Geospatial Information Lifecycle

The fusion of sensor technology with software produces the “Information Cloud,” where imagery is fused with 3D point cloud data and connected with real-time, location-based intelligence. The Information Cloud encapsulates and preserves the source content from the various sensor inputs, while feeding the Dynamic GIS. With integrated software solutions; you can transform this data to produce reliable and actionable information. The role of the Dynamic GIS is to leverage the depth of the Information Cloud, enabling software applications to process, share, and deliver the information needed to drive decisions that protect lives, property, and infrastructure.

Capture

Sensor technology is used to capture snapshots of geography for a given location over a period of time. This includes airborne sensors (airborne digital imaging, LiDAR, UAV), satellites, and terrestrial sensors (total station, GPS, video, terrestrial LiDAR, handheld devices). Combined, these sources capture a wealth of data about a given location on the earth’s surface.

With all these sources feeding the Information Cloud, the combined data and metadata are the fuel that is fed through the geospatial information life cycle into the second engine for data fusion, processing, and production.

Process

Geospatial processing tools are used for fusing and integrating geospatial source content into software applications for the creation and update of geospatial data and information products. The result of the processing engine is a collection of data, information, and processing layers.

For example, the Intergraph GeoMedia^® product suite is a set of well-integrated applications that provide the full breadth of geospatial processing capabilities for data analysis, data sharing, and map production. ERDAS IMAGINE^® incorporates geospatial image processing and analysis and remote sensing, enabling users to easily create value-added products such as 2D and 3D images, 3D flythrough movies, and cartographic-quality map compositions from geospatial data. LPS and ImageStation^® both extend the utilization of imagery to support advanced photogrammetric operations for the production of stereo images, orthorectfied images, terrain datasets, 2D features, and 3D models from satellite and airborne imaging sources.

Share

The ability to manage, fuse, and share geospatial data across departments and regions, connecting to an organization’s hub of geospatial data and information is critical. With increasing change, data volumes expand and the data captured and processed from a wide variety of “sensing” sources creates a data management problem for finding and using geospatial data throughout an organization. By effectively managing all sources of geospatial data (including GIS, CAD, surveying, remote sensing, and photogrammetry), the value and usability of that data increases beyond departmental compartments and across spatial domains to users who have a need to understand the changing earth.

For example, ERDAS APOLLO helps users organize geospatial data, giving them the ability to find, view, and directly use the data and the resulting geographic information. Managing and delivering terabytes of imagery, terrain, and GIS data and delivering it directly to customers is essential to extending the use of geospatial data to the world.

Deliver

The delivery of geospatial data and dynamic information products is executed by on-demand geoprocessing over the Internet, to mobile clients and the cloud through vertical market-focused SaaS implementations. The delivery engine leverages standards based spatial data infrastructure (SDI) concepts, high-performance technologies, and geoprocessing Web services for delivering geospatial information to Web portals, mobile clients, and a variety of thin- and smart-client applications.

For example, Intergraph’s GeoMedia SDI Pro and SDI Portal support the delivery of geospatial data as Web services, enabling the fusion of those sources into a single map view. Extending the fusion of geospatial data to spatial modeling allows for the delivery of on-demand geo-processing, where data fused from multiple sensing systems can be integrated and fused in a spatial model and delivered as a dynamic information product.