ISPRS SC Newsletter Vol5 No2 July 2011

8/6/2019 ISPRS SC Newsletter Vol5 No2 July 2011

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ISPRS SC News Letter

Would you like to join SC Newsletter team? Do you want tomake a difference? Want to learn new skills?SC Newsle er is at a stage where ge ng broader and be er demands more people to be involved in theprocess of its forma on. Thats why SC Newsle er team is looking for the following volunteers:

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SC Newsle er (ISSN Y506-5879) is published every threemonths by ISPRS Student Consor um.

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To join our members area visitwww.isprs-studentconsor um.orgEditor-in-Chief:

G r e g o r S T A V B A R

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Contributors:H i r o y u k i M I Y A Z A K IA r t u r J o s F r e i r e G I LT h a n a s i s M O Y S I A D I SA l e L A Z A RD e v i n B O U R L A N DV a s i l i s K A L O G I R O UU r a K A N J I R
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Dear Follower,The prepara ons for the 6th ISPRSSummer School is in the nal stageand we are just coun ng down thedays to the event. We planned a fullschedule of ac vi es; lectures intheory, computer labs, demonstra-

ons and real hands on LiDAR datacollec on experiences and presen-

ta ons of par cipant works are some of the highlights.Various social events are also planned by the volunteerstudents of the hos ng university, Faye eville State Uni-versity NC.

SC will con nue its ac vi es in the next and last quarterof this year. Another summer school will be organized in

Jhongli, Taiwan right a er the 32nd Asian Conference onRemote Sensing Sensing for Greener Asia. The topic of the 7th ISPRS summer school is also related to the con-ference with the tle Spa al Informa on Sciences forEnvironmental Monitoring. We believe that it will bean interes ng opportunity for the par cipants to a endboth events.

At last but not least, we have started detailed planningof the ISPRS Melbourne Congress 2012 youth ac vi es.Furthermore, there will be a number opportuni es foryouth; special accommoda on, travel grants and awardsfor best papers amongst many more things. You can getthe second call available at the congress webpage fordetailed informa on. The Congress will be another land-mark in the history of ISPRS SC. We will be glad to hearyour ideas and inputs for an enriched Congress.

Looking forward to having your contribu ons in SC,

With My Best Regards,

Cemal zgr KIVILCIMISPRS SC Chair

Table of Contents

2 SPOTLIGHTS Interview with Professor Dr. Marguerite Madden

4 North American Airbourne Lidar trends andDeveloment

5 North Caroline - The Land of the Sky6 Sad Stories on Spacebourne Lidar7 Lidar Detec on of Forest Canopies

8 EAST JAPAN GREAT EARTHQUAKE Great Contribu ons to the Aid Againts East Japan

GreatEarthquake10 VECTOR or RASTER? Digital Representa on of Geospa al Data: Vector or

Raster

11 FUTURE ISPRS RELATED EVENTS

STUDIES AND PRACTICAL WORK

12 IT NEWS Pointools Ti s 7.0

13 INTERESTING LINKS
http://www.isprs-sc.org/


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2

SPOTLIGHTSInterviewby Ura Kanjir

Prof. Dr. Marguerite Madden is the Director of the Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science (CRMS) in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia (UGA), USA. She is also an associate profesor at UGA, and has published a wide range of publica ons focused on geographic informa on science (GIScience)and spa o-temporal landscape analysis with special emphasis on GIS, op cal/LiDAR remote sensing, geovisualiza on and object-based image analysis. Her areasof applica on include mapping dynamic vegeta on distribu ons, assessing landscape-level human impacts on natural environments, LiDAR analysis of vegeta onstructure, tracking animal behavior-naviga on and ecological modeling of environment and disease. She has won several pres gious awards for her work during herresearch career.

Can you explain us what is your research eld (whatare you working on) at the moment?My research for nearly 30 years has focused on geo-graphic informa on science (GIScience) and spa o-temporal landscape analysis with special emphasis onGIS, op cal/LiDAR remote sensing, geovisualiza onand object-based image analysis. I love applying geo-spa al techniques to real world problems, scien cinves ga ons and ways to enrich our every day lives.For a long me I have worked with my colleagues atthe University of Georgias Center for Remote Sensingand Mapping Science (CRMS) mapping dynamic veg-eta on distribu ons in Na onal Parks throughout thesoutheastern United States and assessing human im-pacts on natural environments. We recently nisheda large project to acquire LiDAR and very high reso-lu on digital orthoimages of forests in the Southern

Appalachian mountains of Georgia, North Carolinaand Tennessee. Today we are analyzing vegeta onstructure related to the invasion of exo c insects andhemlock defolia on, assessing tornado damage to theforests and inves ga ng the urban-wildland interfaceusing the LiDAR and orthoimagery. We are also look-ing at spa o-temporal pa erns of drought and climatechange indicators related to vegeta on produc vityin the southeastern United States and the Amazonregion of Brazil. Other interna onal research includesthe study of capuchin monkeys in the Atlan c rainfor-est and dry cerrado of Brazil in terms of navita on pat-terns, route selec on, e cient use of resources and

tool use behavior. The technologies are always chang-ing and there are endless possibili es for spa o-tem-poral analyses, so we will never run out of fascina ngmaterial for research.

