Camp Stansted
I left for RSPSoc 2010 yesterday. Flights from Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick all go in to Cork, but I reckoned that Stansted was easiest and caught the airport bus up late last night....
posted on: Wed, 01 Sep 2010 | path: /meetings | permanent link to this entry
Multi-scale analysis of surface roughness
Grohmann, C.H., Smith, M.J. and Riccomini, C. (in press)
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Surface roughness is an important geomorphological variable which has been used in the earth and planetary sciences to infer material properties, current/past processes and the time elapsed since formation....
posted on: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 | path: /publications/journals | permanent link to this entry
Alsat-1 decommissioned
A really nice PR blog entry over at SSTL on the decommissioning of Alsat-1, SSTLs first DMC satellite. Its a really nice example of a fit-for-purpose satellite, new low-cost technology and meeting the environmental needs of developing nations. Well worth a read.
posted on: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
AeroPress Coffee Maker
Came across the AeroPress coffee maker recently (thanks bro). Looks a very interesting take on coffee making by using a mix of a filter and plunger. However the plunger is an air plunger to create even pressure as the brewed coffee passes through the filter paper. Supposedly to create a smooth filtered taste, but with greater flavour. And, to boot, its portable.
posted on: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 | path: /coffee | permanent link to this entry
Creating earlier versions of geodatabases
I'm amazed it's taken this long, but ESRI has now produced geoprocessing tools for creating earlier versions of geodatabases. I did a roundup blog on this 2 and a half years ago.....
posted on: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
University places... a slow news week?
OK, perhaps that's a little uncharitable, but there have been a few heckles raised at poor A-level students who don't get university places....
posted on: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 | path: /teaching | permanent link to this entry
WMS Benchmarking 2010
OSGeo have announced the WMS benchmarking for 2010 which has seen a long list of products taking part. Last year it was MapServer and GeoServer, with ESRI having to pull out due to time commitments. This year its MapServer, GeoServer, CadCorp GeognoSIS, Constellation SDI, ERDAS Apollo, Mapnik, Oracle MapViewer and QGIS mapserver. Great to see such an extensive line-up.
posted on: Sat, 21 Aug 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Using Postcodes
I've been playing around with postcodes a little more recently, particularly since the OS released CodePoint under the open licensing model....
posted on: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Mainstream Land Surveying
Good catch over at LiDAR News on an article by Mike Pinkerton, a surveyor in New Zealand reviewing the change that laser scanning is having on the industry. Worth a read.
posted on: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
TLS Round-up
GIM have a nice roundup of current terrestrial laser scanners which is well worth a look at. Select from the (limited!) list and see how comparable they are.
posted on: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
New CEO for Intermap
Interesting article over at All Points on the CEO of Intermap stepping down. The author has declared an interest in being a shareholder, but takes a fairly hard line on the state of Intermap who's share price is currently pretty low and potentially ripe for takeover. They have put alot of momentum behind NextMap and the collection of data for the USA and Europe. Is this the right direction to take? Time will tell, although it has seen hugely successful take up in the UK and perhaps this was part of the reason for expanding collection over much larger areas.
posted on: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Google to use UAVs?
Blogoscoped and PCPro are reporting a recent interview from Microdrones CEO where he noted Google having recently purchased one of their UAVs. OK, so lets be clear, these aren't the same as the Global Hawk. They are small, programmable, multi-propeller drones that are ideally suited to collected imagery over relatively small areas. Their "top of the range" kit has a cruising speed of 15 m/s, flying time of 70mins and payload of ~1kg. So Big Brother it ain't, but it certainly is a useful addition for the collection of close range imagery.
posted on: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
PySAL
Note the recent announcement that the full v1.0 release of PySAL (Python Spatial Analysis Library) has been finalised. Slashgeo has a good introductory paragraph, but note that this work has come out of two Python based geoprocessing projects that wanted to write a core Python library to avoid duplication of effort. It is not a front-end, but provides core spatial functions.
posted on: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Open Topography NLAS Project
I blogged a while back about the Open Topography portal. It's worth taking a looking back at their mission statement:
"to build an online system that provides integrated access to high-resolution topographic data, web-based processing tools, and enables the user community to share knowledge, experiences and resources"
For those interested in software tools they provide software for point cloud visualisation and DEM generation....
posted on: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Remote control LiDAR
lidar news report on an interesting transit project monitoring a section of tunnel twice daily to identify any internal changes to the infrastucture. The system is totally unmanaged and housed within protective casing. Upto 1Gb of data is collected and fed back via EVDO wifi modem. Whilst most lidar kit is far from being reliable, well-honed, products, this does demonstrate growing maturity in the market.
posted on: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
TanDEM-X Launched
TanDEM-X launched today and with it we hope the dawn of a new DEM era. The BBC have a very well written article of the mission applications, so no need to repeat it. Other than to say its a unique interferometric SAR mission employing two satellites flying in tandem with the intention of yielding a DEM of the entire surface of the Earth at 10m resolution and a vertical accuracy of 2m.
posted on: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Trimble acquires Definiens
lidar news gives a bit more thought to the widely reported acquisition of Definiens eCognition by Trimble....
posted on: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
UI Design and 3D Interfaces
Remember Minority Report? That cool UI that Tom Cruise uses to interface with the computer and sort and analyse data?? Well the UI design was real at the time and early prototypes in use. John Underkoffler provides a fascinating looking at current 3D user interfaces and, as he says, its where the input and output are the same location, all built within a 3D spatial paradigm for manipulation. And the obvious early uses (as he demonstrates) are spatial which raises lots of interesting questions about future interfacing with GIS.
posted on: Wed, 02 Jun 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Preservation of (spatial) data clearinghouse
A very interesting press release last week from the Library of Congress about an NDIIP funded project on digital preservation....
posted on: Tue, 01 Jun 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Where's my stuff??
