For a list of current press releases, visit Earth Imaging Journal’s website (www.eijournal.com). To submit a press release to Earth Imaging Journal, please send e-mail to news@eijournal.com.
Business
AAM (www.aamgroup.com), Sydney, Australia, upgraded the first of its fleet of VisionMap A3 digital mapping cameras to the A3 Edge. The system is the newest and most advanced camera in VisionMap’s A3 series.
AeroMetric (www.aerometric.com), Sheboygan, Wis., won a professional and technical services master contract for the state of Minnesota; an on-call consultancy services contract with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission; an information technology staff augmentation contract through the Texas Department of Information Resources; and an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity remote sensing contract to provide aerial imagery to the Department of Homeland Security.
Astrium (www.astrium-geo.com), Toulouse, France, entered into a partnership agreement with IHS to deliver satellite imagery and services for intelligence analysis and reporting. Under the agreement, Astrium Services will provide newly acquired imagery from its Pléiades, SPOT and TerraSAR-X satellites for use as primary sources and fusion with open-source information for actionable intelligence. In addition, Astrium announced its SPOT 6 high-resolution satellite has been qualified by the European Space Agency (ESA) to take part in the Copernicus Earth observation program. Copernicus, known as the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security program when it was founded in 1998 by the European Union and ESA, aims to provide a series of data obtained by observation satellites and in-situ measurement instruments to produce a comprehensive global view of the state of our planet.
Aurora Flight Sciences (www.aurora.aero), Manassas, Va., announced its Skate small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) was deployed to Afghanistan to support Operation Enduring Freedom missions; the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency awarded the company a $2.8 million contract for the Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node program to design, develop and demonstrate a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS for U.S. Navy ships; and its Centaur aircraft completed a month-long Arctic science campaign led by Harvard University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division to study carbon release from melt zones in the Arctic.
CompassCom (www.compasscom.com), Centennial, Colo., established Compass 4Colorado (www.Compass4Colorado.com), a collaborative effort to make geographic information system and related mapping capabilities available at no or low cost to organizations involved in recovery activities related to the Colorado floods. The Compass4Colorado campaign will remain active through March 31, 2014, with support from DigitalGlobe, Esri, Geospatial Experts, Laser Technology and Trimble Navigation.
East View Geospatial (www.eastview.com), Minneapolis, partnered with PlanetObserver. PlanetObserver’s geospatial data and satellite imaging products will be hosted on East View Geospatial’s new EVGeoCloud, an online geospatial content platform built for universities.
Esri (www.esri.com), Redlands, Calif., partnered with Next Century to develop Esri map widgets for the Ozone Widget Framework; Wildlife Conservation Society to develop and produce an online Story Map that combines spatial data, cartography and Web mapping tools to visually tell the story of the elephant poaching crisis; and MarkLogic to provide real-time access to diverse data sources for the defense and intelligence communities through Esri’s ArcGIS software.
Fugro (www.fugro.com), Leidschendam, The Netherlands, won a contract to collect airborne gravity data by the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Coastal Services Center and National Ocean Service. Under funds released as part of the Hurricane Sandy supplemental bill, the new contract will provide for additional data collection over the Mid-Atlantic states as part of the NGS program known as Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum.
Hexagon (www.hexagon.com), Stockholm, agreed to acquire Airborne Hydrography AB (AHAB), a provider of airborne laser survey systems for hydrographic and topographic surveys. Founded in 2002 and based in Jönköping, Sweden, AHAB serves international survey companies and governmental organizations with hydrographic and topographic software and systems to map land, coastal zones and seafloors.
Intergraph (www.intergraph.com), Huntsville, Ala., announced the Czech Republic’s national mapping agency, the Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre, implemented a Web-based solution from Intergraph to distribute and publish national geospatial data. The solution includes high-performance image compression and delivery for handling big data on a large scale.
Merrick & Company (www.merrick.com), Greenwood Village, Colo., announced its Geospatial Solutions group signed an agreement with Euclideon to distribute its Geoverse software. Geoverse features Euclideon’s Unlimited Detail technology, which instantly provides data visualization access to 3-D point cloud datasets at full resolution, no matter the size or density.
PCI Geomatics (www.pcigeomatics.com), Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, delivered to Sabah Lands and Surveys Department (Malaysia) a historical airphoto processing system. The department will use the system to produce seamless ortho mosaics for more than 40,000 historical images in its archive.
Photo Science (www.photoscience.com), Denver, announced it was awarded a contract to provide U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) with airborne topographic LiDAR data for areas devastated by record flooding within Colorado’s South Platte watershed. USGS will share the data to help mitigate the effect of future weather disasters in the area.
