geomaticsworld 2016...copy dates for may/june 2016: editorial: 11 april advertising: 19 aprilin the...

GeomaticsWorld MARCH / APRIL 2016

Are discrete globalgrid systems the

answer?

The future ofmaking things with

Autodesk

Satellite altimetryreveals sub-ocean

topography

Fast image captureof Taiwan quakedamage by UAV

Capturing the finerdetails of a

Norman castle

Issue No 3 : Volume 24

Surveying for geographical and spatial information in the 21st century

FREE DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION FOR PROFESSIONAL SURVEYORS see page 3

Highlighting the diversity of Geomatics

Copy dates for May/June 2016: Editorial: 11 April Advertising: 19 April

IIII NNNN TTTT HHHH EEEE NNNN EEEE XXXX TTTT IIII SSSS SSSS UUUU EEEE oooo ffff GW.... .... ....Preview: GEO Business 2016RICS 2016 BIM ConferenceLand Registration: public or private

p.05 Editorialp.06 Newsp.08 Calendarp.11 Chair’s Columnp.12 Undercurrents

p.30 Downunder currentsp.31 Legal Notesp.32 Products & Servicesp.34 Book reviewsp.35 Classified & advertisers’ index

Geomatics World is published bi-monthly by PV Publications Ltd on behalf of the Royal Institutionof Chartered Surveyors Geomatics Professional Groupand is distributed to group members and othersubscribing professionals.

Editor: Stephen Booth

Technical Editor: Richard Groom

Advertising: Sharon Robson

Subscriptions: Jason Poole

Editorial BoardIan Coddington, Pat Collins, Professor Ian Dowman,Richard Groom, James Kavanagh, Professor Jon Mills,Dr Stuart Robson, Dr Martin Smith

Overseas SourcesRoy Dale – New ZealandNick Day – USA

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March / April 2016 Geomatics World 03

Contentsp.14 Getting together for BIM

At last surveyors are getting to grips with BIM, reports Richard Groom on theGovernment BIM taskforce’s Survey4BIM committee.

p.16 Going to university in. . . Las Vegas!With a reported 30,000 in attendance, Autodesk University 2015 had a strong focuson manufacturing reports Adam P. Spring.

p.19 360° high-definition colour imagingCapturing the finer details and colours of a Norman castle for an orthophoto can bechallenging. One survey company found the Spheron HDR camera was just right.

p.20 LiDAR and laser mapping on the move3D Laser Mapping recently showcased the company’s and its partners’ technology.Richard Groom heard all about data capture on the move and. . . cheetah hunts.

p.22 Generating synchronised elevation modelsOrdnance Survey GB’s Remote Sensing department has put into production a digitalterrain model flow line. Diana Moraru, remote sensing surveyor, explains.

p.25 Seafloor mapping from satellite altimetryCompiled by David Sandwell and Walter Smith, a global dataset revealing thetopography of the ocean bed has been created from satellite altimetry.

p.30 WGS84 Lats and Longs or DGGS?The OGC is proposing a standard for Discrete Global Grid Systems to replace “legacycoordinate systems”. Roger Lott takes a close look at what this might mean for geomatics.

COVER STORYSuperimposed on a25 cm high-resolutiondigital orthophoto, apoint cloud digitalsurface model hasbeen generated fromthe same scene - fullstory page 22.

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Editorial


all require a reference frame, a coordinate systemor a grid to enable data to be correctly analysedand interpreted. With the expansion of webmapping and the drive to integrate spatial datawithin interoperable systems, the OpenGeospatial Consortium is proposing a standardfor discrete global grid systems (DGGS) toreplace what they quaintly call “legacycoordinate systems”. Such grid systems operatein a very different way to continuous coordinatesystems and are not suitable in every situation asRoger Lott explains on page 26.

Privatising the Land RegistryReaders may be aware that the UK Governmentis proposing to privatise the country’s LandRegistry. The registration of land title has beenshown to be a critical element in a country’sdevelopment. It provides security of tenure (seelast issue’s report of Paul Monroe-Faure’s MichaelBarratt lecture) and not only contributes to socialstability but enables investment and lending toflourish, secure in the knowledge that it isbacked by government controlled landregistration.

Privatising this function per se does notnecessarily mean that any of this is threatened orwill change. But Britain’s experience of privatisingthe public realm since the 1980s has had mixedoutcomes, particularly in the rail, prison andhealth sectors. The proposal is surprising giventhat an extensive consultation by theGovernment only two years ago found extensiveopposition to the move.

GW is keen to explore how land titleregistration works in other parts of the globeand would like to hear from readers withinternational experience in this field. We shallpublish our findings in an upcoming issuetogether with a detailed article from a leadingexpert. Comments please [email protected]

By some determined unsubscribing I havemanaged to reduce my inbox to around 50emails a day; that’s not counting the

spammers who at times bombard it. The majorityof unsolicited emails come from marketers whosomehow think that you, dear readers, will beinterested in the latest bathroom fittings, apainting contract in a primary school, portablegenerators and other irrelevant products to ourbusiness. Oh for the days of the posted pressrelease when marketers had to consider cost.Now it is all just digital confetti.

The Internet is a wonderful thing, or is it?Apart from the aforementioned irritating spam,how many emails do you get that purport toreveal all sorts of great truths or skulduggeryabout government, politicians or celebs? Howmany of you take a moment to check thecontents against the good guys’ websites likeSnopes or FactChecker, which debunk thesemyths and rumours? It’s all too easy to read,shake your head and descend further into life’senveloping cynicism. With print books andmagazines it’s a lot less easy to circulate thisnonsense, which undermines intelligent debate,democracy and the benefits of the Internet.

I have therefore been reading Andrew Keen’sThe Internet Is Not The Answer. A brilliant exposéof the history of the net from the idealisticfounders like Berners-Lee to the Silicone Valleybillionaires with their yachts and planes. Don’t bedeceived the next time someone argues the net ishelping to create jobs. Ponder this: 30 years agoKodak was turning over $30bn (1989 prices) ayear and employed over 145,000 worldwide.When Google reached that equivalent level ofturnover it was employing barely 10,000. You canread our review on page 29.

Broad fieldThis issue of GW has no less than seven articleswhich demonstrate how broad a field Geomaticsis. Using satellite altimetry to map the terrainbelow the deep oceans; applying laser scannersand high resolution cameras to capture thedetails of ancient castles, trees or cheetahs; howan efficient workflow is created by a mappingagency to create digital surface models frompoint clouds and orthophotography; how a CADsoftware developer is merging construction andmanufacturing in applications as diverse asprosthetics, car manufacturing and distributedcomputing.

These applications of geomatics technologies

A range of diverseapplications forgeomaticstechnologies are onthe board for thisissue. But they allneed referenceframes. But whichtype? Meanwhile,land registration ismoving up ouragenda.

Was the Internet such a good idea?

The editor welcomes yourcomments and editorialcontributions by e-mail: [email protected] by post:Geomatics WorldPV Publications Ltd2B North RoadStevenageHerts SG1 4ATUnited Kingdom

Stephen Booth, Editor

NEWS

06 Geomatics World March / April 2016

geodetic systems”. Documentsfor the standard are available forreview and comment at(www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/143). In themeantime, for a detailed analysisof this move turn to Roger Lott’sarticle, WGS 84 Lats and Longsor DGGS? on page 26.

Peaceful land swap in rareborder dealThe BBC website reports thatBelgium is to hand over to TheNetherlands land which had becometrapped in a meander of the RiverMeuse. In what is a rare example ofa friendly re-arrangement of aninternational border, the land(amounting to the equivalent ofabout fifteen soccer fields) couldonly be accessed from Belgium byboat, involving a leap onto shore, orvia The Netherlands, involving‘paperwork’, and so had becomeungovernable. Matters came to ahead three years ago, when passers-by discovered a headless body(surely another opportunity for aBBC 4 Saturday night Europeancrime series!). This event highlightedthe inconvenience of the situationfor the Belgian authorities. The twocountries’ parliaments should beable to complete a deal some timethis year.

Mapping an asterioidTeledyne Optech’s OSIRIS-REx LaserAltimeter (OLA) is to be installedaboard the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.Scheduled for launch in September2016, OSIRIS-REx will visit theasteroid Bennu to survey, land, andreturn a sample of its surfacematerial. During the approach, OLAwill scan Bennu’s surface andcreate a high-resolution 3D map ofthe entire asteroid to helpscientists understand itsmorphology and select the bestspot from which to collect thesurface sample.

Time up and out for GPSsatellitesSeveral users were reportedly hit byhours of system warnings after 15GPS satellites broadcast timesignals 13 microseconds out. Sucha discrepancy is considered severeby monitoring company Chronos,whose telecoms clients faced 12hours of system errors. Previously,the GPS errors had also been

blamed for disturbances with BBCradio broadcasts. According to theUS Air Force, which manages theGPS satellite network, the problemwas caused by a satellite namedSVN 23, which was beingdecommissioned.

Arctic SDIThe Open Geospatial Consortium(OGC) has announced the “ArcticSpatial Data Infrastructure Standardsand Communication Pilot” (ArcticSDI Pilot). Sponsored by USGS andNatural Resources Canada, the goalof the interoperability project is todemonstrate to Arctic stakeholdersthe diversity, richness and value of aspatial data infrastructure based onweb services and standardizedexchange formats in helping addresscritical issues impacting the Arctic.

OGC has also formed a PointCloud Domain Working Group(Point Cloud DWG) to assess thecurrent state of standards andbest practices in the managementof point cloud data and to guideits activities in working with ordeveloping standards for pointcloud data interoperability,discovery, and dissemination.Visit: www.opengeospatial.org/.

Indoor positioning surveyOGC, the Inlocation Alliance (ILA)and the i-locate Project invitecontributions to a survey on usecases and benefits of indoorpositioning. Kirk Burroughs of ILAstated that they are reaching out toindustries, from retail totransportation, from healthcare toemergency services, etc., whereindoor LBS can be a transformingtechnology. The survey is intendedto provide the three organizationswith a current snapshot of therequirements of differentstakeholders (within and beyondOGC and ILA members), so thatthey will have an up-to-dateoverview of the market for indoorpositioning. The survey results willbe published in a joint ILA andOGC white paper available to thepublic. The survey is available at:docs.google.com/forms/d/1X6Im1nlzph6mNc9vPiuymmROLoM8U4w6kgvuiyErdvc/viewform?usp=send_form

Equipment thefts downPrompted by reports that equipmenttheft was still a serious problem,

Disaster damage analysis

iRevolutions blog by Patrick Meir reports that following theearthquake which struck southern Taiwan on February 6th, UAVswere used to capture areal images of the damage. By the end of day,Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University had used the aerial imagesto create this 3D model. The model was processed using AgiSoftPhotoScan and then uploaded to Sketchfab. Patrick is looking atusing virtual reality platforms to enable 3D analysis of disasterdamage. Get in touch to get involved: http://wp.me/pecFU-4g5

RICS Geomatics evening lectures are free and open to all(especially students) and we would ask that all those wishingto attend contact our PG support team [email protected] toguarantee a place. Evening lectures have proved increasinglypopular over the last few years and are often oversubscribed.All details on future evening lectures and for the latest fromRICS Geomatics can be found at www.rics.org/geomatics.Online resources from the 2014-15 session can be accessed @https://communities.rics.org/connect.ti/Wikigeo/groupHome

Tuesday 19th April 2016 – The Scottish LectureSynopsis: Measurement, be it of land, buildings or utilities, iscentral to the core practice of surveyors around the world. Butjust what is the ’essence’ of Measurement and how do weensure consistency in measurement and specifications? Howdo we communicate these needs to clients in a language theyunderstand? And how do we price accordingly? How does thenew International Property Measurement Standard (IPMS)directly connect valuation and measurement?Speaker: James Kavanagh MRICS, Director Land andResources RICS Location: TBC

GEOMATICSEvening Lectures 2016

Legacy coordinatesResponding to the massive growthin the volume of spatial data andprocessing resources, the OpenGeospatial Consortium isrequesting public comment on acandidate Discrete Global GridSystems (DGGS) Core Standard. Thestandard is a set of rules fordefining efficient architectures forspatial data storage and analytics.The goal of DGGS is to enable

rapid integration of spatial datawithout the difficulties of workingwith legacy coordinate systems socontent can be accessed directlyfrom diverse contributors and usedwith other content without relianceon transformation processes.

