57The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems

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in this issue:

Dear Readers,

The activity level at Leica Geosystems has been very high during the first half of 2007. We have continu-ously strengthened our product and service offering via acquisitions and new developments.

At Intergeo this year we will introduce new products such as the new Leica TPS 1200+ total station or the 3D laser scanner Leica ScanStation 2. Our company will be presented under the motto “Save The Earth”. Every product development, every solution we find for our customers, is based on our belief that our daily work make our world a little bit safer, healthier and better. Helping to save the habitat of the Giant Panda in China with Digital Imaging solutions is part of this, as is supporting the African Geodetic Refer-ence Frame project and developing a new software solution, including Leica MobileMatriX, for the Dutch water boards.

Flipping through the pages of this issue of Reporter, you will detect a whole range of projects realized with our products in all parts of the world. As you will see on the next pages, the size of a project is not a criterion for inclusion in the Reporter. An infrastruc-tural venture like the huge London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 with a € 6.3 bn volume and employing 6’500 people can be as exciting as the task of Ger-man surveying company Schrock measuring with the brand new Leica SmartPole. We hope that you share our opinion and will appreciate reading these stories as much as we did when they first arrived in our editor’s office.

Enjoy reading the new Reporter – and we hope to see you at Intergeo from September 25 to 27 in Leipzig, Germany, Hall 1/F1.612!

World's Busiest Airport

Forensic Laser Scanning at Bridge Crash

Travel Diary Southern Africa

Waterschappen Trust MobileMatriX

Tunnelling and Paving with Leica Geosystems

Leica DISTO™ Goes Extreme

28 Points for the Leica SmartPole China uses Leica ADS40

Geospatial Imaging saves Giant Pandas

GNSS for the Future

AFREF Project Support

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Imprint

Reporter: Customer Magazine of Leica Geosystems

Published by: Leica Geosystems AG, CH-9435 Heerbrugg

Editorial Office: Leica Geosystems AG, CH-9435 Heerbrugg, Switzerland, Phone +41 71 727 34 08, reporter@leica-geosystems.com

Contents responsible: Alessandra Doëll (Director Communications)

Editor: Agnes Zeiner

Publication details: The Reporter is published in English,German, French and Spanish, twice a year.

Reprints and translations, including excerpts, are subject tothe editor’s prior permission in writing.

© Leica Geosystems AG, Heerbrugg (Switzerland), September 2007. Printed in Switzerland

Ola RollénCEO Hexagon and Leica Geosystems

The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems | 3

>>

World’s Busiest Airport

by Rekha Voralia

With the capacity to handle 30 million passen-gers and big enough to fit 50 football pitches over its five floors, London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (T5) is one of the largest and most ambitious building and engineering projects in Europe. Built with precision, accuracy and speed Leica Geosystems has been trusted as the sup-plier of choice in helping to deliver the world’s busiest airport.

The € 6.3 bn project consists of the main terminal building, 2 satellite buildings and 60 aircraft stands, and has required the diversion of 2 rivers, the realign-ment of a perimeter road, extensions to the London Underground Piccadilly Line and Heathrow Express, a dedicated M25 spur road and a 4'000 space multi storey car park.

Working in partnership with a team of contractors, Leica Geosystems has played an important role in delivering precision and accuracy to help meet the

stringent standards demanded by BAA, and the flex-ibility to help overcome the unique civil engineer-ing challenges associated with the delivery of such a complex project.

UK’s tallest control tower The new 87 metre high, fully operational control tower at Heathrow is the tallest control tower in the UK and provides air traffic controllers with a 360° view of Heathrow’s airfield and the land between the T5 buildings. Construction of the structure was one of the most technically challenging engineering projects ever carried out at the airport. The site itself is in the middle of Heathrow’s airfield, surrounded by existing aircraft stands and adjacent to one of the busiest taxiways in Europe, therefore it was vital that building be achieved with the highest degree of accuracy and precision with no impact on Heathrow’s existing day to day operations.

The position of the top of the cab, the lifting yoke and the lifting towers totalling a weight of over 1'150 tonnes, were all continuously monitored throughout

4 | Reporter

the project using Leica GeoMoS software, which gave a real-time positioning accuracy of 10 mm.

