geoinformatics 2007 vol01

8/12/2019 geoinformatics 2007 vol01

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Interview: Prof. Stig Enemark, FIG President 2007-2010

FIG: Linking Strong the Global Agen

In your presentation speech to the General Assembly before the elections of FIGPresident you suggested the surveyors tofly high and keep our feet on the groundat the same time. The global surveying profession needs such positive motivationindeed. Please, explain also to our read-ers with your encouraging visionary thoughts how can we follow your motto?

Enemark: The profile of FIG has changed dur-ing the last decade from a conference organis-er and from internal network to an internation-al key player in land and geospatial issues. Byfly high I mean that we need to have a bigvision e.g. in contributing to solving the globalchallenges especially with regard to poverty

reduction and in responding e.g. to theMillennium Development Goals endorsed by theUnited Nations. As the leading internationalNGO on land issues this is our core globalresponsibility. At the same time we need to

keep our feet on the ground in two senses:we must serve the needs of our members asso-ciations and the individual surveyors and makesure that they get benefits from our global activ-ities and from the work of our technical com-missions. We need to give value for money for the daily business of the members. We can pro-mote this through providing an internationalforum for professional development and inno-vation in all aspects of surveying, and by termsof capacity building, events and publications,and standards and guidelines. We must be ableto strengthen the links between the globalagenda and the surveying grass roots. The sec-ond point is that we need to keep in mind thatthe work off FIG is based on volunteers. Eventhough we have achieved a lot and will do even

more in the future, there are limitations to whatvolunteers can do next to having a full time job.So we need to get our priorities right. It is alsoimportant to create an atmosphere that wel-comes new professionals to join our work.

How is FIG responding to the MillenniumDevelopment Goals and in which direc-tions can we expect increased FIGinvolvement regarding the Goals in thenear future?

Enemark: We will focus our work on landrelated issues as we have been doing in therecent years. The main partners include UN-Habitat and FAO and also the World Bankwhose role will increase during the next four years. We are planning to organise a jointexpert group conference with the Bank in2008 to address our common contributionsto the MDGs. The main topics on our agendawill be development of pro poor land toolsand tools for achieving environmental sus-

tainability (e.g. for coastal areas and in rela-tion to disaster risk management). To achievethese goals we will put efforts on buildingcapacity at regional level especially in Africaand in Latin America. Building the Capacity

January/February 2007 6

Interview

Prof. Stig Enemark from Denmark commenced his termof office as the new FIG President on 1st January 2007.

Taking over in an era with high demands for providing

leadership in a complex and globalised world, the new

president has set his goals clear. He knows what he

wants to achieve, leading a natural evolution of the role

of the FIG towards a wider global approach. He truly

believes that we should both fly high by contributing to

the global agenda and at the same time we should keep

our feet on the ground by being aware of our role and services to society, constantly developing our profes-

sional base, and being proud of our contributions.

Please, join and support the new FIG President in his

thoughts and paths towards developing the FIG organi-

sation to become a truly global icon for all surveyors.

By Joc Triglav

Prof. Stig Enemark, President of FIG


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has also been selected as our motto for thenext four years.

In which ways is FIG achieving better integration of women, students, young surveyors and other under-representedgroups in the work of the Federation andin the surveying profession? Pleasename a few examples of good practiceapproaches in the member associationsand in the universities.

Enemark: The big challenge to all professionsis how to attract students. For organisationslike FIG there is also a big demand to inte-grating women, young surveyors and other under-represented groups in the work. I amhappy that in our Council - for the first time -we have two female members out of six. Withstudents and young people there is a bigger problem as international participation requires

to integrate young people in the FIG work,not only at the conferences but also throughother means, e.g. by encouraging internation-al student exchange and mentor activities.

both funding and long-time commitment,which is difficult especially in relation to stu-dents who are doing their masters degree.We are considering the opportunities of how

January/February 2007 Latest News? Visitwww.geoinformatics.com 7

Interview

da and the Surveying Grass Roots

One of the main par tners for FIG in the next years will be the World Bank in fighting against poverty with landrelated tools. President Enemark visited the World Bank in November to discuss the joint World Bank and FIGConference in 2008 with Klaus Deininger and Malcolm Childress.


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Some of our member associations havealready learnt that there is a great benefit insupporting students. I would like to mentionSweden, Germany and DdL from Denmark, myown country, that for several years have sup-ported student members to attend major FIGevents. The best example was introduced byISA from Australia that appointed 20 youngsurveyors as young ambassadors to promotethe FIG congress 2010. These ambassadorsare committed to the FIG work until thecongress in Sydney.

How close is the surveying profession toachieving its strategic goals stated inCadastre 2014? To what level does thelatest global development in the cadas-tral field confirm the realisation of Cadastre 2014 visions?

Enemark: The role of cadastre has changedremarkably since the Cadastre 2014 agenda wasintroduced in 1998. Now we really have reacheda multipurpose cadastre that integrates a rangeof functions. However in many countries thereis still a long way to go. At the same time FIGhas moved forward by considering the needsbeyond the 2014 concept. We are also currently

preparing the first core cadastral domain modelthat will have a major impact on the design of future cadastral infrastructures and also as a propoor land tool to be used in informal settlementareas. However, I have to say that in many coun-

decline even further in the future. This is whywe have to strengthen our skills in manage-ment and broaden our expertise to cover thefull definition of surveyor as described andadopted by FIG. From an FIG point of view themilestone that we have just implemented is thenew governance of FIG. Although this is aninternal issue for us, it is a remarkable changethat FIG has now become a fully global organi-sation with directly elected council members.With the new governance structure we can nowfocus on policy issues independently to thecongress and not related to a country basedcouncil.

In your opinion, which are the reasonsthat the unquestionably very important contribution of the surveying professionwithin operation of each country and itseconomy is too often left overseen andunknown? Are we simply too passionately devoted and concentrated only on our work? Are we too modest as a profession?

Enemar k: It is true that many surveyors consid-er themselves as experts and are not interest-ed to get involved in politics. This has to someextent narrowed the role of surveyors in build-

tries the basic problem is not the technical solu-tion of cadastre. The main barrier is around theinstitutional and managerial issues and the relat-ed capacity building perspectives.

In the past decades, we are witnessing an irreversible process of professionalchange in surveying methods and appli-cations. You also stated recently that FIGis in a state of transition and reaching amilestone. Where are we headed as aprofession? Which are the achievementsthat the surveying profession can beproud of and which are the most impor-tant tasks that still have to be accom-plished?

Enemark: I think that surveyors can be proudon the progress that has happened in the landadministration field and also in introducing geo-graphic information systems. In many countriessurveyors were pioneers in introducing GIS. Inthe technical field (geodesy and photogramme-try) the technical development has been so fastthat it has been a challenge to respond to thenew working environment. It is obvious that thenumber of highly educated surveyors in field of measurement science has declined and will


Art i c l e

The major challenge for surveyors and the globein the next decades will be environmental issuesand disaster risk management especially oncoastal areas.

we need to have a big vision e.g. in contributing to solving the glob-

al challenges especially with regard to poverty reduction


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ing the society. However, the saying no newsis good news often applies in this regard. If the basic land administration infrastructure andthe economy in the country are developing welland if surveyors are the key profession behinda well functioning real estate system and landmarkets, what more can be asked? For a singleprofession this is great achievement. On theother hand, in countries in transition where theland issues are changing the role of surveyorsis much more visible. The same applies to coun-tries where surveyors are actively involved inland use planning and land development. Ingeneral, it is of course important that the sur-veying profession, through their national asso-ciations and through regional institutions, tryto influence government and thereby improvethe position the surveying profession. FIGstrongly supports such efforts such national andregional efforts.

There is a constant need to bring FIGactivities closer to the surveying profes-sion members on the national levels. Isthe expected establishing of a FIG virtual

journal with peer reviewed papers one of the steps in this direction and whichshould be the main goals of such a jour-nal?

Enemark: FIG has made great progress with our web page and by publishing all conferencepapers and FIG publications on line. The webpage is very much alive. All council and com-mission activities are posted immediately onthe web. This brings the results of our work

closer to individuals. The idea of a FIG virtualjournal is a natural next step to this policy. Thethinking behind this initiative is also to raisethe quality of the conference papers. It will offer academics a new platform to get their papers

Enemar k: The next FIG conference will be theworking week in Hong Kong in 13-17 May 2007.The theme of this conference has been select-ed to be Strategic Integration of SurveyingServices. This will bring together all surveyingdisciplines: land surveyors, appraisers andquantity surveyors. It will also discuss the roleof technology in solving the global agenda andissues related to land issue. There will be a spe-cial focus on the South East Asian region andespecially on surveying services in China. Thisincludes issues such as urbanisation, real estatemarkets in mega cities, and environmentalissues including disaster risk management. Alsoissues related to services and free movementof labour will be on the agenda. For the newFIG Council the meeting in Hong Kong will bethe first. The work plan for the next four year will include a whole range of strategic issuesto be discussed by the General Assembly.