Why did you decide for this profession in the rstplace (maybe you can tell us something more aboutyour rst steps)?I majored in Biology as an undergraduate student andlike many young women I know, wanted to be a veteri-narian because of my love of science and animals. Butwhen I took my rst ecology and geography courses, Iknew these were the elds I wanted to study. My pas-sion for natural environments came from being raisedin the Adirondack Mountain region of northern NewYork. My mother was a math and physics major in col-lege and my father was an engineer and land surveyor,so I was exposed to science and math in my early yearsand they were wonderful role models for me. My rstwork study job at the university in 1976 was assis ngtwo professors, one and ecologist and one a geogra-pher specializing in remote sensing on a grant to useaerial photographs to map the wetlands surroundingLake Champlain and determine the environmentalimpacts of a proposal to regulate the lake level. I waspaid to canoe in the wetlands to help them iden fythe aqua c vegeta on species in the wetlands, y inthe small Cessna airplane to take the small formataerial photographs and work in the remote sensinglaboratory to interpret and map the wetlands using

Professor Dr. Marguerite Madden

a modi ed Kelsh stereo-plo er. It was a won-derful experience and itled to my career in geo-graphic analysis of natu-ral and human-impactedenvironments.

What advices would you give to students and youngprofessionals regarding successful career?I would say think carefully about your interests andpassions combined with a realis c assessment of yourstrengths and skills. Do some research to fully under-stand the background of the subject, the pioneerswho performed the ini al research and developed thetechniques and tools. Study the current status of thediscipline and think about the future direc on of thearea you are considering. Ask yourself many ques onsabout your career and life choices. Do you see your-self contribu ng to this area and enjoying the work 5,10 or 20 years in the future? Do you like to work withpeople on a daily basis, work in a team or by yourself?Where in the world would you like to live? How much

me and resources are you willing to invest in yourstudies, training and appren ceship? Do you want towork for someone or do you want to be the boss? Doyou want to work inside, outside or both? Do you liketo travel or prefer to stay close to home? Will there be

mes in your life when you will need to balance familyand work responsibili es? Are you able to share those


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The current user interest is to combine lidar with im-agery (fusion) to take advantage of lidars 3D capabilityand the interpreta on of georeferenced imagery, es-pecially mul spectral and hyperspectral. The resourcecommunity (forestry, wildlife management, agricul-ture, hydrology, geology, etc.) now has a tool to analyzesitua ons and accurately measure and quan fy the re-sults. Another common applica on is to use the lidarintensity data to create pseudo-scopic stereo pairs andprovide breaklines enhancing the bare earth surfacemodel. Plus, having the data digitally, o ers an e cientmethod to analyze mul ple-year lidar data sets for

change detec on. The lidar/imagery solu on for emer-gency or disaster response is becoming the technologysolu on of choice for its speed and development of meaningful data for response.

In summary, airborne lidar has become the technologyof choice for most mapping solu ons. Even when somedi cult projects require photogrammetry, lidar is ac-quired rst to map the bare earth. Furthermore, sincenearly all modern mapping is des ned for GIS or CAD

applica ons, lidar is a natural t.

Renslow Mapping Services2880 Bailey Hill RoadEugene, OR 97405(mobile) 541-335-1251(email) [email protected],[email protected], [email protected]

Capturing lidar data from airborne pla orms and de-veloping commercial products began in North Ameri-can about 15 years ago. At rst, the process was slow,unpredictable, and o en di cult to integrate into tra-di onal mapping technologies. Today, the mappingcommunity and the spa al data product users considerairborne lidar to be a standard solu on to mapping andmeasuring the Earth and its natural landscapes and cul-tural features. In fact, the use of lidar data and its na-

ve 3D applica ons has fundamentally changed map-ping processes and the type of products expected bythe user community.

As airborne lidar became acceptable, a few milestonee orts solidi ed using lidar as a preferred mappingsolu on. In the late-1990s, the US Federal EmergencyManagement Agency (FEMA) determined that lidartechnology was a preferred solu on for digital terrainmodels to support a new e ort to accurately map ood-prone areas. To compliment this lidar-based solu on,FEMA published guidelines for data acquisi on, prod-uct development, and accuracy evalua on. In 2007, the

Na onal Academy of Science convened a commi ee of na onal experts to consider the best solu on for ac-curately producing an eleva on model for the US andrecommended airborne lidar for nearly all the terrainclasses. And, at about the same me, the USGS in de-veloping the Eleva on for the Na on Program, recom-mended lidar as the most e cient solu on and pub-lished the Lidar Guidelines and Base Speci ca on(currently version 13) de ning data acquisi on, qual-ity assurance, product development, metadata, and abase product speci ca on to support the program.

Of further signi cance is the capability of the mod-ern, mature lidar systems which can collect extremelydense data. Several applica on areas, for example for-estry, can now be mapped in 3D for reliable bare earthterrain models and individual trees representa ons forforest measurement parameters never before avail-able. For engineering applica ons, high performancelidar on a helicopter pla orm can y low and slow forultra-dense data and provide engineering-grade 3Dmap products.

