The Earth Engine is an idea that spun out of work that Google.org was doing with the Google Earth Outreach Program in Brazil with indigenous people and non-profit organizations focused on conservation. The scientists were happy with Google Earth, but expressed the need for a system that could not only map, but also monitor, deforestation in the Amazon.

I spoke with Rebecca Moore, the Engineering manager of Earth Engine and Google Earth Outreach, about the impetus and objectives of the Earth Engine project.

Here’s Moore on the design:

“The idea will be to ultimately provide for public benefit an online repository that brings together all of the Earth’s observation data (satellite imagery, terrain datasets, vector data such as roads, borders, population centers, soil information, climate information) into one large georeferenced data store. And then to provide, through an easy to use application programming framework, access to our computational resources for analyzing that data.

We see this as an unprecedented platform for data-mining meaningful information out of this treasure trove of historical, current and future earth observation data. Ultimately it will be many petabytes of earth observation information.”

Google expressly places this within their non-profit arm, with the plan to enable the storage and add the computing capacity, but not to create any algorithms or conduct any monitoring themselves. This new site will act as a tremendous enabler for the spread of remote sensing data and analysis, and can ultimately become the kind of c0-laboratory that was envisioned in Al Gore’s Digital Earth speech.

Read the full interview here.

The photo sharing site Flickr is hosting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Documerica Project from the 1970s. The project ran from 1971-1977, with freelance photographers hired to take images related to environmental problems. There are more than 15,000 photos archived on the site.

This photo is one in a series from the ground and air that documented pre-pipeline conditions from Prudhoe Bay south to Valdez. This shot is of pattered ground as the result of massive ice formations north of Galbraith Lake. Photo by Dennis Cowals.

The fusion of both LIDAR and hyperspectral imagery for the creation of realistic urban models for simulation purposes was the focus of a presentation this morning at ILMF by Raul Campos-Marquetti, senior hyperspectral scientist at Merrick & Company. The ultimate purpose of this model was a simulation for military training purposes by the U.S. Army’s RDECOM.

Hyperspectal provided the means to classify features and to create a spectral library of road surface types, roof types, vegetation classifications, and an understanding of different building types. The hyperspectral classifications were then used to do a pixel by pixel, point to point fusion to create an informed 3D model with real world features and land cover/land use classifications.

The “physical morphology” model informed the synthetic creation of building exteriors and interiors based on real observation of different material types. The resulting large-scale city model was more of a true modeled reality than what can be accomplished with simply point clouds, because the classifications informed more realistic simulation that could take into account the physics of the different material types.

The International LIDAR Mapping Forum kicks off today in Denver, with concurrent sessions on Data Acquisition and Coastal Zone and Bathymetric LIDAR. Tomorrow there are sessions on data fusion, current projects and technical developments. Friday includes a look at government initiatives, data processing and mobile mapping. There’s a good mix here of both practical application of the technology and talks focused on tackling technological hurdles.

Today includes several timely talks regarding the application of LIDAR for the response to the 2010 Haitian earthquake.

I look forward to delving into the details of these applications, and will file some reports later today from the show floor.

I recently spoke to Fred Limp, the past director of the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies and a gifted geospatial educator and practitioner at the University of Arkansas. I’ve always been fascinated by the types of projects that Fred works on, and I conducted an interview to delve into the evolution that’s taking place in the 3D space.

Fred and his team have been working on LIDAR applications and digital city modeling among other cutting-edge applications. An area that Fred is tackling is the analysis of 3D data at multiple scales, which offers some unique challenges:

“What happens when scale changes is not just a simple case of there’s more and bigger data sets.One of the real challenges that I see to the whole geospatial community is that when you “zoom in,” you do a whole lot more than just zoom in. You have to change paradigms of analysis and sometimes the data structure. One of the things that I find particularly exciting that is helping us begin to think about this is that the work being done on CityGML and the use of the concept of levels of detail.

