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The business divisions „Remote Sensing Technology“ and „SpaceCom“ are acting since more than 15 years successfully in niche markets within the Space business with a different focus.

It is one of our main goals to improve the accessibility of our business activities and service portfolios for our customers by concentrating the existing competencies within the SpaceCom Division.
From 1st January 2007 our new SpaceCom division offers professional solutions via the business segments Space and Security and Earth Observation and Science for:
-Ground segment and control centres
-Data distribution and dissemination services
-System monitoring and control
-Integrated management of complex infrastructures
-Service centre solutions
-Professional applications
-Satellite receiving stations
Director of the SpaceCom Division will be Dr.-Ing. Horst Wulf assisted by Mr. Ulli Leibnitz as Deputy Director and being responsible for the business segment „Space and Security”.
For all Customers of the former „Remote Sensing Technology“ Division Dr. Peter Scheidgen will become responsible for the business segment „Earth Observation and Science”.
Mr. Oliver Harrmann will become Head of the „System Engineering“ department.
It goes without saying that we will keep you informed about all actual and future events. In case of any additional questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
For more information please click here to get to the new SpaceCom website.
Contact Wichmann
E-Mail: spacecom@vcs.de
(Source VCS)

VEGA Group Creates a Simulation Platform for Galileo Data

Customer Challenge

The European Union (EU) and the European Space Agency (ESA) needed to add powerful visualization capabilities to a simulation environment at the Galileo System Simulation Facility (GSSF).

Solution Achieved

In 2000, the European Union (EU) and the European Space Agency (ESA) initiated Galileo, an international project to design and deploy a global satellite navigation and positioning system specifically for the civilian applications of today and of the future. The Galileo project will include a combination of ground based systems, a constellation of 30 satellites, and a host of support services that will provide advanced technologies for transportation, energy, personal navigation, surveying, environmental and emergency management applications.

Advancing Technology Development Using Simulations

From the beginning of the project, ESA has focused its attention on developing advanced technologies to provide a broad spectrum of tools and capabilities to support present day and future civilian applications.

Along with a full array of payload systems and ground station services, ESA has commissioned a comprehensive simulation environment that will provide sophisticated models of Galileo’s operations. These simulation models will be indispensable to companies and organizations that provide services to consumers that are dependant on accurately assessing the navigational accuracy and analyses of data integrity for the Galileo system.

This vision for a simulation environment is now being realized as the Galileo System Simulation Facility (GSSF). GSSF provides a simulation environment that reproduces the functional and performance behavior of the Galileo system and provides a robust and easy to use platform for companies to develop simulation applications to ensure the integrity of products and services being developed using Galileo, GPS or EGNOS systems.

The Galileo System Simulation Facility

GSSF is being developed for ESA/ESTEC by a multinational team lead by VEGA IT GmbH of Darmstadt in Germany, which is a 100% subsidiary of the British VEGA Group Plc. GSSF gives users the ability to create models that simulate Galileo functions such as navigational accuracy, data integrity, the effect of the environment on navigation performance, and ground segment performance for Galileo, GPS and EGNOS systems.

Developed in C++ and C# (.NET) on the Windows XP platform, GSSF offers a single simulator environment that allows users to set up and configure a simulation scenario, run the simulation, analyze and visualize the data and import or export data and reports. VEGA has incorporated the advanced visualization capabilities of IDL into GSSF to provide users with additional simulation and 3D processing capabilities. IDL allows users to create powerful visualizations of the data including modeling, contour plots and map plots and many more.

Galileo’s GSSF version 2.0 allows the user to perform advanced modeling of data, create contour plots and much more. – Images credit Galileo Project

Performance Analysis & Ground Station Validation – GSSF version 2.0

GSSF 2.0 has been formally accepted by ESA and is now available for free download from www.gssf.eu. Currently over 300 licenses have been downloaded and many core institutions are making use of the platform to model data from Galileo, GPS and EGNOS.

The current version of GSSF (2.0) includes the Service Volume Simulation (SVS) to create models for the analysis of navigational performance and integrity over long periods of time and over large geographic areas. It also includes the Raw Data Generation (RDG) from Galileo and GPS for experimental purposes.

The latest version of GSSF (2.1) released end 2006 to ESA, includes integrity simulations, improvements to existing version 2.0 functionality.

