initiative to measure vulnerability and risk from earthquake and cyclone hazards in Pacific Island countries.

The Asian Development Bank has contracted GNS Science to carry out the work in association with the Pacific Disaster Center and the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) over the next two years.

The work on this phase of the project will be carried out in eight Pacific countries – the Cook Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The data collection started in the Cook Islands in February and will finish in Tonga in September 2010. The entire project is scheduled to be completed in September 2011.

Loti Yates, Director NDC says that this survey will contribute greatly to the understanding of the risks communities in the Solomon Islands are facing from natural hazards, such as cyclones, tsunami and earthquakes.

It will help the Solomon Island Government to plan for appropriate risk reduction measures and enhance disaster preparedness.

“This survey will provide valuable information on building construction types and making them safer with respect to earthquakes, cyclones and tsunami.”

Project leader, Phil Glassey of GNS Science, said they will be collecting existing building, road, pipeline, and utility network data held by the countries, and where this is lacking, it will collect it by field survey, concentrating on the major urban areas.

“The field data collection will involve staff from each of the country governments and use hand-held computers with integrated camera and GPS,” Mr Glassey said.

Mr Glassey said data would be collected in a form that could be used in any Geographic Information System (GIS) to ensure it had maximum utility for the project and for the countries involved.

Data for each country will be retained by the country with a regional database held and maintained by SOPAC. The data will help local and regional decision-making processes and support greater resilience to the impacts of natural disasters and climate change.

“The data will also be a critical input into the assessment of a regional, pooled catastrophe fund - a related World Bank project.”

he European LiDAR Mapping Forum [ELMF10], to be held in The Hague, The Netherlands from November 30 –December 1, 2010. Theme of this technical conference is "LiDAR across the Market Spectrum." It will be focussed on the use of airborne, bathymetric and terrestrial LiDAR with a particular focus on mobile mapping to support transport, urban modelling and asset management and GIS applications. Alongside there is an associated international exhibition for system and component manufacturers, operators and service companies.

Building on 10 years of experience with the annual International LiDAR Mapping Forum (ILMF) in the USA, the organisers are bringing this event to Europe. With its focus on LiDAR technology and applications, ELMF 10 recognises the technology advances spearheaded in Europe, and the particular challenges and opportunities which face operators in applying LiDAR to new developments in the European market.

Conference programme will feature technical presentations by the industry leaders and opinion formers. With three conference tracks, technical papers will report on actual projects in airborne use of LiDAR for urban and rural mapping, transport and rail asset management, bathymetric mapping along the coastal zone and a whole session devoted to technologies and operations in the fast-emerging market sector of mobile mapping.

Mobile mapping and surveying is the driving force behind the next major step-change in the global LiDAR market. With its benefits of increased speed of data acquisition and onsite processing, mobile mapping is enabling a whole range of applications and business opportunities for the LiDAR community. This exciting addition to the LiDAR conference programme makes ELMF 10 an essential industry event for both data users and service providers.

The conference advisory board is seeking papers in the following areas of interest:

- Advances in LiDAR technology, including systems development, data acquisition, data visualisation and interfacing with GIS systems.

- Recent examples of actual projects in Europe where LiDAR systems have been used (airborne, terrestrial, bathymetric and mobile mapping/surveying).

- Political, government and commercial issues relating to the LiDAR market.

Abstract of the paper should not be more than 250 words. Deadline for paper submission is 1st July 2010. Visit the site.

In February 2010 JSC “SPC REKOD” and ScanEx Research and Development Center signed the Agreement for Cooperation aimed at expanding the scope of satellite imagery materials application in Russia, according to the press release.

The objective of the Agreement is “to develop and produce joint products and services on a contractual basis with the use of space-borne Earth remote sensing systems and other results of space activities to promote informatization and automation in achieving goals of social and economic development as well as those of civil security”.

— Integration of resources and efforts of Russian leading participants of the Earth remotes sensing market will allow building a common information portal on the basis of the Space Services Center of “REKOD” corporation, — says Alexei Abrosimov, Head of Space Services Center of REKOD Corporation. The goal of the Center is the integration of spatial information and data and other important thematic information for the purpose of providing complex services to support decision-making on the basis of applying results of space activities. In the near future we plan to carry out joint operations in the framework of the Agreement in behalf of a number of certain regions and municipal formations.

