Category Archives: Magazine
xyHt Magazine September 2025
Read the September 2025 xyHt digital edition. Table of Contents GIS Needs Geodesy – Why accuracy matters more than ever as GIS expands into digital twins, utilities, and infrastructure management. Topcon 2.0: Reclaiming the Geomatics Frontier – A strategic reset positions Topcon’s new Geomatics Group at the center of connected workflows. The Essential Instrument –...
GIS Needs Geodesy
Why Accuracy Matters Now More Than Ever When I entered university to study geodesy in 1976, graduating students had begun their studies with slide rules and thick algorithm books. Pocket calculators were nonexistent, and electronic distance measurement (EDM) devices were heavy, delicate, and cumbersome. No satellite positioning systems were yet available. At that time, the...
How Lidar Is Helping Cattle Farmers Make Smarter Land Use Decisions
In the rolling hills and rugged terrain of Spain, a quiet revolution is underway, one that’s helping cattle farmers make better decisions about how they use their land. At the heart of it is lidar, a remote sensing technology that’s proving to be more than just a tool for mapping landscapes. It’s becoming a critical...
Oriented Imagery in GIS: Unlocking Value From Unstructured Data
In an era defined by explosive data growth and rapidly expanding drone-based sensing, the geospatial community faces a new frontier: unlocking the value of unstructured imagery. Chad Lopez, a solutions engineer with Esri’s Imagery and Remote Sensing team, is at the forefront of this effort. In a recent interview, Lopez discussed how oriented imagery—raw photos...
The Woodstock of GIS: Inside the Esri UC 2025 Experience
At the San Diego Convention Center in July, thousands of GIS professionals, developers, and geospatial newcomers descended upon the 2025 Esri User Conference, an event one company booth dubbed “the Woodstock of GIS.” It’s an apt comparison: energetic, communal, buzzing with shared ideals and grounded in decades of serious, technical evolution. But unlike Woodstock, the...
xyHt Magazine July/August 2025
Read the July/August 2025 xyHt digital edition. Table of Contents LiDAR for Cattle Farming – Airborne lidar is helping ranchers map rangeland, monitor vegetation and plan water resources. Partnering for Geospatial Impact (Sponsored Content) – NV5 Geospatial’s integrated lidar, imagery and AI approach is driving smarter decisions across industries. Having a Ball Doing Layout -One...