LizardTech was invited to participate a week or so ago in the Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center’s speaker forum series. The Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center (WyGISC for short) is an interdisciplinary research institute at the University of Wyoming focused on development of geospatial information and technologies and their applications in science, education, government and business. Every Friday they host a guest speaker to come in and discuss technology, business roles in the industry, and career advice.

So bright and early on a beautiful day in September Jeff Young, our business developer, and I drove like “Mario Andretti through Cooter country” from Ft. Collins, Colorado to Laramie, Wyoming to present MrSID technology to graduate students and faculty at UW. Being a student once myself I knew what a big draw free food can be so we ordered in some pizzas for the event. And it’s a good thing because due to road construction enroute we were a wee bit late.

But despite our tardiness the event was a great success. Most of the audience had worked with MrSID files and were eager to learn about the advancements we’d made with the technology in the direction of multi- and hyperspectral support for raster MrSIDs and now MrSID compression for LiDAR data. There was also a big interest in Express Server for delivering MrSID and JPEG 2000 compressed imagery. Jeff and I made a great team. I was able to provide details on the raster aspect of MrSID compression and delivery while he provided elaborate details about MrSID LiDAR compression.

After the presentation, which was very interactive, we were able to talk one on one with some great people. One of the WyGISC researchers came up to introduce himself and let me know that he had pushed his old employer to use MrSID imagery and buy our software in South Dakota. We were invited to come back and participate in WyGEO (http://wygeo.org/) and Pennsylvanian Jeff was even able to pick out a native of his home state by her “accent”.

Our visit also answered a burning question that had come up on the ride up to Laramie. We had passed a herd of what looked to me — after taking my eyes off the road for a nano-second and seeing only a bunch of white, fluffy rear-ends — like antelope. But Jeff disagreed with my analysis and said those butts were too big for antelope and probably belonged to big horn sheep. One of the UW faculty confirmed that it was most likely big horn sheep that we had seen since this was the time of year that they usually migrated through the area.

Take a look at the pictures below and see for yourself – an easy mistake to make, no? Although, I’m sure an antelope wouldn’t appreciate its backside being compared to a big horn sheep’s.

Big horn sheep butts.

Antelope butts. Image by Mary Gordon, used by permission.

This week LizardTech attended the ASPRS 2011 Annual Conference. Every year the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing holds its conference in a different city and this year it was held in fabulous Milwaukee. In case you’ve never heard of it, it is a great little city with the best beer (which is saying something since I am not a lover of beer to begin with) about an hour north of Chicago.

New Glarus Spotted Cow beer.

Arriving well into the double digits of the evening we got the car and headed to the hotel. Driving through town late gave the false impression that Milwaukee is a quiet little town with little action…au contraire! It is a busy college town full of great restaurants and lots of friendly folks.

Bright and early Monday morning LizardTech sales engineer Robert Parker, LizardTech business development manager and ASPRS boardmember Jeff Young and myself hosted a four-hour User Group meeting. We had a steady flow throughout the morning of new and long standing MrSID format users, a great way to start the week.

Tuesday was a lively day on the tradeshow floor in our booth. Past ASPRS conferences have been relatively slow but not this year. The exhibits were hoppin’ with customers; one booth even had a magician.

The famous Wisconsin cheese curd. You often find families of them huddled in newspaper cones like this one.

Wednesday LizardTech product manager Jon Skiffington gave a presentation on MG4 compression for LiDAR. It was well attended and there were great customer questions and feedback.

That afternoon, Robert and I had the pleasure of a two-hour drive to Madison to meet with a small group at a Wisconsin government agency. They are starting to work with more lidar imagery and may have a use for LizardTech’s LiDAR Compressor software in the near future. More importantly, they have decades of MrSID imagery that needs to be served out. LizardTech’s Express Server image serving software would be a natural fit so Robert demonstrated its installation and ease of use. Now if only the state purse were bottomless…

The “Ladybug Building” on N. Water near E. Michigan.

Thursday was the final day of the conference and it was only a half day. The majority of the LizardTech crew flew out Thursday. I, however, wasn’t flying out until Friday morning so this gave me some time to get to know Milwaukee a little more intimately. First on the agenda, find some lunch. 

After consulting Yelp! on my newly acquired iPhone 4 (it really will change your life) I settled on Oscar’s Pub & Grill. It was a 2.2 mile walk from the hotel and after a week of cheese soup, beer, and giant pretzels (Milwaukee has a large German population and apparently giant Costco pretzels are a popular German food — who knew?) I figured it would do me good to ditch the car. 

Potawatomi Casino you owe me $20.

Oscar’s ended up being in the industrial part of town, not much to see except factory buildings and large garages. But the Potawatomi Casino was on the route, which came in handy on my way back because they have public restrooms….and now 20 of my hard earned dollars.

