Better late than never, and from now on in a printer friendly format…

VirtualGeography is a collection of interesting snippets from all over the shop, dealing with industry issues concerning the computer based visualisation of geography and a few other associated (or otherwise) interesting bits and pieces. You are receiving this either because you subscribed to VirtualGeography or you have had recent dealings with VizMAP Pty Ltd. If you do not wish to receive further instalments of VirtualGeography, just click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this e-mail. 

It is planned that a new VirtualGeography is pushed out every now and then when I’ve collated enough interesting bits and pieces, which shouldn’t be too big a drain on your mailbox if you’re not already subscribed (of course it won’t be a drain on your mailbox if you ARE subscribed, either ). The regularity of the distribution may vary depending on what else is going on at VizMAP at the time. If you know of anyone who might like to get VirtualGeography, feel free to forward this to them and ask them to subscribe. By the way, subscription and unsubscription details are at the bottom (click here).

So, g’day to all you enthusiasts requiring to visualise and simulate both urban and rural geographic information (GIS), cartography, photogrammetry, remote sensing, digital elevation modelling (DEM) and general mapping.

By the spelling of "Visualisation" you may have already guessed that we’re not US based – that’s a good thing, or at least not a bad thing. This comes to you from Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia, where it’s beautiful one day and perfect the next.

The link between visualisation and mapping may seem a little esoteric if this is your first encounter with this sort of stuff, but let me tell you, the bond is significant… but enough of that: on with the show… I hope you like it. Any feedback you might have is highly appreciated. E-mail me here to make your comments. Enjoy… Graeme Brooke VizMAP Pty Ltd

P.S. You’ll need an active internet connection to view any images that are in the content. We’ve done it this way to keep the size of the e-mail to a minimum.

"We’re quite pleased and excited to have been selected for a Phase II award," said Dr. Chris McGlone, Director of Mapping and Civil Applications. "We believe that DEM fusion represents an important and challenging topic, given the need to accommodate DEMs derived from a wide variety of sources. Airborne LIDAR, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), scanned maps, and photogrammetrically derived contours and grids all represent increasingly popular elevation data sources, and there is a strong government and commercial need for tools that
can merge arbitrary DEMs in a principled manner to generate DEM products with improved accuracy and precision."

"This award makes possible the development and commercialization of fast and robust DEM fusion tools, based on our Phase I efforts," remarked Dr. Jefferey A. Shufelt, principal investigator on the SBIR project. "We are pleased to continue our work with the U.S. Army Engineer and Research Development Center (ERDC-TEC) at Fort Belvoir, whose technical members have helped to focus our efforts."

SAN JOSE, CALIF. – March 10, 2004 – Quantum3D®, Inc., a leading provider of open architecture, realtime 3D visual computing solutions for the Visual Simulation and Training (VST) and Embedded Visual Computing (EVC) markets, announced today that the Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) has selected Quantum3D Independence™ as the image generator (IG) solution for the F-15K Training System, which consists of a F-15K Weapon Systems Trainer (WST) and a Cockpit Procedures Trainer (CPT). The Training System is part of a contract recently awarded to Boeing by the Republic of Korea (ROK), in which the ROK will purchase 40 F-15K aircraft and associated equipment. 

For each F-15K training system, Quantum3D will deliver two eleven-channel Independence IGs and spares to Boeing, which will be deployed to the ROK beginning in January 2005. The F-15K selection of Independence follows Boeing’s prior selection of Quantum3D IG Solutions for numerous flight and weapons system training programs including F-15E MTC, T-38 ATD, F-15 CTSS and F-15C DMT systems. For more information on the F-15K program, please visit http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2002/q2/nr_020419m.html. 

The GeoVRML Working Group has a mailing list where discussions and developments are posted. Currently, this list consists of over 200 members drawn from a wide gamut of backgrounds and nationalities, including members from industry, government, and academia; geographers, geologists, computer graphics developers, and of course interested hobbyists. 

The group has recently produced the GeoVRML 1.1 specification, providing a number of extensions to VRML for supporting geographic applications. There is also an accompanying Open Source Java sample implementation of these nodes. Finally, these nodes are part of Amendment 1 to the VRML97 ISO standard. 

Sample still images from the completed dynamic visualisation database are displayed here. An active internet connection is required to be able to view these scenes.
 

FutureFlight will enable a unique 360-degree out-the-window visualization of Mars. The view will be based on the rover’s perspective but viewers can adopt other perspective and thus effectively move through the scene. This ability to smoothly navigate through the scene provides a three dimensional sense and an immediate visceral understanding of the remote environment.

The new database will be of higher fidelity than previously available from the Mars Pathfinder landing site; the stereo color images from the rover, Spirit, are of higher resolution and these images will be combined in the new database with high-resolution images from the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter.

The panoramic presentation of images acquired by the rover can provide mission scientists an improved situational and positional awareness of the rover in its remote environment. This is in contrast to what is provided now: an elongated hard copy print, stereo images viewed through red/green spectacles or a series of TV monitor presentations.

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