Directions Magazine francais - Blogue

RFID tags in Kid's Pajamas

InformationWeek had an article in the July 18th issue on how RFID tags were being inplanted into kid's pajamas.�A company called SmartWear Technologies is supplying Lauren Scott California with the tags. The idea of course is�to notify parents if their�child is roams outside the zone protected by SmartWear's system for RFID�notification system especially in case of abduction. The catch is you have to purchase the $500 RFID�reader from SmartWear. However, one analyst commented that the system could end up like GPS applications and the price will tumble. SmartWear may look to license the technology to a security company like ADT, the article reported.Sounds like location tracking is the next logical step. Will there�be an RFID/GPS hand off so that both interior and exterior perimeter�tracking can support personalized system for families that want to keep tabs on their kids?In a related story in RFIDInsights, theme parks are issuing RFID braclets as part of general admission.

Google Earth, MS Virtual Earth - Why so much press? Follow the money

Is it viral marketing or tens of millions of dollars in PR? You can not pick up a business magazine, local newspaper or listen to the radio without seeing or hearing something about Google Maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth, or Yahoo Maps. I'm beginning to be suspicious. At first I thought it was just "us" who were enamored with the "cool" maps on Google. But the mainstream media is spending way too much time covering this. Could it be that since Google has a market capitalization in excess of $81 billion that is catching the attention of everyone?Data point. I get a call from a producer of the Frank Beckman show on WJR Radio (760 AM radio) in Detriot. He wants me to be on Beckman's show to discuss Microsoft Virtual Earth. What? That's my first reaction. How did he find Directions Magazine? That's my second reaction. How much? That's my third reaction. Is Microsoft paying for the PR to address the fever pitch among the media that Google is stiring? Is Google dumping millions of dollars on PR to thwart the Microsoft machine? And where is Yahoo and MapQuest? Are they next? I have a source that says that lots of money is being spent, so don't think this is all just fun and games and Google just "happens" to get good publicity from the new toy for searching for a satellite image of your house.Think about it.

Google Maps Lead Speaks

The lead engineer of the Google Maps project, Lars Rasmussen talks about the project's history (Google acquired his company Where 2 last October - I didn't know that!), his hope that Earth and Maps will merge and the general state of affairs at Google in article from ZD Australia. His main message in a talk to Web engineers in Sydney was that programmers use the power of each different browser, not stoop to the "lowest common denominator."

Virtual Earth Coverage

MSN Shows Off Forthcoming Search, Mail Deliverables Expect "an MSN Virtual Earth search enhancement called "Eagle Eye," due out this fall, that is designed to give a panoramic, very fine-grained zoom view." PC Magazine Oops! Microsoft's Earth falls flat "�the fact is that Microsoft came to market six months late with a second-rate product." Globe and Mail Microsoft Attacks Google Earth "Analysts said that MSN Virtual Earth is an attempt by the company to regain the ground in search that it has lost to Google." Red Herring Review: MSN Virtual Earth 1.0 "Microsoft's entry into advanced interactive mapping shows a lot of promise." PC Magazine Microsoft's Maps Product May Not Reverse Drop in Market Share "[VE] may come too late to reverse a slide in market share for its MSN search engine." Bloomberg

Celartem Sheds Add-ons

Celartem, which owns Extensis and LizardTech shed a few add-ons to a third party developer. The Photoshop Plug-ins and QuarkXPress XTensions will soon be supported by independent software developer, onOne Software, a company built by former Extensis staffers. Says the release, "Celartem, Inc. is selling these products to refine its existing product lines focusing on digital content management and distribution - GeoExpress, Document Express, Portfolio, Font Reserve and Suitcase." LizardTech saw two of its more senior staffers leave in recent months, prompted me at least, to wonder if further change was afoot. The company was at full power at the ESRI conference and its rubber lizards were everywhere!

Wi-Fi Find Me Courtesy of Microsoft

Microsoft is offering a "find me" service as part of its Virtual Earth offering. You can be found via IP address (think Digital Envoy and other geotargeting tools) or via Wi-Fi. Microsoft has mapping Wi-Fi hotspots (others have too) and claims to be able to locate people to 30 meters. This article suggests Google is not far behind with something similar.

Me Too!

Ok, everyone on board the Google train. It took a few examples to get things going, but now everyone has to link up with Google. Note this PR from Oodles, a search website for classified ads. "By combining Oodle Search with Google Maps, consumers can easily see what listings are available in their neighborhood or near their workplace." Let's see, if we all implement something on Google Maps, then Google puts ads on them�then Google might conquer the world!