“Real time monitoring gave the team the ability to lift accurately and monitor the process constantly with total confidence” quoted David Rolton, Chairman of Rolton Group, who were responsible for the tempo-rary works design.

24/7 RTK correction capabilityWith such a compact and constantly changing site, permanent control points were difficult to sustain. Therefore in order to maintain the highest degree of accuracy and control it was decided by the T5 project team to erect two permanent dual-frequency Leica GPS Spider controlled Leica System 500 GPS refer-ence station receivers. “The base stations provide both continuous RTK measurements for site based GPS units and precise measurements for post-processing positioning. With both base stations, control points can be checked or re-established to within better than 5mm in absolute plan position anywhere on site. Having two base sta-tions enables wide radio coverage and continuous back up facilities,” says Graham Clarke, Chief Land Surveyor T5, Mason Land Surveys.

Graham continues, “The ease and speed of ‘one man’ operation with the Leica GPS 500 make it the instrument of choice for most surveyors working external to the buildings. The system is independent of the site control network making it ideal for as-built checks on medium accuracy (+/-25 mm) works. The rapid surveying of buried locations during the earth works phase of construction would have been impossible without GPS.”

Leica High Definition Surveying technology was also used to create 3D object based as-built surveys where the accuracy of objects such as fence lines and lampposts are critical and could only be achieved using high speed laser scanning.

Bored tunnelWith millions of passengers, passenger coaches, car-go vehicles and other airport vehicles estimated to use T5 every year it was vital that the existing trans-port services were extended to cope with the rise in throughput. Morgan VINCI, a joint venture between Morgan EST and VINCI Construction Grands Projects,

won the contract to construct the tunnels associated with the project including:

Airside Road tunnelHeathrow Express extensionPiccadilly Line extensionStormwater Outfall tunnelA3044 service tunnel

Ranging in diameter from 2.9 m to 8.1 m, various tunnel boring machines were used to excavate the tunnels. At one point along its route, the tunnelling team were just metres away from existing under-ground services. Careful monitoring and safety mea-sures ensured that there was no unexpected ground movement or disruption to existing services. The sur-veying and monitoring of both the Heathrow Express and Piccadilly Line extensions used Leica GeoMoS and Leica TCA2003 total stations on a fibre optic network.

Even groundThe earthworks associated with the project were vast and presented a multitude of challenges for the CA Blackwell Earthmoving Division. Thousands of tonnes of earth had to be excavated to enable the underground structures for the rail station, baggage systems and service tunnels, as well as the main foundations for the terminal and satellite buildings to be built. To maximise on-site productivity and to ensure accuracy and control at every stage of the project, CA Blackwells turned to Leica GradeSmart 3D. The onboard Leica GradeSmart 3D solution gave CA Blackwells real-time grade and project informa-tion that allowed the dozers to continually moni-tor, control and grade levels automatically without the need to wait for an engineer to put pins in the ground before grading could begin – thus allowing the site to be graded much more quickly and effec-tively than with traditional methods.

Stringless 3D pavingThe next generation of commercial aircraft will be larger and heavier than even today’s Boeing 747s and the demanding tolerances of concrete slab lay-ing required at both the new T5 and other areas at London Heathrow Airport meant that AMEC Civ-il Engineering and BAA specified the use of Leica Geosystems’ revolutionary 3D Machine Control System for Slipform Pavers. This five-year project deployed the world's first entirely stringline-free

The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems | 5

paving system at a major international airport. After installation of the systems, the Leica Geosystems 3D systems have put an end to stringline guidance deliv-ering huge cost savings with a better quality surface, laid with precision, reliability and speed and boosting onsite productivity.

As the five year, multi-billion pound, multi-disciplined programme of works draws to an end, the sheer size and complexity of build is clear to appreciate. Construction had to contend with the multifaceted

challenges associated with such a large and signifi-cant site that brought together a multitude of dif-ferent contractors and suppliers all working with the same goals and objectives to fulfil and exceed BAA’s stringent standards of design and safety. Built with precision, accuracy and speed Leica Geosystems has been trusted as the supplier of choice in helping to deliver the world’s busiest airport.

