June 12, 2014
By Jason Moll, Office of Corporate Communications, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (www.nga.mil), Bethesda, Md. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and Penn State University entered into the fourth of a five-year partnership in January 2014 designed to improve how geospatial analysts learn and practice their craft. Researchers from the two organizations involved in the cooperative research
June 12, 2014
By Peter Baumann, Jacobs University Bremen, chair of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Coverage Service Standards Working Group, and Lance McKee, OGC senior staff writer. his year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international industry consortium of 477 companies, government agencies and universities participating in
February 14, 2014
By Patrick Cunningham, president, Blue Marble Geographics (www.bluemarblegeo.com), Hallowell, Maine. The use of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data has taken center stage in geospatial technology during the last few years. LiDAR data collection hardware vendors and service providers, who historically supplied imagery or survey services, have teamed to offer numerous options for collecting and
June 26, 2013
UASs are valuable for a variety of civil and humanitarian uses By David Yoel, founder and CEO, American Aerospace Advisors (www.american-aerospace.net), Radnor, Pa. Unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) have proved to be valuable assets for the warfighter. Today, they’re emerging as new and potentially useful tools for civil and humanitarian applications. UASs range in size from
June 26, 2013
Forward-thinking organizations are embracing next-generation mobile solutions to empower geospatial workflows. By Mladen Stojic, vice president, Geospatial, Intergraph (www.intergraph.com), Norcross, Ga. Mobility has reached near ubiquity. This year, Gartner Group estimates that more people will access the Internet through mobile devices than through traditional desktop systems. Today’s organizations require mobile solutions with flexibility and depth
June 26, 2013
New job titles provide employment structure and related skills in this expanding sector of the geospatial industry. By John Johnson, GIS Workshop (www.gisws.com), Encinitas, Calif. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration (DOLETA) formally recognized the remote sensing field. This came about with the department’s creation of two new standard occupational
June 26, 2013
By Michael E. Hutt, U.S. Geological Survey UAS Project Office (http://uas.usgs.gov), Denver. The Department of the Interior (DOI) manages more than 500 million acres of surface land, or about one-fifth of U.S. land. Within DOI, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides impartial information on ecosystems, natural hazards, water resources, energy, climate, land use change and