James Kavanagh, director ofthe Land Group at RICS describesit as “a potential game changerand very much in line with UnitedNations thoughts on unified

NEWS


GW polled a cross-section of surveycompanies. We received fifteenresponses. Twelve firms reported nothefts since January 2014 whilstthree companies had between themlost a total of at least teninstruments to thieves – althoughone company gave no details.

Three of the thefts were fromlocked vans. One theft took placein London. There was one in theMidlands and the remainder inthe north. This contrasts starklywith our previous investigationwhen nearly all were stolen inLondon and from sites near theNorth and South Circular Roads.We have however since heardfrom another source that therehave been a number of thefts offixed monitoring total stations inLondon.

Of those instruments that werestolen whilst set on a tripod, threewere being operated in roboticmode and four with a two-personteam. All the instruments wereLeica total stations and three weresubsequently recovered. Thankfully,in no cases was violence used.

Those companies that had notsuffered thefts said that they hadimplemented theft preventionprocedures. They do not leaveequipment unattended inexposed locations, although onecompany does allow loneworking in rural locations.Another company reported thatthey try to find places where theycan tie the instrument to a fixedobject – rather than in the bestlocations for surveying the site.Another piece of advice was tobe careful to guard againstadvertising the presence ofexpensive equipment by, forexample, stating the companyaddress on work vans.

UN-GGIM vision – 2nd EdA new report setting out a five toten year vision of the rapidlygrowing geospatial informationindustry has been published by theUN Committee of Experts onGlobal Geospatial InformationManagement (UN-GGIM). Thereport titled, ‘Future trends ingeospatial informationmanagement: the five to ten yearvision’, is the second edition of areport first published in 2011. Visitthe UN-GGIM website:http://ggim.un.org

IoT Research HubEd Vaizey, minister of state forculture and the digital economy,has announced a newinterdisciplinary research hub todrive forward UK research in theInternet of Things (IoT). The PETRASconsortium of nine leading UKuniversities will work together overthe next three years to explorecritical issues in privacy, ethics,trust, reliability, acceptability, andsecurity. Funding for the hubincludes a £9.8 million grant fromthe Engineering and PhysicalSciences Research Council (EPSRC),which will be boosted by partnercontributions to approximately £23million in total. www.epsrc.ac.uk

Heritage in SyriaThe iSTAR panoramic camera hasbeen selected for a mission todigitally document dozens of at-risksites in Syria, Iraq and the MiddleEast. The mission, dubbed ProjectAnqa (Arabic for Phoenix), is a jointinitiative between CyArk and theInternational Council of Monumentsand Sites (ICOMOS). They will workwith local experts in the Middle Eastto record cultural landmarks usingreality-capture technologies such as3D laser scanning, photogrammetry,and traditional survey.

RICS ResearchThe RICS Research Trust has a remitof supporting, delivering anddisseminating high quality,independent reliable knowledgeand future thinking throughresearch funding. The Board meetsto consider awards twice a year inMay and December. It will considerprojects undertaken by charteredsurveyors or others who are, in theopinion of trustees, adequatelyqualified to undertake the research.Both major research projects fromestablished researchers and smallerscale proposals from youngerresearchers will be considered.Closing date for applications: Lastweek of March 2016.

Gender gap challengeTopcon recently joined forces withEnterprise South Liverpool Academy(ESLA) to inspire female students toconsider a career in engineering. Theevent took place at the school on6th January and welcomedsuccessful female industryprofessionals to discuss the benefits

of a job in engineering. Through aseries of talks they shared some ofthe highlights from their careers andwhat inspired them to take up a jobin engineering. Topcon has beensupporting ESLA since 2015 as partof Class of Your Own’s (COYO)Adopt a School scheme. It is nowthe third school that Topcon hasadopted since it first partnered withCOYO in 2012.

Future City PilotThe Ordnance Survey, IGN, the city ofBarcelona and virtualcitySYSTEMSGmbH are sponsoring the OGCInteroperability Program’s Future CityPilot Phase 1. The objective is todemonstrate how the use of CityGMLdata and IFC data together can assistthe planning process by puttingplanned buildings (BIM models) intoan existing city model and thenautomatically checking conformancewith planning rules. The BIM datacan then be incorporated into thecity model. The pilot will also explorethe linking of data held by multipleagencies for environmentalsimulation, disaster management andtraining simulation. Visit:www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/147

BUSINESS NEWS

Hexagon AB has announced theacquisition of Paul MacArthurLtd (“SCCS”) – one of the UK’sleading suppliers of surveyingequipment to the engineeringand infrastructure market and aLeica Geosystems distributor forover 20 years. Ola Rollén,Hexagon President and CEOsays, “. . . not only does thisacquisition bring us closer toour customers in the region butalso provides a wealth ofknowledge and expertise in thearea of equipment rental. . .”

Topcon has acquired a significantshare of holdings in Viasys VDC. Thecompany has developed a completesuite of tools and services to assistcustomers in building Virtual Designand Construction (VDC) models for5D simulation of infrastructure andsite-work projects. Utilising BIMtechnologies, its solutions createVDC models that optimise theconstruction process throughout theproject’s lifecycle.

Technics has taken overCardno’s office in Doncaster,

David Rateledge, former head of Lancashire County Council’s GISunit, has been using Environment Agency LiDAR data to look forevidence of Roman roads in the county. He has recently discoveredone which connected Ribchester and Catterall. He imports the surfaceand bare earth LiDAR data into the Open GIS software package QGISand experiments to find the best hill-shading angle to illuminate theroad embankment (known as the agger) rendering it visible in theimage as it passes in a straight line across several fields.

He found that rather than following the route shown onOrdnance Survey mapping, the road took a very sensible andeconomical route via Longridge and Inglewhite to Catterall, nearGarstang, a distance of 10 miles. Site visits have confirmed this withseveral stretches surviving. Environment Agency LiDAR is nowsupplied as open data fromhttp://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey#/download For more visit:http://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/lancspages.html

Open data reveals Roman Roads

N

FATMAP to create ultra-highresolution 3D mobile maps ofmajor ski resorts and otheroutdoor pursuit destinations.FATMAP plans to roll out its

NEWS


EEVVEENNTTSS CCAALLEENNDDAARR 22001166• SEMINARS • CONFERENCES • EXHIBITIONS • COURSES • WORKSHOPS

For details of the current RICSlecture programme turn to page 06.

Internet of Things15 March, Central Londonwww.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk

FIG Working Week2-6 May, Christchurch, New Zealandwww.fig.net/fig2016/

Esri UK annual conference17 May, QEII Conference Centreemail: [email protected]

GEO Business24-25 May 2016, Business DesignCentre, Islington, London.www.geobusinessshow.com

Geospatial World Forum23-26 May 2016, Rotterdam, TheNetherlands.

[email protected]

European Space Solutions30 May - 3 June, The Hague, The Netherlandshttp://www.gsa.europa.eu/

HxGN Live13-16 June, Anaheim Californiahttp://hxgnlive.com/

ISPRS Congress12-19 July 2016, Praguehttp://www.isprs2016-prague.com/

InterGEO 201611-13 October, Hamburghttp://www.intergeo.de

GSDI Conference28 November-2 December, Taipeihttp://gsdiassociation.org/

GW welcomes advance details of events of interest to the Geomatics community.Details to: [email protected]

Survey Solutions, headquartered in Ipswich, has purchasedStowmarket-based East Anglian Land Surveys (EALS), following theretirement of EALS directors Robert Mullins and Jeff Bate (aboveleft and right behind James Cooper). The plan is to graduallyintegrate EALS into Survey Solutions with the surveyors movingover to either their Ipswich or Norwich offices.

James Cooper, MD of Survey Solutions, adds: “Merging ourteams will result in a stronger, more cost-effective and fasterservice to clients. The plan is to gradually integrate EALS intoSurvey Solutions. The welfare and happiness of the existing staffhas been an important part of the merger and every member of theteam now has an opportunity to work, develop and grow withinthe larger organisation.

giving the company a presencein the north to complement itsthree offices in Guildford,Maidstone and Nottingham.Seven Cardno employees havejoined the Technics workforce.

Ordnance Survey and Dennis Mapshave signed an agreement forBritain’s mapping agency to acquirea 25% shareholding in the businesswhich prints its paper maps.

Bluesky has reduced the timetaken to process its aerialphotography data by more than75 percent. The company hasimplemented the VexcelUltraMap system, which hasallowed for the introduction ofa continuous, uninterruptedprocessing workflow.

IN BRIEFFARO’s handheld scanner won the‘Hardware Product of 2015’ at theConstruction Computing Awards,held last year at the Hotel Russell,London.

The Council of EuropeanGeodetic Surveyors (CLGE)member associations in eachcountry of the EU are planningto coordinate the collection ofdata regarding disabled parkingspaces. The aim is to create adatabase to assist people withreduced mobility to find parkingspaces. The dataset will becompatible with INSPIRE.Information on parking spacesand will then be available onwww.blueparking.eu.

Fugro is commencing sitecharacterisation work in MoorsideWest Cumbria, under a majorcontract awarded by UK nuclearcompany NuGen. The contract isworth approximately £20 million.The work includes topographicaland bathymetric surveys. Theonshore investigation is the firststage of the project, whichcontinues until summer 2016; themajority of the offshore element isscheduled to begin in spring 2016.

Bluesky is working with

Survey Solutions buys EALS

smart maps to all majorEuropean and American skiresorts and then ‘summer’products for hikers, trailrunners and bikers.

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Geomatics PGB Chair

I’ll take this opportunity to declare my interestin the coastal and offshore sectors of ourprofession, an area which is growing in

importance with an increasing awareness acrossthe media and the public of the potentialbenefits and opportunities that responsiblesustainable development of our seas couldoffer. The terms Blue Economy, Blue Growthand Blue Horizon all link to this strategicconcept of beneficial development of our seas.

To gauge how this sector is faring, with theconflicting impact of depressed oil & gas pricesagainst new technologies and automatedsystems, I shall be visiting OceanologyInternational at Excel, London in March, seewww.oceanologyinternational.com/. Around theworld the offshore oil sector’s cities are being hithard as reductions in capital expenditure andoperational projects take their toll on people’slives. Such events are important as it’s theinnovation, flexibility and diversity in thisimportant geospatial sector that insulates us fromthe worst effects of these cyclical downturns.

Whilst the marine sector is experiencingsome really rough patches, it is clear that manyland-based activities continue to evolve andexpand. One such is automation – a constanttheme in the collection, processing, analysis andmanagement of spatial data. Automation leadsto robotics so it was with some interest that Iread news of trained eagles being assessed aspossible protectors of our privacy and securityby using them to grab or disrupt RemotelyPiloted Airborne Systems (RPAS or to manysimply, drones). Whilst almost every TV channel’snews programme regularly manages to includefootage from drones, there is increasing concernabout their regulation and use in congestedareas. Perhaps the alternative is to use theeagles as a platform for surveys.

I have numerous colleagues with dividedopinions to quantify the size of the geospatialmarket. So I suppose it shouldn’t come as asurprise to find that a study in the US has foundthat the assessment of a hill’s size, steepness,difficulty of climb or height is subject to theindividual’s personal condition and fitness. Largerpeople appear to see and judge something aslarger than a small person would. This may bean outdoor phenomena as I’m not convinced itholds true indoors where my cousin (2.03m or6ft 8inches) has to duck when entering everyroom and complains about small beds. So thingsare often relative and subjective when it comesto height. . . as are many other measurements.This is why for consistency and repeatability it is

With importantupcoming eventsfor our professionGordon Johnstonreflects on theglobal market forspatial data, heightreference frames(both personal andestablished) and anovel potentialsurvey platform.

Size and height are relative butcould eagles dare?

