Spaced Out :: 12 2007

Hillier, J. and Smith, M.J.
Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 33, 2266-2276.

Geomorphologically mapped data form a primary set of observations that can be used to infer former environmental conditions. Thus, objective and consistent mapping of landforms from remotely sensed data (e.g. satellite imagery, digital elevation models (DEMs) is paramount for reconstructing palaeo-environments.

This paper proposes a technique, “residual relief separation”, to enhance landforms in DEMs prior to visualization and digital mapping. This is applied to a ~600 km2 region surrounding Lough Gara, Ireland, where drumlins (~200 m wide) overlie a regional relief of hills (~10 km wide). Here, residual relief separation uses a difference in width-scale. Regional relief is approximated by a 1 km wide median filter, then subtracted to leave the drumlins in a “residual” topography. In a second step, the residual relief is normalized to allow for amplitude variations in the drumlins across the area (~5-40 m high). Finally, visualization uses a simple black-to-white colour scale for height.

Whilst not numerically out-performing other visualization techniques, this method performs equally well, and as the data are not “illuminated” there is no azimuthal bias. Additional benefits include the relatively simple calculation, intuitive visual comprehension, no emphasis of noise, and the possibility of using any desired visualization technique after the landscape has been topographically manipulated.

Smith, M.J. and Lynch, K.
Journal of Maps Student Edition, v2007, 1-10

This editorial introduces material for the launch edition of the Journal of Maps Student Edition. The Journal of Maps seeks to create greater exposure, and provide publishing opportunities, for researchers that have produced map content that would otherwise remain unpublished. To this end the journal is open access and, due to the all-encompassing inter-disciplinary nature of “maps”, publishes on a wide-range of topics. The Student Edition is targeted at supporting students in furthering their research careers. The quantity and quality of journal citations is one of the primary measures of academic success, yet few research programmes actively teach their students about academic publishing. With maps often one of the first outputs of research, the Student Edition can leverage its’ unique position across disciplines to offer a “first publishing opportunity”, thereby providing students with an environment through which they can learn from their experiences. All peer-reviews are completed internally with a focus upon positive outcomes and actionable points that can significantly improve the quality of the submission. The material presented in this issue all resulted from the British Geomorphological Research Group’s Postgraduate Spring Symposium in March 2006 hosted at the University of Ulster.

Smith, M.J.
Journal of Maps, v2007, 368-376

It has been an exciting period of growth at the Journal of Maps (JoM) overthe last three years and, as we come to the end of 2007, it seems particularlyappropriate to provide a summary of our activities, an outline of our futureplans and acknowledge the support from those involved with the journal.

THe latest version of GDAL/OGR has now been released and is available for download. This is a fairly big upgrade with 29 new and updated raster drivers and 11 new and updated vector drivers. This includes support for BigTIFF, TerraSAR-X, Generic Bbinary, ISIS3, WMS, WFS, GPX, GMT and KML. So well worth a look at. You can also see who uses GDAL in their software. Much to my surpise, ESRI’s ArcGIS 9.2 was listed and you can see that they are using GDAL to extend the capabilities of import/export alongside their standard RDO drivers. Have a look at this tech support article.

I was at the at the GRSG’s Annual Conference at the Geological Society in London today. This is one of my favourite conferences as it is low key, has commercial and academic members and brings together a wide variety of inter-disciplinary subjects. As ever, it was sponsored by the usual array of vendors, including InfoTerra. They were rather proudly showing a variety of Leica Geosystems Imagine brochures as from 2008 they will be the UK vendors. I’ve scanned the front page of the Leica Photogrammetry Suite (right) brochure which really did amuse me. Can anyone explain what “deep functionality” is?? And why is there a jet in the background with all its engines on fire, presumably plunging to Earth? Is it because the rather smug looking PC operator has just jammed all its navigation systems? Or perhaps he knows that the onboard maps were georeferenced with Imagine? Who knows… If anyone from Leica at Peachtree Corners (great address!) can enlighten me I’d be grateful.