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I am currently working on GIS software and exploring opportunities to research in the GIS field. I am particularly interested in how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can be applied to improve the accuracy of digital mapping processes, especially for real-time mapping, change detection, and spatial analysis. What are the key challenges and potential solutions when integrating AI/ML into GIS-based digital mapping? Are there any case studies or ongoing research in this area that I can reference?
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Deep Maching Learning is a subset of Machine Learning (ML), which in turn is a field within Artificial Intelligence (AI). So, while deep learning is indeed an application of both AI and ML, it's more precise to say it's a specific type of ML that utilizes Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) with multiple layers (hence "Deep") to learn complex patterns from data. Think of it this way: AI is the broad goal of creating intelligent machines, ML is a way to achieve that through learning from data, and Deep Learning is one powerful technique within ML that uses Deep neural networks..
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The new trend of transportation Engineering Activities enrolled different technologies. These technologies include: Computer Vision, GIS, Neural Network, Artificial Intelligence; Digital Photogrmmetry, Unmanned drones, Expert and Knowledge-based systems, Digital Mapping, cellular phone usage, 3D-mapping; etc.
What do you thing the second era for the new millennium will be?
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Trying to gather some ideas for the future of new generation.
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During field mapping, geographic coordinates are collected using GPS, and later on these coordinates are plotted on the digital geographic map. Then, I would like to have different steps to download the GPS coordinates and plot them on a digital map. thank you
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It would be nice to know whether you desire plotting GPS latitude and longitude as latitude and longitude or in a different format eg. UTM or local coordinates where you are and what package you intend using. Reason being GPS coordinates are spherical coordinates and you are trying to depict them on a flat or planar surface and you cannot directly do that.
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Hello everyone, I am currently conducting a study on soil salinity digital mapping and I would love to use Landsat OLI and sentinel-2 MSI data to quantify the salinity. The other main objective were to discuss the differences of these two remote sensing data . In fact, the spatial resoultions of them are different (20m and 30m). For the comparison, should they be resampled to a same size? If yes, the resampling should be from 20m to 30m, or from 30 to 20 m?
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The main visible and near-infrared Sentinel-2A bands have a spatial resolution of 10 meters, while its “red-edge” (red and near-infrared bands) and two shortwave infrared bands have a 20-meter spatial resolution. ... Geometric Characteristics: Sentinel-2A Level-1C products have similar geometric accuracy as Landsat 8
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Dear cartography fellows, are you please aware of any research articles on depiction of own-position on digital maps? I am trying to investigate how map users perceives and interprets the precision of own-position depiction in terms of location and direction.
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Image of high-precision positioning and velocities maps are displayed digitally via using Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) often. For example, you can see maps like this in my article below.
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A colleague is currently drafting her thesis proposal.
The aim of the thesis would be comparing the pedagogical effectiveness of traditional map reading in the geography classroom, versus 'digital' map reading tools. Some examples of 'digital' map reading tools could be google maps, augmented reality apps, or virtual reality 'field trips'.
Ideally, she would be conducting her research in Irish secondary schools, but she is willing to consider case studies from other countries.
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They are improving students' map reading skills. A combination of both the digital map reading tools and the traditional method will definitely be more effective.
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Digitalization in public administration and not least urban planning is gaining momentum. More and more data gets available and tools and methods advance and get digitized. I was wondering if digitalization (or the digital transformation) will impact urban planning practice in the sense that we will focus more and more on details, while loosing a sense for the big picture. But there could be also other concerns like for example a standardization (there are pros and cons for that of course) or a loss of creativity (while probably enabling new ways of creativity).
Has anybody done research on how planning practice changes due to digitalization?
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This is how I conducted such research, including analyzing the Land Use technical specification. t shows that only the Netherlands has solved the key problem. The paper plan does not have to be the only document anymore. The digital zone plan is just as accurate and is the equivalent of a paper plan. In other European countries, the document is still a document. Standardization brings many benefits, but the most for those countries that have long had a stable land use classification (France, Germany, the Netherlands). The authors of the Land Use specifications were the representatives of these countries, and therefore the standards contained in this specification are the most consistent with their model of the zoning plan. The standards of the European land use classification for national classification have not been mapped in these countries. Apparently, work is continuing to improve the adaptation of the European HILUCS classification to the needs of other countries and integrated planning. The very idea is very good, provided that there is a type of a stream plan in a given country, consistent with other instruments of spatial policy. In my opinion, it is ideal in this area in the Netherlands. A well-functioning development policy is very important for the development of the country. If economic domination is combined with spatial planning, then the country and territory data develops better. The 1: 5000, 1: 50,000 scale is important.
