Bulgarian archaeologists find 130 ancient sites

420 km of the 3300 km route of the future Nabucco pipeline are projected to be on Bulgarian territory. Map by Nabucco Gas Pipeline Intl 

 

Bulgarian archaeologists surveying the route of the future Nabucco gas transit pipeline have uncovered about 130 archaeological sites, Bulgaria's National Archaeological Institute has announced.
The surveying of the 420 km Bulgarian section of Nabucco has been carried out under a special GIS (Geographical Information System) technology, announced Monday the Institute Director Prof. Lyudmil Vagalinski on the occasion of the fifth annual exhibition "Bulgarian Archaeology" 2011.
He said that based on the data collected by the archaeologists, there will be excavations along the route of the Nabucco pipeline. He did stress, however, that the archaeologists have no way of influencing the investor's decisions other than by indicating their findings.
After certain delays, the EU-sponsored Nabucco gas transit pipeline is expected to be completed in 2017, and its construction is supposed to start 2-3 years earlier.

Source: http://www.novinite.com

ESA launches nine sats, encourages young scientists

Liftoff of Vega VV01

 

13 February 2012
History was made today as ESA’s new Vega launcher lifted off from Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. On board were nine small satellites, including seven ESA- sponsored CubeSats built by teams of students from European universities.



Among these educational payloads were the first satellites ever designed and built in Hungary, Romania and Poland.

The first payload to be released into orbit was the LARES Laser Relativity Satellite from the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Some 16 minutes later, the Vega upper stage motor shut down for the third time, followed immediately by deployment of the seven CubeSats and the University of Bologna’s ALMASat-1 nanosatellite. Ejected from special deployment mechanisms known as P-PODs (Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployers), each CubeSat was placed in an elliptical orbit of approximately 300 x 1,450 km altitude.  

	Goliat team mounting the S band antennas

Over the coming days, the student teams from six European countries will be listening for the first signals from their tiny creations, checking out the satellites’ systems and then conducting the onboard experiments, supported by radio amateurs around the world.

The story of the pioneering picosatellites began as long ago as 2007, when ESA officials decided that the maiden launch of Vega would be an ideal opportunity to fly student-built satellites. Slots were available for at least six cube-shaped satellites, each only 10 cm across and weighing no more than 1 kg.

More than 250 university students in six countries participated in designing and building the seven CubeSats that eventually made it to the launch, along with their innovative technology and science experiments.
 

P-POD integrated with the primary payload

Supported by experts from ESA, academic staff from their universities and various national space agencies and institutions, most of the teams succeeded in overcoming numerous logistical and technical challenges to deliver the satellites on time.

“The launch of the CubeSats on Vega is a key milestone for the ESA Education CubeSats programme,” commented Roger Walker, Head of the Tertiary Education Unit at ESA. “It represents a significant achievement for the many young engineers across Europe who had an invaluable hands-on experience working on a satellite mission from its conception through to its operations in orbit,”

“The synergies and the exchange of know-how that ESA established with the university teams and professors will certainly help the students to be better prepared for their future careers,” added Piero Galeone, the ESA Education CubeSats project manager. “Not only have they benefited from increased competence and motivation, but they have been enriched by the experience gained from having participated in this important mission and working with highly qualified professionals.”
 

	CubeSat teams at ESTEC

The delighted student teams are now all looking forward to operating their tiny spacecraft.

e-st@r team, Italy: “The success of the Vega maiden flight is a great step for all space activities in and outside Europe. We are really excited about it and we are looking forward to communicating with e-st@r in orbit.”

Goliat team, Romania: “This is a major milestone for the long term picosatellite development programme in Romania.”

Masat-1 team, Hungary: “It was a magnificent experience to develop a complete picosatellite and to participate in such a professional launch campaign. With the support of ESA, the first Hungarian satellite is now in orbit. We are very proud and overjoyed, and looking forward to having a technically and scientifically successful mission.”

PW-Sat team, Poland: “We have made history by developing the first Polish satellite. This is the most important moment in our lives.”

Robusta team, France: “This exciting success reminds us of Captain Kirk’s phrase, ‘To boldly go where no (Montpellier) CubeSat has gone before.”

UniCubeSat-GG team, Rome: “We are delighted that the GAUSS team from the School of Aerospace Engineering of Roma has successfully launched its sixth satellite since 2000, and the first CubeSat ever created at the University of Roma, La Sapienza.”

XaTcobeo team, Spain: “Our goal is accomplished. The first space project for the University of Vigo has successfully reached orbit, with the promise of an exciting future.”