The Real Power – Extending GSSF to Support Custom Applications

The GSSF offers a variety of standard simulation models and analyses for many applications, however, the true advantage of the GSSF comes from its ability to be customized and extended via the additional use of IDL as a development platform to meet a wide variety of custom application needs.

In addition to the flexibility of the Windows XP platform, the IDL engine generating the advanced visualizations in the system offers developers the ability to build additional functionality for application-specific purposes such as user-defined analyses. Equipment providers and service organizations can use this extensibility to develop customized models, post-processing routines and 3D visualizations to help gain a better understanding of the performance and accuracy of Galielo, GPS and EGNOS, and the relative performance of their particular commercial offering.

Application developers can also embrace the underlying IDL engine as a platform from which to develop third party, commercial software applications using the navigation system data.

Customizing the GSSF Platform with VEGA and CREASO

“The support of the team at CREASO GmbH, which is the German IDL vendor and engineering support provider, was essential. Frank Zimmermann, the GSSF Project Manager at VEGA, said, “The GSSF development did significantly benefit from the use of IDL. Due to the support provided by Bernhard Kortmann and his team, we achieved a seamless and smooth integration of IDL into the GSSF infrastructure, greatly enhancing the visualization capabilities of GSSF.”

As primary providers to the ESA/ESTEC effort, both VEGA and its IDL application development partner, CREASO GmbH, are in a unique position to be able to consult with companies and organizations looking to offer services and products using Galileo data. These services can also include the development of customized GSSF simulation applications to suit the particular needs of each company.

Benefits

IDL allowed the Galileo team to add advanced data visualization capabilities to their ground-based system

Using IDL allowed developers to increase the value and accuracy of data simulations

IDL easily integrated with the C++ – based application

(Source Vega-Group)

On Friday 6 April, at Campobasso, the Regione Molise and Telespazio will sign a memorandum of understanding for the development of a technology programme entitled “Geodatabase: Europe’s first cluster of centres of excellence for the provision of leading-edge geospatial services”.

The agreement is part of the Molise region’s drive towards encouraging the development of top-class professionals and boosting the local manufacturing base. The idea is to launch carefully selected projects and advance applied research into new satellite technologies for remote sensing and state-of-the art broadband telecommunications.
This policy has enabled Molise to develop the “Molise-Space” initiative, which aims to give the region a role in big European space technology programmes, as well as security and civil protection projects, and to promote the launch of a conference of European regional authorities that use fixed technologies.
The memorandum will be signed by Michele Iorio, President of the Molise regional authority, and Giuseppe Veredice, CEO of Telespazio.
(Source Telespazio)

Metria is a service provider, whose focus is on the operational use of remote sensing and GIS techniques for environmental and forestry applications, as well as security-related aspects.

Metria is based in Sweden. During 2006 we conducted several remote sensing/GIS projects under contracts with Swedish users, such as the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Armed Forces, the National Board of Forestry, E.O.N, Holmen Forest and other forestry companies.
Metria is presently involved in several projects, from local to international levels, relevant to GMES. The activities include the use of remote sensing and GIS for mapping as well as change detection (time series). During 2006 Metria was part of a successful consortium for GMES Service Element Stage 2 (2005-2008), GSE RESPOND. Metria is already a partner in GSE Forest Monitoring, GSE LAND, and GSE RISK-EOS.
Metria also has the responsibility for the Water Observatory in the EU 6FP GMES integrated project (IP) Geoland. Additionally, Metria is a partner in the PREVIEW IP-project within the same program. Metria was also a partner in ASTRO+ (ended 2006), which is a project within the EU Preparatory Action on the enhancement of the European industrial potential in the field of Security Research (PASR).
During 2006 Metria has been involved, as a forestry expert, in the ESA Sentinel 2 mission definition study. We also were a partner in the ESA EoVox study aiming at strengthening the voice of the European & Canadian earth observation industry.
Metria also aquired a contract to perform orthocorrection for Image2006 in northern Europe as a subcontractor to DLR.
(Source Metria)