Contractors: AMEC Civil Engineering, Balfour Beatty, CA Blackwell Ltd,Mason Land Surveys Ltd, Morgan VINCI Joint Venture, Rolton Group.

Leica Geosystems Instruments and Software used:

TPS and GPS surveying instrumentsHigh Definition Surveying™ scanner Leica System 500 reference receivers3D machine control systemsSoftware solutions including Leica GPS Spider and Leica GeoMoS.

Project facts: Europe's largest building site, employing around 6'500 people.T5 will significantly boost Heathrow Airport’s existing passenger capacity.Over 13.5 km of tunnels have been constructed as part of the project including extensions to the Piccadilly Line and Heathrow Express.T5 is the largest single span building in the UK.

Terminal 5London Heathrow Airport

6 | Reporter

by Deborah Whiting

Leica Geosystems redefined the word “support” when it assisted the California Highway Patrol’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team (MAIT) at the recent fiery collapse of a major San Francisco-area overpass. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) not only deployed one of their five Leica ScanStation 3D laser scanners with them to map the scene, but alerted Leica Geosystems who responded by dispatching an application engineer to help them collect and process the accident scene data.

The accident occurred in the early morning hours of Sunday, April 29th, when a gasoline tanker truck carrying over 8'600 gallons crashed on the “MacAr-thur Maze”, an approach to the San Francisco-Oak-land Bay Bridge, igniting a 3'000°F (1'650°C) fire and causing the I-580 overpass to collapse onto an inter-state below.

The CHP was on the scene within minutes of the incident and once it was safe, MAIT members set up the Leica ScanStation and systematically scanned the scene, collecting high-accuracy laser scan data from the ground to the top of the destroyed over-pass. Leica Geosystems’ application engineer arrived on scene a short time after scanning began and was on hand to assist the CHP if needed in document-ing the scene – a process that didn’t end until after midnight.

Recording forensic evidence to map the complex 3D-accident scene was further complicated by contrac-tors demolishing the overpass as MAIT members were scanning the scene. The California Highway Patrol team stayed just ahead of the demolition crew. Lieu-tenant Dave Fox, MAIT’s Team Manager, said Leica ScanStation greatly increased their data-collection productivity and provided them with a much denser dataset than they could gather with conventional methods.

Forensic Laser Scanning at Bridge Crash

The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems | 7

“The ScanStation enabled us to be very mobile and efficient while collecting very detailed data,” said Lt. Fox. “Typically we can acquire 500 to 1'000 points; with Leica 3D laser we collected millions. We couldn’t have collected that kind of information without laser scanning.”

The Leica ScanStation also enabled the CHP to col-lect data more safely, said Tony Grissim, Leica Geosystems’ Forensic Account Manager. “There were many areas at the scene where it was unsafe to walk. Since Leica ScanStation allows you to acquire data remotely, MAIT officers could rapidly document critical sections of the infrastructure from a safe dis-tance.”

Grissim also facilitated the interest and support of Caltrans (California’s Department of Transporta-tion) to use the high-accuracy scan data for its on-going analysis and reconstruction of the overpass failure. Once the CHP finished scanning the scene,

Leica Geosystems’ application engineer acquired a copy of the data and hand-delivered it to Caltrans the following morning. In the following days Leica Geosystems continued its support and provided both Caltrans and the CHP with the technological resources and expertise they need for their complex investigation.

Lt. Fox is scheduled to speak at the upcoming Leica Geosystems HDS Worldwide User Conference which will be held Oct. 22 to 24, 2007, at the Marriott Hotel, San Ramon, CA (San Francisco Bay Area). More details to be found at www.leica-geosystems.com/hds.

8 | Reporter

Travel Diary Southern Africaby Stephane Kaloustian

Stephane Kaloustian, application engineer in the Leica Geosystems Monitoring Team in Heer-brugg, and M.C. Briers from Geosystems Afri-ca spent a 2-week support and training trip in Southern Africa to perform new installations and maintenance tasks at various open pit mines. Not an ordinary workplace – not even for a Leica Geosystems specialist. For the Reporter, Stephane took some travel notes.

Sunday, 20th May 2007Take off from Paris under a greyish rainy sky. The plane is almost empty. The flight attendant explains that it is the low season for tourism.

