Between the Poles

U.S. Administration targets methane emissions from fracking and other sources

Methane is one of the more potent greenhouse gases for global warming.  In June, 2013, President Obama issued a Climate Action Plan to cut the pollution contributing to climate change. An important part of the strategy involves cutting domestic greenhouse gas emissions. In March, 2014 the Administration issued Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions, which outlined steps to cut methane emissions.  The administration estimates that implementing this strategy could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90 million tonnes in 2020.  The administration expects that this initiative will make an important contribution to meeting the Administration goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 17 % below 2005 levels by 2020.

Methane warming power

There is disagreement as to just how much more potent methane is than CO₂ in warming the atmosphere.  The EPA has estimated a factor of  21 times compared to carbon dioxide. But Robert Howarth, an environmental biology professor at Cornell University, has argued that it is actually 72 times as powerful as carbon dioxide in terms of its warming potential. 

Methane leaks from oil wells and natural gas wells and systems

In the United States the EPA estimates that emissions of methane directly from human sources were equivalent to approximately 560 million tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution (assuming that methane's warming potential is 21 times that of carbon dioxide) in 2012, representing 9 % of all the greenhouse gases emitted as a result of human activity. Methane emissions are projected to increase to a level equivalent to over 620 million tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution in 2030.  The main sources of human-related methane emissions are agriculture (36 percent), natural gas systems (23 percent), landfills (18 percent), coal mining (10 percent), petroleum systems (6 percent), and wastewater treatment (2 percent).

An important area of uncertainty is how much methane is leaking from shale gas and shale oil wells.  Howarth has argued that the type of shale gas drilling taking place in Texas, New York and Pennsylvania generates particularly high emissions of methane. A study has estimated that between 3.6% to 7.9% of the methane from shale-gas production escapes to the atmosphere in venting and leaks over the lifetime of a well.

A recent study has used spatial analysis to investigate the spatial distribution of anthropogenic methane sources in the United States by combining comprehensive atmospheric methane observations, extensive spatial datasets, and a high-resolution atmospheric transport model. Based on the results of this analysis the authors conclude that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) underestimates methane emissions nationally by 50%.  The study found that methane emissions due to the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have larger greenhouse gas impacts than indicated by existing inventories.

A source of methane in the atmosphere are leaks from natural gas distribution systems.  A partnership between the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Google Earth has released the first interactive maps showing methane leaks from gas distribution systems under the streets of Boston, Indianapolis and part of New York City.
 
The Administration's strategy is to target reducing methane emissions from several sources;

• Landfills: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will propose updated standards to reduce methane from new landfills and determine whether to update standards for existing landfills.
• Coal Mines:  The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will release an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) to gather public input on the development of a program for addressing waste mine methane on lands leased by the Federal government.
• Agriculture: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) will jointly release a “Biogas Roadmap” outlining voluntary strategies to accelerate adoption of methane digesters to reduce U.S. dairy sector greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
• Oil and Gas: The EPA will assess several potentially significant sources of methane and other emissions from the oil and gas sector. If EPA decides to develop additional regulations, it will complete those regulations by the end of 2016. In addition the BLM will propose updated standards to reduce venting and flaring from oil and gas production on public lands.   

Improved data collection: The Administration intends to implement better data collection and measurement will to improve the understanding of methane sources and trends and enable more effective reduction of methane emissions.

As part of that strategy in April, 2014, EPA released five technical white papers that present information on potentially significant sources of emissions in the oil and gas sector and options for reducing emissions. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2011 there were an estimated 504,000 producing gas wells and an estimated 536,000 producing oil wells in the U.S.  Natural gas development is expected to increase by 44% from 2011 through 2040 and crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) are projected to increase by approximately 25% through 2019.

Two of the white papers prepared by the U.S. EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS) describe methane emissions due to (1) gas emissions when fracked and refracked oil wells are brought into production and (2) leaks in gas production (natural gas wells including shale gas) , processing and transmission.

Emissions from completions and ongoing production of hydraulically fractured oil wells

One of the activities identified as a potential source of emissions to the atmosphere  during oil development is hydraulically fractured oil well completions which are operations conducted to bring a new fracked oil well into production or to maintain or increase the well’s production capability as a result of refracking.  The EPA white paper estimates of nationally uncontrolled methane emissions from hydraulically fractured oil well completions range from 44,306 tons (40,194 tonnes) per year to 247,000 tons (224,000 tonnes) per year.  There is no data on the proportion of this methane that is vented, flared or captured and sold.