Over lunch the bartender was telling me about the best coffee in Milwaukee at Alterra Coffee Roasters. So I went on a wild goose chase, on foot, to find this great coffee. En route I ended up at the Milwaukee Art Museum down on Lake Michigan. Entry is free the first Thursday of every month and what do you know?…it just happened to be the first Thursday of the month. They currently have a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit going on through May 15th. The building itself was a beautiful sight with walls of windows so patrons enjoy a great view of Lake Michigan and as a big FLW fan, that exhibit was the cherry on top. I hit a lovely trail along Lake Michigan and headed back to the hotel.

MAM has FLW!

Well, five hours (and 22,200 steps, according to my pedometer) later I arrived at the hotel hungry, tired, wet (got rained on just a little) and feeling pretty good about Milwaukee. I never did find the Alterra Coffee Roasters establishment on my journeys but was pleased to see they had a little set-up right in the middle of the airport after I got through security and the coffee was pretty good, for Milwaukee. It sure beats Starbucks anyway. 

Well done, dairy state, I can’t wait to come back.

I recently had the privilege of spending a week in the Denver Metro area visiting LizardTech customers and business associates.  I have been to the beautiful city of Denver many times, and I look forward to each and every visit, especially the part where I get to leave my umbrella at home and bust out the sunglasses! (Yes, they actually sell sunglasses here in Seattle, wise guy…just don’t expect to use them much. )

But something I never seem to adjust well to, no matter how much I prepare for it, is the altitude and humidity change between Denver and Seattle.  As a means of outsmarting my internal self, the first stop as soon as I hit town was to a Super Target to pick up a case of water for the week, in hopes that it would help my system adjust going from 80% humidity at sea level to virtual 0% humidity at 5280 feet. But little did I know that I would experience a new symptom of higher altitudes on this trip – nose bleeds.  As a co-worker based in Denver says: “They don’t call ’em the Denver Rockies for nothin’.”

Pike’s Peak framed by the Siamese Twins rock formation in the Garden of the Gods Park in Colorado Springs. Image by Beverly Lussier, public domain.

So with my case of water and a box full of Kleenex I powered through an action-packed week in the Mile High City.

Monday 11 am – Pixxures

It was just me on this inaugural Denver Metro area customer site visit. Pixxures is a very important LizardTech customer. They provide custom digital aerial imagery, orthophotography, GIS and mapping services. In addition to collecting direct-digital, high-resolution multispectral aerial imagery, they scan and orthorectify historical aerial photography and offer value-added remote sensing services.

I was able to meet with all seven people on the production team and go over LizardTech’s LiDAR Compressor and GeoExpress 8 software. They are heavy users of multiband and lidar imagery so LiDAR Compressor and the new multi- and hyperspectral support in GeoExpress couldn’t have come at a better time for them.

Monday 1:30 pm – Mapmart

Terry Ryan and myself on another Denver Metro area customer site visit. Mapmart is a division of IntraSearch Inc., a full service mapping company, headquartered in Denver. MapMart is partnered with over thirty of the top geospatial data creators to cover nearly all facets of geospatial data needs. They are branching into the field of data hosting and are very interested in implementing LizardTech’s Express Server software.

You say you don’t know much about Express Server? Here’s some quick schoolin’ for you:

• Check out GIS Planning’s Express Server data hosting website here.
• Express Server also works within any WMS client as well as a number of proprietary clients. Your imagery is accessed directly within these applications. Check out the entire state of New Jersey here!
• View more WMS imagery being delivered using Express Server here.

Tuesday 8:30 am – CompassTools

It was just me on this Denver Metro area training. CompassTools is an authorized LizardTech reseller located in Centennial, a suburb of Denver. They specialize in field data collection tools and graciously offered us the use of their training room at no charge and even provided a continental breakfast for the attendees.

We promoted this session through a LizardTech marketing e-blast and the CompassTools newsletter.

Wednesday 1 pm – City and County of Denver

Terry Ryan and myself on this customer site visit. We met with Paul Tessar and his team of developers and GIS gurus. They are very interested in Express Server for accessing their imagery using ArcIMS.

Seal of the City and County of Denver. Image public domain.

Wednesday – ERDAS 11 World Tour

This half-day event was hosted by ERDAS and Digital Globe (another very important LizardTech customer!) at the Xilinx Facility in Longmont. T-Ryan and I learned about all the new features and benefits in the ERDAS 2011 Software Release.

Here is a GISCafe article with a bit more detailed information on the ERDAS 2011 Software Release.

The event wrapped up after lunch (a very healthy and delicious taco bar!) and as luck would have it Longmont is a mere 15 miles from Boulder, famous for its status as one of the most liberal cities in Colorado and located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of 5,430 feet.

It was a beautiful day in Boulder with mostly blue skies despite some broken smoke signals from the wildfires in the area. The mountain views were breath-taking and there are a multitude of hiking trails and climbing for all skill levels throughout the city.

Thursday evening  – Business Dinner at Euclid Hall in LoDo District

Built in 1883 as a house for Dr. Byron Albertus Wheeler, Euclid Hall has been home to the Masons, the Colorado Women’s Relief Corps, The Cootie Club, Maudie’s Flea Market and is even rumored to have once been the very fancy headquarters of a brothel catering to government officials, law enforcement and members of the media. Perhaps its most memorable occupant was Soapy Smith’s Double Eagle Bar which operated from 1977 through the end of the century. The bar was a long-time gathering place for good food and live entertainment, with focus on high quality and innovative pub food from around the world including housemade sausages, po’ boys, poutine and schnitzels.

