AAM

AAM Exhibited at Spatial@Gov Conference

AAM exhibited at the annual Spatial@Gov Conference on Tuesday 15 to Thursday 17 November at the National Convention Centre in Canberra, ACT.

AAM showcased our latest offerings which included Geocortex and K2Vi 3D Virtual City Models, along with our other professional information services such as Airborne LiDAR, Aerial Survey, Satellite Imagery, Survey and Mapping. You can learn more about K2Vi here and web mapping with Geocortex here.

It was great to meet the new attendees at our booth, and as of always it was a pleasure catching up with the familiar faces.

AAM Exhibited Bathymetric LiDAR at Hydro 2011 Conference

AAM exhibited at the Hydro 2011 Conference from Monday 7 to Thursday 10 November at The Esplanade Hotel, Fremantle, WA. Hydro 2011 in Fremantle was the latest in a series of International Hydrographic Conferences organised on behalf of the International Federation of Hydrographic Societies (IFHS) and brings together all the major stakeholders in the hydrographic survey field.

AAM presented our latest offering in our spatial toolkit: Bathymetric LiDAR.

Bathymetric LiDAR extends AAM’s decade-long success with LiDAR into the intertidal and near shore regions. Bathymetric LiDAR is able to measure the seabed down to 50m deep or more, subject to suitable water conditions. The efficiency of aerial surveying makes this technology very cost competitive against traditional vessel-based MBES methods. AAM’s bathymetric LiDAR is able to simultaneously measure terrain and bathymetry, measuring seabed, water level, sand, rocks, ground, assets and trees in a single pass of the aircraft. This capability provides total landform definition and offers considerable cost savings against bathymetry-only sensors.

To read more about Bathymetric LiDAR, click here.

RapidEye for National & Regional Mapping Programs

The adoption of RapidEye for various baseline and monitoring programs is growing. Examples now exist in Australia, South America and Asia.

With the RapidEye constellation now in operation for 2.5 years, a valuable archive of data has been amassed.

Ten Reasons to use RapidEye for a National & Regional Mapping Program

Spectral bandset designed for enhanced and improved vegetation discrimination and mapping
Improved multi-spectral resolution for enhanced vegetation unit delineation and mapping
Proven capacity to accommodate single-season image acquisition over regional extents
Increased multi-temporal imaging alternatives for cloud-reduction processing (and delivery of combi-tiles)
Improved multi-temporal imaging alternatives for verification, including 'off-season' acquisition
Proven commitment by supplier to build National-scale image libraries across Australia
Proven supplier support for image evaluation and R&D initiatives
Minimal effort required to adapt some existing processing methodologies to RapidEye image specifications
Proven ability to provide rapid-response imaging options
A constellation of 5 imaging satellites 'at your service'!

The illustrations below showcase the frequency of RapidEye imagery with less than 20% cloud, over various parts of Australia. For example - some of the shades of blue indicate areas which have been imaged 6-8 times this year , while areas in yellow have been imaged about 20 times in the timeframe nominated.

We invite you to submit areas and timeframes for speculative image acquisition to ensure suitable imagery might be available for your upcoming projects.

To obtain RapidEye sample data or a quote, simply email us.
For more information, review our RapidEye webpage. You can also visit the official RapidEye website.

Above: RapidEye coverage Australia between 01 June - 30 June 2011

Above: RapidEye coverage Australia between 01 February 2009 - 30 June 2011

AAM wins Highly commended at QLD Spatial Excellence Awards

Category: People and Community.

Project: Rapid response image products for Queensland 2011 Disasters.

AAM supplied rapid response aerial imagery to the Queensland Government for a number of Qld disasters this year. From inland floods to post Tropical Cyclone Yasi, rapid response image products were captured within hours of the disasters and supplied within several days for the priority areas.

These rapid response, post disaster image products were one of the vital foundation datasets embraced for immediate disaster assessment and emergency response efforts by Qld Fire and Rescue Service, Emergency Management Qld, Police and other agencies.

