Autonomous 3D Urban and Complex Terrain Geometry Generation and Micro-Climate Modelling Using CFD and Deep Learning

Sustainable building design requires a clear understanding and realistic modelling of the complex interaction between climate and built environment to create safe and comfortable outdoor and indoor spaces. This necessitates unprecedented urban climate modelling at high temporal and spatial resolution. The interaction between complex urban geometries and the microclimate is characterized by complex transport mechanisms. The challenge to generate geometric and physics boundary conditions in an automated manner is hindering the progress of computational methods in urban design. Thus, the challenge of modelling realistic and pragmatic numerical urban micro-climate for wind engineering, environmental, and building energy simulation applications should address the complexity of the geometry and the variability of surface types involved in urban exposures. The original contribution to knowledge in this research is the proposed an end-to-end workflow that employs a cutting-edge deep learning model for image segmentation to generate building footprint polygons autonomously and combining those polygons with LiDAR data to generate level of detail three (LOD3) 3D building models to tackle the geometry modelling issue in climate modelling and solar power potential assessment. Urban and topography geometric modelling is a challenging task when undertaking climate model assessment. This paper describes a deep learning technique that is based on U-Net architecture to automate 3D building model generation by combining satellite imagery with LiDAR data. The deep learning model used registered a mean squared error of 0.02. The extracted building polygons were extruded using height information from corresponding LiDAR data. The building roof structures were also modelled from the same point cloud data. The method used has the potential to automate the task of generating urban scale 3D building models and can be used for city-wide applications. The advantage of applying a deep learning model in an image processing task is that it can be applied to a new set of input image data to extract building footprint polygons for autonomous application once it has been trained. In addition, the model can be improved over time with minimum adjustments when an improved quality dataset is available, and the trained parameters can be improved further building on previously learned features. Application examples for pedestrian level wind and solar energy availability assessment as well as modeling wind flow over complex terrain are presented

Integrated analysis of the demand for and supply of geospatial education and training : Results of the GI-N2K Surveys

This report describes the situation in 2014 with regard to the demand for and the supply of education and training in the domain of geographic information (“GI”). It is the outcome of an analysis of the results of two simultaneous internet surveys, directed at two target groups in 25 European countries. The first target group, the demand side, consisted of organisations and companies with a need for geographic information competences. At the supply side the survey was directed at organisations that offer teaching in this field. The analysis focused on three aspects: the awareness and use of the GIS&T BoK, the GI knowledge domain reference document; the possible gap between needed competences and teaching on offer; and the incompleteness of the GIS&T BoK. The conclusions are as follows. Awareness and use of the GIS&T BoK are limited at the supply side and even more limited at the demand side. With regard to a possible teaching gap: indications were found but no conclusive evidence of its existence. The incompleteness of the GIS&T BoK was substantiated by the respondents providing dozens of subjects not included in the first edition. These results are to be used in subsequent work packages of the GI-N2K project, heading for an improved version of the GIS&T BoK in 2016

Comparison of Explicit and Implicit Keywords to Characterize Geographic Information System Procedures

The author designs and implements an approach that exploits semantically important information that is not ordinarily included in traditional information retrieval approaches to improve the handling of Geographic Information System (GIS) procedural software. In this approach, what are termed here implicit keywords, descriptors designed to recognize characteristics not explicitly recorded within the GIS procedure source code, are created and used in an automated, inductive process to organize a large set of GIS procedures to reveal meaningful groupings. The process uses the Self-Organizing Maps (SOM), a specialized artificial neural network, to create a two-dimensional representation of an input data set wherein topological properties of the input data set are preserved. Such maps are important tools for helping visualize, browse, filter, and evaluate a set of GIS procedures . Browsing, filtering, and evaluation help to improve human understanding of available GIS resources. By facilitating mechanisms for improved software sharing and exchange, the methods described here may guide future researchers in the selection of more appropriate procedures for a given task. Through experiments of this dissertation, the author demonstrates that while using GIS commands as explicit keywords can produce helpful organizations of GIS procedures, development of implicit keywords can be used to moderate, improve, and specialize the results of the explicit keyword process. The results of the different experiments not only show the impacts of applying different keyword schemes, but bear witness to the fact that GIS functionality can be organized with consistent methodological rigor in potentially very different ways to reprioritize specific types of functionality

Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010

This volume holds the papers from the 18th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK). This year the conference, hosted at University College London (UCL), from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 April 2010. The conference covered the areas of core geographic information science research as well as applications domains such as crime and health and technological developments in LBS and the geoweb. UCL’s research mission as a global university is based around a series of Grand Challenges that affect us all, and these were accommodated in GISRUK 2010. The overarching theme this year was “Global Challenges”, with specific focus on the following themes: * Crime and Place * Environmental Change * Intelligent Transport * Public Health and Epidemiology * Simulation and Modelling * London as a global city * The geoweb and neo-geography * Open GIS and Volunteered Geographic Information * Human-Computer Interaction and GIS Traditionally, GISRUK has provided a platform for early career researchers as well as those with a significant track record of achievement in the area. As such, the conference provides a welcome blend of innovative thinking and mature reflection. GISRUK is the premier academic GIS conference in the UK and we are keen to maintain its outstanding record of achievement in developing GIS in the UK and beyond

LIDAR based semi-automatic pattern recognition within an archaeological landscape

LIDAR-Daten bieten einen neuartigen Ansatz zur Lokalisierung und Überwachung des kulturellen Erbes in der Landschaft, insbesondere in schwierig zu erreichenden Gebieten, wie im Wald, im unwegsamen Gelände oder in sehr abgelegenen Gebieten. Die manuelle Lokalisation und Kartierung von archäologischen Informationen einer Kulturlandschaft ist in der herkömmlichen Herangehensweise eine sehr zeitaufwändige Aufgabe des Fundstellenmanagements (Cultural Heritage Management). Um die Möglichkeiten in der Erkennung und bei der Verwaltung des kulturellem Erbes zu verbessern und zu ergänzen, können computergestützte Verfahren einige neue Lösungsansätze bieten, die darüber hinaus sogar die Identifizierung von für das menschliche Auge bei visueller Sichtung nicht erkennbaren Details ermöglichen. Aus archäologischer Sicht ist die vorliegende Dissertation dadurch motiviert, dass sie LIDAR-Geländemodelle mit archäologischen Befunden durch automatisierte und semiautomatisierte Methoden zur Identifizierung weiterer archäologischer Muster zu Bodendenkmalen als digitale „LIDAR-Landschaft“ bewertet. Dabei wird auf möglichst einfache und freie verfügbare algorithmische Ansätze (Open Source) aus der Bildmustererkennung und Computer Vision zur Segmentierung und Klassifizierung der LIDAR-Landschaften zur großflächigen Erkennung archäologischer Denkmäler zurückgegriffen. Die Dissertation gibt dabei einen umfassenden Überblick über die archäologische Nutzung und das Potential von LIDAR-Daten und definiert anhand qualitativer und quantitativer Ansätze den Entwicklungsstand der semiautomatisierten Erkennung archäologischer Strukturen im Rahmen archäologischer Prospektion und Fernerkundungen. Darüber hinaus erläutert sie Best Practice-Beispiele und den einhergehenden aktuellen Forschungsstand. Und sie veranschaulicht die Qualität der Erkennung von Bodendenkmälern durch die semiautomatisierte Segmentierung und Klassifizierung visualisierter LIDAR-Daten. Letztlich identifiziert sie das Feld für weitere Anwendungen, wobei durch eigene, algorithmische Template Matching-Verfahren großflächige Untersuchungen zum kulturellen Erbe ermöglicht werden. Resümierend vergleicht sie die analoge und computergestützte Bildmustererkennung zu Bodendenkmalen, und diskutiert abschließend das weitere Potential LIDAR-basierter Mustererkennung in archäologischen Kulturlandschaften