Monday, 21st MayArrive at Tambo International airport at 7:00 am, bright clear sky and chilly wind – Johannesburg is at an altitude of 1'650 m. M.C., responsible for Monitor-ing Solutions at our dealer Geosystems Africa, joins me and we take off for Walvis Bay, Namibia, in a regional jet.

Landing in a low jet in the middle of a desert is impressive. Even the tarmac looks like it is covered with sand. The Walvis Bay airport is very small, administrative formalities are fast and it takes no time at all to realize that half the passenger’s lug-gage is still in Johannesburg! “T.I.A. – This Is Africa”, says M.C. with a laugh. It is the first of a long series of T.I.A.’s…

With a rental car we drive to Swakopmund, closest city to the Rossing Uranium Mine. Curiously, the hotel is named “Schweizer Haus” (Swiss House) – Namibia used to be a German colony. The sights are amaz-ing.

Tuesday, 22nd MayWe start off around 7:00 am and the temperature rises quickly as we drive inland through the desert. Later I’ll learn that we are quite lucky that the wind is coming from the (cool) sea, not from the (hot) land. All along the road, a 60 km long pipe transports water from the Swakop River to the mine. After the unavoidable Health and Safety Executive induction, Dave, Chief Surveyor of the Rossing Uranium Mine, welcomes us and shows us his brand new air-con-ditioned instrument hut. He also offers me safety shoes (remember: my luggage is still in Johannes-burg). We focus on troubleshooting radio communi-cations between office and instruments.

I realize that the habit of having lunch is not as wide-spread as I thought. Fortunately, eating dried meat all day long seems to be more common. Around 2:00 pm, the whole pit and its surroundings have to be cleared: they are going to blast in three different places. Dave finds a nice viewpoint for us so we can experience the gigantic dust cloud, the noise, vibra-tions and smell. The radios don’t communicate any better after the blast... We drive back to the hotel at sunset, passing springboks along the way, and have dinner under the lighthouse. My bag has finally arrived at the hotel.

The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems | 9

Wednesday, 23rd MayHurray, we can communicate via the radios! A blown fuse caused the difficulties. Now we can set-up the monitoring system itself and train the customer. This day is much more satisfactory than yesterday. Driving back to Swakopmund in the evening, we see ostriches on the side of the road.

Thursday, 24th MayWe leave Swakopmund at 7:30 am, heading for Navachab Gold mine, 150 km to the northeast. There we receive a warm welcome from Efraim, the Chief Surveyor and his colleagues. This installation is not new; we will upgrade their very old system. Thanks to Gerald, the most cooperative IT manager I have ever met, we have free access to all the servers we need. The upgrade and verification path is stressful. While the customer is peeping at my screen, M.C. is trying to determine the deadline to leave in time to catch our plane in Windhoek. Gerald, understand-ing the complexity of server versions and settings, with a grin offers to look for accommodation for the

night. Fortunately we don’t have to accept his offer, as everything finally works well. We will support this customer on the phone for the next days when he starts looking more closely inside his new system. We reach Windhoek in time for check-in, but actually the plane takes off with a delay because of uneven luggage weight distribution. T.I.A… We land at Tambo International around 10:00 pm.

The next day is filled with meetings at Geosystems Africa’s new headquarters. M.C. and I travelled through South Africa and Botswana together for another week. We drove more than 3'000 km in his VW Golf – through the bush, on highways and dirt tracks, sleeping here in a hotel, there in a national park. I can’t forget the feeling of beauty, space and freedom I got on this continent. The constraints of distance and communication I experienced there make me value the work and spirit of the Leica Geosystems Africa teams even more now than before.

All the monitoring installations Stephane and M.C. vis-ited were in open pit mines. In order to optimize ore production, mining engineers tend to design pits with increasingly vertical walls. The combination of Leica Geosystems TPS instruments, Leica GeoMoS soft-ware and GPS sensors allows for centimetre-level long-term monitoring of prisms installed on the pit’s walls. The Leica GeoMoS results are archived on secured database servers and forwarded to the geology and geotechnical departments who have to decide whether the pit is safe or not.