Our community has a bunch of verticals, there’s the remote sensing vertical, and the LIDAR vertical, and the terrestrial laser scanning vertical. But we also have all these horizontal applications that we have to decide what tools and what methods and what analysis to do at different scales. The level of detail concept in CityGML begins to give us a paradigm for moving seamlessly from scales of 1 to 50 or 1 to 100,000. We need to develop analysis and display systems where we know how to begin thinking about that.

I think that’s a really important idea and I don’t know if people have really addressed it. It’s about how you think about data as you move between different scales, and what analytical operations makes sense. To me, that whole scale issue is something that we really have to think about a lot because so much changes as you move through different scales.”

Read the full interview online here.

It was 20 years ago today that the first photo of earth from very, very, very far away was received. The image was from the Voyager 1 spacecraft that was nearly 4 billion miles away. The excitement of this moment of discovery wasn’t as great as the first dramatic photos of earth from the moon, but it does put things in greater prespective. With that little spec no more than a few pixels wide in the image, it wouldn’t have required too much more distance for the technology at the time to not even visually detect where it had come from.

Read more about that occasion in this feature from NPR.org.

Microsoft announced a new feature to Bing Maps yesterday at the TED conference. Streetside Photos allows the users to see an image from a photo sharing site such as Flickr instead of the standard photo, and even includes historical photos in order to see how an area once looked. The feature that allows you to see photos in their full context is available in Seattle, San Francisco and Vancouver now, but there are plans to roll it out in additional cities.

This new functionality is being touted as augmented reality by some, because it allows you to quickly stitch one photo onto existing photos and has an accuracy of just a few inches. It even has the capacity to stitch a moving video on top of a map to create a lense-like effect.

“What we’ve really focused on in Bing Maps is making a continuum of experience that goes all the way from overview that’s  more like a classic atlas or map down to an oblique view so that you can get an angle that is closer to the human experience, and you can pan around in more of a SimCity type of view. All the way down to the human scale where the map is effectively as big as reality itself, where it is meant to be experienced as you would walking, biking or driving.”

– Blaise Aguera y Arcas, architect, Bing Maps

View the following video to get a better sense of what Microsoft has planned to add augmented reality to their mapping interface.

Allan Carswell, the founder of the Canada-based LIDAR company Optech, provided the opening keynote for SPAR 2010 in Houston this morning. Carswell has been working with LIDAR since 1960 and has been responsible for a great degree of technological advancement as well as the application of the technology in areas as diverse as the capture of measurements of the built world to use on Mars exploration missions.

Carswell reminded the audience that the concept of LIDAR is really simple, and that it’s the unique quality of this light source that makes measurement possible. With lasers we are able to tune wavelengths and modulate the pulse width and frequency. The returned light provides measurements of X, Y, and Z measurements based upon the time it takes for the light to return, but we can also measure the light intensity which provides a means to classify the objects that the light strikes.

Carswell’s first LIDAR project was in 1968 to measure smoke plumes for pollution and air quality with a laser instrument that won the inventors the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics. From those early days of atmospheric mapping, there are now LIDAR instruments on satellites (NASA Calypso) that can measure air quality and atmospheric changes on a global scale. He continues to be involved in atmospheric applications of the technology with development of Raman LIDAR that can provide species-specific returns to measure such things as natural gas or ozone in the air. The fluorescence spectrum measurements that are available from this technique can detect different environmental effects on vegetation, chemical soil pollution, mechanical soil disturbance, etc.

Marine applications are a growing area as the LIDAR as the laserc can penetrate 40 to 50 meters of water to capture the bathymetry, water conditions and sub-surface resources. A combination of technologies with both LIDAR and hyperspectral instruments allows you to understand how murky the water is
to get a chlorophyl count and by capturing bottom reflectance measurements you can classify the bottom. With advancements there are now Coastal Zone Mapping and Imaging projects that can capture both shoreline and coastal water at the same time.

There have been a number of advancements on the measurement and mapping of the build environment with tripod mounted systems that can measure both inside and outside of a building. The combination with Lidar 3D Color Imagery provides very realistic captures of textures and colors that make this technology appealing in both building and construction as well as entertainment industries. The capture of complex built structures such as bridges and plants are providing a whole new area of opportunity.