In the past decades, the damage due tonatural and man-made disasters increasedworldwide in amount and magnitude. Inwhich ways can and should the modernsurveyor support good governance andcapacity building to play an important rolein the field of disaster risk management?Why is sustainable land use management so important as a tool for risk reduction?

Enemark: With regard to environmental issuesit is important to have a holistic approach.Surveyors have traditionally had the compe-tence of collecting and analysing information,designing planning solutions, and implement-ing the plans. Together with other geospatialprofessions we are strongly involved in infor-mation collection and monitoring. Building thenecessary capacity in this area is extremelyimportant. In this regard, I would like to refer to the very recent FIG publication on disaster risk management and surveyors role in assist-ing in handling these threats. We have alsofocussed much on coastal zone managementas the role of coastal areas will be crucial in thenext decades. The upcoming FIG RegionalConference in Costa Rica 12-15 November 2007will address this issue as a main topic.

Thank you for your inspiring thoughts.We wish you an excellent start of your presidency and many remarkable globalachievements of FIG during your term!

Joc Triglav ( [email protected] ) is a con-

tributing editor and columnist of GeoInformatics.

reviewed and published. This will help aca-demics to attend the FIG events and will alsocreate a bigger audience to the findings of their research. Especially in the land managementarea there is an international demand for sucha journal.

The current FIG Surveyors ReferenceLibrary website is a short cut to allpapers of FIG Congresses, Working Weeks and other FIG events. Are you

perhaps considering this as a first steptowards the development of a broader digital library of surveying professionwith global reach, which could includemany other professional topics? In thisregard, what do you think about thelatest EU initiative i2010: DigitalLibraries?

Enemar k: FIG has for some years now publishedall proceedings from our conferences on theweb and they are available free of charge for all interested. The reference library is only onetool to collect these articles in one place. Weneed to consider what the future conceptshould be. Progress within the search enginesfor example is so fast that it is difficult to saywhat will be the main stream in the future.There are several databases in the surveyingindustry that should be linked together. FIGalone has also other tools e.g. our permanentinstitution OICRF that provides access to awhole range of articles related to land adminis-tration.

Please outline the main topics of Strategic Integration of Surveying Services, which is the theme of the next FIG General Assembly and Working Week organised in Hong Kong in May this year.


Art i c l e

The agenda for FIG is to make a better world to our children.


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Five Satellites in Geostationary Orbit

Chinas Beidou Navigation Project

Beidou is the Chinese name of the constellation known in English as the BigDipper or the Great Bear. It is also the name of an independent satellite

navigation system, a project of the Peoples Republic of China.

China has announced that the system will be fully operational by 2008

and will offer open service with an accuracy of 10 meters.

Three satellites have already been launched.

By Job van Haaften

Geostationary Orbit Unlike the GPS, Glonass, and Galileo systemswhich use satellites that orbit the earth,Beidou uses satellites in geostationary orbit.This means the system does not require alarge constellation of satellites. It also limitsthe coverage to areas on earth where thesatellites are visible. The system now coversthe region bounded by longitude 70 to 140degrees and latitude 5 to 55 degrees.The Beidou 1A satellite was launched onOctober 30, 2000, Beidou 1B followed onDecember 20, 2000 and Beidou 2A was putinto orbit on May 24, 2003. These three weredesigned as experimental satellites. China has

yet to build the remaining satellites that willmake Beidou an operational global-position-ing utility. The complete system will contain35 satellites, including 5 geostationary orbitsatellites and 30 medium earth orbit satel-

lites. The first two satellites in the next phasewill be launched in early 2007. In the next fewyears China plans to continue experimenta-tion and system setup operations.This system will ultimately offer complete cov-erage of the globe. There will be two levelsof service: free service for those in China andlicensed service for the military. The free ser-vice will have a 10 meter location-trackingaccuracy, will synchronize clocks with an accu-racy of 50 nanoseconds, and will measurevelocity within 0.2 meter per second. This ser-vice, however, will be of little interest to con-sumers who can already achieve better accura-cy with unaided GPS receivers. The licensedservice, more accurate than the free service, canbe used for communication and will supplyinformation about system status to the users.

Important Economic RoleThe China-made system provides positionalinformation for highway, railway and marinetransportation. The three satellites have formeda complete satellite navigation and positioningsystem which will help to ensure all-weather navigation and positioning information. TheBeidou system will play an important role ineconomic matters, not only for regional trans-

portation, but also for meteorology, geology,forest fire prevention, disaster forecasting,telecommunications and public security. Withaccurate longitude, latitude and altitude data,it will help subscribers know their location anyplace, any time. It also serves as a radio bea-con in outer space.Many details of the Beidou system remainunknown, but it appears to have some analo-gy to WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System).WAAS, implemented in the United States tosupplement GPS, is a network of precisely sur-

veyed ground reference stations that receiveGPS signals, determine if errors exist and com-pute corrections. These corrections are thentransmitted from a geostationary communica-tion satellite on the same frequency as GPS.

The Beidou ProgramBeidou is being developed by the ChineseAcademy of Space Technology. The Academyhas 12 research institutes and one manufac-turing facility, and has developed andlaunched satellites since 1970. Beidous prima-ry mission is a military one. There has beenlittle information so far on possible civilianuse.Beidou began in 1983 with a proposal by ChenFangyun to develop a Twinsat regional navi-gation system using two geostationary satel-lites. The concept was proven in a test usingtwo in-orbit DFH-2/2A communication satel-lites. The test showed that the precision of theTwinsat system would be comparable to theAmerican GPS. In 1993, the Beidou programstarted officially. The program used the DFH-3bus and displayed a similar basic performance.The final Beidou constellation will consist of five geosynchronous satellites: three opera-tional and two backups.


Special

The launching of a CZ-3A that is used for getting the Beidou satellites in orbit.

The China-made system provides positional information for highway, railway and marine transportation.Source: www.globalsecurity.org

The central control system sends inquiry signals tothe users via two satellites. Source:www.globalsecurity.org


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Dual-way TransmissionsThe ground systems include the central controlstation, ground correction stations and user ter-minals (receivers and transmitters). The centralcontrol system sends inquiry signals to theusers via two satellites. When the user termi-

nal receives the signal from one satellite, itsends responding signals back to both satel-lites. The central station receives the respond-ing signals sent by the user from two satellites,and calculates the users 2D position based onthe time difference between the two signals.This position is then compared with the digitalterritorial map stored in the database to get the

3D position data, which is sentback to the user via satellites usingencrypted communications. Theuser can also transmit encryptedtext messages, up to 120 Chinesecharacters, to the central stationvia the satellites. Because theBeidou system requires dual-waytransmissions between the user and the central control station, itsuser segment needs extra space for the transmitter and its battery.Therefore the Beidou systems user segments are much bigger, heavier

and more expensive than GPS user receivers.Additionally, the number of users that can beserved by the system is limited by the commu-nication capacity of the network.

Rivals

It is not clear how the Chinese system will rivalthe American global positioning satellite systemor the EUs Galileo satellite navigational systemwhich is built with Chinese participation. TheBeidou system is expected to cover China andparts of neighboring countries by 2008, beforebeing expanded into a global network of satel-lites. This expansion is called Beidou-2 or


Special

One of the satellites in the Beidou system. Source: www.geocities.com

Compass by some sources. Expansion of Beidou functionality could undermine theGalileo business case. The expansion of Beidouunderlines the difficulties in building interna-tional consensus on global navigation systems.European, Japanese, Russian and U.S. adminis-trations have gone to considerable lengths tomake their systems compatible. China and Indiaseem to be going down quite separate paths.India announced plans to build an independentsystem that will use S-band. This will make itincompatible with the GNSS. They have alsothreatened to withdraw from Galileo. It is report-ed that China proposes to overlay the M-code,which would effectively prevent the US militaryfrom jamming Beidou transmissions withoutjamming its forces own signals.

The last published information on the Beidousystem is in the Aerospace White Paper for the

year 2006, a publication in Chinese fromOctober 12.

Job van Haaften ( [email protected] )

is editor of GeoInformatics. Listed below are several

URLs for additional information:

http//sidt.gpsworld.com , www.chinadaily.com.cn ,

www.globalsecurity.org , www.geocities.com.


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GPS-Aided Inertial

Technology for the Geospatial indu

Until somewhat recently, Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) and GPS receiverswere seldom mentioned in the same sentence. One uses gyroscopes to measure

position changes while the other uses external reference points to triangulatelocation. One provides data hundreds of times per second while the other

refreshes once every second. It wasnt long before someone discovered that thetwo technologies could actually work better in support of one another.

