Global Mapper Use Cases

Digital Agriculture

Advancements in technology across nearly every sector have not overlooked agricultural management and production. Analyzing suitability and conditions for crops, optimizing resource use, and tracking variables in farming conditions are all extremely useful advancements in agricultural production.

Viticulture Suitability Analysis

Bordeaux, Champagne, Rioja, and Napa Valley, to name just a few, are world-famous for the production of fine wine. Not only is the industry of winemaking well established in these and many other parts of the world, but the land and soil in these areas are ideally suited for viticulture.

Using Machine Learning to Classify Unique Features in Point Cloud Data: Bridge Infrastructure

Machine learning techniques can be applied to automatically classify unique features that are not part of the standard feature set. Global Mapper Pro’s Custom Classification Training tool is an award-winning tool that enables the creation of custom classifications that can automatically identify target features within a point cloud.

Identifying Utility Corridor Encroachment

Vegetation management is an integral part of keeping utility corridors running efficiently, especially for electricity providers. Without the control of vegetation encroachment in the rights-of-way (ROW) of electrical corridors, power outages can occur. Power disruption is costly to electricity providers and risks the health and safety of customers.

Earthwork Construction Planning

Engineers and surveyors use Global Mapper to pre-plan earthwork projects to maintain uniformity, high stability, and long-term performance through the lifecycle of a given venture.

Automatically Calculating and Navigating to the Optimal Flattened Site Plan in Global Mapper

This workflow demonstrates how Global Mapper’s extensive terrain analysis toolset can be used to find the best placement to construct an even cut-and-fill flat site and the most efficient way to navigate to that site.

Road Site Planning

A lack of supply in the current housing market is driving up prices and leading more folks to research and invest in new construction. With material costs still rising and interest rates likely increasing, this is not an easy decision yet, further development is necessary to support today’s housing needs. For real estate developers with the capital to do so, building an empty piece of land is likely a money-making endeavor. Planning is essential before breaking ground on any new project, large or small, and this planning can be completed and visualized in Global Mapper with the help of Global Mapper Mobile and Geographic Calculator.

Modeling Dam Construction

Global Mapper’s extensive collection of advanced terrain editing tools are ideally suited for planning engineering or construction projects. Combining the terrain editing tools with the analysis options for watershed modeling and volume calculation, Global Mapper is a perfect tool for the modeling of a dam creation project.

Airport Runway Terrain Analysis

A large airport in a mountainous area of China is planning construction for an additional runway to keep up with increasing traffic. Significant alteration of the surrounding mountainous terrain is required to make room for the runaway. The engineers in charge of this project are using Global Mapper to investigate and compare potential runway positions against a digital elevation model (DEM) integrated from multiple sources of current and planned terrain data, to create a more accurate volume estimate of the terrain work to be done.

Golf Course Maintenance and Field Data Collection

From a given hole to the entire course, managers must consider varying terrain and landscape features at all levels. Global Mapper Pro and its mobile application can provide a detailed insight into the land under management.

Measurement and Manipulation of Golf Course Terrain

After collecting and processing data, as demonstrated with Golf Course Maintenance and Field Data Collection, Global Mapper Pro can be used to extract meaningful measurements from the terrain. Existing conditions can be mapped using contour lines, breaklines, terrain surfaces, and water movement can be mapped with the watershed tool. Users can create and compare site plans using virtual terrain manipulation tools; find the optimal place for a flat site; measure affected soil volume; model how water will flow across the new terrain or plan drainage; and more in Global Mapper Pro.

Monitoring Forest Change

Worldwide, forests are being lost at an alarming rate due to natural disasters and human intervention. As important environments that support many ecosystems, the close monitoring and quantification of forest change is critical. With available data, Global Mapper can be used as a tool to explore and analyze the change in an environment over time with respect to forest area growth and loss. Stands of trees and vegetation are represented in many commonly encountered data types. When considering aerial or satellite imagery, the presence of vegetation is obvious. From a remote perspective, forests and vegetated areas are clearly depicted.

Measuring Tree Height from Lidar

Tree height is one of the most widely used indicators of an ecosystem's site index, or its ability to grow trees. Measuring forests from lidar, as well as other measures of life such as midstory cover and exposed ground, helps foresters have a better understanding of existing stand dynamics at a fraction of the labor costs. To penetrate dense canopies, foresters use lidar in Global Mapper to map bare ground elevation values and visualize forest density, crown coverage, and tree heights.

Watershed Analysis

As humans, we typically think of the land in terms of our defined boundaries, like countries, states, and towns. Global Mapper can be used to load data representing these boundaries, but the program can also explore the physical topography of the land and its boundaries in the form of ridges, watersheds, and ecosystems. Understanding local topography and the watersheds of an area can help provide an insight into possible risks and contaminates to the local water system.

Creating and Updating Park Maps

From showing visitors the way to inventorying structures, park maps serve many purposes for both visitors and staff. However, generating park maps require field data collection and spatial data management. Global Mapper, and its accompanying mobile application, can help park staff collect data, maintain a spatial inventory, analyze terrain, and disseminate information to users with a map or free downloadable interactive data.