As the development and applica ons of lidar have ma-tured, the support industry for data processing, stor-age, visualiza on, and quality assurance has kept pace.Today, there are several commercial and open sourceso ware solu ons and tools for the user community atevery level to manage, manipulate process, visualize,classify, and evaluate lidar data. Addi onally, most of the major GIS and CAD so ware providers now haveplug-ins and separate modules speci cally for lidardata. On the commercial side, TerraScan is widely usedby the commercial lidar vendors for the ini al process-

ing, and others include eCogni on, LP360 (by QCoher-ent), ArcGIS (Esri), QuickTerrainModeler (Applied Im-agery), Lidar 1 CuePac (by GeoCue), EarthEye Viewer(by EarthEye), and MARS (by Merrick). The lidar systemdevelopers (Leica GeoSystems, Optech, Regal, etc.) allprovide custom so ware for lidar processing. OpenSource and free so ware include the NOAA viewer,GRASS 6 GIS, FUSION (US Forest Service) and Polyworks(US Army Corps of Engineers). (Note that my men onof rms and brand names is not an endorsement orrecommenda on of these so ware)

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SPOTLIGHTS

North American Airborne Lidar Trends and Development by Mike Renslow, ISPRS Treasurer


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SPOTLIGHTS

North Carolina - The Land of the Sky

The United States of America, loca on of the 6th ISPRS Student Consor um and WGVI/5 Summer School, is the worlds third largest country in terms of size and popu-la on. Over the last 235 years, the United States has developed from the original13 Bri sh colonies to 50 states and commonwealths, as well as six overseas territo-ries- Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands to name a few. The U.S. is widely de-scribed as a mel ng pot of ethnicity, religion, language, and other cultural traits.Pop culture in the United States consists of fashion, theater, lm and television,dance, music, and sports and is a very large representa on of the American culture.The United States is also known for its architecture, such as ci es full of skyscrap-ers like New York City, as well as sculptures like the Statue of Liberty and MountRushmore.

Throughout history, the United States has invested a lot of resources in scienceand technology and has been known for many discoveries and expedi ons. Oneof the countrys founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, discovered electricity. Lewisand Clark explored the Paci c Northwest of the U.S. and recorded many plant andanimals species. In 1969, the U.S. landed on the moon, and star ng around 1972,the United States began developing global posi oning satellites, or GPS. Telecom-munica ons have also developed over the last 80 years with the light emi ed diode(LED), transistors, computer opera ng systems, personal computers, and the world-

wide-web. Also on the technical side, the United States is home to many remotesensing so ware companies such as ESRI, ERDAS IMAGINE, and IDRISI. The UnitedStates Geological Survey is coordina ng e orts toward a Na onal LIDAR Datasetand currently, 21 states have developed, or are in progress of developing, statewideLIDAR datasets- North Carolina has completed their statewide LIDAR dataset, and isalso the loca on of Faye eville State University, sponsor of the 6th summer school.

North Carolina is widely known for its diverse climate and topography with eleva-ons ranging between sea level and 2037 meters. The beaches of the Outer Banks of

North Carolina a ract many visitors from all over the country. Boa ng and saltwatershing is very common in these areas and provides much entertainment for specta-

tors and par cipants alike. North Carolina was one of the original 13 Bri sh Colonies

in the United States, so there are also a lot of historic markers such ba le elds of the Revolu onary War and American Civil War, as well as old original se lements.In the early 1900s, Orville and Wilbur Wright were credited with building the rstsuccessful airplane, and in 1903 made the controlled, powered, and sustained ightnear Ki y Hawk, North Carolina in the Outer Banks. Faye eville State Universityis located in central North Carolina and is proud to sponsor the 6th ISPRS StudentConsor um and WG VI/5 Summer School.

Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Looking Glass Falls in North Carolina Mountains Wright Brothers 1903 North Carolina Beach Mount Rushmore
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/


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SPOTLIGHTS

Sad stories on spaceborne lidarby Vasilis Kalogirou,

RS Project Analyst - Forester (RSAC c/o ESA)

Laser scanning with airborne devices has proved to have a large poten al for manyenvironmental applica ons, including vegeta on structural analysis and biomass

es ma on. The carbon stored in forests has a three-dimensional nature (with treeheight and diameter being the most important independent variables), thereforeonly three-dimensional measurements of the vegeta on can provide accurate bio-mass quan ca on. Certainly, other empirical approaches (e.g. the use of re ec-tance, vegeta on indices or SAR backsca ering as a proxy for biomass) have somelimited poten al which has been tested in the past years. It is now generally ac-cepted that their es ma ons will saturate as biomass increases.

Airborne lidar has been used for local and regional biomass es ma on studies withencouraging results. Also, terrestrial laser scanning devices (e.g. ECHIDNA) havebeen used to calibrate lidar data collected by airborne instruments or to providean accurate predic on of forest stand variables. However, global scale vegeta oncoverage calls for spaceborne solu ons. The Geoscience Laser Al meter System(GLAS), carried by NASAs ICESat (Ice, Cloud and land Eleva on Satellite), is one of the rst laser instruments put in orbit in 2003 for -but not only- terrestrial studies. ICESat su ered from some opera onal problems but at the end managed to ac-quire a quite useful dataset of lidar waveforms, comple ng 18 science campaigns.The missions primary objec ve was to determine the mass balance of the polar icesheets and to obtain essen al data for predic on of future changes in ice volumeand sea-level. Apart from that, the data obtained from GLAS were used to test bio-mass es ma on poten al.

The Vegeta on Canopy Lidar (VCL) was elected in 1997 to be the rst NASAs EarthSystem Science Path nder (ESSP) space ight mission. Experimental results basedon the airborne test-bed called LVIS (Laser Vegeta on Imaging Sensor), demon-strated the ability to determine surface topography (including sub-canopy) as wellas vegeta on height and structure. Unfortunately, VCL mission was cancelledin 2000 due to problems encountered during the development of the spacebornelidar instrument.