ESRI-UC - EdUC Opening Events

[David Dibiasi directs the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute within the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State. -Ed.] The opening day of the 5th ESRI Education User Conference, Saturday July 23, included two notable events: a briefing by Roger Downs about the forthcoming National Research Council Report "Learning to Think Spatially" and a keynote address by map collector David Rumsey. Downs, who heads the department of geography at Penn State, previewed the long-awaited NRC report to an eager audience of about 50 educators. The report's authors, a panel of psychologists, cognitive scientists, education specialists, geographers, and others, define spatial thinking in terms of spatial concepts, representation, and processes of reasoning. As an example, Downs challenged the audience to deduce the shortest path (along walls, ceiling, or floor) between two points on opposite sides of a room. He then demonstrated how projecting the 3-D space to a 2-D representation is the key to revealing the optimal solution. Spatial thinking, the NRC report argues, involves cognitive skills that are integral to everyday life. Such skills that can be learned, but age, cognitive development level, biological sex, and cultural gender, account for differences in performance between individuals and groups. Spatial reasoning skills are implicit in national science and math standards for K-12 education. Those standards do not currently specify when and how such skills are to be mastered, however. Spatial thinking, the report observes, is U.S. K-12 education's "blind spot." The NRC report promotes a re-conceptualization of GIS as an environment that supports spatial thinking. It argues that GIS software needs to be redesigned to meet educational goals, to accommodate student needs, and to accommodate the limitations of educational settings. While his claims for the value of spatial thinking obviously resonated with audience members, several attendees disagreed strongly with the assertion that students are failing to master spatial thinking because of the failings of GIS software. Downs responded gently that the experiences of the highly successful educators attending the EdUC might not be representative of the 17,000 school districts in the U.S. The NRC report seems certain to spark discussion and debate in conferences, in faculty break rooms, and hopefully in the halls of Congress, when it is finally released later this summer. Rare is the GIS conference-goer who is not a cartophile at heart. David Rumsey's opening keynote address was a Saturday matinee for cartophiles-a narrated museum tour of beautiful and peculiar historical cartographic images. Over 20 years Rumsey has amassed a collection of over 150,000 maps, atlases, globes, and similar artifacts, most associated with parts of North or South America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Catering to his EdUC audience, Rumsey selected images of rare school atlases, pocket globes, map puzzles, and geographical games used to teach to our great- and great-great-grandparents. Rumsey noted that pupils were often expected to copy meticulously detailed maps as a way to memorize the shapes of continents, rivers, and boundaries, and the names of places and features. Globes and timelines frequently exploited the third and fourth dimensions. He stressed that school maps were typically beautifully crafted so as to capture the imaginations of their young audiences. Selections from his ESRI Press book Cartographica Extraordinaire illustrated the historical evolution of map imagery from copperplate engravings to satellite image data. More impressive even that Rumsey's extensive and often whimsical collection is his commitment to making high-quality images available to the public. Over 11,000 images are available for free viewing, printing, and downloading here.

ESRI-UC - ESRI 5K Fun Run/Walk

Directions Magazine sponsored the 5K for the second year. The turnout was great (about 320 registered) and the day a bit cooler than in year's past. Congratulations to Men's winner Patrick Donnelly (15:58 ) and Women's winner Susan Sleath (19:14). In the "Runners in the Press" category, congrats to Rachael Mock of GITC America, who took her age group. Yours truly was 3rd in her age group. My colleague Joe Francica was placed on "injured reserve" after the start. The best dressed runners were the crew from Imagem Geosistemas, ESRI's distributor in Brazil. Not only did they sport shirts designed for the event, they had an internal race going on, complete with their own trophies! Thanks to all who ran and walked for joining us. We look forward to seeing you all again next year. And, bring your friends!

