The events of recent years show that particularly in Ukraine and globally in the world, the demands in wood have been significantly increased. Because of that, many uncontrolled and unauthorized loggings appeared. Thereby we see a stunning decrease of forest areas and as a result a shortening of the naturals lungs of the Earth. Consequently, this leads to crucial changes in climate and the emergence of floods, storms, soil erosions, etc.

In order to prevent a mass logging and to monitor the number of forestry areas at a state level, it is essential to know the forestry dynamic, it means to monitor all potential changes from year to year. However, there is a question:
- How to handle such a huge volume of work at a cost-effective price?

Visicom company has developed and successfully implemented the technology aimed at constant monitoring of forestry areas and vegetation within urban areas based on satellite images. Below we are presenting this approach, which can be deployed either at the local level or at the nationwide level. The proposed technology allows us to preserve the green spaces and to save significant amounts of money, which may have been invested in the deployment of such a monitoring/tracking system.

1. SATELLITE IMAGES

Depending on the final models accuracy demands (national, regional, city, local) the images of the various resolution starting from 0.5m (the most accurate data for city and local usage) up to 10m (for national and regional usage) can be used for the mapping of forestry and agriculture areas, city infrastructure, environmental solar/wind energy production projects, etc.

2. FEATURES DETECTION AT THE NATIONAL OR REGIONAL SCALE LEVEL

The task list might include the following:

• establishment and maintenance of the national (regional) forest DB;
• vegetation registration;
• logging and planting planning;
• other,
  

depending on the demands, the proposed approach includes vegetation areas detection based on satellite images (the picture below depicts the Sentinel image) and further calculation of areas according to regular forest types (foliar, coniferous, mixed)

A permanent data update allows forecasting of increasing and decreasing forestry areas depending on the natural causes and disasters and human activity.

Permanent detection of loggings using Sentinel images with simultaneous areas calculation (from 500 sq.km) let control any possible unauthorized loggings and perform the following tasks:

• Damage estimation and forecast;
• Statistic data collection regarding humans role in forestry areas reduction;
• Research the dependence of environmental indicators (in case of any) on areas of green spaces.
  

For illustrative purposes please see the following image:

Detailed mapping of forestry areas based on satellite images of 0.5m-2m resolution can be used for various purposes:

• Control of valuable trees growth;
• Prediction of floods impact and consequences;
• Control of fire safety and forecast of damages;
• Other.

Vegetation detection featuring the clustered vegetation and classification by types (foliar, coniferous, mixed, unique tree species):

5. VEGETATION DETECTION IN URBAN AND SUBURBAN AREAS

This method implies to use the most accurate images of 0.3-1m resolution and is applicable in vegetation detection within city areas: parks, forested parks, gardens, square parks. For each detected parcel, the area is calculated (including bushes, lawns). In addition, the output data can be presented as a detailed map where the trees (up to every single separate tree) can be detected based on the images of high resolution only (HR resolution satellite images).

In its turn, it will give a possibility for:

• Registration of vegetation unit, even to within 1 tree;
• Accurate mapping of vegetation;
• Maintenance of various environment-oriented DBs (e.g. the DB of the oldest trees )
• Assessment of the state of the vegetation.

a) The technology of vegetation mapping under the urban setting

b) Generating of vegetation vector map: contours, vegetation type, and area

3D CITIES OF AUSTRALIA 2020

In urban areas with fewer propagation distances, dense and high-rise buildings, sometimes complicated relief, the accurate 3D geodata is an essential component of RF design: accurate simulation to support deployment, operation, and optimization of mobile networks.
We use recent vintage high-resolution stereo imagery to create 1 or 2 or 5 m geodata in LOD2 quality. 3D geodata accuracy – 2-3 m in x,y,z.
This project includes the following cities:

The total area of the 3D models of Australian cites covers more than 35000 km2.

Digital Surface Model (DSM), Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and Digital Elevation Model (DHM) were produced based on 3D terrain features which were derived from overlapping satellite imagery is taken from two different locations (stereo imagery).

Highly accurate building vectors with associated height values as attributes are captured through three-dimensional feature extraction in our photogrammetric software.
Clutter/Land Use/Land Cover describe the surface and built-up features which influence on radio wave propagation. They are classified into different classes: classes of built-up areas, water classes, classes of landscape and vegetation. Urban Land Use map is produced from multispectral satellite imagery by the method of automatic classification with subsequent manual photo-interpretation and modification.

Download the free 3D data sample of Brisbane city model and booklet about project "3D RF map of Australian cities" to see more details.

Usually, outside the areas of 3D city coverage, operators still require geodata for RF planning and optimization in suburbs. We propose 2D Urban Model, 2.5D Urban Models, 2D Regional Models with clutter height with 5, 10, 20 m resolution, with DTM, clutter (land use) and vector layers. Our geodata catalogue includes over 1500+ 3D City Models, 4500+ cities 2D Urban Models and 65+ Coutrywide model for regional planning.

Send us the request for more information

Our company has been working with the world's leading business players for a long period of time. Among them are Nokia, Huawei, ATDI, Google, TomTom, Vodafone, etc., However, today we are pleased to inform about the recognition we got not from the foreign partners but from our native Ukrainian one, which appreciates our work in the international market, namely the State Agency of Motor Roads of Ukraine (Ukravtodor). This company has connected its own online maps to the Visicom API.
https://roads.ukravtodor.gov.ua/dashboard/page/map_ukravtodor
Thanks to many years of hard work and collection of databases, both automated and manual, the map of Ukraine made by Visicom is the most complete, accurate, and informative.
It is out of the question that the combination of such two "monsters" is a tremendous and accurate project to accomplish. One of the most important issues is about the coordinate systems of them if they are compatible with themselves.
Undoubtedly, this is a great achievement (https://kmplus.org.ua/ua), which we are happy with and which we are proud of!
We thank the State Agency of Motor Roads of Ukraine for the recognition. Join us!
Note: Visicom API is currently available for Ukraine and Belarus