Leaks

Leaks are defined as methane emissions that occur at onshore production, processing and transmission facilities.  It does not include leaks in gas distribution systems (see EDF and Google Earth above). This includes leak emissions from natural gas well pads, oil wells that co-produce natural gas, gathering and boosting stations, gas processing plants, and transmission and storage infrastructure.  The white paper cites estimates of approximately 332,662 tonnes of potential methane leak emissions from gas production, 33,681 tonnes from gas processing, and 114,348 tonnes from gas transmission.

The EPA has just (Jan 29, 2015) issued a call inviting small businesses, governments, and not-for-profit organizations to participate in a Small Business Advocacy Review (SBAR) Panel that will focus on the development of a rule to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases including methane and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for the oil and natural gas industry.  The agency intends to add equipment and processes, including hydraulically fractured oil wells and leaks from new and modified well sites, to those currently covered by existing standards.

EPA plans to propose a rule this summer (2015) and take final action in 2016.

Largest reservoirs of methane

An indirect effect of global warming is the destabilization of methane hydrates by warming ocean currents on the floor of the ocean.  Methane hydrates are the largest reservoir of organic carbon on Earth and there is the potential that the total volume of methane hydrates being destabilized by warming ocean currents could be significant.  Methane is also stored in shallow Arctic reservoirs of peat, such as submarine and terrestrial permafrost, which is also being affected by global warming.

Very long range unmanned craft operates under all weather conditions

In the last few years I have come across a number of UAVs at the various conferences I have attended.  They range from hexacopters to fixed wing aircraft but are limited typically to flight times of 40-50 minutes maximum because of battery capacity.  I am also aware of a UAV with a daytime endurance estimated to be 5 to 12 hours depending on wing configuration, weather, and flight profile.  All of these have a serious constraint in common, flights are severely limited by weather conditions.

Wave Gliders

In 2009 a pair of unmanned Wave Gliders travelled from Hawaii to San Diego encountering a wide range of weather conditions on the way.  The 2,500 mile trip took 82 days.  As of 2013 the total Wave Glider fleet had exceeded 400,000 nautical miles at sea.

The Wave Glider is an unmanned vessel used for collecting data with a variety of sensors that uses both wave-powered and solar energy to navigate under any kind of ocean conditions from doldrums to hurricanes and cyclones.  The Wave Glider converts wave motion to propulsion by exploiting the difference between wave motion on the surface and below the surface where it is much less.  The Wave Glider has a two-part architecture that allows this difference in wave motion to be converted to propulsion.  It is also able to generate its own power.  It has a maximum payload power capacity of 260W and a battery capacity of up to 6.86 kWh.  The power system supports various types of energy sources and multiple powered sensors, as well as an auxiliary electric thruster and navigation, GPS, computing and communications equipment.

Everything is controlled by software. Since August, 2011, James Gosling, well-known as the "father of Java", has been the chief software architect at Liquid Robotics. The software environment has several components and can be used to controls either single vessels or fleets of Wave Gliders.  It has a web application for remote mission management that includes piloting and data management tools. This software provides browser and programmatic interfaces (APIs) to allow users and applications to send commands to and receive data from the Wave Glider and its sensors.  The Wave Glider has its own operating system for the onboard command-and-control computer, responsible for communications, navigation and collision avoidance, power and security.  Sensor Management Software  runs the onboard sensor management computer, managing the functions of and data collected from all the sensors on the Wave Glider.  The Data Services Environment software provides cloud-based infrastructure that manages the flow of data from the Wave Glider to the remote pilots, mission specialists, and other users and software applications.

First infrastructure standard based on a common BIM/geospatial model released

There are several initiatives underway to develop multi-disciplinary interoperability standards for the convergence of BIM, 3D and geospatial.  The first BIM standard based on a common conceptual model shared between the BIM and geospatial worlds has just been released for public comment by buildingSMART.  Simultaneously the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has just released the OGC LandInfra Conceptual Model, the first draft of the InfraGML conceptual model for land parcels and the built environment.

Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) are the open and neutral data format standard for the exchange of building information models (BIM).  The IFC standard was developed and is supported by buildingSMART International and is  registered with ISO as ISO16739.  IFC is widely used in the construction industry in many countries and is mandated in some such as Finland.

However, the current versions of IFC are intended for buildings (vertical BIM).  buildingSMART has initiated the IFC for Infrastructure project to extend the IFC standard to support linear transportation infrastructure (horizontal BIM or BIM for Infrastructure) such as rail, road, bridges, and tunnels.

The first IFC for Infrastructure extension project is the IFC Alignment project. It is intended to provide the data model for geolocation information for 3D and 2D alignments and has been developed in concert with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).  The objectives of the IFC Alignment project is to enable the exchange of alignment information through the full infrastructure lifecyle from planning through design and construction to asset management. 

The IFC Alignment project will also provide a conceptual model of road alignments that will be used in both OGC and buildingSMART standards for roads, railways, tunnels and bridges. A common conceptual model (typically represented in UML) is extremely important because it is a first step in developing full lifecyle models for infrastructure from planning through design and construction to operate and maintain.  OGC standards focus on planning and operation whereas design and construction are buildingSMART’s focus area.  A common conceptual model will enable IFC alignment models to be mapped onto InfraGML (a standard being developed by the OGC) models.  The OGC has just released the OGC LandInfra Conceptual Model, the first draft of the InfraGML conceptual model for land parcels and the built environment.  (The document was submitted by Bentley Systems, Inc, Leica Geosystems, Trimble, Australian Government Department of Communications, Autodesk, Vianova Systems AS, and buildingSMART International.)

BuildingSMART International has just released drafts of the IFC Infrastructure Alignment Conceptual Model and the Candidate Standard for IFC Alignment and is asking for public comment.  Once it is finalized and becomes part of the IFC standard, it will be submitted to ISO/TC 59/SC 13 to be incorporated into ISO 16739.

Conceptual model for open infrastructure standard InfraGML released

InfraGML is the proposed Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Geographic Markup Language (GML)  application schema supporting land development and civil engineering infrastructure facilities. The OGC has just released the OGC LandInfra Conceptual Model, the first draft of the InfraGML conceptual model for land parcels and the built environment.  The document was submitted by Bentley Systems, Inc, Leica Geosystems, Trimble, Australian Government Department of Communications, Autodesk, Vianova Systems AS, and buildingSMART International.

LandXML is a widely used existing standard supported by almost 800 members in the roads and highway transportation sector.  It is intended that the new InfraGML standard will support a subset of the LandXML standard including alignment, road, rail, survey, terrain, land parcels, drainage, wastewater, and water distribution systems.

The main motivating issues for InfraGML are that LandXML is not associated with a recognized international standards organization, was not supported for a number of years though LandXML.org has become active again, lacked a UML model, and in its present form LandXML 1.2 is not compliant with the OGC's GML standard for geographic location.  (A number of years ago an attempt was made to make LandXML compliant with GML.) To address these issues the OGC's  Land and Infrastructure DWG chartered a LandInfraSWG (Standards Working Group) for LandXML. Its first activity was to reverse-engineer a UML model and documentation (which were lacking) for LandXML 1.2 as a basis for assessing the viability of supporting LandXML as an OGC interoperability standard. A number of deficiencies relative to the OGC baseline were identified.

The LandinfraSWG decided that to be able to support LandXML as an interoperability standard, it would be necessary to fix the problems that had been identified.  But it felt that for a number of reasons this would be difficult to do. The LandInfraSWG therefore proposed developing a new standard that would encompass a subset of LandXML functionality.  

The new standard would be called InfraGML and would be supported by the OGC. It would align with existing OGC, TC211 and SQL/MM standards such as GML. Its focus would be alignments/roads, survey, and land parcels, but would be able to expand into other areas as resources became available. It was to be use-case driven and based on a UML conceptual model. It would also synchronize with the concurrent efforts by buildingSMART International in its development of infrastructure-based Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs), for example, for alignments, as well as with CityGML and TransXML.

The first public draft of the OGC's proposed UML conceptual model for land parcels and the built environment has been released for public comment.  The OGC has issued a Request for Comments on the first draft of the OGC LandInfra Conceptual Model.

