Geo Week Round-Up: Urban Transformation

Welcome to the Geo Week News weekly update! The articles below have been hand picked from recent geospatial news. A new update is posted each Monday.

Missed last week? Browse all the weekly updates here.

Geospatial Photos — Can Every Pixel Have Real World Spatial Coordinates?

A blog from Pixel8 Co-Founder Sean Gorman in which he shares the team’s latest experiments to see if they can compute real world spatial coordinates for every pixel in a standard mobile phone photo.

How to Visualize Urban Transformation

Often, urban transformation over time is shown and visualized using satellite images and looking at the world from a bird’s-eye view. In order to increase the understanding of urban transformation and it’s impact, such visualizations could benefit from two things added: a third dimension and interactivity.

How Geospatial Data Supports a Digital Railway Project

The scope of the Rail Baltica Global Project comprises 870km of tracks, 25km of major structures and more than 400 bridge structures (bridge, overpasses, viaducts, pedestrian crossings and animal crossings), as well as three freight terminals and seven international passenger stations. Besides that there are rolling stock maintenance facilities, an energy subsystem and signaling. This article zooms in on the pivotal role geospatial technology plays in the BIM strategy that underpins the digital version of Rail Baltica.

Torrential Rains Flood Indonesia

Since the rains began, researchers at NASA and partner agencies have been analyzing satellite- and ground-based data to locate potentially flooded areas. The flood proxy map above highlights areas that were likely to be flooded (indicated in blue) as of January 2, 2020. The data is currently being used by the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance center, which has been working with the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB) to guide emergency responders. The information has also been used in reports to inform the Indonesian public.