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SCISYS PLC, the supplier of bespoke ICT software systems, IT based business solutions and support services to the Media Broadcast, Space, Government & Defence, Environment and Applications Management sectors, is pleased to announce the acquisition of MakaluMedia Internet & Engineering Services GmbH (‘MakaluMedia’): a provider of software engineering and consultancy to the European space industry for Euro 2.32 million (the ‘Acquisition’).

The Acquisition will enhance SCISYS’ already strong franchise in the European space sector, as it will add critical mass and depth of order book. It will also further improve our customer base and, last but not least, it will strengthen SCISYS’s ability to be a prime contractor.

MakaluMedia will be integrated into SCISYS’ pan-European Space division, as to support and enhance the existing SCISYS Darmstadt operations.

Commenting, Mike Love, Chairman of SCISYS, said:

“I am pleased that we have concluded the acquisition of MakaluMedia and welcome the employees, clients and stakeholders to SCISYS. The Acquisition is in line with our stated strategy to accelerate growth through appropriate acquisitions. The MakaluMedia business is well known by SCISYS and brings a high level of complementary technical capabilities while broadening the existing SCISYS skill set and customer base. The Board is encouraged by the pipeline of opportunities in the German space market; we look forward to integrating MakaluMedia and working together to grow our business in this sector.”

For more information, see the Space area of the SCISYS website: www.scisys.co.uk/space

Astrium Services and Hisdesat, the Spanish government satellite service operator, are conducting a joint technology development project with the aim of establishing a constellation approach for the radar satellites TerraSAR-X and PAZ.

The German satellite TerraSAR-X, launched in 2007, reliably delivers high-resolution radar data for versatile applications to worldwide customers. PAZ is the first Spanish radar satellite designed as a dual use (military and civilian) mission to meet operational requirements in the field of high resolution (up to 1 meter) observation. PAZ is scheduled for launch in 2013 into a polar orbit, which will be specifically optimised to improve the time to get images over key areas of interest when combining TerraSAR-X and PAZ into a constellation.

Operating these two virtually identical satellites in a constellation will afford Astrium and Hisdesat with a more flexible capacity management of their systems. The company’s customers and partners will benefit from enhanced performance and service levels thanks to improved revisit time, service reliability and increased data acquisition capabilities

The constellation approach will also provide improved system redundancy and back-up for both satellites in case of maintenance phases.

A wide range of time-critical and data-intensive applications will benefit from this constellation approach, such as precise monitoring and faster detection of surface movement activities:

  • Defence and security: reduced lead times and a reliable, faster coverage of critical areas of interest and hot spots will facilitate improved support to operational missions worldwide.
  • Surface movement monitoring: engineering and mining companies will be able to efficiently monitor and manage their operations and reduce risks to workers on the ground.
  • Maritime surveillance: applications such as ship detection, oil pollution monitoring and sea ice observation will benefit from improved revisit times and increased data acquisition capabilities.
  • Humanitarian organisations and crisis intervention: faster and assured access to data over the affected areas supporting the efficient coordination and management of rescue and relief activities.

About PAZ

The PAZ (Spanish for “peace”) satellite will be launched in 2013 into the same orbit as TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X. PAZ is a dual use mission designed to meet operational requirements, mainly of a defence and security nature but also with civil applications in the field of high resolution observation.

The satellite structure is based on TerraSAR-X satellite and was integrated by Astrium’s Friedrichshafen site in Germany, with the radar instrument being developed and integrated at Astrium’s Barajas site in Spain, the prime contractor of the satellite. PAZ will be owned and operated by Hisdesat, who also holds the commercial exploitation rights for the mission. INTA (Spanish Aerospace Technology Institute) is commissioned to develop and operate the satellites ground segment

PAZ is the first Spanish radar satellite developed and implemented by the Spanish Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism as part of the National Earth Observation Programme (PNOT).

About TerraSAR-X

The TerraSAR-X Earth observation satellite is a joint venture carried out under a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) between the German Aerospace Center DLR and Astrium GmbH.

