Between the Poles

Migrating to AutoCAD Map 3D 2013 from 2010 and 2011

Autodesk has made available an AutoCAD Map 3D 2013 Profile Migration Hotfix that will help you migrate settings from Map 3D 2010 or Map 3D 2011.

Autodesk releases Infrastructure Modeler 360 for the cloud

Autodesk has released a new service as part of Autodesk 360, called Autodesk BIM 360.  One of the new tools in BIM 360 is a Conceptual Design and Feasibility Evaluation service, which enables users of Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler to publish, store, and manage large models in the cloud. Users can invite other team members to access, download, and edit shared models.  If you ever used Project Galileo Online, this may look familiar.  Users can invite other team members to access, download, and edit shared models.

Introductory videos are available.

This part of Autodesk BIM 360 is a cloud-based collaboration service available to subscription customers.

Heatmap of the Blitz in Google Maps

Keir Clarke on the Google Maps Mania blog has developed a Blitz Map, which is is an animated heat map of the bombs dropped on London on the first night of the London Blitz in the Second World War. At this point he has included half of the over 800 bombs.  He's using the new heatmaps function in the Google Maps API.

Autodesk announces Project Artoo for geospatial data cleanup

Project Artoo for AutoCAD Map 3D is a free technology preview available on Autodesk Labs.  Artoo is designed to cleanup geospatial data to correct common errors that can be introduced during digitizing, importing, surveying, scanning, and drafting such as duplicates, undershoots, snapping, dangles, node removal, sliver removal, and removing zero-length and short lines.

Project Artoo supports cleanup operations on FDO-connected data stores, including Oracle Spatial, Microsoft SQL Server, SDF, SQLite, and ESRI SHP files and geodatabases.

Canada's spatial data infrastructure (SDI): past, present and future

Prashant Shukle, Director General of the Mapping Information Branch (MIB), Natural Resources Canada,  gave an overview of the Canadian experience in developing a national spatial data infrastructure (SDI).  He echoed the Minister of Natural Resource's presentation the previous day in saying that mapping has been inextricably linked to Canada's nation building, which is perhaps not surprising given that Canada is the second largest country in the world in terms of surface area.  I hadn't known that the Geological Survey of Canada was founded in 1842 (at that time in Upper Canada), that a legal survey was implemented in Canada in 1871, just a few years after Confederation, that the first atlas of Canada was produced in 1906, or that it was almost a hundred years after that that the atlas was put online.  According to Prashant Canada was the first country in the world with an online national atlas.  Together these initiatives provided the basis for the resource extraction industry, the parcel fabric (cadastre) and taxation, and the transportation network, pretty fundamental infrastructure for any country in the modern age.  As I have mentioned seevral times, Canada developed the first geographic information system for the Canada Land Inventory.

GeoConnections, the formation of which as a Federal responsibility according to Prashant was suggested by the provinces and territories, was founded in 1999 with the objective of developing a standards-based Canadian geospatial data infrastructure (CGDI).

It is interesting that over the past few years, the Mapping Information Branch's budget has shrunk by 43%, reflecting an increasing role for the provinces, territories, and the private sector in mapping and geospatial as well as the impact of technology in dramatically increasing the productivity of MIB geomatics practitioners.

Future

There are even greater changes coming in the the next few years. In the area of governance, there is a new combined Federal Committee on Geomatics and Earth Observation, that combines the responsibilities of existing committees including the Canadian Geomatics Community Roundtable and the Canadian Council on Geomatics.

The government's focus on the citizen means that the open data initiative will continue to get attention.  Prashant said that the government was even embracing volunteered geospatial data, also known as crowd-sourced, albeit in a cautious way that will ensure that it is trusted, verified and accurate.

The government will continue to encourage technology evolution through standards and interoperability.  It plans to merge MIB and the Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing by 2014.  A member of the audience in a comment/question after Prashant's presentation who was familiar with the U.S. experience in attempting to do this, suggested that the very different cultures mapping and earth observation are makes integrating the two organizations a challenge.