We're moving to a world of TOIDs.... well not, the OS implementation of TOIDs, but the idea that "objects" in the world can be, and are, interesting....
posted on: Tue, 01 Jun 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Knowledge retention
Donald Clark has a nice synopsis, in his usual brusque style (!), on knowledge retention as part of learning. He kicks off with the classic graph showing how rapidly retention drops off after first exposure, and then goes through a (mixed) variety of strategies to offset this loss. If students haven't come across this then they need to be aware of it. And it goes without saying that teachers/lecturers should be building this style of knowledge "training" and re-exposure in to their schedules.
posted on: Sat, 29 May 2010 | path: /teaching | permanent link to this entry
New School Academies
Well it's a busy week in politics, what with a new government and the newly named Department for Education is kicking things off relatively rapidly....
posted on: Sat, 29 May 2010 | path: /fun | permanent link to this entry
Laser scanning Mt Rushmore
Gene Roe over at lidarnews gives a great overview of the recent project to laser scan Mt Rushmore by the Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation in Glasgow. The photo and video links are well worth a look in. I wonder if our insurance and warranty would cover us for using our ScanStation like this?? ;)
posted on: Fri, 28 May 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Office 97 DOCX Converter
People keep sending me damn Office 2007 files; I hate them! I have no desire or want to install the behemoth that is Office 2007 and whilst I applaud the move to an XML format (even if the certification process might not have been as above board as it could have been) we all had a perfectly good, and well understood, binary format in DOC (and XLS/PPT) files that could be opened by everyone and their uncle....
posted on: Fri, 21 May 2010 | path: /computing | permanent link to this entry
Schooloscope.. what, where and its up to you about the why
The Guardian reports on the recently launched Schooloscope site, a 4ip funded project to make better (and fairer) sense of school performance data....
posted on: Thu, 13 May 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Prezi for presentations
I was recently introduced to Prezi, a rapid presentation package for those sick of the usual Powerpoint interface....
posted on: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 | path: /teaching | permanent link to this entry
Multi-core evaluation in ERDAS Imagine
Paul Beaty has an interesting comparison of the effect of multiple processors when using ERDAS Imagine for processor intensive tasks....
posted on: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Python Modules
I blogged last year on the increasing use of Python as the preferred language for geospatial automation driven, in no small part, but ESRIs uptake. Anyway, a useful post on essential Python modules for the geospatial programmer.
posted on: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Monitoring the Eyjafjallajökull Ash Cloud
Plenty of Eyjafjallajökull stuff in the blogs at the moment (not surprisingly!) so I thought I would compile a few remote sensing bits together:
MODIS RapidFire had one of the earlier sets of imagery of the ash cloud as it spread out over Europe....
posted on: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Spatial Stats in ArcGIS
The Geoprocessing blog over at ESRI highlights an interesting (well, in an academic sense!) book on spatial statistics which they have contributed a chapter to on ArcGIS. The chapter has been made available for download so is well worth checking out.
posted on: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Effect on EDINA of OS data release
It is clearly going to take some time for the dust to settle, but GoGeo have a nice summary of the datasets "in" and "out" of each prospective license....
posted on: Thu, 08 Apr 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Digimap for Schools
I was reminded to day of the EDINA run Digimap for Schools service which offers access to twelve different datasets (including Mastermap) for Primary and Secondary schools at an incredibly reasonable cost (£60-120). For those schools needing geospatial data for teaching its a very good place to start.
posted on: Wed, 07 Apr 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Characterising Chinese loess stratigraphy and past monsoon variation using field spectroscopy
Smith, M.J., Stevens, T., MacArthur, A., Malthus, T. and Lu, H. (in press)
Quaternary International
The loess record in China constitutes one of the most important archives of past environmental change and specifically, the East Asian monsoon system....
posted on: Tue, 06 Apr 2010 | path: /publications/journals | permanent link to this entry
More OS Licensing
Ed Parsons covers the licensing for the free OS data, which as he notes is Creative Commons style and means no problems for derived data. Good news indeed.
posted on: Thu, 01 Apr 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
OS Data
Yes, OS data is here. Download to your heart's content and, more importantly, it is going to be fascinating to see the new uses that this data is going to be put to. With unhindered access the potential for some really good mashups and web services is great. The Guardian nicely summarise the datasets. For DEM users note that the vector version of Panorama is included which, in my mind, is *better* than the higher resolution Profile (although Profile Plus is a different beast). And MySociety have already produced some derivative products (e.g. WGS84 version of CodePoint).
posted on: Thu, 01 Apr 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
OS data release in April
It's old news, but yes some OS data will be released in April. This is good news as it can only drive the innovation of "geo" applications and, perhaps more importantly, drive the linked use of base mapping with other government datasets released over at data.gov.uk. Of course, the nagging problem remains postcodes...
posted on: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
UK Space Agency
Has a nice ring doesn't it? Well, as of today, it formally exists, being funded by a mix of public and private monies. Good post with various erstwhile links here.
posted on: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
More Metro Maps
A nice blog post comparing a variety of metro maps.
posted on: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 | path: /fun | permanent link to this entry
Tim Berners Lee:on government data
Great 5 minute talk from Tim Berners-Lee on linked geodata. The driving force behind the new data.gov.uk portal, he shows some of the profound applications of geodata.
posted on: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Pivot
Another Microsoftie, Gary Flake, demoed Pivot at TED recently. Very nice example of the way tagging and hyperlinking on webapges can be expanded more widely to data exploration and mixing the two areas together. Very nice piece of visualization.
posted on: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 | path: /computing | permanent link to this entry
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