Azavea wins $150k NSF grant to develop GIS speed processors

In a world in which technology is being chased into the clouds, Azavea‘s calling card is still local.

The geospatial analysis work from the Callowhill software development firm formerly known as Avencia requires so much time, memory and processing power that its application are tied to workstations, despite trends in recent years for companies to become more web based.

So Azavea and its founder Robert Cheetham are working for a change that could impact the field and its implications for geolocation, mapping and the like. Armed with a $150,000 National Science Foundation grant, Azavea will begin testing the feasibility of using graphics processing units, a type of specialized processor more often implemented for rendering complex video game graphics at increasing rates. The aim will be to substantially increase the performance of many GIS software operations.

That means the development and implementation of projects that rely on GIS functions can be improved, like its noted Walkshed project.

Read more about the company’s grant here.

Friday Q&A: Longin Jan Latecki of Temple University Summer Research Program

Temple University computer science professor Dr. Longin Jan Latecki (center, facing camera) speaking about his research with colleagues and students.

If you ever want a robot to be able to get you coffee, they have to be able to see.

So, really, Dr. Longin Jan Latecki, a computer science professor at Temple University, is doing us all a favor. Latecki, whose research focuses on the half-century-old concept of computer vision, is one of 22 Temple faculty who are participating in the university’s inaugural Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP).

The program gives students the chance to earn up to a $4,000 stipend, funded by an equal match between the College of Science and Technology and the researcher’s grant.

Latecki is originally from Poland and is one of two professors working on more than one project for SURP. He came to Temple in November 2001, after stints at the Technical University of Munich and the University of Hamburg, both in the storied German university community.

SURP, which includes faculty from Temple’s CST, the College of Engineering and the School of Medicine, aims to bolster the research chops of Temple undergraduates. More than 270 students applied for the program, and some 150 interviewed with faculty for just 40 available positions during a university event held on March 31.

Below, Latecki, who is also leading a project on the interaction of light with matter, talks to Technically Philly about SURP, his computer vision research and what it takes to get a robot to get me some damn coffee.

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