Blog

Big Data, Public Data

Above: A lidar-derived elevation raster DSM (of Dinkytown, MN) draped by an aerial photo. Free Aerial Lidar, Renewable Energy, an Infectious Mentality At the intersection of renewable energy, big data analysis, geospatial technology, and public data availability stands the Minnesota Solar Suitability Analysis project. Primarily manned by students in the University of Minnesota Master’s of Geographic...

Surveying

Above: This bridge in Baltimore took 1 hour and 45 minutes to scan: 550 feet of roadway or 1.5 acres, including all the beams for the underside of the bridge for clearance and engineering design. Reality Capture, Targetless Registration, the End of Dedicated Field Crews As I stood in a courtyard of the Walter Reed National...

Incomes Move Across Sydney

Between 2006 and 2011 a little fewer than 400,000 households (around a quarter of the total) moved at least once within the Sydney metropolitan area. While this figure is an under-count of total moves (many households may have moved more than once, and those moving into the city from elsewhere are not presented), mapping this...

Business Angle: Where Have All the Mentors Gone?

For the past two years, my travels have taken me to numerous places across the country to speak with great surveyors. I’m always listening to their complaints (many), opinions (also many), and positive comments (not as many) on our profession. From all those comments, I’m addressing here the apparent lack of mentors and training that...

Where Theory Meets Practice: Geodetic Observations – Part 2

Part 1 of this article (March 2014) presents the differences between azimuths that surveyors observe with a total station and the geodetic azimuths listed in GNSS adjustment reports. However, the effect on angles caused by the deflection of the vertical at the observing station is typically small. Thus, the difference between the observed astronomic angle and...

Education in Surveying: Improving the Geospatial Learning Experience: GeoLearn

GeoLearn is an online education company founded in 2013 and designed to improve the learning experience for busy professionals and technicians in the geospatial professions.  Joe Paiva, PhD, PS, PE, a long-time geospatial industry educator, and Robert Morris are principals of this start-up educational company.  The company’s initial slate of  professional development courses, announced at launch...

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