NEI Clients: See below for an opportunity to qualify for discounts at the C4G Web Store
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To show our appreciation C4G is implementing a multi-tiered discount system we call our Client Loyalty Program.
Clients qualify for this multi-tiered discount based simply on the number of years they have been using the C4GNet Real-Time Network service. Clients with a Full or Unlimited RTN account have been placed in one of the three tiers as follows:
- Tier One: 3 – 6 years receive 10% Discount
- Tier Two: 7 – 9 years receive 20% Discount
- Tier Three: 10+ years receive 30% Discount
You Can Also Earn Extra Credit!!!
Current clients can also increase their loyalty discount by bringing NEW UNLIMITED CLIENT(s) into the C4GNet RTN who have never used the RTN before. Existing clients will gain one year of service credit for each NEW UNLIMITED CLIENT they bring into C4GNet!
All C4GNet subscribers with C4G Web Store accounts have been placed in the tier that they have qualified for and will automatically see the discount they have qualified for the next time they log into the C4G Web Store. If you have been a C4GNet subscriber for 3 or more years and don’t see a discount when you log into the C4G Web Store, contact C4G at 225-578-4609.
If you don’t have a C4G Web Store account yet, we will need you to create one before we can add you to the discount group you have qualified for. Once you have created your Web Store Account, Email Us or call C4G at 225-578-4609 so we can add you to your discount group.
Subscribers Make Louisiana CORS Sustainable
In 2007 the LSU Center for GeoInformatics (C4G) funded hardware and software necessary to launch a Real-Time Network (RTN). It utilized special software that tapped into the powerful resources of the Louisiana Spatial Reference Center’s Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) infrastructure to provide a value-added RTN service. As the RTN grew to cover Louisiana statewide, users of C4G’s RTN service were able to save time and make better use of their GNSS equipment. There was the important added benefit of being automatically tied into the NSRS; Louisiana’s statutory Vertical Geodetic Control standard receiving Real-Time Network GPS/GNSS positions within the 3D error space of a golf ball.
While funding to start the RTN came entirely from C4G funds, the CORS originally funded by LSRC were used to stream data to the RTN. Over time users of the RTN demanded services not compatible with the LSRC funded CORS; meeting these demands required C4G to replace all of the LSRC funded CORS with reference stations that cost four times more than the ones they replaced. Revenue generated from subscriptions to C4G’s value-added services funded the replacement of all of the LSRC funded CORS infrastructure. Subscription revenue also paid for the ongoing operations and enabling C4G to keep up with the evolution of the hardware & software that makes the RTN possible. Today revenue generated from subscribers continues to make possible for C4G to add new features and tools as well as updates & maintenance for both the RTN and CORS infrastructure.
While C4G currently self-funds both the CORS and the RTN through revenue generated by RTN subscriptions, C4G continues to honor its LSRC partnership with NGS by providing free access to all CORS data in Louisiana for NGS to redistribute through their CORS website and FTP servers. The harsh reality here in Louisiana is NGS is no longer maintaining passive control marks, with the exception of the Coast Guard stations at English Turn, NGS doesn’t have any CORS infrastructure in Louisiana and C4G doesn’t receive any funding from the federal government, the state or LSU to sustain this infrastructure.
Subscription revenue also helps fund equipment used in relative and absolute gravity studies that C4G conducts in order to produce the data needed to feed future Datums and Geoids as well as other analysis and modeling important to Louisiana. All C4G subscribers have played a part in the quality of positions; especially vertical control here in Louisiana and for this, everyone in Louisiana should be as grateful as we are here at the Center for GeoInformatics. Again we say, “Thank you” to all of our loyal clients that have made it possible for C4G infrastructure and research to continue over the last ten years!
How C4G Became Louisiana’s Active Control Source
In 2001, LSU’s College of Engineering created a Center for GeoInformatics (C4G) to build new research and services in Geodesy and GeoInformatics. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in its 2001 report to Congress said ”Problems with historical surveys, land movement, and sea level rise have made the current vertical geodetic control in Louisiana obsolete, inaccurate, and unable to ensure safety.” In the wake of this report Professor and Researcher Roy K. Dokka, Ph.D., founding executive director of LSU’s C4G, secured funding from Congress to help NOAA fix Louisiana’s elevation problem and study the causes of 20th-century subsidence.
Subsidence is the underlying culprit behind Louisiana’s most insidious environmental problem: the continuing loss of our coast. In addition to being a world-class scientific topic, coastal land loss robs the State of 25-35 square miles per year due to both natural and man-made causes. Subsidence has also had the serious effect of disturbing the system of reference markers we use for surveying the elevations of levees, evacuation routes, coastal restoration efforts, etc.
In 2002 the Center for GeoInformatics in cooperation with NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS), founded the Louisiana Spatial Reference Center (LSRC) as a partnership focused on creating state-of-the-art positional infrastructure for the state of Louisiana and to providing technical leadership, training, and access to positional data. Through a grant from NOAA, LSRC installed a network of high precision Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers used as reference stations throughout Louisiana; by 2005 the network had grown to 40 stations state-wide.
This network of GPS continuous operation reference stations (CORS) was used to re-establish the official federal reference system within the state. Louisiana State Legislators made LSRC’s CORS network the vertical control standard for Louisiana in 2006 with Act 194, Section 1.R.S. 50:173.1.
LSRC’s statewide network has grown to over 100 Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS), 31 of which provide the raw data needed to tie Louisiana into the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS), which is defined and managed by the National Geodetic Survey (NGS). The NSRS is a consistent national coordinate system that specifies latitude, longitude, height, scale, gravity, and orientation throughout the Nation, as well as how these values change with time.
This infrastructure is currently the backbone for surveying in Louisiana, as well as supporting all GIS development, detailed topographic mapping, precision farming, navigation, and other location-based applications. Long-term data collection from an analysis of the data collected by LSRC’s CORS infrastructure is used to improve weather, geoid, storm surge, flood, subsidence and other scientific models as well as Height Modernization efforts along the entire Northern Gulf Coast.
LSU Center for GeoInformatics
LSU C4G is a research center within the College of Engineering. It is the site of the Louisiana Spatial Research Center. LSU C4G research includes the study of ground subsidence, gravity potential and its relationship to elevations, establishing reference points and surfaces for engineers and others through CORS and, of course, the C4Gnet real-time network.
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1. NEI Clients will need to create an account before they can be added to the discount group that NEI has qualified for.
2. Once your account has been created for the Web Store, NEI clients need to Email Us or call C4G at 225-578-4609 so we can add the new account to your (NEI) discount group.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact nei@neigps.com