By Anthony Melihen

To understand inertial navigation in its sim-plest form, imagine you and a friend arestanding at one end of a long hallway. Your friend blindfolds and centers you, and thenyou start walking. As you proceed, you natu-rally detect the slightest changes: your step,balance, position, speed, etc. You may pro-ceed quickly at first, compensating as need-ed and covering early ground with confidence.Eventually, however, you begin to lose your sense of alignment. Relative speed, position,and distance, as well as revised time to des-tination even balance all become weaker approximations. Bumping a shoulder becomesincreasingly likely, as does hitting the wall.This ability to successfully navigate when

denied a visual frame of reference, representsour own basic human form of inertial naviga-tion.Inertial guidance with GPS can be demon-strated using the same hallway. This time,

while blindfolded, your friend verbally directsyou once per second. Chances become far greater you will proceed faster, never touch awall, and will stop safely at the end. At a walk-ing pace, a balance seems to have beenfound. Now lets exaggerate the situation onlyslightly and imagine you are told to run. Thedistance traveled between verbal directiongaps becomes greater as does the risk of col-lision and our reliance on our internal gyro-scope between commands. The overall advan-tage of having both working in cooperation(and in higher frequency) is increasingly clear.

Inertial SystemsAdvanced inertial measurement systems

record even the slightest changes in physicalmotion through a triad of accelerometers andgyros. Given a starting reference point, allmovements are accurately measured hun-dreds of times each second, even throughout

prolonged periods when GPS is unavailableor unreliable. As a result, the modern IMUtechnology applied in conjunction with GPSassistance has given the geospatial sciencesa relatively new tool that goes well beyondsimple navigation. Today, the ability to knowexactly where one is and exactly where oneis looking allows us to effectively measure onthe move: Precise Vehicle-Based GeospatialSurveying.

Precise Vehicle-Based Geospatial

Surveying If perpetually given the correct position andexact orientation of both a survey vehicle andits sensors, we can calculate the position andorientation of the sensor at the instantaneousmoment of data capture, thus allowing thecollected information to be accurately georef-erenced. This establishes a geographic rela-tionship between captured image pixels andthe actual real-world ground coordinates, allwith the same results as if the data was cap-tured from a motionless survey platform.Collection of ground control points becomesunnecessary and larger areas may be sur-veyed with incredible accuracy while in fullmotion, creating unprecedented efficienciesfor data collection.

Airborne Digital Sensor SystemApplanix airborne digital sensor system (DSS)captures imagery from fast moving platformsusing a medium-format airborne digital cam-era system tied to a GPS-aided IMU. Givenmicrosecond position and orientation data,the collected imagery is directly georefer-enced, allowing for fast corrections, orthorec-tification, and mosaicking. The ground objectaccuracy required for direct georeferencing inairborne surveying places a heavy reliance onthe high performance of the GPS-supportedIMU. Given its digital data format and directgeoreferencing capability (with no reliance on


Special

Applanix Corporation has been involved inGPS-assisted IMU development for over 15years. Their three divisions: Airborne, Land,and Marine Vehicles, each offer products

that exemplify how GPS-aided IMU solu-tions are being applied towards very uniquevehicle-in-motion surveying applicationsthat rely upon IMU technology to meet verydifferent challenges.

GPS-supported IMUs allow georeferencing through an exact sensor position andorientation at the moment of datacapture.


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ground control), the DSS solution is becoming more and morepopular for rapid response applications as well as affordable plug-and-play airborne surveying, especially for corridor mapping.

Land Vehicle NavigationAircraft seldom have difficulty obtaining line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. Not so for slower-moving land survey vehi-cles traveling along city streets, through tunnels, over roughroads, and over twisting highways in mountains or urban canyons.Quite often if GPS signals are not completely blocked, they areoften limited or reflected (multipath effect), resulting in potentialposition errors. Solutions for land vehicles place greater reliance

on advanced IMU technology for position data, especially duringprolonged survey periods without proper GPS support. The resultis uninterrupted, robust, and reliable data collection across urbanarmatures, rural roadways, and rugged terrains.

Marine Positioning Most demanding of all three services, nothing tests GPS-assistedIMU technology more than the marine environment. Although rare,GPS blockages do occur when surveying rivers and canals withbridges or tall buildings near by. And although marine survey ves-sels tend to be slow moving and operate in open water whereGPS signals are abundant, they are continuously subjected torandom heave, wake, and wave forces from all directions. To makematters more interesting, marine surveyors typically lack accessto target control points due to water depths. Yet despite all this,the same high degree of position control from millisecond to mil-lisecond is needed for multibeam sonar systems to adhere toInternational Hydrographic Survey standards under all dynamicwave conditions.

Coupled with GPS technology, inertial measurement solutions arehelping to dramatically lower the cost, effort, and risk of geospa-tial data collection. In less than two decades, the modern IMUhas become a powerful generator of efficiencies for spatial analy-sis applications by making mobile surveying and mapping a verypractical reality and an ideal tool.

Anthony Melihen ( [email protected] ) holds

a position in marketing, communications, and

technical writing at Applanix Corporation.

For more information on Applanix, visit www.applanix.com .

Latest News? Visitwww.geoinformatics.com

stry


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The Science of Forestry

GIS Gives an even Clearer View of t

How do you find the right tree to fell in a forest of several thousand squarekilometers? And once you found it, how do you get back home from

the deep dark woods? Not by following a trail of breadcrumbs. Deep in

the forest of Paderborn, Germany, the local foresters use satellite

navigation to find their way. "When you are deep in the woods there

are no road signs or a nice taxi driver to ask the way. And the

last thing you want is for the satellite link to go down",

Dieter Feldktter of the Forstamt Paderborn explains.

By Dimitri Lambermont

Horses for Transport Forstamt (forestry office) Paderborn is a stateorganization that manages the forests of Paderborn. They are currently using Topcons GISproducts to find their way through the largeNorth Rhine-Westphalia forests of several thou-sand square kilometers. The Forstamt is the

largest State Forest Administration in NorthRhine-Westphalia. Feldktter takes us through abit of history: "The nostalgic view of the forester no longer exists. We no longer walk through theforest with a dog by our side and an axe or saw

over the shoulder. In the old days we used hors-es to transport the timber, but then there camechainsaws and tractors."

Find the Right TreeToday forestry has been taken one step further.It has become a science. "Nowadays we work

a lot more efficiently and scientifically. In theforest better, more efficient and more complex machines are being used. That these machinescause a rise in the productivity is obvious. Buteven modern technology can run across some

logistical problems in such a large forest area."With a forest that covers about 30% of the statearea of North Rhine Westphalia it is easy toget lost. The trees may be felled easier andmore efficiently by a harvester but how doesthe driver even find the right tree? And whenhe has felled it, how does he get it to the stor-age? Feldktter: "In the past and even now weuse special lanes to transport the timber. Horsesmay have been slow, but they had the advan-tage of being very careful with the forest floor.Present machines can't be that careful and

destroy the precious forest floor, so we try touse them as little as possible outside the lanes.For this precise coordinates are needed."

Free of SearchesPrecision that technology provides. "First we gothrough the woods using the Topcon backpacksystem", Feldktter explains. "We tag the treesthat will be felled or update our maps and datawith forest information. The position of the treetrunk is registered digitally and marked on amap. This way the harvester can find it faster and he is freed from long searches." But whydo you use this technology and not a more con-ventional one? And how was it done in the past?"In the old days the forester would walkthrough the forest and mark the tree trunks thatwere to be felled. We partly still do that. Butwith the two satellite systems GPS, theAmerican System, and Glonass, the RussianSystem, that Topcon technology offers, we areable to acquire more precise data."He continues: "With the backpack system Iknow where I am at all times. For this I do notneed any time consuming data shaping and themeasuring takes almost halve the time. Whenwe, in the future, also get the European satel-lite system of Galileo (and the Topcon devicesare already ready for this) we can get an evenhigher accuracy and reliability and an even bet-ter connection under the treetops."

Failing ConnectionOne does not always have reception becauseof the canopy as Feldktter explains: "Of course the foliage is a problem, but connec-tion problems can also happen in winter when


Art i c l e

We have no road signs or taxi

driver to help show the way.

The local foresters use satellitenavigation to find their way.


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there are no leaves on the trees. The real prob-lem is the branches moving in the wind. Theyare the biggest cause of a failing satellite con-nection." A satellite connection is absolutelynecessary to permanently have the machinescoordinates and to draw a complete net of roads for the machine travels. "Besides it is asubstantial help to the driver of the harvester when he can constantly see and check hisexact position on the map or aerial maps",Feldktter states.This sounds almost the same as the naviga-

tion set most of us have in the car. "In thebasics maybe, but we use much more exactdata. To preserve the forest, the route and theway back should be given as exactly as possi-ble to find all the trunks to be felled. For thiswe need data in the sub meter range. The tech-nology we now use is very handy for this. Alsothe availability must be guaranteed and down-


Art i c l e

e Forest

The forwarder receives a map of the routes and storage places and drives straight to the location.