Gordon Johnstonwelcomes your commentsand thoughts so pleaseemail to the [email protected]

important to adopt and maintain standards.Talking of height. . . vertical things are on the

up! Sorry, that was a bit too obvious but it is atopic that appears, after many years, to begetting a broader and more engaged audiencewith some serious groups generating newguidelines and actively promoting its relevance.The Vertical Offshore Reference Frame (VORF)was developed in the UK to assist in resolvingthe vertical dimension. Across the North Sea,the EU’s BLAST project provides “harmonized”data across the land and sea interface, with themain challenge being the vertical. Elsewhere,NOAA has the VDatum online tool and Australiahas the AusGeoid09 model. These initiatives areimportant but it would be beneficial if userscould rely upon a consistent and standardapproach to how these models are described,accessed and supplied. The importance ofstandards and good practice guidance forprofessional users is key. Look out for workbeing completed by the IOGP (International Oil& Gas Producers) Geomatics division to assistusers interested in this dimension.

As this edition of GW goes to press thethird of ESA’s Sentinel satellites has beenlaunched. With three land and oceanobservation satellites, providing high qualityhyper-spectral data, the opportunities to useand benefit from these initiatives istremendous, especially considering the data isfree for most users (see also page 25).

Looking ahead there are numerousupcoming events to promote and raiseawareness of our profession to the widercommunity. In early May (2-6) FIG holds itsannual Working Week, this year inChristchurch New Zealand where adevastating earthquake challenged many wholive and work there. The FIG community is astrong one and overseas visitors will be able toexperience for themselves the impact andresolve to restore the city to its former glory.FIG’s theme of “Recovery from Disaster”emphasises the critical importance of spatialdata to the planning and sustainablemanagement of community spaces, be that inurban, rural or coastal marine areas. See:http://www.fig.net/fig2016/

Later in May (24-25) is GEO Business inLondon, a showcase for the geospatialindustries and profession, which is again set tobreak records. It offers the chance to hearexperts present the latest developments and tomeet and network with companies and fellowprofessionals. See: http://geobusinessshow.com/

C

UNDERCURRENTS


Middleton’s book. You can read the interestingreview on page 29 of this issue of GW. Iespecially like the facts that there is a rivalbody to the UN and that FIFA has moremember countries. FIFA also has a rival bodywith only two members. I wonder how theirworld cup works.

Interesting if not praiseworthyThis column often gives fulsome praise tolectures at the RGS. But on one occasionrecently the editor and I agreed the lecturer wasa far from fluid speaker. There was nothingwrong with the subject, except perhaps it was alittle too wide ranging and didn’t focus for longon any one aspect of the subject. Africa’s labels,an odd title, by Richard Dowden rambled toowidely. It left you feeling slightly embarrassedfor the few Africans in the audience.

The speaker is Director of the Royal AfricanSociety, founded in 1901 in memory of MaryKingsley, who made two trips to West Africa,apparently with an interest in “flora, faunaand fetishes”, according to Dowden.

His lecture gave us plenty to think aboutbut it might have been more entertaining hadhe told us more about those fetishes. Hebegan by asking us all to pause for a momentand tell our immediate neighbour in the hall

I’ve had the good fortune to go to Barbadosagain (well it perks you up after Christmas!).Whilst there I met up with old friend Brian

Hart of survey-company HHF. One of his crewswas doing some simple hydrographic surveynear our hotel. Kenroy was safely on land onthe instrument assisted by Rodney while Dave,the better swimmer, was on the long rod and upto his waist measuring depths and wonderingwhat surveying was like in London. I told him hewouldn’t like it as the weather would freezesolid certain parts of his anatomy.

I also got chatting to a young lady sprinter.Jade Bailey is probably the fastest woman in

Barbados. Jade has represented Barbadosat the Olympics on two occasions and islimbering up as we speak for Brazil. Iasked how much of 20 metres shewould give me in a quick dash. Shelooked me up and down and said “oil(all) of it!” in that lovely Baijan lilt.

Being on holiday I missed a coupleof good lectures at RGS, one of whichwas by Nick Middleton on countriesthat are not recognised by the UN orindeed by anyone very much else.Fortunately the Editor attended andtold me all about it, relying on which Ipurchased two copies of Mr

Caribbean travel,lectures, books anda trip to the RIBAto view somecatastrophes.

Athletes, surveyors, atlasesand the inventor of natureby Malcolm Draper, Rentalength

Top: with surveyor Brian Hart.Background: Dave surveys withsnorkel, mask and pole and left,surveying done, enjoying a rudecomment from yours truly.

Right: with JadeBailey. Below:Jade (No 5) on

the track at theBeijing Olympics.

U

summit last year and the events leading up to it.He began with a joke, indeed he said that as aneconomist he had been collecting jokes abouteconomics for 30 years – he’d managed to get.. . . four! A great lecture in the traditions of theRGS which ended with a cartoon showing thedelegates at a climate change conferencelooking askance at a doubter who’s saying‘What if it’s all just a hoax and we’ve made theworld a nicer place to live in for nothing?’

MiscellanyIf you’re in the West End of London and at aloose end for an hour or so call in at theheadquarters of the Royal Institute of BritishArchitects (RIBA) – 66 Portland Place, W1(right). They have an excellent Bistrorestaurant where a two-course lunch and aglass of wine won’t cause apersonal financial crisis. There’s alsoan interesting free exhibition onthere until 24 April called “Creationfrom Catastrophe”. It’s all abouthow urban disasters, like the GreatFire of London (1666) or the Lisbonearthquake and tsunami of 1755gave architects unique opportunitiesto redesign great cities. Many of theplans shown were not acted upon,fortunately in some cases. Endlessand boring grids and squares don’tmake for interesting places to live.

Longstanding readers of thiscolumn will know of my views on“Geomatics”. So, whilst at the RIBAI took the opportunity of enquiringin their library and bookshop if theyhad any books on Geomatics. Blankfaces all round I’m afraid. I seem torecall a similar experience someyears ago in the ICE’s bookshop.

A sad tale is reported in the RICS journalModus, which recounts the end of a volcanovisitor centre in the Cape Verde Islands. Thecentre was opened in 2014 to much approvalincluding an award for the design.Surprisingly, the centre has been destroyed by.. . a volcano!

UNDERCURRENTS


which words came to mind when thinkingabout Africa. A general hubbub ensued whichtook a little quietening.

Described on the front page of an edition ofThe Economist as the “hopeless continent”,Africa is enormous. Geographically its 54nations could absorb the United States, India,Europe, China, Iberia and Japan and still leavesome land over. It has over 2000 differentlanguages. Dowden showed us a linguistic mapwith a dozen languages alone for Madagascar.

A much earlier map showed how theEuropean powers in the late 19th century carvedup the continent amongst themselves, with eventiny Belgium (which was only itself recognised asa country in 1830) grabbing territory more than20 times its size and imposing a rule of terroramongst the Congo’s tribes: “sign here or we’llcut your arm off!” And they did.

We learned that currently Ethiopia isexperiencing the highest growth rate of anycountry in the world (but still has only oneshoe factory!). Across the continent peoplehave gone for mobile phones in a big way.From a base of 1.6 million in 2000, there arenow over 600 million users (Nigerians oftenhave two but that is more a reflection of theirpoor network). Africa also has 11 of theworld’s 20 longest-serving leaders, despitemany of them owning palatial homes in moreexpensive parts of the world like Monaco.

The inventor of NatureMuch more exciting was an outstandinglecture that ticked all the boxes and thensome. Andrea Wulf is German but totallyfluent in English apart from correcting ouroften poor pronunciation of her countryman,Alexander von Humboldt. Her lecture(inevitably accompanied by a book, “TheInvention of Nature”) was on the saidexplorer, scientist and naturalist whose ideasabout nature and the Earth in the late18th/early 19th centuries would be regardedas very modern today. For many he is regardedas the founder of environmentalism.

The son of a wealthy Prussian aristocraticfamily, once the mother he hated had died hewas off to discover the world, funded by hisinheritance and pausing only to grab a coupleof chums to accompany him on his first greatjourney to South America.

Intriguingly, despite being very well regardedin the 19th century by our scientists andexplorers, Humboldt is not that well known inthe UK today. Andrea wondered if this wasbecause there was a tendency during the firstworld war to reject all things German (rememberthe Royal Family changed their surname at thattime to Windsor). But she felt it was reallybecause Humboldt, for all his voluminouswritings did not discover any one big thing.

Climate summitProfessor Michael Jacobs gave a very spiritedand informative account of the Paris Climate

Got a tale to tell?Please send letters forpublication by e-mailto the Editor: [email protected] contactUndercurrents, instrictest confidence ifyou wish (we promiseto change names,places, etc toprotect the guilty!),via e-mail:[email protected]

Above: themagnificent entranceto the RIBA building.

James Kavanagh has suggested readersmight like to see a post on the RICS Facebookpage. It concerns a set of stamps (above) sentto RICS by a member in 1971. They featureland surveyors and mark the move to metricmeasurement in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

. . . surveyors willonce again beprofessionals andhold their own. . .

‘‘’’

Survey 4BIM


The group has identified five issues thatneed addressing:

Accuracy: outside geomatics there is widespreadignorance of quantitative accuracy. Describingthe accuracy of digital data is essential for thepeople who use it and surveyors can contributeto a better understanding. As Gleeson said, youcan enlarge the graphics to ‘nano’, so it is nolonger good enough to rely on plot scale todefine accuracy or use words like ‘good’ todescribe it.

Metadata: the same applies here. Informationabout the data has to be stored with the data,but currently it is not.

Interoperability: data has to move freelybetween all the people and systems that needto use it, yet there are still no standards forsurvey data.

Level of detail: how much detail should beincluded in BIM? In theory a BIM could includeinformation about every bolt, nut and washer.But to what level of detail should it go?

Generalisation: making data understandableat the user end. This is a question that hasexercised mapmakers for two hundred yearsand, early on in the digital revolution,Ordnance Survey realised the benefits to begained from using generalisation to make thesame data usable at all scales.

The presenters used a maturity model toassess where BIM stands on each of the issuesand in all cases it falls short due to a lack ofunderstanding by those professionals who arecurrently at the centre of BIM management.

Get involved!The talk concluded with the presenters issuinga call to arms. They want to hear from allthose with something to contribute – andthat, they stressed, means everyone. Byworking together we can, they assured, steerBIM in the right direction and put geospatialexperts at the centre of our increasingly geo-enabled world. The presenters can be emailedon [email protected] [email protected]/uk .

Visit:http://www.bimtaskgroup.org/survey4bim/Click on ‘Resources’ to find the Digital Plan ofWorks.

Joint presenters, Barry Gleeson and MartinPenny gave the audience, who had madeout to the end of the Docklands Light

Railway, a carefully thought out and vibrant talkon the place of survey in BIM. It wasreminiscent of those talks given by David Philp,the former government advisor and undoubtedmaster of words and pictures for BIM.

Survey4BIM is a technical committee underthe auspices of the government’s BIM taskforce. Note the order of the words in contrast tothe other BIM4 groups. Surveyors support BIM;BIM does not support surveyors. The presentersstressed that everything does indeed happensomewhere as evidenced by the meteoric risesof Google and Uber, and that the internet ofthings will reinforce this. Yet the BIM world doesnot understand location and does not yet evenappreciate its importance.

Survey4BIM is also a vehicle for bringing theprofession together under one roof. The grouphas published two documents: a client guide for3D laser scanning and data capture and theSurvey4BIM digital plan of survey works. Thelatter is modelled on the RIBA stages of work. Itpromotes a structured approach to projectmanagement and encourages collaborationbetween all parties to a project by asking theright questions. As Gleeson put it: ‘this is thekey to communication between client andsurveyor’. Success will be the end of clientsasking for ‘a laser scan survey’ and the start of aprocess of discussion with the surveyor askingthe client what he wants to achieve andadvising him how to achieve it.

The suggestion was that surveyors haveceased to be the source of advice for theirclients and that this has brought about thedecline of the profession. If this initiative works– and we really need it to happen – surveyorswill once again be professionals and hold theirown with all other professionals involved inengineering and construction. Penney invitedthe audience to consider what surveyors will bedoing in the future:’ the long-term future of theprofession is not in turning angles’.

Addressing the issuesAll government engineering and constructioncontracts should be using BIM Level 2 by April2016, but the reality is that in 2014 only 50%of contracts used BIM. In February 2015, thepush to BIM Level 3 was launched: a ten-yearprogramme with the goal of a ‘Digital BuiltBritain’. Location is, as the presenters stressed,essential to achieving these goals, but hasbeen neglected.