At DLR, a team of four institutes is responsible for implementing the mission in collaboration with the space agency. Astrium GmbH developed, built and launched the satellite. The exclusive commercial exploitation rights are held by the German part of Astrium Services’ Geo-Information Division Infoterra GmbH.

TerraSAR-X was launched in 2007 and has been in operational service since January 2008. In June 2010 its “twin” TanDEM-X joined it in orbit. Together, the two satellites are collecting data for a global elevation model, known as the WorldDEMTM.

Source Astrium Services

Recent years have seen an unprecedented development in satellite-based Earth observation (EO): a rising number of operational satellites together with the enhanced resolution of acquired imagery resulted in a dramatic increase of data generated in space. Additionally improved and novel applications particularly in the fields of emergency services, security applications and rapid monitoring, require rapid tasking capabilities and shorter data delivery times. These developments are stretching the capabilities of current and future EO systems particularly in regards to the performance of the ground segment in charge of retrieving the data.

Providing Data at the Right Time at the Right Place

To address these challenges Astrium Services is implementing the SpaceDataHighway1, the most advanced high-performance alternative for data transfer. The SpaceDataHighway provides:

Rapid tasking: With the SpaceDataHighway satellite operators are able to stay in contact with their satellites for all orbits and for longer time during each orbit. This enables them to re-program their space assets in almost real-time in case of time-critical or unforeseen data requirements.

Near-Real-Time data: The SpaceDataHighway enables immediate broadband data transfer to the ground, reducing the delivery time of acquired data from several hours to just a few minutes.

Large data volume: The state-of-the-art laser communication technology on-board the SpaceDataHighway facilitates data transmission at an unprecedented data rate. Combining this high-speed data transfer with the increased contact time results in a significant increase of data transmission capacities available to users worldwide.

Secure and trusted infrastructure: With the SpaceDataHighway satellite operators can avoid sovereignty issues connected with routing data through foreign territory. The high availability and redundancy of the system as well as the future system extensions provide a safe, future-proof data transmission infrastructure.

Moving from Mapping to Monitoring

By providing unparalleled data transmission the SpaceDataHighway has the potential to enhance a wide range of time-critical applications:

  • Humanitarian organisations and crisis intervention teams will benefit from timely provision of EO data over disaster areas helping them to manage and coordinate rescue activities more efficiently.
  • Military and security operations will benefit from timely and substantiated ground knowledge to plan and conduct missions more effectively and safely.
  • Near-real-time delivery of vast quantities of data will support governmental bodies, public authorities and international organisations in charge of maritime surveillance.
  • Authorities and organisations in charge of managing and protecting our environment will be able to observe developments and changes over large areas as well identify hotspots (e.g. illegal logging, water pollution) even in remote areas in a more timely and effective manner.

Ultimately the SpaceDataHighway supports a paradigm shift from the current quasi-static observation mode of operation to a much more dynamic real-time monitoring and surveillance of the Earth.

Novel Technology Solution

The SpaceDataHighway uses geostationary satellites to provide two-way broadband data relay services between Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellites, spacecrafts or UAVs and fixed ground stations. The novel Laser Communication Terminal (LCT) that enables the high-speed, high-volume data transfer has been developed by the Astrium subsidiary TESAT and provides an exceptional data rate of up to 1.8 Gigabits per second.

Operations of the system commence with the launch of the first payload embarked on-board a commercial telecommunication satellite at the end of 2014. The system will then be enhanced with a second, dedicated satellite in 2015, providing an increased field of coverage and system redundancy. The enhancement of the system with further spacecrafts is already under planning affording a complete coverage of the Earth and providing long-term system redundancy.

A Landmark Partnership

The SpaceDataHighway is developed and implemented within a Public Private Partnership (PPP) program between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Astrium Services. As prime Astrium builds, owns, operates and co-finances the system’s infrastructure. Astrium also implements and provides the data transmission services to ESA and customers worldwide.

