Mastering Waves of Data

Hexagon Geospatial and rapidlasso GmbH Partnership





As a result of a recent partnership between Hexagon Geospatial and rapidlasso GmbH, the latest release of rapidlasso´s LAStools contains a new toolbox for ERDAS IMAGINE 2014, with a 2015 release expected this summer. Now, analysts can create Spatial Models within one interface that chain together the operators added by LAStools with the raster and vector operators in ERDAS IMAGINE to create models that describe their specific workflow.





Figure 1: Sample LAStools workflow created with the Spatial Modeler of ERDAS IMAGINE. First a point density raster of the input LAZ is computed for quality checking by 'lasgrid'. Next, the file is ground classified by 'lasground'. Then the “height above ground” of each point is computed by 'lasheight' and used to classify building and vegetation points by 'lasclassify'. Then a 0.5 meter DSM hillshade is produced with 'blast2dem' and a 0.5 meter DTM hillshade is produced by 'las2dem', both in PNG format. Finally, two shapefiles with polygons marking the building footprints and the vegetation areas are computed by 'lasboundary'.



Those who balance out their intense geospatial careers with surfing the world's oceans often describe the moment of catching a wave as feeling absolutely in tune with the forces of nature. As the wave comes closer you paddle and position your board to carve out a niche in the wave using the skills and experiences acquired on numerous waves before. Each wave has its own identity, so you need to adjust your moves to ride a wave to shore. Becoming one with the ocean like that is an incredible experience.

Waves and waves of geospatial data are rolling in on those working in today's geospatial analysis industry. There is not just one but three different kind of data crashing upon our shores: raster, vector, and point cloud data. For a smooth ride during geospatial data analysis, people require multiple and modular software packages that effectively work together. They must be adjusted as needed to synthesize the input streams into one cohesive answer. The ability to edit and classify in the point domain, then run analysis on a raster and feed that information into vector analysis is crucial for making sense of the choppy seas of data and painting the bigger picture our decision-makers need.

Position Yourself in Data Waves
This is where ERDAS IMAGINE Spatial Modeler comes to the rescue. By allowing you to quickly and easily string together geoprocesses in an easy and intuitive fashion, it frees your mind to focus on riding even the biggest geospatial data waves in the most efficient way. It replaces the traditional dialog-driven workflow with modular and customizable pipelines that provide your geospatial senses with a streamlined and repeatable means of getting the answer.

The Spatial Modeler has an extensive library of geo-processing operators that work on all three waves of data. But its real power comes from its extensibility, allowing users and domain experts to add their own operators, including tools from other software. This can be done by running external command line tools within the Spatial Modeler environment, by creating Python operators, or by using the Spatial Modeler SDK to build new operators.

Carving Out Your Niche
That’s why Hexagon Geospatial and rapidlasso GmbH decided to team up. ERDAS IMAGINE is a powerful tool used in the Remote Sensing industry, and LAStools by rapidlasso GmbH is a popular LiDAR processing software suite – a robust collection of extremely efficient, batch-scriptable, multi-core command line tools. Together, we can merge our strengths to simplify the system.

Balancing the daily developments with a few hours of surfing in their secret laboratories in the Philippines, Hexagon Geospatial and rapidlasso GmbH used the inspirations of their exotic location to leverage the extensibility of Spatial Modeler and make the powerful command line tools from LAStools available within the ERDAS IMAGINE Spatial Modeler framework. The latest release of LAStools from rapidlasso GmbH contains a new toolbox for ERDAS IMAGINE 2014, with a 2015 release expected this summer.

Now, analysts can create Spatial Models within one interface that chain together the operators added by LAStools with the raster and vector operators in IMAGINE to create models that describe their specific workflow. These models can then be saved, reused, and shared across departments. They can even be customized so non-technical specialists can use them to adapt as conditions change.

Riding Smooth Whatever Water
This combination makes complete sense. “This kind of partnership is part of a growing strategy to extend the utility of ERDAS IMAGINE and position the Spatial Modeler as a platform to provide our customers with powerful capabilities not supported in ERDAS IMAGINE. Many current ERDAS IMAGINE customers already use LAStools for their Point Cloud processing, and this collaboration provides them—and future customers—with a seamless interaction between point cloud, raster and feature analytics,” said Steve du Plessis, Director of Remote Sensing for Hexagon Geospatial.

“With the huge breadth of ERDAS IMAGINE’s Geospatial users and capabilities we cannot always meet the detailed requirements of our customers. Martin Isenburg has a very close relationship with his user community and provides concise market-driven functionality. This partnership with rapidlasso makes for the perfect mix,” added du Plessis.

Calming Choppy Geospatial Seas
By putting together a platform like the Spatial Modeler and powerful domain tools like LAStools, a system that has long been divided is now unified. The goal is to harmonize different geospatial workflows that have traditionally been separated no matter what waves of data users are exposed to. By simplifying and de-cluttering a workspace, users are allowed to focus on riding their geospatial waves to shore, opening new and innovative moves to unlock the wealth of information locked inside in new and innovative ways.

For more information, have a look at: http://rapidlasso.com and http://hexagongeospatial.com


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