Teams of AAM personnel worked long hours for weeks on end. The aerial survey teams worked in difficult conditions to successfully exploit the small gaps in the poor weather conditions to capture imagery while office based teams worked in parallel to process the data for delivery within 2 days of capture for the priority areas.

Rob Thomas and Greg Itzstein collected the framed certificate on behalf of all AAM staff involved in these projects.

Project Background

December 31 - Town of Emerald and adjacent flooded highway imaged
January 4-8 - Surat, St George and other sites imaged at peak flood
February 5 - Post Tropical Cyclone Yasi imagery over 23 sites
April - Roma and flooded surrounds

Above: AAM Imagery utilised to aid on ground damage assessment
(Photo Source: DERM)

Port Moresby from Space - New 50cm satellite imagery available

The GeoEye-1 satellite has recently imaged the Port Moresby region over the last few months and obtained some remarkable, cloud free datasets.   High resolution, 50cm image datasets are generated through the integration of the panchromatic and multispectral information collected by the GeoEye-1 satellite.

GeoEye satellites are collecting data from an orbit ~680km above the earth and circling the earth 15 times a day.

The full library of existing archive data can be discovered online. Image overviews (such as the one shown below) are available from the publicly available, archive search tool.

Enquiries can be directed to AAM Pty Ltd, a key GeoEye Partner for Australia,  via email.

Interactive samples of imagery and other sensor information can be found on our GeoEye webpage.

Above: GeoEye imagery over Port Moresby

AAM New 3D Model Video - Christchurch City

AAM has released a new 3D model video of Christchurch CIty. This video was created immediately before the Christchurch earthquake. View the YouTube™ video on our 3D City Models webpage.

AAM and Virtual Brisbane - A Queensland Award Winner

We are excited to announce that AAM's joint submission with BCC on the 'Virtual Brisbane' Project was the overall winner in this year's Queensland Spatial Excellence Awards (QSEA). It represents the pinnacle of achievement in the geospatial industry and is the highest award the Queensland Judging Panel can confer. The winning project, submitted in partnership with our client, Brisbane City Council, was announced at the QSEA Awads held in Brisbane in early September.

The 'Virtual Brisbane' Project also took out the 2010 QSEA Award for the category of Land Development and Planning. This award recognises how innocative or unorthodox techniques, delivery mechanisms and/or methodologies in surveying, mapping, cartographi, design, planning and processes have achieved exceptional outcomes. This is an outstanding result for AAM and Brisbane City Council and highlights the unmatchedbenefits of AAM's K2Vi (Visualisation and Modelling Software tool) and AAM's 3D City Models.

Have a look at the 3D movie on our 3D model webpage.

Above from left to right: Dan Smith (BCC), Andrew Saad (BCC), Steven Jacoby (QLD Government),
Andrew Port (AAM), Andrew Wells (AAM).

AAM to attend the SSSI Victorian Surveying and Spatial Summit on Wednesday 15 September in Melbourne, Victoria

AAM will be attending the SSSI Victorian Surveying and Spatial Summit on Wednesday 15 September in Melbourne, Victoria.

Located at booth 14, AAM will be showcasing our newer offerings including RapidEye Satellite Imagery, LiDAR, Pictometry and GeoContent.

AAM strives to provide the best imagery with fast turn-around times and great service. Our latest offering, RapidEye Satellite Imagery, captures 5m ortho imagery with daily revisits over the same area. RapidEye satellite imagery is used for land cover analysis and vegetation identification, feature and boundary extraction, monitoring and change detection, damage assessment and modelling and product estimation. To find out more about RapidEye Satellite Imagery, visit our RapidEye webpage.

We look forward to seeing you at the SSSI Victorian Surveying and Spatial Summit.

AAM at the Australian Institute of Mine Surveyors (AIMS) Conference

The AIMS Conference was held at the Gold Coast in Queensland this month and was a major success for all involved.

AAM was a major Gold Sponsor of AIMS this year, ensuring the AIMS Commitee was well supported. AAM had a large group of staff present, a huge exhibition booth and a technical presentation.

