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Arctic reindeer herders are facing the challenges of adapting to climate change as a warmer Arctic climate makes it harder for herds to find food and navigate.

To help them adapt, the ESA-backed Polar View initiative is providing the herders with satellite-based snow maps.

“Snow is of paramount importance for reindeer herding because its quality determines whether reindeer are able to access the pastures that lie beneath it for much of the year,” said Anders Oskal, the Director of the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry (ICR). “Detailed circumpolar snow information is, thus, becoming increasingly important following the recent changes in the Arctic climate.”

Oskal is working with Sámi reindeer herders in Finnmark, Norway, to help them maintain and develop sustainable reindeer husbandry. According to him, Finnmark is the area of Norway that is predicted to experience the largest temperature increases, raising concerns about whether ice layers will form over pastures preventing reindeer from foraging.

For this reason, ICR partnered with Polar View to examine how satellite observations could help by gathering information on snow and snow change in a timely and accurate manner for such vast circumpolar regions. Under the Polar View initiative, Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) have been providing snow melt maps for Norway and Sweden and Eurasia snow cover maps for the last 18 months.

“The experience so far has definitely been positive, and the reindeer herders are extremely interested in the future utilisation of Polar View products that can relate important information about local snow conditions,” Oskal said. “These products could have important consequences for herders’ decisions regarding winter pasture quality and potential migration routes.”

In addition to climate change, reindeer herders also have to face a loss of pastures due to infrastructure development, such as roads, hydroelectric power dams and cabin resorts. In the future, ICR and Polar View may partner again to monitor the different forms of land use change over time.

Products from Polar View have also been used as input for an International Polar Year Project – IPY EALÁT-Network Study – on reindeer herding and adaptation to climate change.

The two Polar View snow services are provided by KSAT in partnership with the Northern Research Institute, the Norwegian Computing Centre and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Polar View is supported by ESA and the European Commission (EC) with participation from the Canadian Space Agency. It was established under the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme – a joint initiative between ESA and the EC to combine all available space- and ground-based information sources to develop an independent European environmental monitoring capacity from planetary to local scales.

Source ESA

…airborne video, ENVI Orthorectification, OGC and Spacemetric…


Airborne video coming to Keystone

(7 April 2009) Spacemetric is working with the National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) (www.nlr.nl) in the Netherlands to provide an airborne video data management and processing system based on the company’s Keystone server. This will form part of an NLR capability to provide a flying testbed for demonstrating Unmanned Airborne Vehicle (UAV) technologies that avoids the exclusion of UAVs from normal airspace by using a piloted aircraft.

The Keystone system will manage and geoprocess the airborne video imagery. On board the aircraft this will allow the video coverage to be reviewed during the flight. Meanwhile, the video imagery will be downloaded to the ground by radio link and be geoprocessed in near real-time to simulate a range of operational capabilities. The Keystone video functionality will support the NATO STANAG 4609 video standard.

Airborne video is an important new capability for Keystone and complements existing support for a wide range of airborne and spaceborne imagery. “We expect airborne video to be an attractive new addition for current and future defence customers” noted Lars Edgardh, Spacemetric CEO.

ENVI Orthorectification uses Spacemetric technology

(30 March 2009) ITT Visual Information Systems (www.ittvis.com) has announced the release of the ENVI Orthorectification Module incorporating methods from Spacemetric for rigorous image orthorectification.

At its core the new ENVI module uses the rigorous orthorectification technology developed and validated over many years by Spacemetric and its customers. This same technology is a core component of Spacemetric’s Keystone image management systems and provides high-accuracy image orthorectification for both satellite and airborne sensors.

The new ENVI Orthorectification Module provides a wizard-based approach to image orthorectification as an add-on to ENVI 4.6.

“The ENVI Orthorectification Module is unique because it was made specifically for non-photogrammetrists,” commented Ian Spence, Spacemetric’s Sales and Marketing Director. It offers a range of features including support for a broad range of sensors, block bundle adjustment, mosaic and cutline functions and workflow automation.