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I would like to create an online digital map guide of the urban, social and economic characteristics of an area with a significant historical heritage. I will be very grateful for your contributions in terms of ideas, proposals, bibliography, examples of feild sheets, operational modes, GIS online ...
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Thank you @Julien Gloanec for your answer. Actually, we intend to know how to map the historical heritage, not the public health issues. Regards
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We assume, that we are not the first ones who are developing an interactive digital map table, that can be used to overlay and (at some point) easily integrate datasets for live negotiation and visually supported knowledge dissemination.
We developed a browser-based table application to create light-weight scenario-games incl. drawing functionality on the table and it can save projects/sessions to share good practices on one hand and to allow transparency in decision-making processes, on the other.
We would like to learn more from similar projects and from cities/planners that have such tools already in application or would like to share their thoughts, wishes and knowledge with us - or to join in for a future project!
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Lavasa is a privately built Hill-City in India. I worked there as Urban Designer from 2005-2016. We used the capability of GIS extensively to help interdepartmental decision making. You may refer to two of my papers in my profile. But this was not based on internet applications but was managed by few intranet tools and few superusers of GIS. Since the geographical expanse wasn't great (we were dealing with just 1500 acre initially, the number of employees were around 400 persons) and user were not large in numbers. Now Lavasa is in financial trouble because of bad environmental policies. Thus the initiative cannot be seen on public domain.
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I am new for Generic Mapping Tool (GMT), but I would like to work through a few simple examples of generating legends (ie. multiple points or lines plotted on a single figure using psxy). In the following example, I want a set the location of Legend in the southwest (Inside bottom-left of axes).
gmt psbasemap -R-108/-105/31/35 -JM6i -Ba0.5 -K -P> New_Mexico.ps
gmt pscoast -R -J -Df -Gwhite -O -K -P>> New_Mexico.ps
gmt psxy Data1.txt -R -J -Sc0.5c -Gblue -O -K -P >>New_Mexico.ps
gmt psxy Data2.txt -R -J -St0.5c -Gred -O -K -P>>New_Mexico.ps
gmt psxy Data3.txt -R -J -Ss0.5c -Ggreen -O -K -P>>New_Mexico.ps
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Dear Abd-Elrahim Ruby,
I am also new in GMT, but I have found a good manual "Getting Sterted with GMT: An Introduction to Seismologists" by Matthew R. Agius, you can request a full-text, hope it will help you.
Best regards,
Katerina
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Spatial Modelling of Conflict & Urban Conditions 
University of Leeds, United Kingdom
1 June 2018
A Seminar exploring the way digital mapping and modelling of urban unrest can contribute to an understanding of protest movements and urban stability.
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Paul Routledge
School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK. 
Professor Wendy Pullan
Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, UK.
Dr Nils W. Metternich
Department of Political Science, University College London, UK.
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thanks for the sharing
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Digital map accuracy depend on Scale , Building size and any thing?
I'm currently proposing the thesis that Analysis of digital map accuracy by using total station traversing data. I want answers that what are the variety of details of land and how is this work on or depend on digital map accuracy?
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We would like to start using eyetracking analysis. However we would like to know if 60 Hz for example Tobii X2-60Hz is a good idea to use? It would be for desktop PC digital maps and mobile devices map such as smartphone.
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i think so
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Geo-referencing & digitizing map is not an option since the actual scale at which map was made is not known and delineation of actual accurate area will not be feasible. (Same is true by calculating via drainage network using DEM) All help will be greatly appreciated. :)
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In present scenario drainage basin extraction from DEM is feasible solution. I could not understand why you want to get correct Question suiting to answer in hand (258,948)
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I am looking for a smartphone app that allows mapping single locations of plants/animals/things. The app should provide a picklist or any selection system in order to select a given name for the (plant) species to be mapped, should take a photo, store location and foto locally in a database and later upload to my larger database in my office.
Is this a dream or is anyone out there aware of a software like this? I know there is a ESRI mobileGIS-app, but I don´t want to rely on the high costs of the ESRI products. BUt that mobileGIS app would be something in that direction. 
any comments are welcome!
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In https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308325606_Geospatial_Data_Based_Environment_for_Educational_and_Gaming_Purposes_The_Pilot_INSPIRE4Youth?ev=prf_pub we are trying to define some educational scenarios based on Geospatial information. We would like ask you about your experience with utilization of digital maps.
