May 2005

What's Inside This Month's  Sensor:

Features:

• The Director's Cut

• Company Spotlight: Aerotec

• Image of the Month

• Training Opportunities

• Upcoming Events

• Legislative Corner

• Did You Know???

• EIGS Partner News

• Seen and Heard

May Articles:

• Global Perspectives

• 21st Annual Louisiana Remote Sensing & GIS Workshop

• EIGS in the News

Robin Buchannon Director, EIGS

The Director's Cut

I thought I would take time this month to give you a “flavor” of how geospatial technologies are making their way into our everyday lives. More and more, organizations like local governments, private businesses, state agencies, and police departments are starting to realize the value of the technology and how it can be integrated to streamline everyday operations as well as address pressing issues in new, innovative and cost-effective ways. Below are selections from newspaper publications from all over the state:

• Jesse Colvin, Lowndes County E-911 director, states that improvements to the E-911 system will allow emergency crews to trace cellular phone call to within 50 feet of the caller’s location by using Global Positioning System technology. (Commercial Dispatch, Columbus, MS – April 1, 2005) 

• The Pearl River Community College Lowery Woodall Advance Technology Center in Hattiesburg conducts training for a number of clients in the use of GIS technologies that are very useful for law enforcement, agriculture, marine resources, real estate and the military. (Mississippi Business Journal, April 4, 2004)

• For more than a year, Choctaw County has been collecting data for the new Public Systems Answering Point which will identify emergency caller’s name, telephone number, and address and will eventually provide a picture of the property along with a map to the location. They have taken on the tedious task of driving to each home in the county to photograph and document the locations. (Progress-Times, Eupora, MS – March 31, 2005)

• The Pearl River County Tax Assessor Office has taken a very proactive role in improving the mapping capabilities of the county. At least one dedicated mapper from the office has been assigned to the newly developed County GIS Office. (Poplarville Democrat, March 3, 2005)

• A MDA grant matching grant is being utilized to do a GIS study of Greenwood’s industry park, complete with aerial photos and a lot information that should prove very useful to companies looking for plant sites. (Delta Business Journal, Cleveland, MS - March 2005)

• One of the most valuable pieces of equipment on the list of public safety improvements for the Southaven Police Department is a Geographic Information System. The GIS will allow police dispatchers and supervisors to track where officer are at all times and allow the department to reduce response time by sending the closest officer to a call or show the officer the most direct route to a call. (Desoto Times Today, Hernando, MS – March 18, 2005)

• Susan Kalweit and Elizabeth Matlack outlined how Mississippi is addressing its “rural challenges” head-on by establishing themselves as a Location Aware Enterprise and how Mississippi fully expects to realize significant gains in a variety of areas through the shared, standardized and coordinated application of geospatial resources. (Directions Magazine, March 18, 2005) 

By the way, when you get a chance, check out the newest resource on the EIGS website called Business Building Resources. It includes a variety of websites, tools and references that can help in all aspects of running a business from tax issues to marketing to funding opportunities.  Visit Business Building Resources

When customers go to Aerotec for a solution they know they are getting a company committed to excellence in the provision of Airborne Laser Scanning and Digital Imagery mapping services. A member of Mississippi’s geospatial technology industry cluster since 2001, Aerotec, LLC specializes in providing rapid and effective airborne lidar surveys and digital imagery solutions for the government and private industry. Aerotec's services include topographic and pathway mapping, utility route selection, volumetric determination, engineering data collection, infrastructure and asset inspection and documentation, and GIS population. 

Aerotec ended 2004 and started 2005 with explosive growth from its electric utility sector. Aerotec was selected to participate in the largest thermal re-rating project for electric power transmission in history, surpassing another recent re-rating project conducted by Aerotec in 2001-2002.

This year Aerotec launched several new products directed toward the Electric Utility Industry. The first being a transmission line routing application that allows the utilities to route new transmission lines from their workstation. This product was rolled out with the help of fellow EIGS member NVision Solutions Inc. In addition to the routing software, Aerotec plans to announce software and a partnership later this year to offer a turn-key vegetation management program for electric utility and pipeline rights-of-way. As a direct result, Aerotec has expanded its workforce in Alabama and Mississippi. In addition it recently opened a production / engineering office in Chicago, IL and expects to grow all three offices during 2005.

Outside of its core business of providing 3D engineering models to the electric utility industry, Aerotec has partnered with two other engineering firms to offer turn-key non-intrusive leak detection, mapping and repair services to the pipeline industry. Currently Aerotec is looking forward to one such turn-key project estimated to start in the summer of 2005.

