How do we get data from a satellite down to Earth? How do we task a satellite?  Today the answer is likely to be via radios and a system of downlink sites or ground stations. As the satellites pass overhead or within “line of sight” data can be sent via radio from the satellite to the receiver on the ground.  If you don’t want to wait until the satellite can see the ground station, you can send your data to a geostationary satellite that can always see a ground station and let it send the...

There is a general understanding that it is becoming increasingly difficult to extract meaning from all the data we are collecting without using AI.   But what is AI, and how did we end up in a situation where it is identifying wolves from dogs based on the presence of snow in the background of images?    What does this mean for spatial analysis using tabular data?    What is explainability?    This is not a "how-to" do spatial analysis using an AI episode, it is an overview of  AI in...

PYGEOAPI is a Python server implementation of the OGC API suite of standards ... which might be really useful if you are thinking about upgrading from the first-generation OGC standards to the second-generation OGC standards  ... or if need to implement a custom data source or custom functionality to your web services.    https://pygeoapi.io   If you are using MapServer, Geoserver, Mapproxy, QGIS server, or Deegree you might find this episode interesting!   Relevant previous...

So why would anyone want to put alot of data into a browser? Well, for a lot of the same reasons that edge computing and distributed computing have become so popular. You get the data a lot closer to the user and you don’t have to pay for the compute ;)  … this sounds great but as I found out during this conversation it's not as easy as it might seem!  There are a lot of trade-offs that need to be evaluated when moving data and analytics to the client.   Nick Rabinowitz  Senior Staff Software...

Sounds like a great idea right?   In this episode, Paul Ramsey explains why you shouldn't ... unless you want to ... and how you can ... if you have to.   You can find Paul's blog here: http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/about   Previous episodes with Paul  Spatial SQL https://mapscaping.com/podcast/spatial-sql-gis-without-the-gis/   GDAL https://mapscaping.com/podcast/gdal-geospatial-data-abstraction-library/   Dynamic Vector...

A knowledge graph is a network of relationships between real work entities and in this episode, you will learn how and why knowledge graphs might be a better choice than spatial joins!    Further listening! The H3 Indexing System https://mapscaping.com/podcast/h3-geospatial-indexing-system/   Hex Tiles https://mapscaping.com/podcast/hex-tiles/   Points of Interest data https://mapscaping.com/podcast/all-of-the-places-in-the-world/   Dark...

I am sure you have heard of ChatGPT by now so the hope of this episode is to give you some more context about what is it built on and how it works.   To do that I invited Daniel Whitneck back on the podcast  You can connect with Daniel here https://datadan.io/   and listen to his previous episode here: https://mapscaping.com/podcast/an-introduction-to-artificial-intelligence/   This is perhaps the quote for the episode that I have spent the most time thinking about "We always thought AI would...

Computer vision is a field of artificial intelligence (AI) that enables computers and systems to derive meaningful information from digital images.    You might think that this is exactly what we are doing in earth observation but there are a few important differences between computer vision and what some people refer to as GeoAI.   This week Jordi inglada is going to help you understand what those differences are and why it's not always possible to use Computer vision techniques in the field...

Data is what data does  - more about that later on ;)  This episode focuses on designing for privacy, how do we create value from location data without sacrificing personal privacy?  Well, you might start by adhering to the Enhanced Standards For Precise Location Information which means that information about sensitive places like churches, hospitals, military bases, and LGBTQ+ spaces isn't misused or sold. Plus, they protect our exact location from being shared with law enforcement or bounty...

When comparing multispectral and hyperspectral data it is not simply a case of “more data more better”!  With hyperspectral you have “The curse of Dimensionality” but you also get more flexibility to pick exactly what bands you want to use! With multispectral you have less noise but you also have less data! This episode is designed to be a beginner's guide to the differences between hyperspectral and multispectral satellite data.   You can reach out to Gordon Logie here:...

This week we are going to learn how Foursquare is trying to identify and map all of the places in the world!  Foursquare uses a mixture of crowd source and data conflation to maintain a database of 205 million places ... and it's not easy! Each phone might see the world slightly differently in terms of location accuracies and crowdsourcing data means that people "check-in" at different locations.    Kyle Fowler - Senior Director, Engineering at Foursquare Is going to give a behind-the-scenes...

Protomaps is a serverless system for planet-scale maps, it's an umbrella project consisting of a few different components one of which is PMtiles. PMtiles is “Cloud Optimise Geotiff” for web mapping, what this means is that you can build a base map and host it without the need for a server!  PMtiles is a single file that you can access via HTTP range requests in the same way that you can access data within a Cloud Optimised Geotiff with the important difference that PMtiles can also contain...

Storytelling with point clouds   This is not your typical point clouds episode! Today we are talking about how to use point clouds to tell a story. During this episode, you will hear Benjamin Muller talk about using a point cloud to make a film about the city of St Gallen in Switzerland and you might be tempted to think … what a waste of time! Why not use the data to make better measurements that lead to better decisions?  How many IT projects have failed, not because they were based on bad...