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Dear Alfred, we are now working on next concept http://sdi4apps.eu/2016/09/google-docs-for-maps-collaborative-whiteboard-for-drawing-on-maps/. Do you think, that such sharing of ideas could be usefull for education?
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Recently, studies have demonstrated that the use of Mantel test is not corrent when detecting spatial structure or spatial correlation between two multivariable data sets (community structure and abiotic parameters). Guillot and Rousset 2013, and Legendre et al. 2016 suggested that we should abandon such test. Instead, Legendre et al. suggest to use distance-based Moran eigenvector map analysis in such issues. Can anybody provide feedback on how to use such a test? also can anybody recommend a software for running this test? Many thanks in advance. 
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Hi Aldo, distance-based Moran's eigenvector map analysis (dbMEM) is a spatial eigenfunction method. Basically, dbMEM (also known as principal coordinates of neighbour matrices, PCNM) decomposes the spatial structure of your dataset in a large number of eigenfunctions (number of sites-1). These eigenfunctions can be used as new proxy variables of spatial structure in OLS, GLM or similar methods (in the case of univariate responses) or a redundancy analysis (RDA, in the case of multivariate responses, such as in analyses of species composition). These eigenvalues allow you to test/account the importance of spatial structure per se on a particular phenomenon. One downside is that the number of eigenfunctions to be used needs to be determined manually which can be cumbersome for large datasets. Only eigenvalues with a significant spatial structure (i.e. spatially autocorrelated) are used in further analyses. 
Here is an excellent explanation of the method and its applications:
Both dbMEM (PCNM) and RDA can be run in the package vegan in R (implemented by the group of Pierre Legendre and co-workers).
Take a look of a previous discussion about alternative methods to PCNM (also implemented in R!)
Good luck with your research.
Marcelo
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I am looking for training and test date for classification of geographical points defined by longitude and latitude pairs. URLs to pertinent datasets most welcome.  The data  has to be classified though.
best wishes
Tony Scott
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Tony,
Not quite sure exactly what you are looking for. Are you wanting data like location, latitude, longitude? Like the link below
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In map pattern most of the thrust/fault traces in a fold-thrust belt are sinuous (i.e. having series of salients and recesses). Many researchers concluded that the fault planes are curviplanar in 3D. 
I have mapped a thrust in Garhwal-Lesser Himalaya with varying strike and dip amount from place to place. My question is how do we know if the thrust plane is originally curviplanar in 3D or it is folded by some later deformation (ignoring the topographic controls).
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One way to check is to do a fold test on slickenline data. If the original fault surface is curved, the slip direction should not strongly depend on local fault plane orientation. If the fault surface is a folded plane, then the slikenlines should in principle have been parallel before folding. If direction of slip is parallel to the undulations of the fault surface, it is not possible to tell with this method, but a curviplanar fault is a simpler explanation.
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Suppose I wish to go to restaurant and find it is at (12.950015N, 77.576432E). I cannot easily enter it into an app I use for ordering a cab. Can we find a more user friendly form for this information?
Search engine listings for shops, business cards, gates of prominent buildings and bus stops should ideally display geocodes so that people could put them into their cell phone contacts and communicate chosen codes to cab companies. The challenge is to invent a notation that is easy to use by humans as well as by machines. Visit the following blog post for one proposal. 
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Already, there seem to exist an app that addresses your question in a way. It is called what3words. From the app's homepage, they describe it as "a global grid of 57 trillion 3mx3m squares. Each square has a 3 word address that can be communicated quickly, easily and with no ambiguity. [The] geocoder turns geographic coordinates into these 3 word addresses and vice-versa. Using words means non-technical people can accurately find any location and communicate it more quickly, more easily and with less ambiguity than any other system like street addresses, postcodes, latitude & longitude or mobile short-links." Link - http://what3words.com/. I must state here that, I have no connection with the app so this is not some sort of promotion from me. I came across it and thought it might answer your question.
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Dear colleagues:
Is there a conformal mapping that transforms non-spherical surfaces to spherical ones? or what is the methodology to construct that mapping?  
if there is such mapping it's better to be convertible one.
Best Regards.
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Dear  Khaled Mohamed,
Suppose S is a compact metric surface, then  for each point p, there
exits a local coordinate chart (U,f ), such that p belongs U and the
local coordinates are isothermal  ( and metric conformal in local coordinates ) . In particular,   it is true for surfaces  in Euclidean  3-dimensional space.