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time on the ground caused by insufficient satel-lite reception brought to a minimum." Even inthe friendly German forests time is money."One hour of operating in the forest costsabout 300 euros. Think about the costs of being lost in the deep woods; we have no roadsigns or taxi driver to help show the way if thesatellite connection fails."

Minimum of Empty TravelsOnce the tree is marked and digitalized, theharvester comes to the tree and fells it. Whathappens then? "Thanks to the Topcon technol-ogy on board of the harvester and the antennaon the roof the machine operator knows exact-ly where he is. His way has been documentedor he is driving a predefined road. The harvester puts the felled tree on the side of the forestalley to be picked up later. He also marks theposition on a digitalized map. This can be atopographical map, an aerial shot or a map withproperty borders on it. He can also attach addi-tional tree information to the measure pointabout the quantity, kind and quality."

And then the information moves on to the nextlink in the chain. Feldktter: "The forwarder receives this data and a map of the respectiveroutes and storage places by email and thendrives straight to the location. He does not have

Digitalized and MarkedThis sure comes in handy in unknown areas."It certainly helps. On the digital map we canalso enter so called 'points of interest' like inregular car navigation systems. In theunknown areas the machine driver knowswhere to find a certain biotope, waters, bor-ders, but also storage places and lanes. Thedown time is minimized. Thanks to this stepforward in efficiency we now started workingin two shifts; it means we can work early inthe morning around five-o-clock and in thewinter in the darkness."And also no timber is accidentally forgotten."All the timber is found and brought to a stor-age place. This location also has been digi-talized and marked. When the client receivesthe invoice, he also gets the coordinates for this storage place and in the future a digitalimage as proof. This way the truck can drivestraight to the location, using the usual car navigation system." And so in today's forestrythe bread crumbs have become virtual ones.

Dimitri Lambermont, technical writer for Topcon Europe Positioning.

www.topcon.com .

to search for the timber and already knowswhat quantity, how many cubic meters, what

kind and what quality of timber is waiting for him at the location thanks to the attached data.This way we keep the empty travels of the for-warder to a minimum. And the driver knows atall time where he is and where he has to go."


The harvester puts the felled tree on the side to be picked up later.

Thanks to the technology the machine operator knowsexactly where he is.


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A Report on the Moscow 2006 Conference

Laser Scanning & Digital Aerial Phot The 6th International Conference on Laser Scanning & Digital Aerial

Photography, organised jointly by the Russian Society of Photogrammetry &Remote Sensing (RSPRS) and the giant Gazprom company, was held in Moscow between 6th and 8th December 2006. As the Conference title suggested, it was

focused on three main themes - (i) airborne laser scanning; (ii) terrestrial(ground-based) laser scanning; and (iii) airborne digital photography, with

particular reference to their applications within Russia. On the one hand, thedetailed papers on these three technologies were given mainly by Western system suppliers or their Russian representatives. On the other hand, the

papers on the applications of these technologies were presented mainly by Russian contributors, who have adopted these technologies enthusiastically

with numerous interesting and varied applications.

By Gordon Petrie

Conference Venue & OrganisationThe Conference was held in the large and lux-urious five-star President Hotel overlookingthe Moscow River and directly facing the mas-sive new monument to Peter the Great andthe Russian Navy and the newly re-builtCathedral of Christ the Saviour with its gildedonion domes. The Hotel itself was built 25years ago specifically to accommodate visit-ing foreign heads of state and delegationsand to host high-level meetings and confer-

ences. Thus it features a series of conferencehalls and meeting rooms of different sizescapable of accommodating groups of severalhundred down to a few dozen people asrequired. With 220 participants, the

Conference only occupied a small part of these extensive facilities. The plenary andgeneral sessions, including those concernedwith airborne laser scanning and digital pho-tography, were held in a beautiful lecture the-atre and concert hall equipped with a raisedstage, superb seating, good acoustics andexcellent projection and audio facilities,including a simultaneous Russian/Englishtranslation service. The parallel sessions cov-ering ground-based laser scanning were held

in an a smaller conference room adjacent tothe lecture theatre. Besides which, there wasa further suite of adjacent rooms in which theexhibitors had small booths. The dining facili-ties and food were first-class. Much of the

organisation and running of the Conferencewas carried out on behalf of the RSPRS bythe staff of the large Geokosmos surveyingand mapping company and its associatedcompanies, Geolidar and Geopolygon, whoare agents for and suppliers of aerial imagingand surveying equipment respectively.Collectively these three companies were thegeneral sponsors of the Conference, with fur-ther sponsorship being provided by the Optencompany.

I. Airborne Digital Imaging

I.1 Large-Format ImagersAs one might expect, the three major suppli-ers of large-format airborne digital imagers allmade presentations of their products under this heading. The charismatic Prof. FranzLeberl ( Ve xcel ) gave one of his trademark ora-torical performances setting out the merits of the company's UltraCam cameras. In this, hewas supported by a separate paper from TomTadrowski from the Australian AEROmetrex company which operates an UltraCam cam-era. They both spoke of the special advan-tages of the multi-ray measurements of posi-tion and height that are permitted by theUltraCam camera when it is being operatedwith large overlaps. Dr. Hartmut Rosengarten( Inter gr aph ) gave a less flamboyant but equallypersuasive account of the merits of his com-pany's DMC camera; while Valentin Zaitsevfrom Leica Geosy stems ' Moscow office set outthe main characteristics and selling points of the ADS40 pushbroom line scanner.

I.2 Small- & Medium-Format ImagersWith all these prior presentations of large-for-mat systems in mind, the present writer (Gordon Petrie) provided an overview of air-borne digital imaging technologies that con-centrated more (i) on the numerous small-for-mat and medium-format digital cameras thatare now in widespread use for airborne imag-ing; and (ii) their integration with airbornelidars. In this area, there was also an excel-lent presentation by Tobias Toelg, whodescribed the latest version of the Rollei AIC

medium-format digital camera and, in aninteresting aside, mentioned that over 60 of these cameras had been sold to date. He alsoannounced the setting up of a newRolleimetric company to develop the AIC cam-


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Fig. 1 (a) - The President Hotel in Moscow where the 6th International Conference on Laser Scanning & Digital Aerial Photography was held.(b) - A map showing the location of the Hotel in a

prominent position in the central part of the city onthe south bank of the Moscow River.

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era technology further.The new company is owned jointly by Rolleiand Phase One, the Danish supplier of thedigital backs that are fitted to the AIC. Alsowithin this category of medium-format cam-eras, the Russian representative of IGI cov-ered the DigiCAM in his presentation. Finally,within this category, there was a presentationby Stephen Mah of Itr es Resear ch in Canadathat covered his company's hyperspectralpushbroom scanners - including the latestmodels in the well-known CASI series produc-ing linescan imagery in the visible and near infra-red (VNIR); the SASI 600 model operat-ing in the short-wave infra-red (SWIR); andthe TABI 320 producing imagery in the long-wave infra-red (LWIR) thermal part of thespectrum.

I.3 Russian ApplicationsAs became apparent from subsequent contri-butions, notably that from Dr. EvgenyMedvedev, the General Manager of Geolidar -who gave an overview of Russian experienceswith airborne digital imagers - many of thedigital cameras in current use in Russia are of the small-format and medium-format types,often used in conjunction with airborne lidars.Indeed the market has developed sufficiently

within Russia for a mount to be offered thatis designed and built locally, specifically for use with these small- and medium-formatcameras. This Aerosight camera mount, whichis marketed by Geolidar, corrects for drift

Recon/Optical that is used by the U.S. Air Force. [See the relevant Web page -www.roi.bourns.com/cameras/ca261.asp ]However VisionMap is a metric camera and iscurrently being tested by the Geokosmoscompany for mapping applications, especiallyorthophoto production, as set out in a paper at the Conference given by Dr. Kadnichanskiyof that company. The second paper from Israelwas presented by Ilan Friedlander and cov-ered the MultiVision software package that isbeing used by Aerial Cartographics of America(ACA), GetMapping in the U.K. and variousother companies that are competing againstPictometry and its licensees in the area of multiple digital oblique frame images.[The relevant Web site is www.ofek- multivision.com/ ] Indeed the Geokosmos com-pany is using the software to process theoblique frame images being taken by a pair of Rollei AIC cameras, each firing at an angleof 45 from the vertical to the left and rightof the flight line. Furthermore, Dr.Kadnichanskiy of Geokosmos gave another two papers on the results of the tests thathave been carried out at his company usingthe MultiVision system to process this obliqueimage data for (i) the production of orthopho-tomosaics; and (ii) the visual analysis of theoblique images.