The ENVI Orthorectification Module is a clear example of the tangible value provided by Spacemetric’s technologies in the management and processing of geospatial imagery. Similar benefits are already being enjoyed by other Spacemetric customers in both the civilian and defence sectors.

Spacemetric joins Open Geospatial Consortium

(19 February 2009) Spacemetric announces that it has recently become a member of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc ® (OGC) (www.opengeospatial.org), the international industry consortium that leads the development of standards for geospatial and location-based services. Spacemetric has joined the OGC at the Technical Committee level, giving the company an active role in defining, approving and maintaining OGC standards.

Practical experience of using OGC standards at Spacemetric goes back more than five years and started when the company developed a Web Map Service (WMS) interface for the European Space Agency’s catalogue of satellite imagery. Today Spacemetric’s image management solutions are used by a growing list of customers and make ever increasing use of OGC standards. Commenting on the new affiliation, Spacemetric’s CEO Lars Edgardh noted that “joining the OGC as a voting member marks our commitment to OGC standards and indicates their key role in the systems and services we deliver to our customers”.

Spacemetric’s OGC membership makes the company an active participant in the development of geospatial standards and best practice. As a voting member of OGC, Spacemetric is almost unique in Scandinavia and joins a group of just thirty organisations in Europe and eighty worldwide with this level of involvement.

About Spacemetric

Spacemetric is a Swedish company providing geospatial image management solutions. Its customers include the Swedish cadastre, mapping and land registry authority, the Swedish Air Force, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and the European Space Agency.

CONTACT: Ian Spence
EMAIL: is@spacemetric.com
TELEPHONE: +46 8 594 770 83

Source Spacemetric

The NEW Radar Mapping Suite for IMAGINE 9.3 provides specialized tools for processing radar data in a standard remote sensing or GIS environment.

With tools for georectifying, filtering and calibrating radar images, you can derive elevation information regardless of cloud cover, day or night from stereo or interferometric pairs. The Suite is currently being enhanced in collaboration with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and GEOSYSTEMS/Germering. Recently, the DLR-created SRTM unwrap algorithm was incorporated. The new modules are flexible and can be customized to meet any organization’s needs. IMAGINE Coherence Change Dedection (CCD) uses interferometic coherence as a qualitative measure of change between two radar acquisitions. This enables the user to detect small-scale and linear features which changed between acquisitions.

IMAGINE Radar Mapping Suite supports a growing number of satellite sensors, including ERS-1, 2 and EnviSat, RADARSAT-1 and 2, TerraSAR-X (with one meter spotlight modes), ALOS Palsar and more. Data from other radar sensors is supported by a generic import interface. In early 2009, ERDAS will add a D-InSar capability and COSMO support to IMAGINE Radar Mapping Suite.

more information on
IMAGINE Radar Mapping Suite
PDF Download IMAGINE Radar Mapping Suite Broschüre
PDF Download Orbit Refinement White Paper

Source MFB-GEO

Recent News om KSPT MEOS Polar, vacancies, KSPT Dis development kit…


(2009-03-27) KSPT MEOS Polar L/X band and Meteosat-8 ground station to Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in Rome, Italy

KSPT has signed a contract with Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) on MEOS Polar.

Kongsberg Spacetec has signed a contract to deliver a complete Multi-Mission MEOS Polar L/X-band and Meteosat-8 (MSG) Ground Station to INGV in Rome, Italy.

The delivery includes a 3.2 m L/X band antenna and also reception capabilities through Eumetcast.

The MEOS Polar ground station system is Kongsberg Spacetec’s multi-mission, flexible and modular turnkey system for acquisition, archiving, processing, analysis and distribution of meteorological data. The missions supported in this delivery include MODIS Terra/Aqua, FY-1, METOP and Meteosat-8.

