IMAGING

Advanced LiDAR by Bowman geospatial division

Bowman Consulting Group Ltd. USA announced that Cuhaci Peterson has teamed with Bowman’s geospatial division to deliver time and cost savings for their clients by utilizing Bowman’s minimally invasive ceiling scanning techniques. Prior to developing this technique, ground level 3-D scanning in an open interior environment was simple enough. However, tying that information to the scanning data above the ceiling tiles was difficult unless they were all removed, which is inefficient and time consuming. bowman.com

Planet and NASA Harvest partnership

Planet Labs PBC and NASA Harvest, the federal space agency’s Global Food Security and Agriculture Program, recently announced a partnership to further support the joint Food Security and Agricultural Monitoring Solution. The offering aims to deliver policy-grade agricultural monitoring and assessments of potential threats to global food security.

The offering will combine Planet’s satellite data and other publicly-available datasets with the analytics expertise of the combined NASA Harvest team, facilitated by the University of Maryland and University of Strasbourg – creating an assessment tool that could play a key role in anticipating and averting food shortages and famines. This work was first piloted to monitor fields in Ukraine in 2022 to track frontline agricultural activity and assess the impact of war on crop production. www.planet.com

UltraMap version 6.0 for professional aerial data production

Vexcel Imaging has released the latest version of its all-in-one photogrammetric software suite UltraMap, with sophisticated and best-in-class water handling features, an enhanced Ortho module performance and a redesigned Ortho reprocessing workflow. The new version introduces True Pixel Processing (TPP), a proprietary raw data processing approach in the Essentials module and supports professional data production for the recently launched UltraCam Eagle 4.1.

The new highly automated features for water handling are enhancing the quality of nearly every product throughout the workflow. This includes tools like the new Water Mask & Geometry Editor to efficiently quality control and edit water masks as well as the updated Seamline & Blending Mask Editor for intuitive generation of homogenous water surfaces in orthomosaics. In addition, performance for most efficient large-scale data production has been optimized by introducing more effective file management, leading to faster loading times, viewing speeds, saving and export of products in the Ortho Viewer. vexcel-imaging.com

Successful deployment of Surya Satellite-1 of Indonesia

Indonesia has successfully deployed its first student satellite from the International Space Station (ISS). Students from Surya University constructed the SS-1 satellite as the awardee of the 3rd round of the KiboCUBE programme.

The KiboCUBE programme is a joint initiative by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) under the Access to Space for All initiative.

This SS-1 CubeSat mission is a technology demonstration that will test communication between an Automatic Package Reporting System (APRS) payload and the ground using amateur radio frequency. Through the development and operation of SS-1, Surya University and the supporting organizations aim to disseminate nanosatellite technology in Indonesia, especially to students and universities. Given the full involvement of academia in this capacity-building process, the country hopes that the gained knowledge and experience will benefit future generations. https://global.jaxa.jp