The joint ICES/RICSlecture, held at theUniversity of EastLondon on 12thNovember was arare insight intohow the worldcould and shouldbe. At last a groupof surveyors isgetting to gripswith BIM, thoughtour technical editorRichard Groom.

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Autodesk’s University


into context, and showed what it actually tookto be a small sized car manufact urer operatingout of Liverpool in the UK.

The Industrial Light and Magic (ILM)presentation given in the Mars sessionsreaddressed how films were made andconsumed. Vicki Dobbs Beck, ILM StrategicPlanning, used parts of past Star Wars films toshow how storytelling is changing in an age ofinteractive media. Scenes from the desertplanet Tatooine were reconstructed so that theaudience could reimagine events through theeyes of C-3PO. ILM is re-examining what filmactually means to an experience-drivenaudience, where virtual reality headsets andhaptic sensors can be used to create immersiveenvironments in a home or cinema setting.

New body identities The MIT Media Lab presentation given in theopening general session showed how mindover matter was readdressing humandisabilities as an idea. Hugh Herr,Biomechatronics at MIT Media Labs, lost thebottom parts of his legs in a climbing accidentin the 1980s. Since that time, he hasdeveloped a series of prosthetic legs. Thesewere based on him working with thecircumstances in place; not viewing hiscondition as a disability. His presentation wasthought provoking for several reasons: themost powerful one was that bodymodification and upgrade will be part ofhuman existence in the not too distant future.

Blended solutionsChris Murray, a creative technologist atAutodesk, gave an interesting presentation on

Autodesk continuedto react to changesthat shape thedesign andmanufacturingmarkets at AU2015. It was anevent that cateredto a world of“always on” media,where 30,000people tuned intomain-stage sessionslive through socialmedia channels.Adam P. Springreports “live” fromLas Vegas for GW.

Right: CarlBass (left)

and JeffKowalski:

Far right:Hugh Herrdeveloped

his ownprosthetic

legs after aclimbingaccident.

Autodesk University 2015: The Future of Making ThingsAutodesk University (AU) 2015 was held

at the Venetian Hotel, December 1st-3rd, 2015. For the 10,000 people in

attendance, it was an event focused oncollaboration and learning. There were, forexample, several demonstrations on the waysin which humans and robots could worktogether; and where iterative design workflowscan help develop more efficient andenvironmentally friendly products. Every aspectof infrastructure and asset management wasgeared toward a low waste economy.

Just an open air factoryGeneral sessions were used to re-imagine whatdesign and manufacture actually mean in aconnected world of sensors and sensing; whereprocesses once viewed as being separate to oneanother have now started to blend. AutodeskCEO Carl Bass used the construction processtied to the new Apple Campus in Cupertino,California, as an example. At first, he likened itsconstruction to that of aircraft, where each partgoing into the build is catalogued. This andother practices taking place at the Apple siteeventually led him to reframe how he viewedthe construction process: “Building andmanufacturing are converging… I’d realisedthat the Apple construction site is actually justan open air factory.”

Themes linked to rethinking industrial, designand manufacturing based processes ranthroughout the general sessions. Autodesk’schief technology officer, Jeff Kowalski,continued to outline the benefits of iterativeand computationally driven design processes.Later sessions, chaired by podcast wunderkindRoman Mars, put several industrial revolutions



bringing 3DS Max projects into Stingray. Thelatter is a game engine, which was known asBitsquid before it was acquired by Autodesk in2014. In many ways, Stingray was one ofmany examples where services and solutionsacross the Autodesk product line continued toblend with one another. The increasedrelationship between ReCap and AutoCADalso exemplified this notion of a blendedapproach to product development.

ConstructionAutodesk was looking to increase itsfootprint in construction-driven markets atAU 2015. Indicators for this included ProjectAlexandria and an evolving relationship withTopcon. The BIM to Business (BIM2B)initiative promoted by Topcon, for example, iscentred around Autodesk solutions.AutoCAD, BIM 360, Navisworks and Revitfeed into solutions like Topcon’s LN 100, PSand DS total stations. Information andcommunication technologies (ICT) now drivethe business model, which Autodesk hasbeen working on for some time.

Project AlexandriaProject Alexandria is a pragmatic example ofcloud or distributed computing geared towardconstruction-based applications. This is aproject management tool built around a nowfully connected world, where multi-sensordevices like tablets and smartphones bridgethe gap between onsite and office-basedactivities. Demand for Project Alexandria wasso high that it shorted the timeframe in whichBIM360 Docs were launched(http://bim360.com/docs).

Far left: Humans stroll through the AU‘campus’ while (left) humans and robotswork toward the perfect drink andperfect hangover.

The BIM toBusiness (BIM2B)initiative promotedby Topcon. . . iscentred aroundAutodesksolutions.

‘‘

’’

Autodesk University 2015: The Future of Making Things

Far left: BriggsAutomotiveCompany ofLiverpool designed aroadworthy Formula1 style vehicle.

Left: Close workingrelationships withUAV companies likeSkycatch and 3DRobotics hinted atwhat might be ondisplay anddiscussed at AU2016.

Advancing BIMBuilding Information Modelling (BIM) played afundamental role throughout AU 2015. Revitsessions were fully booked and BIM Cityremained a key part of the exhibition area. Itwas, however, the subtle indicators of thingsto come that made BIM at AU 2015particularly interesting.

Arol Wolford, who sat on the board ofRevit before it was acquired by Autodesk,showcased his VIMtrek based solutions in theexhibition area. His Atlanta based start-up,which also has a sister company calledSmartBIM, utilises the power of the Unitygame engine. Workflows are centred aroundwhat is being called Visual InformationModelling (VIM), immersive and experiential-driven processes where the ability to workwith smart information is paramount.

Members of Oregon based M-SIX were alsoin attendance at AU 2015. Their cloud basedsolution was called VEO; a smart databasecreated from the ground up over a seven-yearperiod. In a demonstration given post AU2015, it became very clear just how powerfulVEO was. This was especially the case inenvironments where construction and buildingdesign was of primary interest. The ability toaccess, organise and connect all types ofproject information easily and efficiently makeVEO a very powerful management tool.ICT continues to impact upon design,manufacture and location aware basedapplications; much in the same way theyhave at previous AUs in Las Vegas and, morerecently, the ESRI User Conference 2015.Amar Hanspal, senior vice president atAutodesk, reaffirmed this in the media



hotel in the world. It contains 4049 rooms,3068 suites and a 120,000-square-footcasino. Inspired by its Italian namesake, itcontains several features based on Venice’sfamous landmarks. These include the PalazzoDucale, Piazza San Marco, Piazzetta di SanMarco, the Lion of Venice Column and theColumn of Saint Theodore, St Mark’sCampanile, and the Rialto Bridge. TheVenetian was built and opened between Aprilof 1997 and May 1999. Total cost ofconstruction was USD $1.5 billion.

SummaryAutodesk continues to adapt in marketplacesdriven by and evolving around “always on”media. At AU2015, collaboration andimagination were at the heart of everythingon display. In terms of imagination, therewere no restrictions anymore. The digitisationof design and manufacturing processes nowenables anyone to be a user creator.

The construction industry was a big partof AU 2015. Evolving relationships withcompanies like Topcon, who were using BIM360 solutions alongside their total stationand 3D layout product lines, were primeindicators of this. Collaborations between JEDunn and Autodesk Construction alsodemonstrated where the future of projectmanagement is going.

analyst luncheon. He saw the company asfocusing on four essential technology trends:cloud or distributed computing, newmethods of manufacture, the Internet ofThings (IoT) and customer engagement. ICTwas the common ground between all ofthese trends, as are the low cost, multi-sensor based devices fuelling them.

The Venetian The Venetian Hotel is the second largest

Above: Autodesk used TheForce to show the power ofconnected and affordabletouch-screen devices asdesign tools.

Right: Sketchnotes are usedextensively at conferences

like AU and Hexagon. TomWujec, a Fellow at

Autodesk, sees them as away to give visual meaning

to business strategy andcommunications.


Calibration

They were commissioned to undertake ameasured survey of the famous Oxford Castle,a grand Norman medieval building situated onthe western side of Oxford, England. LewisHook, MK’s survey manager explains ‘We werecontracted to document an underground partof the castle beneath St George’s Tower. Itwas an area with minimal lighting known asthe St George’s Chapel Crypt.’

Hook found ‘the camera’s ability to captureautomatically precise clear colour details ofthe 11th-century Norman column structureswas exceptional. Both the high dynamic rangeand high resolution plus additional lightingcapabilities allowed us to record excellentimage quality throughout.’

The MK Surveys’ team set out to use thedata for a number of deliverables, such as thebest HDR colour to apply to the laser-scanpoint data. ‘Unlike other systems we hadpreviously tested, this RGB overlay process wassimple and the tone-mapped imagery matchedthe laser-scan data precisely with no parallaxdistortion issues,’ adds Hook.

The data was also used in the production oforthophotographs, which formed a necessarypart of the preservation documentationrequirements as well as aiding in the digitizing ofthe captured detail within MK’s CAD software.‘Being able to see such clear details, reallyassisted our CAD technicians to accuratelyhighlight the ornate stone details,’ explains Hook.

MK Surveys director, Stuart Dimond adds,‘Capturing reality is an emerging developmentwithin our geospatial markets and we see ourinvestment in Spheron as a great complementto this. Spheron’s image sensor technologydelivers superb clarity, ensuring we can recordonsite every detail, which can be vital onsome of our latest client projects.’

• MK Surveys is a leading survey & technicalgeospatial service company, which operatesfrom five office locations across the UK andoffers a wide range of professionalmeasurement services includingtopographical surveys, measured buildingsurveys, 3D laser scanning, BIM, and variousGIS / asset data collection and mapping. Theirwide range of services cover numerous marketsectors including, private, commercial,education, health, rail, utilities, as well asheritage and archaeology.

There is an increasing demand for surveycompanies to use technology whicheffectively captures reality, right down to

tiny details. One device which can help is theSpheron SceneCam, a unique mobile realitycapture device – an automatic cameratechnology which is able to provide fullspherical imagery of sites or locations. Thecamera captures high quality full sphericalHDR 360° × 180° uninterrupted views and isalso able to provide 3d measurements.

Following extensive evaluations of differentcolour imaging technologies, MK Surveysfound that the Spheron camera’s ability toautomatically capture high quality HDRenvironments along with the SceneCentervisual asset management software offered acompelling advantage. MK invested in theHDR Camera and it has already been busy ona prestigious cultural heritage project.

Capturing the finerdetails and coloursof a Norman castlefor an orthophotocan be challenging.One survey companyfound the SpheronHDR camera wasjust right.

SSuurrvveeyyoorrss oopptt ffoorr 336600°° ccoolloouurr iimmaaggiinngg

Lewis Hook: ‘thecamera’s abilityto captureautomaticallyprecise clearcolour details ofthe 11th-centuryNorman columnstructures wasexceptional.’

Above: laser scan of Oxford Castle’sNorman columns with colour from theSpheron SceneCam.

Left: MK Surveys surveyor with theSpheron SceneCam.

ccaammeerraa ddeelliivveerrss hhiigghh--ddeennssiittyy rreessoolluuttiioonn

The technique isa quick methodfor laser scanninglinear features,particularlyhighways, becauseit solves the safetyproblem. . .

‘‘

’’

Laser-scanning conference


because IMU’s drift with time, not distance.He also stressed the importance of usingcontrol to adjust the trajectory rather thantrying to adjust the point cloud. A point that isobvious to surveyors but not, apparently, toeveryone else.

LidarRiegl’s airborne systems were covered by PeterRieger. In addition to flying from conventionalmanned aircraft platforms, Riegl hasdeveloped systems for unmanned aircraft. TheRiCOPTER multi-copter was on display and it isnot something that would glide discretelythrough the air. But then it has to be big inorder to carry Riegl’s VUX-1UAV laser scannerand IMU/GNSS unit. Its maximum take-offweight is just 25kg which is heavier than the20kg limit for small UAs set by the CAA inBritain and therefore operation in Britaininvolves complying with a tougher set ofregulations. The VUX1 range of scanners useswaveform processing and a cunning methodto distinguish correct from incorrect echoreturns, which can occur in situations whenthere is a wide range of height betweenfeatures in the terrain.