There will be a continued focus on technical and scientific excellence.  Prashant mentioned radar imagery in particular, which I assumed referred to MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) existing Radarsat-2 and the proposed Radarsat Constellation programs.

 In the future, the areas that will get increasing focus are the North including the national and international Arctic, water, the development of a Federal geospatial platform, modelled on the U.S. Geospatial One-Stop site, and participating in international organizations, including the UN's GGIM initiative.

Accessing Bing maps in an AutoCAD environment

On the Autodesk Labs site, you can find a new free technology preview, Project Basejump, that enables AutoCAD Map 3D and AutoCAD Civil 3D users to access Microsoft Bing web mapping service (WMS) maps including aerial imagery, road, traffic, and other information.  Project Basejump is a FDO provider that enables you to bring Bing Maps layers into your maps, plans, and designs as a base layer.

Project Basejump adds a Microsoft Bing Data Connection to any language version of AutoCAD Map 3D 2013 or AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013.  The technology preview will operate until June 30, 2012.

Geospatial World Forum: Creating a land registry system in Rwanda in less than five years

At the Geospatial World Forum in Amsterdam today Didier Sagashya, Deputy Director General of Lands and Mapping Department in the government of Rwanda gave a fascinating presentation about creating a land adminstration system in Rwanda.

The Organic Law of 2005 defined a new land tenure system based on security of tenure and that land administration is mandatory. There are an estimated 10 million parcels in Rwanda which has one of the highest national population densities in the world, about 400 people per km². 

Starting in 2009 Rwanda set out to create a land registry.  One of the  most interesting aspects of the Rwandan approach is that it is not based on a traditionally-surveyed cadastre.  Instead it relies on nation-wide high resolution (25 cm) photo imagery and a process that involves consulting with local people and drawing boundaries on the high resolution imagery.  At this point about 2.7 million parcels have been defined and adjudicated and land registry titles printed.  It is expected that registration of all of the 10 million parcels will be completed by 2013, which is a remarkable achievement, especially in less than five years.

The major benefit of a national land registry system is that it enables land to participate in the national economy.  For example, land can be used as collateral in applying for bank loans.  One of the interesting statistics that Didier mentioned was that last year the number of bank loan applications involving land as a collateral was about 10,000 for the entire year.  In the first quarter of 1012, the number of bank loan applications is already 6000, which suggest people are already beginning to take advantage of the new land registry system.

The other major impact that Didier mentioned that a national land registry system can have is that it can lead to sustainable land management, less erosion, for example, because presumeably if you own something you take better care of it.  This effect tends to be long-term, and Didier did not have statistics to show that this is happening, but this is one of the outcomes they are monitoring, in addition to bank loans.

AU: Optimizing the information flow from designers to construction to records

One of the major challenges facing the world's utilities is one of data management, optimizng information flows that involve multiple divisions within a utility. I have blogged about this challenge on multiple occasions (here, here, here and here).  

The basic process for designing, building and operating and maintaining a utilities network is essentially the same the world over and involves a cumbersome, inefficient, paper-based process.  Designers or planners create the initial design, called a construction drawing. Construction crews, often comprised of sub-contractors, build the facilities using paper construction drawings.  During construction, the drawing may be marked up or redlined to reflect changes in the original design.  After construction is completed, the construction drawing, now referred to as an "as-built", is forwarded to the records department.  The records department redrafts the as-built into the permanent records database, which is maintained as the company's record of its network infrastructure.

The records database is used for a variety of activities such as reports about the network requested by the regulator or by management. For work relating to connecting or disconnecting customers to the network, adding new services, repairing or replacing network facilities, the records department is responsible for preparing facilities maps to assist field staff.  The symptoms associated with this process are as-built backlogs stretching from months to years, high error rates, and data quality.  Inaccurate and out-of-date records reduce the productivity of field staff and even impact safety, the primary concern of all gas and electric utilities.

Pacific Gas and Electric

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is one of the largest combined natural gas an electric utilities in the U.S. PG&E is based in San Francisco and serves 15 million people, about half of California's population.  

