Category Archives: Spatial IT/GIS
Esri UK Conference 2019 Recap
Every year towards the end of May, Esri UK, the UK distributer for Esri software, holds a user conference across the road from Westminster, the home of the UK parliament (when I was there I even got to see Jacob Reese Mogg). It’s held at the QE2 centre, and there are amazing views from the fifth floor which allow...
“Welcome to Africa” via GIS
While in the middle of teaching GIS to my masters students, the squeaky ceiling fan above us suddenly went off. It was another power cut, the third in two hours. “Bienvenue en Afrique, Monsieur,” quipped one of my best students, making everyone laugh. I wiped the sweat off my forehead. Welcome to Africa, or precisely,...
ArcGIS Excalibur
A new “un-GIS” GIS tool enables access, measurement, analysis, and markup capabilities for images – for everyone. Many years ago, during the era of cinematography and good old-fashioned film, they used to edit movies by cutting the film with a pair of 9-inch scissors; these were called “excalibur.” This sets the scene for the new...
ArcGIS Indoors
What is it, and how will it work? Mapping has traditionally been the task of visually charting big outdoor spaces with pretty hills that look great with a few contours around them. Throw in a bit of hillshade, and you have a cartophile’s dream. The location intelligence company Esri, that has driven the market to...
Embrace the Mesh
Above: A full 3D textured model of San Francisco produced through Skyline’s PhotoMesh 3D Reconstruction software and streamed for visualization and analytics in Skyline’s TerraExplorer. Surveyors and photogrammetrists capture reality data. But to model, manage, and provide access to massive and complex datasets—to provide your clients with true 3D mesh reality capture—you’re going to need...
In the Blink of an AI
If we were to believe Steven Spielberg’s version of the future, curiously, robots can’t blink. It seems like mechas, as the life-like robots in his movie AI: Artificial Intelligence are called, lack the AI codes to involuntarily close and open their mechanical eyelids. Notice how almost all robots in Hollywood movies follow the same no-blinking pattern. Watch The Terminator movies, if you don’t...