In 2007 a unique hybrid mission was proposed to accommodate in one pla orman L-band InSAR instrument and a mul -beam lidar. The mission was called theDeforma on, Ecosystem Structure, and Dynamics of Ice (DESDynI) and one of its

iden ed applica ons was the terrestrial biomass es ma on. Some of you mighthave a ended one of the presenta ons of the missions concept in various confer-

ences. Unfortunately, in February 2011, the mission was prac cally dropped sinceNASA was directed to cancel all ac vi es on the lidar satellite [...].

This short historical review on the lost chances of spaceborne lidar indended tohighlight the need to build on the previous heritage and extend our earth observingcapabili es. Yes, we need spaceborne lidar and we should concentrate our e orts.A er all, if systema c mapping and monitoring of carbon stocks is needed, theninves ng in spaceborne lidar will pay o . As regards to future satellites, which willbe -hopefully- launched: The ICESat-II mission, with forest carbon es ma on as asecondary objec ve, is s ll on schedule and has passed the cri cal System Require-ments and Mission De ni on Reviews. On the other part of the Atlan c, the Eu-ropean Space Agency (ESA) prepares its BIOMASS mission, which will be based onP-band polarimetric SAR instead. There is s ll hope for something good!

1The author believes that lidar is long enough in the bibliography to be considered a wordand not an acronym (similarly with radar).2The Shu le Laser Al meter (SLA) ew on board the space Shu le Discovery, during August1997, so this mission can be considered as the rst spaceborne lidar device orbi ng the Eart3From Blair, J.B., Rabine, D.L., Ho on, M.A., 1999. The Laser Vegeta on Imaging Sensor:a medium-al tude, digi sa on-only, airborne laser al meter for mapping vegeta on andtopogrphy. ISPRS Journal of Phot. & Rem. Sensing, 54, 115-122.4From Goetz, S., 2011. Editorial - The lost promise of DESDynI. Remote Sensing of Environ-ment (in press).


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SPOTLIGHTS

7See more on next page

LiDAR detec on of forest canopies by

Elena Lobo, Smithsonian Tropical Research Ins tute, PanamaCarlomagno Soto, Organiza on for Tropical Studies, Costa Rica

LiDAR is a rapidly growing technology that has found applica on inmany elds including ecology and conserva on. Of par cular inter-

est under the growing concerns related to greenhouse gases and cli-mate change is LiDARs ability to penetrate forest canopies, reachingintermediate canopy layers and nally reaching the forest ground.This unique property allows for the crea on of Digital Terrain Mod-els (DTM) and Digital Surface Models (DSM) even in areas coveredby dense tropical forest canopies. By subtrac ng these two models(DSM-DTM), a Canopy Height Model (CHM) can be created for anyforest landscape. Canopy height models are extremely useful for es-

ma ng the forest biomass and consequently the amount of carbonstored in the form of plants.

LiDAR can not only look at the top of tree canopies, it can also providees mates of vegeta on densi es at mul ple heights under the maincanopy. This aspect is of great relevance when trying to assess thebiomass or carbon storage of tropical forests, since tropical foreststypically have very dense mul layered canopies and also cons tutethe main pool of carbon stored on terrestrial ecosystems.

As of now, LiDAR applica on for the study of forest canopies hasbeen mostly at the landscape to regional scale, and the acquisi on

has been done through airborne LiDAR sensors. The landscape scaleallows for enough resolu on of the LiDAR-generated products so asto have a reasonable certainty in the biomass and carbon es mates.However, for these LiDAR products to be exploited to their full po-ten al, they need to be linked to es mates of biomass and carbon at

ner and global scales. In the last few years, there has been increas-ing applica on of terrestrial LiDAR for detailed 3-D mapping of trees,mostly in urban and sparse forests. This way of measuring the treeshas been able to provide much more detailed informa on than thetypical eld measurements and we cannot wait enough to see theircapabili es in tropical forests.

The link of airborne LiDAR measurements to global scales is a work in progress. Though there hasbeen access to some satellite-based Lidar over the last few years with ICESAT, we expect that satel-

lite-based LiDAR will become widely available in the upcoming years. For the me being, con nuede orts are needed to fuse airborne LiDAR with satellite based sensors in our a empts to achieveaccurate es mates of biomass and carbon stored in forests.

Ini a ves to monitor global stocks of biomass and carbon in forested areas are plenty, from GEOsGlobal Carbon Project to NASAs carbon cycle and ecosystems research and many more na onaland interna onal e orts. In addi on, na onal ini a ves for complete LiDAR coverage are rapidlygrowing, such as USAs e orts for a na onal LiDAR dataset, and we expect to see many more in thefuture.


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SPOTLIGHTS

8

Finally we would like to emphasize that LiDAR capabili es forthe study of forested areas are unique, extremely varied andcon nuously growing and we are looking forward to see all theinnova ons that the future will bring.

