Geospatial Technology 2015: One Man’s View of Life’s Swinging Pendulum

January 7, 2015 - By Art Kalinski

Navy OCS Newport. (Photo by Photographer’s Mate Second Class Mark A. Ebert)

In 1971, I was traveling from Navy boot camp to OCS at Newport, Rhode Island. While walking through Logan Airport, I passed some Vietnam protesters. A young hippie girl came up to me from the group and looked at my red National Defense service ribbon (a generic ribbon given to everyone for merely being in the service). Flicking the ribbon she scowled and asked “How many babies did you kill to get that medal?” Taken aback by her question, I answered the only way I could to someone so naive and clueless. I said, “To be honest with you, I lost count.”

Fortunately, the public-perception pendulum swung back, reaching a high point after Desert Storm and more so after 9/11. Everyone remembers what they were doing when the Twin Towers were hit. I was in the middle of teaching an ArcView II class at the Atlanta Regional Commission. That week, I made three predictions to my colleagues.

We are going to war. We did.
We are going to take a 10% economic hit. We did, although later than I thought.
Although almost everyone, including Rosie O’Donnell, was waving the flag, wearing NYPD caps, and extolling the virtues of our first responders and the military, I predicted that within 7-10 years they would forget the horror and be calling us baby killers again. The recent dissing of the NSA, CIA and, most recently, the police, is putting us on track for that prediction.

Although real statistics show that life continues to get better for everyone despite the doom and gloom media, I do believe that we will see setbacks as the world faces numerous asymmetrical threats. So what does all this have to do with our geospatial community? A lot. No matter where the pendulum is, our country has to use every intel tool at our disposal to maintain vigilance. Killing bad guys with drones and taking no prisoners certainly doesn’t help our HUMINT (human intelligence) efforts, so more has to be accomplished by other means, with geospatial technology playing a key role. In 20 years we’ve seen significant changes in geospatial technology, and 2015 should be no exception.

Oblique Imagery and 3D Models

I believe that 2015 will see an explosion of oblique imagery and 3D models. Moore’s Law proves valid as hardware speed and capabilities expand. There are numerous overhead and ground-capture systems, manned and unmanned, that are driving costs down and resolution up, with significantly more imagery available. Countless programmers are working night and day to develop the preeminent tool to build 3D models. 3D navigation and exploitation tools should also continue to improve.

I’ve written on how many people have difficulty orienting themselves with abstract maps or even ortho imagery. By contrast, oblique imagery and 3D models help non-GIS personnel with rapid perception of an operational picture. Some ask why bother with the expense and effort needed to create 3D models when four-way obliques are almost as good? The key reason is police, military and first responders frequently need to be able to measure angles, distance, lines of sight and visibility within a 3D environment, such as one rooftop to another. That’s difficult to do without a metric geo-referenced 3D model. Additionally, if UAVs, micro UAVs, and even nano UAVs see expanded use, interior navigation will be critical. Perhaps someone will finally develop a reliable interior-location tracking system with LiDAR data, BIM Models or accurate 3D models as the navigation map.

For over a decade, Pictometry International has been the key provider of georeferenced metric oblique imagery, but the Pictometry patents have expired and many new players are entering the market with both aerial and ground-capture systems, plus 3D model creation. Here is a partial list of oblique and 3D model players to watch in 2015:

Acute3D. This French company offers software that produces high-resolution 3D models from simple photographs, without any human intervention.
AEgis Technologies Group, Inc. Builders of detailed 3D models for military and major security applications.
Agisoft LLC. A Russian company that created Agisoft PhotoScan, a photogrammetric software for 3D reconstruction, visualization, surveying and mapping.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. This Denver-based office developed a new technology that creates real-time 3D models by shooting and merging a co-bore-sighted LiDAR and optical image to create real-time 3D models.
BlomOBLIQUE. A former Pictometry partner now on its own, primarily in Europe.
CyberCity 3D, Inc. CyberCity 3D specializes in 3D GIS buildings focused on urban planning and analysis, visualization, real estate, solar, rainwater, and sustainability.
CycloMedia Technology, Inc. A Dutch-based U.S. firm doing ground-level metric oblique imagery. I wrote about them in February.
Euclideon Geoverse. An Australian firm that developed tools that permit almost instant access to massive point cloud or imagery data. Watch the video.