For more information about the customer: INGV

(2009-03-06) Job vacancies at Kongsberg Spacetec

Job vacancies for system developers
Read More…

(2009-02-16) KSPT DIS Development Toolkit for Taiwan

Kongsberg Spacetec has signed a contract with National Space Organization (NSPO) Taiwan on the DIS development Toolkit for the Formosat-5 ground segment. The system will be used by NSPO for payload data acquisition from the Formosat-2 and -5 satellites.

The Formosat-2 satellite is currently in operation and Formosat-5 will be launched in 2011.

For more information about the customer: National Space Organization (NSPO) Taiwan

(2009-01-05) KSPT contract with European Space Agency on SWARM

Kongsberg Spacetec has signed a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the SWARM Payload Data Facility and the Archive and Processing Facility Implementation.

SWARM will be a constellation of three satellites and will be launched in October 2010.

The objectives of the SWARM mission are to provide the best survey ever of the geomagnetic field and the first detailed description of the way this field changes on time scales from a day to several years.

Kongsberg Spacetec will be the prime contractor and has Werum Systems, Germany, as a sub contractor.

For more information about the customer: ESA

SOURCE KSPT

Young, experienced and not done yet – 10 years of Geomatics Research and Education at the Institute of Geomatics

Ten years have passed since the Institute of Geomatics in Castelldefels, close to Barcelona, Spain started operations in Applied Research and Education in Geomatics. Time went quickly, yet, a lot things have happened and the sector keeps growing. Who would have thought in 1999 that ten years later everyone can navigate his car with satellite guided navigation projected on digital maps? Who would have thought that billions of people could have free instantaneous access to satellite imagery and superimposed maps, including 3D representation of selected environments, all that from home? And who would have been sure that within almost only one year digital cameras would revolutionize cartography and every day’s life?

Some of you would, and so did we somehow. That is why we, together with our stakeholders, public and private partners and friends, have been looking for ways to contribute a little bit to these kinds of small technological miracles during the last 10 years. And, this is what we want to continue doing for the future, with even more ambition and joy.

Source Institute of Geomatics

The objective of the eSDI-NET+ project is to establish a network for communication and knowledge exchange of best practices on European Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI), which will enhance the use of geographic information provided by the GMES.

Recently, a call for submission of best practices on SDI’s has been launched, focusing on sub national level, for the purpose of a board assessment campaign. After all the applicants have been evaluated through interviews and local workshops, successful ones will be awarded during an international conference planned for the end of 2009.

The eSDI-NET+ project (Network for promotion of cross-border dialogue and exchange of best practices on Spatial Data Infrastructures throughout Europe) is co-funded by the European Community programme eContentplus (within DG Information Society and Media) for a period of 3 years (2007-2010). The project targets users and aims at gathering European Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) stakeholders in a platform for communication and knowledge exchange at all levels, with an emphasis on the user benefits. The purpose of this network is to raise awareness of the important role SDIs play and to promote cross border dialogue resulting in the creation of synthesised SDI guidelines and standards. By establishing communication mechanisms between European and local levels, this initiative will support better use of geographic information provided by European initiatives such as INSPIRE, GMES and GALILEO.

Recently, the eSDI-Net+ project has launched a broad assessment campaign consisting of identification and analysis of SDI’s best practices at sub national level. This process will end up by the SDI Best Practice Award at the end of this year, during an international conference gathering the European communities involved in geo-information issues.

All types and sizes of stakeholders in charge of SDI developments from any region of Europe and at any level can apply before 22 September 2009. Applications should be submitted by organisations facilitating access to geographical content or providing geo-information services to end users. Afterwards, selected applicants will to present themselves to Spatial Data Experts and local SDI stakeholders during personal interviews and local workshops.

Each interviewed applicant will be evaluated by the national representative of the eSDI-NET+ project, taking diverse criteria into account among which:

  • Technological, innovative level and originality of the project;
  • Implementation and/or readiness for INSPIRE principles;
  • Level of fostering cooperation between different users (proof of visibility and/or user feedback);
  • Possibility of extension to other countries and regions.