EAST JAPAN GREAT EARTQUAKE

Great contribu ons to the aid against East Japan Great EarthquakeInterview with Mr. Taichi Furuhashi

Mr. Furuhashi is the most contribu ng person of open and free geospa al data and so ware throughhis posi ons: the president of MAPconcierge Inc., a consul ng and retailing company of geospa alinforma on; the vice president of OpenStreetMap Founda on Japan (OSMFJ), a Japanese communityfor open and free map data inspired by OpenStreetMap (OSM); a researcher of Center for Spa al In-forma on Science (CSIS), The University of Tokyo; a director of OSGeo.JP, the Japanese founda on foropen-source geospa al informa on so ware; and an organizer of Geomedia Summit (GMS), a series of developers open conferences of geospa al informa on. In addi on to ac vi es in his formal role forthe organiza ons, he ac vely dedicates to outreach of geospa al informa on techniques. He is an in-dispensable person for industry-academia collabora ons of geospa al informa on in Japan. As soon asthe Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) occurred, he created maps of disaster-a ected areas through

Crisis Mapping of OSM (see detail in the issue vol. 5 no. 1), and called for mappers (data creators of OSM) using his network. As a result, in a month a er GEJE, more people than ever have joined OSM forthe Crisis Mapping (the number was increased to 1.5 mes) and total length of the road data of Japanexpanded to 1.6 mes longer. Moreover, he had contributed to the start up of sinsai.info (see detailin the issue vol. 5 no. 1). Now, he o en visits the disaster-a ected areas and has many experimentsof surveying there using the newest geographic informa on gadgets. In this interview, I ask him aboutthe role of the geographical informa on communi es for the aid against the disaster, especially CrisisMapping of OSM and sinsai.info, and his research ac vi es.

- How did OSM Crisis mapping and sinsai.info start up?

A er GEJE occurred at 2:46 PM (Japan standard me for the followings), Mr. Miura, the president of OSMFJ, had declared star ng up Crisis Mapping against GEJE on the e-mail list of OSMFJ at 6:19 PM.Following to that, at 6:56 PM, I started to prepare high-resolu on satellite images owned by severalagencies (JAXA etc.) for the Crisis Mapping.

While the Crisis Mapping was going on, at 6:27 PM, Mr. Higashi, the execu ve secretary of OSMFJ,reported that he experimentally launched an informa on pla orm for Japanese using Ushahidi, whichhave made prac cal achievements against 2010 Hai Earthquake. At 6:58 PM, public release of thepla orm was announced over Twi er. The rst report about vic ms was disclosed at 7:06 PM of theday. A er that, the project had quickly escalated into the stage for prac cal opera ons. We transferredthe pla orm from a private server to servers owned by Georepublic Japan Inc. In addi on, we called forvolunteers for the opera on and modera on of the posted reports. Finally, the informa on pla ormwas named sinsai.info and it has been collec ng and disclosing important informa on with geographi-cal loca on about the disaster.

Interviewby Hiroyuki Miyazaki


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EAST JAPAN GREAT EARTQUAKE

9

- I am really surprised to hear the quick response of the projects against the di-saster. I suppose such ac on was prac cally contributed to help urgent situa ons.Are there speci c cases in which OSM or sinsai.info was used for urgent rescue?

Yes, the most signi cant one is that a report posted to sinsai.info was key informa-on to nd an isola on of 100 vic ms. sinsai.info successfully caught a tweet men-oning the isola on and disclosed with the geographical loca on a er checking by

moderator. Finally, it was listed as an urgent incident by the authori es. The vic mswere safely rescued.

- What di culty was the most challenging during the opera on of OSM and sin-sai.info?

We had mainly three issues so far: star ng up, stabilizing, and maintaining. For therst month, more and more ac ve volunteers were coming, but they were ge ng

over our capacity and we could not direct them e ciently, especially for foreign

volunteers. For the second month, spam posts and ltering them were consider-able obstacles. Such posts were increasing via Twi er. For the third month and thelater, maintaining mo va ons of the members has been a considerable issue. Whilemany members have le to their usual businesses, remaining members have hadmore workload required for the opera ons.

- What are outcomes and issues of the ac vi es of OSM and sinsai.info?

Through the ac vi es, we developed a solid network among IT engineers and skillsto operate crowd servers. As the result, we publicly showed the prac cal achieve-ments of geospa al informa on contribu ng to social welfare. But a fundamentalissue remained. We could not send informa on to the areas where informa oninfrastructures were seriously destroyed by tsunami. The open ques on is how wecan support to rescue vic ms in the medically important 72 hours a er the disasteroccurred.

- Please tell your impression of the visits at the disaster-a ected area and per-spec ves on it.

People in foreign countries say Japan seems to be in a serious situa on. People inwest Japan say East Japan seems to be in a serious situa on. People in south-east

Japan say North-east Japan seems to be in a serious situa on. People in inlandof north-east Japan say Coastal area seems to be in a serious situa on. From myexperience of the visits to the disaster-a ected area, I feel such inconsistencies area ributed from incompleteness of current ITs. There are s ll many issues needed

to be informed to people. I bel ieve geospa al informa on is the most useful tool toexactly inform the situa on to the people in Japan as well as to the people of theworld. To fully u lize the e ec veness of geospa al informa on technologies, weneed to develop much more human resources with literacy of geospa al informa-

on.

- Three month later a er the disaster, the a ected areas are ge ng from stagesof rescue to those of recovery and rebuilding. How will OSM, sinsai.info, and yourresearch ac vi es contribute to those?

I have an idea of three steps for contribu ng there. First, we will make map dataabout status of recovery and rebuilding by Crisis Mapping and con nuously archivethe informa on into OSM and sinsai.info. Second, we will regularly represent theoutcomes to the people l iving in the disaster-a ected area with friendly ways, suchas posters, audios, and videos. Third, we will develop peoples understandings, es-pecially childrens, on technologies of open-license geospa al informa on and the

worthiness. Such e orts would build peoples skills and literacy of geospa al infor-ma on technologies which are freely available and useful for their socie es as wellas their businesses.

- Please give messages for student readers of ISPRS SC Newsle er.

