Tuesday, March 26, 2013

PCI Geomatics Releases GXL 2013



RICHMOND HILL, Ontario, Canada—March 26, 2013: PCI Geomatics, a world-leading developer of remote sensing and photogrammetric software and systems, announced today the release of its GeoImaging Accelerator (GXL) 2013 - the latest version of the company’s proven, high-performance, and scalable image processing solution.

“With this year’s release, we have focused on key areas that will improve the overall workflow and quality of output imagery,” said David Piekny, Product Manager at PCI Geomatics. “GXL 2013 provides new tools that allow users to generate Digital Surface Models from large data sets of hundreds to thousands of stereo pairs, and apply new, innovative 2.5D hybrid editing techniques – users can make changes to their elevation models and inspect the resulting quality of orthos at full resolution, in real time. This approach will greatly reduce the manual adjustments and editing, which are typically required in post-production steps, since errors can be spotted instantly and addressed.”

Other key development areas include a redesigned true-ortho capability, as well as improved automated cutline generation methods that model the presence of features in overlapping imagery (such as buildings, trees, vehicles, etc.) to avoid them, resulting in cleaner, nicer-looking ortho-mosaics.

“We believe ortho-mosaicked products generated by GXL 2013 will significantly reduce overall production timelines and provide substantial cost savings over more traditional methods,” said Brad Schmidt, VP, Sales and Marketing at PCI Geomatics. “GXL 2013 continues our legacy of providing cutting-edge geoimaging technology for both the satellite and aerial image processing markets.”

About GeoImaging Accelerator (GXL) 
GXL technology combines high-performance computing with PCI Geomatics expertise to provide significant improvements in automation, speed and efficiency. By optimizing and distributing automated workflows, traditional image-processing is elevated to industrial-strength production.

For more information about the GXL software solution, visit:
www.pcigeomatics.com/gxl

About PCI Geomatics
PCI Geomatics is a world-leading developer of software and systems for remote sensing, imagery processing, and photogrammetry.  With more than 30 years of experience in the geospatial industry, PCI is recognized globally for its excellence in providing software for accurately and rapidly processing both satellite and aerial imagery.  PCI has installed more than 30 thousand licenses, in over 150 countries worldwide. Find out more about PCI Geomatics at www.pcigeomatics.com.

Press Contact
Kevin R. Jones
Director, Marketing and Communications
T: 819-770-0022 x 214
E: jones@pcigeomatics.com
Web: www.pcigeomatics.com 
Twitter: @pcigeomatics


Highlights in GXL 2013
GXL-Satellite 2013 has been designed to expand the workflows available in the high-speed, automated environment, and to improve the overall system experience and usefulness.
The automated, expandable GXL-S system offers twice the cost performance for processing your imagery.   Plus, the system can be customized to your needs and supported by our knowledgeable professionals.
Platform Support
GXL 2013 will continue to support both Windows and Linux platforms.  Installations can be provided for the following 64-Bit Operating Systems:

  • 64-bit Microsoft Windows
  • Red Hat Linux
  • Ubuntu Linux
  • SUSE Linux



New Workflows
For GXL 2013 there have been several additions to the available workflows.  These include:

  • NEW  DSM Extraction and DTM filtering, with automated processing and GXL web-interface for job submission, including algorithms for:
    • Epipolar rotation
    • DSM extraction from stereo imagery
    • Geocoding
    • DSM-to-DTM filtering
  • NEW 2.5D ‘Hybrid’ DEM Editing.  For use with the DSM Extraction and DTM Filtering job, this manual QA tool improves your editing workflow with the following features:
    • Sun-shaded relief, colour display to better visualize elevation features
    • Switch back and forth between elevation model and ortho-preview on the fly
    • Simple DEM editing using polygons with various filters and blend widths
    • Immediate regeneration of the ortho preview layer
    • Fast calculation and display of full-resolution ortho output of preview area
    • Flicker between left and right images to check for relief displacement
  • NEW  Industry-leading atmospheric correction tools, with automated processing and GXL web-interface for job submission, including algorithms for:
    • Haze detection and removal
    • Cloud detection and masking


System Improvements
Interface Improvements

  • User administration and job filtering in the GXL web-interface
  • Language support for internationalization
  • New features for manual QA of GCPs, Tie Points and model calculation, including:
    • Handle 1000’s of images at once
    • View a project “Snapshot” 
    • Immediate recalculation of accuracies after each edit
    • Graphical point selection / deletion
    • Overlap identification
    • Highlight potential collection points / images
    • Improved processing speed at all steps



