USGS Updated Spectral Library

The USGS have released an update spectral ibrary - it even seems to contain the beginnings of an oil library. A lack of a suitable library (and cloud free dates to get images of slicks!) was one of the main problems I encountered in the iCRAG project so this is a very welcome update.

"Spectra of oil emulsions, residues and oil-contaminated marsh plants from the BP and Deepwater Horizon oil spills are included"

Primarily spill related but still better than nothing. I'm sure we have Mark Wahlberg to thank for it....

OPTIMISE BUS

OPTIMISE, an EU COST Action looking at spectral measurements from UAV are looking for respondents for a survey into people's uses of UAV for spectral measurement campaigns.

Fill it out if you have 5 mins free

No matter how many times i read that logo, i cant help but read it as OPTIMnISE.

Survey Ireland 2017

A very interesting line up at yesterday's Survey Ireland. 

Back in Malahide for the first time since 2008/9, a favourite venue over the years, the event was very well attended with topics including GSI mapping, BIM, drones, laser scanning, luas works, smart cities, satellite mapping and the Malahide viaduct collapse in 2009. I got to use some very interesting VR headwear (interestingly the 'exit' menu was accessed by looking in to a toilet bowl in the VR scene) and I saw two very interesting developments -the first was a total station/laser scanner combo made entirely of Lego and the second was a new lightweight measurement device from Leica capable of capturing spherical imagery, laser scan data and thermal imagery simultaneously.

I'll let the reader decide which is which - because I almost did not notice that one of them was made of Lego and was moving in with questions......

DIT veteran Kevin Mooney was also presented with an award at the event for his long service to Geomatics in both Ireland and abroad and took the opportunity to get a few well aimed digs in at the mucky boots in the audience - well done Kevin, for the digs and all the hard work.

I was peddling my usual wares on the 'applications of satellite imagery' and got quite a number of questions afterwards on where to get the software and data - hopefully some of the opportunities are becoming evident. I also got a nice bottle of wine for chairing the afternoon session - thanks for that SCSI.

Gorse Fires - Basic Payments Scheme

I see from The Journal that satellite imagery is being used to identify gorse burning with an eye to docking farmers through the basic payment scheme. I can certainly see how they could use it to quickly find the burning gorse using both optical (look for the fires / thermal signatures) or SAR (look for changes in backscatter following the burning) but I do not see how they can prove it was intentional using satellite imagery. I'll be following that one and may see something that the SCSI Rural group would be interested in. Additionally, the COPERNICUS emergency management service doesn't seem to have been activated - so that means the hi-res imagery wont be available free of charge for the period.

Interventions

I notice the University ePrints system has our recent paper (published in Inventions) listed as having been published in Interventions. 

I'm not sure what they are trying to tell us.

Forest Fires

I cam e across a nice link posted over on the EO & RS in Ireland blog. NASA have a near-real time satellite mapping facility for forest fires and this is quite topical right now with the gorse fires in Galway after the recent unseasonal dry weather.

The satellite mapping has identified a number of hotspots around Ireland right now but when you look at the rest of the planet you start to see some countries experiencing hundreds of occurrences, such as Mexico, Guinea, India etc. Screengrab for the Congo below.

CIG2017

The Conference of Irish Geographers 2017 was very enjoyable. I made my way to UCC (who hosted) to present our Slick Mapping results at the inaugural EO session. The usual culprits from MScs in GIS and RS were there scattered throughout the crowd. The Irish Geography community really is a tight-knit one, everyone knows everyone else and the atmosphere reminded me very much of Survey Ireland and the Geomatics community. Looking forward to next year when it is being hosted by NUIM and well done everyone involved this year.