Mobile mapping systems have risen to prominence this year as they can look both forward and backward (in order to omit shadows) and can measure at highway speeds a great deal of data. Carswell provided examples of bridge scans and wires in rural settings as well as dense urban environments including the scanning of the Coliseum of Rome from a moving vehicle. With just a 10-second drive by of the Coliseum, a tremendous amount of detail was captured. These new capabilities are a disruptive area for data collection with a tremendous amount of opportunities.

Carswell spoke about the future development of the technology with greater and greater pulse rates of lasers and the measurement of multiple returns for whole new levels of accuracy and measurements that can be classified. On the software side there is a need and interest to provide synergy among the different sensors and to automate the data collection.

Carswell was asked about the application of these tools for global warming and global change. He asserted that atmospheric LIDAR are leading the way, particularly at the poles, for our understanding of warming. The tools are also of great use in improving our energy efficiency, with measurements of buildings for retrofit. He also discussed the application of coherent LIDAR systems that send out a beam to measure wind several kilometers out for precise wind measurements that avoid for wind farms.

The level of potential for this technology was referred to as the LIDAR Revolution, given the great potential. Carswell indicated that we’re just scratching the surface and there are all sorts of potential applications with exponential growth that will be accompanied by a great degree of changes in all aspects of technology application from planning, procedure, data acquisition and assimilation.

I spoke today with Carla Burzyk, Director of Office of Budget and Performance at the U.S. Geological Survey, to understand better the proposed cuts to the National Geospatial Program. She filled me in on the budget process and addressed some of the concerns that I’ve outlined in previous posts about the status of the National Map partnerships.

• Status of the budget: This is the first round of the 2011 budget that won’t be decided until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. The budget is the vehicle for deliberation by Congress, and much can be changed in the process.
• Tradeoffs: The budget represents eight months of deliberations to conform to guidance that is set by the Office of Management and Budget. Given this guidance there were a number of decisions made to align funds to high-priority programs, and grant programs were seen as the first target for cuts. While there is a $3.5M cut to the Partnership Implementation program, the entire budget of the program was $14M so the bulk of the program remains.
• Jobs: The priority for cuts was also aimed at areas where people would not be let go. While the justification indicates that liaison positions in 13 states will go away, these duties are just a part of larger jobs and the duties will go while the people stay.
• Justification: I was most interested in hearing some justification for this loss of data collection, hoping that there was some off-setting reason to reduce data collection efforts. The USGS did receive $140M in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and $14.6 Million of that went to improving imagery and elevation maps. It was suggested that the USGS would be looking at a decrease in data if it weren’t for these funds, so with the funds and the cuts, the agency will maintain roughly the same level of data as in they past years.
• IFTN Speculation: My speculation about the possibility that the Imagery for the Nation Program might reach approval wasn’t part of the thinking. While there has been some positive indications that the proposal is meeting with greater support, there’s no pending action.

I appreciated the quick and thorough response that I received regarding these questions. Overall the increases to the USGS budget are still positive, with the budget larger than it has been in past years, but there areas where it could certainly be larger. Much could change when Congress deliberates over this guidance, so I’ll work to stay on top of this as it develops.

A comment to my earlier post today about the U.S. Geological Survey budget revealed a program cut of $5M to the National Geospatial Program that deserved further investigation. The current 2010 enacted budget is 70,748 for the National Geospatial Program, and the 2011 request is for 65,887, which verifies the size of the cut.

Further search in the budget document verifies some of the impacts of the cut:

“The budget proposes a net decrease of $4,861, including a reduction of $3,500 for National Map partnerships which will eliminate all funds used specifically to leverage participation with Federal, State, and local agencies to acquire new data. Additional decreases include $564 for a technical adjustment to move regional executives’ staff to the Science Support budget activity and $797 for Department-wide management efficiencies.”

Seems the biggest hit is to new data collection and partnerships with others. I’m wondering if this is a positive sign of more coordinated geospatial data procurement through cooperation with other federal agencies or if it means an elimination of up-to-date imagery and other data products specific to this budget cycle. I hope to find out more details to pass along in the coming days.