Ahlfors, Lars V. (1966), Lectures on quasiconformal mappings, Van Nostrand
So using  Beltrami  equation, we can   local coordinates  in which metric is conformal.
best,
MM
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I’m looking for a Digital Elevation Models for Relief (topographic + bathymetric) with different resolution of the gridded data varies from true 30-Arc sec and 1-Arc sec
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For topography and bathymetry, the Global Multi-Resolution Topography Data Synthesis (http://www.marine-geo.org/portals/gmrt/) is a great resource not yet listed. Data are accessible via web services (http://www.marine-geo.org/tools/web_services.php#gmrt) or web portal (http://www.marine-geo.org/tools/maps_grids.php)
OpenTopography provides access to SRTM GL3 (90m) and the new global GL1 (30m) dataset via web portal (http://opentopo.sdsc.edu/gridsphere/gridsphere?cid=geonlidar&platform=Satellite%20Data&format=sd) and web service (http://www.opentopography.org/index.php/Tools/developers)
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For a same digital elevation model (DEM), I applied different classifications. In the following figure, to the left is the outcome of natural breaks (Jenks 1967), while to the right is that of head/tail breaks (Jiang 2013). The right pattern revealed the underlying scaling pattern of far more low locations (or low value pixels) than high locations (or high value pixels). However, we have got used to the left pattern. What do you think?
Jenks G. F. (1967), The data model concept in statistical mapping, International Yearbook of Cartography, 7, 186-190.
Jiang B. (2013), Head/tail breaks: a new classification scheme for data with a heavy-tailed distribution, The Professional Geographer, 65(3), 482-494.
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Dear Gabriel Asato,
Many thanks for your comment that helps to bring the discussion in this thread at a high level. There are two kinds of beauty: one is triggered by surface colors and nice designs that is subjective, and the other exists in deep structure that is objective. I fully agree with you that some people like you are in favor of Tom Paterson's rendering, which looks beautiful and eye-catching. On  the other hand, a majority of people find (consciously or subconsciously) head/tail breaks-induced rendering has positive impacts on human well-being. The second kind of beauty can be effectively revealed by the head/tail breaks rather than conventional classification methods. I made this point clear in this paper:
Jiang B. and Sui D. (2014), A new kind of beauty out of the underlying scaling of geographic space, The Professional Geographer, 66(4), 676–686.
Even though there is no classification involved Tom Paterson's rendering, the color scale is still similar to those by conventional classification methods. Instead, I think the color scale should be similar to one by the head/tail breaks. Note: by color scale, I mean how color should be transitioned from one end to another (linearly, non-linearly, or arbitrarily).
More recently I developed a mathematical model of wholeness, with which one can learn why something is beautiful, but also how much something is beautiful.
Jiang B. (2015), Wholeness as a hierarchical graph to capture the nature of space, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, xx(x), xx-xx, Preprint: http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.03554
Clearly the right pattern is more beautiful than the left one. Benoit Mandelbrot referred to the left as cold and dry, while Christopher Alexander referred to the right as a living structure.
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I have 1:25000 scale digital topomaps in dwg file. What will be the best pixel size to make DEM from that digital map? The contour interval is 10m. I tried with variogram calculation but not succeed. 
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A good discussion on this is given by Tomislav Hengl: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0098300405002657
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Cognitive psychology can be seen as the processes by which our sensory inputs are transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered and used. In short, cognition can be defined as the acquisition of knowledge. As such, difficult concepts and design should be taught in light of the findings of  cognitive psychology. For example, digital map design should be embedded in how we consume the spatial information. Cognitive psychology may provide a strong framework for a new way to explain the engineering topics and others such as computer science. In fact, it can be integrated to all walks of life that are central to mankind. 
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I definitely agree.  The engineers and computer scientists are hungry for accessible information about cognitive psychology.
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Is digitizing of map features completely dead?
For example, when and why do you still digitize features from a map?
It can be heads digitizing up from a scanned paper map (or image, or whatever) or using a traditional digitizing tablet. It can also just be digital and heads-up (i.e. you never had the paper map).
Do you ever still utilize manual feature digitization to create points, lines, or polygons?
I need this information for a statistical technique I am developing.
Addition.
Any VGIS examples?