Aerotec is known across North America for “thinking outside of the box” to provide creative and cost-effective solutions for its customers. Aerotec exploits the remotely sensed data (LiDAR, Digital Imagery and Thermographic Imagery) it collects and provides its customers with cost effective, engineering quality solutions and services.

Aerotec’s lidar, digital imagery, and modeling expertise can be used in a variety of industries and for a wide range of applications including: 

• Electric transmission lines, including design and thermal rating 

• Airports, including obstruction analysis, engineering, crack detection and planning

• Highways, including mapping and crack detection for bridges

• Pipelines, including mapping and leak detection

• Railroads

• Telecommunication Infrastructure

• Strip mining

• Forestry

• Water shed mapping

• Municipal documentation and planning

• Road and land development

With a wide variety of customers from Entergy and Mississippi Power to the Columbus Air Force Base and the U.S. Forest Service, Aerotec has built its business around capturing very dense and very accurate engineering quality data and turning it into 3D engineering models useful for their customers. 

Aerotec has offices located in Picayune and Stennis Space Center, Mississippi, Chicago, IL and Birmingham, Alabama. For more information about Aerotec, contact Scott Dow, 601-749-3564 or 205-335-8459, Wsdow@aerotecusa.com or visit www.aerotecusa.com. 

IMAGE OF THE MONTH

Image of The Vatican taken April 4, 2005, showing the line to view the recently deceased Pope John Paul, II.

This image provided by DigitalGlobe, an EIGS member company.

DID YOU KNOW???

Canada and the U.S. have been working together since 1999 to adopt common
geospatial data standards. By adopting standards and exchanging data more
freely, the two countries are better equipped to coordinate security
programs, manage cross-border natural resources, respond to disasters,
protect the environment, and streamline trade.  ::READ MORE::

LEGISLATIVE CORNER

The 2005 Regular Session of the Mississippi legislature has made history by ending the 2005 session on April 6 without agreeing on a budget. Most lawmakers expect to return in mid-May for a special session to approve agency budgets that could total $3.8 billion. An announcement for the special session call is expected any time now from Governor Haley Barbour.

EIGS PARTNER NEWS

EIGS is pleased to welcome its newest partner, the Center for Interdisciplinary Geospatial Information Technologies at Delta State University.  Learn more about this new center in a Partner Profile in an upcoming edition of the Sensor.

Another EIGS Partner, the National Remote Sensing and Space Law Center, is to be commended for its recent papers written by Joanne Gabrynowicz:

"The 1986 UN Principles and Current State Practice in North America," Presented to the 44th Session of the Legal Subcommittee of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, April 4, 2005, Vienna, Austria.

"Remote Sensing Law: Status Update," Presented to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Committee on International Security Studies workshop on The Evolving Rules of Space: Military and Civil/Scientific Interactions, March 4, 2005.

TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

"Introduction to ArcView" - GIT 2333
A one-week, 3 credit-hour course
July 18-22 
8:00 am -5:00 pm
NWCC Senatobia Campus

NWCC will also be offering the following 3 credit-hour courses for the fall semester:

• GIT 2333 - Introduction to ArcView (GIS)
  Senatobia Campus

• GIT 2113 - Database Construction and Maintenance
  Senatobia Campus

• GIT 2123 - Fundamentals of Geospatial Information Systems (GIS)
  Senatobia Campus

• GIT 2273 - Remote Sensing
  DeSoto Center

For more information, please contact Joyce Brasell at jbrasell@northwestms.edu.

UPCOMING EVENTS

May 15-18, 2005
National Business Incubation Association's (NBIA) 19th International Conference on
Business Incubation
Baltimore, MD

May 16th-18th, 2005
6th Annual Smart Growth Coastal Development Strategies Conference
Biloxi, Mississippi

May 17, 2005
Mississippi Association of REALTORS Smart Growth Conference
Jackson, MS

June 12-15, 2005
2005 MEMA and MCDEMA Partnership in Disaster Preparedness Conference
Gulfport, Mississippi

July 25-29, 2005
25th Annual ESRI International User Conference
San Diego, CA

September 12–14, 2005
ESRI Homeland Security GIS Summit
Denver, CO

Be sure to visit the EIGS website at:

www.eigs.olemiss.edu

SEEN AND HEARD

Joanne I. Gabrynowicz

“In less than three years the idea has moved beyond the scientific community to policymakers – people with political will. There was a strong sense of forward momentum. The push was not necessarily a result of the December 2004 tsunami tragedy, but instead was coming from a growing, if not overarching, appreciation that the world’s people need these data – and need it now.”