The agreement between ScanEx RDC and “REKOD” Corporation will promote the bilateral cooperation in different areas:

— development and introduction of monitoring systems and information and analytical systems including the systems for monitoring economic sectors, baseline social and economic indicators, critical facilities and dangerous goods;

— establishment and development of automated systems for decision-making support;

— creation of joint innovation and educational centers for development of space-based and other advanced technologies;

— development of proposals for improving regulatory framework and regulatory technical documentation in application of space activity results.

— The bilateral Agreement for Cooperation shall promote development and introduction of Russian state-of-the-art space technologies in using satellite imagery for various applications, - points out Vladimir Gershenzon, General Director of ScanEx RDC. It is important that among the areas of the joint activities there are efforts to enhance the legal field in terms of the remote sensing.

ERDAS Inc. announces that NAVGEOCOM is now the official ERDAS distributor to customers in Russia.

NAVGEOCOM specializes in topographic survey technologies and supplies GPS equipment and high-precision navigation systems. In addition to providing local market research, NAVGEOCOM also offers expertise in data sharing, enterprise and visualization technologies.

Supporting the full portfolio of ERDAS’ products, NAVGEOCOM provides local sales and support, including technical support, individual training and software customization in Russia. The previous ERDAS distributor in the region, Data+ is now a sub-dealer, reporting to NAVGEOCOM.

“For most end users, the image is much more natural then a specialized plan or symbol map. ERDAS products make visualization simple and fast, creating the bridge to connect specialized data from different areas to various types of end users (our customers),” said Andrew L. Shikholin, Director General, NAVGEOCOM.

“We are excited to have NAVGEOCOM as our master distributor in the Russia,” said Thomas Bayer, Vice President EMEA, ERDAS. “NAVGEOCOM provides local market reach for our remote sensing, photogrammetry and data sharing solutions, ensuring the most comprehensive support of our products and services throughout the country.”

For more information about ERDAS, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 866 534 2286, or visit www.erdas.com.

ITT Corporation announced today two of its weather sensors were successfully launched into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. ITT's Geospatial Systems team in Fort Wayne, Ind. designed and built the imager and sounder instruments flying on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P (GOES-P). ITT has built the imagers and sounders for all NOAA geostationary satellites since 1990.

"We are extremely proud of the work of our people and the amazing quality of these instruments. We recognize the trust the nation has put in us and appreciate the fact that our imagers and sounders continue to be an integral part of our nation's weather forecast ability, especially for severe weather," said Rob Mitrevski, vice president, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance programs at ITT Geospatial Systems.

GOES-P is the last of the current generation of weather and environmental satellites built for NOAA in cooperation with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. After reaching geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above the United States, GOES-P will undergo six months of extensive post-launch testing prior to being parked on-orbit and ready to be activated when the next GOES satellite needs to be replaced.

In addition to producing the now-familiar weather pictures seen daily on U.S. newscasts, GOES satellites provide early warnings of severe weather conditions like tornadoes, flash floods, hail storms and hurricanes. The satellites provide meteorologists with nearly continuous images as well as temperature and moisture data, enabling more accurate weather forecasts. GOES data are also used for climate/weather prediction models, ocean temperature charting, ice, snow and glacier mapping, land temperature measurement and monitoring agricultural crop conditions.

ITT has been designing and building space-borne meteorological instruments for nearly 50 years and is currently working with NOAA and NASA to build GOES-R. This next-generation environmental satellite will include the most advanced meteorological imaging instrument ever built for operational weather forecasting, the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI).

ABI will monitor three times the number of atmospheric conditions currently measured and produce images that can discern objects as small as one-half kilometer in size. ABI is also much faster; updating data every 30 seconds versus the current rate of 7.5 minutes. At that speed, ABI can create a full-earth image in five minutes versus 30 minutes for the current imagers. ABI also will zoom in and track a single storm while simultaneously collecting continent-wide data and imagery. All of these improvements add up to faster and more accurate forecasts, improved hazardous weather tracking and an increased capability to study and monitor climate change.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has awarded $2.4 million to the Georgia Institute of Technology to develop a new type of radar system that will be used to study the Earth's ice and snow formations from the air. The system could provide new information about the effects of global climate change.

The research will create a technological first -- a small, lightweight, low-cost phased-array radar that uses silicon-germanium (SiGe) chips in tandem with radio-frequency micro-electromechanical systems (RF MEMS). The system being developed could be mounted on aircraft or satellites to enable high-quality mapping of ice and snow formations.

Traditionally, research on frozen areas has required bulky radar equipment that must be operated on the surface, said John Papapolymerou, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is principal investigator on the project. The lightweight radar approach could allow unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to gather information by flying over a large area such as Greenland, using the radar system to map ice sheets in three dimensions.