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Dear Stuart,
in the archaeological domain this kind of operational approach is "still" very diffuse, due to enormous amount of archives material items, such as paper maps, radex and similar data recording supports, furthermore still too much employed in current field excavations and analysis.
Within our SITAR Project (see at http://sitar.archeoroma.beniculturali.it/ and some other resources at my RG profile), digitization activities represent the most important aspect for the first phase of our geo-data bank implementation, necessary for extracting above all polygonal archaeological features, altimetric points and related geospatial informations for mapping archaeological sites, monuments and complexes, and their fragmental partitions.
By the way, more generally such a necessary approach to data "distillation" implies some issues with regard to data heterogeneity, their completeness and final use and re-use. In this sense, this native heterogeneity generates, more or less deeply and distinctly, some questions on precision/completeness both at topographical and descriptive level, for old and also new data, motivating the implementation of semi-automated workflows in order to compare and re-align fragmentary different analogic source data.
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      I have been looking for a reference for a long time, and I am annoyed that I cannot find it again. Perhaps someone on this list could help me...
     About 30 years ago, I remember reading an article, by a British scientist if I recall correctly, talking about soil maps. The author said that soil maps without a well-defined practical purpose don't make a lot of sense. He (or she?) discussed the example of a soil map useful to a fisherman. That map only needs to have two classes: soils with earthworms and soils without earthworms...
      I have always thought that this paper was right, in so many ways... And for the last few years, I have tried desperately to find it again, to cite it in a reflection on the usefulness of soil maps that I would like to write... We seem to spend so much time and energy making maps, including now digital maps, and so little time thinking about what information soil maps should contain to be useful, or what precise purpose maps serve. As a result, most of the information that current soil maps provide is almost entirely useless or misleading for a wide range of situations... 
Anyway, if someone could tell me what the reference to this article is, I would be eternally grateful.
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The earthworm example sounds quite like  Beckett or  Webster.
As well as the mainstream papers in Nature and Journal of Soil Science with Webster, Bie and Burrough, Philip Beckett also wrote some single author papers.  The material you want may be in them.
1967  J Indian Soil Science Society  15 187- 
1971  Outlook on Agriculture 6 (5) 191-198
1977  J Soil & Water Conservation  33  (1) 15 - 20
0ther possibly useful legacy papers:
Handreck K A  1978.  CSIRO Division of  Soils. Report 35
Valentine K W  et al. 1981.  Canadian J Soil Science 61 (1)  123- 135
Zayach S J 1973.  Geoderma 10  67 -74
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As far as I know, the optical phase unwrapping method with two or more wavelengths is a good choice. However, it is complicated and hard to operate.
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If I would have to answer in a single word, the short answer is NO. But there are plenty of details.
In a reconstructed phase the phase is wrapped in 2*pi. Two flat surfaces with sharp borders with depth giving 2*pi or 4*pi would be indistinguishable. No matter which the unwrapping algorithm (on the object) is. Information is limited. You cannot know how many turns a wheel has turned in 100 m.
The only way is to brake the ambiguity with more information. Say that you use two wheel with different radii. Then for a given combination of position of the wheels, the number of posibilities is greatly reduced. This is the equivalent of using 2 wavelengths. The range without ambiguity depends on the relative difference of lambdas. Using many lambdas you can enormously increase the range. This is equivalent to the 3D digitizers which projects fringes with different periods and have meters of range with a very sub-mm accuracy.
All above refers to a phase map (or a few ones with different lambdas). You could use other information. In the answers by Davood Khodadad he refers to a method using defocusing. This, implictly is using the fact that the holograms exhibit paralax. You have several views of the object (assuming the number of pixels in the hologram are significantly larger than in the imaged part of the object). This extra information could be used by itself for better unwrapping.
Nevertheless I'm unaware of a method using just this information, without needing multi-lambda. This could be a good subject for reseach :-)
By the way, if you have a continuous phase (no regions separated by steps from the rest), try any of the well known unwrapping algorithms, like Flynn (google "flynn unwrap" to find details and even code)
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Hello every body.
I want to know that '' Identification soil type by sensors in satellite is possible or not? '' and address of sites where this data is available or introduce papers about this topic.  thank you for your help
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Hello Reza, I recommend you:
Hartemink, A.E., McBratney, A.B. & Mendonca-Santos, M.L. (eds), 2008.
Digital Soil Mapping with Limited Data. Springer, Berlin, Germany.
and 
Boettinger, J.L., Howell, D.W., Moore, A.C., Hartemink, A.E. &
Kienast-Brown, S. 2010. Digital Soil Mapping: Bridging Research,
Production, and Environmental Application. Springer-Verlag, Dordrecht.