Our exhibition booth was a hit among all the mining surveyors and not only because of our attractive booth set-up. Our competition – "Guess the Stockpile Volume" was exceeding popular, creating quite a buzz amongst the delegates. Our ecstatic winner was only 85 cubic meters off from the actual answer! For his mathematical skills he was rewarded with two tickets to the NRL Grand Final in Sydney, plus accommodation and spending/travel money. We also had two runner ups who walked away with AAM Sport Gift Packs, comprising of a bunch of AAM Merchandise items such as a mini CAT truck, beach pack, golf towel, stubby coolers, notebooks and model planes.

Jamie Hansen presented the AAM Technical paper. he was first up on Day One with a presentation about AAM’s new offering, “Virtual Minesite”, inspired by the futuristic possibilities now available with 3D technology. Jamie’s presentation explored some spatial information acquisition and visualisation technologies available to the mining industry right now which will form some of the stepping stones towards the "Virtual Minesite" of the future.

We found that the conference was a great opportunity to catch up - face to face - with existing clients (instead of the usual phone discussions), meet new people in the mining sector and share information about the AAM services we provide to our diverse range of clients in Australia, Africa and elsewhere.

Showcased on our exhibition booth were also our newer offerings including K2Vi 3D Modelling, GeoEye and RapidEye Satellite Imagery, Aerial Imagery, LiDAR and SiteSee(TM)

Congratulations again to the AIMS Organising Committee.

Brisbane City Council Launches

Brisbane 3D Model created by AAM and deployed by BCC

AAM Pty Ltd is proud to have contributed to Brisbane City Council’s new visualisation and planning tool, Virtual Brisbane. This innovative and fully interactive computer-generated 3D model of Brisbane aims to enhance some of the business processes with Council.

The 3D city model was built by AAM utilising aerial laser data and Pictometry^® multi angle oblique imagery. The most noticeable facet of the AAM 3D building models are their photo realistic finish. K2Vi is AAM’s visualisation package which is at the core of Virtual Brisbane and features every building and structure in a 5km radius in the CBD. The model spans an area of more than 100sqkm, contains models for more than 100,000 structures and is the largest 3D city model in the southern hemisphere.

Virtual Brisbane is a centrally-located master record of all urban development activity. This tool will help Council Planners show residents the impacts of Neighbourhood Planning and also help residents understand the future of their neighbourhood and city. Virtual Brisbane will shortly become fully available to the public through web hosting so they can log on and navigate through the model and look at suburbs undergoing neighbourhood planning by the end of 2011.

The model reinforces Council’s role as Australia’s largest Local Government and a World Class city. Virtual Brisbane plays a leading role in strategic planning advancement, and in investigating, trialing and implementing leading-edge technology to improve the level of service to internal and external stakeholders.

AAM has produced a number of 3D models of capital cities in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, including Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart, Wellington and Cape Town. These models are proving to be valuable tools to Councils for a variety of planning and development requirements.

For more information, visit our 3D models page, or view the Virtual Brisbane video below.

AAM becomes Associate Member of the Australian Defence Force RPDE Program

Above: Nigel Conolly and Mark Freeburn (AAM) accepting the RPDE membership

AAM Pty Ltd is pleased to announce their Associate Membership of the Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation (RPDE) Program of the Australian Department of Defence.

The RPDE Program combines Defence Force knowledge and experience with key industry partner resources and expertise, in an effort to identify and develop solutions to combat potential threats or breaches to Australian Defence Force security.

The RPDE program is uniquely able to rapidly draw together Defence and industry knowledge, experience and Intellectual Property to understand problems, identify potential solutions and provide evidence supporting decision support and change management recommendations. AAM will become a point of contact for issues requiring spatial information solutions.

AAM is recognised as one of Australia’s leading geospatial organisations with more than 150 specialist geospatial staff in eight offices across Australia and a suite of innovative, high resolution geospatial data solutions.

For more information on AAM's GIS services, visit our webpage here.