Geo-Immersion Makes Maps Come Alive

Very cool application developed at USC.  Geo-Immersion adds realtime video and data feeds to map of USC campus.  Check out the article from NSF's Science Nation, and the video below.

Leafsnap: new iphone app for tree ID

Apologies to Fergie.

Leafsnap is the first in a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, theUniversity of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution. This free mobile app uses visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves.

ESRI's ChangeMatters and New Landsat Image Services

Yesterday at the annual ASPRS conference in Milwaukee, WI (yes there were sausages shaped like the state), Jack Dangermond announced the release of ChangeMatters, and new Landsat Image Services from ESRI.

ChangeMatters. Working with partners, ESRI developed this web application - ChangeMatters - which allows users throughout the globe to quickly view the GLS Landsat imagery both multi-spectrally (in different Landsat band combinations) and multi-temporally (across epochs), and to conduct simple change detection analysis.

Image Services, with examples of vegetation, false color, land-water band combinations in seamless, color matched Landsat mosaics. Downloads will be available soon. Pretty nice. Website.

Example from ChangeMatters: Las Vegas from 1975 - 2000. Green is increase and red decrease in veg

Google Earth Builder announced, GIS in the cloud

Google has officially unveiled Google Earth Builder, a new product aiming to allow users to store and analyze spatial data in the cloud.  There are many details of the service yet to be revealed, but it will definitely be interesting to see where this is heading...

New Google SketchUp plug-in integrates 3D laser scan data

Pointools has just announced the availability of a new plug-in for Google SketchUp to be released in a few weeks. This new plug-in will make it easy to visualize and use point cloud data from sources such as mobile ground based scans and aerial lidar for 3D model building in Google SketchUp. The plug-in offers built-in support for Google’s geo-location services to coordinate StreetView textures and aerial imagery alongside point clouds. This new tool allows for a new data source to be used to create photo realistic 3D models of buildings and landscapes.

Click here for the full story and here for a video of the plug-in in action.

Image Source: Pointools Wordpress

ArcGIS 10 coming in June

The latest ArcGIS release, ArcGIS 10, is slated to become available in June with a lot of big updates.  Check out ESRI's website to see more about what's coming.  They have several informative videos that demo the new software. 

Some of the improvements listed include:

• Faster display, smoother navigation, and the ability to run geoprocessing in the background.
• Perform in 3D virtually everything you can do in a 2D environment: modeling, editing, visualization, and analysis.
• Simplify map creation and production with streamlined sketch-based Desktop (2D/3D) and Web editing.
• Use and manage imagery more efficiently on the desktop and on the server.
• New image analysis window for image interpretation and processing.
• Automate common tasks and analyses with Python scripting.

New: Geospatial Modelling Environment

If you're a fan of Hawth's tools, be sure to check out SpatialEcology.com's latest product, Geospatial Modelling Environment.

"It combines the power of the statistical software R with the geographic processing functionality of ESRI ArcGIS to drive geospatial analyses.

"It incorporates most of the functionality of its predecessor, HawthsTools, but with some important improvements. It has a greater range of analysis and modelling tools, supports batch processing, offers new graphing functionality, automatically records work-flows for future reference, supports geodatabases, and can be called programatically." - http://www.spatialecology.com/gme/

TauDEM software: for your hydro modeling needs

This was recommended to me recently by Orien; he is using it to create topographic indices to use as ancillary data in an object-based classification of palustrine wetlands in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. These wetland sites are terrifically important for rails, and mapping them efficiently is a challenge.  Topographic information is proving useful in the classification, and Orien used this software rather than the ArcGIS hydro modeler suite.

From David Tarboton at Utah State: Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models (TauDEM) is a set of tools for the analysis of terrain using digital elevation models. TauDEM currently provides numerous capabilities that expand on the ESRI suite including (more listed on website):

• Computation of flow directions and slopes;
• Contributing area using single and multiple flow direction methods;
• Multiple methods for the delineation of channel networks that include curvature;
• Delineation of watersheds and subwatersheds draining to each stream segment; and
• Specialized functions for terrain analysis, including wetness indices, accumulation measures, and downslope and upslope functions.

New 'Map Illustration' Software for Mac Users

Mapdiva, LLC has just resleased its map illustration software Ortelius^TM  for Mac computers. It's only 30Mb to download a free 31-day trial version, and for now they're offering an 'Introductory Price' of $79 (versus $99) until the end of September. An Education Edition is also available only $39 (after Sept. 30 willl be $49) for currently enrolled students with a valid .edu address.

Note that the company states, "Ortelius is designed for cartographic output as the end product, intentionally not a GIS system, though the Professional Edition with add more GIS-type operations to the currently available tools. On a general note the Standard Edition is likely to fall short in some aspects for hardcore geographers and GIS users; the Professional Edition is intended to provide many more GIS features." So some users may want to wait for the Pro Edition for increased functionality.

From The Map Room

ESRI's Geoprocessing blog: Lidar and ArcGIS part 4: forest density and height.

This blog post is written by Clayton Crawford, a Product Engineer in the Software Products Group's 3D Team in Redlands.

This is the forth in a series on Lidar Solutions in ArcGIS.