Three days after being orbited, SPOT 6 has delivered its first images Astrium Services has posted the first images from the SPOT 6 satellite, just three days after its launch on 9 September. SPOT 6 will assure continuity of data from the series of satellites operating since 1986, along with... read more →

With the advent of newer earth imaging satellites with daily overpass and capture possibilities, it is now even easier to monitor land use change. For example, we can examine the history of development of two Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) inside the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary. The concessions were granted in... read more →

Well I've finally manged to get my hands on some SPOT DEM data for Cambodia for a project in the Southern Cardamoms. Quite an improvement over the SRTM (90m) data.  The SPOT DEM has a resolution of 30m at the equator. From Astrium: A SPOT DEM is a digital elevation... read more →

The declaration of the accuracy by Garmin GPS receivers often leads to confusion. What does it mean if the receiver states an accuracy of 4 m? This readout refers to the so-called 50 % CEP (Circular Error Probable). This means that 50 % of all measurements are within a radius of 4 m. On the... read more →

We often get asked about this question, so here are the full instructions on how this can be done: Topographic maps in Cambodia use one of two datums; Indian 1954 and Indian 1960. By default, your Garmin GPS unit is set up to WGS84 datum, which is about 500m different... read more →

These images are from a report entitled "Phnom Penh développement urbain et patrimoine" or "Phnom Penh, Urban Development and Heritage".   ... read more →

This high resolution satellite image is of the Kamchay Hydropower in Kampot province Cambodia. The project is located inside Bokor National Park. The new road to the top of Bokor Mountain is visible in the bottom left hand corner. Kampot town is visible in the bottom right corner. Aruna Technology... read more →

Don't buy land in this area !  

1. Create a new shapefile in ArcCatalog and set the coordinate system. In this example, I have created a polygon shapefile called landuse_2012.shp 2. Add the feature class landuse_2012.shp to ArcMap and open the attribute table. Notice that it has no features. 3. Add a field called LU_CODE with type... read more →

Recent announcement from USGS: OrbView-3 satellite images collected around the world between 2003 and 2007 by Orbital Imaging Corporation (now GeoEye) at up to one-meter resolution can now be downloaded at no cost through USGS EarthExplorer. "This is a significant addition to the USGS archive and a valuable resource for... read more →

Here are the results of a short test of the satellite tracking by the Trimble R6 rover with GLONASS under forest canopy in Laos. At the time, we were tracking about 4-5 of the GPS satellites exmitting L2C signals, which better tracking performance than regular L2 under adverse conditions. [caption... read more →

I initially got pretty excited by this discovery on http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/ as some of the imagery is 2-4 ft in resolution and dates from the mid-60's to mid-70's. It was de-classified in two batches; 1996 and 2002. However, it seems that most of the imagery is quite cloudy (coincidence ?) and... read more →

This time series of Satellite images in Google Earth show the development of Camko City on what was once Boeung Pong Peay. The site lies on the northern edge of Phnom Penh city and is slated for completion in 2018. You... read more →

You may not know it, but if you are in Phnom Penh, you may be sitting below river level RIGHT NOW ! Of course, the level is subsiding and 1.55m below flood level so the risk is very low. The map below shows the water level around the independence monument... read more →

Here is an interesting comparison in the change of land use in Pailin in western Cambodia over the last 20 years. Below is an image from 2011, taken by the RapidEye satellite. Nearly all forested areas have been converted to... read more →