Bathy LiDARThe company also sells bathymetric surveysystems. The VQ880-G scanner operates froma manned aircraft. It is a dual-laser system:green to see through the water and red toreflect off the water surface. The laserreflecting off the surface has a circular motion,which enables the system to calculate theangle of incidence and so to apply refractioncorrections to the green laser, which reflectsoff the river or sea bed. The system can ‘see’to 1.5 times Secci depth (Secci is the standardmeans of estimating water turbidity). Butbathymetric lidar systems require the bed tobe bright; they do not like muddy bottoms.The range accuracy is 25mm and cloud densityis 27 points per square metre from a flyingheight of 600-700 metres. Riegl has alsodeveloped a UA ‘bathycopter’ version whichuses the same platform as the RiCOPTER. Thissystem flies at between 10m and 30m abovethe water surface and uses a class 2M laser tosee down to Secci depth.

Medium format camerasPhase One Industrial is another of 3DLM’s

GW attended the second day along withabout forty fellow delegates. But wherewere the surveyors? Not only could they

have gained from a view of the technology onoffer, but they could also have ‘networked’with a range of potential clients.

StreetMapperIVGraham Hunter, chairman of 3DLM, openedproceedings with an overview of the companyand particularly of its flagship mobile mappingsystem StreetMapperIV, which has just beenreleased. The advantages of mobile mappingare well known. The technique is a quickmethod for laser scanning linear features,particularly highways, because it solves thesafety problem and, although the capital costis high, the operating cost is low. Oneexample of this was an as-built survey of theA42 following highway construction justbefore it reopened. With ground control thesurveyors, Hunter said, achieved a verticalaccuracy of better than 10mm.

Chris Cox enlarged on the use of groundcontrol by giving an example: the survey of adead-end tunnel, work on which had beenstopped years previously due to fundingdifficulties. The work could not restart untilthe existing tunnelling had been surveyed.Without control, the trajectory of the MMShad drifted off by 170m, but with controltargets embedded in the point cloud this wasreduced to a few centimetres. When decidingon the spacing between control points thetime taken for the vehicle to travel from onecontrol point to the next should be considered

3D Laser Mappingrecently showcasedthe company’s andits partners’technology.Richard Groomheard all aboutdata capture onthe move and. . .cheetah hunts.

33DDLLMM ccoommeess ttoo LLoonnddoonn–– ssuurrvveeyyiinngg oonn tthhee mmoovvee:: ttuunnnneellss,, rrooaaddss,, sseeaallss aanndd cchheeeettaahhss!!

Riegl hasdeveloped theBathycoptor, anairborne lidar forhydrographicapplications.

3

Laser-scanning conference


Before despatching delegates to visit thestalls of each supplier for demonstrations andquestions, Professor Alan Wilson from theRoyal Veterinary College told us about cheetahhunting. Wilson is an expert on animallocomotion, researching the hunting andranging characteristics of African carnivores.He has developed tracking collars for thecheetahs and is able to examine in amazingdetail using laser scanning, how the animalsmove when they hunt.

partners. This company produces mediumformat calibrated metric aerial cameras,claiming the pixel resolution of the largeformat cameras but at a fraction of the cost.There are four ranges of camera, includingone specifically designed for UAV work withthree or four models in each range. Lens focallength options are available from 40mm to240mm. Forward motion compensation (FMC)is available for most cameras and they can beintegrated with GNSS/IMU systems. SteveCooper described the cameras and presented acase study set in the most inhospitableconditions for photography – icebergs. It wasa sorry tale of a client having a go at doing ithimself, giving up and then calling in theexperts. Sound familiar? The task was to countendangered seals in an Alaskan harbour.Needless to say, the seals were crystal clear onthe Phase One photography.

Trees and catsCarbomap is an offshoot from the Universityof Edinburgh and a pioneer of multispectrallidar. Antoine Cottin explained how thetechnology is used to map forests. Byanalysing the intensity of the returns it ispossible to estimate the health of the forestusing simultaneous lidars operating atdifferent wavelengths. This is definitely atechnology with a future.

Desk study for UAV – the compact and versatile RiCoptor.

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. . . the full valuefrom the imageshould beunderstood andunlocked in orderto generate data.

‘‘

’’

DTM / DGM generation


The need for synchronicityWith advances in digital photogrammetry, aDSM has been developed from our imageryfor in-house use to extract heighted featuresand generate building height attributes.However, temporal consistency of the data(due to the legacy DTM) indicated that asynchronous DSM/DTM would be required fora successful outcome.

With the adoption of new technologicalsolutions and the emergence of newalgorithms for dense point matching fromimagery, we can now create high resolutionDSM or Point cloud data. The challenge ourteam faced was to create synchronised andconsistent DSM and DTM models.

Classification or filteringWe identified two approaches:

1. The first method was to generate a pointcloud from imagery and use point cloudclassification techniques to leave a ‘bare earth’model or DTM.

2. The second and chosen method was usingthe DSM as a source and applying algorithmsto automatically remove above groundfeatures to achieve the resultant DTM.

For both methods it is very important that theimagery is of a consistent high quality forheight and image based data. The imagery wecapture is more than just a picture; it includesmore complex geographic information and thefull value from the image should be understoodand unlocked in order to generate data.

Developing the flowlineThe development of the flowline had thefollowing project stages:

Stage 1. Production of a Point cloud from theDSM to form the basis for DTM development.

Stage 2. DTM production via a series ofsoftware evaluations to either clean or classifythe DSM or Point cloud (by removinganomalies, unwanted buildings andreclassifying vegetation and land)

Stage 3. Quality assessment of the DTMgenerated, to quantify the gaps which mayneed filling and to identify recommendationsfor ongoing development and reporting.

Approach 1. Point cloud GenerationFor Stage 1, we used our DSM and Ortho tilesas an input and then extracted RGBcolourisation and xyz values – they were thencombined and output as a 2.5D colourisedPoint cloud in an LAS format.

For Stage 2, the team trialled a variety of

Evolving user requirements have defined aneed for consistent data and asynchronous approach to the creation of

Digital Surface Models (DSM) and DigitalTerrain Models (DTM). The OS’s new flow linegenerates a synchronous DTM from the DSMand replaces the previous (and predominantly)manual approach used by the Imagery andHeight team. The production of an improvedDTM, synchronous with the DSM, providesconsistency and accuracy for future 3D dataanalysis and modelling.

Moreover, it will enable the development ofpotential 3D identification and extraction offeatures. The results of this research will bringvaluable benefits to areas where 3D modellingis essential in supporting initiatives such asBIM, smart cities, environmental modellingand land cover applications.

This project tested alternative approachesto the challenge of generating height modelsfrom a consistent source of data, i.e. multiple-overlapping digital aerial imagery.

The historical contextOS has been collecting data and mapping thenation for 225 years and is known traditionallyfor 2D mapping. In the 19th century, one ofthe first objectives in determining elevationinformation was to map the countryside toidentify areas of terrain which an enemy armycould hide behind during conflicts. For manyyears the terrain relief was shown in maps withthe help of cartographical hachuring and hill-shading techniques – basic but effective graphicways of representing changes in height.

Moving to the 20th Century and with thebeginnings of aerial photography, OS startedexploiting the science of photogrammetry byusing analogue stereo plotting machines likethe Wild A8 and A10, where three-dimensional measurements could be efficientlycaptured. Analogue plotting involved “chasingto contour” in the stereo image – forexample, plotting contours every five to tenmetres and estimating height throughvegetation to model the terrain. This resultedin national contour coverage as depicted in OSsmall scale mapping.

Jumping forward a few decades OS beganthe process of extracting data from imageryrather than thinking of it as just a picture. Wemoved from analogue plotting to analyticalplotting which coincided with the introductionof digital mapping and then digitalphotogrammetry.

We created a profile DTM product calledOS Terrain 5 using a hybrid method. Thiscombined a 10m Grid DTM derived from ourcontours with additional breaklines to enhancethe data – still no DSM at this stage.

In the summer of2015, the 3D DataGeneration team inthe Remote SensingdepartmentOrdnance SurveyGreat Britain (OS)put into productiona Digital TerrainModel (DTM) flowline. Diana Moraru,remote sensingsurveyor, explains.

OSGB: Generating synchronised elevation models

D



LiDAR-based software packages forclassification purposes. Buildings, ground pointsand vegetation were classified and representedby different colours. The ground points showeda reasonably smooth DTM with minimalartefacts. However, the software presentedissues of scalability – it was restricted by thenumber of processing blocks and time. It tookup to ten minutes to classify one 1km2 tile.Also, an issue of storage was raised. Each 1km2

tile consisted of around 100 million points.

Approach 2. Height data filteringThe second approach did not need Stage 1, asthe production of a point cloud was notrequired for this method. The input we usedwas the raw 1km2 DSM geotiffs that werecreated from our 25cm aerial imagery.

For Stage 2, a series of filtering processeswere applied directly to the DSM. Figure 1illustrates the quality of the input DSM andoutput DTM for a 1km2 tile in Derby. Theimages are sample data at a resolution of 25cm.

The processing time was greatly reduced –about one minute for each tile. A great part ofthe processing is performed directly on thegraphics card, which enables the software togenerate geospatial data so quickly.

The software did an excellent job inremoving the above ground features(buildings, vegetation, street furniture etc.)fully automatically through a DTM Extractiontool. The number of editing signatures(anomalies created by editing) in the DTMwere also limited.

However, there are limitations in using thismethod:

• Over filtering of the DEM resulting inoverly smoothed data.

• Spikes and wells present poor correlationareas (for example, coastal regions, forest)– in both the DSM and DTM.

The DTM extraction workflow involved:

• DSM gridded data used as an input.

• DTM filtering through an automaticprocess.

• Extracting and converting DTMs into masspoints format.

• Editing of DTM points and integration ofbreaklines.

• Refined DTM as a final output.

The flowline is mainly automatic with somemanual editing to refine both the DSM and DTM.The manual editing tasks involve correcting thespikes and wells in the elevation models (in areaslike water bodies, solar/wind farms, ploughedfields) and capturing breaklines.

As a result of the over filtering in the DTMextraction, it was found that in some areasbreaklines were needed to bring the data intothe tolerances outlined in our specification.

Figure 1, top: 25 cm Ortho Imagery, middle Digital Surface Model, above:Digital Terrain Model.



information as well as third party information– from their position and geometry to colour,class and feature type. The more complex theattribution of data, the more useful itbecomes for us to classify objects we areunable to classify at this time. This will allowus to run complex spatial queries.

An example product could be auto-generation of 3D building objects:

• Automatically generated geomorphicfeatures based on DSM, DTM, ClassifiedImagery (NDVI) and OS MasterMap.

• This is possible due to having integrated,interoperable and interdependent data.

• Fundamentally 2.5D not 3D.

The 3D Data Generation team is now workingfully into production. However, the provingwork in Remote Sensing does not stop here.Further testing of 3D content generationmethods will also continue as this will providecontinuity for OS’s ongoing 3D developmentprogramme and moreover this will develop theskills and knowledge required to enable future3D feature identification and extraction.

The potential of 3D mapping in GIS is greaterthan ever and includes numerous areas such as3D visualisation, situational awareness, line ofsight, planning, modelling (for example, floodmodelling) and the list could go on. Furtherresearch needs to be done to understand theimpact of: storage of the data, what attributionis to be stored and how we can generateproducts from the data in the future.

About the author

Diana Moraru has an EnvironmentalEngineering Bachelor degree from PolitehnicaUniversity of Bucharest and an MSc inIntegrated Environmental Studies from theUniversity of Southampton.

In Romania, she worked at the GeoDataInstitute where she was involved in GIS andEnvironmental Projects. She started workingat Ordnance Survey over two years ago,where she is part of the 3D Data Generationteam. She is also a member of the AGI EarlyCareer Network at Ordnance Survey andenjoys engaging in activities and conferencesthat provide insights and opportunities in theGeographic Information industry and beyond.

We are using our stereo imagery to createbreaklines in order to refine slope changes inthe data. There are considerably fewerbreaklines needed in this data compared to thelegacy DTM, reducing the manual editing time.

