Futuristic 3D city technology unveiled

Australia: A new 3D technology that is transforming the urban development of major cities around the world has hit Australian shores. Eric Wittner, a lead software engineer at Esri, unveiled CityEngine – a technology that enables users to foresee how cities will look as they grow and develop.

Wittner said many Australian urban centres, including Sydney and Melbourne, already had the geographic data needed to start generating detailed 3D digital cities with the technology. “This new generation of smart 3D GIS enables us to represent, design, build and develop with clarity and understanding,” he said.

“For the first time, we can do more than just speculate on the alternate futures of our cities. This technology gives us the ability to depict, visualise, and assess the future to find the best possible design,” he added.

“CityEngine has a range of advanced features that has already made it a powerful tool in the transformation of major cities in China, the US and Europe. For example, the city models created can be used to assess heat island effects of yet unbuilt developments, as well as visualise their impact on the existing skyline from multiple points of view,” he explained.

“The good news is Australia’s cities are amongst the most advanced in the world when it comes to using GIS technology for planning, and many – including Sydney and Melbourne – are in a position to start using this technology today,” he said.

Wittner said a key advantage of the technology – which is also widely used in architecture, simulation, game development and film production – is it gives urban designers the tools to construct ‘what-if’ scenarios.

“As population rates boom, planners are being forced to make cities denser and incorporate more mass transit system capabilities,” Wittner said.

“Smart 3D solutions such as CityEngine can produce a ‘real life’ visualisation of how a city would look before and after urban developments, such as light rail infrastructure or higher residential buildings, to show the impacts on a range of areas including carbon footprints, water usage and traffic congestion.

“Multiple scenarios can be played out to see what would happen if certain development paths were taken or not taken – which helps to refine decision-making and choose the most successful path forward.

“This approach also helps improve community and stakeholder engagement – as the results can be shown before development takes place, to gauge response and feedback,” he said.

Source: Esri

Google Tops ABI Research’s Indoor Location Technology Competitive Assessment, with Nokia/Microsoft and Qualcomm 2nd and 3rd

​Google has been ranked highest amongst 27 indoor location companies in the latest Competitive Assessment released by ABI Research. The company’s indoor mapping, analytics/advertising capabilities, and potential to support a variety of indoor location technologies place it in a very strong position to address the huge revenue potential of this market.
Nokia/Microsoft, Qualcomm, shopkick, and Motorola Solutions/Nearbuy complete the top five in the analysis, which compares companies across 16 criteria relating to “innovation” and “implementation.”
On implementation, the combined efforts of Nokia and Microsoft topped the list, followed by Google, Qualcomm, Cisco/Meridian, and shopkick. Its strong value chain support, indoor mapping capabilities, and the high accuracy of its proposed Bluetooth indoor location technology, will enable it to reach across all handsets and penetrate both retail and commercial markets.
Google ranked highest on innovation, with Motorola/Nearbuy ranked second. “Motorola/Nearbuy’s unique, video-analytics/Wi-Fi technology, strong installed base of access points, and range of low-cost analytics services means it can come to market immediately”, says senior analyst Patrick Connolly. Path Intelligence also features in the top 5 for innovation. Its cellular-based technology and strong analytics offering is already deployed at a number of shopping malls.
The market is still at a very nascent stage, but market shares estimates of in-store deployments places shopkick way out ahead with over 7000 deployments of its audio-based technology, followed by companies such as Insiteo, Cisco/Meridian, and Polestar. Shopkick is the first of many emerging start-ups that are currently trialing or signing deals with major retailers. The report also considers a host of emerging handset-based technology providers such as Wi-fiSlam, Qubulus and Walkbase.
These findings are part of ABI Research’s Location Technologies Research Service, which includes Research Reports, Market Data, Insights, and Competitive Assessments focused on the indoor location market.

Source: www.abiresearch.com

Thailand unveils map on forest land encroachment

An official displays a new satellite map that will be used by the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry to help solve land conflicts.

Boundaries of national parks, forest reserves set out for key agencies

The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry yesterday launched a new satellite map that will be used to resolve conflicts on forestland encroachment.

The new 1:4,000-scale map was introduced at a public forum focused on the problem of forest encroachment held by the ministry yesterday at Chulabhorn Research Institute.

The ministry first began making the map in 2009 in order to study areas being encroached on as well as reshape boundaries of forest reserves, national parks and state-owned land.

The ministry spent more than Bt2 billion, taken from the Global Environmental Fund, to have private firm ESRI Thailand study and draw up the map.

For the project, ESRI Thailand collected more than 187,699 satellite images, taken between 1952 and 2000 by several state agencies, to study the extent of encroachment on forest land and compare it with forest boundaries announced in 1941.

"This map will be used to prove land ownership in court in order to resolve conflicts. The map will show exactly where people live and if they are encroaching on forests," Sunant Arunnoppharat, director of the Environmental Quality Promotion Department, said. This map would only be available to state agencies such as the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) and National Anti-Corruption Commission

(NACC) to investigate land conflicts.



ENDING CONFUSION

Previously, forest-protection agencies had used different maps to prove land rights for people living in areas

overlapping national parks and forest reserves, which has often caused confusion and created conflicts over the legal process. Now, the new map will become a tool for related agencies to prove land rights and end prolonged problems.

Chanvuth Or-udomyuth, from ESRI Thailand, said the company had learned of more than 7,000 cases nationwide in which local residents were found to be living on land overlapping state-owned areas.

The amount of land marked off as forest reserves in Thailand has dropped drastically from 171 million

rai in 1961 to 104 million rai in 2004 due to massive encroachment by farmers and acquisition via illegal ownership papers.

The government issued a Cabinet resolution on June 30, 2008, allowing people living on areas that overlapped forest reserves or national parks, and those who were waiting to prove their ownership, to continue living in the area provided they did not extend further. However, forest-related agencies do not have records about the boundaries of reserve land under the 2008 Cabinet resolution.

An environment-protection official, who wished to remain anonymous, suggested that the ministry add information about reserve land boundaries in relation to the 2008 Cabinet resolution to this new map so officials know whether people are encroaching further. "This way we can arrest people who are encroaching on forests. At present we have no information to show that they have extended beyond permitted areas," he said.

Source: www.nationmultimedia.com

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