Geomatics Engineering Facilities

Geodesy Laboratory

Students use the Geomatics lab to analyze data, collected during teaching/project assignments, and research work. Currently, mainly three techniques are represented:

GPS: Global Positioning System

  • plan and design GPS surveys,
  • download, reduce, and store GPS data after field trips,
  • analyze the GPS data, and compute the final coordinates of the GPS network.

Classical Surveys

  • planning and design of classical surveys,
  • analyze classical survey data, and compute the final coordinates of the survey network,
  • calibration of survey equipment (so called, total stations that measure angles and distances simultaneously).

Modern Data Collection Techniques: Lidar

  • analyze Lidar data from aerial and terrestrial Lidar surveys to enhance engineering design.

Geographic Information Systems Laboratory

This is the Geographic Information System Laboratory at the School of Civil Engineering. It is used for research and teaching for both undergraduate and graduate students. This lab has a dozen of high-end personal computers with powerful remote sensing and GIS software, including ArcGIS, IMAGINE and ENVI. Accessible from this lab are data I/O peripherals such as a large format plotter, color printer, tablet, and image scanner. Research projects are sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the Indiana Department of Transportation.

Geospatial Sensing and Modeling Lab

At our lab, we are using a range of optical imaging and laser ranging technologies and data from space, air, ground, and hand platforms to model urban objects and human activities. Our interest ranges from large scale urban geospatial feature extraction and 3D modeling, small scale precise engineering measurement and modeling, to location based spatial- temporal human mobility and its societal implication. It is a dynamic area that interacts with geospatial science and engineering, pattern recognition, computer vision, geosocial science, and data science.