Using Spatial Data in Land Management Decisions

When it comes to measuring the environment, historically, data availability and resolution have been some of the biggest limitations. Now that we have been collecting high-resolution satellite and lidar data for many years, we have the ability to measure changes in the land over time. This isn’t a new feat; humans have been quantifying how land changes ever since we gained the tools to do so. With the advent of big data and capable GIS software such as Global Mapper, we have the power to measure high-resolution data across large areas with a regular at-home computer. We can measure changes of the past, such as ground erosion, vegetation growth, urban sprawl, and also map issues of the present, such as how water moves across the terrain.

Using the Universal Soil Loss Equation

Knowing where erosion occurs is vital to mitigating the problem and protecting against future soil loss. Field surveys can be time-consuming, but using GIS to compare datasets representing different factors associated with erosion can provide an encompassing snapshot of at-risk areas. In addition, land managers can use Global Mapper and free online data to apply the Universal Soil Loss equation to a site and find where erosion mitigation may be needed.

Battlefield Simulation

Geospatial data can describe many aspects of a theater of operations and help prepare frontline forces for deployment to the area. Between vector features containing specific attributes, raster images showing the lay of the land, and 3D data modeling terrain, a full picture of an area can be found within a map and the data it contains.

Mission Critical Map Deployment

Maps are critical for situational awareness, navigation, and information, but once a map is created, it can quickly become obsolete as data and the information it contains changes.

Mine Rehabilitation Design: Customer Use Case

See how Global Mapper was used to plan and measure excavation, and design a successful environmental rehabilitation plan to meet stringent governmental criteria.

Mining Analysis

Access and retrieval of minerals and ore assets require accurate planning, mapping, and safe execution. Geographic Calculator and Global Mapper Pro can help mine site managers model active and potential mines to optimize asset extraction. Combining the wealth of GIS tools found in Global Mapper Pro with the geodetic accuracy of Geographic Calculator, asset positioning, terrain analysis, and data visualization are streamlined. From converting coordinates, referencing local grid systems, visualizing terrain, and calculating pit and pile volumes, Blue Marble offers all the tools needed to complete a thorough mine site analysis.

Road Repair Analysis and Planning

Transportation and public works departments have a responsibility to survey, maintain, and repair roads as needed. Therefore, these departments need to collect data on road conditions, analyze the current situation to identify needs for maintenance, and plan road repairs. The tools and functions available in Global Mapper Pro assist teams with all aspects of this workflow.

Pipeline Inspection, Surveying, Analysis

Pipelines and other man-made structures require ongoing monitoring and maintenance. Global Mapper and other Blue Marble Geographics programs provide methods to collect, edit, and share data pertaining to any planned or implemented infrastructure.

Wind Farm Placement

When planning any infrastructure project, location matters. This simple idea rings especially true when discussing the placement of renewable power infrastructure such as wind turbines. When aiming to derive significant power from a renewable resource, one must select a location where the desired resource is abundant and consistently available. With the help of Global Mapper, terrain, land cover, and current land use can be analyzed in order to discover suitable locations for new wind farms.

Comparing Cellular Network Coverage

As the world becomes more reliant on technology, adequate cell or mobile phone coverage is needed to keep people connected and keyed into our globalized society. Still, locations worldwide are devoid of this essential internet and cellular connection. The data visualization, analysis, and viewshed tools in Global Mapper can help determine where network connection is lacking and serve as a tool for analyzing and modeling the implementation of new infrastructure.

Using Global Mapper to Help Inform Public Policy: Customer Use Case

This long time Global Mapper user has created a set of maps for the purpose of educating local lawmakers on how flood zones are delineated, and how an approved floodplain development will put future new homeowners at risk.

Processing Cutting Edge Lidar Data in Global Mapper Pro

With the demand for 3D point clouds constantly growing, the ability to collect high-resolution data at speed via UAV can increase efficiency in workflow across all industries that use spatial data. This post showcases how Global Mapper Pro’s point classification toolset is easily able to handle this unique UAV-collected lidar data.

Using Global Mapper to Find Previously Unseen Structures in Archaeological Sites

A few examples of how Global Mapper Pro can be used to process lidar and apply a variety of visualization techniques to assist in the search for archaeological features.

Mapping The Old Burial Ground in Ellsworth, ME

Digital maps are an essential part of historical research through their documentation and visualization of spatial information. A retired land surveyor used Global Mapper to model, map, and document the oldest surviving burial ground as an effort of preservation.

Improving Positional Accuracy of Point Clouds

Confidence in positional accuracy is a vital component of point clouds as the clouds are often the basis for analysis and derived data products. Global Mapper has multiple tools for adjusting overlapping point clouds, or rectifying them against ground control points.

Bathymetric Data Acquisition and Navigation: Customer Use Case

In this customer use case: the Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicle (AUSV) Triton surveyed the Red Sea floor to measure slope and morphology, using Global Mapper for planning and post processing.

The Seafloor Surrounding “The Land Down Under”: Creating Australian Bathytopo Models From Collections of Bathymetric Surveys

Learn about how a team of scientists at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, work with AusSeabed and the Australian Hydrographic Office to combine bathymetric surveys into seamless bathytopographic models.

Retail Placement

Any business opening a physical office or storefront needs to consider the characteristics of the area surrounding a proposed new location. Particularly relevant for retail stores, location and the proximity to populated areas, public transportation, and city centers will impact the number of customers and ultimately the success of the business.

Create a 3D Unity Map from Lidar

Global Mapper Pro is more than just a geospatial processing tool; it’s also a pipeline for creating 3D scenes that can be used in film, simulation, and real-world game development.

Industry Showcases

Agriculture