SimActive (www.simactive.com), Montreal, announced an agreement with Space Imaging Middle East (SIME), whereby SIME will act as an authorized SimActive distributor in the Middle East. In addition, SIME purchased SimActive’s Correlator3D product to process satellite, aerial and unmanned aircraft system imagery.
Thermopylae Sciences & Technology (www.t-sciences.com), Arlington, Va., announced it was awarded a blanket purchase agreement for geospatial technical support services for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Under the agreement, Thermopylae will provide information technology support to geospatial programs across DHS.
People
Aurora Flight Sciences (www.aurora.aero), Manassas, Va., elected Ellen O’Kane Tauscher to its board of directors. Tauscher is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing California’s 10th Congressional district.
AXIS Geospatial (www.axisgeospatial.com), Easton, Md., added Allan Blades to its business development team. Blades spent the last 17 years at BAE Systems, where he helped acquire geospatial production contracts within the federal government.
Cardinal Systems (www.cardinalsystems.net), Flagler Beach, Fla., announced Mike Kitaif was honored as member of the year by the Florida Region of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. His dedication to software development began in 1979 and led to the creation of the CADMAP software package as well as the design and development of the Vr Mapping suite of products.
DMCii (www.dmcii.com), Guildford, United Kingdom, appointed a new general manager, Martin Philp. Philp was promoted from the company’s sales team to manage a growing distribution and partner network for the company’s 22-meter Landsat-compatible satellite imagery and high-resolution optical imagery.
Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (www.mapps.org), Reston, Va., elected Woolpert’s Chris Ogier to the MAPPS board of directors. Ogier served as a member of the MAPPS Legislative Affairs Committee, which advises the MAPPS board on legislation and public policy issues affecting the geospatial profession.
Quantum Spatial (www.quantumspatial.com), Sheboygan, Wis., announced Chief Technology Officer Terry Keating retired after a
32-year career in the geospatial industry. Prior to joining Quantum Spatial (then AeroMetric) in 2007, Keating founded and worked for several notable firms, including Kork Systems.
Surrey Satellite Technology US (www.surreysatellite.com), Englewood, Colo., named Doug Gerull chief operating officer. He will help the company build out its U.S. manufacturing capacity and cultivate satellite technology markets within the U.S. commercial, civil government and defense sectors.
Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (www.urisa.org), Des Plaines, Ill., celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its GISCorps. Since the GISCorps debuted in 2003, more than 400 volunteers have been deployed to 131 missions around the world to provide short-term, volunteer-based geographic information system support to underprivileged communities.
Products
Applanix (www.applanix.com), Essen, Germany, introduced new versions of its positioning and orientation systems for airborne and land-based mapping: POS AV 610 and POS LV 610. The new systems use next-generation commercial inertial technologies that are offered globally. In addition, the company announced the Trimble CenterPoint RTX correction service will be available across its entire airborne mapping portfolio. The correction service gives Applanix products the ability to achieve accuracy required for many types of mapping projects in real time and post-mission, all without the need for base stations.
Astrium (www.astrium-geo.com), Toulouse, France, released the first WorldDEM sample data sets for evaluation, enabling potential customers to begin testing data for varied applications. The WorldDEM sample data feature two different variants: the basic Digital Surface Model (DSM), including the heights of all natural and man-made objects, and DSM hydro, where water body features derived from the radar data are extracted and edited. In addition, Astrium launched two new TerraSAR-X imaging modes: Staring SpotLight and Wide ScanSAR. The enhanced imaging capabilities deliver higher-resolution imagery and cover larger areas.
Avenza Systems (www.avenza.com), Toronto, launched its PDF Maps app on the Google Play Store. The first and only geospatial PDF and GeoTIFF reader for Android devices, Avenza’s PDF Maps app offers users more than 100,000 detailed maps sourced from well-established publishers, cartographers and government agencies. The company also launched its PDF Maps app 2.0 for iOS devices. The app provides iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users the ability to track speed and elevation in real time and import and export data more efficiently.
BlackBridge (www.blackbridge.com), Berlin, Germany, launched level 3B Ortho Take. The product provides image takes that have been bundle adjusted and orthorectified to fully cover an area of interest.
Blue Marble Geographics (www.bluemarblegeo.com), Hallowell, Maine, released Global Mapper version 15, Global Mapper Software Development Kit (SDK) version 15, Global Energy Mapper version 15 and a .NET version of the company’s GeoCalc 6.6 SDK.