New 2007 OBS Studies

During 2006 and 1Q, 2007, NPA have added large volumes of new data to our Global Offshore Seep Database in a variety of basins across the world, as listed below. For the remainder of 2007, NPA will continue to add new data by screening several large areas, as indicated by the yellow-shaded areas in our global coverage map. The focus area will be in East Asia (Area 10), to provide 100% coverage of China and Korea waters and Arctic Russia (Area 8) with an initial focus on the prospective Laptev Sea and the North Sakhalin and Okhotsk Sea regions.
In parallel, NPA will be providing seep screening projects for on-going or planned licencing rounds. To date, NPA have compiled a number of licence-specific studies combining existing and new data, as follows:
Africa:
Guinea Bissau 3rd Licencing Round Study, 2007
South Africa Study (2007 re-demarcation of licences)
Australasia:
• Great South Basin Bid Round Study, New Zealand
• September 2006 Licencing Round Study, offshore Papua New Guinea
Further information can be found on the global catalogue pages, or directly from the NPA OBS team.
Recent 2006/2007 regional study additions to the database are (from west to east):
• Alaska North Slope and Beaufort Sea.
• Labrador Sea, Canada.
• West Caribbean, Colombia and Panama.
• Argentina.
• Kanumas/East Greenland.
• Iberian Peninsula.
• Andamans/Myanmar.
• Western Indonesia – including Java and Sumatra forearcs.
• Gulf of Carpenteria, Australia.
• Irian Jaya/Gulf of Papua.
• Circum New Zealand – coastal basins.

JMJ Petroleum-NPA Link
JMJ Petroleum, now Singapore-based, have agreed to develop joint projects in the S.E. Asia region, both on and offshore.
A regional, geotectonic, map of South-East Asia is being prepared for the Seapex 2007 conference in April, combining data supplied by NPA, JMJ, DIGS and IHS.
DIGS-NPA Agreement
Dickson International Geosciences (DIGS) and NPA signed an agreement to exchange information in specified regions, such as West Africa. A poster on this area entitled “Doing The Geochemical “Cotton Eye Joe” In West Africa (Niger Delta To Angola): Identifying The Source Of Radarsat Slicks With Piston Cores, Oil Samples, Potential Fields And Near-surface Seismic” will be presented at the 2007 AAPG meeting in Long Beach, California, which will also include data supplied by TDI-Brooks International, Geochemical Solutions Int., and Grizzly Geosciences.
(Source NPA Group)

After announcing the existence of its aeroGRID® French Cities programme, Aerodata is now pleased to announce the availability of the first set of brand new aerial photo datasets at 12,5cm GSD of various large French cities, metropolitan areas and suburbs.

(Feb 2007) Imagery of the following cities is now available off-the-shelf:
• Arles, the second city after Rome during the Roman Empire and also known as home to Vincent van Gogh
• Le Mans, known for the Le Mans 24-hours race
• the greater Lille area (Lille, Lens, Bethune, Arras) in the most northern department (state/province). Lille, the departments’ capital has spawned a lot of famous people, among which former general, resistance fighter and president of France, Charles de Gaulle.
• Limoges, known best for its medieval enamels on copper and its oak barrels for Cognac production
• Lourdes, near the Pyrenees in the south and the largest Catholic place of pilgrimage in France
• Nancy, a major Art Nouveau city
• Nimes, famous textile town and name giver of Denim, the fabric of blue jeans
• Orléans, a former Roman city freed from siege during the Hundred Years’ War by Jeanne d’Arc in 1429 and much visited by tourists for its impressive Cathédrale Sainte-Croix built in 1278.
• Poitiers, where the “Battle of Poitiers” was fought in 1356 during the Hundred Years’ War
• Reims, home to many famous Champagne houses
• Rennes, capital of the Bretagne region
Please keep visiting our site for updates regarding aerial imagery availibity.
As with all other Aerodata data sets, the end product will be included in the aeroGRID® archives, and will be made available for any interested party both online and offline.
For commercial inquiries, please contact us at info@aerodata-france.com.

OHB-System AG, a subsidiary of OHB Technology AG (Prime Standard, ISIN: DE0005936124) was today awarded a contract for the next development phase of the SmallGEO small geostationary satellites.