ESA funds the infrastructure development and is the anchor customer through the Sentinel satellite missions. The SpaceDataHighway provides data relay services for the Sentinel satellites within the European initiative Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), facilitating a rapid downlink of large volumes of imagery.

More Information on www.edrs-spacedatahighway.com

EDRS (European Data Relay System) – the SpaceDataHighway is developed and implemented within a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Astrium Services. Astrium holds the exclusive rights to sell data relay services to customers worldwide.

Source Astrium Services

After 8 years of GMES land research projects and the start of the initial GMES Services (GIO) in 2011, two important events signaled the transition from prototype development to operational implementation of land services: (1) the 8th and last “geoland forum2:http://www.gmes-geoland.info/news-events/geoland-forums.html in Copenhagen and (2) the final review meeting in Brussels.

The geoland2 project with 57 partners from 20 European nations developed the GMES Land Service and demonstrated an impressive portfolio consisting of 200 different products and applications. The continental and local component of geoland2 were transferred to the European Environment Agency and the global component to the JRC and implemented as part of GIO. Thus GMES Land leads – based on geoland2 results – to operational geo-information services that provide accurate, reliable and harmonised information across borders.

The 8th geoland forum took place in Copenhagen on 18th and 19th October 2012. 150 GMES Land stakeholders were invited to discuss the status and results of the GMES Land Services with the project consortium.

On 11th and 12th December 2012 the geoland2 project completed its final review meeting at the European Commission in Brussels. The project’s Executive Board presented the various results that have been achieved in the previous 4 years to the project officer and the review panel. During the two days intense meeting the team convinced the review panel that geoland2 has done a great job, in fact the European Commission was very impressed by what geoland2 has delivered.

An executive summary outlines detailed information about the geoland2 project and can be accessed here

Source Astrium Services

(December 2012) SSTL’s remote sensing arm, DMCii, was recently involved in a project to monitor and help halt deforestation in the El Impenetrable forest in Argentina.

DMCii provided satellite imagery to be used within the Earthwatchers programme; crowdsourcing software that engages students in hands on activity to tackle deforestation globally, meaning that huge quantities of data can be analysed in a short time.

Under the Earthwatchers programme, each student is given a patch of land to monitor using regularly updated satellite imagery of the area (in this case, provided by DMCii). If the student notices a change in the area from previous images, they can create an alert. Other users can then confirm this change and the areas with the most confirmations will be checked by conservationists on the ground. In the image below you can clearly see the areas of forest cleared for soya fields between June and July 2012.

DMCii provided high-frequency 22m images from the UK-DMC2 satellite. High frequency acquisitions are important when monitoring forested areas as high-cloud cover means that it is often difficult to acquire clear images of the ground.

Satellite imagery provides monitoring of hard-to-reach areas and is easily interpreted by all. Greenpeace Argentina used DMCii imagery to provide transparency of the field situation and successfully lobbied the local Chaco government to change the law and halt deforestation in the area.

DMCii has provided imagery for forestry and environmental applications for many years. Brazil’s National Space Agency (INPE) have been using DMCii imagery to quantify deforestation and deter illegal logging of the Amazon since 2005. DMCii has also taken part in programmes such as the European Space Agency’s Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security (GMES) programme to provide imagery of Sub-Saharan Africa and forest monitoring projects in Indonesia.

DMCii recently established a consortium called inForm that brings together satellite imagery with other disciplines to monitor forest governance and deforestation globally, and its effects on local communities.

Follow DMCii on Twitter @DMCiiTweet to hear more about satellite imagery and how it’s helping to track our changing environment.

Source

Berlin, Germany, December 18, 2012 – RapidEye, a leader in high-resolution, wide area repetitive coverage of earth through its constellation of five satellites, announced today that it has successfully relocated the headquarters of the company to Berlin, Germany.