We joined Crisis Mapping against the 2010 Hai Earthquake and learned the sig-ni cant e ects for suppor ng there. Place and me of disasters and con icts arealways unpredictable (e.g. 2010 Chili Earthquake, June 2011 Christchurch earth-quake, Egypts class con ict in 2011, and Libyas con ict in 2011). However, owing toreal- me communica on over the Internet and freely-available technologies basedon open-source so ware and open data, people can support to aid vic ms fromtheir home wherever the crisis is. Actually, in the ac vi es against the GEJE, foreigncommuni es of OSM and those of Crisis Mapping made more e orts than Japanesecommuni es did. Also, I should men on that such ac vi es have been establishedbased on well-developed technologies of remote sensing and GIS. Now, people caneasily make connec ons with the other even if she or he lives in the other side of the world. We will dedicate to develop more solid networks over the countries tosupport people who need help. I hope your kind help. With ac ve feedback of ex-periences of Japan to the world, we will make your e orts into worthy contribu onfor the people.


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VECTOR OR RASTER?Digital Representa on of Geospa al Data: Vector or Raster?

by Thanasis Moysiadis (University of Thessaly)Real world objects or discrete en es (roads, towns, rivers) are represented aspoints, lines or polygons or a combina on between them. These are called features.Unlike features, surfaces have a numeric value instead of shape. Phenomena whichchange con nuously in space such as temperature, slope, and eleva on do not

have a discrete shape. Such geographical phenomena are more easily representedas surfaces, called elds. In digital form, features are represented in vector formatwhereas elds in raster format. Vector data, points, lines or polygons, have sharpboundaries and shape. Points are characterized by its x, y coordinates referred to alocal reference system. Two pairs of coordinates form a line and if the start and theend point coincide, a polygon is formed. Vector data representa on is related to thescale of the feature to be depicted. For example, a city is represented as a point in a1:200.000 scale and as a polygon in a 1:20.000 scale. Raster data are those referredto sum of pixels, with a numerical value in each of them, which represent a part, awhole or many features. For example, a numerical value of a pixel may show a tem-perature of 20 degrees or an eleva on of 200 meters.In terms of data acquisi on, geospa al data are categorized in primary and second-ary sources for both vector and raster data. Primary sources of geospa al data arederived from direct measurements. Typical examples of raster data are: satelliteimages, digital aerial photographs, whereas for vector data are conven onal survey,

GPS and Lidar measurements. Secondary sources of geospa al data are those re-lated to the use of data already acquired. Typical examples of raster data are: scan-ning of analog maps or aerial photographs and for vector data, maps digi za onand raster to vector conversion (data automa on, data transla on).However, which form of data, vector or raster, best represents the real world objects? This is mainly dependent on the accuracy and the scale of the object beingrepresented. More speci cally, the advantages and disadvantages of each are out-lined below:

Vector Data Advantages Fine presenta on of the en es being modelled Uniform and consistent data structure Accurate mapping output according to the scale Graphics and qualita ve characteris cs are updated and generalized Topology accurately displayed, therefore spa al analysis and queriesare su cient processed Data are displayed in their original detailed form without generaliza-

onDisadvantages Each point posi on is to be stored Con nuous data are not accurately modelled Complex data structures Analysis and processing algorithms are quite complex Di cul es in simula on, each sec on has a di erent topological

form High processing requirements, in terms of layers overlay (iden ca-on of sec ons/nodes/lines, reconstruc on/rearrangement of polygons)

Spa al analysis and use of lters within the polygons is impossible

Raster Data Advantages Simple data structure Con nuous iden es are be er represented Simple overlay opera on with remotely sensed data Spa al analysis is easier Simple mathema cal modelling is simpler because of the same type and size of spa al unit Data acquisi on (satellite imagery, aerial photographs) in raster format, quick andeasy database crea on Cheap and fast growing technologyDisadvantages Accuracy representa on is dependent on the pixel size Linear elements and network structures are more di cult to model Spa al data transforma ons give rise to distor ons Accuracy of spa al analysis is small

Topological rela onships of spa al data are di cult to iden fy Projec ve transforma on is me consuming, unless special algorithms are used It is di cult to create network links Non-processed thema c maps are much less presentable than the linear ones *Re erences

Raster and vector representa on of digital geospa al data, (Ordnance Survey, 2003 - Crown copyright)
http://www.isprs-sc.org/newsletter_files/vol5no2/vector_or_raster_references.pdfhttp://www.isprs-sc.org/newsletter_files/vol5no2/vector_or_raster_references.pdf


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FUTURE ISPRS RELATED EVENTS

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WG V/2 Conference Cultural heritage data acquisi on & processingYork, UK, 17-19 August 2011For more info visit:h p://areeweb.polito.it/ricerca/TCV_WG2/events.html

WG V/3 Laser Scanning 2011Calgary, Canada, 29-31 August 2011

For more info visit:: h p://www.ucalgary.ca/laserscanning2011/

Workshop on Innova ve Technologies for e cient Geospa al Manage-ment of Earth resourcesUlaanbaatar, Mongolia, 4-8 September 2011For more info visit:h p://hevra.haifa.ac.il/~isprs/events.html

ICWG I/V Interna onal Conference on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in Geo-ma cs (UAV-g)Zurich - Hoenggerberg, Switzerland, 14-16 September 2011For more info visit:h p://www.geometh.ethz.ch/uav_g/