Steve Parker, EO Mapping Manager at PG&E, gave an insightful presentation at Autodesk University about the information flow challenge that PG&E is working to resolve, optimizing the flow of information from designers (Estimating), through the people who build the facilities (Construction) to records (Mapping).  As Steve expressed it their goal was to minimize the effort required to capture the true representation of the final installed assets by capturing the pertinent data into PG&E systems as early in the workflow as possible, in other words, to make it easier to share graphical information between Estimating, Construction, and Mapping.  Complicating issues include the lack of defined and enforced standards for network documentation (records).  Though it sounds simple, changing this process is an incredibly difficult undertaking because it affects a lot of people and involves changing business processes that date from Thomas Edison.  As Steve said, "We are going to make history".  

Eliminating redrafting

The most critical business process improvment is pre-posting designs directly into the records database, rather than redrafting the information from paper as-builts. If as-builts come back from the field with redlines, all that needs to be entered into the records database are the redlines.  

The direct benefit is eliminating the as-built backlog, with the important benefit that the records database is more uptodate.  Another benefit is fewer errors, because data is captured electronically rather than being manually redrafted from paper as-builts. 

Aging workforce and productivity

Another major benefit is improved efficiency and productivity.  PG&E, like many other utilities, is facing the challenge of an aging workforce.  For example, Steve said that half of PG&E's mappers are eligible to retire right now.  Streamlining information flows by eliminating paper helps both designers and mappers to be more efficient and takes a lot of repetiive drudgery out of the process.

Eliminating paper maps

Another important benefit is that it enables PG&E to get away from paper maps.  An advantage of electornic maps is that they can provide information in real-time.  Secondly, it means that printing 80,000 maps periodically is no longer necessary with savings of upto $8 million per year.

Mapping the San Diego power blackout

I blogged previously about tracking the progress of tornadoes across Alabama Power's territory by mapping non-respondng smart meters.

The University of Tennessee Power Information Technology Laboratory has used a network of small, low-cost devices that plug into wall outlets to show the electric system dynamics of the Western Interconnect during the San Diego blackout in September of this year.  The devices record frequency, phase angle, and voltage every few seconds and transmit the data via the internet to the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech. GPS-synchronization of the network made it possible to show geographically how the system disturbance propagated.  

The red dots on the map are the locations of the monitors. Each line on the graph represents the frequency recorded over time by a monitor.  Frequency is shown as the vertical scale on the graph on the left and the color-coded map legend on the right.

The system frequency dropped below 60 cycles per second (Hz) for 25 seconds, indicating that demand was exceeded supply.  After this period of insufficient supply, the system automatically shed load in San Diego. The blackout suddenly reduced system demand and frequency increased rapidly above 60 Hz.

Google Earth Engine to Provide Public Access to Earth Observation Data

I ran into Matt Ball of Vector1Media last night in Waltham where Autodesk is hosting an event and he pointed me to an interview he has done recently with Rebecca Moore of Google about the Google Earth Engine, a prototype of which was demonstrated prior to COP15 in Copenhagen.  The Google Earth Engine is a repository that brings together public Earth observation data (satellite imagery, terrain datasets, and vector data such as roads, borders, population centers, soil information, climate information) into a large georeferenced data repository.   Google is working with the Group on Earth Observations , which is an international consortium of the world’s space agencies (NASA, JAXA in Japan, ESA in Europe, INPE in Brazil, and many others).  It is expected that ultimately the Earth Engine will comprise many petabytes.

The goal is not only to provide public access to Earth observation data, but also to provide an application programming interface (API) to encourage developers outside of Google to develop applications that use the data in the repository.  The Google Earth Engine will provide easy access to the data and a high performance computational platform for geoprocessing.  One of the first application areas is forest monitoring.  Tropical deforestation is happening at an increasing rate and reportedly contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions than all the emissions from transportation.  Reducing tropical deforestation is considered the low-hanging fruit of addressing GHG emissions.