Workflow Improvements

  • Faster model calculation / bundle adjustment, including improvements to:
    • Automatic Ground Control Point Collection (AUTOGCP2)
    • Automatic Tie Point Collection (AUTOTIE2)
    • Tie Point Refinement (TPREFN2)
    • Automatic Chip Matching (AUTOCHIP2)
    • OpenMP enabled
    • FFT Phase Matching algorithm available and found to be more robust than standard cross-correlation method
  • Improved colour and vibrancy in output mosaics, including:
    • NEW  Localized Adaptive Enhancement (LAE) that normalizes 16-bit imagery to maintain even contrast and brightness throughout an image.  This reduces over- and under-exposure, providing maximum detail at any scale.
  • NEW  Minimum-squared difference method for cutlines
    • Improves automated cutline selection, reducing manual editing time
  • Local cutline avoidance masks now included as a mosaic option
    • Supports atmospheric correction workflow
  • Better e-mail notification scripts
  • Simpler installation procedure
  • More detailed documentation


Data Interchange
GXL 2013 includes improved data support, including the following new sensors and formats:

  • Pleiades 
  • ZY3
  • CBERS02C
  • UAVSAR
  • ESRI Geodatabase – vector writing support
  • ENVI File Support
  • Panorama (.SXF)
  • NGA High Resolution DEM (Read only)


Thursday, March 21, 2013

PCI Introduces Historical Airphoto Processing (HAP) Workflow


RICHMOND HILL, Ontario, Canada—March 21, 2013: PCI Geomatics, a world-leading developer of remote sensing and photogrammetric software and systems, announced today that it has introduced the Historical Airphoto Processing Workflow, also known as HAP.

The HAP workflow was designed to work with historical airphotos, providing a semi-automated means to align, orthorectify, and mosaic from hundreds to thousands of digitally scanned airphotos. The system can greatly reduce manual labor, double throughput, and achieve high accuracy.

PCI is introducing the HAP workflow as part of its new Production Workflows, which provide out-of-the-box automation designed for specific applications. The HAP workflow takes this one step further by providing customers with a pre-built semi-automated solution, training, and on-site customization, as may be required. This way, customers are up and running quickly with a powerful solution.

“We developed the HAP workflow in response to a need for a solution to correct large volumes of historical airphotos – some libraries have holdings in excess of several millions of airphotos,” said David Piekny, Product Manager at PCI Geomatics. “The HAP workflow provides organizations throughout the world a new method to preserve, and put into operational use, their valuable historical airphotos. By correcting the imagery, and making it available in modern GIS and Image Processing software environments, users can benefit from multi-year image analysis, tracking changes that have occurred across the landscape.”

The HAP workflow leverages multi-pass processing and automated ground control and tie point collection, producing an accurate math model that can be used to produce individual orthos or seamless ortho-mosaics from hundreds or thousands of airphotos; even without camera calibration files. The system is built with PCI’s proven Geomatica technology and can be scaled to meet all requirements for historical airphoto correction.

For more information on the Historical Airphoto Processing (HAP) Workflow, visit:

About PCI Geomatics
PCI Geomatics is a world-leading developer of software and systems for remote sensing, imagery processing, and photogrammetry.  With more than 30 years of experience in the geospatial industry, PCI is recognized globally for its excellence in providing software for accurately and rapidly processing both satellite and aerial imagery.  PCI has installed more than 30 thousand licenses, in over 150 countries worldwide. Find out more about PCI Geomatics at www.pcigeomatics.com.

Press Contact
Kevin R. Jones
Director, Marketing and Communications
T: 819-770-0022 x 214
E:
jones@pcigeomatics.com
Web:
www.pcigeomatics.com
Twitter: @pcigeomatics

Thursday, March 14, 2013

PCI Geomatics Software Supports SPOT-6 Sensor



RICHMOND HILL, Ontario, Canada—March 14, 2013: PCI Geomatics, a world-leading developer of remote sensing and photogrammetric software and systems, announced today that it now supports SPOT-6 imagery within its software suite.

SPOT-6, a new satellite built and operated by Astrium was launched on September 9th, 2012 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India. SPOT-6 is an optical imaging satellite capable of imaging the Earth with a resolution of 1.5 m Panchromatic and 6 m Multispectral (Blue, Green, Red, Near-IR).

