GIScience News Blog

  • Announcing release 1.0 of ohsome API

    Big news from the ohsome team: the release 1.0 of one of our major services, the ohsome API for ohsome OpenStreetMap History Analytics, is on the doorstep. We are bringing three major advancements along with this version. The first one is a completely new documentation of the API giving several examples to different endpoints. The…

  • No place for climate change

    Transdisciplinary study on climate change adaptation of urban squares Climate change is not only taking place on distant continents or far into the future, but here and now. In Germany, too, the temperature is rising – and even faster than the global average – and the number of hot days is increasing. Especially in cities,…

  • Advanced time-dependent routing soon available in Openrouteservice

    Update: The demo server has been shut down. The plan is to make time-dependent routing available on the main client and API during Q3 2025. For more information, contact support@smartmobility.heigit.org. We are thrilled to give you a sneak peak into routing with time-dependent road restrictions, the outcome of our collaboration with GraphHopper GmbH in the research project…

  • Farmland abandonment in Rio de Janeiro state

    Land use change in Brazil is often associated with a loss of natural habitat (Amazon, Cerrado, Pantanal,…) driven by farmland expansion. A current analysis by a team of Brazilian and German researchers (involving HeiGIT member Sven Lautenbach) shows that for Rio de Janeiro state farmland abandonment has been an important process. Approximately 1 million hectares…

  • Video on research of 3DGeo on change analysis methods at an active rock glacier

    Always been curious about how we develop our methods for 3D/4D change analysis? Then check out our new video on high-resolution and high-frequency monitoring of a rock glacier in Austria! Link to video LiDAR datasets of the rock glacier provide the basis for the development of 3D and 4D methods for geomorphic change quantification within…

  • Virtual Semester Start Mapathon “Humanitarian help and climate change” by disastermappers Heidelberg

    Dear disastermapping enthusiasts, The disastermappers heidelberg series of events “Open Data & the Sustainable Development Goals” begins right on time for the start of the upcoming summer semester. With these events the disastermappers raise awareness for the importance of freely available geographical data and their relevance for current social, ecological and economic challenges. In cooperation with many…

  • Climate Talk – Ein Podcast für das Klima

    „Herzlich Willkommen, Freunde der Erde, bei climate talk, dem Podcast eures Vertrauens in Sachen Klima“. So begrüßt Alexandra Gnädig die HörerInnen ihres neuen Podcasts, den sie zusammen mit Anna Reiter aufnimmt. Ein Podcast für das Klima, mit dieser Idee spielen die beiden Geographiestudentinnen aus Heidelberg schon einige Zeit. Jetzt wurde daraus Realität. Inspiriert durch das…

  • Student field trip to Northern England

    From 2nd – 9th March 2020, students of our department took part in an excursion to Northern England. Among the areas visited under the lead of Dr. Jack Williams were the Peak and Lake Districts, the North York Moors National Parks and Durham County. Preliminary seminars provided the students with background knowledge on the topics…

  • Analysing OSM Completeness of health facilities in Sub-Sahara Africa in ohsomeHeX

    A new map in ohsomeHeX provides an overview of areas in Sub-Sahara Africa where information on health facilities is still missing in OpenStreetMap (OSM). The completeness of OSM is measured by comparing to a reference dataset on public health facilities in Sub-Sahara Africa, which was developed by Maina et al. 2019. Especially in these days,…

  • Tales from a Special Spring at Geography Heidelberg

    Best wishes and as happy Easter holidays as possible from GIScience Heidelberg! Our university campus is almost empty in its physical presence, our research is “virtually” contributing and still “flying”. Nature keeps on reminding us of its fantastic beauty but also distinctness. Spring is arriving at our department on campus (Prof. Hettner monument): Context transforms…

  • Quota for openrouteservice multi vehicle optimization increased to support logistics during Corona crisis

    Supplying medicine and food is critical not only in disasters. Due to increased global demand due to COVIDー19 HeiGIT increased the API quota for the openrouteservice multi vehicle route optimization endpoint! Now you can send up to 500 requests per day for each account for free. If you are in need for even higher problem sizes…

  • Leaf-off UAV-borne laser scanning

    Members of the 3DGeo research group were recently taking advantage of the good weather to acquire some more data within the DFG-funded project SYSSIFOSS. We packed the drone and the RIEGL miniVUX-1UAV laser scanner, and drove to the forest near Bretten where 8 of our plots are located. In four days and 16 flights we…

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