Sunset

"Layers of Earth's atmosphere, brightly colored as the sun sets, are featured in this image taken by the STS-127 crew on the Earth-orbiting space shuttle Endeavour. This image was taken on July 29, 2009, one day before the shuttle landed, completing a 16-day, 6.5-million mile journey.

Image Credit: NASA"




link: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

USS Missouri Point Cloud Animation

"Point cloud animation of the USS Missouri (BB-63). The entire external hull of the ship was documented in January 2010 while in dry-dock by team headed by Smart GeoMetrics..."



link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPtT4LXwMBs&feature=player_embedded

New Home Robot Vacuum Cleaner with Laser Vision RPS Technology

"The Neato XV-11 is the first mapping robot with intelligent path planning and cleaning. Using RPS Technology, the Neato XV-11 has a 360-degree view of a room, allowing it to map the details including walls, furniture, doorways and other obstacles up to four meters away. Unlike other cleaning robots that randomly bounce around a room, the Neato XV-11 maps the room with its RPS Technology. It then methodically cleans floors using SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) technology and path planning algorithms to outline the area to clean and then fully clean within the space in a back-and-forth pattern."




Funny presentation of this laser based vacuum cleaner. Like "War of the Worlds" for the powerless ants... :)
youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXKAjBqTGLo

Conference in Granada: CAA 2010

The XXXVIII Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology

Typical CAA topics include:

• agent-based models,
• bioarchaeology,
• CIDOC and other digital standards,
• databases,
• 3D data capture and modeling,
• data management systems and other field applications,
• GIS,
• predictive modeling,
• open source software in archaeology,
• photogrammetry and imaging,
• prospection and remote sensing,
• quantitative methods,
• high precision surveying,
• virtual museums,
• virtual reality.

more information on this website:

http://www.caa2010.org/

Path finding algorithms

A nice article about AI pathfinding in modern AAA title computer games:

http://www.ai-blog.net/archives/000152.html

Don't worry, it does not contain any piece of source code.. lot of pictures, no hard math.

Entertainment videos

What Earth would look like with rings like Saturn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoz5Q2rGQtQ

Simply amazing.. but we still have a wonder: total eclipse.

So you dont have to envy Saturnians..

(And since total eclipse is a rare event, it is affecting our imagination much more.

Having rings would be nice, but total eclipse is a more arcane something..)

CIA laser listener:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylo72DyapVY

The problem with Discovery channel is, that most of the time it's entertaining, but if it is about your field, sometimes it sounds ridiculous. So, if it's entertaining: maybe you don't understand something. It has to be popular, so they are colouring stories.

A friend of mine from the field of biology told me, that the pictures about oceanic life are really wonderful (even though most of these were shot in aquariums), but often they say misleading sentences about those beautiful fishes. I'm simply enjoying it, but he can tell the mistakes.

(Even worst, if you're watching it dubbed, not in English: once I heard the "those tanks ran on mine" phrase translated with the meaning of "mine" as in "goldmine."

First I did not understand: what? Those tanks were driving on a mine? Then I figured, they said in the dubbed version "goldmine" instead of "landmine." I can't believe no one spotted it at the dubbing studio, but it still has happened.)

So it's good for entertaining, but if you want information: go there and see with your own eyes!

LizardTech Releases MG4 Decode Tool

Nice program!

“Our goal is to create easy-to-use, efficient tools for geospatial professionals,”
said Jon Skiffington, LizardTech’s director of marketing. “With the release of MG4 Decode, users will be able to use a simple graphical interface to turn their compressed MrSID LiDAR files back to LAS or text format.”

Free download:

http://www.lizardtech.com/download/dl_options.php?page=tools

The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica

"The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) is the first true-color, high-spatial-resolution image of the seventh continent. It is constructed from nearly 1100 individually selected Landsat-7 ETM+ scenes. Each image was orthorectified and adjusted for geometric, sensor and illumination variations to a standardized, almost seamless surface reflectance product. Mosaicing to avoid clouds produced a high quality, nearly cloud-free benchmark data set of Antarctica for the International Polar Year from images collected primarily during 1999–2003...."

I like movies, one of my favorite is “The Thing” in the sci-fi/horror category. The story plays on an Antarctic research station. The man can feel on this place the weakness, it is impossible to get help. If I could choose between ice and desert, like extreme places on the earth, I would like to travel to Antarctica. Darkness and nothing (wintertime)…. It is peaceful!

link:

http://lima.usgs.gov/

Airborne and Terrestrial Laser Scanning and geomorphology: possibilities, problems, and solutions

New Congress in Vienna:

European Geosciences Union
General Assembly 2010
Vienna, Austria, 02 – 07 May 2010

On this general assembly: "Airborne and Terrestrial Laser Scanning and Geomorphology" The session number is GM 2.2

"....Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) is also increasingly applied for fast data capture of the surface, e.g., in detection and monitoring of mass movements and in other geomorphic studies requiring high accuracy and frequent repetition.
The application of both laser scanning technique results in data sets characterised by enormous data sizes, extremely high accuracy (up to cm-scale) and very high resolution. These properties compensate for the efforts invested in the data processing, however it means new challenges for the geomorphic evaluation. The wealth of laser scanning-derived DTMs can be used for geomorphic analyses in various forms (point cloud, TIN, grid) for analysis in flood-endangered regions, for natural hazard analyses like mass movements and are almost unbeatable in surface modelling of mountainous and karstic areas. They are also highly applicable in environmental change studies concerning the change in snow and ice coverage, soil creep, etc....."

