ArcGIS and Fusion: Providing Powerful 3D Insight to Forest Resource Managers
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- 26 February 2013 | By Ron Behrendt and Brent Mitchell | 8048
Good management decisions require the availability of quality information. For forest resource managers, the combination of airborne Light Detection And Ranging (lidar) remote sensing data together with Esri’s ArcGIS and the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s own FUSION software have created a powerful 3D environment capable of modeling a forest’s canopy structure.
Precision Agriculture: Sensors Drive Agricultural Efficiency
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- 21 January 2013 | By Matteo Luccio | 3876
If Old McDonald had a farm today, he could manage it from his laptop computer and map it with an application on his handheld device. When he was out in the field, his tractor’s guidance system could know its position to within less than an inch, turning his planters and sprayers on and off accordingly. A boom height control system would make sure that his sprayer did not hit the ground and a yield monitor on his combine would measure the exact volume of his harvest, in real time. Soil moisture sensors networked via cellular modems, soil density sensors on his planters, and infrared crop health sensors on his tractor would gather a wealth of data that his agronomist would use to prepare a prescription map for the next season. In a few years, that data stream would also include aerial imagery collected by his unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and his tractor would also be running unmanned as a robot in the field. If a chick, duck, turkey, pig, cow, cat, mule, dog, turtle, or farm hand got in its way, the tractor’s radar collision avoidance system would recognize it and stop.
Location Intelligence and Emergency Management: Prevent, Prepare, Respond and Recover with Confidence
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- 18 September 2012 | By Sean Richards and Ashley Crane | 2572
Traditional GIS applications have long been a trusted tool of the trade for professionals working in the field of emergency management. Recent advances have led to a greater capability to undertake a holistic approach to incident management utilising much more than the conventional knowledge derived from static maps and GIS silos.
Biosensors for Environmental Monitoring
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- 31 July 2012 | By Matteo Luccio | 3285
The idea for biosensors — using some part of an organism to generate a signal to measure or monitor the presence of a substance — has been around for more than a century. The classic example is the use of canaries in coal mines to detect toxic gasses. Because these tiny birds are so sensitive to these gases that they would sicken long before the miners felt the effects, they served as a warning system.
Geospatial Advances Drive Big Data Problem, Solution
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- 02 July 2012 | By Erik Shepard | 4790
For thousands of years, humanity has sought to improve its ability to make decisions. Record keeping and information gathering has driven many of the innovations. Better information leads to competitive advantage on the battlefield and in the boardroom. But today, we have a truly 21st century problem: too much information. Or rather, too much data, and not enough information.