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GIScience Blog

Category: Research

  • Identifying the Effects of Mobility Domains on Volunteered Geographical Information: Towards an Analytical Approach

    The production of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is a type of human behavior which emerges via direct and indirect interactions with the physical environments described by these data. The nature of these interactions and the extent to which they rely on physical presence in the mapped area may affect the quality of the resulting digital…

  • Associating OpenStreetMap tags to CORINE land-cover classes using text and semantic similarity measures

    With the aim of rapidly estimating the updated state of the CORINE land-cover map at the frequency with which the OpenStreetMap (OSM) dataset is edited and extended, we propose an approach for automatically associating widely used OSM tags to Level 1 and Level 2 CORINE land-cover classes. This association is probabilistic and is undertaken based…

  • Enhancing Crowdsourced Classification on Human Settlements Utilizing Logistic Regression Aggregation and Intrinsic Context Factors

    Among semi-automated methods and pre-processed data products, crowdsourcing is another tool which can help to collect information on human settlements and complement existing data, yet it’s accuracy is debated. Whereas the potential of crowdsourced datasets for training of machine learning algorithms has been explored recently, only few work has been done towards utilizing machine learning…

  • Routing for Accessibility – new Project with City of Heidelberg

    Accessibility is a widely discussed topic and there are a growing number of efforts to sensitise European cities and municipalities to the topic. A focus of such efforts is the facilitation of easy access to public places for everyone, including those with walking disabilities, balance and visual disorders, as well as people requiring the use…

  • Information Extraction from LiDAR Intensity Data and Multispectral LiDAR Technology

    LiDAR is a consolidated technology for topographic mapping and 3D reconstruction, which is implemented in several platforms On the other hand, the exploitation of the geometric information has been coupled by the use of laser intensity, which may provide additional data for multiple purposes. This option has been emphasized by the availability of sensors working…

  • Colloquium on Change Analysis of Hypertemporal Terrestrial Laser Scanning Point Clouds

    We cordially invite everybody interested to our next open GIScience colloquium talk The speaker is Evelyn Schmitz Master student, FARO Europe GmbH & Co. KG, Korntal-Münchingen When: Monday 30.04.2018, 2:15 pm Where: INF 348, room 015 (Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University) Voxel-based change analysis of hypertemporal terrestrial laser scanning point clouds of the research campus ARENA2036 including…

  • The Ohsome API: dynamic OSM statistics for real-world applications

    The Ohsome API, developed at HeiGIT, is part of the ohsome OSM history analytics platform (and yes, it is pronounced like the word “awesome” 😉.  It serves as the connection between the OpenStreetMap History Database (OSHDB) and possible frontends, such as the Ohsome Nepal Dashboard prototype. The communication with the Ohsome API works via HTTP GET and POST requests as…

  • 4D-LiDAR Snow Cover Monitoring at the Highest Summit of Germany

    The all-new terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) of the 3DGeo group (Prof. Bernhard Höfle) has been set up at the Environmental Research Station Schneefernerhaus over one week (mid of April 2018) to capture a unique highly temporal time series of the melting and degrading snow cover during the April’s week with the warmest daily maximum temperatures…

  • First prize of the GISRUK data challenge

    A team around Prof. Joao Porto de Albuquerque, including our GIScience Heidelberg colleague René Westerholt, has won this years GISRUK data challenge. Big Congratulations! The theme of the data challenge was to find novel and explicitly spatial insights on the Brexit. Our contribution relates the recent influx of foreign people to the Brexit voting outcomes.…

  • Upcoming Ohsome Conferences

    The Ohsome OSM history analytics platform, developed at HeiGIT, will be presented at the following conferences: ISCRAM in Rochester, NY, USA (20th – 23rd of May) In the short paper for the International Conference for Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management we illustrate the specific potential of the ohsome platform for disaster activations by means of two…

  • International PhD Defenses in 3DGeo Research

    We would like to congratulate Dr. Milutin Milenkovic (Vienna Univ. of Technology, AT) and Dr. Xi Zhu (ITC, NL) for achieving their PhD degree in the domain of 3DGeo research utilizing point clouds from LiDAR and photogrammetry. Bernhard Höfle joined the defenses of the two very good PhD studies: Xi Zhu (2018): Forest Leaf Water…

  • A brief intro to the OpenStreetMap History Database (OSHDB) API

    The OpenStreetMap History Database (OSHDB) is the main data backend developed at HeiGIT for the ohsome OSM history analytics platform, that will make OSM’s history data more accessible for further analysis. OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a rich resource of freely available geographic information. However, the possibilities for analyzing OSM data on a global scale are limited because of…