Predictions of the future of the utility business 2015-2018

For the first time in a hundred years, the electric power utility industry is undergoing a momentous change. Distributed renewable power generation, especially solar photovoltaics (PV), is introducing competition into an industry that has been managed as regulated monopolies. Consumers with solar PV panels on their roofs are fundamentally changing the traditional utility business model. A recent report from the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) report refers to disruptive challenges that threaten to force electric power utilities to change or adapt the business model that has been in place since the first half of the 20th century.

Most utilities are in the midst of deploying smart grids, which basically amounts to applying the internet to the electric power grid to link intelligent electronic devices, sensors and grid control applications to enable data-driven decision making.  One of the most important changes driven by the implementation of smart grid is the much greater importance of location. Geospatial technology (location, geospatial data management and spatial analytics) is seen as foundational techology for the smart grid.

The other major global change in energy is the shift in energy demand from the world's advanced economies to emerging economies.   Energy demand from OECD countries has hit a plateau.  Currently China is driving world energy demand. The International Energy Agency's (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2014 projects that in the future  as demand slows from China, world energy demand will be driven by India, the Middle East, and Africa and Latin America.

Recently IDC Energy Insights released a report IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Utilities 2015 Predictions with predictions for the future of the utility business.  Some of these are startling, suggesting that the utility industry is going to experience fundamental changes in how they do business over the next few years.

New business models

IDC predicts that utilities will be looking less at generation as a source of revenue.  IDC predicts that by 2018 45% of new data traffic in utilities' control systems will originate from distributed energy resources that are not owned by the utility.

To make up for this loss of generation revenue IDC predicts that utilities will be looking for new business opportunities such as services.  Specifically, IDC predicts that utilities will derive at least 40% of their earnings from new business models by 2017.

Technology

• Cloud - By 2018 cloud services will make up half of the IT portfolio for over 60% of utilities.
• Integration - In 2015 utilities will invest over a quarter of their IT budgets on integrating new technologies with legacy enterprise systems.
• Analytics - By 2017 45% of utilities' new investment in analytics will be used in operations and maintenance of plant and network infrastructure.
• Mobility - 60% of utilities will focus on transitioning enterprise mobility to capitalize on the consumer mobility wave.
• Smart systems - By 2018 cognitive systems will penetrate utilities' customer operation to improve service and reduce costs.

Some  of the important drivers for these trends include the global redistribution of energy demand from the world's advanced to the emerging economies, the rapid emergence of cloud-based provisioning and services, increasing regulatory pressure responding to customer demand to improve energy market transparency and competitiveness, cross-industry competition for technical, especially IT skills, smart analytics, and virtual and augmented reality beginning to be applied in business.

Top 10 technology trends

In March 2014 Gartner, Inc. identified the top ten technology trends which it saw impacting the global energy and utility markets.  There is considerable overlap between IDC's business predictions and the technology trends identified by Gartner, Inc.

Social Media

Social media are beginning to be used as a customer acquisition and retention medium, as a consumer engagement channel to drive customer participation in energy efficiency programs, a source of information about outages, and as the emerging area of crowd-sourcing distributed energy resources coordination. Social media are also being used by utilities for communicating information about outages with customers.

Big Data

Smart grid will increase the quantity of data that utilities have to manage by a factor of about 10,000 according to a recent estimate.  This trend is driven by intelligent devices, sensors, social networks, and new IT and OT applications such as advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), synchrophasors, smart appliances, microgrids, advanced distribution management, remote asset monitoring, and self-healing networks.  The type of data that utilities will need to manage will change: for example, real-time data from sensors and intelligent devices including smart phones and unstructured data from social networks will play a much greater role for utilities in the future.

Mobile and Location-Aware Technology

Mobile and location-aware technology which includes hardware (laptops and smartphones), communication products (GPS-based navigation, routing and tracking technologies), social networks (Twitter,Facebook and others) and services (WiFi, satellites, and packet switched networks) are transforming all industries.  Utilities for the most part have been slow to adopt consumer mobile technology, but  this is changing.