Quantitative Techniques in Participatory Forest Management

Forest management has evolved from a mercantilist view to a multi-functional one that integrates economic, social, and ecological aspects. However, the issue of sustainability is not yet resolved. Quantitative Techniques in Participatory Forest Management brings together global research in three areas of application: inventory of the forest variables that determine the main environmental indices, description and design of new environmental indices, and the application of sustainability indices for regional implementations. All these quantitative techniques create the basis for the development of scientific methodologies of participatory sustainable forest management

European Handbook of Crowdsourced Geographic Information

This book focuses on the study of the remarkable new source of geographic information that has become available in the form of user-generated content accessible over the Internet through mobile and Web applications. The exploitation, integration and application of these sources, termed volunteered geographic information (VGI) or crowdsourced geographic information (CGI), offer scientists an unprecedented opportunity to conduct research on a variety of topics at multiple scales and for diversified objectives. The Handbook is organized in five parts, addressing the fundamental questions: What motivates citizens to provide such information in the public domain, and what factors govern/predict its validity?What methods might be used to validate such information? Can VGI be framed within the larger domain of sensor networks, in which inert and static sensors are replaced or combined by intelligent and mobile humans equipped with sensing devices? What limitations are imposed on VGI by differential access to broadband Internet, mobile phones, and other communication technologies, and by concerns over privacy? How do VGI and crowdsourcing enable innovation applications to benefit human society? Chapters examine how crowdsourcing techniques and methods, and the VGI phenomenon, have motivated a multidisciplinary research community to identify both fields of applications and quality criteria depending on the use of VGI. Besides harvesting tools and storage of these data, research has paid remarkable attention to these information resources, in an age when information and participation is one of the most important drivers of development. The collection opens questions and points to new research directions in addition to the findings that each of the authors demonstrates. Despite rapid progress in VGI research, this Handbook also shows that there are technical, social, political and methodological challenges that require further studies and research

Spatial and Temporal Sentiment Analysis of Twitter data

The public have used Twitter world wide for expressing opinions. This study focuses on spatio-temporal variation of georeferenced Tweets’ sentiment polarity, with a view to understanding how opinions evolve on Twitter over space and time and across communities of users. More specifically, the question this study tested is whether sentiment polarity on Twitter exhibits specific time-location patterns. The aim of the study is to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of georeferenced Twitter sentiment polarity within the area of 1 km buffer around the Curtin Bentley campus boundary in Perth, Western Australia. Tweets posted in campus were assigned into six spatial zones and four time zones. A sentiment analysis was then conducted for each zone using the sentiment analyser tool in the Starlight Visual Information System software. The Feature Manipulation Engine was employed to convert non-spatial files into spatial and temporal feature class. The spatial and temporal distribution of Twitter sentiment polarity patterns over space and time was mapped using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Some interesting results were identified. For example, the highest percentage of positive Tweets occurred in the social science area, while science and engineering and dormitory areas had the highest percentage of negative postings. The number of negative Tweets increases in the library and science and engineering areas as the end of the semester approaches, reaching a peak around an exam period, while the percentage of negative Tweets drops at the end of the semester in the entertainment and sport and dormitory area. This study will provide some insights into understanding students and staff ’s sentiment variation on Twitter, which could be useful for university teaching and learning management

Ocean Solutions, Earth Solutions

What affects the oceans affects terra firma. Ocean Solutions, Earth Solutions gathers the insights of more than 50 ocean and coastal science researchers exploring ocean components and their relationships, patterns, and trends over time and space. The book's 16 chapters feature geographic information system (GIS) best practices and include additional online resources.The book is edited by oceanographer and Esri Chief Scientist Dawn J. Wright and features a foreword by oceanographer David Gallo, director of special projects for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.Keywords: marine resource management, GIS, mapping, ocean conservation, ocean scienc