A Point-Cloud Solar Radiation Tool

Current software solutions for solar-radiation modeling in 3D focus on the urban environment. Most of the published tools do not implement methods to consider complex objects, such as urban greenery in their models or they expect a rather complex 3D mesh to represent such objects. Their use in an environment that is difficult to represent geometrically, such as vegetation-covered areas, is rather limited. In this paper, we present a newly developed solar-radiation tool focused on solar-radiation modeling in areas with complex objects, such as vegetation. The tool uses voxel representations of space based on point-cloud data to calculate the illumination and ESRA solar-radiation model to estimate the direct, diffuse, and global irradiation in a specified time range. We demonstrate the capabilities of this tool on a forested mountain area of Suchá valley in the Hight Tatra mountains (Slovakia) and also in the urban environment of Castle Hill in Bratislava (Slovakia) with urban greenery. We compare the tool with the r.sun module of GRASS GIS and the Area Solar Radiation tool of ArcGIS using point-cloud data generated from the digital-terrain model of Kamenistá valley in High Tatra mountains in Slovakia. The results suggest a higher detail of the model in rugged terrain and comparable results on smooth surfaces when considering its purpose as a 3D modeling tool. The performance is tested using different hardware and input data. The processing times are less than 8 min, and 8 GB of memory is used with 4 to 16 core processors and point clouds larger than 100,000 points. The tool is, therefore, easily usable on common computers

The Potential and Implications of Automated Pre-Processing of LiDAR-Based Digital Elevation Models for Large-Scale Archaeological Landscape Analysis

LiDAR-derived digital elevation models (DEMs) have transformed the archaeological study of landscape features, broadened our technical capabilities, and enhanced the accuracy with which terrain relief is described. These models also place demands on how researchers and analysts interpret DEM content in the context of the modern landscape. LiDAR-based DEMs contain modern man-made structures that can significantly influence model properties. Although data are usually filtered and some of these artificial features are removed during bare-earth classification, many terrain interventions remain visible. This large-scale case study applies established methods to a freely available DEM of the Czech Republic in an attempt to evaluate differences between original and filtered DEMs. It applies a fully automated filtering procedure using vector topographic maps to avoid manual corrections that would make the procedure problematic when used on a macro scale. The results of our archaeological GIS analysis demonstrate that this procedure, despite its relative simplicity, can achieve a significantly better representation of a landscape compared to that offered by an unfiltered DEM. Finally, we propose a series of future steps with a view to developing a more comprehensive and accurate model and overcoming its limitations

A low-cost web-based smart street lighting geographical information system for smaller towns and villages

The use of LED lights in smart street lighting to save energy is efficient and very common in many developed cities. However, such a system results in higher initial costs, which may discourage smaller towns and villages from its purchasing. This paper therefore deals with the design and development of a smart street lighting control system for smaller cities and villages. Such a system is required to be economical from the perspective of development and production. Considering other requirements such as platform independence, high availability and broad support, we proposed to build a system as a web application using a custom light control service component. The result is a web application that consists of a user interface served by a web server and an application server used to communicate with light control service. In addition, the system is designed as a geographical information system to be easy to use for managing street lights in groups or individually, while displaying them on the map. The system allows automatic sensor-based light intensity modulation by default with the possibility of manual adjustment or override of the illumination. It also includes a device error notification system with a tool to navigate faulty devices. The presented system is a low-cost solution for intelligent street lighting control designed for smaller cities or villages. They can apply the designed architecture of the system and the specific technologies suitable because of their low-cost implementation