Google brings Universal Addresses to desktop

A Universal Address is a ten character Natural Area Code (NAC) which can represent both areas and locations anywhere in the world. NAC Geographic Products Inc. announced the release of the NAC Google - a Google Desktop gadget that has integrated NAC Enhanced Google Maps, Google Local Search and Google Driving Directions onto one simple user interface, and brings the ease and power of Universal Addresses and Google Maps directly onto our desktop. You can now get your universal address by visiting www.travelgis.com and sport a ten character address on your business card.

Worldview-1 Launched and World View- 2 getting ready

As anticipated, DigitalGlobe announced the successful launch and deployment of WorldView-1. The satellite was launched at approximately 18.35 GMT on the 18th of September, on a Boeing Delta II 7920 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.  The satellite is currently undergoing calibration and will deliver imagery within a month.WorldView-1 is equipped with a high-capacity, panchromatic imaging system featuring half-meter resolution,  a state-of-the-art geo-location accuracy  and in-track stereo image collection capability. In late 2008, Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. and ITT Corporation will complete WorldView-2 which will provide eight bands of multi-spectral data for life-like true colour imagery.

Studentsourcing to map villages in India

The next step after crowdsourcing, using lay citizen to map their own city as done by Google Maps, is a rather more streamlined and better option of studentsourcing which is being used by University of Pune's GIS department. More than 200 trained students will map the villages in Pune, Ahmednagar and Nashik districts of Maharashtra state using GPS and GIS. Detailed geographical, historical and socio-economic data of each village will soon be available in digital maps. Non-spatial attribute data and socio-economic profiles of each household is being collected through  exhaustive 208  questions ranging from the head of the family, crop cultivated, income generated, health problems and educational status. Such data mapping will help identify location-specific problems and planning infrastructure decisions accordingly, said UoP GIS department head Vrushali Deosthali, who is heading the project and training the students.

Product news review

Applanix DSS 439 and DSS 422 airborne camera systems, which generate high-quality colour and CIR directly georeferenced digital imagery and produces an accurate and radiometrically consistent product with a typical 0.033 m to 1m Ground Sample Distance, has received a certification of quality from USGS.
At the GITA Oil and Gas show, WhiteStar introduced SpotOn, software that determines well locations in real time, adding flexibility, saving expense and time delays of using a data vendor. It also allows the developers to access an API that can easily add SpotOn functionality to new or existing software applications. And later at the Adobe MAX 2007 show, ESRI will be demonstrating its next-generation Flex 2 mapping APIs. The two APIs are based on Adobe Flex 2 and ESRI platform and are available to the public as, ArcWeb Services Flex API beta and the ArcWeb Services JavaScript API.
Another advanced LiDAR solution was released this week Optech’s LYNX Mobile Mapper, a mapping solution that can simultaneously fuse the LiDAR data along with an on-board passive imaging system. Also, Optech will be bundling its ILRIS-3D system, along with the PolyWorks IMAlign module, which offers scan alignment capabilities to produce an aligned point cloud from multiple scans.
In the extensions segment Snowflake Software’s GO Loader ITN tool for ArcGIS Network Analyst was released. It allows users to perform network-based spatial analysis including routing, travel directions and closest facility analysis over the OS MasterMap ITN Layer.