"This aerial approach would greatly facilitate environmental remote sensing of ice, allowing us to map larger areas of interest to better understand location, quantity and composition," said Papapolymerou, who is teamed with another Georgia Tech professor, John Cressler, and Ted Heath, a Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) senior research scientist. "This mapping ability is very important because we need to know about ice accumulation, consistency and stability."

Phased-array radar technology uses fixed, interconnected antenna elements to send and receive multiple radar signals almost simultaneously. This approach employs a technique called phase-shifting to electronically steer the radar-signal beam.

By contrast, a conventional radar antenna changes the direction of the signal beam mechanically; the antenna moves physically among set positions, sending and receiving signals at each position. The serial approach used by conventional radar generally offers slower and less-effective performance than the more parallel technique of phased-array radar.

The basic sub-array unit under development consists of a flat grid with eight antenna elements on a side -- 64 elements in all. These sub-arrays, measuring about 8.5 by 7 inches, can be combined to create a far larger radar array capable of high-quality 3-D mapping.

The sub-arrays are constructed using polymers as the substrate, which is the board-like structure in which the electronics are embedded. Polymers have numerous advantages; robust and flexible, they are also low in cost and offer good electrical performance.

To date, the researchers have produced and successfully tested an eight-by-two-element sub-array mounted on a multi-layer substrate. This substrate consists of a layer of liquid crystal polymer (LCP), which is a robust organic polymer, and a layer of a composite material called Duroid.

The LCP/Duroid substrate houses integrated circuits made from silicon-germanium (SiGe). The SiGe chips transmit and receive the radar signals via the sub-array's multiple interconnected antenna elements.

The researchers chose silicon-germanium because it offers high-performance signal amplification that is also low in noise and in power consumption, said Cressler, who is a Ken Byers Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. SiGe chips are also robust, low in cost and highly resistant to weather and to radiation encountered in space.

"Using silicon-germanium allows much higher levels of integration, which older radar systems don’t give you," Cressler said. "It enables you to go from a system which is much larger and more expensive, and less robust, to a chip that is only a few millimeters on a side and costs far less."

Silicon-germanium circuits also interface well with RF-MEMS systems, which are tiny micro-electromechanical devices capable of movement on a very small scale. The team is using RF-MEMS devices, embedded in the substrate, to perform two functions -- switching between the transmit and receive circuits, and activating phase-shifters that electronically guide the radar signals sent by the sub-array's 64 antenna elements.

Using MEMS devices for electro-mechanical switching results in less signal loss than integrating the transmit-receive switching function within a SiGe chip electronically, Cressler said. And while MEMS switching is a bit slower than a purely electronic approach, it offers both better signal performance and the ability to handle higher signal-output power.

The system under development uses the X band -- microwave frequencies between 8 and 12 gigahertz (GHz). This band is especially effective for scanning within ice and snow deposits and remotely mapping them in three dimensions.

GTRI's Heath and his team are developing the hardware that controls the electronic components, such as the field-programmable gate arrays used by the phase-shifters to electronically steer the signal beam. The GTRI team is also designing the power supplies required by the system.

In addition, the Georgia Tech team is using the radar range at GTRI's Cobb Country Research Facility for testing.

"GTRI is tasked with taking the silicon-germanium / MEMS transmit-receive elements and putting them into a functioning radar system," Heath said. "These back-end electronics supply the power to those chips, as well as provide the signal processing and conditioning that steer the signals, and the processing of the raw data coming back."

Papapolymerou added that this approach to phased-array technology is expected to have uses in a variety of defense and commercial applications.

How would you open a hyperspectral AVIRIS Image in an ENVI environment? If you are new to using AVIRIS data, you may have problems importing them to ENVI. ENVI software support hyperspectral datasets and it is quite easy to open them.

A downloaded Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) image from the AVIRIS website will have these extensions: .eng, .nav, .rfl.

To open the image: Open Image File --> (Select the First Scene File -- the first .rfl file)

Then you will be prompted with a window that will ask for the data format, like defining the header file. The downloaded data usually carries a "readme" file that should contain all the information necessary to define the header file.

For AVIRIS, the typical input is:

samples = 614
lines = 512
bands = 224
header offset = 0
file type = ENVI Standard
data type = 2
interleave = bip
sensor type = Unknown
byte order = 1

Try these parameters and you will be able to open the images with no problem.