Formerly located 80 kilometers southwest of Berlin, the company has now opened its doors in the heart of the city as of Monday, December 17. Located in the Kurfürstendamm area, an important business area in Berlin, RapidEye and its 100+ employees are now housed on the 10th floor of the Neues Kranzler Eck building. The full details of the new location are:

Kurfürstendamm 22
10719 Berlin
Germany
Tel. +49 (0)30 609 8300 100

RapidEye’s President and CEO, Ryan Johnson said, “This is a really exciting time for our company and sets another milestone in our fast-growing business. This new location better accommodates our staff needs and improves our capacity to service our current and future customers.”

About RapidEye

RapidEye is a leading provider of quality high-resolution satellite imagery. With a constellation of five Earth Observation satellites, RapidEye is able to image up to five million square kilometers of earth every day, and adds over one billion square kilometers of imagery to its archive every year. Online searching and viewing of its massive collection of imagery is quick and easy with EyeFind (eyefind.rapideye.com), RapidEye’s archive discovery tool.

With an unprecedented combination of wide area repetitive coverage and five meter pixel size multi-spectral imagery, RapidEye is a natural choice for many industries and government agencies.

Contact
press@rapideye.com

(Munich, Germany, December 20, 2012) The Nigerian Mining Cadastre Office (MCO), with assistance from GAF AG, has successfully completed the implementation of its new Mining Cadastre System, which takes into account recent amendments in the country’s Mining Regulations.


Benefits of the Nigerian Computerised Mining Cadastre

The GAF-developed computerised mining cadastre system supports all of the MCO’s key business processes, is fully compliant with the relevant laws and regulations and adheres to international best practices.

The efficient and reliable management of mining titles is considered to be a key element in increasing investment in the mining sector in Nigeria. The newly established computerised cadastre system allows the MCO to grant, manage and cancel mining titles in an effective manner, thus strengthening the property rights and security of tenures within the mining sector, as well as improving the transparency of the mineral licensing process and the government’s regulatory capacity. Governance in the mining sector gains from the improved efficiency, information availability and computer supported management.

The cadastre system has been developed, implemented and maintained by GAF since 2007 at the MCO’s premises in Abuja, Nigeria. The recent amendments to the Mining Regulations made in 2011 are now implemented and reflected in the system. Key activities supported by GAF have consisted of, but have not been limited to, institutional strengthening, the elaboration and definition of administrative documents, the review and analysis of the mining act and regulations, the revision and streamlining of cadastral procedures, and the implementation and updating of the new modern, computerised mining cadastre system, which also features a web front end.

The Nigerian mining cadastre system is the most recent in a sequence of mineral governance assistance projects carried out by GAF: highlights include the computerisation of the mining cadastre in Namibia initiated in 1997, which has provided more than 15 years of uninterrupted service and been updated twice, and the mining cadastre system in Madagascar, which was established with the support of GAF and has been praised by the World Bank as the most successful in Africa. And the new technology used in Nigeria has benefited considerably from the experience gained implementing the GAF-designed mining cadastre system for Mongolia.

MCO Director General Eng. M. K. Amate states: “The MCO, as well as our numerous investors, will greatly benefit from the resulting full transparency of our cadastral activities, the increased operational efficiency, and the enhanced security of tenure of mineral titles. This will attract further investment into the mining sector in our country and lead to new jobs, poverty reduction and an increase in national wealth.”

Dr. Tobias Wever, Head of the Geology/Mining Department at GAF, comments: “The computerisation of mining cadastres is not a job for just IT experts. The successful computerisation of mining cadastres and registries depends on an integrated multidisciplinary approach. We support our clients not only with IT, database and cadastral expertise but also with our deep understanding of the context: we mobilise our combined experience in IT and geo-information, in mining, geology and in regulatory frameworks, as well as in business process design and capacity building. Nigeria is the most recent success, and follows on from a number of projects in countries in Africa and Asia in which GAF has set-up best-in-class, nationwide computerised mining titling systems.”

About the Mining Cadastre Office, Federal Republic of Nigeria

The Mining Cadastre Office (MCO), which is under the responsibility of Ministry of Mines and Steel Development in Nigeria, administers mining titles for the whole Federal Republic of Nigeria. The MCO has the exclusive responsibility for receiving, processing and granting applications for the transfer, renewal, modification and relinquishment of mineral titles, and for the extension of areas. The MCO is committed to the principles of integrity, transparency and “first come, first served”.