II. Airborne Laser Scanning

II.1 System SuppliersIf the take-up of large-format airborne digitalimagers has been comparatively slow withinRussia, quite the opposite situation exists

with regard to airborne laser scanning. Thetechnology has been adopted enthusiasticallyby Russian organisations. Already no less thanfifteen of these expensive devices are in usewithin the country. Of these, twelve are ALTM

(heading) through a motor-ized drive under the control of the aircraft'sGPS-based flight management system. As for the large-format airborne imagers, at presentwithin Russia, there is only a single VexcelUltraCam digital frame camera in use with theGeokosmos company and two LeicaGeosystems ADS40 pushbroom line scannersthat are being used in the LARIS (LandRegistration Implementation Support) Projectbeing carried out by the Russian VISKHAGIcadastral research organisation. The fundingfor the purchase of these ADS40s was provid-ed by the World Bank. So, in spite of the cat-egorical statement from Vexcel that "Film isDead!", in fact, large numbers of aerial pho-togrammetric film cameras remain in use with-in Russia and the CIS countries, Thus there isplenty of room and a real opportunity for fur-ther sales of large-format airborne digitalimagers in Russia. Dr. Medvedev felt that sucha development was "inevitable".

I.4 Israeli ContributionsWithin this section on airborne digitalimagers, there were also two very interestingpresentations by participants from Israel. Thefirst of these, presented by Yaron Vilan, wasthe introduction of the new VisionMap sys-tem from the company of that name based inTel Aviv. [See the Web site - www.visionmap.com/ ] VisionMap is based on the imageryacquired by a stepping frame camera that

sweeps the ground rapidly in a series of stepsto provide continuous cross-track coverage atright angles to the flight line. To a certainextent, the VisionMap camera resembles theCA-261 stepping frame camera from


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ography: Today & Tomorrow

Fig. 2 (a) - The VisionMap A3 digital stepping frame camera that wasintroduced at the Conference. (Source: VisionMap)(b) - The pattern of the ground coverage of an area using a stepping framecamera. (Source: Recon/Optical Inc.)

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models that have been constructed byOptech; two are Leica Geosystems ALS50laser scanners; while the remaining instru-ment is a Riegl LMS-Q560. Naturally Optechwere very much to the fore during the pre-sentations. Daina Vagners first gave an intro-duction to airborne laser scanning in generaland then described in detail the new ALTMGemini instrument from Optech. Among themany interesting points that she made wasthe information that, up till now, Optech hasnow sold 95 ALTM scanners world-wide. Evenmore interesting was the news that, besidesits 100 Hz scan rate, the ALTM Gemini isemploying a multi-pulse technology thatalready produces a 167 kHz laser pulse repe-tition frequency (PRF) - a feature that was notannounced when the instrument was intro-duced at the INTERGEO 2006 trade fair heldin Munich a few weeks ago. Optech has also

introduced its new DASHMap post-processingsoftware to support the ALTM Gemini's high-er PRF speeds. Dr. Valerie Ussyshkin of Optechalso presented a paper providing an assess-ment of the accuracy of the ALTM 3100EA

model in the detection of power lines - a matter of con-siderable importance given thehuge distances over whichsuch lines need to be built tocross Russia. Valentin Zaitsevof Leica Geosystems had alsoincluded details of his compa-ny's ALS50 laser scanner alongwith his presentation on theADS40 pushbroom line scan-ner.

Also concerned with airbornelaser scanner technology wasthe presentation and accompa-nying paper from AndersEkelund of Air bor ne Hydrog raphy AB (AHAB) fromSweden giving details of the

new Hawk Eye II combinedbathymetric and topographiclaser system for coastal sur-veys. First he traced the devel-opment of Swedish laser bathymetry systems, includingthe original Flash device andthe subsequent Hawk Eye sys-tems. He then followed thisaccount with (i) a detailedtechnical description of thenew Hawk Eye II system and itspost-processing software; and(ii) the results of their operationby Admiralty Coastal Surveys. Itwas a most interesting andinformative presentation!

II.2 Service ProvidersWhen it came to the applications of airbornelaser scanning, then the Russian participantscame to the fore. In the opening plenary ses-sion, S. Melnikov, the President of theGeokosmos company outlined the presentmarket for laser scanning within Russia andthen gave his forecast of the market develop-ment in the years up to 2010. He was backedup by his colleague, Roman Podoprikhin, whooutlined the new products and services thatare being offered by Geokosmos - which nowoperates five Optech ALTM airborne laser scanners. Then Dr. Medvedev of G e olidar gavehis second paper in which he adopted a moreacademic approach than the others, dis-cussing airborne laser surveys as applied totopographic mapping; defining and discussingthe terms commonly used in this area; anddiscussing the technology in terms of it pro-

viding a real-time mapping system. However the other Russian contributors were muchmore pragmatic and specific. BorisMekhanoshin of Opten informed the audiencethat his company was the first company inRussia to employ airborne laser scanning (in1996). Since then, it had specialized in theapplication of the technology to the provisionof engineering services, including the designwork, maintenance and infrastructure of avariety of mostly linear objects. These includeoil and gas pipelines; overhead power trans-mission lines; fibre-optic communication lines;and both existing and proposed roads andrailways. Since 1996, Opten has completedabout 80,000 km of corridor surveys using itsairborne laser scanners, including 38,000 km


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Fig. 3 (a) - A MultiVision screen display showing the central (nadir-point- ing) image surrounded by the corresponding four oblique images of thesame area taken from different directions.

Fig. 3 (b) - The dimensions (length, width, height, area, etc.) of manyaspects of an individual building can be derived from an oblique imageusing the MultiVision software. (Source: Ofek MultiVision; Image of Copenhagen courtesy of COWI A/S)

Fig. 4 (a) - The operating principle of the Hawk Eye Mk. II airborne bathymetric and topographic laserscanning system showing the scanning pattern used to survey the land and the sea floor of coastal areas.

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of pipelines and telecommunication lines and40,000 km of overhead power transmissionlines. Like Geokosmos, Opten currently oper-ate five airborne laser scanners - in this case,

three Optech ALTM instruments, one LeicaALS50-II scanner and a Riegl LMS-Q560.

Vladimir Platinov of the Aeroscan company,which is a subsidiary of the InfrastructureProject Center, informed us that his companyspecializes in the monitoring of power trans-mission lines and the associated facilitiessuch as sub-stations for the Federal GridCompany of the RF (Russian Federation)United Energy System. He then gave anaccount of his company's work utilizing twoOptech ALTM scanners operating in combina-tion with Rollei AIC cameras and an Agemathermal IR camera over the period 2004-2006.Once again, the lengths of the power trans-mission lines being surveyed are quite phe-

accumulation. Using the Spatial Analyst mod-ule of ESRI's ArcGIS software, the subsequentanalysis is carried out for areas at risk fromavalanches, including the areas planned to beused for the Winter Olympic games to be heldin Sochi. Finally the Conference heard descrip-tive accounts of the Terramodel, Lidar Analystand PolyWorks software packages that arealready very familiar to Western users of laser scan data and it also received a presentationon the Canadian Novatel company's SPANinertial & GPS technologies given by itsRussian agent.

III. Terrestrial (Ground-Based) Laser Scanning

III.1 Instrument SuppliersSince I had attended all the sessions on theairborne side, I was unable to attend the ses-

sions on ground-based laser scanning whichran in parallel with the airborne sessions.Furthermore only a few of the papers on theground-based side were available in Englishon the Conference CD-ROM and could be readlater. Nevertheless, it was obvious that sever-al of the main instrument suppliers from theWest - Leica, Trimble/Mensi and Riegl - wereall active and made presentations in the ter-restrial laser scanner part of the Conference.Riegl, who are represented by Geopolygon ,were particularly prominent - with two pre-sentations by Alexander Kovrov of theGeopolygon company, (i) on the capabilitiesof Riegl's laser scanners; and (ii) their use inmining and architecture.

III.2 ApplicationsThe other papers gave a further insight intothe versatility of ground-based laser scannersand the range of their applications. Thus itwas interesting to learn about the measure-ment and calibration of large foldable anten-nas and reflectors for use in space that hadbeen carried out by a team from BUM Techno (who are industrial measurement specialists)and NPO EGS (who build large deployableantennas) using photogrammetric, electronictacheometric, multi-theodolite and laser scan-ning methods on a comparative basis. Themost accurate data were obtained (i) usingthe Leica MTM multi-theodolite system andits AXYZ software package; and (ii) the MetricVision MV260 laser scanner from Metris.However the use of the laser scanner signifi-cantly increases the speed of measurementand the degree of automation that is possi-

ble as compared with the method using mul-tiple theodolites. Another paper that was alsoconcerned with deformation measurementswas that written by a team from Barcelonaand presented by Michele Crosetto of the

nomenal - 50,000 km in this particular case.Still on the linear survey theme, another paper by S.N. Cherkesov outlined outlined the sur-veys of oil and gas pipelines and several high-

ways carried out by his company NPI InjGeo using an Optech ALTM 3100 scanner. Therewas yet another paper in this area by GeorgySkorniakov of the Mosg iprotr ans companywhich specializes in transport (road and rail)applications - in this case, using a Leica ALS50laser scanner in conjunction with an Applanix DSS medium-format digital frame camera.

