Pangaea Archives
Geospatial to the Rescue
In view of recent weather-related events, we’ll take a quick detour from our series on AR (augmented reality) to cover RR (real reality): the catastrophic 2017 hurricane and wildfire season. The Caribbean islands, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas are reeling from the effects of hurricanes Harvey and Irma. As of this writing, Jose is only brushing […]
The (Android) Empire Strikes Back: Mainstreaming Augmented Reality, Part 2
Let’s pick up the AR thread again and look at what the Android platform has to offer in augmented reality (AR). It was just a matter of days after Apple rolled out its ARKit SDK (software development kit) when Google followed suit with its ARCore SDK. ARCore is built on Tango technology but expands the […]
Space Colonization: Why Titan Is Better than Mars
Come with me on a flight of fact-based science fiction. It’s 2024 and you’re strapped into SpaceX’s BFR (Big Falcon Rocket). Destination? Mars! You’ve sold your home and bought a one-way ticket to the red planet. Your heart pounds as the countdown commences. Whoosh and you’re off. Six months later, you disembark and board a […]
7 Gifts under $70 for Surveyors
I’ve put together this year’s list of gifts with practical ideas that any field surveyor should find useful. All prices are accurate at the time of writing; I’m not responsible for price hikes. All items are highly rated (four- to five-star online reviews), but use your best judgement) 1) Yeti Loadout Bucket. Five-gallon buckets are […]
Why Your First Drone Should Be a Hobby Drone: Part 2
In the last issue, we covered the idea of using a hobby drone as a test bed to learn about drones and get some low-cost, low-risk, hands-on experience. Now we’ll set up our Mambo FPV and take a few test flights. Battery charging. The first step—after opening the box and ensuring you have all the […]
Lidar and The Lost City of the Monkey God
The timing was uncanny; I had just finished Douglas Preston’s The Lost City of the Monkey God when news of another major, new, lidar-enabled archeological find in Central America broke—at the same time I was attending the International Lidar Mapping Forum (ILMF) in Denver, Colorado. Then, while I was attending Teledyne Optech’s product presentation at […]