About GAF AG – Germany (www.gaf.de)

GAF provides expert consultancy services in the mining governance sector, ranging from computerised mining cadastre systems, title registries, and geological and mining information systems to institutional strengthening and know-how transfer activities. GAF AG, an e-GEOS, Telespazio company, is globally active and has an international reputation as an experienced provider of services in the fields of geo-information, satellite remote sensing, spatial IT-consultancy and capacity building for private and public clients. GAF offers solutions in the sectors of mining and geology, natural resources, water and environment, security, land and renewable resources. Over the past 27 years, GAF has been active in more than 100 countries throughout Europe, Africa, South America and Asia.

Source GAF

Atmospheric gravitation waves in northern part of the Caspian Sea // APEC conference on satellite technologies to draw more than 70 specialists from 13 world countries // Satellite-based monitoring of environmental situation in south-western part of the Peter the Great Bay //

Atmospheric gravitation waves in northern part of the Caspian Sea

The radar images of the northern part of the Caspian Sea, received during the satellite-based monitoring carried out by ScanEx RDC per request of OOO “Lukoil – Nizhnevolzhskneft” in May-September quite often registered groups of periodically quasi parallel lines, which origin can be explained by the formation and passing of atmospheric gravitation waves (AGV). AGVs are generated in lower atmosphere and may distribute both vertically and horizontally under certain conditions.

In 2010-2012 the radar images detected both quasi linear (fig. 2) and non-linear (fig. 1, 3, 4) waves. When studying AGVs by their surface patterns the conditions, under which waves are generated, are of special interest. AGVs studies are based on the analysis of signatures, left by waves in cloud covers (wavy clouds on the visible band images) or surface phenomena on sea surface (quasi parallel lines on radar images).

When looking into the reasons of non-linear AGVs generation one should take into account a number of mechanisms. The waves in the lower atmospheric layer can be generated by powerful downward air movements, impacting the riparian stably stratified air layer. Among them are: downward air movements, created during interaction of air masses, in frontal zones, in powerful cumulonimbus, local (katabatic) winds. Those movements disturb the stable near-ground atmospheric layer. In case of capturing these disturbances they evolve with time turning into a series of non-linear waves (wavetrain), distributing horizontally.

Preliminary analysis revealed that waves over the Northern and Middle Caspian Sea appear quite often at favorable conditions every day. Wavetrains consist of 3-4 — 10-15 waves, with individual waves having several kilometers and more in length. The AGV propagation speed detected based on the distance between leading solitary waves on a series of radar images constitutes 2 to 8 m\sec. The wind speed when AGVs pass varies from 2 to 15 m\sec. Waves propagate often against the background wind (fig. 1, 3). Spatial orientation of AGV packages, the outlook of surface phenomena and wavetrain forms enable to conclude that they are generated over the water surface.

More info

APEC conference on satellite technologies to draw more than 70 specialists from 13 world countries

Over 70 specialists from 13 world countries will partake in the conference “APEC Network Building – Applied Space Technology Centers”, which is to be held on October 16-17, 2012 in Vladivostok. The conference organizers are: APEC Secretariat, Federal Space Agency, ScanEx RDC, and supported by the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Far-Eastern Federal University and Far-Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences.

Representatives of some scientific and educational institutions and governmental structures have already confirmed their participation in the conference: Taiwan National Space Organization (NSPO); World Resources Institute (WRI), USA; Chinese Academy of Forestry; Fisheries Research Institute, Malaysia, etc.

Specialists of RS Operators will also attend this conference in Vladivostok: Astrium GEO (France), DMC (Great Britain), ImageSat (Israel), Digital Globe (MDA (Canada">USA.

Russia will be represented at the conference by the specialists from Federal Space Agency, Federal Forestry Agency, ScanEx Research & Development Center, Far-Eastern Federal University, Far-Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Research Center for Earth Operative Monitoring, WWF Russia, NGO “Transparent World” and others.