Link:

http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2010/session/3080

AN INTEGRATED WORKFLOW FOR LIDAR / OPTICAL DATA MAPPING FOR SECURITY APPLICATIONS

SECURITY APPLICATIONS:

"ABSTRACT:

This paper elucidates the potential of LiDAR data for information generation for security applications. The study is embedded in the EU Network of Excellence GMOSS. General, security applications cover a large area from infrastructure monitoring (e.g. power stations, pipelines) or border monitoring to less tangible threats like terrorism and civil security / homeland security. It is demonstrated that for those security applications where the birds eye view can generally provide useful information LiDAR data are increasingly a valuable source of information, either stand alone or – preferable – in combination with optical data. The empirical work focuses on the extraction of some buildings and power lines. It is demonstrated that aggregated grid data in form of a DTM and DSM are only partially suitable to extract linear and point-type features such as power lines or small power transformation stations. Detectability clearly depends on the spatial resolution but generally 3D point clouds from first and last pulse information allow more sophisticated object extraction methods."

Full paper:

http://earth.definiens.com/sites/default/files/319_139_full.pdf

Integration of regional to outcrop digital data: 3D visualisation

A very interesting paper....

"Abstract

Multi-scale geological models contain three-dimensional, spatially referenced data, typically spanning at least six orders of magnitude from outcrop to regional scale. A large number of different geological and geophysical data sources can be combined into a single model. Established 3D visualisation methods that are widely used in hydrocarbon exploration and production for sub-surface data have been adapted for onshore surface geology through a combination of methods for digital data acquisition, 3D visualisation, and geospatial analysis. The integration of georeferenced data across a wider than normal range in scale helps to address several of the existing limitations that are inherent in traditional methods of map production and publishing. The primary advantage of a multi-scale approach is that spatial precision and dimensionality (which are generally degraded when data are displayed in 2D at a single scale) can be preserved at all scales. Real-time, immersive, interactive software, based on a ‘‘3D geospatial’’ graphical user interface (GUI), allows complex geological architectures to be depicted, and is more inherently intuitive than software based on a standard ‘‘desktop’’ GUI metaphor. The continuing convergence of different kinds of geo-modelling, GIS, and visualisation software, as well as industry acceptance of standardised middleware, has helped to make multi-scale geological models a practical reality. Thisis illustrated with two case studies from NE England and NW Scotland."

More on this website:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/r.r.jones/Downloads/C&G2008_Jones_etal_Vis_Multi-scale_Models.pdf

Global Mapper and Basic Visualization of GEON LiDAR Workflow Products

I like Global Mapper, cheap GIS program. You can create orthophotos in this program. The fine visualization of LIDAR datasets is possible, as well. Here is a link, a tutorial, how does it work…..

http://cws.unavco.org:8080/cws/learn/uscs/2008/2008Lidar/handouts/Global_Mapper_and_GLW.pdf

Building of robust multi-scale representations of LiDAR-based digital terrain model based on scale-space theory

DTMs are the most important products of airborne laser scanning systems. I search frequently the new methods….here is an example (title...) from Tarig A. Ali, very interesting research! More in "Optics and Lasers in Engineering" - 03. 2010

Until march....

And what is scale-space theory?

http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~misha/Fall07/Papers/intro-to-scalespace.pdf

1001 Wonders > Europe > Benelux > Netherlands > Rietveld Schröder : map

Nice work! Panorama pictures give us good solutions to create fine visualizations!

http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/europe/benelux/netherlands/rietveld-schroder/map.html

Virtual Archaeologists Recreate Parts of Ancient Worlds

Hallo everybody!

Happy New Year! Sorry for the long time...December was not the best month. :)

My favorite new paper from Michael Bawaya:

"Archaeologists are using computers to recreate the environment and conditions of the past, including objects, buildings, and landscapes with human actors, such as ancient battles. The field is a natural evolution of archaeology in the digital age. And although virtual archaeology arose in the mid-1990s, it is only now going mainstream, as archaeologists realize the benefits of using computers to make the most of their necessarily incomplete data and as costs go down. Archaeologists argue that virtual worlds offer the best way to test complex hypotheses. The field also gets a boost from the entertainment industry: The technology is the same as that used in video games and movie special effects, and many universities have recently added 3D modeling programs......."

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5962/140

The Third & The Seventh

CG video:

http://vimeo.com/7809605