Cloud Computing

Acccording to Gartner, areas such as smart meter, big data analytics, demand response coordination and GIS are driving utilities to adopt cloud-based solutions.  Early adopters of cloud technologies include small utilities with limited in-house IT skills and budgets, organizations which provide application and data services to multiple utilities, such as cooperative associations and transmission system operators,  and investor-owned utilities (IoUs) conducting short-term smart grid pilots.

Sensor Technology

Sensors, which are being applied extensively throughout the entire supply, transmission and distribution domains of utilities, provide a stream of real-time information from which a real-time state of the grid can be derived.

IT and OT Convergence

Virtually all new technology projects in utilities will require a combination of IT and OT investment and planning, such as AMI or advanced distribution management systems (ADMSs).  This will be a challenge for many utilities, especially smaller ones, which don't have in-house IT skills.

Advanced Metering Infrastructure

AMI provides a communication backbone aimed at improving distribution asset utilization and facilitating consumer inclusion in energy markets.

Internet of Things

Sensors and actuators embedded in physical objects are linked through wired and wireless networks, using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that connects the Internet.  When intelligent objects can both sense the environment and communicate, they become tools for understanding utility grids and responding to changes in near real-time.  Following McKinsey there are two key benefits arising from the Internet of Things for utilities

• Enhanced situational awareness - acheiving real-time awareness of physical environment, in this case, the grid
• Sensor-driven decision analytics - assisting human decision making through deep analysis and data visualization

Asset performance management

Traditional asset management approaches are too limiting for today’s performance-based, data-driven utility environment. Asset performance management solutions need to deliver real-time equipment performance, reliability, maintenance and decision support for effective resource management so that operations and maintenance teams are empowered with real-time decision support information, providing the right information to the right people at the right time and in the right context.  The result is improved operational performance and better asset availability and utilization.

Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics

Analytics will become essential as the volume of data generated by intelligent devices and sensors, mobile devices (the Internet of Things) and social media increases and huge pools of structured and unstructured data need to be analyzed to extract actionable information.  Analytics will become embedded everywhere, often invisibly.

New standards for building documentation including 3D imaging and Level of Accuracy released

In 2012 the U.S. Institute of Building Documentation (USIBD) was founded to bring together the various stakeholder groups (owner/operators, architects, engineers, contractors, surveyors, brokers, and others) to promote and facilitate building documentation as a distinct industry; establishing standards, guidelines and best practices to foster excellence in the productivity, quality and safety of the documentation process. 

The USIBD has released three quarterly Cornerstone Reports based on surveys of building documentation professionals to help profile the industry.  One of the questions asked of the building documentation professionals responding to the first survey is how frequently 3D imaging is used in the building documentation industry.  Three-quarters of respondents said their clients used 3D imaging in just 25 percent of their projects.  Nearly 75 percent of respondents said they expect client use of 3D imaging to increase by 50 percent in the next year.

The USIBD is developing a library of building documentation standards utilizing existing standards and augmenting them where necessary.  It is also developing specifications intended to address all stakeholders’ and project needs.  The USIBD is simplifying the process of qualifying professionals by providing the key factors and their significance to properly qualify building documentation professionals.  It is also developing Request for Proposal (RFP)  Templates generated by industry professionals to ensure that owners requests are clearly and professionally communicated.

The USIBD has just released four building documentation standards/specifications.

3D Imaging Specification

Provides guidance and protections to those individuals or organizations soliciting proposals from providers offering professional building documentation services for 3D imaging, typically laser scanning.

Level Of Accuracy (LOA) Specification

A reference or guideline that enables professionals in the Architectural, Engineering, Construction, Owner (AECO) Industry to specify, with a high level of clarity, the accuracy and means by which to represent and document existing conditions.  This is related to Level of Development (LoD).

Request for Qualifications (RFQ)

Provides guidance and protections to those individuals or organizations wishing to qualify providers offering professional building documentation services

Request For Proposal (RFP)

Provides performance based criteria to ensure the client (Architect, Engineer, etc.) obtains the desired deliverables

These documents/specifications are available to download for free through March 16, 2015.

FAA issues grants of exemption for commercial UAV operations for construction monitoring, agriculture, and real estate

In general the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for commercial purposes is illegal in the U.S.  But in the last few months the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issues grants of exemption to six companies for commercial UAVs for general aerial surveys (Trimble, Woolpert) and specifically for construction monitoring (Clayco, Inc), agriculture (Advanced Aviation Solutions), on and offshore oil and gas inspections (VDOS Global), and real estate (Douglas Trudeau, Realtor).