Fugro. Fugro’s PanoramiX imagery and PX Mapper software look promising.
GEOSPAN, Corp. This firm is capturing imagery of Cook County Illinois and planning to release automated 3D modeling software this year.
ICAROS. This well-established mapping firm has expanded into metric oblique imagery. Watch the video.

IDAN Computers Ltd. An Israeli company that developed the tools to capture metric oblique imagery almost at the same time as Pictometry, but were only a few months behind Pictometry in filing a patent. IDAN’s Oblivision technology has seen extensive use overseas, and its IMPS (IDAN Mission Planning System) was used in real-world homeland security and military actions in the Middle East. IDAN was recently awarded a U.S. patent for automatic generation of 3D models of structures using real facade textures obtained from its geo-referenced oblique images. Watch the video.

MosaicMill, Ltd. This geospatial technology company in Finland was established in 2009. The company is the developer of the EnsoMOSAIC aerial survey system and EnsoMOSAIC photogrammetric software designed for UAV captured data.
NearMap. This Australian firm has been doing very high refresh rate ortho imagery focused on construction, but is now getting into the oblique market. Read more here.
Pix4D. This company has generated a lot of buzz related to its Pix4Dmapper, which automatically creates 3D models from imagery captured by any type of camera or platform, including small UAVs.

PLW Modelworks 3D model of San Francisco.

PLW Modelworks. In my opinion, PLW Modelworks 3D models are still the gold standard of 3D models. Although not quick or cheap, nothing comes close to these photo-realistic and photo-accurate 3D models. Note their key role in Birdly, discussed below.
Raytheon. I wrote about Raytheon’s automated system to build 3D models from satellite imagery in August.
Sanborn. Founded in 1866, the Sanborn Map Company is expanding significantly into oblique imagery and 3D models.

The Cloud

No discussion of 2015 would be complete without mention of “The Cloud.” I wrote about one cloud-based application last year. We still have a long way to go to achieve the grand vision, but the Carbon Project may come closer to the dream than any application I’ve seen so far.

The Carbon Project is building a unified cloud-based system for the State of North Carolina that will roll out this spring. The project addresses two key issues that have been a problem for years — data disparity from multiple sources and loss of connectivity. The system will continuously ingest geospatial data from all NC counties and seamlessly correct formats and data labels to one standard without changing the original data. Additionally, for those of us who have experienced paralysis during critical events due to loss of connectivity, the Carbon Project can automatically cache data locally once an area of interest is defined.

Note this example using Carbon Project technology to test an Electronic Flight Bag for the FAA. Some pilots no longer have to lug around a 40-pound case of paper charts and manuals, just a tablet.

Social Media / Cyber Warfare

Initially, it seemed like “location” wouldn’t be a factor in the cyber world other than to monitor threats to our infrastructure such as the power grid, but we’ve all learned differently. There is a growing capability and need to map networks, nodes and server locations. Additionally, many tools have been developed that can identify location components within the content of social media, and the technology will continue to improve and grow in importance, especially for the intel community as HUMINT dries up.

A seemingly small improvement comes from ClearTerra with its product LocateXT. LocateXT rapidly scans unstructured textual documents searching for location information such as geo-coordinates or place names, then automatically creates formatted geospatial files such as Shapefiles and KMLs. On first glance, this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, until one realizes the man-hours that manual searches and conversion would take on thousands of documents, including massive social-media files.

Augmented / Virtual Reality

So, what is this young lady doing? She is flying through a virtual but real-life 3D model. See what happens when you merge GIS, ortho/oblique imagery, PLW Modelworks 3D models, Occulus Rift 3D goggles, UAVs, GPS and virtual reality. By the way, don’t put this in the same category as a video game. Gamers use a lot of cloning and textures, so they don’t have to handle real-life data files. Birdly, a bird-flight simulator, uses photo accurate geo-referenced imagery and models. Perhaps Birdly is the future of UAV control and remote data capture. Learn more about Birdly:

What is a Birdly?
“SIGGRAPH 2014 bird flight simulator Birdly has Vancouver conference goers soaring above San Francisco“
Youtube video on Birdly (below).

With this column, I felt like one of the blind men trying to describe an elephant, since my view of the geospatial community is limited. Most likely you have a different view based on your position and experience. Please share your predictions for 2015 in the comments section based on your view of our community.

Hopefully, the public perception pendulum will start swinging back this year.