The ESA Director of Telecommunications and Navigation, Giuseppe Viriglio, and the Chairman of the Management Board of OHB-System AG, Prof. Manfred Fuchs, put their signatures to the contract today for around EUR 100 million including all options.
Phase B of development, which starts now, covers a contract volume of around EUR 13 million. For the subsequent CD implementation phases a maximum price of an additional EUR 86 million has been agreed, which the partners will implement once the development phase has been successfully completed.
Total project volume amounts to EUR 115 million. The industrial consortium plans to invest a part of it.
The first SmallGEO satellite is due to be launched in 2010. Further details will be announced on March 28th, 2007 in a press conference on the subject by ESA, the German Aerospace Centre, and OHB-Systems.
For additional information please contact:
OHB-System AG
Danela Sell
Communication & Public Relations
phone: +49 421 – 2020-620
fax: +49 421- 2020-700
mail: sell@ohb-system.de
(Source OHB-System AG)

Direct area-based crop income aid to farmers was introduced in 1992 under the CAP
(Common Agricultural Policy) reform and represent around 35% of the EU’s general
budget (2001, EU 15).

Appropriate administration and control systems were implemented by Member States to ensure that aid is correctly granted. In this frame, Reg. 3508/92 and 3887/92 on the IACS (Integrated Administration and Control System, covering arable and forage aid) specified the possible use of remote sensing techniques as part of the minimum 5% on-the-spot checks to be performed each year.
Since 1993, DG AGRI has promoted the use of “Control with Remote Sensing” (CwRS), which was developed with the technical support of the JRC, to increase transparency between Member States while having a strong deterrent effect on potential fraud. In 1998, DG AGRI transferred to the JRC the responsibility of coordinating and controlling this activity. The CAP reform introduced in 2005, Reg. 1782/03 and 796/04, maintains the use of remote sensing for the control of the key elements (areas, land use) and the new requirements of the control of the cross compliance.
CwRS is presently used by 23 Member States with around 180 sites (2005). Since 2000, CwRS almost always combines aerial ortho photos or satellite ortho imagery to ensure an area measurement accuracy fully compliant with the recommendations of DG Agri for the On-The-Spot Checks (Promotional materials, AGRIFISH Unit of IPSC/JRC).
For the 2006 campaign the Commission increased the area covered by VHR sensors from 126,000 km2 to approx 140,000 km2 (Quickbird and Ikonos as prime dedicated, and with backup of EROS A, and SPOT Supermode. The intention was also to use Orbview3, Formosat2 and possibly Eros B as back up). The use of such data for controlling the Single Payment Scheme and the Single Area Payment Scheme appears appropriate in conjunction with rapid field visits (RFV). (Common Technical Specifications for the 2006 Campaign of Remote Sensing Control of Area-Based Subsidies, ITT no. 2005/S 233-229332, Ispra, 2005).
Formosat 2 was programmed as VHR backup sensor for the 2006 CwRS Campaign over 12 control zones (7.474 km2). The success rate was 87.5% (area), 83.3% (10/12 sites). The delivery of cloud free imagery was more than acceptable (88.9% < 5% CC, 11.1 % < 8 % CC on a total of 27 uploads).
The test was proposed by JRC aiming to detail the difficulties encountered to reach the required location accuracy in production of Level 3 orthorectified products. The test was performed by ReSAC, Spot Image and Spacemetric AB. ReSAC was responsible for the test with ERDAS and PCI and provided high accurate DGPS measurements and Ikonos Orthoimage map for selection of the GCPs and ICPs.
Figure 1. Location of imagery acquired for the study site. The dark-grey rectangle with white border defines the footprint of the Formosat-2 imagery.
The study area covered the extent of Sofia City – the capital of Bulgaria, – and the Northern hillsides of Vitosha Mountain. The capital is situated in Sofia Valley which is an important for the agricultural plain. The average elevation inside the city is 550m a.s.l., while the nearest highest point is Cherni Vrah (“Black Peak”), 2290m, located to the South, in the Vitosha Mountain.
The study area presents various landscapes and terrain variations, thus being a suitable test site for orthorectification and geometry quality assessment.
FORMOSAT-2 (NSPO, 2004) carries two cameras that take imageries of the Earth in the visible and near infrared electromagnetic spectrum. The swath covered by these high resolution cameras is 24 km at Nadir and their nominal instantaneous geometric field of view, at Nadir, is 2 metres for the Panchromatic sensor and 8 metres for the Multispectral sensor. For the herein study the imagery with the highest spatial resolution was considered, i.e. the panchromatic one, as it requires greater accuracy for the orthorectification result.
The image was delivered as row imagery, Level 1A, with basic radiometric normalisation for detector‘s calibration, and with no geometric correction. The product is in DIMAP format and as such comprises of a GeoTIFF file for storing the imagery and XML – for the metadata.
Figure 2. FORMOSAT-2 image used in the test, acquired on 8 Sep 2006 and covering Sofia City.
A series of orthorectification tests were carried out in order to evaluate the operational performance of the FORMOSAT-2 sensor in the production of orthoimages. The study shows that it was comparatively straightforward to produce reliable products, well inside the expected performance for the CwRS requirements – 3.5 RMSE1D (i.e. in either Northing or Easting directions).
Given that the objective of the study was to determine whether FORMOSAT-2 imageries could be used in operational mode for farmers’ subsidies monitoring, only internationally recognised software was considered. Specifically, for this study, PCI Geomatica 10 and ERDAS Imagine 9.1 were tested for orthorectification performance. In order to ensure the consistency of the software performance test, all GCPs and ICPs were identically chosen for each software-respective test, and their coordinates were transferred via import, to avoid interpretation errors during the tests.
In order to eliminate the influence of the DEM accuracy over the orthorectification results the best available elevation dataset was chosen – Reference3D product by Spot Image.
Figure 3. Overview of the terrain across the test area. For orientation IKONOS orthophoto was draped over the Reference3D DEM.
The geometric assessment that was undertaken is systematic and conforms to the standard method developed by the JRC (European Commission, 2006). This method applies strict use of points other than the one used in the orthorectification, i.e. ICPs, for the evaluation of image correction performance, which allows the comparative robustness between different processing methods.
Future research should be carried out as to define the optimal number of GCPs to be used when orthorectifying FORMOSAT-2 images on a routine basis. Furthermore, the effect of the incidence angle on the accuracy of the orthorectification should also be studied. These further investigations have to be performed for both PCI Geomatica and ERDAS Imagine software packages, as it is likely that diverse models behave differently. Such profound analysis could aid a speedy and quality optimised orthorectification production having in mind that around 10,000 km2 of FORMOSAT-2 data within suitable corridor are envisaged as VHR backup for the 2007 years CwRS Campaign.
The results of the test were presented on the 12th MARS-PAC Annual Conference “Geographical Information in Support of the CAP” (27-29 Nov 2006, Toulouse, France) and will be published in a special publications edition of the conference reports.
(Source Remote Sensing Application Center – ReSAC )

