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GIScience Blog

Category: Research

  • OpenFloodRiskMap Online combines Critical Infrastructure from OSM with Emergency Routing

    some time ago we deployed OpenFloodRiskMap (OFRM) at http://ofrm.geog.uni-heidelberg.de/ OpenFloodRiskMap (OFRM) is a prototype web application to assist decision makers in developing alarm and operation plans for flood risk management. The OFRM hereby provides support in accessing critical infrastructure (CI) information in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) data base and to furthermore add this information to an…

  • Two new DFG projects on VGI, OSM Quality and Social Media Analysis

    recently we were happy to receive the notification that two new research projects will be funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) the German main funding agency for fundamental research. Both projects belong to the DFG Priority Programme “Volunteered Geographic Information: Interpretation, Visualisation and Social Computing“ (SPP 1894). The two projects are: A:) IntrisicOSMquality: A framework…

  • Impressions from ISPRS Congress 2016 in Prague

    As we mentioned earlier, we contributed four papers to the ISPRS congress and participated in the CATCON contest for brilliant Computer Assisted Teaching tools. Our new LiDAR Simulator called HELIOS developed by Sebastian Bechtold received a lot of attention. You can also find us in this video of congress day 3. Our young researchers Katharina,…

  • Establishing the “Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology” at Heidelberg University – A new project funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation (KTS)

    A major project funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation (KTS) Heidelberg is starting this July. The KTS will support the establishment of the “Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology” ( HeiGIT for short) within the Institute of Geography at Heidelberg University. This new project aims at improving knowledge and technology transfer from fundamental research into practice…

  • Four contributions from GIScience Heidelberg at the ISPRS Congress in Prague

    The LiDAR Research Group (LRG) of GIScience Heidelberg is contributing novel approaches for geological outcrop characterization, LiDAR simulation, tree classification as well as education in close-range sensing. You are kindly invited to visit our presentations at the ISPRS Congress 2016 in Prague. Furthermore our new HELIOS LiDAR Simulator will participate in the CATCON contest for…

  • Local-scale flood mapping on vegetated floodplains from radiometrically calibrated airborne LiDAR dat

    Knowledge about the magnitude of localised flooding of riverine areas is crucial for appropriate land management and administration at regional and local levels. However, detection and delineation of localised flooding with remote sensing techniques are often hampered on floodplains by the presence of herbaceous vegetation. To address this problem, our very recent paper presents the…

  • A Monitoring Tool for OpenStreetMap Mapathons in Python

    In the last couple of weeks disastermappers Heidelberg and GIScience members were interested in finding a way to monitor changes in the OpenStreetMap database. This could help to provide better feedback after mapathons and could allow to measure how many objects like buildings or roads were created or modified during a mapathon. (It was even…

  • A review of volunteered geographic information quality assessment methods

    While Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is gaining more and more popularity and VGI datasets are being used in various projects, there are always concerns about the quality of them. During the past years several studies have been performed regarding VGI quality assessment by employing different methods/approaches. However, if one needs to evaluate the quality of…

  • OpenRouteService 3.3 is going Mobile – Routing in the Americas, Gradients and more!

    In our latest release we have primarily focused on optimising and stabilising the backend and on adding new elements to provide an improved user experience throughout the OpenRouteService 3.3 based on OpenStreetMap data. After many requests from our community, we for starters can happily announce that we have made the service responsive for your mobile smartphones.…

  • PhD Defence Lucy Mburu on Geographic Criminal Profiling

    This Friday – the hottest day of the year so far – Lucy Waruguru Mburu from the GIScience Research Group Heidelberg University successfully defended her PhD thesis on Criminal Geographic Profiling methods. Her thesis is entitled: “ A Framework for Prediciting Criminal Behavior and Area-Specific Crime Risk through Retrospective Analysis of Geographic Data“. Complemented by…

  • A Two-Tiered Approach to OSM Data collection for Novice Users & Personalizing Walkability

    In addition to the two earlier presentations (No 1, No 2), today there are two additional presentations (No 3 & 4) by GIScience Heidelberg at AGILE 2016 conference in Helsinki: Rousell, A., Hahmann, S., Mobasheri, A. (2016): A Two-Tiered Approach to OSM Data collection for Novice Users. 19th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science. Helsinki,…

  • Deriving incline values for street networks from voluntarily collected GPS traces

    When producing optimal routes through an environment, considering the incline of surfaces can be of great benefit in a number of use cases. For instance, incline may be considered when computing the most energy-efficient routes for electric cars and bicycles. Likewise, pedestrians with restricted mobility (such as wheelchair users, parents with pushchairs, and the elderly)…