You are about to meet Peter Spencer, a Freelance Archaeologist, Surveyor, and Geomatics Specialist You are also about to learn how geospatial tech and techniques are being applied in the field of archaeology at an object scale with laser scanning that enables fragments of skeletons from all over the world to be 3D printed and pieced together locally. At a site scale LiDAR, ground penetrating radar, and photogrammetry have completely changed the game in terms of modeling archaeological sites...

Warning! this podcast episode is not as boring as it sounds!   While geospatial standards are boring on purpose ... this episode is not .- If you woke up this morning wanting to listen to a boring podcast episode about geospatial standards this is not for you!    Scott Simmons ( OGC’s Chief Standards Officer )  https://www.ogc.org/about/team/scott-simmons/ helps us understand what a Geopose is and how it might be used, why we need GeoRSS, and something called SensorThings!     You will also...

It sounds like a clickbait title, right? And to be fair I am trying to capture your attention but this is not clickbait in the sense that the title makes a promise that the episode lives up to!  This is not a “get-rich-quick-scheme” its a story about someone like us who is earning money by using his geospatial skills to teach others. Konrad Hafen is a hydrologist with the USGS and runs two websites and a youtube channel, he is a geospatial content creator who makes money from ads and from...

Distributing Geospatial Data - Every wondered why you might what to do this? Or maybe you understand the why but are unsure about the how?  Perhaps you have heard people talk about partitioning data or sharding data, you might have heard some of these terms used in the context of enterprise-scale geospatial systems and parallel processing and thought … Wow … that sounds daunting! This podcast episode is meant to be a soft introduction to the world of distributed geospatial databases and some...

So you might be wondering why the United Nations World Food Programme needs a geospatial support unit. Let me give you a brief overview,    Basically, they curate and maintain global datasets that they use to model the risk of sudden-onset disasters than might lead to a food security risk. They use this model to send out early warnings to at-risk communities and help with the response when disasters happen.    Of course, there is more to it ...   But I will let Rohini Sampoornam Swaminathan (...

Personally, I don't feel like aerial imagery gets the attention it deserves! So I invited Michael Bewley - Senior Director of AI Systems at Nearmap back on the podcast to help bring us up to speed on the state of the art of capturing, processing, and building a business around aerial imagery. If you don’t care about aerial imagery, think of this as a story about turning unstructured data into structured data into insights and building a business around that.   You can connect with Micheal on...

This episode covers a wide range of topics from the role of geospatial in systems thinking - representing natural systems in location systems and how we can apply the technology behind virtual worlds to the real world. During this conversation, it became clear to me that technology should be used in service of culture and not the other way around. I think in terms of geospatial we have an interesting opportunity to have an outsized impact if we can just figure out how to market it!    I often...

My guest on the show today is Mike. Today Mike is the founder of a software startup called ChroneChards, but he started as a cartographer for an adventure race and Patagonia. So he has come a long way. A couple of other really interesting points about Mike. He is a self-taught software developer and he is a self-taught businessman. The reason why I mentioned this means that if he can teach himself these things, then you can do it too. And as you'll discover later on in the episode, all you...

If 80% of all data has a spatial component why do we need to approach mature and emerging markets differently?  With everyone racing to democratize location technology why is GIS still a valuable skill?  What are consultancies looking for when they hire geospatial consultants?   Answers to these questions and much more in this episode where we focus on geospatial consulting, as a business and career path.    Todd Slind - VP of Technology at Locana.co Connect with Todd on Twitter or...

FROM THE ARCHIVE!   Calculating the location of your mobile device ( the blue dot ) is not as straightforward as you might imagine. It involves databases of wifi hotspots, 3D city models, IMU's, GNSS, your proximity to cell towers, and maybe something called visual positioning. Ed Parsons - Googles Geospatial Technologist explains    previous podcast episode that you might enjoy! SATELLITE-BASED AUGMENTATION SYSTEM - A BASE STATION IN THE SKY POSITIONING AS A SERVICE AND THE ROLE OF...

Tropical forests are large sources of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, due to deforestation. They could instead be a big part of the climate solution.  Through Norway’s International Climate & Forests Initiative (NICFI), users can now access high-resolution, analysis-ready mosaics of the world’s tropics in order to help reduce and reverse the loss of tropical forests, combat climate change, conserve biodiversity, and facilitate sustainable development for noncommercial...

Cloud Optimized Point Clouds ( COPC) allow you to stream point cloud data!  Cloud Optimized Geotiffs made raster data streamable and now its time for Point Clouds to be just as accessible!    https://weeklyosm.eu/  weeklyOSM updates the community, on a weekly basis, about what is going on in the OSM Universe.   Thanks, OpenCage!  https://opencagedata.com/   Related Podcast Episodes   PDAL - Point Data Abstraction...