 -- Professor Joanne I. Gabrynowicz, director of the National Remote Sensing and Space Law Center at the University of Mississippi, on how a renewed appreciation for the value of remote sensing data is taking hold.  This was discussed when, for the third time in two years, the nations of the world convened an Earth Observation Summit to advance the idea of a truly global system of Earth monitoring devices. The most recent meeting was held in Brussels, Belgium on February 15-17, 2005.  ::READ MORE::

Global Perspectives

ASPRS Foundation
The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) has launched the ASPRS Foundation, Inc., an independently registered entity that will raise, invest, and grant funds to the ASPRS Awards and Scholarships Program. This brings back to ASPRS the original American Society of Photogrammetry (ASP) Foundation that was initially formed in 1979, and later transformed to become the International Geographic Information Foundation (IGIF).

ISRO's mapping satellite in May
BHOPAL, APRIL 11: By the first week of May, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch Carto 1, a satellite with a stereoscopic imaging, which will help with high resolution mapping of the entire continent.

NASA Personnel Changes
WHO'S WHO... Mike Griffin has made only one personnel announcement since being sworn in as NASA administrator, but that does not mean other staffing decisions have not already been made. The only announcement so far has been the promotion of Scott Pace. Scott is being moved out of the NASA spectrum policy shop into the higher ranks as Senior Advisor for Program Analysis & Evaluation. Other announcements are anticipated in the coming months.

Call for Nominations
Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions announced the call for nominations for the 2005 Carl Pulfrich Award. Z/I Imaging(R) LTD, an Intergraph company, sponsors the award in order to promote outstanding scientific, application-oriented design and/or manufacturing activities in the field of photogrammetry and remote sensing, including earth imaging applications. The biennial award is intended to honor the memory of Dr. Carl Pulfrich, a member of the scientific staff at Carl Zeiss from 1890 to 1927, during which time he directed the design of the first stereo photogrammetric and surveying instruments from Zeiss.  ::MORE INFO::

Geospatial Solutions Application Contest
Be sure to check out the Geospatial Solutions Applications Contest for creative, cutting-edge, and cost-effective applications of geospatial technologies. Applications are due May 15, 2005.  ::MORE INFO::

21st Annual Louisiana Remote Sensing & GIS Workshop

EIGS Assistant Director Chris Harvey recently attended the 21st Annual Louisiana Remote Sensing & GIS Workshop held April 19-21, 2005, in New Orleans at the Lindy Boggs International Conference Center located on the University of New Orleans Lakefront Campus. The LARSGIS Workshop focuses on professionals involved in geospatial information technologies, including automated mapping/facilities management, cartography, land use and land management, geographic information systems, remote sensing and photogrammetry, and other related geospatial technologies. Held annually, the LARSGIS Workshop has provided a venue for exploring interesting, innovative, and world-class information about the geospatial activates and efforts throughout the state. The workshop represents Louisiana’s largest gathering of geospatial information technology (GIT) professionals. EIGS companies 3001, Inc. and Digital Globe exhibited as well as EIGS partner the Gulf Coast Geospatial Center.

"The 21st Annual Louisiana Remote Sensing and GIS Workshop was a great success,” stated Larry Handley, USGS/National Wetlands Research Center and conference coordinator. “The attendance was the second highest ever with 224 participants, including 54 students. There were 14 exhibitors present, 31 paper presentations, and 19 posters. Keynote speakers included Kari Craun, president-elect of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and chief of the USGS's Mid-continent Mapping Center in Rolla, Missouri who discussed 'Making Progress Toward Implementation of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure.'” Additionally, Dr. Donald Davis of the Louisiana Governor's Oil Spill Office, gave a rousing presentation about 'Mapping a Sinking City.'

EIGS in the News

NVision selected as Innovation of the Year
Bay Press, Biloxi, MS April 6, 2005

Briefing showcases geospatial companies, opportunities
The Stennis News, March 31, 2005

Geospatial science for sale! Institute for Advanced Education in Geospatial Sciences Markets Online Education Software
Daily Journal, March 27, 2005

High-Tech Traffic Project: Researchers share Oxford-area land data online
Oxford Eagle, March 8, 2005

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