Canadian Geospatial Briefing Sept 20th: Interactive Election Map; MDA awarded with contract for Martian Moons Exploration with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; Geomatics Instructor at BCIT uses Drone to Display Elevation Changes at Construction Site; Looking at Foot Traffic in the Downtown Core of Major Canadian Cities Compared to Pre-Pandemic Levels; Apple Maps using Special Backpacks to Gather Data for Look Around Feature
Interactive: How Canadians voted in the past 7 federal elections
With the federal elections coming up on September 20th, Esri Canada has created an interactive map that highlights the last seven election results going back to the year 2000. Here you can compare how each riding has voted over the past 21 years. The map also gives a brief description of the election results and displays the number of seats won by each party and who won the popular vote for each election.
Article can be viewed here.
MDA awarded contract for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Martian Moons Exploration Mission
MDA has just recently announced that they will be assigned to a full contract with Japan’s Mitsubishi Electric Corporation to supply the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Martian Moons eXploration mission with a Laser Rangefinder altimeter. This mission, scheduled to launch in 2024, will explore the two moons on Mars in hopes to understand the creation of these moons and to further understand how planets in our solar system form.
Article can be viewed here.
Geomatics gives BCIT project the big picture
Geomatics instructor Eric Saczuk at British Columbia’s Institute of Technology is using drone technology to show the construction of the new health sciences building. Using a DJI Phantom 4 RTK drone, Eric Saczuk flew a set route every two weeks over the construction site and each time took more than 200 images that were then converted into 3D images. This displayed elevation changes throughout the construction process, Saczuk then created a time-lapse of these images to show the power of geomatics especially when used in construction.
Article can be viewed here.
Downtown Toronto offices are still relatively empty compared to the before times
Commercial real estate company Avison Young, has recently teamed up with Orbital Insight, a geospatial intelligence and location analytics company to launch a vitality index. This interactive dashboard shows that foot traffic in the downtown core of major Canadian cities is still much lower than it was during the week before the first lockdown in March 2020. When comparing Canadian cities, Edmonton saw the least amount of change in terms of visitor volume at 58 percent while Ottawa saw the highest change at an almost 96 percent decrease compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Article can be viewed here.
Apple Maps Teams are Walking Around Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver with Special Backpacks
Apple Maps will be using backpacks to gather pedestrian data from various locations to improve the look around feature on Apple Maps. From now until October 31, 2021, the Apple Maps teams will be walking through Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. To see where they may be in your city, visit: https://maps.apple.com/imagecollection/ca.