Away from the main theme of linear corridor surveys, there was also a paper by EvgenyBoyko of IngGeoGIS on the use of airbornelaser surveys for the measurement and evalu-ation of snow cover, depth and accumulationin mountainous areas. The method involvestwo surveys carried out before the snow fallsand then during the period of maximum snow


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Fig. 4 (b) - The pulses from the red/NIR laser are reflected from the sea surface or the land; while the pulses fromthe green laser penetrate the water and are reflected from the sea f loor. (Source: Airborne Hydrography AB)

Fig. 5 (a) - A corridor map showing the true position of high-voltage power lines and their main elements (cables,

pylon structures, conductors, etc.) generated by an Optech ALTM laser scanner and based on an orthophoto image generated by a medium-format digital camera.(b) - Another linear corridor image map showing power lines crossing a river, together with a profile showing thecatenary of the power lines and their clearance over the local vegetation. (Source: Opten)

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Institute of Geomatics in Catalonia. Thisinvolved the monitoring of the controlled andmeasured deformations of a test field of arti-ficial targets using repeated scans with anOptech ILRIS 3D scanner and the analysis of

the acquired data usingsurface matching softwaredeveloped at the ETH,Zrich.

Then there was a paper fromthe Trest State Unitar y Enterpr ise on the use of aLeica HDS3000 laser scanner to carry out surveys of existingbuildings in the historic centreof St. Petersburg. These sur-veys had been carried out sothat extensions to these his-

toric buildings or new developments in their vicinity could be planned and undertakenwithin the strict regulations designed to con-serve these important heritage sites. A final

paper from a Czech contributor, Oleksandr Gorbyk, set out the experience gained fromundertaking terrestrial laser scanning duringthe reconstruction and modernisation of elec-tric power sub-stations. Taken altogether,these presentations on ground-based laser scanning combined to form a varied and inter-esting set of applications.

ConclusionIt was a really worthwhile meeting to attend,not least for the insight that it gave into thewidespread adoption and varied applicationsof laser scanning technology within Russia.

Gordon Petrie is Emeritus Professor in the Dept. of

Geographical & Earth Sciences of the University of

Glasgow, Scotland, U.K. E-mail -

[email protected] .

Fig. 7 (a) - This Leica MTM multiple theodolite system isbeing used to measure thesurface of the Large

Deployable Reflector (LDR)with its diameter of 12m that has been constructed by the

Russian NPO EGS company for the European Space Agency.(b) - The measurement of thesurface of the LDR meshreflector is also being carried

out using the Metric Vision MV260 laser scanner.(Source: BUM Techno)

Fig. 6 - A mobile laser scanningsystem based on a Riegl ground- based laser together with asupplementary GPS in use for citymodelling in Moscow.(Source: Riegl)

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INSPIRE Directive is likely to be Enforced from Summer 2007

Inspiring Harmonisation of Spatial In

On 22nd of November 2006 the European Parliament and Council reached agreement on the contents of the proposed INSPIRE Directive.

The establishment of a spatial data infrastructure for Europe facilitating

seamless access to spatial data for all public authorities on all levels is its

central point. In this context an expected impact on the European

geoinformation economy as well as the controversial matter of

charges for spatial information are in the spotlight.

By Florian Fischer

INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Informationin Europe) creates a legal framework for theestablishment and operation of an infrastruc-ture for spatial information in Europe for thepurpose of formulating, implementing, moni-toring and evaluating Community policies inMember States at all levels and providingpublic information.Good policy depends on good information,and this directive will help improve both theavailability and the consistency of the infor-mation we need, said EU EnvironmentCommissioner Stavros Dimas.

What is a Spatial InformationInfrastructure?The term spatial data infrastructure (SDI) isoften used to denote the relevant base col-lection of technologies, policies and institu-tional arrangements that facilitate the avail-ability of and access to spatial data. A crucialfact is that spatial datasets remain at the insti-tution where they are gathered and updat-ed. A spatial data infrastructure then provides

a basis for spatial data discovery, evaluation,download and application for users andproviders within all levels of government, thecommercial sector, the non-profit sector,academia and the general public.

The word infrastructure is used to promotethe concept of a reliable, supporting environ-ment, analogous to a road or telecommuni-cations network. Spatial data infrastructuresfacilitate access to geographically-relatedinformation using a minimum set of standardpractices, protocols, and specifications.Spatial data infrastructures are commonlydelivered electronically via the internet.

What is INSPIRE?The INSPIRE Directive addresses both techni-cal and non-technical issues of a spatial datainfrastructure, ranging from technical stan-dards and protocols (ISO, CEN, OGC, W3C),organisational issues, data policy issuesincluding data access policy and the creationand maintenance of geographical informationfor a wide range of themes, starting with theenvironmental sector.The general situation on spatial information

in Europe is one of fragmentation of datasetsand sources, gaps in availability, lack of har-monisation between datasets at different geo-graphical scales and duplication of informa-tion collection. These problems make itdifficult to identify, access and use data thatis available.As for the availability of spatial data, actionon European level are required. Only fewMember States have a legal framework toestablish a national SDI to control its techni-cal, organisational and legal aspects. In

Member States that establish a national SDIonly a few problems are considered or singleinitiatives are not interoperable. Without aharmonised technical framework on the levelof the European Union enormous obstaclesregarding to the cross-border usage of spa-tial data are expected in the future.The INSPIRE initiative intends to trigger thecreation of a European spatial informationinfrastructure that delivers to the users inte-grated spatial information services. These ser-vices should allow the users to identify and

access spatial or geographical informationfrom a wide range of sources, from the locallevel to the global level, in an interoperableway for a variety of uses. The concept of theEuropean spatial data infrastructure is a com-position of all SDIs on national, regional andlocal levels and itself a part of the GlobalSpatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI).

INSPIRE focuses on environmental policybecause environmental issues are inherentlycross-border processes. Furthermore spatial


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Logo of the INSPIRE Initiative.

Composition of INSPIRE by national, regional and local SDIs .


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datasets offer a perfect opportunity for local-ising datasets across various thematic sub-jects. Therefore INSPIRE is as well open for use by and future extension to other sectorssuch as agriculture, transport and energy.It will also have an impact on the develop-ment of national spatial data infrastructureswithin the Member States as the FinnishEnvironment Minister Jan-Erik Enestam com-ments: I believe that the new directive willcreate a solid basis for the future develop-ment of spatial data infrastructures at nation-al and European level, and also enable highquality data bases and information servicesto be run in the member states. Possible ser-vices are the visualisation of information lay-ers, overlay of information from differentsources, spatial and temporal analysis. The

target users of INSPIRE include policy-makers,planners and managers at European, nationaland local level and the citizens and their organisations.

neous datasets by a standardised data model.Examples for these services are the WebMapping Service Specification and WebFeature Service Specification defined by theOpen Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and theGeographic Markup Language (GML) for encoding spatial data. The harmonisationissue as well includes the development of acommon schema for the semantics of spatialdata to achieve nearly universal usability of spatial data. However the level of universalusability to be reached by harmonizing onlythe schemes and not the data might be limit-ed.

A European Geo-PortalThe Internet access point for spatial data andservices under INSPIRE is the European Geo-

Portal. The Geo-Portal is established under lead management of the Joint Research Center of the European Commission. It links and willlink to national portals and to sector specificdata and services. The Geo-Portal does not

Full Implementation till 2013The implementation of INSPIRE contains sev-eral stages and shall be finished in the year 2013. In the first phase national cataloguesfor metadata will be established. In manyMember States the catalogues are already inan advanced stage at present. A second partof the implementation is a range of interop-erable services for upload, discovery, viewing,download and transformation of spatial data.

Furthermore the INSPIRE Directive aims at thecreation of services to invoke spatial data ser-vices as a completion of this stage. The direc-tive defines fixed rules for gathering andmaintenance of metadata for spatial data andspatial services. The final stage is harmonisa-tion of spatial data. INSPIRE is exclusively

concerned with aspects of compatibility of spatial datasets and its retrieval for Community policies. The Member States arenot required to change their data format butto provide interfaces to transform heteroge-


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formation across Europe

INSPIRE Information Flow.


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store or maintain the data. These are dis-tributed in many National and Thematicservers across Europe. Each server is main-tained by the organisation responsible for thedata.The Geo-Portal serves as demonstrator for thepotentials the European spatial data infras-tructure will offer. But awareness raising andtraining could be more prominent and cross-references to other activities could be mademore evident. A link with the information soci-ety is important, this is a success factor in theUnited States.