Mine monitoring

10 | Reporter

by John Reefman

The Association of the Waterschappen (Water Boards) in the Netherlands consists of 27 mem-bers without whom it would not be possible to live in this country, where more than a quarter of the land mass lies below sea level. The water boards maintain a vast number of features in the field such as bridges, culverts and fish lad-ders. Using Leica MobileMatriX, and customizing its functionality, the water boards have created a very fast and efficient workflow for collecting information on new and existing features.

The Dutch water boards are responsible for three main tasks: Management and maintenance of water barriers such as dunes, dikes and quays, water man-agement in terms of quantity and quality, as well as water control and flood defence, and management of waterways and roads. The organization, together with the software company AQUAGIS, has developed an information system called Integral Water Board

Waterschappen Trust MobileMatriX

Information System (INTWIS) that is based on Leica MobileMatriX, ESRI's ArcGIS and ArcSDE and uses an Oracle database to store the data. Today, many members of the Dutch water boards use INTWIS and by 2008 every member will be part of it. Keeping the information up to date is extremely important and both feature geometry and administrative attributes must be carefully managed. Most of the water boards employ surveyors to carry out the updates.

Historical Process: difficult and slowUntil now the processes for measuring and updating features in the field was time consuming. From the central INTWIS database, the data was exported into different formats compatible with the existing sur-veying systems. This workflow created a number of different problems:

Simultaneously collecting and updating adminis-trative information and feature geometry was the most difficult task. Poor integration of the GIS maps used in the office and the surveying systems used in the field slowed

3D Model in ArcMap

3D Model in ArcScene

The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems | 11

the project's progress. Check out and check in of data from the central database was not possible or not streamlined. After field data collection information needed to be reconciled with the central database. This often meant performing a number of conversions before importing the data to the central database – in some cases data was actually entered by hand.

As a result, four water board members teamed up with AQUAGIS to build a system that provides the functionality required in the field. A needs assess-ment identified the following requirements for the new system:

Automated reconciliation of data for check-out and check-in. Support for TPS, GPS and digital level systems. Functionality that supports the process of collect-ing water board related features such as profiles and water-related constructions such as siphons, wells, dams and weirs.

New Process: simple and efficientBuilding on these requirements the project team chose to develop a system based on ESRI's ArcGIS in conjunction with the Leica MobileMatriX extension. This combination provides the functionality needed for the first two requirements, as well as a strong base for implementing the third requirement that is specific to water boards.

The functionality customized for the water boards incorporates the surveyor into the process of measur-ing and collecting administrative features in the field. For instance, when measuring a waterway profile, codes have to be attached to the measured points. To streamline this process the surveyor is presented with a dialog that enables coding by simply click-ing on features in the map display. This speeds up measurements and collection of administrative data. Similiar productivity increasing dialogs were devel-oped for the water-related constructions such as siphons, wells, dams and weirs. These dialogs make efficient use of attribute domain values for selecting valid administrative attributes.

About the author: Johan Reefman is a surveying engineer and geomatics expert at the Watershap Regge en Dinkel.

The water board Regge en Dinkel uses MobileMatriX and ArcGIS to generate 3D models of water retention areas. They use a total station with MobileMatriX to collect surface points and breaklines. Following the fieldwork, data is processed with ESRI's 3D Analyst extension for ArcGIS and visualized with ArcScene. The use of MobileMatriX for field data collection saves the water boards approximately one working day. It normally takes about a day to process and convert field data. The combination of MobileMatriX and ArcGIS allows 3D models to be generated in half an hour.

3D Models with Leica MobileMatriX

12 | Reporter

Tunnelling and Paving with Leica Geosystemsby Stefana Vella

True internationality is demonstrated on the EastLink Project, a tolled freeway project link-ing a large area of Melbourne's eastern and south-eastern suburbs. It is part of the city’s Metropolitan Ring Road project and is due to be completed in 2008. A strategic alliance between

Australian surveying company Surex Pty Ltd, German tunnel guidance system supplier VMT and Swiss survey equipment and solution manu-facturer Leica Geosystems, has played an impor-tant role in the construction of tunnels. More-over, Leica Geosystems 3D Paving Solutions play their own role – on the 40 kilometers linking Melbourne’s east to Frankston Freeway.