The soil classification from satellite remote sensing data it is possible, but the accuracy of estimation depends on satellite's sensor, and in particular it is affected by spatial and spectral characteristics of sensor...but not only.
I deal with the estimation of quantitive soil properties (e.g soc and clay content) from hyperspectral remote sensors (EO1-Hyperion, Chris-Proba). If you are interested you can consult my articles:
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I want a method for vectorization as mathematical morphology, but I want a brief description.
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Mathematical morphology consists of a set of transformations that transform a set into another set. The goal of these transformations is to find specific geometrical structure in the original one. These transformations are carried out via the use of another smaller set, known as the structuring element (SE), which contains the desired geometrical structure. The transformed set contains the information about that structure. Various interactions of the original set with the structuring element form the basis of all morphological operators.
Mathematical Morphology, developed by Serra [Serra, J., Image Analysis and Mathematical Morphology. Acad. Press, New York, 1982], is basically a set theory that uses set transformations for image analysis [Robert M., Stanley R., Xinhua Zh. ,Image analysis using mathematical morphology, IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence, Vol. PAMI-9, 1987; 532-549.]. It extracts the impact of particular shape on images via concept of SE. The SE encodes the primitive shape information. In a discrete approach, the shape is described as a set of vectors referenced to a particular point, the center, which does not necessarily belong to SE. During morphological transformation, the center scans the whole image and matching shape information is used to define the transformation. The transformed image is thus a function of SE distribution on the original image.
The two most fundamental transforms of mathematical morphology are erosion and dilation. Using their combinations two more operations known as opening and closing can be performed.
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I know that UAVs are one of the most important innovation of the last years in geomatic and I know that with these systems it is possible to obtain 3D models and orthoimages with high levels of detail and accuracy, but I know very few examples about the use of UAV in digital mapping, mainly to produce topographic maps.
Does anyone have information on this specific topic?
What could be the scale of the topographic maps?
What could be the size of the area to be surveyed?
What are the differences between fixed-wing and multi-rotor for these applications?
Many Thanks
Mauro
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Dear Prof. Brutto
I'm also new to this field of digital mapping through the use of UAVs. Nevertheless I've collected some useful papers which I thought would be good to share. Most of the questions which you raised are answered in these research papers. The first paper deals with the general introduction followed by specific applications of UAV in various domains. Please feel free to get in touch, I've some more papers. Couldn't upload all due to limitation of uploading only 10 files!
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How to geo rectify the toposheet or autocad file (adding lat and long). I plan to add lat and long to the campus map which is prepared in autocad. How can I add it. By collecting google coordinates or hand held gps co ordinates?  Myself I'm having hand held gps 3 to 5 m accuracry. which one gives more accuracey? or any other way to add co ordinates with more accuracy 
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I see quite good answers. However, it depends on you if you are comfortable with autocad/autocad map then use coordinates as mentioned by all and use Transform command in AutoCAD Map or Georeference command in ArcGIS/Erdas/Global Mapper etc.
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Digital mapping. Soil survey.
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from here http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/~research/tutorial/image.htm a good definition for pixel size and spatial resolution that applies to satellite imagery.
"Spatial resolution refers to the size of the smallest object that can be resolved on the ground. In a digital image, the resolution is limited by the pixel size, i.e. the smallest resolvable object cannot be smaller than the pixel size. The intrinsic resolution of an imaging system is determined primarily by the instantaneous field of view (IFOV) of the sensor, which is a measure of the ground area viewed by a single detector element in a given instant in time. However this intrinsic resolution can often be degraded by other factors which introduce blurring of the image, such as improper focusing, atmospheric scattering and target motion. The pixel size is determined by the sampling distance."
At the same link, you can find also some nice examples for clarifying the differences between 'Spatial Resolution and Pixel Size'
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I am working with X-ray CT Skyscan 1172 and its accompanied software CT-An. Are you experienced with this device? Can we share some analysing techniques, especially in diffusion mapping and porosity analysis.
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Additional porosity measurements can be made by using ImageJ. Christopher Liner has a nice little video showing this sort of measurement in rock section at http://seismosblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/thin-section-porosity-estimation-using.html . Also the bonej plugin (http://bonej.org) has a nice particle analysis section that can be used to track porosity in 3D.
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Map of fault especially Indonesia.
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Thank you.