ESRI-UC - Introduction to the new ESRI Image Server presented by Dave McGuire and Peter Becker

What it is used for imagery management of large quantities of images, process them in a server & distribute to clients provides fast access and server based processing of raw imagery (10's of TB potentially) straight off the sensor. Methodology store primary data in files (or import to rdbms if required) create services on server harvest metadata build catalog index define processing chain can publish the image service on the server and multiple users can access can host more than one imagery service on a server Benefits rapid access without any pre-processing (orthorectify, radiometric correction, filtering) no dbms load very fast otf server side processing multiple products from single source with different process chains dynamic update of image services as new images become available. simply copy files to server, add a metadata catalog and you're ready to go. Demo product originates from a product called PromptServer 8500 landsat scenes 8.5 tb of tiff files stored on the server. image overviews are created by the server (managed overviews) if imagery changes, server recreates the overviews server extracts pixels from raw source imagery, mosaics, radiometric corrects, pansharpens and reprojection from multiple UTM zones to Lat/Long on the fly, in seconds. can compute otf a band432 false color PS IR from landsat can create NDVI otf, each time you pan or zoom - all from the raw landsat data. (40,000 tiles) can handle SRTM data - create hillshaded terrain surface on the fly 1:500k scanned maps of the world in tiff format. They have been georeferenced, but the collar clipping happens on the fly, as well as a reprojection and a mosaicing. Subsampling only occurs once, so the image quality is fairly pristine. demo was running on a workstation class machine with 2gb of ram, not a server class machine, and was blazingly fast. serve quickbird imagery - 16bit basic imagery straight off the digital globe cd - raw imagery. does radiometric correction, reprojection, orthorecitfication (from SRTM) pansharpening and mosaicing into a 60cm natural color image created otf. can take pan imagery and convert it to bands 421 (false color). can then compute ndvi and water detection otf. can change properties of the process chain on the fly, such as subsampling and supersampling properties, etc. Can edit the metadata information, which does get sent to the client as XML ( how the image was processed, date, etc) can jpg compress the final output of the processing chain before serving it - for low bandwidth connections. you don't have to compress your base product - it remains very high resolution. You can use the compressed layer for most of your work and only show the full res product when zoomed in to a very small area. can be used to serve scanned cadastral drawings and have them projected to a known coordinate system. could be very important for counties without digital parcel gis systems to serve their cadastral information to the national map or state level portals such as NC OneMap. can load digital camera imagery and metadata (imu, xyx, etc) and with an existing terrain model, have the system do the orthorectification on the fly. great for disaster response situations where you do not have time to wait. you could have online orthos in a matter of days instead of months. we could have used that last fall after all the hurricane damage in western NC. imagery is not just used for a natural background. Analytical datasets and terrain models are imagery data. much vector data is extraced from imagery and imagery is quite often used for verification of vector data. the new image server will allow much imagery that languishes on disk or tape or in historic archives to be made immediately available to end users on their desktop without the huge overhead of pre-processing, georeferencing, orthorectification, etc. volume of acquired imagery is growing exponentially, we need systems to provide quick access that doesn't involve loading into a rdbms. value of imagery devalues quickly with time, but ironically it also increases in value again once more time has passed. paradigm shift merges the processing and distribution stages of the imagery. nearly no pre-processing quick to generate very low latency create multiple products from same source can update very quickly huge disk space savings More Demos how to create an image service: start catalog manager name the service add image(s) to the service (can add whole directories) set basic options compute statistics, generate overviews, metadata table & footprints create the service can change other properties and processing chains (interpolation, crop method, transparency, compression, filters, georeferencing, pan sharpening, histograms, you name it...) Data Flow input imagery process chaining compress display accepts many formats (1 to 32 bits per channel) tif, geotif jpg, lzw packbit flat, scanline, tiled (optimal) bil, bsq, bip jp2000, mrsid, ecw nitf, hda img(GDAL) (USES GDAL [open source library for imagery - Ed.] INTERNALLY TO DO THE TRANSLATIONS!!!!) sde raster oracle georaster there is an SDK so users can add their own image formats compression: store compressed or uncompressed (preferable, disk is cheap) compression derived products on the fly for end users the input processing is applied to each individual image and can be different for each input image (radiometry). processing parameters can be stored in the process definition xml file or in the database, which is easier to manage for large image band extraction, band algebra for multiband imagery 321 true color, 742 false color ir, 432 near ir false color, nvdi, etc subsampling & supersampling near neighbor, cubic convolution, bicubic, weighted matrix transparency enhance & sharpen brightness, contrast, gamma, equalize, dynamic based on histogram bit depth conversion - e.g. 18bit to 8bit sharpening: