GIS

2020 World Population Data as KML, GeoJSON, Shapefile

A free world population point layer with 2020 population counts at 1km intervals is now available for download, providing the ability to analyze population anywhere on earth. The point locations can be explored with the tools and data already included with Maptitude mapping software, such as drive-time rings and market area reports. The data are also available as shapefile, KML, KMZ, or GeoJSON for a fee. www.caliper.com

BLUIS Odisha wins ‘Gold’

The Bhubaneshwar Land Use Intelligent System, or BLUIS, run by the state government of Odisha, India has been selected to be awarded ‘Gold’ under Category V that is ‘Excellence in adopting emerging technologies’ in the National Awards for e-Governance.

BLUIS has been developed for safeguarding government lands in Bhubaneswar city by leveraging space technologies and geo informatics. Its web-portal and mobile app is developed by Odisha Space Applications Center (ORSAC) using Space Technology, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) based image processing, Geo- ICT and Web Technologies as per the requirement of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC). BLUIS aims at detecting unauthorized constructions on pieces of land that are under the control of the General Administration Department, BMC and Bhubaneshwar Development Authority. https://odishabytes.com

Digital Twin City Dashboard by a Dutch consortium

The European Union awards an €800,000 (approximately $900,000) grant for the “Smart City Monitor” project, making it available to a Dutch consortium of six commercial, governmental, and educational parties. Offering innovative use of insights into visitor and traffic flows in the inner city, Smart City Monitor positively influences the city’s attractiveness, health, and accessibility. The development of the Smart City Monitor, a modern dashboard come to life as a Digital Twin City, is currently in the hands of the municipality of Den Bosch, the city of Breda, the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science, the Breda University of Applied Sciences, and intelligent data companies Argaleo and Geodan.

In addition to providing insight into visitor and traffic flows, the monitor also provides statistics on air quality, visitor experience, and more. Linking the different data includes essential predictions, providing evidence-based solutions for intelligent provisioning, sustainable transport, and further greening. Other benefits include entrepreneurs having the tools to adjust their planning and marketing based on anticipated traffic. www.argaleo.com

Esri India launches ‘Indo ArcGIS’

Esri India have launched Indo ArcGIS to address the need for ready-to-use GIS based solutions and geospatial content for the GIS users in India. It includes solution products in the areas of Forest Management, Disaster Management, Electrical Utilities, Land Records and Property Tax Management. Solution Products for several other segments are under development. These solutions can easily be deployed by ArcGIS users. Esri India is also providing more than 300 layers of data through the Indian edition of ArcGIS Living Atlas.

TerraPulse to map forest

TerraPulse has been selected by the countries of Belize, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic to map forest cover as part of a sweeping forest activity study funded by The World Bank. Through the program, it will apply scientifically peer-reviewed AI to nearly forty years of satellite imagery to support the countries’ monitoring of forest assets. The approach fuses data from local sources with global satellite data from NASA; the results will enable carbon modeling and the development of greenhouse gas inventories for the United Nations’ Land Use, Land- Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) land sector initiative. www.terrapulse.com

Autodesk to acquire ProEst

Autodesk, Inc. shall be acquiring ProEst, a cloud-based estimating solution that enables construction teams to create estimates, perform digital takeoffs, generate detailed reports and proposals and manage bid-day processes. Autodesk plans to integrate ProEst with Autodesk Construction Cloud. The acquisition will strengthen Autodesk Construction Cloud’s preconstruction offerings and empower construction teams to manage all their critical preconstruction and construction workflows on one platform. www.autodesk.com

Public dialogue on location data ethics published

The Geospatial Commission has published the findings of an independent public dialogue on location data ethics. The project was launched in March and co-funded by the Geospatial Commission and UK Research and Innovation’s Sciencewise programme.

The dialogue is one of the U.K.’s first on location data and was delivered by public engagement specialists Traverse and researchers from the Ada Lovelace Institute. Today’s report provides evidence on public perceptions about location data use, offering valuable insights into what citizens believe are the key benefits and concerns.

The report was launched at a virtual event by the Alan Turing Institute, the national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. This public dialogue opened a conversation with 85 members of the public from all four nations to gather evidence on public perceptions about location data use. The dialogue was supported by an independent and expert Oversight Group, which provided expert support and quality assurance from a diversity of perspectives. www.gov.uk

Emergency room GIS system to detect infectious diseases

National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) has partnered with National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Department of Geography to develop a geographic information system (GIS) based on emergency room (ER) patient data that actively detects the spread of infectious diseases early on. According to NTU Department of Geography professor Wen Tzai-hung, ERs are the first place to detect epidemics when they happen. By detecting abnormal ER traffic and combining the information with patients’ symptoms, disease onset times, and location of residence, one would be able to actively analyze features of infectious diseases, predict spread patterns, or even trace the origin of the diseases before large-scale outbreaks occur.

According to Wen, the latest GIS includes syndromic and pathogen information so that one can cross-reference medical and spatial data, which helps public health authorities pinpoint the source of epidemics and take preventative measures as soon as possible. The GIS developers have analyzed historical data from 2018’s respiratory and gastrointestinal syndromes with the system and plan to better train its prediction abilities by actively detecting and analyzing data from the current COVID pandemic next. The team hopes to test the system in hospital ERs this year and deploy it to detect COVID-19 infection clusters in 2022. www.taiwannews.com

Bentley Systems announces Seequent’s acquisition of AR2Tech

Bentley Systems’ Seequent business unit has acquired Denver-based Advanced Resources and Risk Technology, LLC (AR2Tech), a developer of geostatistical software applications. The acquisition provides Seequent with state-of-theart geostatistics algorithms, technology, and IP for complex geospatial problem solving, complementing its geological modeling solutions and workflows, to help solve earth, environmental, and resources challenges. www.bentley.com