In 2011 the FAA fined a UAV operator $10,000 for flying a radio-controlled airplane recklessly over the University of Virginia campus to make a commercial for the University.  Early in 2014 a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Judge ruled that the FAA ban on flying UAVs was not legally binding. The judge said that the FAA had historically exempted model aircraft from the statutory definitions of aircraft.  March 7 the FAA issued a notice saying that it was appealing the decision to the full National Transportation Safety Board.  The FAA cited its regulation of  model aircraft under the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (FMRA) which states that “if a model aircraft operator endangers the safety of the National Airspace System, the FAA has the authority to take enforcement action against those operators for those safety violations.”  November 18 the NTSB supported the FAA saying that an unmanned aircraft is subject to enforcement of FAA regulations prohibiting reckless operation of aircraft.

The FAA has issued 14 grants of exemption for commercial operation of UAVs.  The first was to a manufacturer of UAVs used in film production.  The FAA found that a "grant of exemption is in the public interest. Therefore ... Astraeus Aerial is granted an exemption ... to the extent necessary to allow Astraeus to  operate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for the purpose of scripted, closed-set filming for  the motion picture and television industry."

The requirements for operation of the UAV imposed by the FAA are restrictive (Astraeus Aerial Grant of Exemption);

• The UAV must weigh less than 55 pounds.
• The UA can not be flown at a ground speed exceeding 50 knots.
• Flights must be operated at an altitude of no more than 400 feet above ground level (AGL).
• The UA must be operated within visual line of sight (VLOS) of the pilot at all times.
• All operations must utilize a visual observer (VO). The VO and the pilot must be able to communicate verbally at all times.
• The pilot must possess at least a private pilot certificate and at least a current third-class medical certificate.
• The pilot must have accumulated and logged a minimum of five hours operating the UAV.
• The UAV may not be operated directly (within 500 ft) over any person, except authorized and consenting production personnel.
• Each UAV operation must be completed within 30 minutes flight time or with 25% battery power remaining, whichever occurs first.
• The operator must obtain an Air Traffic Organization (ATO) issued Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) prior to any operations under this grant of exemption.
• The UAV must remain clear and yield the right of way to all other manned operations and activities at all times (ultralight vehicles, parachute activities, parasailing activities, hang gliders, etc.).
• UAV operations may not be conducted at night.
• The UAV may not be operated by a pilot from a moving device or vehicle.
• The UAV may not be operated less than 500 feet below or less than 2,000 feet horizontally from a cloud or when visibility is less than 3 statute miles.

This is certainly not going to allow the deployment of long range UAVs like the Silent Falcon with a daytime endurance estimated to be 5 to 12 hours depending on wing configuration, weather, and flight profile. Night-time endurance is estimated at 3 to 5 hours.  For example, equipped with LiDAR this could be used for transmission line monitoring for vegetation management at a much lower cost than a manned helicopter.

December 10 the FAA issued grants of exemption to four additional companies;

• Clayco, Inc. , a general contractor, to operate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for the purpose of aerial imaging to monitor and ensure safety of construction sites.
• Trimble Navigation Ltd, a provider of advanced location-based solutions, to allow Trimble to operate the UX5 UAS for the special purpose of precision aerial surveys that consist of still photographs taken by an onboard camera.
• VDOS Global, LLC, a provider of aerial inspection services to the on and off-shore oil & gas industry,  to allow VDOS to operate unmanned aircraft systems for the purpose of flare stack inspections on 14 Shell Oil Gulf of Mexico production platforms with all platforms beyond 12 nautical miles of the coast of the United States.
• Woolpert, Inc, a design, geospatial and infrastructure management firm, to allow Woolpert to operate the Altavian Nova Block III unmanned aircraft system for the special purpose of precision aerial surveys that consist of still photographs taken by an onboard camera.

January 5 two more exemptions were granted;

• Douglas Trudeau, a realtor, to operate unmanned aircraft systems for the purpose of aerial videography/cinematography and augment real estate listing videos.
• Advanced Aviation Solutions to operate unmanned aircraft systems for the purpose of aerial imagery to support agriculture.