Contex (www.contex.com), Rockville, Md., released Nextimage 4, a new edition of its wide-format scanning software. Nextimage 4 includes SnapScan, a scan-enhance-save capability that eliminates the need to rescan after modifications are made.
Diamond Aircraft (www.diamond-sensing.com), Neustadt, Austria, announced its new DA42 GEOSTAR remote sensing platform collects laser and photogrammetry data during a single flight. The result of the collected measurements is a digital terrain model in the form of a point cloud that can be used to create realistic 3-D models.
East View Geospatial (www.eastview.com), Minneapolis, released its LandScan Global Population Database, which maps population data down to a single square kilometer, covering every inhabited area of Earth’s land mass. Free data samples are available.
Esri (www.esri.com), Redlands, Calif., announced ArcGIS Marketplace, a new destination that allows ArcGIS Online subscribers to search, discover, and get apps and data from qualified providers for use within their organization; ArcGIS 10.2 Runtime SDKs, which provide a set of tools for developers to embed dynamic mapping and geospatial technology into existing applications or build native client applications for desktop and mobile devices; and enhanced apps, Collector for ArcGIS and Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS, to collect, monitor and analyze rapidly changing data.
Esri Press (www.esri.com/esripress), Redlands, Calif., released Making Spatial Decisions Using GIS and Remote Sensing: A Workbook, the first student workbook to focus on the image processing capabilities inherent in Esri’s ArcGIS software; the fifth edition of Thinking About GIS: Geographic Information System Planning for Managers by Roger Tomlinson; and Esri ArcGIS Desktop Associate Certification Study Guide, a workbook for those preparing for the associate-level examination for ArcGIS Desktop technical certification.
GeoCue (www.geocue.com), Huntsville, Ala., released the latest experimental release of its LP360 light detection and ranging (LiDAR) extension for Esri’s ArcGIS environment. The release (version 2013.2.24.0) includes new features aimed at different LiDAR exploitation workflows. The company also released LP360 Project Publisher, a free application that allows users to create metadata for a collection of point cloud files (in LAS format) and, optionally, publish to ArcGIS Online.
Leica Geosystems (www.leica-geosystems.us), Norcross, Ga., announced Tuck Mapping Solutions completed the first integration of a Leica RCD30 airborne camera with the Applanix POSTrack system. With technical support from Leica Geosystems and Applanix, Tuck Mapping contracted Lead’Air, Kissimmee, Fla., to perform most of the software upgrades and new cabling required to integrate the Leica digital camera with the POSTrack all-in-one GNSS-aided inertial direct georeferencing and flight management system.
Microsoft’s UltraCam Business Unit (www.microsoft.com/ultracam), Graz, Austria, announced UltraCam Hawk, a new base model UltraCam digital aerial mapping system that extends the existing UltraCam product suite to meet varying project requirements and budget restrictions. UltraCam Hawk provides smaller mapping companies with an affordable option to expand their aerial mapping services, but the system can be upgraded to the larger UltraCam Falcon or Eagle as a company’s needs evolve.
Optech (www.optech.com), Toronto, announced its Lynx MG1 and Lynx SG1 Mobile Mapper product lines now support the use of the Point Grey Ladybug 5 spherical imaging system. The Ladybug 5, which offers six high-sensitivity 5-megapixel imagers that cover 90 percent of a full sphere, offers Optech users more options in assembling a mobile surveying solution optimized to meet their application requirements. In addition, the company released the ILRIS Scan software suite for its ILRIS Terrestrial Laser Scanner product line. Now users can operate their sensor, collect data, process the results and visualize the final point cloud in one program.
Orbit Logic (www.orbitlogic.com), Greenbelt, Md., announced its SpyMeSat iPhone app is available on the Apple App Store. The SpyMeSat app provides notifications when imaging satellites are overhead from user-specified locations.
Overwatch Geospatial Solutions (www.overwatch.com), Sterling, Va., released RemoteView 4 geospatial intelligence software. The software enhances the intelligence gathering and analysis process, providing a new analyst-centric graphical user interface, streamlined navigation, and workflow-aligned toolbars and profiles that can be customized by individual users and analytical teams.
SimActive (www.simactive.com), Montreal, released Correlator3D version 5.0. Improvements include an enhanced aerial triangulation module and 64-bit support.
TouchShare (www.touchshare.com), Pasadena, Calif., announced TouchShare Mobile Access. The technology improves team productivity, as it gives all collaborators the ability to simultaneously view and contribute to what other team members see in real time and interact with geospatial information via any device.