Not only the tunnels, but also the road construc-tion at the EastLink project is done with Leica Geo-systems state-of-the-art technology. Boral Asphalt uses the Leica Paving Control Systems on the 40 kilometre EastLink stretch between Melbourne’s east and Frankston Freeway. This is the first time the Leica Paving Control Systems have been used in Australia on asphalt. Michael Negri, Executive Man-ager, Eastlink Project, Boral, explains that whereas the initial motivation for looking at the technolo-gy was driven by the cost efficiencies gained on a large project such as this, the quality of the results this technology has delivered is unprecedented.

“The rest of the Eastlink Project employs the latest guidance technology and we were therefore keen to work on a similar platform particularly with the efficiency and quality benefits the Leica Geosystems technology delivers. There is no doubt the Leica Geosystems solutions have taken us (paving) into the 21st Century.” Negri says that in the past the asphalt industry has worked from the base up. “What we wanted to do was work to finished levels the whole way through the project. The Leica Geosystems technology enables us to do that. This was particularly important given the specification is based on finished surface levels.”

40 km Freeway

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Thiess John Holland Group is building the 1.6 km long twin tunnels, using an evolutionary concept devel-oped by VMT, a company specialising in underground construction, particularly tunnelling. The VMT guid-ance system is combined with Leica Geosystems total stations, creating an Australian benchmark in the use of this technology for the construction of the road tunnels.

Site surveyor manager Allan Henneker, who is also the Director of Surex, the surveying company on the tunnel, says he has never worked on a project where such a high degree of excavation accuracy is achieved with this type of machinery: “We have five ATM1O5 and MITSUI SLB00 road headers on this project which are directed by the VMT system and Leica System 1200 total stations (TCRP1203). The levels of speed and accuracy we are achieving are really outstanding. There are many options on the market, but none are reporting productivity and accuracy at the same lev-els as the VMT and Leica System 1200 solution.”

Work under harsh conditionsVMT’s guidance system is being used on excavators with hydraulic hammers, road headers and Atlas Cop-co bolter systems; in all, there are eight VMT solu-tions on the tunnel component of the project. The Leica TCRP1203 interfaces with the various equip-ment as required and, says Henneker, “can not only do the task from a technical perspective, but can handle the harsh conditions of working underground

including moisture, dust, vibration and temperature fluctuations and operating 24/7.”

Alex Hoefer, system engineer from VMT, has been on the project for some months now. “The VMT soft-ware and the Leica System 1200 are the eyes of the system. The software guides the Leica TCRP1203. It is constantly following the machines, measuring distances and feeding information back to the sys-tem via wireless connection to form a profile. This provides the machinery operators with confidence that they are working to the plan. Most of the time it is impossible for operators to see what they are excavating and they have to rely completely on the system. This equipment makes a massive difference to the operator’s role and speed of operation.”

Twenty-four/seven support philosophyThe support of both VMT and Leica Geosystems, through its Australian distributors CR Kennedy & Company, has been invaluable, says Henneker. “When you are working with a new concept, the more help available the better. VMT and CR Kennedy have that twenty-four/seven philosophy which is essential giv-en the project literally works around the clock.”

Around the world VMT works with Leica Geosystems total stations for its entire tunnel works. There are more than 400 guidance systems in total and about 100 projects on the go, the majority of which are in China and Europe.

No more stringlines The Leica Paving Control System removes the manual components of the job: no more stringlines and pegs, no more inputting point positions. The plans can be directly downloaded into the system, controlling the machine’s hydraulics enabling responsiveness and accuracy. “The physical work on the project is vastly reduced with this technology,” says John Dowsett, Paving Supervisor. “The process before required us to obtain pavement depths through survey or the use of stringlines. You can imagine a project like this with 40 km pegged at 20 m; it becomes a tedious job, prone to mistakes. This new system works inde-pendently as it registers and achieves its own levels without us manually having to control it.”

14 | Reporter

Dave Nixon, pot-holer and explorer, member of the British

I was invited to join the National Geographic Society “Untamed Rivers” expedition team to East New Britain (Papua New Guinea) in 2006. The objective was to explore some karst fea-tures in a remote part of the Nakanai Mountains within the large limestone massif, which rises to an average of 1'000 m and was last visited by westerners in 1984.