More information at: http://www.esdinetplus.eu/get_involved/award_2009.html

SOURCE GMES.Info

News on Terrasar, classify oil slicks, Expressmap, rescue…

02 April 2009
Bedfordshire & Luton Fire & Rescue Service selects Imass to provide a hydrant management system

Imass Ltd, an Infoterra company, has been selected by Bedfordshire & Luton Fire & Rescue Service to implement a fire hydrant and water source asset management system. This will be utilised by the service’s water officer and will provide accurate information to front-line fire crews on location via their Imass vehicle-mounted data systems.

Read press release in english

01 April 2009
Infoterra and Spot Image launch EXPRESSMaps, An online service to deliver detailed maps in 6 hours

This world’s first online service, which covers over three quarters of the Earth’s land surfaces, creates basemaps at a scale of 1:50 000, which can be delivered electronically to users in the space of just 6 hours

View website
Read press release in english or french

19 March 2009
Infoterra to map and classify oil slicks over Baffin Bay Greenland

Infoterra has been appointed to undertake an oil slick mapping and interpretation project over Baffin Bay – 240,000 km2 area – for Nunaoil, the National Oil Company of Greenland.

Infoterra’s team of experts will characterise and rank all oil slicks as probable natural seepage or man-made pollution immediately the satellite imagery is received and will report the results to Nunaoil on a weekly basis. The team will also map the location and movement of all sea-ice and icebergs visible on the imagery.

Read press release in english

12 March 2009
TerraSAR-X performance confirmed by US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

NGA’s CCA Project Group evaluates and verifies TerraSAR-X’s
outstanding geolocation accuracy
Infoterra’s commercial radar satellite data at 1m and 3m resolution exceeds NGA’s purchase requirements

The superb accuracy defined in the TerraSAR-X data product specifications has now been confirmed by the Civil and Commercial Applications Project (CCAP) Group within the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA): The group published the results of their geolocation accuracy evaluation of TerraSAR-X radar satellite imagery during the ASPRS Annual Conference in Baltimore this week.

View website
Read press release in english

11 March 2009
World’s largest claims management provider deploys innovative Infoterra solution

Infoterra has developed a powerful browser-based desktop survey solution for Crawford & Company to deliver improved risk intelligence for their National Subsidence Unit.

Read press release in english

SOURCE INFOTERRA-GLOBAL

GMV led the design, development and maintenance of the ground system of satellite monitoring and control.

On Monday 17 March the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched from Plesetsk (Russia) the GOCE mission (“Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer”)

The European Space Agency mission will enable the earth’s gravitational field to be observed and measured with great precision, helping us to understand climate change

GOCE is the first in a series of earth observation satellites called Earth Explorers, designed by ESA to address a series of enigmas that have been puzzling the scientific community in the earth sciences field, seeking better knowledge of the earth’s main components such as its interior, the atmosphere, the biosphere, the hydrosphere and the cryosphere. GOCE will without doubt meet these requisites. Its elegant hi-tech design has adopted many trailblazing technologies for mapping the earth’s gravity fields as never before.

As main contractor, Thales Alenia Space has led an exclusively European 40-company consortium to prepare the mission and construct the GOCE satellite. In Spain GMV originally took charge of the mission analysis. Subsequently, in a project for ESA’s Space Operations Center in Germany (ESOC), GMV led the design, development and maintenance of the ground system of satellite monitoring and control. This system is responsible for generating the control orders and receiving the satellite-sent telemetry for checking the functioning of the onboard equipment. To ensure smooth operation of the developed system, a 4-person team from GMV is going to give direct support in ESA’s operations center during the initial launch phases. Likewise, GMV engineers have participated in the development and operation of the orbit control system that ensures correct GOCE orbit at each moment.

The GOCE mission, which will map the gravity field with unprecedented precision, will input a great variety of new and fascinating possibilities for the fields of oceanography, solid earth physics, geodesy and sea-level studies. This will greatly help us to understand climate change.

Source GMV#

In the age of digitalization and quickly changing markets, knowledge on where your customers are is the cornerstone of successful business. This information is delivered by geomarketing, which is the integration of geographical intelligence into marketing aspects.

