Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

MusA: Using Indoor Positioning and Navigation to Enhance Cultural Experiences in a museum

In recent years there has been a growing interest into the use of multimedia mobile guides in museum environments. Mobile devices have the capabilities to detect the user context and to provide pieces of information suitable to help visitors discovering and following the logical and emotional connections that develop during the visit. In this scenario, location based services (LBS) currently represent an asset, and the choice of the technology to determine users' position, combined with the definition of methods that can effectively convey information, become key issues in the design process. In this work, we present MusA (Museum Assistant), a general framework for the development of multimedia interactive guides for mobile devices. Its main feature is a vision-based indoor positioning system that allows the provision of several LBS, from way-finding to the contextualized communication of cultural contents, aimed at providing a meaningful exploration of exhibits according to visitors' personal interest and curiosity. Starting from the thorough description of the system architecture, the article presents the implementation of two mobile guides, developed to respectively address adults and children, and discusses the evaluation of the user experience and the visitors' appreciation of these application

Image enhancement from a stabilised video sequence

The aim of video stabilisation is to create a new video sequence where the motions (i.e. rotations, translations) and scale differences between frames (or parts of a frame) have effectively been removed. These stabilisation effects can be obtained via digital video processing techniques which use the information extracted from the video sequence itself, with no need for additional hardware or knowledge about camera physical motion. A video sequence usually contains a large overlap between successive frames, and regions of the same scene are sampled at different positions. In this paper, this multiple sampling is combined to achieve images with a higher spatial resolution. Higher resolution imagery play an important role in assisting in the identification of people, vehicles, structures or objects of interest captured by surveillance cameras or by video cameras used in face recognition, traffic monitoring, traffic law reinforcement, driver assistance and automatic vehicle guidance systems

A Fuzzy Spatio-Temporal-based Approach for Activity Recognition

International audienceOver the last decade, there has been a significant deployment of systems dedicated to surveillance. These systems make use of real-time sensors that generate continuous streams of data. Despite their success in many cases, the increased number of sensors leads to a cognitive overload for the operator in charge of their analysis. However, the context and the application requires an ability to react in real-time. The research presented in this paper introduces a spatio-temporal-based approach the objective of which is to provide a qualitative interpretation of the behavior of an entity (e.g., a human or vehicle). The process is formally supported by a fuzzy logic-based approach, and designed in order to be as generic as possible

STATBOX Concept for Simulation of Urban Phenomena

AbstractAn urban environment is a dynamic system which is constantly changing in terms of space and time. There are two dimensions in any urban environment – the physical dimension and the functional dimension. All of the structures of an urban environment interact and people are the intermediaries in this process. The spatial structure of cities has been studied from various perspectives by architects, urban planners, environmental scientists, economists, geographers etc. Constant monitoring that is based on remote sensing, spatial statistics, simulation etc., is needed to make on going note of transformation in the various types of land use that exist, movement of people and business environment. Many authors stressed that using the GIS technology, the spatial features of geographic data can be introduced in the simulation and GIS, spatial analysis plays an important role in the development of geosimulation models. The integration of the virtual reality technology with a dynamic data model will gives a realistic representation and visualization of the real world. Such complex accessibility for the user with an excellent interaction and manipulation capabilities of the virtual environment will be used in different kind of projects connected with simulating urban phenomena or pedestrian/crowd movements. The presented system consists of the STATBOX units, comprising of video data storage. Data collected by STATBOX units is sent to the Main server, where the video data is processed to generate classified information. Based on the collected statistical data, as well as information on the location of the STATBOX units and GIS models of territory, the geosimulation model is automatically prepared. The model is adequate to the real world - no deep knowledge on the simulation techniques is needed to use the proposed system. A prototype of Riga central park performance model is used as an example of STATBOX data collection and simulation process. GIS system with integrated ortofoto map, digital route map, digital plan of landuse, are used as the basis for the model development. The result is a geosimulation model adequate to the pedestrian movement and ready for further experiments. The created system can be used by different users, like businessmen/investors, researchers, state and municipal institutions. However, the main target group is the SMEs, as they are more flexible and ready to take decision to change location than large companies

A conceptual model of Spatial Video moving objects using Viewpoint data structures : Position Paper

Spatial Video is any video sequence that has spatial properties associated with it. This paper presents a conceptual model called a Viewpoint which is used to fully define a Spatial Video data set. We highlight how existing models of Spatial Video are limited by their disparate requirements and how our Viewpoint definition can be used in the general case. To do this we define a model that uses the GIS point and polygon data type primitives to create a hypothetically maximum spatial extent for each image contained within a Spatial Video sequence. This concept is shown to both restrict and extend these GIS primitives, but also provide the means to broaden Spatial Video’s exposure to a larger number of GIS geospatial analysis operations. Thus, with our conceptual model of Spatial Video as a Viewpoint moving object we can further develop our theories into practical data modelling examples and natural or formal language domains

FOSS4G 2016 Proceedings: Academic Program - selected papers and posters

This Conference Proceedings is a collection of selected papers and posters submitted to the Academic Program of the International Conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G 2016), 24th to 26th August 2016 in Bonn, Germany. Like in previous FOSS4G conferences on national and international level the academic papers and posters cover an extensive wide range of topics reflecting the contribution of the academia to this field by the development of open source software components, in the design of open standards, in the proliferation of web-based solutions, in the dissemination of the open principles important in science and education, or in the collection and the hosting of freely available geo-data