PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
August 2018
469
INDUSTRY
NEWS
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PE&RS
, contact Rae Kelley,
.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Towill is excited to announce that Marvin
Miller has joined us as Regional Director for
the Orange and Rancho Cucamonga offices
in Southern California. Marvin is a senior
geomatics professional with progressive
knowledge and leadership experience in the
private-sector geospatial disciplines of aeri-
al remote sensing, mapping, surveying, and
related geospatial services.
He is a regular speaker/instructor at professional confer-
ences and has published several articles for professional jour-
nals. He holds bachelor degrees in geology and geography
from the University of Central Missouri and an MBA from
Central Michigan University. He is a licensed geospatial pro-
fessional in multiple states and is an
American Society for
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Certi-
fied Photogrammetrist
.
Marvin is past-president of the Management Association for
Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (MAPPS) and is also ac-
tive in several other professional organizations including AS-
PRS, where he served as a member of the joint MAPPS/ASPRS
National Committee that developed the ASPRS Procurement
Guidelines for Professional Geospatial Services.
is pleased
to announce that Research
Scientist
and
Development
Manager Vinod Ramnath was
awarded the Sebastian Sizgoric
Technical Achievement Award
by the Joint Airborne Lidar
Bathymetry Technical Center of
Expertise (JALBTCX) at their 19
th
Annual JALBTCX Airborne
Coastal Mapping and Charting Workshop in Providence, Rhode
Island. The award recognizes his overall contributions to the
development of the world’s most advanced bathymetric system.
Mr. Ramnath earned his M.S. in Electrical Engineering
from Mississippi State University and has over 15 years
of experience in the remote sensing industry. Mr. Ramnath
conceived, designed and implemented advanced signal
processing algorithms for the
and its
processing
suite. His accomplishments include:
• Modeling how lidar beams interact with various water
conditions, which enabled Teledyne Optech to optimize
CZMIL’s hardware parameters and improve its range
accuracy.
• Developing HydroFusion’s Turbid Water Module,
which extracts depth measurements from challenging
environments that otherwise defy lidar surveying.
• Decreasing the processing time to generate data products
by 50% with various enhancements implemented last
year.
“We are very proud that our colleague Vinod Ramnath has
been awarded the Sebastian Sizgoric Technical Achievement
Award for 2018. It is an honour, especially since JALBTCX
named the award after one of Optech’s co-founders,” said Bob
Marthouse, Teledyne Optech’s Marine Business Manager
and Director of Operations. “Given today’s increasing usage
of advanced lidar technologies in coastal mapping, maritime
navigation planning, and environmental monitoring, Mr.
Ramnath’s research has already benefited agencies monitoring
coastal zone environments and has made a significant impact
on society.”
Find out more at
.
X Marks the Spot: LSU Center for GeoInformatics Acquires
Absolute Gravimeter—Since its inception in 2002, the LSU
Center for GeoInformatics (C4G) has worked with local, re-
gional, state and federal partners to identify the impact of sub-
sidence, the underlying cause of coastal land loss and flooding
in Louisiana.
In order to engineer effective solutions for preserving life and
property, the center has acquired a new piece of equipment
used to measure gravity—the FG5-X Absolute Gravimeter, the
only one of its kind in the southeastern United States.
LSU Civil and Environmental Engineering Senior
Instructor
Cliff Mugnier
, who teaches surveying, geodesy
and photogrammetry, said the new gravimeter will be used
for determining the acceleration of gravity at a particular spot.
“The center measures GPS,” Mugnier said. “We establish
antennas, bolt them to buildings all over the state and northern
rim of the Gulf of Mexico, from Corpus Christi to Jacksonville.
The GPS instruments that we have there are used for
measuring latitude and longitude for building highways and
various construction work, as well as for elevation.
“The problem with GPS is it really doesn’t determine
elevation. It determines a height. That’s a big deal because
when we do elevations for flood insurance, you need the
elevation of the lowest floor of your house. To go from height
to elevation, you have to know what the gravity field is. That’s
what the gravity meter is for.”
The Absolute Gravimeter, which cost $400,000 and was
acquired with money through the self-funded center, will help
C4G with its Real-Time Network (RTN) program. The RTN
service has subscribers from all over the South who need
gravity measured where they have antennas installed. There
are currently 60 buildings in the state and another 60 to 70 in
the South that LSU controls and observes.
“Other people may own the buildings, but they give
LSU access for their receivers,” Mugnier explained. “When
engineers and surveyors go surveying, they need two pieces
of GPS equipment, which ties up $40,000. Or they can have
just one to do their surveying, a cell phone, and a subscription
to LSU, who will tell them what the corrections are. So, they
save major bucks. The money we get from the subscriptions
supports the center and buys our equipment.”