The conference will focus on the issues of using satellite data for support of sustainable forest management, REDD+ project development (Reduction Emission Deforestation and Degradation), attraction of investments into respective two- and multilateral projects in APEC region.

Within the frames of thematic sessions the conference will also tackle the issues of satellite technology application in support of sustainable fisheries, emergency preparedness improvements and new projects development.

More info

Satellite-based monitoring of environmental situation in south-western part of the Peter the Great Bay

In August-September 2012, ScanEx RDC together with its partners completed the project on satellite-based monitoring of environmental situation of the Russian sector of the Sea of Japan. Five satellites with optical and radar equipment were used for maritime area imaging. Integral maps of water area pollution by oil and navigation and shipping situation were obtained as a result, including the intensive boat traffic, fisheries, and marine park areas. The main sources of oil spills are discharges from ships along the shipping routes and within the fishing areas. Perspectives of satellite imagery technology application for control of illegal ships navigation within protected marine parks were demonstrated. Satellite imagery results proved the urgency of the transboundary transfer problem in south-western part of the Peter the Great Bay and adjacent water areas.

Over the past decade foam floats and fragments of fishing nets of North Korean fishermen has become a real disaster for the Far Eastern marine park, located in the Peter the Great Bay. In summer and in autumn fragments of fishing tackles almost fully cover the coasts of the islands and the continent. In addition to littering the richest in species and taxonomic variety maritime area in Russia, these nets are direct threat to the inhabitants of marine park. Sea birds and mammals tangle and die. Specific design of the fishing gear does not leave any doubts whom they belong to. North Korean small vessels are regularly detained together with these nets onboard in Russian territorial waters, including within the limits of the park itself. The coast of the Peter the Great Bay near the frontier post not far from the Tumannya river estuary is piled with arrested and abandoned North Korean fishing vessels.

In winter-spring period the Rimsky-Korsakov archipelago islands, which are part of the marine park, turn into the places of reproduction and shedding of the harbor seal (Phoca largha). Fragments of North Korean fishing nets became a serious threat for the population of the unique coastal spotted seal, which according to the far-eastern scientists, is currently in unsteady balance condition.

Satellite-based monitoring results were used in the work of the expedition near the coastline onboard the “Lugovoe” reasearch ship, arranged by the Pacific Oceanology Institute of RAS Far Eastern Department with participation of oceanologists, teachers and students of St-Petersburg University and the Far Eastern Federal University.

More info

BARS Group and ScanEx RDC partnership: geodata will be introduced into the e-government systems

Geospatial component is to be introduced into the e-government systems. Activities will be carried out jointly by ScanEx Research & Development Center and BARS Group” companies, which signed the cooperation agreement in September 2012.

— We reached an agreement on cooperation in geospatial technology and data application, including Earth observation imagery data, in information management systems for the state sector. The branches, where we plan to work, are different – from housing and public utilities to agriculture, – noted ScanEx’s area manager of complex projects Ilya Farutin.

According to Vladimir Soloviev, “BARS. Medicine” business center director of “BARS Group” company, cooperation with ScanEx RDC should provide important social results:

— In modern technology of sectoral management, especially on the regional level, the need in data presentation through maps is increasingly growing. However, information in public systems usually has address, rather than latitude and longitude. Joint projects with ScanEx will give a chance to take a different look on statistic data in public health services. Just imagine the display of region sickness rates on maps with classification by disease type, number and age pattern of appeals, outlining the hot spots of infectious diseases, etc. This will be the start of a new stage of healthcare modernization, as we operate in socially important sphere, where operability in decision-making enables to save the most valuable – human lives.

More info

RICHMOND HILL, Ontario, Canada—October 3, 2012: PCI Geomatics, a world leading developer of geo-imaging software and systems, today announces the release of Geomatica 2013; the latest version of the company’s complete and integrated desktop image processing software featuring tools for remote sensing, digital photogrammetry, geospatial analysis, map production, mosaicking and more.