Science Mag reports that researchers have often proposed that dramatic changes in ancient climates triggered major events in human evolution, such as the emergence of a new species or migrations of our ancestors in and out of Africa. But it has been notoriously difficult to tie deep-sea records of global climate fluctuations to local fossil sites in Africa and, hence, to specific fossils of human ancestors. Now, a new report released yesterday by the National Research Council recommends a major new interdisciplinary research program to study how past climate influenced human evolution.

In the report, an interdisciplinary team of paleoanthropologists and geologists recommended four new research initiatives over the next 10 to 20 years. The first is to launch a major effort to locate new fossil sites using remote-sensing tools and traditional ground methods to survey new terrain. The point is to fill in key gaps in the fossil record, such as when new species first appear and disappear, to see if there are links between these major events in human evolution and changes in the climate.

The researchers also called for a comprehensive program to drill ancient lakebeds and lakes on land, as well as in ocean basins, in the regions where humans evolved in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia and Kenya, for example. This would help provide a record of climate changes in the local areas where human ancestors actually lived, given that the climate can vary dramatically in different parts of Africa. It would be part of a larger effort to reconstruct past environments in local habitats where fossils have been found.

The researchers also proposed that funding agencies make a major investment in research to model local and regional climates during key times in human evolution. Finally, they are also seeking funds to educate the public about how climate change influenced human evolution.

A public briefing to discuss the report's findings will be held on 31 March at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

ASPRS Announces Daniel Civco as 2010 SAIC/Estes Memorial Teaching Award Winner.

Daniel Civco, PhD, a professor in the Department of Natural Resources Management and Engineering at the University of Connecticut, has been named as the recipient of the 2010 SAIC/Estes Memorial Teaching Award.

The SAIC Estes Memorial Teaching Award was inaugurated in 2003 and is named in honor of Professor John E. (“Jack”) Estes, teacher, mentor, scientist, and friend of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). This award is designed to recognize individual achievement in the promotion of remote sensing and GIS technology, and applications through educational efforts. Award recipients are chosen based on documented excellence in education, teaching, mentoring and training. The recipient receives a presentation plaque and a $2,000 cash award.

Civco currently serves as Director of the Center for Land use Education and Research (CLEAR) and is Co-founder of the Laboratory for Earth Resources Information Systems (LERIS) as well as a Co-PI of the NASA-funded Regional Earth Resource Applications Center (RESAC) established in 1999. Civco received his BS degree in Natural Resources Conservation in 1974, and the MS and PhD degrees in Plant Science, the former concentrating in Landscape Planning and the latter in Remote Sensing.
Working with students in the classroom, and spending countless hours preparing content for his students is Civco’s true passion. His approach toward education is one based on teaching principles and practices as well as the use of geoprocessing tools, both of which are essential for the effective management of the environment. Civco is engaged in advising undergraduate students within the geomatics and other natural resource concentrations. He has served as major advisor to more than 30 MS and PhD-degree graduate students, as well as serving as Associate Advisor to nearly 70 others. His manuscript “Perspectives on Earth Resources Mapping Education in the United States” provided the impetus for the creation of the ASPRS Remote Sensing Core Curriculum, and it served also as the blueprint for the IAEGS curriculum.

He is a well-published scholar, and received the ESRI Award for Best Scientific Paper in GIS in 1997 and in 2001, and second place for the 1999 ERDAS Award for the Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing. In 2007 he received the National Award from the Program for Excellence in College and University Teaching in the Food and Agricultural Sciences, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the highest honor an educator in the field of agriculture and natural resources can receive.

In expressing his appreciation to ASPRS for this award Civco said, “Receiving an award bearing Dr. Estes’ name is truly an honor, and to be mentioned in the same company as past recipients -- words can’t describe what that means to me. Though I got to know him only in the latter years of his life, I admired and respected Jack throughout my entire professional career. I am no Jack Estes, but I have tried to aspire to the principals and ideals that defined him. Jack was an exceptional scholar, mentor, leader, and gentleman.”

In addition to his excellence in teaching, Civco has been very active in ASPRS. In his first term as Chair of the ASPRS Education and Professional Development Committee, he was instrumental in assisting then President Roger Hoffer in establishing the ASPRS International Educational Literature Award. He was a Director for the New England Region, served on the National Board of Directors from 2002 thru 2004, was elected Director of the Remote Sensing Applications Division in 2000, and served as Chairman of the ASPRS Education and Professional Development Committee, of which he will again be Chair in April 2010. He received an ASPRS Fellow Award in 2003.

The Award, with funding provided by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), will be presented in April at the ASPRS 2010 Annual Conference in San Diego California.

