The expansion of the Panama Canal is an engineering masterpiece which GeoAir is now part of!
Trade between Asia and the U.S. East Coast has been increasing and at the same time the urgency for new and higher-capacity routes for transoceanic navigation is growing. Thanks to this expansion project, called “Third Set of Locks Project”, the Panama Canal will increase its transit capacity about 40% and will allow two Post-Panamax container ships to navigate the channel at the same time and in opposite directions (Panamax ships have the maximum size to fit the actual set of locks). This project includes the construction of two lock complexes (Atlantic and Pacific side), each with three chambers and three water-saving basins that don’t require the use of hydraulic pumps since everything works due to gravity. Considering the marine transportation situation, the currently existing Panama Canal represents an obstacle for further growth of commercial navigation. The new project is expected to be finished by 2015 with an approximate cost of 5.2 billion dollars.
The “Third Set of Locks” project is now in its construction phase and will take between 5 to 6 years to be completed. GeoAir is proud to be part of this progress. We are delivering high-resolution digital imagery (9 cm GSD) that will be used to monitor the progress of this critical part of the project.
This year, like in many past years we flew to the Caribbean, trying to find good weather conditions for another project. The landscape is well known for it’s beauty and its wonderful beaches but it is difficult to get quality photos because of the constantly moving scattered clouds. Our destination was Antigua and Barbuda!
This project’s final goal is to move Antigua & Barbuda’s cadastral system towards the digital era as a means to support further sustainable development of the country. A complete cadastral system will be able to collect, organize, maintain and deliver land information in a fast and effective manner for the benefit of both citizens and government. So far only the Cayman Islands operate a fully digital geospatial cadastre; Antigua & Barbuda and the Turks & Caicos Islands are moving towards this goal.
As we anticipated, this was not an easy task for GeoAir. Although our original flight plan was only about four and a half hours long (17 cm GSD), we stayed more than 5 weeks in the area of interest! The weather was great for tourist purposes but not for a 6,500 ft aerial survey. Finally, after discussing the situation with our client we made the decision to fly just below the clouds which required a huge increase in the number of images taken. After 4 exhausting flight days, filling the camera’s storage capacity every day, downloading and backing up data daily, we successfully completed this project and ended with approximately 7,550 digital images! Viva el Caribe!
March 2010
GeoAir supports the ALBA-Solidaria program with digital aerial photography for a complete coverage of the Rivas department in Nicaragua.
In June 2009, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega stated at a press conference that the “ALBA-Solidaria” program lead by Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, would be granted a budget of about 50 million dollars in order to balance the cancelled funds from the Cuenta Reto del Milenio (a program sponsored by the United States government). Daniel Ortega added that this program would allocate more than 15 million for land distribution in different departments of the country, 18.6 million on urban road development, and 16.2 million dollars for rural roads.
Nine months after the press conference GeoAir flew to Nicaragua to survey the entire state of Rivas as well as Ometepe Island, being instrumental in Nicaragua’s further growth and development. The project had two different flight scales, a small one (38 cmGSD) for the rural areas and a large one (8 cm GSD) for the 10 most important cities in the state: Tola, Belén, Potosí, Buenos Aires, San Jorge, Rivas, Moyogalpa, Altagracia, San Juan del Sur, and Cárdenas. In total, more than 1,600 digital aerial images were taken as part of this project.
February 2010
GeoAir delivers complete digital aerial imagery for the cadastre in the state of Cortés in Honduras
The project called Catastro de Cortés is a free public service provided by the Instituto de la Propiedad (IP) through the Programa de Administración de Tierras de Honduras (PATH). It deals mainly with cartographic activities and cadastral information of 5 municipalities in the state of Cortés: San Pedro Sula, Puerto Cortés, Choloma, Villanueva, and La Lima. In this project, GeoAir was responsible for taking some 4,600 digital aerial photographs covering more than 3,500 sq km and helped in the survey of more than 245,000 properties.
GeoAir flew to Honduras and took part in an EU-sponsored project which includes cadastre, land management and park protection.
This project was done thanks to a partnership between the Republic of Honduras and the European Union. It’s goal was to support and evaluate landholdings, to facilitate multifunctional cadastre information and to assure landowners of their property rights. This would generate some additional property tax income for the Government of Honduras as well as protect the boundaries of the Pico Bonito National Park.
Due to its vast experience, excellent commitment to its projects, and high standards, GeoAir was chosen as the aerial survey company to deliver high resolution digital imagery of the entire state of Atlantida in Honduras on February, 2010. After a first unsuccessful attempt in May 2009 because of adverse weather conditions, one year later GeoAir was able to take more than 3,200 high resolution images in a record time of only 5 days of flying.
October 2009
GeoAir sponsors the National Anthropology Museum of Mexico City.
Let’s not forget that the Centro Histórico of the actual Mexico City was, until 19th century, the entire city. Everything else was formed by little counties and neighborhoods spread on islands, valleys and hills. Over a period of 7 centuries, different conceptions of what a city might be about have been represented through buildings, streets and parks. All this resulted in an approximately 10 sq km area with the highest historic monument density of Latin America. In addition to the architecture’s preservation difficulties, it is an obligation to make them transcend and bring to the present their internal life and traditions attached.