It involves the geographic analysis and visualization of company and demographic data in order to spot trends and relationships that would otherwise go unnoticed. Geomarketing thus comprises the ideal basis for sound location- and sales territory planning, for more effective and efficient operations and decision-making. Similar concepts are found and applied in other industries, such as the telecom sector, where knowledge of fine scale population distribution is critical for network but also business development planning.

In reality, poor data on population distribution often hinders the best marketing and business development concepts. Usually, aggregated statistics from the census are employed on the basis of irregularly shaped administrative units, assuming a uniform population density within each administrative unit The marketing or planning efforts based on such data usually result in very poor geographic precision and often lose the original purpose. The mechanism is amplified in the countries with very poor census data. This is where EO data can not only help but increase the efficiency, impact and range of applications dramatically.

ESA to support service development and roll-out

The Value Added Element (VAE) program of the European Space Agency (ESA) has the purpose to support the industrial community in the use of Earth Observation data, and as such is contributing directly to fulfilling the high-level objectives of the EO Envelope Programme Development & Exploitation component. The VAE is the evolution of the market development element (EOMD) of EOEP-1 and 2.

In context with the requirements and needs of the geomarketing and telecom industry for highly detailed demographic data, ESA supports through its VAE program the demonstration, validation, market expansion and promotion of an EO based service that significantly improves existing census data through a modelling approach based on land use information derived from satellites. The proposed EO-STAT PopLoc Day/Night service (EO derived information for sharpening socio-economic STATistics and Population Location at Day and Night, hereafter called PopLoc©) acts like a pencil sharpener and disaggregates statistical information to arrive at the “real world population”.

PopLoc©

With PopLoc marketing companies will be able to know any time during the day and night where people are actually “spatially speaking”. This significant improvement has become possible through a GeoVille model development after completion of EO-STAT. The service is of great interest to geomarketing and one Pop-Loc service case will be customer funded through E-Plus, the largest mobile Telecom provider in Germany.

In short, PopLoc© will build an interface between – EO derived information, – census data (and socio-economic data), and – the road network data base of Tele Atlas
to provide a product for next generation geomarketing and for reaching new customers in the private and public sector.

The PopLoc© service will be available as both a raster based layer at 25, 50, and 100m resolution as well as a network resolved information layer linked to the Tele Atlas MultiNet® Product palette.

Geoville Group

Tel: +352 26 71 41 35
Fax: +352 26 71 41 35
Email: info@geoville.com
Web: www.geoville.com

GeoVille Group is a private sector enterprise located in Austria and Luxembourg. GeoVille Group specialises in products and services related to Earth Observation (EO) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications.

GeoVille is Europe’s leading company in using satellite data for spatial planning applications

Our services provide the bridge from user needs to technical implementation – merging geospatial explicit data with statistics – to the analysis of what on-going processes and trends mean for real world applications.

TeleAtlas

Tel: +41 56 416 30 80
Fax: +41 56 416 30 99
Email: Norbert.Hackner@teleatlas.com
Web: www.teleatlas.com

Tele Atlas delivers the digital maps and dynamic content that power many of the world’s most essential navigation and location-based services (LBS). Through a combination of its own products and partnerships, Tele Atlas offers map coverage of more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.

The company was founded in 1984 and has approximately 2,000 full-time staff and contract cartographers at offices in 24 countries.

Today, Tele Atlas maps are developed with the insight of a community of millions of GPS system users worldwide, who are adding to the company’s unmatched network of sources to track and validate changes in real time, and deliver the best digital maps and dynamic content.

More Geoville news

Latest news


March 2009

GeoID kicks off the TourCap project and will build a virtual geographic world of the Bucegi mountains (Romania) and its points of interest. The objective is to promote tourism in the region. The project is cofinanced by the Foreign Policy of the Flemish Government.

February 2009

GeoID participates in the European SAFER project aiming to support humanitarian aid with satellite imagery information products.

Source GEO-ID