Biosphere3D @ Sourceforge

Biosphere3D is now available at Sourceforge:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/biosphere3d/

Conference Call: ESRI UC 2010

The conference call for the ESRI UC 2010 in San Diego is out. Deadline: October 16, 2009

for more information, please visit http://www.esri.com/events/uc/index.html

ArcGIS Explorer

ArcGIS Explorer
ArcGIS Explorer

ESRI has released a new version of its digital globe “ArcGIS Explorer”. The new version provides an improved interface; enhanced data support including kml/kmz; the opportunity to switch between 2D and 3D; a new presentation mode with titles, pop-ups, layers etc.; new online data libraries; a SDK for customization and plenty of projections to choose from. With the online data, there is also a direct link to BING maps and if some of you remember my previous article on the co-operation between Microsoft and ESRI, this is probably one of its first outcomes.

In the times of GoogleEarth, where is the niche for ArcGIS Explorer? Well, there are some good reasons, why ArcGIS Explorer might be worth a consideration for landscape planners: First, most of us are already working with ArcGIS and the workflow is easier than it is between ArcGIS and GoogleEarth, where you need CommunityViz or other plugins. Particularly, you can add plenty of geodata formats and your own DEM which is not possible in GoogleEarth. Then, the presentation mode is neat for planners who present to the public. And finally, the possibilities to choose a specific projection or even to customize your interface may meet expert needs that GoogleEarth cannot satisfy.

Geoinformation Technologies for Geocultural Landscapes – European Perspectives

This book, published in 2008, summarizes the final report of the European COoperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST) action A27, Understanding Pre-industrial Structures in Rural and Mining Landscapes (LANDMARKS).

Major Bing Maps Update

41TB of new imagery, vector data etc… The following URL will start a tour through some of the updated locations: http://bingmapsupdates.cloudapp.net

Siggraph 2009

Currently, SIGGRAPH 2009 takes place and many visualization companies show their latest product versions. Autodesk focussed mainly on Maya, no news from LandXplorer here. However, they are currently working on a complete re-programming of the promising geobrowser, so that might still take a while.

Always interesting for landscape visualization is E-on’s software Vue (see the previous post on Vue 7) which will be released as Vue 8 until the end of the year. The new version will support 3D terrain modelling and even more advanced atmospheric models for haze and clouds. The image shows a recent test rendering in Cinema 11 with trees, wave and atmosphere model from the Vue 7 plugin for Cinema.

Schroth 2009
Schroth 2009

GeoWeb 2009 review

GeoWeb 2009 in Vancouver, July 27th to 31, was one of the most interesting conferences I have been to. GeoWeb is all about the semantic web and geoinformation and this years theme was entiteld “Cityscapes”. So many of the talks in the academic as well as in the business track were about capturing, storing, managing, and utilising 2D and 3D geodata. However, one of the highlights was a keynote by Dr. John Stutz, Tellus Institute.

To watch the missing parts of the video or other geoweb talks visit:GeoWeb Youtube channel.

Something which was obvious is that one of the major challenges right now is to manage all the 2D and 3D data available and put it into context with other geodata and information using web-services. So you would hear a lot abbreviations like KML, WMS, WFS, SOAP, AJAX, CityGML, GML, RFD, SVG, OWL, …

With respect to 3D GIS there have been several talks centered around CityGML. Wiebke Tegtmeier who works at the ICT in the Netherlands Presented a data model for representing Geological and Geotechnical Information which extends CityGML to include natural sub-surface features. Gilles Falquet, University of Geneva, presented an ontology-based approach to combine CityGML-based models with other spatial and functional models. Thomas Kolbe presented an conceptual framework for interpreting graphical 3D models to reconstruct their semantical structure and transform them into CityGML or IFC. Olaf Schroth and I finally presented our e-Collaboration concept which aims at enabling stakeholders involved in planning processes to make better and continuous use of “official 3D city models” maintained by the administration.

I got introduced to Paul Cote who works at the Harvard School of Design. He is the one who collects and organizes all the information and tutorials related to 3D Geospatial Modelling such as how to create a 3D model from Google Earth and SketchUP or how to process TIN models in ArcGIS. He works at creating a 3D city model for Boston from heterogeneuous resources and we talked a lot about workflows. So there might be models created using automatic feature extraction in KML format, architectural models developed in 3DS Max or SketchUp, geospatial models stored as multipatch-features in an ArcGIS geodatabase and so on … The challenge seems to be to find workflows that allow us to read all these models, transform them into one exchange format, add arbitrary semantic information, and store them in a central database. We both are very excited to learn that FME from Safe Software now is said to have a working CityGML Reader and Writer and that they at the same time can load .kml, .vrml, .3ds and in the near future .skp models. So this might open up a path to integrate these heterogeneuous data sources into one database.

Finally, I like to add another Youtube Video showing Javier De La Torres talk about managing Biodiversity data on the web. His web-mapping examples and the databases he introduces are very nice examples of how geospatial services and database services can be combined to handle an huge amount of information.