Work is done to focus capture on roads,railways, water bodies and quarries.Fortunately we have access to this data andcan use it to focus the editing.

EvaluationA matrix was used to score the software testedfor each approach. The results of the matrixevaluation showed that the second approachsoftware out-performed all other software inthe majority of the aspects. The quality of itsDTM output, usability and speedy processingtime outweighed the point cloud method andmade it ideally suited for production.

OS is currently working on a three-yearupdate, where large amounts of data areproduced. This requires a large volume ofwork across various differing terrain typessuch as urban, rural, coastal and mountainousareas. After we started work, we realised thatthere were some issues that had to beovercome in the flowline:

• Over filtering in some areas.

• Large point volumes in mountainous areas.

• Varying amounts of editing dependingupon terrain.

We had to work towards a specification forour customer and internal use to create ausable and consistent product.

AttributionWe also tested adding attribution enfolded inour data in order to hold all the informationwithin the point cloud data. In this picture(Figure 2) we tested this by includinginformation like area, volume, number ofstories, maximum or minimum height andsurface area.

However, attribution can be done at afeature level – including a variety of geospatial

Figure 2: Automaticallygenerated 3D geomorphicfeatures.

An exampleproduct could beauto-generationof 3D buildingobjects.

‘‘

’’

Satellite Altimetry


It has been said that we have more completemaps of the surface of Mars or the Moon thanwe do of Earth. Close to 70 percent of our

planet is covered by water, and that waterrefracts, absorbs, and reflects light so well that itcan only penetrate a few tens to hundreds ofmetres. To humans and most satellite eyes, thedeep ocean is opaque. But David Sandwell of theScripps Institution of Oceanography and WalterSmith of the National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration have produced a global datasetrevealing the topography of the ocean bed.

Their methodology used a combination ofglobal gravity anomaly data and sea surfaceheight data. The sea surface heights wereobserved by Jason-1 and other satellitealtimeter missions. They revealed ocean bedtopography because the mass of the seamountains applies a gravitational attraction onthe surrounding water, so there are smallridges in the ocean surface above seamountains and conversely there aredepressions in the ocean surface abovetroughs. The new map gives an accuratepicture of seafloor topography where eachpixel represents five kilometres.

Jason-3 is launchedJason-3 was launched in January from theVandenberg Air Force base in California. It willmeasure sea level in the open ocean to anaccuracy of 40mm. The satellite will spend the

The Jason-3 satellite isprepared for encapsulationin its payload faring. Jason-3is an internationalpartnership consisting ofNOAA, NASA, the CentreNational d’Etudes Spatiales -France’s space agency - andthe European Organizationfor the Exploitation ofMeteorological Satellites. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/

news/science-environment-35339776

Satellitealtimetershelp revealsub-oceantopography

Right: 1997/8 and2015/6 El Niño

events as detectedby satellite altimetry.

Left: This map shows a globalview of gravity anomalies, asassembled by Sandwell, Smith,and colleagues. Shades oforange and red represent areaswhere seafloor gravity isstronger (in milligals) than theglobal average, a phenomenonthat mostly coincides with thelocation of underwater ridges,seamounts, and the edges ofEarth’s tectonic plates. Shades ofblue represent areas of lowergravity, corresponding largelywith the deepest troughs in theocean. Image credit: NASA]

first few weeks working in tandem with itspredecessor Jason-2, to calibrate their microwaveradar altimeters, and reliably continue monitoringglobal sea level topography.

El Niño: higher seas and shorter daysOne might imagine that the onset of an ElNiño event would be heralded by satelliteremote sensing of increased watertemperature in the Eastern Pacific. But theinitial heating actually takes place at depthand it is the bulge in sea level caused by theexpansion of the heated water that is detectedby satellite altimetry, months ahead of surfacewater temperature. The 1997 El Niño was thefirst event to be detected by satellite altimetryfrom the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite, whilst the2015 event has been recorded by Jason-2.

Shorter dayEl Niño also has geodetic effects that are lessobvious. The appearance of warm water in theeastern Pacific is accompanied by a rise of sealevel due to the lower density of the water.Mass movement of water is however minimaland so this has a small effect on gravityanomalies. But, the slowing and reversal of thetrade winds and equatorial current that takesplace during an El Niño affects AtmosphereAngular Momentum (AAM). During an El Niño,the AAM increases which, to preserve globalangular momentum, is matched by a decreasein momentum of the solid earth. This slows thevelocity of the Earth’s rotation with aconsequent increase in length of day by up to amillisecond with a time lag of about a month.This is a daily change so the effect on time iscumulative. At the peak of the 1983/4 El Niño,0.12 seconds of time had been gained. TheAAM recovers, the length of day shortens andthe gained time is lost as the event passes intothe La Niña phase.

Studies have also shown El Niño has a highimpact on the correlation between AAM andpolar motion for single El Niño events, but notif the data spans more than one event.Kotaczek et al report that the impacts have animpulsive character causing irregular variationsin polar motion during El Niño events.

Discrete Global Grids


four. The grid references for the blue, greenand red shaded cells are B13, C143 and C3at refinement levels of 2, 3 and 1respectively. Note that for clarity in thediagram only selected cell boundaries areshown; in practice the whole grid would benested to the same refinement level. The cellsubdivision does not necessarily have to beinto 4; for another grid it could have beensome other value such as 9. Cells do notneed to be square: a subdivision of thepolyhedral football in Figure 1 might usetriangular cell division.

A Discrete Global Grid System describesthe basic reference frame for the tessellation,its structure and method of hierarchicalnesting of tessellations, the cell identificationschema and any algorithms for assigning andretrieving data to and from cells, performingalgebraic operations on cells or translatingcell addresses to other coordinate referencesystems. It is discrete because it is cell-basedrather than continuous as in a coordinatereference system - raster rather than vector.Global: it must fully and continuously coverthe globe: a tessellation based on thegraticule or on a map projection grid may notalways cover the whole globe and inevitablyencounters discontinuities at the poles andacross the 180° meridian. The DG Grid is thesystematic cell layout and referencing.

Why are DGGSs of interest?There is increasing expectation for spatialinformation to be integrated from varioussources and to be available on demand. In aworld where data volumes are increasingexponentially and forecast to continue to do

Discrete global grids were introducedto GW readers by Goba Hobona inthe September/October 2014 issue.

A Discrete Global Grid is a tessellation ofthe surface of the globe into a cellstructure. Instead of adopting a sphere orellipsoid as the model of the surface ofthe Earth, DGGSs use some form ofpolyhedron. The polyhedron might be adirect tessellation of the surface of theglobe, or perhaps through an initialchoice of a Platonic solid (tetrahedron,hexahedron (or cube), octahedron,dodecahedron or icosahedron) to bound theglobe.

The initial tessellation is then subdividedinto identically-sized cells. The cells are givena unique identity and the whole collection ofcells forms a grid referencing system. InDGGS literature the ratio of child cells toparent cell is called aperture but the OGCdraft standard proposes to adopt the morerecognisable term refinement ratio. Thesubdivision may be carried out recursively toany level of nesting, in the OGC draft calledrefinement level.

Figure 2 shows a cube that has beenchosen as the polyhedron for the initialtessellation, its six faces labelled A through F.Each face is then subdivided (in this exampleinto four, i.e. the refinement ratio is 4) andeach quadrant then further subdivided into

“. . . a candidatestandard that mayreplace legacycoordinate systems”read the headline ofan early Januarypress release fromthe Open GeospatialConsortium (OGC).The claim was in aninvitation for publiccomment on aproposed OGCstandard definingDiscrete Global GridSystems (DGGS).Roger Lottassesses thisstartling claim andsuggests whatDGGSs might meanfor geomatics.

Figure 1: The football is the Earth and its polyhedral model is a truncatedicosahedron.

WWGGSS 8844 LLaattss aanndd LLoonnggss oorr DDGGGGSS??

Figure 2: A DGGS initial tessallation (a cube is thechosen polyhedron) and its cell division.

D



For an implementation to be considered aconformant DGGS it must:

• include spatial operations for parent-childcell relationships and neighbourhoodassociations across the entire tessellation.

• be able to map imported raster and vectordata to cells.

• be able to map the cell references of cellcentroids, edges and vertices to geodeticcoordinates.

• support spatial analysis using thedimensionally extended nine-intersectionmodel DE-9IM, which uses manifold theoryand set operations for describing thetopological relationships of two geometries– whether one is contained within theother, or whether they overlap, touch orcross. It uses a 3×3 matrix (so 9 elements)describing intersections of interiors,boundaries and exteriors of twogeometries. The dimensional extension is todescribe the resulting intersections aspoints, lines or areas (or false). The DE-9IMmodel has been standardised for dataexchange by OGC in an earlierspecification1 as a function returning a 9-digit string describing these intersections.Its inclusion as a DGGS requirementfacilitates the interoperability of differenttessellations.

• must support external queries. A variety ofquery types such as natural language orSQL are included in the specification. Thesemay be used for querying for attributessuch as spatial extent.

So whilst a National Grid grid reference meetssome of these criteria, it does not meet all ofthem and so does not conform to the DGGSrequirements.

The working group behind the draft OGCspecification anticipate the tessellationextending to further dimensions (voxels ratherthan pixels, and/or to cells having a timedependency).

Historically most DGGS efforts have beenput into mapping the graticule of the sphereor ellipsoid onto a polyhedron. Numerousingenious solutions have been proposed toeliminate slivers and overlaps between cellsand to minimise problems with unequal areasand other distortions. The author feels thatthis approach, driven by conventionalcartographic views of the globe, has beenmistaken. Why define a model of the Earthfrom another model? Any errors in the pre-existing spherical model will be carriedthrough to the polyhedral model. Thepolyhedron should be defined with respect toan earth-centred, earth-fixed 3D Cartesiancoordinate reference system, i.e. to the ITRS.If there is a need to convert ellipsoidal

so, computer scientists are investigating waysof managing and analysing this data moreefficiently. Some spatial analyses, for examplefor adjacency or for nearest neighbour, canbe more efficiently executed by computeralgorithms operating on a regular cellstructure than on a polygon whose boundaryis described through a string of coordinates.So a cell-based reference system may assistsome spatial data integration and processing.In the environmental sciences data is oftenstatistically analysed on a cell basis.

So would 100m- or 10m-resolution cells ofthe British National Grid given as 6-figure or8-figure grid references do for analysis of theflooding that has recently hit parts of theUK? Possibly. If all of the data were based onthis grid and at identical resolution it wouldbe straightforward. But if raster data were tocome referenced to different grids and atdifferent resolutions, for example lidar datafrom the Environment Agency on the BritishNational Grid at 1m cell size were to bemerged with weather information based on aMeteorological Office 1km grid referenced tothe WGS 84 graticule, together with real-time imagery from some satellite referencedto yet another frame (for example the Equal-Area Scalable Earth (EASE) Grid), then themerging of the different raster grids is a non-trivial issue, especially in real time.

What is the OGC proposing?The OGC standard is setting somespecifications for what constitutes a DGGSand ground rules for its definition so thatinteroperability will be possible acrossdifferent DGGSs and between DGGSs andconventional coordinate reference systems. Itis not prescribing any one method fordefinition of a DGGS nor any particularDGGS – that may come later through profilesof the standard.

So what constitutes a conformant DGGS? Atessellation in itself does not necessarilyconform. To conform:

• the tessellation must cover the full Earth,although data referenced to it may coveronly a part.

• cells must not overlap.

• the method of cell refinement must bedeclared.

• at any one refinement level, cells must beof equal area. However, small deviationsfrom exact equality of area may bepermitted as long as the precision isdeclared.

• at each successive refinement level the totalarea of child cells must equal the total areaof parent cells.

• cells must have a systematic referencingsystem.

. . . it is cell-basedrather thancontinuous as in acoordinatereference system. . .