PCI News
PCI Geomatics celebrates the unveiling of GeoCapacity for agriculture, mapping and disaster management support in India
Jan 2007: PCI Geomatics®, a world-leading developer of image-centric software and solutions for the geospatial industry, is pleased to announce a series of events in India including New Delhi (January 17), Chandigarh (January 19) and Hyderabad (January 22) to showcase the success of the first phase of the Agricultural GeoCapacity Network (AGCN) project.
PCI Geomatics expands geospatial processing capabilities with the release of ProSDK and ProPacks 1.1
Feb 2007: PCI Geomatics is pleased to announce the release of a new version of the ProPacks collection and the PCI Professional Software Development Kit (ProSDK), used for building highly automated and customized workflow solutions.
PCI Geomatics completes Web Coverage Service testing from the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc®.
March 2007: PCI Geomatics® is pleased to announce that it has successfully completed the Web Coverage Service test suite from the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.® (OGC) for their product Geomatica® WebServer Suite – Web Coverage Server (WCS), Version 10.0.3.
PCI Geomatics supports University of Regina project through the Canada Foundation for Innovation
April 2007: PCI Geomatics is pleased to announce its support for the Canada Foundation for Innovatoin (CFI) which funds research infrastructure helping Canadian universities and colleges carry out tecnology development. Most recently, PCI Geomatics provided assitance to the University of Regina and Dr. Joseph Piwowar, currently doing research on understanding how climate change is affecting the sustainable management of prairie resources.
About PCI Geomatics
PCI Geomatics is a world-leading developer of geospatial software, specializing in remote sensing, digital photogrammetry, spatial analysis, cartographic production, and, more recently, automated production systems. Today, with our trusted Geomatica® brand, PCI Geomatics provides all the image-centric solutions necessary to meet the expectations of a large and expanding industry. Since 1982, the company and its reputation have continued to grow as a result of innovative leadership, strong technology partnerships, active geomatics community involvement, and a dedication to earn the trust of customers who use PCI Geomatics technology.
Press Contact
Alysia Vetter
Marketing Communications Specialist
Tel: 819-770-0022, Ext. 233
Fax: 819-770-0098
Email: vetter@pcigeomatics.com
(Source PCIGeomatics)

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