“With this year’s release, we have really added tools that will speed up the processing workflow in many different areas of the software,” said Peter Hazlett, Product Manager for Geomatica. “It is not uncommon for projects of hundreds to thousands of images in size that need to be processed in a single block. New tools have been added and performance has been improved for compute intensive algorithms, saving you hours in processing time”.

Geomatica 2013 adds incredible performance improvements to streamline your workflow like never before. Starting with Focus, new, wizard based workflows have been added for Atmospheric Correction that will allow users to automatically detect cloud and haze in imagery – which will make producing seamless mosaics in cloud plagued areas more intuitive. In OrthoEngine, users will see incredible improvements in handling large projects, including Quality Assurance panels that automatically update, Ground Control Point (and Tie Point) visualization, leading edge automated seamline generation, and the best algorithms to match images to each other automatically through new automatic ground control collection algorithms that can achieve registration accuracies down to 1/10th of a pixel!

Included in the Geomatica 2013 release is a set of new, redesigned algorithms to automatically extract Digital Elevation Models from single or up to hundreds of stereo pairs collected by high resolution sensors. In addition, creating DEMs from multi-source elevation data (billions of lidar points, contour lines, breaklines) is now possible through powerful new tools for DEM creation from vector data. All DEM generation algorithms have been implemented to leverage OpenMP, which means customers will see big performance improvements (3x to 4x faster than previous).

In addition to the great new and improved tools, Geomatica 2013 will also offer a unique, new tool to help customers improve the way they work with their large, complex data holdings. Geomatica Discover, which will be available in a Geomatica 2013 service pack, is a standalone, web based data discovery tool, will crawl your local or system drives to automatically create footprints for geospatial raster and vector data. The interface allows for map based or advanced text based querying, allowing customers to quickly and efficiently discover their data holdings to help organize production work.

Geomatica 2013 is available for 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows (Windows XP/Windows 7/Server 2003/Server 2008) starting today. A Linux version will be available in the coming weeks. For more information on Geomatica 2013, please visit www.pcigeomatics.com/geomatica

About PCI Geomatics

PCI Geomatics is a world-leading developer of software and systems to process aerial and satellite imagery. The company provides integrated Esri imagery workflows, standalone image processing capability, and large volume processing throughput, giving customers the ability to produce high-quality image products and derived information for any project. Find out more at www.pcigeomatics.com/geomatica

Press Contact

Kevin R. Jones
Director, Marketing and Product Management
T: 819-770-0022 × 214
E: jones@pcigeomatics.com
Web: www.pcigeomatics.com
Twitter: @pcigeomatics

Highlights in Geomatica 2013

Atmopheric Correction
Industry leading Atmospheric Correction Tools, with an all new wizard interface including workflows for:

  • Haze detection and removal
  • Cloud detection and masking
  • Ground reflectance map generation
  • Surface temperature mapping

Digital Elevation Model (DEM) Extraction

  • 3x to 4x better performance (OpenMP enabled)
  • Higher accuracy, better results
    -New filtering, terrain selection options
    -Better handling of large elevation jumps
    -Productivity improvements
    -New simplified workflow in OrthoEngine
    -Automatically work with 100’s to 1,000s of stereo pairs
    -Dramatic improvements in generating DEMs from vector data (billions of Lidar points, breakline, contour lines)

Speedy Workflows
OrthoEngine includes key improvements that will improve productivity:

  • More control over large projects
  • Faster, more efficient QA
  • Easier point selection / deletion / editing
  • Improved seamline generation methods (fewer vertices per line)
  • 2D DEM editing capability in Focus to quickly address quality issues with DEMs

Format/Sensor Support
PCI Geomatics is proud to be consistently first-to-market with new format and sensor support. In Geomatica 2013, adds support for the following:

New Sensors

  • Pleiades
  • UAVSAR
  • Sentinel-1

Updates to existing Sensors

  • Deimos
  • ZY3
  • CBERS02C

New Formats
Along with new formats, Geomatica 2013 includes multi-sensor metadata collection capability which has been redesigned, with the emphasis on simplifying workflows down the road since many parameters are automatically populated. New data formats include:

  • Esri Arc Geodatabase Vector Support
  • Panorama SXF
  • Envi (improvements in handling of format)
  • Pyramid file support for ENVI and Erdas image formats

Data Visualization

  • FLY! Has received improvements, including upgrading it to be OpenMP enabled, improving performance up to 4x
  • Focus includes improve mulit-layer selection capability, as well as setting and changing the default band combination for multiple images at once
  • Ability to generate a Spot blue band (to make natural color composites)
  • Profile tool improvements for displaying multiple channels at once

SAR Improvements
PCI has a long and rich tradition of developing tools for SAR Sensors. Geomatica 2013 includes the following improvements:

  • Improved performance for SAR algorithms (OpenMP implementation)
  • Automatic water body delineation based on new methods developed at CCRS
  • Improved user interaction capability for SPW (editable text, 2D, 3D, Static output)
  • Intuitive processing (workflow based on available data and parameters)

Copyright © 2012 , All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is:
PCI Geomatics
50 West Wilmot Street
Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 1M5

Due to the population increase the last years, cities in Egypt are experiencing various problems: loss of agricultural land due to urban sprawl, development of informal settlements, etc. EUROSENSE demonstrated, through the project SCARABE (Service: Change Analysis over Rosetta And its urBan Environment) that urban mapping services provide useful information on urban growth for urban planning.

Products

In a first service, Urban Atlas maps (present ‘2010’ and historical ‘2003’) and the change map for Rosetta City (Egypt) are created using VHR (very high resolution) optical imagery (Quickbird (0,7m resolution), 2003 and WorldView-2 (0,5m resolution), 2010).

The Urban Atlas maps help to understand the past and present developments in the city. Land use and changes are analysed by the creation of statistics, graphics and indicators. The Urban Atlas provides an up-to-date digital urban reference layer. It provides a spatial view on the distribution of urban infrastructure and can thus be used as an input for urban planning. The map is a necessary step towards a good planning and management of the cities.


Figure : Urban Atlas maps; Rosetta (Egypt) (1/10.000) (background change map: Quickbird 2003)

In a second service, HR (high resolution) Landsat images of years 2011, 2002, 1984 (30m resolution) and 1972 (60m resolution) are used to develop urban extent and land cover maps; these provide an assessment of the regions’ land cover changes. A pixel-based classification approach in combination with manual delineation of masks (e.g. urban extent maps) is used to carry out this HR land cover mapping.

The HR urban extent and land cover maps, produced by EUROSENSE, enable an urban change analysis over the last 40 years. These maps can be used to monitor land cover conversion and general land take trends over several time periods.


Figure : HR Land cover maps (1972-1984-2002-2011) showing the cover conversion and general land take trends over a time period of 40 years (background: Landsat imagery)

Lessons Learned

Although the thematic detail of the Urban Atlas is highly dependent on the availability of ancillary data (of which the acquisition is often difficult and time consuming), visual image interpretation of VHR data already offers a valuable amount of info on the land use. As the used legend is easily adaptable, the availability of reliable ancillary information (high scale topographic maps, GCP’s…) will lead to a more detailed map while still maintaining the same thematic accuracy.

The area of interest (Rosetta, Egypt) is known to be highly affected by coastal erosion during the past decades. A pattern of coastal erosion (the regression of the shore line) could already be detected by using the HR Land cover maps. Earth Observation can be a valuable tool to do a more detailed and quantitative analysis.

The SCARABE project is one of the service trials of the Gazelle project (http://plangazelle.info). This project belongs to the EOMD programme (Earth Observation Market Development) which is devoted to foster the use of geoinformation products and services within new markets and sectors. The aim of Gazelle is to analyse the current situation of EO sector in the Mediterranean Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia) in order to draw a Strategic Plan to steer activities during the following 5 years. The project is financed by ESA and lead by Indra (Spain).

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