‘‘

’’



A replacement for legacy coordinatesystems?This author is highly sceptical. It would bemore reasonable to claim that DGGS offers analternative modelling of the size and shape ofthe Earth. In some circumstances a polyhedronmight be preferred to an ellipsoid and cellreferencing preferred to coordinates. Anyfuture decline in the use of ellipsoidalcoordinates (latitude and longitude) may be asmuch to do with an increased adoption ofgeocentric Cartesian coordinates rather thancell-based reference frames. Wherestandardised DGGSs with their raster cellstructures lead to faster or cheaper spatial dataprocessing they will be adopted. But not to theexclusion of legacy coordinate systems, orindeed any future coordinate reference systemsthat will be defined. There is a huge archive ofspatial data referenced to coordinate referencesystems that will continue to be maintained inthat form, either for legal reasons or practicalones. DGGS is likely to be a complimentarytechnology rather than a disruptive one.

Footnote(1) OGC Simple Features specifications. A‘simple feature’ is one that does not deformand may be represented by a point, line orpolygon. The currently published specificationscover two-dimensional geometry in Cartesianspace but they are in the process of beingrevised for extensions to further dimensionsand non-Cartesian coordinate systems (such asellipsoidal latitude and longitude).

About the authorRoger Lott is a long retired former ChiefSurveyor at BP, responsible for global surveyand cartography matters. He now chairs thegeodesy subcommittee of the InternationalAssociation of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP),which is responsible for maintaining the EPSGDataset of geodetic parameters(www.epsg.org), and is involved with thedevelopment of ISO geographic informationstandards. He is a fellow of the RICS and ofthe RGS, and member of the AGI.

coordinates or projected map gridcoordinates to polyhedral cell references theECEF Cartesian coordinate reference systemcan be used as an intermediary.

What does it mean for geomatics?There are some aspects of the OGC draftspecification that remain unclear. The exactrequirements for an initial tessellation areincomplete: there are no specific rules forhow an initial tessellation should bedescribed so it is unclear whetherinteroperability will be guaranteed. And it isunclear how the tessellation should beanchored to the real Earth. The specificationrequires that the tessellation be global andequal area: if the computing advantages tohaving a cellular model of the Earth are socompelling, one might ask why theseadvantages would not apply to any griddeddataset regardless of whether equal area or,as is most frequently encountered, on aconformal projection, and covering only apart of the world.

Using the example of the cube earlier inthis article and continuing the quadrant celldivision, it would take 25 levels of nesting forcells to be sub-metre and 31 levels to be sub-centimetre at the equator. I don’t see thisbeing useful for surveying and positioning.Nevertheless, DGGS technology appears tooffer another option for spatial datacollection, storage and analysis. The OGCspecification is a step towards making thattechnology more viable throughstandardisation leading to improvedinteroperability.

DGGS may well have an important place ingeo-statistical analyses and theenvironmental sciences, especially when thestudy areas are extensive, or indeed in anyapplication using remote sensing, possiblyincluding point cloud data handling. Butthose aspects of geomatics associated withgeodesy, cadastre, engineering orhydrography are unlikely to feel anyjustification for dropping conventionalcoordinate reference systems.

. . . it would take25 levels ofnesting for cellsto be sub-metreand 31 levels tobe sub-centimetreat the equator.

‘‘

’’


Written by the editor of Geomatics World, StephenBooth, this book is a history of a UK company thatestablished its reputation through supplying accurateand reliable surveying and mapping products. An introduction traces the origins of thecompanies that became Leica Geosystems, together with short articles with simple explanations to Leica’stechnologies. The narrative is set against the changing infrastructure and times of Britain. Containing over350 photographs, when it has to be right tells the history of the company, its products, applicationsand the people who’ve played key roles in its success.

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Downunder Currents


how minimal the pollution is when burning coalto generate electricity contrary to the greenmovement. Talking of iconic symbols of BlueMountains heritage on the way home westopped at the salubrious Hydro Majestic Hotelat Medlow Bath, just west of Katoomba, whichhas stood regally since 1904 after its opening byMark Foy, the retail store magnate as a hydrotherapy resort. Later to become the place to visitby train then later car in the 1920s it has onlyrecently reopened after a $34 millionrefurbishment, which has restored it to itsformer magnificence and made it a must seewhile touring this high western country of NSW.

1606! What a year for Australia!At History House Sydney the Royal AustralianHistorical Society once again filled the room tohear author Ian Burnet tell us of the adventuresof The Duyfken (“Little Dove”) before she wasthe first recorded vessel to strike and chart thecoast of Australia in 1606. Her captain WillemJanszoon thought that the west side of CapeYork was New Guinea so his map lay unnoticedfor nearly 400 years before it was identified asshowing the Great South Land.

In the same year Spaniard Luis De Torres noteda small inlet at the tip of Cape York (now namedafter him), which was not to be verified as theaccess point passing between New Guinea andAustralia until Lieutenant James Cook used it toreturn home from mapping the East coast ofNew South Wales (as named by him) in 1770.Cook had a secret map by Dalrymple from dataseized in a raid on the Spanish stronghold inManila showing this possible shorter routearound the topmost point of our land.

Trailblazers - a great exhibitThe Australian Museum in Sydney has recentlyopened an exhibit about Australia’s 50 GreatestExplorers, which was selected by a learnedcommittee of those connected with adventureand history assembled by Australian Geographic.As you might expect such a list is over representedby surveyors and those skilled in the art such asAbel Tasman James Cook, Matthew Flinders,William Bligh, William Lawson, Thomas Mitchell,William Wills, Charles Sturt, John MacDouallStuart, Paul de Strzelecki, Hubert Wilkins andDouglas Mawson. Most startling on the list isSydney Kirkby from Western Australia who is saidto have surveyed more of Antarctica than anyother by dog sled and theodolite. This list ofintrepid explorers can be found in the Nov/Dec2015 issue of Australian Geographic No. 129 andit makes for interesting and debatable discussion.

The FIG Working Week in ChristchurchNew Zealand is nearly upon us. TheHistory Symposium on Saturday 30 April

and Sunday May 1, just prior to the workingweek from 2 to 6 May, can still be booked tojoin us at the last minute down under.

The recovery of Christchurch since thedestructive earthquakes four years ago isinspirational with the spirit and determinationof the residents offering a brilliant experienceto tour there. More details can be found onhttp://www.fig.net/fig2016/plenary.htm

One spot which is well worth making adetour to is Akaroa just south of Christchurchwith a true tale of being the only Frenchsettlement made in New Zealand in 1840shortly after the signing of the Waitangi Treatyby the various Maori tribes and the English,with all of the roads bearing the nom deplume “rue” in tribute to these early settlers,some of whose descendants can still be foundaround town chatting in French to each other.

Australia Day seminarThe Institution of Surveyors NSW staged theannual two-day seminar near our National Dayon 26 January during which all Aussies findsomewhere to join in the celebration. On 22and 23 we had many speakers on assortedtopics including internationally renownedyoung orator Holly Ransom who enlightenedus on the composition of generations frombaby boomers to X, Y and Z. From where I’msitting she is plum out of letters so wheredoes that leave my grandchildren? Punctuatedby a Sydney Harbour cruise on the Thursdaynight, despite being beset by a tempest, westill had a great night inside the spaciousvessel with tasty fare and colourful company.

Topp Tour to the mountainsJanuary took us on a great bus tour to the MtPiper Power Station, which demonstrated just

FIG’s working weekin Christchurch islooming, meanwhilethere was AustraliaDay to celebrate, atrip to themountains plus1606 and Australia’sfamous explorers,reports John Brock.

NZ trip looms but meanwhile there’splenty of history to enjoy down under

Below: Thomas Mitchell'sduelling pistols used in thelast official duel in NSWagainst Stuart Donaldson,later to become NSWPremier. Below right:Mitchell's great sextant.

• John Brock is a RegisteredSurveyor in Australia and is astalwart of FIG and itsPermanent Institution for the Artand History of Surveying.

Legal Notes


• Carl Calvert MA MScPgDLaw FRICS CITP MBCS,is the sole principal ofCalvert Consulting,specialis ing in Boundarylitigation. He also lecturespart-time in GIS law.www.calvertconsulting.co.ukEmail: [email protected] 023 8086 4643.

. . . the court isordering. . . thatApple creates aprogram to installinto the iPhone. . .which would. . .disable the autoerase function. . .enable the FBI toinsert passcodes. . .remove theautomated delayof 80 milliseconds.

‘‘

’’

Ten goes and you’re out for goodThe way that Apple protects its iPhone 5C data isas follows: (1) a user can program the phone toerase all data after ten unsuccessful attempts toenter the passcode: (2) the passcode works inconjunction with a code fused into the iPhoneand is unknown by Apple or its suppliers, hencethe passcode must be entered by hand: (3) theoperating system (iOS) adds an 80 millisecondgap between passcode attempts; it would take5½ years to try every lower case letter andnumber combination.

What the court is ordering is that Applecreates a program to install into the iPhone, theSUBJECT DEVICE, which would: (1) disable theauto erase function: (2) enable the FBI to insertpasscodes by any or all of, physical device,Bluetooth or WiFi: (3) remove the automateddelay of 80 milliseconds.

Apple has complained that, ‘Rather thanasking for legislative action through Congress,the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of theAll Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion ofits authority.’ So the question must arise, ‘Whatis the All Writs Act of 1789?’

An unreasonable burden?The All Writs Act was included in the JudiciaryAct of 1789, which was enacted in the first eversession of the United States Congress. There area few qualifications that must be met in orderfor the All Writs Act to be used as a way tocompel Apple to create this software:

• the All Writs Act is only applicable if nostatute, law or rule is on the books to dealwith the specific issue at hand.

• the business in question (Apple) has someconnection to the investigation.

• there are extraordinary circumstances thatjustify the use of the All Writs Act.

• the All Writs Act only applies if compliance isnot an unreasonable burden.

The first three hurdles are cleared by the court asthe iPhone was used by the terrorists who killed14 and injured 22 (or 20 according to somereports) people in San Bernardino last year. It isthe last point, that of unreasonableness, which isthe sticking point. Is it an, ‘unreasonableburden?’ Doubtless there will be many whoargue either way. Me, I shall wait to see thearguments proffered; but in any event what weare seeing is a confrontation between a nationalgovernment and an international company ofnote.

On 16th February 2016 in the US DistrictCourt for the Central District of California(Case No. ED15 – 0451M) it was ordered

that, inter alia:

1. Apple shall assist in enabling the search of acellular telephone, Apple make: iPhone 5C. .. pursuant to a warrant of this Court byproviding reasonable technical assistance toassist law enforcement agents in obtainingaccess to the data on the SUBJECT DEVICE.

2. Apple’s reasonable technical assistance shallaccomplish the following three importantfunctions: (1) it will bypass or disable theauto-erase function whether or not it hasbeen enabled; (2) it will enable the FBI tosubmit passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE fortesting electronically via the physical deviceport, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other protocolavailable on the SUBJECT DEVICE; and (3) itwill ensure that when the FBI submitspasscodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE, softwarerunning on the device will not purposefullyintroduce any additional delay betweenpasscode attempts beyond what is incurredby Apple hardware.. . . . . . .

7. To the extent that Apple believes thatcompliance with this Order would beunreasonably burdensome, it may make anapplication to this Court for relief within fivebusiness days of receipt of the Order.

Cook’s backdoor objectionVarious news agencies and media have taken upthe story and in a response to the Order Applechief executive officer, Tim Cook, was reported assaying (Bloomberg Business News 19-02-2016)that the company will fight the court order in thatit creates a security workaround for the FBI toaccess the iPhone. He called the demand byauthorities a dangerous precedent that could leadto the government getting hold of “surveillancesoftware to intercept your messages, access yourhealth records or financial data, track yourlocation, or even access your phone’s microphoneor camera without your knowledge.”

The Order, in effect, is asking Apple to createa ‘master key’ that could be used to unlock anynumber of other iPhone 5C’s in use around theworld. “While we believe the FBI’s intentions aregood, it would be wrong for the government toforce us to build a backdoor into our products,”Cook wrote in a letter to Apple’s customers afterTuesday’s order. “Ultimately, we fear that thisdemand would undermine the very freedoms andliberty our government is meant to protect.”

An ancient statuteis being used by alaw enforcementagency in the US toforce a company tochange itssoftware, explainsCarl Calvert.What on earthwould the foundingfathers have madeof it?

Will FBI’s windfall deliver a bruised Apple?