The author of this piece of art is Malcolm Coelho and GeoAir was more than happy to collaborate with some high resolution digital aerial photography showing the beauty of Mexico City and specially its historic center. (Images courtesy of E. Osorio)
Aerial photography from the centre and east part of the city will be taken
Cadastral data will be available on the internet
Main objectives of this project: to take the cadastral data up to date in order to calculate in a more accurate way property taxes and show it clearly to the citizens, also to increase the number of taxpayers.
From the moment this project started, and if the atmospheric conditions allow it, one aircraft will be flying over Mexico City in order to take aerial pictures from all the counties in the city. After being out of date for almost 18 years, the Mexico City Government ordered the update of cadastral data through a Spanish company called “El Corte Inglés”, which will be in charge of almost 2 million available properties as part of a USD$ 33 million contract. Article published in Mexican newspaper “Reforma”.
Article published in Mexican newspaper “Reforma”
International Airport of Mexico City
July 2009
It is the second time that GeoAir participates in a movie. The first time was in 2003 when GeoAir did the aerial survey for the epic Hollywood movie "Troy", starring Brad Pitt, Peter O' Toole and Diane Kruger. The Oscar nominated film was directed by the German Wolfgang Petersen and most of the set was located on a beach next to Cabo San Lucas in Baja California Sur / Mexico where the Trojan wall was built and where the Greek ships landed ashore. The images taken by GeoAir were used for a precise DTM which allowed the film makers to modify the original landscape to a relief which they preferred.
Last week GeoAir´s Cessna 402 served as background for the Mexican TV novel "vuélveme a querer". This part of the movie which was taken in the airport of Mariano Matamoros in Cuernavaca, Morelos will be sent by TV Azteca during the fourth week of July, 2009, starting July 20.
May 2009
click image to enlarge
We would like to show you our new face, our new camera and IMU systems and, of course, something new about us.
GeoAir is the first private company owning and operating a large format digital camera in Latin America. We are the most active aerial surveyors in Latin America and the Caribbean. To be "best in class" we operate the industry's turnkey and most innovative camera systems, such as Microsoft / Vexcel UltraCam and Intergraph DMC to support your aerial photogrammetric mission with superior radiometric resolution and increased geometrical accuracy in a complete digital workflow environment
April 2009
GeoAir introduces it's own IMUs (Inertial Measurement Units) in order to optimize the accuracy of your data acquisition and to save your need for ground control points. Apart from our well proven Airborne GPS (AGPS or DGPS) we use IGI AEROcontrol and Applanix INS for the determination of the exterior orientation (EO) of your imagery.
installation of Applanix IMU
in one of our UltraCam's
January 2009
New paint for our Cessna 402 Utility Liner. Our flag ship, the twin-engine C402B got a new paint while it was serviced during the annual inspection. All aircraft must be inspected regularly for safety reasons, but especially also to provide an optimal availability for survey missions. This aircraft is not only equipped with an oxygen system, but also with large range fuel tanks which allow an endurance of more than 7 hours of flying. Our work is very much related to weather conditions. Those can change rapidly. Above all, considering that GeoAir´s crews travel from the North of Mexico and the US to countries like Ecuador, Guyana, Panama, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, or Nicaragua in order to catch excellent lighting conditions to provide you with first class imagery. Now, all airplanes are painted according to the company's policy. The colors - white and orange - provide maximum visibility in the air, caused by the contrast with the clouds or clear sky. Visibility is a major factor for safety while flying in highly frequented airspaces, such as Mexico City, Guatemala City, Santo Domingo or Quito. It provides safety not only for us, but also to all other aircraft.
December 2008
In only four weeks time GeoAir managed to fly the whole Mexico City Cadaster project. It is the first digital camera flight of such dimensions in Latin America. The flight was executed with a Microsoft/Vexcel large format UltraCam using IMU and DGPS. A total of more than 31.000 images were taken also on Christmas Day. The postprocess of all images was done in the offices of GeoAir. All raw data were processed to level 3, 8 bit and RGB/Infrared 16 bit. A total of more than 12 terabyte was processed.
Mexico City is the busiest airport in whole Latin America. Therefore the coordination with air traffic control was essential especially crossing all approach and departure routes at some 4,000 ft AGL.
Estadio UNAM
Aeropuerto de Mexico City nuevo Terminal 2
October 2008
GeoAir was awarded the aerial survey flight over Mexico City for the cadastre of Mexico D.F. The flight will take place in November this year with the digital camera Microsoft/Vexcel UltraCam, IMU and DGPS. The resolution of the images (GSD) will be 9 cm and 16 cm. There will be a total of over 7,000 images.
July 2008
First digital aerial surveys using INTERGRAPH Digital Mapping Camera DMC in Mexico.
June 2008
In Nicaragua first digital aerial survey flight was successfully completed by the GeoAir crew. The entire León region (5.912 sqkm) was flown using our new Cessna 402B Business Liner and a Vexcel UltraCam X in cooperation with Millennium Challenge Corporation (USA) and Geofoto (Croatia).
May 2008
GeoAir acquired a new Cessna 402B Business Liner in order to serve the high demand on spatial data in Latin America. The new aircraft is especially designed for multiple sensor operations, such as traditional film based cameras, digital systems as DMC / UCX and is an ideal platform for airborne Laserscanning applications, such as LiDAR.