WG VIII/2 Symposium on Advances in Geospa al Technologies for HealthSanta Fe, USA, 11-14 September 2011For more info visit:h p://isprs-wg8-2.unm.edu/symposium

WG IV/8 28th Symposium of Urban Data Management Society (UDMS2011)Del , The Netherlands, 28-30 September 2011For more info visit:h p://www.udms.net/

INIT Autumn School on 3D Imaging TechnologiesBenicssim, Spain October 3-7, 2011For more info visit:h p://www.init.uji.es/school2011

WG III/5 Photogrammetric Image Analysis 2011 (PIA11)Munich, Germany, 5-7 October 2011For more info visit:h p://www.pf.bv.tum.de/isprs/pia11/

7th ISPRS SC and WG VI/5 Summer SchoolJhongli, Taiwan, 8-12 October 2011For more info visit: h p://www.acrs2011.org.tw/ISPRS_SummerSchool/

STUDIES AND PRACTICAL WORKThis column serves as a guide for the students who are thinking or are willing to gostudying or doing prac cal work abroad. We have searched for new opportuni esin di erent facul es, schools and other learning programs all over the world inorder to encourage as many students as possible to take new steps towards newhorizons.

1) Cran eld Universitys Geographical Informa on Management programme provides abalanced coverage of the key GIS technologies, which can be applied at local, na onaland global levels to issues such as climate change, improving farming yields, tropical de-foresta on, transporta on, smart naviga on systems, disaster response management,recrea on, property management and telecommunica ons. Geoplan has made a bur-sary available for United Kingdom and European Union students enrolling on the MScGeographical Informa on Management for October 2011 entry. This bursary will covertui on fees and provide a contribu on towards living expenses. Applica on deadline:31 August 2011. To apply please visit the course website: www.cran eld.ac.uk/sas/gim

2) The Centre de Recherche Public - Gabriel Lippmann, a public establishment for ap-

plied scien c research and technology transfer in Luxembourg, has an opening on apermanent contract basis for its department Environment and agro-biotechnologies(EVA) for an engineer-technician in Geoma cs (Ref: EVA-23511-INGGEO). The selectedcandidate will serve as the team expert on GIS and remote sensing applica ons. Theessen al func ons of the new posi on include the design and implementa on of geoda-tabases (including metadata), acquisi on and processing of remote sensing data, conver-sion of processes and models into a GIS environment, data visualiza on, and technicalassistance in the spectroscopy lab. Applica ons should be received by August 31st, 2011.Read full announcement at: h p://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/jobs/200123-an-engineer-technician-in-geoma cs-m-f

3) Posi on as PhD Research fellow (S pendiat SKO 1017) is available at Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Norway. The fellowship is for a period of 3 years. Thecandidate will develop, evaluate and apply so-called o set-tracking methods for quan -fying glacier ow based on satellite radar imagery. The candidate will be part of a livelyresearch environment in cold regions sciences, in par cular in remote sensing, geoinfor-ma cs, glaciology and geomorphology. Applica ons should be received by August 20th,2011. Read full announcement at: h p://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDe-tails/33720731

See more on next page
http://areeweb.polito.it/ricerca/TCV_WG2/events.htmlhttp://%20http//www.ucalgary.ca/laserscanning2011/http://hevra.haifa.ac.il/~isprs/events.htmlhttp://www.geometh.ethz.ch/uav_g/http://isprs-wg8-2.unm.edu/symposiumhttp://www.udms.net/http://www.init.uji.es/school2011http://www.pf.bv.tum.de/isprs/pia11/http://%20http//www.acrs2011.org.tw/ISPRS_SummerSchool/http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/sas/gimhttp://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/jobs/200123-an-engineer-technician-in-geomatics-m-fhttp://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/jobs/200123-an-engineer-technician-in-geomatics-m-fhttp://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/jobs/200123-an-engineer-technician-in-geomatics-m-fhttp://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/jobs/200123-an-engineer-technician-in-geomatics-m-fhttp://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDetails/33662861http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/sas/gimhttp://%20http//www.acrs2011.org.tw/ISPRS_SummerSchool/http://www.pf.bv.tum.de/isprs/pia11/http://www.init.uji.es/school2011http://www.udms.net/http://isprs-wg8-2.unm.edu/symposiumhttp://www.geometh.ethz.ch/uav_g/http://hevra.haifa.ac.il/~isprs/events.htmlhttp://%20http//www.ucalgary.ca/laserscanning2011/http://areeweb.polito.it/ricerca/TCV_WG2/events.html


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Pointools

The Pointools suite of so ware leveragesthe high-performance Pointools POD for-mat for working with the largest pointcloud models inside the broadest rangeof applica ons. Used by architects, engi-neers, contractors, and surveyors to workwith 3D laser scan data. Pointools prod-ucts enabling e ciently work with mul -billion point datasets with unmatchedspeed and supports mul ple work owsincluding Art & Entertainment, Forensics,GIS & Mapping, Heritage, Infrastructure,Manufacturing, and Security & Defence.Pointools o erings include stand-alone applica ons, CAD so ware plug-ins, and a third-party de-

velopment pla orm for point cloud processing and visualisa on; uniquely enabling point cloudmodel reuse across Bentley, Autodesk, and Rhino applica ons without me-consuming transla on.Source: h p://www.pointools.com/