convolution filter on the primary data, before the rest of the processing, whcih will give the best results enhancing and sharpening in combination can be used to allow you to better see into the shadows coordinate conversions pan sharpening - fusion of high res b/w imagery with lower res color mosaicking/merging can feather sides or do a seamline mosaic, or a straight merge can change the viewpoint at the client end to you can look at both aspect/sides of features (building obscurity) in imagery with lots of building lean and lots of overlap. great for property assessors, security consultants, utility companies, etc. can specify "best-on-top" (most nadir), Zorder (fields in DB), or client defined order (based on sun angle or some other parameter of interest) client can lock the order they want. Another Demo can "blur out" certain secure areas of imagery in one service for general public use and create a separate, secure imagery service for authorized use that does not blur out the sensitive features. can hillshade and render raw dem or srtm or lidar data on the fly. can also merge in pockets of higher res data, such as lidar data from state and county collection projects and create a composite elevation surface. You can create your own special processing, logo stamping on the imagery, interface to Hierarchical Data Storage, or payment gateways for credit card purchases. There are 3 special extensions: ortho- 3d transform, orient data, terrain (image or image service) mosaic (feather, seamline detection) iCOMP - image compensation (trend removal on small scale aerial photos, color balancing) is not available yet Client Side can control coord system, subsystem, compression for transmission, locking image, mosaic method. The client can't create new services though, the admin has to do that. Scalability can load balance between multiple servers MULTIPLE - Servers + DAS (direct access storage disk array - recommended!) lots of cheap ide disks that are mirrored is the best route Multiple - Server - NAS/SAN (not recommended, they aren't optimized for huge chunks of data pumped across the network, and it will kill your caching) Cascading Servers - one service can request a subset of data from another service and do other processing on it. managing derived images - creating overviews: provide faster access by pre-processing define by using the service manager the server monitors every request that is made, and you can get the results of these as a shapefile of footprints, so you can get a better idea of your usage patterns and then adjust the amount of preprocessed imagery you provide to your users, so that certain high priority or high use areas can be stored as "tiles" and given a higher priority rating in the imagery metadata catalog so the image server will use this tile and not have to do on the fly processing for heavily trafficked areas. client server arch. can do secured access. works well with legacy applications because you don't have to convert your imagery. ANY ESRI app can be used as a client. Other clients are ERDAS, MicroStation, AutoCad, Mapfinfo **** OGC WMS, there is a programming API so you can [use WMS clients] can input into SDE raster, Oracle georaster services are open (db tables and xml) and can be automated with scripting as new imagery comes in. product called Image Server Publisher can't author new services, but allows orgs to make copies of a full server to clients or depts (mirror a server) can be used on server farms, disaster failover sites. SDE Raster vs Image Server db storage - file storage img has no dbms licensing and no data loading and no preprocessing **IF security is a big deal, a dbms is the better choice image server and SDE are complimentary, you can serve sde raster layers with it. The Product server & manager modules service manager client plugins (out of the box for previewing data) desktop, engine, server, 3rd party, OGC WMS extensions (planned) mosaic, orhto, iCOMP publisher version - read-only, lower price, no service manager pricing - $10,000 for a 2 cpu configuration available on its on release cycle, probably end of October Q&A Q:can output go to other places than the client viewer? A:yes, can script to go to a ftp site or storage device service admin can control how much of the extraction by client users can happen. Q: speed comparisons between image server & Sde raster for same area of imagery on same server type? A: no, not yet if you have thousands of users trying to access a final product, sde is better tuned for that scenario. GIS users and specialized fields such as security, emergency response, would benefit more from the image server. Q: OS support? A: Windows only now, soon a Linux version, later other OS's, such as Solaris. Q: Can you use oblique imagery from Pictometery? you can load it but the tools are not quite there yet for generating accurate measurements. The team is communicating with several vendors and hopes to offer support in later versions. Q: For client developers who are developing front ends to use Imager Srever - how much support will there be for this type of work? A: They claim the API is simple, and there's sample code, if you're a C programmer. No mention of the actual support offerings were given. There will be interface changes to the product to bring it into line with the ESRI look and feel. The service manager will not be part of ArcGIS immediately, but will be integrated into the family over time. Q: Multi-temporal imagery - how to handle different time series images for the same footprint area? A: you can define the Zorder field in your metadata catalog table and the client app can determine which Zorder field (latest, oldest, best sun angle, etc) to use during any working session. You can't 'hard code' a single order for everyone to use, or allow users to pass in complex SQL code to determine a sort order. You will need to write your own custom interfaces if you want to have that level of control.