PRODUCTS & SERVICES


Patrolling powerlinesNM Group, formerly known asNetwork Mapping, has announceda new service – Patrol+, forinspection of powerline corridors.The service enhances existinginspections by exporting data fromthe aircraft through a series ofanalyses to provide a simple set ofintelligent defect reports. Theresults are then presented so thatthey can be actioned via the workmanagement system andintegrated into the assetmanagement system.

TripleSat sample dataEarth-i, the distributor of imagingand data services from the newDMC3 / TripleSat constellation, hasdetailed sample imagery availablefor assessment by customers. OwenHawkins, Operations Director atEarth-i, said: “We are delighted withthe speed and success of thesatellite commissioning carried outby our associates SSTL and 21AT.The definition, quality and integrityof the data has exceeded ourexpectations”. Visit: www.earthi.space/sample-data-request

Sokkia’s new total stationsSokkia has released two additions

to its CX total station series. TheCX-50 is designed to provide anentry-level option with a fast andpowerful EDM, reflectorlessmeasurement up to 350m, 2" and5" accuracy options and 15-hourbattery life. The CX-100LN offersreflectorless measurement up to2000m, 2" and 5" accuracies, 36-hour battery life and Bluetoothconnectivity.

I-Site Studio 6Maptek has launched I-SiteStudio 6, with enhanced pointcloud processing capability,snapping to angles and points inCAD and complex surfacemodelling and waviness analysisfor geotechnical modelling andanalysis.

Kelly Bros invest in Trimble MX7Kelly Bros, a leading contractor inthe road marking industry, hasbecome the first company in theUK and Ireland to invest in aTrimble MX7 imaging system. TheMX7 enables users to capturehigh quality 360-degree, 30 Mpxgeo-referenced images at highwayspeeds through a clear andintuitive user interface. Back at

the office, Trimble Trident officesoftware for data capture,extraction and analysis can beused to produce a range ofdeliverables, take off accuratemeasurements and producepictorial records etc. Kelly Broswill be using the MX7 foreverything from road conditionsurveys and asset data collectionto the documentation of siteconditions and the recording ofbridge clearances.

One-stop shop drone trainingKOREC has announced apartnership with the Drone PilotAcademy, which will offer a ‘onestop’ Unmanned Aircraft Systems(UAS) training solution for thosewho wish to undertakeconsecutive flight training andCivil Aviation Authority (CAA)accredited pilot training courses,all at the same location and allwithin one week. As part of thepackage, the academy willundertake all relevant paperworkand assist in the detailedproduction of the requiredoperations manual, includingproofing, before its submission tothe CAA. This removes a time-consuming aspect of the process

for KOREC customers and brings ahigher guarantee of success.

Inpho updatedTrimble has announced a newpatch version of Inpho softwaresuite (v7.0.2). The patch includesimportant fixes and new featuressuch as:

Use relative flying heights for•processing instead of meanterrain height.Performance enhancements•through the support of parallelprocessing of image pyramids.UASMaster includes the pre-•defined camera calibrationdefinitions in order to simplifythe project setup for TrimbleZX5 and UX5HP UAS platforms.The SCOP++ modules are now•offered as a special SCOP++Education Package foreducators.

New rugged handheldsJuniper Systems, has released itsMesa 2 rugged tablet. It is thelargest handheld device producedby the company to date, the first torun on the Microsoft Windows 10and the only tablet with IP-68rating. The Mesa 2 also providescomplete visibility in any lightingcondition, along with superiordurability from the chemically-strengthened 7" Dragontrail glasstouch screen.

Meanwhile, Handheld Grouphas also announced that it is nowoffering a Windows 10 version(Enterprise LTSB version) of itspopular Algiz 10X ultra-ruggedtablet computer, although Algiz10X versions with Windows 7 andWindows 8 will remain available.The Algiz 10X is IP65-rated andmeets stringent MIL-STD-810Gmilitary standards for protectionagainst dust, water, vibrations,drops and extreme temperatures. Ithas a 10.1" touch screen withhigh-brightness MaxView screentechnology.

Module enhances featureextractionBlue Marble Geographics hasannounced an upgrade to itsGlobal Mapper LiDAR module.Offered in conjunction with therecent release of version 17.1, themodule includes functionalenhancements and performanceimprovements that have been

RIEGL has released a major update to its terrestrial laser scanning software suite of RiSCAN PRO,RiMINING and RiSOLVE! It is now possible to visualize and manage massive files, hundreds of scans andbillions of points simultaneously, with the ability to instantly toggle between a number of different 3Dpoint attribute view-types. Point clouds generated from scans will retain all attributes, such asreflectance, echo number, and deviation values through the filtering process. RDB 2.0 SoftwareDevelopment Kit (SDK) has been released for support in third-party software packages.

Massive point clouds for Riegl software

Point cloud of the Coliseum acquired with a VZ-400 displayed by Reflectance, Amplitude, Deviation, True Color, MultipleEcho, and Height values.


designed to improve the qualityand utility of LiDAR and otherpoint cloud data. Functionalityincludes a custom featureextraction tool for creating 3D lineand area features using GlobalMapper’s new perpendicularprofile tool; a new toolbar buttonfor quickly assigning the groundclassification to selected points;and support for customizing thegroups to which LiDARclassifications belong.

The LiDAR Module offerssignificantly enhanced point cloudmanagement and processingcapability. A new perpendicularprofile tool, which generates ascrollable series of profile viewsperpendicular to a drawn orselected line feature, enables thefeature extraction tool in the LiDARmodule. This function offers themeans to assign 3D points orvertices that correspond withrecognizable objects such as curbs,guardrails, above-ground pipelines,or building roof lines. These pointsare ultimately connected andextracted as 3D vector features. Forthose wanting to evaluatecapabilities of the module, a 14-day trial is available.

BRIEFSUNDET point cloud software hasproduced a new extension for

Trimble SketchUp Pro –Undet4SketchUp V1.0, which wasreleased on 1st December 2015.This offers a unique opportunityto use any point cloud directly inSketchUp Pro and provides toolsfor efficient visibility andcolouring management.

SCCS are stocking the Leica LinoL4P1, a multi line laser forinterior applications offering onehorizontal and three 180°vertical laser lines and five layoutpoints. The smart rotation basecan be twisted 360° over aselected point and the accuratefine adjustment supports swifttargeting of vertical laser linesfor high-speed 90° layouts. More at: www.sccssurvey.co.uk

Teledyne Optech has introducedthe latest model of its Lynxmobile LiDAR system, the survey-grade Optech Lynx SG-S.

Opti-cal Survey Equipment is nowoffering the MALÅ Easy LocatorPro, an end-to-end groundpenetrating radar (GPR) systemdesigned for utility mapping. Themodel is MALÅ’s first which is ableto export data to stand-alonesoftware and comes bundled withthe company’s ObjectMappersoftware. More at:http://surveyequipment.com

Sokkia's GNSS light bullet

Sokkia has launched its smallest and lightest dual-frequency, multi-constellation GNSS integrated receiver - the GCX2. Nicknamed ‘thebullet’, it weighs just 375g, making it the lightest in its class andperfect for lightweight and convenient operation. With 226channels and optimised satellite tracking technology, the GCX2speeds up satellite acquisition, reduces power consumption andprovides greater positioning accuracy – all resulting in improvedworkflow efficiencies.

Book Review

An Atlas of Countries thatdon’t ExistBy Nick MiddletonPublished by Macmillan, ISBN978-1-4472-9527-3

Subtitled “A Compendium of FiftyUnrecognised and LargelyUnnoticed States”, this work wasthe subject of a highly entertaininglecture at the Royal GeographicalSociety earlier this year. But lively

and interesting speakers don’tnecessarily make great writers.There’s nothing wrong with thesubject matter of the book; it’s justthat it’s dealt with in a far too triteand perfunctory a manner. Thetext, which is all in italics (shameon you Macmillan – stop givinggraphic designers carte blanche towreak their havoc!), again andagain left me aching for moreinformation.

The author acknowledges hischoice of fifty “states” was basedon some “rules of thumb”. Allhave failed to secure a seat at theUN and lack wide recognition. Thishas not stopped some of themforming a sort of rival UN, theUnrepresented Nations andPeoples Organization (UNPO) with42 members. There is an excellentintroduction on just whatconstitutes a state: the UNrecognises 193 whereas theegregious FIFA has 209. There iseven a rival body of territories thatdidn’t get FIFA’s approval, FIFI.

Alas its tournaments must berather boring as it has but twomembers!

Some of the territories chosenborder on the ludicrous, likeChristiana – a self-declared squatin Copenhagen or Forvik, an isletoff Shetland, Australia’sAtlantium or Sealand, and werechosen presumably to recountthe colourful characters behindtheir declared independence.Others exist, like the Isle of Man,in a sort of no-man’s land underthe protection of surroundingstates. Yet more examples arenow lost to history.

There are several interestingcases to which the author hasprovided insight. Northern Cyprusand the abandoned resort ofVarosha where car showroomsand clothes shops still display thelatest models from 1974. But noexplanation is given as to whythis bit of Cyprus was notproperly taken over by theinvading Turks (it’s actually part

of Famagusta which the Turks areholding as a bargaining chippending a negotiatedsettlement).

Several of the examples areunsettled business from history,like the Australian aboriginalterritory of Murrawarri orLakotah, a vast swathe of NorthAmerica assigned under treaty tothe Lakota Sioux in 1868 butsoon reneged by the USGovernment. To date the Siouxhave declined all offers ofcompensation.

Although I am critical of theirritating italics, the book is veryattractively designed withterritory-shaped cut outs onintroductory pages but with arigid one page of text per subjectwith a less than informativeoutline map of the territory andits location in the world. A greatcoffee table talking point but Iawait a more serious study.

Reviewer: Stephen Booth

an entertaining study of places yearning for recognition

an intelligent account of a technology that threatens to impoverish us all

The Internet Is Not TheAnswerby Andrew Keenpublished by Atlantic Books,ISBN 978 1 78239 341 2,hardback or soft-back.

There is an increasing sense ofoutrage around the world over thefailure of tax authorities to collectmuch in the way of payment fromthe global digital giants – Google,Amazon and Apple and theplutocrats who run them. Close ontheir heels come Uber, Airbnb,

Facebook and Instagram. They areall able to pay eye-watering feesto accountants to run theproverbial rings aroundgovernments. Google is now sovast and enriched it owns no lessthan six aircraft, includingintercontinental Boeings and aDassault/Dornier Alpha light attackjet (to escort and protect saidplutocrats?); all parked at a USgovernment airstrip unavailable tocommercial operators.

The author’s sharp andwitty text begins byrecounting what happenedto his family’s fabric businessin Oxford Street, London, andits proximity to Soho’s musicbusinesses and the “GoldenMile of Vinyl”, which hadattracted his early career. Thefabric shop failed because itcould no longer competewith third world products.What happened next hit themusic and other creativebusinesses, with the arrival ofthe Internet and Napster,

YouTube, iTunes and Spotify.Thousands of jobs have beenlost due to these platforms –in 2008 alone it is estimatedthat Britain lost 39,000 jobsin the creative sector.

One of the starkeststories of what thesecompanies have wrought isthe case of Rochester, NY. Aonce thriving town is now adystopian place of down-and-outs, derelict buildingsand decay. It was not everso. Rochester was home toEastman Kodak. In 1989, atthe same time as a cleverchap working at CERNdevised an interface for thenet that was to become theWorldwide Web, Kodakemployed 145,000 peopleon an annual turnover of$31 billion. Killed off bydigital photography whichKodak had invented back inthe 1970s but had failed tomarket.

In 2014 Facebook

acquired WhatsApp, payingan unbelievable $19 billionfor a company employing just55 people. When companieslike this can change handsfor billions of dollars, it ishard not to agree with theauthor’s contention that theInternet and its nurserySilicone Valley are destroyingjobs, our culture, society andcreating a level of wealthimbalance not seen since theMiddle Ages.

If you care about thefuture of your children andgrandchildren this book isvery much a wake-up call.Annoyingly it doesn’t have anindex but there are pages ofreferences from the text soyou can check sources, whichare mainly impeccable. Youneed to read it and thinkabout where the future jobsmight be other than inproviding valet services to thedigital winners or asStarbucks baristas.


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