Boost for the EuropeanGeoinformation Economy The European Commission estimates that themeasures needed to implement the new direc-tive will cost member states about 3-5 mil-lion euros per year over a period of about tenyears. INSPIRE will affect not only the publicadministration but also the private sector e.g.in the development of new services. Thismight result in a push of the European geoin-formation economy one could think to one-self. Asking Dr.-Ing. Gerd Buziek, vice-presi-dent and head of the section for geoinformation economy of Deutscher Dachverband fr Geoinformation e. V. (theumbrella organisation for geoinformation inGermany), he says: First of all we have toawait what the Directive will look like because

so far only various press releases are onhand.Furthermore he states that there will be nosingle investment to establish a spatial datainfrastructure. Investments are located in the

budget of each individual public authority thatis all governmental levels from national tolocal. Buziek beliefs that there is a holdup of investments now till it is clear what the direc-tive will look like exactly. Obviously publicauthorities have to adjust to Service OrientedArchitecture and certain standards in futuretender offers, specified by the INSPIREDirective, says Buziek and he continues:The Technology must be implemented andespecially the reliable operation of all decen-tralised data servers is crucial for running acompetitive European SDI. Who will do thejob depends on the capacity of the publicauthorities. Generally outsourcing to privatesector companies and hence a stimulation of the geoinformation economy is expected.Experts say that it would be easier to assessthe impacts and determine the costs and ben-efits if the work programme is more explicitin highlighting the needs of environmentalpolicies in order to set priorities.

Open Access to all Public Geodata?In 2004 the European Commission wanted toopen access to all public geodata and spatialservices in Europe but the European Councildid not agree. Thus the INSPIRE Directive willallow public authorities to take fees for accessto data which has to be updated frequently,like weather reports. Critics like the Public GeoData Initiative still argue for open access to

public spatial information because the datagathering and processing is done by publicauthorities and tax-funded therefore. Theyargue that taking fees for the data hampersthe development of the geoinformation econ-

omy and restricts the citizens right to getinsight in public information.However there are some issues to consider.The INSPIRE Directive is a so called IPRDirective which means that it can not outcastnational legislation which might describe adifferent fee regulation. Dr. Gerd Buziek statesthereto, Primarily Public Geo Data is alignedto the requirements for public duties and asa citizens one has the right to have insight inthis information. By the use of a SDI theeffort to provide information can be reducedfor public authorities and citizens even get ahigher quality of information. Therefore a SDIfits perfect together with eGovernment initia-tives.Dr. Buziek holds that the availability of thesepublic map viewing services allows to inte-grate them in business solutions, too. If com-panies have different requirements for spatial

data they either gather it by themselves,cooperate with public authorities to gather itor pay a fee to get them it public authorities.

Finally the fees for geodata do nothave that big influ-ence on the geoin-formation economyas Buziek says, itwill remain almostunchanged and fur-thermore statesthat, a law aboutfreedom of geoinfor-mation such as thefreedom of informa-tion in the UnitedStates will not beestablished in thefuture. And if one has a close look in the U.S.it is not that different. You can get free databut in a very low level of detail. If one has aspecial request there is a fee, too.

Florian Fischer ( [email protected] ) is

a Contributing Editor of GeoInformatics.

More information on the topic discussed in this

article can be found at http://inspire.jrc.it ,

http://eu-geoportal.jrc.it , www.gsdi.org ,

www.opengeospatial.org , www.ddgi.de and

http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/06/st03/

st03685.en06.pdf .

Dr.-Ing. Gerd Buziek - vice- president and head of thesection for geoinformationeconomy of Deutscher

Dachverband fr Geoinformation e. V.

The European Geo-Portal Map Viewer.


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Controlling Deepwater Dredging in Norway

Novapoint: an Integrated Processing

The Ormen Lange field is the largest gas field under development on the Norwegian Shelf. The gas from this location willcover 20 per cent of the UKs demand for gas. A pipeline needed to be installed between the field and the production

facility in Nyhamna, Norway. Geoconsult of Norway was awarded the contract for surveying the construction workon the pipeline. The controlling system for monitoring dredging progress and producing the drawings

was supplied by Vianova (Norway).

By Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk

The Project The Ormen Lange field is located in the harshNorwegian sea, 100 kilometers northwest of the Mre coast, at a depth of 1100 meters.The total project consists of four major parts(see figure 1): development of the field byNorsk Hydro; building a processing plant inNyhamna; building a pipeline betweenOrmen Lange and Nyhamna; and building the

Langeled pipeline between Nyhamna andEasington in the UK.The field itself will be controlled remotelyfrom the Aukra processing plant, 120 kilome-ters away, through fiber optic cables

trenched into the seabed. The untreatedwellstream is transported through two 30inch pipelines to the processing facility inNyhamna. From there the gas is transportedthrough the Langeled pipeline. With a totallength of 1200 kilometers, the Langeledpipeline between Norway and Great Britainis the longest pipeline built to date. As youread this, all that remains to be done is

connect the field and the controlling stationwith a single control cable, and complete theprocessing plant at Nyhamna. Productionfrom the field is expected to begin in late2007.


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VianovaVianova is a Norwegian-based engineeringgroup of around 390 people spread over anetwork of 19 companies. It has two mainactivities: consulting, and software develop-ment and distribution. Software developmentand engineering are performed by VianovaSystems, a company with 140 employees.Vianova is usually the first user of its own

software. The software now has over 10.500+installations, mainly in Scandinavia. InDecember 2005 Vianova Systems began anexpansion strategy with the United Kingdomand France as its main focus.

Ormen Lange field, Nyhamna processing facility and Langeled pipeline. (source: www.hydro.com)


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Ormen Lange NyhamnaThe pipeline, which connects the field to theprocessing plant at Nyhamna, is laid throughcomplex terrain and is required to climb from adepth of 1100 meters up a steep escarpment inthe Storegga slide 20 kilometers from Nyhamna(see figure 2). The local seabed consists of peaks of hard clay with a lot of rock, often 40to 60 meters high. The area was surveyed ingreat detail using unmanned underwater vehi-cles. Furthermore, a network of transponderswas placed on the seafloor by Geoconsult, mak-ing it possible to install a great amount of rockwith a precision of only a few centimeters.Some of the peaks on the proposed route hadto be removed and in other locations a trenchneeded to be dug in order to lay the pipelinedown without undue bending. For this work a

precision in muddy waters and in near-zero vis-ibility. The control software for the Spider wassupplied by Vianova, while the support vesseland additional survey equipment and instru-mentation were provided by Geoconsult.

Survey Processing In order to check the work done by the Spider,regular intermediate surveys were performedduring the dredging phase. A large amount of data was collected from the ROV (RemotelyOperated Vehicle) using Reson echo-sounders.The survey results were validated and edited,to produce a grid model with a bin (rectangle)size of 0.2 x 0.2 meters. Geoconsult specifiedthat a single survey, containing up to two mil-lion points, needed to be gridded within twominutes on an industry-standard PC similar tothose used in an office environment. The result-ing digital terrain model was then comparedwith the design trench and volumes were cal-culated.

Survey ResultsThe survey results were visualized in a number of different ways: 3D visualization of bothtrench and seafloor combined (see figure 5a);2D visualization spot chart with colored con-tours from the difference model between modeland intermediate survey (see figure 5b); andcross sections and longitudinal profiles from allthe intermediate surveys and volume calcula-tions. The combined results give a good indi-

cation of the amount of work already done andstill to be done for all participants. The 3D pho-toreal sidelighted image in particular is an excel-lent tool for quick assessment of the progressof work and the quality of the terrain model.

special deepwater dredger, the Nexans Spider,was developed.

Nexans Spider The Spider (see figure 3) is a dredger specifi-cally adapted for the environment along theproposed pipeline route. The undercarriage,modified from a Swiss forestry machine, cancrawl on the steep escarpments and at thegreat depths of the Storegga slide. Jet nozzlesattached to the shovel flush water under highpressure into the ground. This way the clay isdissolved, sucked up and sprayed away.The underwater robot is controlled from the sur-face using a three-dimensional virtual realitymodel of sea-bed and machine, enabling theoperator in the MV Geobay support vessel (seefigure 4) to handle the excavator with minute


Art i c l e

Solution

Geoconsult Geoconsult is a Norwegian survey groupbased near Bergen. The company wasestablished in 1979 and now has approxi-mately 170 employees. Its main activitiesare offshore survey, offshore maintenance,offshore construction support and subseaengineering. The group has access to onenear-shore and sixteen ocean-going surveyvessels, with two new buildings under con-struction. The group also operates a totalof 20 ROVs and a single Hugin 3000 AUV

(Autonomous Underwater Vehicle).Storegga slide. (source: www.hydro.com)

Nexans Spider deepwater dredger. (source: www.hydro.com)


22/47

Implementation ProcessOriginally the survey results were processedusing a large number of hydrographic soft-ware products chained together to form a pro-duction strait. With the original solution ittook roughly one working day (12 hours) toprocess a typical dredging site. The modelingof the digital terrain model took roughly onethird of the day while the drawing productionconsumed one quarter of the day.The main reason for this time-consuming pro-cess was a sub-optimally-integrated softwaresolution resulting in a large number of formatconversions and data incompatibility. The sys-tem previously used to produce drawings for dredging work monitoring required a number of steps which disrupted the overall workflow.With the Novapoint solution, the survey wasprocessed using an integrated suite of soft-

ware solutions withoutthe need for extensivedata conversion or transfer. The data fromthe ROV was con-structed into a gridsurface model usingNovapoint surfacegridding features. Theresulting surface mod-els were used by therobot guidance systemand to produce cross-sections and longitudi-nal profile drawings. Customized drawing tem-plates were implemented to ensure efficientquality drawing production.Using Novapoint, the total cross-section pro-duction processing time was reduced by a fac-tor of four (one hour as opposed to three to

four hours).