Founded in 1934, ASPRS is an international professional organization of 6,000 geospatial data professionals. ASPRS is devoted to advancing knowledge and improving understanding of the mapping sciences to promote responsible application of photogrammetry, remote sensing, geographic information systems and supporting technologies.

Next week, ESRI will host a free, live online training seminar. Best Practices for Working with Map Templates will air at www.esri.com/lts on Thursday, March 4, at 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 3:00 p.m. Pacific standard time. Cartographers, geographic information system (GIS) professionals, and ArcGIS Desktop users of all experience levels are encouraged to attend. Some familiarity with ArcGIS Desktop is recommended.

Using the cartography, sample data, and tools provided in the templates, GIS professionals and others can produce professional-quality maps that support an organization’s daily operations. This seminar explores techniques and best practices to integrate one’s own data with a map template and share the resulting work with others.

Attendees will learn:

* How to access map templates
* What types of resources are included with a map template
* Considerations to take into account when configuring data for use with a map template
* How to create a template-based map that showcases their work
* Best practices for sharing their work

In addition to this online seminar, ESRI will host a free half-day seminar, Better Ways to Design and Share Maps, this spring. The seminar will be held in more than 60 cities nationwide from April through early June 2010. Visit www.esri.com/bettermaps for more information.

At the half-day seminar, attendees will learn tips, best practices, and more efficient workflows for making maps using the maps, data, and services readily available in ArcGIS. They will also find out about valuable information and tools available from the online ArcGIS Resource Centers and learn how to share maps with colleagues and the GIS community.

A broadband Internet connection and an ESRI Global Account are needed to watch the Best Practices for Working with Map Templates online seminar on March 4. Creating a global account is easy and free: Visit www.esri.com/lts, click Login, and register your name and address.

CARIS, a leading developer of marine GIS and hydrographic software, announced today the release of Spatial Fusion Enterprise (SFE) 5.2 as part of its well known Ping-to-Chart product suite.

SFE is Web-enabling technology for geospatial information that aims at leveraging the investment of collecting and maintaining data by making it more visible and accessible to stakeholders. Web-mapping has been around for more than a decade and recent trends indicating an increasing awareness of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) have resulted in a growing need to Web-enable and share marine and hydrographic geospatial information.

There is an increasing need for organizations around the world to display their data assets on public and internal Web portals allowing users to interact with the data and integrate it with other data sources. It is this need that has driven CARIS to deliver the SFE product with the Marine SDI market in mind.

CARIS Ping-to-Chart products such as Hydrographic Production Database (HPD) for chart production and Bathy DataBASE (BDB) for bathymetric management can communicate with SFE using specialized Web services. SFE 5.2 can take full advantage of these enterprise systems and display their contents as intelligent information layers that users can view, query, and combine with other information such as Google Maps.

In order to share data amongst various organizations it is essential that geospatial systems are interoperable. SFE utilizes the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) standards to share geospatial information with external GIS systems and also to integrate data from other organizations and sources.

SFE 5.2 offers advanced tools to let the user identify, select, and extract data directly through the Viewer interface. Users can also query industry standard metadata about the data layers to discover their source.

Although several new features and possibilities have been added for the end-user in SFE 5.2, CARIS has also ensured that the backend administration of the system is very user friendly. With a basic setup from installation to deployment, you Web-enable your data in a very short time!

ERDAS Inc. announces that TAHAL Consulting Engineers Ltd. is now the official ERDAS distributor to customers in Israel. TAHAL has its Israel headquarters in Tel Aviv.

TAHAL has accompanied Israel's economic development since the 1950s, addressing the lack of water by playing a key role in the legendary blooming of the country's desert. TAHAL is Israel's largest engineering firm, with an emphasis on GIS and image processing.

“TAHAL is excited to enrich its capabilities and offerings to the GIS market by introducing the ERDAS line of products. We believe that our reputation and position in the Israeli market (government and municipalities) will enable us to promote ERDAS products in Israel, and through our international projects,” said Dr. Dan Hamberg, VP Head of Engineering Division and Israel Activity, TAHAL Consulting Engineers.

As the sole distributor in Israel, TAHAL will promote ERDAS technologies to customers throughout the country, providing sales, technical support and services.

“We are excited to have TAHAL as our distributor in Israel,” said Dr. Thomas Bayer, Vice President EMEA, ERDAS. “TAHAL brings experience and innovation to ERDAS users in this part of the world, ensuring the most comprehensive support of our products and services.”

For more information about ERDAS, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 866 534 2286, or visit http://www.erdas.com.