“We have worked closely with Astrium and the European Commissions’ Joint Research Centre (JRC) to validate our software’s support for SPOT-6  imagery”, said Dr. Philip Cheng, Senior Scientist at PCI Geomatics. “PCI’s customers rely on us to provide support when new sensors are launched. Adding support for SPOT-6 was relatively straightforward as the data format is very similar to other PCI supported sensors that have been recently launched by Astrium, such as the Pleiades Constellation”.

The support for SPOT-6 will be available in the Geomatica 2013 SP2 product release. PCI’s support for SPOT-6 will include RPC model creation (allowing for very accurate corrections using the satellite orbital ephemeris data) as well as very rapid and high quality Pansharpening capability.

For more information on PCI’s support for SPOT-6 and processing capabilities that are available within Geomatica 2013, visit: http://www.pcigeomatics.com/products/geomatica-2013.

About PCI Geomatics
PCI Geomatics is a world-leading developer of software and systems for remote sensing, imagery processing, and photogrammetry.  With more than 30 years of experience in the geospatial industry, PCI is recognized globally for its excellence in providing software for accurately and rapidly processing both satellite and aerial imagery.  PCI has installed more than 30 thousand licenses, in over 150 countries worldwide. Find out more about PCI Geomatics at www.pcigeomatics.com.
Press Contact
Kevin R. Jones
Director, Marketing and Communications
T: 819-770-0022 x 214
E:
jones@pcigeomatics.com
Web:
www.pcigeomatics.com
Twitter: @pcigeomatics

GeoEye-1 DEM Generation for Mining - Whitepaper


White Paper: Automatic DEM Generation using GeoEye-1 Stereo Data In Mining Applications
This article describes how high resolution satellite data can be used to extract accurate digital elevation model (DEM) for a mining application in the Amazon region.  The resulting vertical accuracy can be within RMS error of 1.5m when using a minimum number of ground control points.

Read more...

Historical Airphoto Processing (HAP) Workflow Whitepaper


White Paper: Semi-Automated Historical Airphoto Processing (HAP)
Geometric Correction of historical imagery is a complicated, time consuming and expensive operation. Due to a lack of development related to streamlining these operations, a significant amount of manual processing time must be invested into current projects. A system capable of achieving reliable accuracy that considerably reduces project turnaround time is required to help manage processing costs and improve the operating capacity.


Read more....

Monday, March 11, 2013

PCI Geomatics and GeoImage to Offer Free Workshops in Australia


RICHMOND HILL, Ontario, Canada—March 11, 2013: PCI Geomatics, a world-leading developer of remote sensing and photogrammetric software and systems, announced today that they, together with its Australian Reseller, GeoImage, will offer a series of free workshops in Perth (March 22nd, 2013), Brisbane (March 26th) and Canberra (March 28th).
Join PCI and GeoImage to better understand the variety of offerings from PCI Geomatics and how you can use the software to gain operational efficiencies. Informative sessions will be delivered on the following:

Geomatica
PCI’s Desktop Image Processing software – featuring Geomatica 2013’s latest advances, including atmospheric correction, improved support for large projects, and detailed digital elevation model extraction.

Geomatica Discover
Geomatica Discover is a new, standalone software tool for automated data discovery on local or network storage devices. An intuitive web-based interface provides the ability to crawl drives for geospatial data, then expose the database through web-based catalogs that can be easily filtered. This tool can be used to reduce the time spent searching for existing data, or to build data requirements based on existing and missing geospatial data holdings.

Historical Airphoto Processing (HAP) Production Workflow
Significantly reduce manual labor, double production speeds, and achieve high levels of accuracy with the semi-automated Historical Airphoto Workflow.

GXL
Designed to be scalable and high speed, the GeoImaging Accelerator (GXL) can process terabytes of satellite and aerial imagery per day through the power of distributed, GPU-enabled computing. See some of the latest advancements in GXL processing, including True Ortho, 2.5 D DEM editing, and advanced cutline generation methods to reduce manual Quality Assurance on large projects.

To attend the free workshops, you must RSVP – simply follow this link:


About PCI Geomatics
PCI Geomatics is a world-leading developer of software and systems for remote sensing, imagery processing, and photogrammetry.  With more than 30 years of experience in the geospatial industry, PCI is recognized globally for its excellence in providing software for accurately and rapidly processing both satellite and aerial imagery.  PCI has installed more than 30 thousand licenses, in over 150 countries worldwide. Find out more about PCI Geomatics at www.pcigeomatics.com.

Press Contact
Kevin R. Jones
Director, Marketing and Communications
T: 819-770-0022 x 214
E:
jones@pcigeomatics.com
Web:
www.pcigeomatics.com Twitter:@pcigeomatics