They’ve since taken the stickers off the new windows of Euclid Hall. Image copyright Lori Midson, used with permission.

That said, I had to try the Sausage Tasting plate.  It came with four types of mustard, two sweet and two spicy and a link of each of the following:

• Beef Short Rib Kielbasa – beef blood infused sausage
• Uncensored Hoppwurst, Carr Valley cheddar
• Boudin Noir, avec curry e aubergine
• Bavarian Veal Weisswurst

They did offer to substitute the blood sausage for one of the other three they offered but since I had never had it before I decided to take a walk on the wild side and give it a try. All the mustards and sausages were delicious but I just couldn’t get past the color (it was a deep purple, almost black) and texture (pasty, pâté-type consistency) of the blood sausage enough to enjoy more than one bite.

But rest assured I will be going back to Euclid Hall. The service was amazing and I still have yet to try their famous poutine.

Friday 9 am – Sanborn

Jeff Young and myself on this Colorado Springs customer site visit. Sanborn is our biggest commercial GeoExpress user. They are headquartered in Colorado Springs with locations in Oregon, California, Texas, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, and New York.

Jeff Young, our business developer, and I were invited to meet with the productions operation group and discuss the new features in GeoExpress 8.  We were given a tour of the office and got to see the many server rooms they have designated just for image processing. They handle so much imagery that they not only have workstations processing overnight, they actually have a graveyard shift of imagery technicians performing digital orthophoto processing.

Sanborn logo from an early map of Denver. Image copyright Sanborn, used with permission.

Fellow LizardTech developer Kirk and I just got back from the third annual OSGeo Code Sprint; this time in Montreal, Canada. Daniel Morissette did a great job of organizing this event and has already posted an excellent review of the sprint (here) including pictures (here), so I’ll simply add that that it was great fun to meet personally with the guys who build great libraries like PostGIS, libLAS/libPC and GDAL.

Kirk and I worked on adding MG4 (MrSID Generation 4) support to the new libPC. The “PC” stands for “point cloud”. libPC is the next evolution of libLAS and aims to be the GDAL of point cloud formats. We didn’t finish, but once this work is done it will enable decode support in libPC for compressed LiDAR data in MrSID format. For more info, see http://libpc.org/notes/goals.html.

Fun fact:  The pronunciation of GDAL is the subject of some disagreement. It seems obvious to me and Kirk that “GeeDAL” is correct (like “Vi”, the editor or “Unix”, the OS).  I was amused to hear that in French-speaking Montreal it’s sometimes “J’DAL.” For reasons that are not clear to me some of the inner circle (Frank W and Hobu) usually pronounce it “GuuDAL.”

Enjoying a break after sprinting. Image courtesy of OSGeo Code Sprint 2011.

On a more serious note, much of the GIS industry’s foundation code depends on some of these libraries. That’s good for all of us: quality libraries allow us all to write valuable applications quickly with high confidence in the underlying stability and reliability. They allow us to focus on what we’re good at and (hopefully) what is important to our users. That’s really valuable and it doesn’t cost very much to give a little back.

1. If you work around a limitation, return the patch to the community. You don’t need to be a committer, just send it in. It’s in everyone’s interest to consider your patch.
2. If you can’t work around it, offer to pay the community to fix it. Some of these guys make a living doing this and our experience is that the costs are often quite reasonable.
3. Consider direct financial support of key projects and/or the OSGeo Foundation (http://www.osgeo.org).

Several of us just returned from the ILMF 2010 conference in Denver, Colorado. What was near and dear to my heart there was the interest in LiDAR compression. Several presentations focused on this (linked items below are PDF documents):

• “Storing and Managing LiDAR Data” by Jon Skiffington (LizardTech)
• “Compressing LiDAR Waveform Data” by Dr. Charles Toth (Ohio State University)
• “laszip: Lossless Compression for LiDAR in LAS Format” (poster) by Dr Martin Isenburg (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
• “LiDAR Compression with MrSID Generation 4” by Michael Rosen (LizardTech)

My sense from talking with the other presenters is that this is something for which the industry is hungry. Dr. Toth is researching ways to compress waveform data (as opposed to the spatial and other attributes of the point cloud itself). He presented two approaches:  one based on a wavelet transform and another based on compressive sensing.

Dr. Isenburg presented a poster session describing laszip, a compression mechanism for LAS files. He described it to me as being primarily focused on archiving LAS data and so rather orthogonal to our efforts, which emphasize accessibility and integration. Also, laszip is free.

Mr. Skiffington’s presentation focused on our LiDAR Compressor product while your author’s presentation gave an outline of the motivation for and an algorithmic explanation of the underlying MG4 technology.

I had several people asked for copies of my presentation so I’ve provided the link above.

Michael Rosen
LizardTech, Engineering Mgr
mrosen at lizardtech dot com