State agency updates
The Workshop started with 10-minute briefings from several state agencies focused on Florida-based projects. Suwannee River Water Management District (Paul Buchanan) introduced the Esri StoryMap as a presentation format (https://arcg.is/8i8f8), and the Southwest Florida Water Management District (Nicole Hewitt) presented updates on the recent Fall hurricanes. Alex Reed from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection/Florida Seafloor Mapping Initiative (FDEP/FSMI) provided a high-level update on the FSMI project while consultants, Malcolm Elliott (Fugro), Rick Householder (Woolpert) and Emily Klipp (Dewberry) presented detailed lidar acquisition updates for each FSMI region. Cheryl Hapke (Florida Coastal Mapping Program: FCMaP) discussed the recently conducted deep-water prioritization study
The Florida Region of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (FL-ASPRS) and the University of Florida (UF) Geomatics Division held the Fall Lidar/Geospatial Workshop on 7 November 2024. The workshops continue to meet, in-person and virtually, at the Mid-Florida Research & Education Center of the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and over Zoom. The Workshops are open, free of charge, to all interested persons. The Fall 2024 Workshop hosted 65 on-site participants and 75 virtual attendees from multiple US States (California, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Texas, and others) and universities in three countries (Canada, Germany, and Nigeria). The UF/FL-ASPRS workshops serve as both a bi-annual FL-ASPRS meeting and as educational outreach to the general photogrammetry and remote sensing community. With respect to the ASPRS mission statement, “to promote a balanced representation of the interests of government, academia and private enterprise”, the program focuses on these three sectors with presentation sessions devoted to each.
Keynote speaker
Jeffrey Danielson (USGS) provided the keynote presentation, discussing recent projects in the Coastal National Elevation Database (CoNED) Applications Project. Jeff highlighted the upcoming role that CoNED will be assuming with FSMI to assemble the bathymetric datasets into a seamless mosaic.
Lunch recess
Following the tradition at these workshops, lunch was catered by Panera Bread Company and provided to all in-person attendees. Duncan-Parnell conducted a demonstration showcasing two National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)-compliant UAS systems to a very interested crowd during the lunch break.
Academic presentations
Rodney Jackson (National Geospatial Technology Center for Excellence) presented the “Developing a Curriculum” (DACUM) program. This presentation was in preparation for a DACUM Workshop that FL-ASPRS is planning for 7 May 2025. Jasmeet Judge (University of Florida) presented a discussion of the UF Center for Remote Sensing and its use of UAVs. Varatharajaperuman Thangavel, a student at Florida Atlantic University, presented his research on using satellite imagery to estimate crop success on Navajo Reservations in the southwestern US.
Sponsor Participants
The Fall Workshop welcomed a new Platinum Sponsor, Caulfield & Wheeler Inc., and continuing Platinum Sponsors, Langan Engineering & Environmental Services and Riegl USA. There were nine continuing Gold Sponsors: Dewberry, England-Thims & Miller (ETM) Inc., GPI Geospatial Inc., Kucera International Inc., McKim & Creed, Pointerra3D, SurvTech Solutions, Inc., TopoDot, and Woolpert, Inc. For the Fall Workshop, we welcomed three new Silver Sponsors, Duncan-Parnell, Precision Measurements, Inc, and SAM Engineering, and two returning Silver Sponsors, Fugro and Pickett & Associates. 3002, Inc. and Digital E Consulting, LLC represented the Bronze Sponsors.