DifferencesDuring a three-month pilot period both theoriginal solution and the Novapoint solutionwere operated in tandem. This way differencesbetween the two solutions could be evaluat-ed. The Novapoint solution was also madecompatible to read data from the originalsolution: this method has been found to pro-duce the best results for the least number of changes in the existing working environment.This transition approach made it easier to

anticipate and correct any possible errorsbefore using the new system in full scale pro-duction. It also allowed the customer to opti-mally integrate the new solution in their pro-duction operations, step by step, and whilstdoing so reduce the stress factor for the

employees involved in daily use of thesystem during production.

Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk

( [email protected] ) is a freelance

writer and trainer in the fields of positioning and

hydrography. For more information on Ormen

Lange, see www.hydro.com/ormenlange .

Visit Vianova at www.vianova.no

and Geoconsult at www.geoconsult.no.


Art i c l e

Survey Vessel Geobay. (source: www.geobay.no).

3D visualisation of in termediate survey (a) and proposed trench as well as 2D difference model (b).

With a total length of 1200

kilometers, the Langeled pipeline

between Norway and Great

Britain is the longest pipeline

built to date. Production from

the field is expected to begin

in late 2007.


23/47 January/February 2007 Latest News? Visitwww.geoinformatics.com 37

GIS on the Go

Review Leica MobileMatriXand SmartRover

With geoinformation invading every aspect of our everyday life, its acquisition

is becoming more and more important. In the good old days, the client was

satisfied with a bunch of accurate positions, a survey plan and a well-written

survey report. Nowadays additional information needs to be acquired besides

the position information. We reviewed Leica MobileMatriX together with the

Leica SmartRover GPS.

By Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk

Leica MobileMatriX is essentially an ESRIArcGIS extension (ArcMap and ArcCatalog)designed specifically for acquiring geoinfor-mation from survey instruments in the broad-est sense. The software can be coupled to allof the Leica Geosystems (hereafter: Leica) sur-vey and GIS instruments, as well as NMEA-type GPS systems. For this review the soft-ware was paired with a SmartRover integratedGPS receiver/antenna. Since no base stationwas available, the combination was testedusing regular GPS with WAAS/Egnos correc-

tions -- maybe not precise enough for landsurvey work, but good enough for general GISacquisition.

SmartRover The SmartRover GPS is available in a number of different versions. The SmartRover wereviewed, the GX 1230 GG, is claimed by Leicato be the lightest survey-grade GPS systemavailable. And although we did not weigh allother available systems, it must be grantedthat it is light in weight.

Both controller and antenna are very light with-out compromising robustness. The antenna isrimmed with rubber, protecting it from an acci-dental drop. As with all modern GPS/controller combinations, this one uses Bluetooth as well.A minor disappointment came when the con-troller was switched on. After reviewing a num-ber of similar devices, one expects a full colour LCD screen. Not in the case of the Leica, wherethe controller was in old-fashioned grayscale.This, of course, does not in any way hamper

the operation, but it seems a bit out of date.

Leica MobileMatriX As stated before, Leica MobileMatriX is essen-tially a custom extension for ArcMap. In the fieldit will usually be installed onto a tablet PC. For ease of operation the tablet PC should haveBluetooth, although a USB connection is possi-ble as well. The GPS, Total Station or levelinstrument can be controlled from the softwarewithout having to use the sensors own con-troller.The advantage of using ArcMap is that all GISfunctionality is kept, allowing extensive editingand data review in the field. Furthermore, if theoffice software is ESRI-based as well, transfer of data is simply a matter of checking the datainto or out of the office database.The downside is that ArcMap requires a rather powerful computer with minimum specificationsof 850 MHz and 512 Mb internal memory. Thisdoes not seem much, but I tested the softwareon a 2.23 MHz Pentium-M with 1024 Mb of memory and, even with this configuration, start-ing ArcMap including the Leica MobileMatriXextension takes nearly a minute or so.

Tablet PC or PDA One might ask why a Tablet PC solution shouldbe preferred over a PDA based solution. Theobvious advantage of the PDA is of course itsweight and size. Size than again can also be adisadvantage since the screen is usually a lotsmaller and has a lower resolution. On the other hand, PDAs usually run much longer on a sin-gle battery charge than the average Tablet PC.The main advantage of the Tablet PC is that it

allows the user to run the same software in thefield as in the office. It is usually a lot morepowerful and allows editing on a full-size geo-database instead of a small size database cre-ated specifically for the purpose.

Product review

Number of channels 54 (14 GPS satellites at L1 & L2, 12GLONASS satellites at L1 & L2 and 2 SBAS channels)

Batter y life 5 hours on internal replaceable batteryInter face Bluetooth, USB, compact flash card

Recording r ate Up to 20 HzDimensions (receiver) W: 212 mm x L: 166 mm x D: 79 mmWeight (complete system) 2.8 kg

SmartRover GX 1230 GG particulars as specified by Leica (ppm = parts per million = mm / km range).

Leica MobileMatriX and Smar tRover


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Installation

The SmartRover was ready out of the box, withall the settings pre-configured for theNetherlands. It had not been used for quite awhile and took some time to initialize, but after that it was good to go. The installation of thesoftware took quite a bit more time and wasperformed by Leica Netherlands.The bare software installation took approxi-mately half an hour, of which time most wasconsumed by the ArcMap installation.Pairing the SmartRover to the computer waseasy enough, but after that some problemsarose. It seemed that Leica MobileMatriX wasnot registering the positions from theSmartRover but was running on simulated posi-tions. Eventually it turned out to be a combi-nation of factors. First, the installed CD-ROMinstalled two simulators by default of which oneshould not be installed. In addition, some spe-cific geodetic transformation files were neededthat were not included in the standard installa-tion. All this led me to believe that installingLeica MobileMatriX is a job for an expert, bestleft to the supplier of the software or a quali-fied system administrator.

PreparationsSince we only had meter accuracy from theSmartRover, there was no use in performing alarge-scale survey. Instead I decided to do asmall survey of a road and dike while on theway to my parents to celebrate the DutchSinterklaas, who is a bit like Santa Claus butcelebrates his birthday on December 5. And yes,this means that we have two lots of festivitieswith presents in the same monthAnyway, I wanted to prepare myself and

grabbed some images from Google Maps. After stitching them together using Photoshop I hada half-decent aerial photograph of my surveyarea. I wanted to measure the centreline of theroad and dike as well as some specific points

that would come up along the way.

The procedure in Leica MobileMatriX for start-ing a new project is easy enough: simply selectthe features you want to measure in the fieldor import them from a previous project. If theoriginal data is in the office database, it can bechecked out from that database and then usedin Leica MobileMatriX.Since the system has full GIS capabilities, view-ing and selecting layers is as easy as it is inany other ESRI product. Unfortunately I am notaccustomed to ESRI products and it took awhile to find some functionality as some of itis hidden in toolbars instead of appearing onthe menu where you would expect it.Is this then all the result of the software, onemight ask? No, it is not, since Leica asked meabout my GIS proficiency before they agreed tothe review. I replied truthfully that I was fullyaware of how a GIS worked and also confessedto never having used ArcGIS, but then statedthat no software package had gotten me to myknees so far. ArcGIS almost succeeded, but after some searching I got it all to work.

Surveying After setting up the software, it was time tostart the survey. So far I have been quite luckywith the weather when reviewing GPS systems,but this time I seemed to have cursed theweather gods.

Just minutes before I left it started pouring andonly stopped after I had arrived at my destina-tion. As a result the system was tested from thedashboard of the car, with a quick dash out-side every now and then.If you think that I, as a former (hydrographic)surveyor, cannot stand the rain, you are abso-

lutely right. However, my main concern was thecomputer. Since I did not have a powerful lap-top available myself I borrowed on

geoinformatics 2007 vol01

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