GIScience News Blog

  • GeoAI4Water 2 Applies Deep Learning to Detect Critical Infrastructure for Disaster Planning

    GeoAI4Water 2 Applies Deep Learning to Detect Critical Infrastructure for Disaster Planning

    Context During natural disasters and other catastrophic events, quickly identifying and distributing resources is essential. Even a brief delay in evacuating residents or sourcing water can significantly hamper relief efforts and prevent effective disaster management. The HeiGIT and GIScience teams have been actively designing tools to assist in disaster preparation and response, from working with partners to build community resilience to activating our disaster…

  • Mapathon on February 7th

    Mapathon on February 7th

    The first Mapathon this year will be on February 7th. When: Wednesday, 07.02.2024, at 7 p.m. Where: Berliner Straße 48, Hörsaal After a short introduction into the region and subject of this mapping task, you will also get instructions how to map. The Mapathon will be a collaboration with the German Red Cross (GRC) and…

  • Analyzing the Changesets of OSM Newcomers

    A new rate limit is introduced The OpenStreetMap (OSM) API recently introduced a rate limit, which is designed to limit the impact of a particular kind of map vandalism: new users signing up and mass editing OSM data, e.g. by deleting many thousand OSM objects or removing particular tags for a large number of OSM…

  • Spotlight on HeiGIT’s FOSSGIS 2024 Presentations

    Spotlight on HeiGIT’s FOSSGIS 2024 Presentations

    We’re thrilled to share some exciting news – our colleagues Julian Psotta and Benjamin Herfort are set to deliver talks at FOSSGIS 2024 in Hamburg, Germany! Julian Psotta will be presenting the openrouteservice project together with the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG). Their joint talk “From openrouteservice to RoutingPlus – Insights into a…

  • Advancing Climate Action: HeiGIT’s New Climate Action Team

    HeiGIT is embarking on an initiative to address one of the most critical challenges of our time — climate change. We are proud to announce the commencement of the Climate Action Readiness Initiatives funded by the Klaus-Tschira Stiftung. These initiatives aim to bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing decision-makers, citizens, and active…

  • GeoPrompt – Revolutionizing Navigation and Beyond: HeiGIT’s Innovative Web Application Powered by ChatGPT

    Introduction In an era where technology continuously reshapes our world, the fusion of artificial intelligence and geospatial data offers exciting possibilities. HeiGIT (Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology), a pioneering research organization, has unveiled a novel web application that not only simplifies navigation but also empowers users to access a wealth of location-based data. This proof-of-concept…

  • VirtuaLearn3D: New Preprint

    VirtuaLearn3D: New Preprint

    We have published a preprint of our recent work in the VirtuaLearn3D project! Deep learning with simulated laser scanning data for 3D point cloud classification Esmorís, A.M., Weiser, H., Winiwarter, L., Cabaleiro, J.C. & Höfle, B. (2024) Laser scanning is an active remote sensing technique to acquire state-of-the-art spatial measurements in the form of 3D…

  • ‘Waterproofing Data’ Project wins ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize 2023

    ‘Waterproofing Data’ Project wins ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize 2023

    The “Waterproofing Data” project has won the ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize 2023 in the category “Outstanding Societal Impact” for helping to protect residents of flood-prone areas in Brazil. In 2018, Joao Porto de Albuquerque from the University of Glasgow initiated the project in which HeiGIT is also involved. The main goal of this project is…

  • OQT for Food Environments

    OQT for Food Environments

    HeiGIT and the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC) partnered up to investigate food environments through the lens of OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. UMC analyses how exposure to different categories of food related retailers affects health matters. The assumption is that the distance to retailers of a certain category, as well as the number of these retailers,…

  • Joint International Tropical Medicine Meeting 2023

    GIScience member and PhD candidate Steffen Knoblauch was invited as a speaker at the Joint Internationl Tropical Medicine Meeting (JITMM) 2023. The conference’s focal topic was “Achieving the SDGs: Human and AI-driven Solutions for Tropical Medicine in a Changing world” and it was hosted by the faculaty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University and co-organized by…

  • Somaliland GIS Training

    Somaliland GIS Training

    Since 2022, HeiGIT is providing technical support to the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS) in Somalia. The objective was the development of an Early Action Protocol (EAP) for droughts in Somalia, a plan developed by RCRC National Societies that outlines early actions to be taken when a specific hazard is forecasted to impact communities. In…

  • ORS Tools QGIS Plugin Release v1.7.0

    ORS Tools QGIS Plugin Release v1.7.0

    Just in time for the new year, the openrouteservice team proudly announces the release of v1.7.0 of the ORS Tools QGIS plugin! Quite a lot has happened. First, the GUI was reworked: Next, there are a few other things that happened: Check out the changelog if you’re interested in all the in-depth details. Feedback and…

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