Slashgeo

Directions Mag has an interesting article about CityGML, an open standard for 3D city models. From the article: "As Google and Microsoft clearly understand, there is a latent demand for 3D visualization of cities. But visualization is just the tip of the iceberg. Many other applications would also benefit. [...] CityGML is a common information model for representing 3D urban objects. It defines classes and relations for the most relevant topographic objects in cities and regional models with respect to their geometric, topological, semantic and appearance properties. [...] For example, graphic rendering of data encoded in CityGML can be accomplished using standardized computer graphics data formats like VRML, GeoVRML, X3D or Universal 3D (U3D)."

Participating at GeoTec 2007, Calgary, here's my summary of Ed Parsons' Keynote, which was one hour of pure geowisdom. Read more below for my summary.

A product which can be used in various geospatial projects, Kurt informs us the open source OpenSceneGraph has released version 2.0. From their website: "The OpenSceneGraph is an open source high performance 3D graphics toolkit, used by application developers in fields such as visual simulation, games, virtual reality, scientific visualization and modelling. Written entirely in Standard C++ and OpenGL it runs on all Windows platforms, OSX, GNU/Linux, IRIX, Solaris, HP-Ux, AIX and FreeBSD operating systems." OSSIM uses OpenSceneGraph. OSG has potential for, as an example, Building Information Modeling.

The Between the Poles blog runs a long entry on the challenges facing the construction industry, with a section on information and GIS. From the entry: "Disciplines such as architecture, structural engineering, construction, civil engineering, and GIS are classic information silos. Each maintains its own information island comprised of design applications and data. This has created a nightmare for operations and maintenance, emergency planners and responders, urban planners, and others who require seamless access to urban terrain including building interiors and exteriors, roads and highways, and above ground and underground utilities. [...] The engineering group uses CAD applications, construction uses large format paper, the records or network documentation group may use GIS tools, and operations uses paper or a handheld viewer. The information flow between these groups is more often than not paper. The result is a very inefficient process characterized by data redundancy, redundant processes, and poor data quality." Also interesting is Vector One's entry on physical boundaries, CAD and GIS and more specifically this one on the role of 3D in both CAD and GIS worlds.

Since most geoblogs are silent due to the U.S. Thanksgiving celebration, here's the latest Directions Magazine articles I wasn't able to share previously: here's links to their deCarta developers conference (devCON07) coverage, an article on the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and their commercial imagery strategy focused on the end-user, a short summary on the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems, another article on CityGML which is quite informative, an article on GPS-enabled device adoption driven by consumer awareness, a minimal CTIA conference coverage (CTIA is the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry) and equally short comments on the GEOINT 2007 conference.

Monique Romeijn writes "The increased availability of high-resolution satellite images and aerial photography in support of 3D modeling with detailed terrain surface elevation models assists urban planners and municipal managers to create a model and visualize the urban space in three dimensions. http://news.satimagingcorp.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2007/12/12-buildingsl_orthophotos.jpg 3D Urban and City Modeling Image Credits: University of Texas at Dallas To view a 3D fly through video: http://www.satimagingcorp.com/gallery/quicktime-no rth-korea.html 3D visualization models have a variety of applications in geography and urban studies. Accurate cartographic feature extraction, map updating, digital city models and 3D city models in urban areas are essential for many applications, such as military operations, disaster management, mapping of buildings and their heights, simulation of new buildings, updating and keeping cadastral databases current, change detection and virtual reality. While they are generally used to simply visualize the built environment, there are early signs of them being used as 3D interfaces to more sophisticated simulation models. http://news.satimagingcorp.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2007/12/lidar-harris-county-texas2.jpg 15cm LiDAR Digital Elevation Model (DEM) — Harris County, Texas USA Just a few years ago, the main input data for the production of digital city models and 3D city models were aerial images, terrestrial images, map data, and data derived from classical surveying. The process of geospatial information extraction from these sources was performed manually, but today with the availability of high-resolution Satellite sensors, satellite images can support the generation of a three-dimensional dense, geo-referenced terrain surface. 3D models can be used as a user-friendly interface for querying the urban environment as a Geographic Information Systems (GIS), for hyper-linking Web-based information, for visualizing model results, and for accessing functional simulation models. 3D terrain modeling and visualization application requires good detail pertaining to the terrain features and terrain slopes for critical project decisions, an accurate digital terrain model (DTM) and a digital surface model (DSM) must be available. Satellite Imaging Corporation(SIC) can provide customers with 5m digital surface models (DSMs), 2m digital elevation models (DEMs), and a detailed, orthorectified satellite image mosaic at 0.8m resolution. Our company can produce clear, captivating simulated views of almost any location from high resolution satellite sensors and aircraft imaging data. For additional information about 3D terrain modeling and visualization or DSMs, DTMs, and DEMs, please visit us http://www.satimagingcorp.com/"

V1 Magazine offers an interview with James Fee. James is a long time geoblogger running the excellent Spatially Adjusted blog and the useful Planet Geospatial. From the interview, which focuses on his new job and BIM (building information modeling): "V1: Are you able to utilize your GIS experience to work with GIS data in the BIM environment? Fee: There really isn’t a good way to interact with both GIS and BIM. When you’re inside of a Revit model, which is what they use here, you can import information in, but you’re not really able to utilize the GIS as its native format. You have to do some sort of conversion to get information in. Similarly, you can’t take our Revit model and drop it into our GIS and be able to interact with it. The interoperability between the two is very difficult at this point.[...] You think about people doing mapping with AutoCAD, and a lot of it is just isn’t really smooth. You’re making compromises, and the same is true with the GIS. When you’re getting into really detailed information such as where an outlet is in a room, you just can’t really do that kind of stuff in GIS. If you don’t take advantage of these two different systems, where they’re good and what they’re good at, you’re still going to be left with people asking a question that the software can’t answer."