FOSS4G-Europe 2015 in Como, Italy July 15th to 17th open for abstract submissions

The second FOSS4G-Europe Conference will be held at Politecnico di Milano in Como, Italy, from July 15th to 17th, 2015. A day of workshops will precede the conference on 14th July, and a code sprint will close the event on 18th July.

Como is on Lake Como, one of the most beautiful locations in Europe. It is right on the border with Switzerland close to Lugano.

The Conference aims to bring together FOSS4G users and developers worldwide and foster closer interactions with and amongst European communities in order to share ideas for improving geodata, software and applications openess.

This year's conference has six tracks.

• The General Track is the main event line with presentations on FOSS4G technologies and communities.
• The Academic Track relates progress of scientific research and experiences on using and teaching FOSS4G.
• The Open Data Track welcomes projects and case studies about geospatial open data and FOSS4G tools.
• The Water Track welcomes case studies related to water managment and related environmental modeling with FOSS4G.
• The Positioning Track welcomes projects and case studies on indoor/outdoor positioning with FOSS4G.
• The Library Track welcomes case studies related to Library and archives managment with FOSS4G tools.

The site is open for abstract submissions for these tracks.

Hand held scanners closer to revolutionizing the construction industry

At the SPAR International Conference in April 2014, Kirk Knorr from Burns & McDonnell and Gregory Lawes of point3D gave a presentation about their experience using a handheld scanner from DotProduct LLC , a relatively new startup.  This is a professional device intended for engineers and others working in the construction industry.  It is basically a 7" Android tablet with a compact near infrared structured light and rgb 3D imaging system.  It weighs less than a kilogram and is accurate for engineering purposes at distances up to 3.3 meters.  It costs thousands of dollars, much less than the tens of thousands of dollars for terrestrial laser scanners.  Kirk Knorr and an engineer from Bechtel reported that he had been using the device on live construction projects for a year and in their view the DotProduct and similar handheld devices are going to revolutionize how we do construction. They foresaw this happening very soon, within a year.

Now a major metrology company FARO has announced the Freestyle3D Scanner, which is a high precision, handheld scanner which generates high-definition point clouds.  It can be used to scan objects within a range of half a meter to 3 meters away with a resolution in 3D of  better than 1.5mm with a image point density of up to 45,000 points/m² at 0.5m and up to 10,500 points/m² at 1m.  The total scan volume can include up to 8.1m³.  The device weighs less than a kilogram with dimensions 26cm x 31cm x 10.5cm.  The scanner is attached to a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet for visualizing the point cloud as you scan.

Some of the applications of the scanner include architecture and interior design, restoration and 3D modelling, construction and facility management, and forensic applications including accident reconstruction.

Thanks to LiDAR News for pointing me to this.

W3C and Open Geospatial Consortium announce new collaboration

The social value of the Web is that it enables human communication, commerce, and opportunities to share knowledge. One of World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.  This includes Web access from mobile phones and other mobile devices as well as the use of Web technology connecting intelligent devices in consumer electronics, printers, broadcasting, automobiles, and utility and transportation networks, to name just a few - what is becoming collectively known as the Internet of Things (IoT).

Everything has location.  In the context of the Internet of Things it is increasingly being realized that location is vital to the emerging field of connected devices.   To improve interoperability and integration of spatial data on the Web the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) are announcing today a new collaboration which is intended to make the geospatial a fundamental component of the Web.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international industry consortium of over 500 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web.

There is a gap between the specialized world of geographic data and that of the Web.  Bridging GIS systems and the Web will create a network effect that enriches both worlds.  At a March 2014 Workshop on Linking Geospatial Data, co-organized by OGC and W3C and in partnership with the UK Government Linked Data Working Group, Google, and the Ordnance Survey, participants discussed the challenges of integrating geospatial data and technology into the web.  Based on the challenges identified in that Workshop, the collaboration announced today will enable publishers of spatial data, providers of services that consume the data, and application developers to establish common practices and reduce the cost of integrating spatial data on the Web. The Geospatial and Web communities will document use cases and requirements with the goal of developing best practices for publishing spatial data on the Web.  The collaboration is also expected to result in new W3C Recommendations and OGC standards.