New IDRISI Selva GIS and Image Processing Software Released

From Clark Labs:Image used with permission from Clark Labs

Clark Labs recently released its newest version of its geospatial and image processing software IDRISI called IDRISI Selva. IDRISI Selva is the 17th version of IDRISI which offers brand new features and significant updates to its predecessor IDRISI Taiga. IDRISI offers a suite of tools for basic and advanced spatial analysis, surface and statistical analysis, change and time series analysis, modeling, and decision support and uncertainty. IDRISI also offers a diversity of image processing tools including a variety of hard and soft classifiers, machine learning algorithms, and image segmentation tools. This latest version adds new tools to the Earth Trends Modeler application for the analysis of patterns and trends in earth observation image time series and new REDD-specific tools to the Land Change Modeler application for the modeling, prediction and impact assessment of land cover change. New analytical techniques and greater import/export support have been added, display and map composition elements have been enhanced and expanded and existing modules have been optimized.

More specifically some changes include:

• Land Change Modeler has been enhanced and new modeling tools have been added such as SimWeight and tools to support modeling and accounting for REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) projects. An integrated interface to the Maxent software for species distribution modeling has also been added.
• Earth Trends Modeler has been enhanced with new tools for the analysis of coupled systems such as the oceans and atmosphere. These include Extended PCA/EOF, Multi-channel Singular Spectrum Analysis, Extended EOT, Multichannel EOT and Canonical Correlation Analysis.
• New tools have been added such as Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural network classifier, Chain Clustering, and Durbin-Watson modules.
• Existing tools such as the distance based modules have been optimized for greater speed and the PCA module has been expanded. In addition, MODIS and Google KML file import and export support has been enhanced.
• New support for image pyramids and large images up to 2 billion rows by 2 billion columns have been added.

For more on IDRISI Selva and specifics on what is new visit their website here or see the resources below:

IDRISI Selva news release 

IDRISI Selva brochure

IDRISI Selva what’s new brochure

Clark Labs is based within the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University in Worcester, MA. The information and images presented are used with permission from Clark Labs.

IDRISI Land Change Modeler (Image used with permission from Clark Labs)IDRISI Earth Trends Modeler (Image used with permission from Clark Labs)

forests to faucets: cool new tool from the forest service

The US Forest Service has released their "forest to faucet" program last week. It looks at the importance of forests to surface water. Built in ArcGIS server, it quickly maps, by watershed:

• Surface Drinking Water Importance Index   
• Index of Forest Importance to Surface Drinking Water   
• Index of insect and disease threat to forests important to surface drinking water   
• Index of development threat to forests important to surface drinking water
• Index of wildland fire threat to forests important to surface drinking water

Check it out: http://www.fs.fed.us/ecosystemservices/FS_Efforts/forests2faucets.shtml

3D Street level mapping with earthmine

earthmine's Anthony Fassero visited yesterday to give a Geolunch presentation and blew us away with the amazing technology that they are employing!  Anthony, and Co-Founder John Ristevski started earthmine just a few years ago after graduating from Cal. 

earthmine has developed the camera system and engineering to take high resolution 3d street level images using only photogrammetric techniques (no lidar), as well as software tools that allow users to work with the data directly in ArcGIS and other geospatial applications. These tools allow you to not only view the data alongside a map, but to actualy make 3d measurements one the fly and edit ancillary data layers from within the phot view.

You have to see it for yourself!  Check out this video to see teh data and tools in action.

MIT releases new Urban Network Analysis Tool for ArcGIS 10

The MIT City Form Research Group recently released a new open-source plugin for ArcGIS 10 to perform advanced spatial analyses on network data such as urban street networks. The tool can give researchers a better understanding of how the spatial layout of cities and their social, economic, and environmental processes affect the way people live in it.

The tool measures reach, gravity, betweenness, closeness, and straightness on spatial networks. This means you can assess the number of services or resources within a certain walking distance and can analyze the volume of traffic along sidewalks and streets. Like other network analysis tools, the tool evaluates network element geometry and distance and distinguishes between shorter and longer links. What is unique about this tool is that it not only operates with node and edge elements like other network analysis tools, but it can also incorporate additional network elements such as buildings. Individual buildings or objects can be characterized within spatial networks and can be weighted to give more or less influence. For example, more populated buildings can be set to have a greater impact on results. The tool can also be used to assess urban growth and change.

Click here for the press release.

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.

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

corridor analysis tools

Alan shared a link with me for Corridor Design. It includes downloads for various GIS Tools, overviews of corridor concepts, and reports on linkage designs. The stated goal is "to transfer everything we've learned about designing wildlife corridors to the general public to facilitate better conservation, science, and dialogue."  Check out the site's blog for info on their latest projects.

Clark Labs teams up with Google.org to develop web based land-cover analysis and REDD tools

Land Change Modeler for ArcGIS (Image used with permission from Clark Labs)

From Clark Labs news:

Clark Labs recently received a $451,000 grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to support the development of land-cover analysis and REDD tools for use on Google's Earth Engine. REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, is a climate change mitigation strategy that offers developing countries incentives to reduce forest carbon emissions. The complex implementation of REDD relies on substantial computing and data resources, and requires significant effort and investment. It is hoped that providing accessible modeling tools with Google’s cloud computing resources and wealth of geospatial data will encourage broader adoption of REDD.

The grant supports the development of a prototype of the land change analysis and prediction tools for Google.org’s Earth Engine platform, a technology in development that enables global-scale monitoring and measurement of changes in the Earth’s forests. It is planned that Google will host the required geospatial data layers to implement a REDD project, including maps of those factors identified as critical causes of deforestation, such as proximity to roads, slopes or distance from existing deforestation.

The new tools in development will guide the user through the steps of baseline development--land change analysis of the reference, project and leakage areas of a project, the identification of the carbon pools and input of carbon density values, and the estimation of emissions for projected dates. This new functionality will also directly produce the multitude of tables and graphics for the carbon accounting reporting requirement of REDD. The preparation costs of REDD will be significantly reduced by the automation provided by these tools.

Clark Labs is based within the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University in Worcester, MA and is the developer of the IDRISI Taiga GIS and Image Processing software and the Land Change Modeler software extension to ArcGIS. To view the full news release click here.

Magnetic declination calculator

NOAA's magnetic declination calculator is here. Magnetic declanation is the difference between magnetic north and true north. Berkeley's declination is 14° 16' E. This is useful information for calibrating your compass or your GPS. Most GPS allow bearings to be calculated on either true or magnetic north, even the lowly iphone compass allows this.