Source: ESA

SeqSLAM algorithm to make navigation simpler

• Dr Michael Milford
  

Mapping out the future of GPS technology

16 February 2012 Ditching satellites and complex, powerful computers and opting for camera technology inspired by small mammals may be the future of navigation systems.
Dr Michael Milford from Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) Science and Engineering Faculty said his research into making more reliable Global Positioning Systems (GPS) using camera technology and mathematical algorithms would make navigating a far cheaper and simpler task.
"At the moment you need three satellites in order to get a decent GPS signal and even then it can take a minute or more to get a lock on your location," he said.
"There are some places geographically, where you just can't get satellite signals and even in big cities we have issues with signals being scrambled because of tall buildings or losing them altogether in tunnels."
The world-first approach to visual navigation algorithms, which has been dubbed SeqSLAM (Sequence Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping), uses local best match and sequence recognition components to lock in locations.
"SeqSLAM uses the assumption that you are already in a specific location and tests that assumption over and over again.
"For example if I am in a kitchen in an office block, the algorithm makes the assumption I'm in the office block, looks around and identifies signs that match a kitchen. Then if I stepped out into the corridor it would test to see if the corridor matches the corridor in the existing data of the office block lay out.
"If you keep moving around and repeat the sequence for long enough you are able to uniquely identify where in the world you are using those images and simple mathematical algorithms."
Dr Milford said the "revolution" of visual-based navigation came about when Google took photos of almost every street in the world for their street view project.
However, the challenge was making those streets recognisable in a variety of different conditions and to differentiate between streets that were visually similar.
The research, which utilises low resolution cameras, was inspired by Dr Milford's background in the navigational patterns of small mammals such as rats.
"My core background is based on how small mammals manage incredible feats of navigation despite their eyesight being quite poor," he said.
"As we develop more and more sophisticated navigation systems they depend on more and more maths and more powerful computers.
"But no one's actually stepped back and thought 'do we actually need all this stuff or can we use a very simple set of algorithms which don't require expensive cameras or satellites or big computers to achieve the same outcome?'"
Dr Milford will present his paper SeqSLAM: Visual Route-Based Navigation for Sunny Summer Days and Stormy Winter Nights at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in America later this year.
The research has been funded for three years by an Australian Research Council $375,000 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellowship.

Source: http://www.qut.edu.au

Thick Sediment in Madagascar’s Onibe River

acquired February 19, 2012 download large image (3 MB, JPEG, 2245x3367)

acquired February 19, 2012 download GeoTIFF file (14 MB, TIFF)

acquired February 6, 2012 download large image (4 MB, JPEG, 2245x3367)

acquired February 6, 2012 download GeoTIFF file (12 MB, TIFF)

acquired February 6 - 19, 2012 download Google Earth file (KML) 

 

In February 2012, Tropical Cyclone Giovanna made landfall in eastern Madagascar, packing winds of 125 knots (230 kilometers per hour) and heavy rains in excess of 250 millimeters (10 inches) along the coast. On February 20, Integrated Regional Information Networks reported that Giovanna had damaged or destroyed thousands of homes in Madagascar and killed at least 23 people.
The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image of the sediment-choked Onibe River on February 19, 2012. The river appears muddy brown throughout this landscape, and delivers a thick plume of sediment to the Indian Ocean.
The Onibe River arises in the highlands of Madagascar’s interior and empties into the ocean just north of the coastal town of Mahavelona (also known as Foulpointe). The river lies along the track Giovanna followed when it came ashore. Giovanna’s heavy rains spurred equally heavy runoff into the Onibe River.
In eastern Madagascar, rivers are typically short and fast-moving, thanks to the area’s stark relief. Madagascar’s highest mountain, for example, is 2,876 meters (9,436 feet) above sea level yet lies just 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the coast. The steep slopes lead to significant erosion, but even compared to the island’s usual runoff rates, the Onibe carried a heavy load of mud and debris in the wake of Giovanna. An ALI image of the same area on February 6 showed virtually no sediment plume at the mouth of the river.
Cyclones rank among the most frequent natural hazards for Madagascar. After coming ashore in mid-February, Tropical Cyclone Giovanna blew westward over the island, traveled southward through the Mozambique Channel, then curved back to the east, skirting Madagascar’s southern shore.

1. References

2. CIA World Factbook. (2012, February 8). Madagascar. Accessed February 21, 2012.
3. Cox, R., Bierman, P., Jungers, M.C., Rakotondrazafy, A.F.M. (2009). Erosion rates and sediment sources in Madagascar inferred from Be analysis of lavaka, slope, and river sediment. The Journal of Geology, 117(4), 363–376.
4. Integrated Regional Information Networks. (2012, February 20). Madagascar: Cyclone Giovanna struck with little warning. Accessed February 21, 2012.
5. Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission. (2012, February 12). Deadly Tropical Cyclone Giovanna floods Madagascar. Accessed February 21, 2012.
6. Unisys Weather. (2012, February 20). Giovanna Tracking Information. Accessed February 20, 2012.

NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Michon Scott.

Instrument: 

EO-1 - ALI

 

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

Mauritius Police GIS

System Introduction
The Mauritius Police GIS (MPGIS) is a customized GIS application for Mauritius Police Force (MPF). MPGIS is part of the CCTV for Port Louis and Grand Bay project (CCTV System), which is a Chinese Foreign Aid project for Mauritius, and is designed for reducing crime in Port Louis and Grand Bay of Mauritius.

The whole system is composed of a web map Client System (Client System) and an administration tool (Admin Tool) (Fig 1). The Client System provides basic GIS functions such as place name searching, map browsing, layer controlling, distance and area measuring, etc., and some advanced police business oriented functions such as crime editing, crime querying, crime thematic mapping, etc. Furthermore, with the integration with CCTV system, the system supports locating the cameras and viewing the live images of the specific cameras on top of the map; with the integration with the Wireless Trunking System, the system supports to monitor the real time locations of the on duty police units which are equipped with GPS terminals so that the police officers can make quicker and smarter commands in case of emergencies. The Admin Tool mainly provides functions for the system administrators to manage more maps, statistic data, thematic maps, searchable layers, GPS terminals, security policies etc. for the Client System.


Fig 1. Functional Structure of the System

Key Features and Benefits

• User Friendly Interface and Easy to Use

As the Client System is daily operated by the policemen in MPF and none of them are GIS professionals, the design of the Web Client follows the principle of "user friendly interface, easy to use".


Fig 2. The Policemen are operating the System

• RIA Techonolgy Improves the User Experience Greatly

We employ SuperMap iClient for Silverlight for customizing the Client System in the client side, combining with the GIS services published by SuperMap IS .NET in the server side, it can display both raster maps and vector layers both quickly and interactively. This greatly improves the user experiences of this system.


Fig 3. Interface Example of the Client System

• Auto Complete Input Facilitates the Map Searching Conveniently

The search function of the Client System supports auto complete input, which will make fuzzy search and list the matched results automatically for the user to choose when the user inputs more than 2 letters to query the place names (Fig 3).

• Various Thematic Maps Visulize Police Data Intuitively

Police-related data can be visualized on map via thematic maps so as to help investigators to identify the trends and the variations of crimes, or evaluate the performance of different police stations. For example, a Pie Chart Map shows the percentages of day and night larceny occurrences in different areas (Fig 4); a Heat Map displays the different crime density of the whole Mauritius Island (Fig 3). Time Series Map helps identify the temporal spatial pattern of Crimes (Fig 5).


Fig 4. Example of Pie Chart Map


Fig 5. Example of Time Series Map

• Integration with CCTV System Improves Surveillance Efficiency

The system is integrated with CCTV system, all the cameras are displayed on map, the investigators can search a group of specific cameras and view live images of them on map. With this, they can view historical videos and trace criminal's acting tracks or area, these can help them estimate the probable position of criminals and make optimal plans to arrest them.


Fig 6. Single Window Multi-image Monitoring


Fig 7. Multi-windows Monitoring

• GPS Tracing Assists Dispatching

The system is integrated with GPS tracing function, police officers can trace the police units equipped with GPS terminals in real time via the system; this can guide them to dispatch police units easily and effectively in case of emergency. Furthermore, the daily tracks of police units can be reviewed when needed.


Fig 8. GPS Tracing

• Admin Tool Enables the Administrator to Manage Map Data Flexiblly

The Admin Tool is designed and developed to meet variable needs of customers. The administrator can easily configure and manage statistical data, background maps, thematic maps, display styles, layers and GPS terminals through the Admin Tool, which meets the changing and increasing data needs without programming. Besides, the Admin Tool provides the security policy for the whole system.

The Result
Since the deployment about more than half a year ago, the system has gained the recognition of police users. The system is stable with practical functions, simple operations, and flexible configuration. By fully employing the latest technical achievements of the SuperMap GIS software, the system not only established the geospatial vector and image databases and provided practical GIS functions, but also closely integrated with the CCTV system and GPS monitoring system. The system is a great help for improving the decision-making ability and efficiency of Mauritius Police Force.

www.supermap.com/en/html/solutions722161.html

Source: Geoinformatics.com

Esri Releases National Geographic World Basemap

In cooperation with National Geographic, Esri released the National Geographic World Map. Esri and National Geographic collaborated to produce a distinctive basemap that reflects National Geographic's cartographic design, typographic style, and map policies. Designed to be aesthetically pleasing, the National Geographic World Map is for users who want to display minimal data on a vibrant, highly detailed background. The map is currently available at ArcGIS Online in the basemap gallery.