STUDIES AND PRACTICAL WORK

12

IT NEWS

4) The Maxwell Ralph Jacobs Fund is used to support worthyprojects in forestry science research. The following broad cat-egories of ac vity may be supported: a) work to be carried outin or related to Australasia in any eld of forestry science; b)

eld orientated research in Australia and New Zealand in eldsre ec ng Max Jacobss par cular interests; c) overseas travel for

either administrators or scien sts. The principles applying to theapplica on of grants are: funds available each year are cappedat $5000 (GST exempt); two grants will be allocated at approxi-mately $2500 each. Applica ons should be received by Septem-ber 30th, 2011. Read full announcement at: www.forestry.org.au/ifa/a/a2-ifa.asp

5) The Centre de Recherche Public - Gabriel Lippmann (Lux-embourg) has an opening on a xed-term contract basis for itsdepartment Environment and Agro-biotechnologies (EVA) for aresearcher in remote sensing (m/f). The researcher will developnew methodologies and applica ons for a novel hyperspectralimaging spectrometer (VIS/NIR/SWIR) based on FT-technolo-gy. A special focus will be the assessment of biochemical andstructural characteris cs from environmental targets (vegeta-

on, soil, water) at laboratory and eld condi ons using bothsta s cal approaches and radia ve transfer modelling. At theend the developed techniques will be integrated into a toolboxspecialized for the new spectrometer. Applica ons should be re-ceived by August 31st, 2011. Read full announcement at: h p://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDetails/33662856

6) The CIMO Fellowships programme is open to young Doctorallevel students and researchers from all countries and from allacademic elds. Neither studies at Masters level nor post-doc-toral studies are supported in the programme. The scholarshipperiod may vary from 3 to 12 months. The monthly allowance is900-1200 euros (in 2011). The scholarship is intended to coverliving expenses in Finland for a single person. No addi onal al-lowance for housing is paid. Expenses due to interna onal travelto and from Finland are not covered by CIMO. Applica ons maybe submi ed at any stage at: www.studyin nland. /tui on_and_scholarships/cimo_scholarships/cimo_fellowships

Tiffs 7.0

Ti s (Toolbox for Lidar Data Filtering and Forest Studies)is so ware of lidar data processing and informa on ex-trac on. It is highly automa c, very fast, and accuratein genera ng bare earth models, digital surface models,and extrac ng forest informa on from individual treesto regional scales.Ti s 7.0 now can generate individual tree polygons,which makes it possible to integrate with other remotesensing data to perform classi ca on at the object-level.Many addi onal sta s cs (such as standard devia on,skewness, percen les, etc) can be generated based onthe point cloud ver cal distribu on within each individ-ual tree crowns. This will greatly enhance the capabilityof using lidar to extract object-level informa on (such as

biomass, basal area, land cover and land use classi ca-on).

Source: h p://globalidar.com/
http://www.pointools.com/http://www.forestry.org.au/ifa/a/a2-ifa.asphttp://www.forestry.org.au/ifa/a/a2-ifa.asphttp://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDetails/33662856http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDetails/33662856http://www.studyinfinland.fi/tuition_and_scholarships/cimo_scholarships/cimo_fellowshipshttp://www.studyinfinland.fi/tuition_and_scholarships/cimo_scholarships/cimo_fellowshipshttp://globalidar.com/http://globalidar.com/http://www.studyinfinland.fi/tuition_and_scholarships/cimo_scholarships/cimo_fellowshipshttp://www.studyinfinland.fi/tuition_and_scholarships/cimo_scholarships/cimo_fellowshipshttp://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDetails/33662856http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDetails/33662856http://www.forestry.org.au/ifa/a/a2-ifa.asphttp://www.forestry.org.au/ifa/a/a2-ifa.asphttp://www.pointools.com/http://www.isprs-sc.org/


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INTERESTING LINKS

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ISPRS SC Facebookh p://www.facebook.com/groups/107547415994592

Asia-Paci c Regional Space Agency Forumh p://www.aprsaf.org/

Spill Interna onal - News on Marine Spill s and Pollu onh p://www.spill-interna onal.com/

RESOURCESNa onal Academies Press - free GIS related e-booksh p://search.nap.edu/nap-cgi/de.cgi?term=GIS&x=0&y=0

EDUCATION Googles Python Classh p://code.google.com/intl/sl/edu/languages/google-python-class/

FREE SOFTWAREOp cks (Free and Open Source Remote Sensing so ware)h p://op cks.org/

JOBS, CAREER OPPORTUNITIESGIS Connec onh p://www.gisconnec on.com/

JOURNALSLIDAR Magazineh p://lidarnews.com/emag/2011/vol1no1/

RELATED ORGANIZATIONS, ASSOCIATIONSUnited Na ons Pla orm for Space-based Informa on for DisasterManagement and Emergency Responseh p://www.un-spider.org/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/107547415994592http://www.aprsaf.org/http://www.spill-international.com/http://code.google.com/intl/sl/edu/languages/google-python-class/http://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://opticks.org/http://www.gisconnection.com/http://lidarnews.com/emag/2011/vol1no1/http://www.un-spider.org/http://www.isprs-sc.org/http://www.un-spider.org/http://www.eohandbook.com/http://lidarnews.com/emag/2011/vol1no1/http://www.computervisiononline.com/jobshttp://www.gisconnection.com/http://opticks.org/http://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://cgs.nottingham.ac.uk/~elogeo/http://code.google.com/intl/sl/edu/languages/google-python-class/http://www.nacse.org/~keon/gis.htmlhttp://www.spill-international.com/http://www.aprsaf.org/http://www.facebook.com/groups/107547415994592

Documents

ISPRS SC Newsletter Vol5 No2 July 2011