The new basemap combines a century-old cartographic tradition with the power of GIS technology to produce a distinctive Internet-based map service serving GIS, consumer, education, and mobile users. This new map will be added to Esri's collection of existing basemap services designed for different uses and needs. All Esri basemaps are freely accessible for internal- and external-facing sites.

Internet: www.arcgisonline.com

Bridging Theory and Practice

September 5-9 2011, the world cultural heritage city of Salzburg was the setting for the annual conference of the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG). The IAMG2011 conference was a forum for exchanging ideas on theory and the practical application of a broad spectrum of mathematical geosciences concepts, addressing a wide range of geoscientists and civil engineers, and providing opportunities for students and young scientists to engage with some of the best geosciences minds in the world.




Non-invasive 3D-reconstruction of ammonite fossil chambers by x-ray CT (Hoffmann&Zachov, IAMG2011 proceedings)

In terms of attendee numbers, IAMG 2011 attracted 235 delegates from 37 countries, with 85% making their way from abroad; regarding provenance, 53% of delegates came from EU countries, 12% from the US, 7% from China, 5% from Iran, 2% from Canada and  21% came from the remaining countries.

The broad thematic range of IAMG 2011 was organized in 22 sessions with a total of 164 high-quality, peer-reviewed contributions: besides covering IAMG core topics like geostatistics, reservoir modeling, 3D modeling or geo-process simulation, contributions addressed applied mathematical geosciences issues with a specific reference to alpine regions - simulation and modeling in hydrogeology and engineering geology as well as geohazard modeling.

Recent developments in GIS and remote sensing
Moreover, as from the close association of the Salzburg based Austrian Academy of Sciences GIScience Research Institute and the University of Salzburg Centre for Geoinformatics, recent developments in GIS and remote sensing with an emphasis on object-based image analysis as well as non-destructive 3D reconstruction of rock macro- and microstructures were highlighted.


3D geological model of tunnel section (Weichenberger&Fürlinger, IAMG2011 proceedings)

All-digital conference proceedings were distributed on USB memory sticks in PDF format and as flash-based flipping book. This enables communicating new geomathematical ideas not only in a sequential, static manner but including animations, interactive 3D-worlds or high-resolution color imagery. As such, the IAMG2011 proceedings mirror the “go green” idea - the production of analogue proceedings volumes, each copy comprising more than 1500 pages could be avoided.

IAMG2011 extended abstracts will be available in pdf format from http://www.cogeo.at

Internet: www.iamg2011.at

 Source: http://www.geoinformatics.com

Earth, Behind the Scenes

acquired January 4, 2012 download large image (11 MB, JPEG, 11500x11500) 

 

acquired January 4, 2012 download large image (4 MB, PNG, 2750x2450) 

 

People love images of the full disk of Earth as it would appear from space. In the last week of January 2012, one of our NASA science colleagues, Norman Kuring, took some fresh data from the newest Earth-observing satellite, projected it on a disk, and voila...three million people viewed the image in a week. The wave of interest is still spreading across the Internet and social media.
Have you ever considered how these images get made? The image above, of Earth’s eastern hemisphere, was built from data collected by the Suomi NPP satellite, which flies in a polar orbit at an altitude of 824 kilometers (512 miles). The perspective of this new image, however, is from 12,743 kilometers (7,918 miles) above a point at 10 degrees South latitude and 45 degrees East longitude.
Kuring managed to “step back” from Earth by combining data from six separate orbits Suomi NPP made on January 23, 2012. The natural-color images come from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the satellite. The four vertical lines of haze are caused by sunglint, the reflection of sunlight off the ocean.

The graphic above illustrates how separate images in red, green, and blue wavelengths are combined to make natural-color imagery, and how multiple, adjacent swaths—slices of Earth viewed on each satellite pass—get built into a composite. The width of the swaths covered by each pass of VIIRS is about 3,001 kilometers (1,865 miles).

A decade ago, members of the Earth Observatory team pulled together about 10,000 satellite scenes collected over 100 days, and created a 43,200-pixel by 21,600-pixel map of the Earth. By 2007, the resolution of this full Earth “Blue Marble” was up to 86,400 pixels by 43,200 pixels. Even after all of these years, the Blue Marble is still the most popular and most downloaded image on our site.
Of course, the original Blue Marble image is actually a photograph—not a composite view. It was taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts as they traveled to the Moon. The view is from a distance of about 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles).

Source: NASA Earth Observatory