Our initial destination was a tiny village called Ora about 30 km North of Pomio. Based here, we intend-ed to explore, survey and photograph as much as we could in the hope that amongst other things we could influence the powers that be to designate the area as a world heritage site.

Apart from being in complete darkness in the caves, water in its various forms was going to be the major potential problem in an area where they record enor-mous annual rainfalls. With few surface streams, all

that water flows underground in this neck of the woods. In practical terms this means that we had to deal with cave passages of considerable size acting as conduits for 10 cumec (cubic metres per second) sized rivers. Thus having an atmosphere constantly at 100% humidity not to mention the major head-ache of keeping your Leica DISTO™ out of the water while trying not to get washed away was going to be a challenge.

Leica DISTO™ gives safetyI recall several legs where I was neck deep in power-fully flowing water, clinging on to the wall with one hand and firing my Leica DISTO™ up and downstream with the other as we leap-frogged our way into the unknown. This would have simply been impossible using a tape. I guess you could say that Leica DISTO™ has made things safer too as we didn’t stick our necks out nearly as much as we would if there was only one way of surveying.

We also found that being in a hot/humid environ-ment it was difficult to keep the lens area free from

Leica DISTO™Goes Extreme

Caving Team, about his experiences with the Leica DISTO™.

The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems | 15

condensation and water in general. This led to lim-ited leg lengths as the optical clarity side of things became far from ideal.

Added to this was the fact that the target wasn’t always a flat bright reflective surface. We’d made up some laminated sheets of A4 paper but often we’d end up using notebooks, tackle bags, flat clean rocks and even our helmets. Over very long distances it was very difficult to keep the dot on the target, especially when you’ve been in the situation described above for a couple of hours and you’ve got a bad case of the shivers.

Fantastic recall facilityThe recall facility on the Leica DISTO™ is just fantas-tic in these circumstances. It’s bad enough getting the readings; no one wants to know what’s involved in getting the notebook out as well as the Leica DISTO™. In these big river caves the noise can some-times be unbearable and I spent a considerable time for the first time in my life caving with earplugs in. Something as basic as shouting 37.42 metres to the

man with the notebook becomes a massive problem. Bear in mind that to make up a meaningful survey of the cave you need to take detailed distance readings at every station to the left wall, right wall, the roof and the floor.

Considering the amount of water and general abuse our distinguished Leica DISTO™ were subjected to, they never once let us down and I can honestly say, I consider that they went far beyond their call of duty and it’s a complement to the workmanship and qual-ity of Leica Geosystems equipment.

Seven new caves foundBy the time it came to returning from the plateau back to the coast we’d had a very successful expedi-tion – finding seven new caves, one of them now identified as the second longest cave in New Britain and extending others considerably. The statistics for the expedition were a very respectable 12'562 m of new passages over a vertical range of 442 m and all measured using the Leica DISTO™. A big "Thank you" to Leica Geosystems from the cave surveyors!

16 | Reporter

by Agnes Zeiner

The regional water authority or “Wasserwirt-schaftsamt (WWA)” Deggendorf in Lower Bava-ria, Germany, monitors around 100 groundwater measurement stations over an area 18 km wide on each side of the river Isar, between where it joins the Danube and the village of Oberpoering. The points are often several hundred metres, sometimes kilometers, apart and are not always intervisible. In order to be able to take relia-ble measurements of groundwater levels, it is necessary to determine the position, and above all the height, of each monitored point to an accuracy of +/-2 cm. A task for surveying and geoinformation consulting engineers Schrock and the Leica SmartPole!

WWA Deggendorf was able to obtain the position and height of all but 28 of these stations using GPS. These remaining points represented a particular chal-lenge: Their locations, some in areas where signals are obstructed, made reliable GPS measurement impossible. Schrock was commissioned to survey the missing 28 points. He decided to use the Leica SmartPole. “Just as in traditional surveying projects for water board offices – which may involve river profiling, surveying of kilometer markers along rivers or, as is the case here, groundwater measuring sta-tions – the strengths of the instrument soon become apparent,” explains the head of the consultancy, Robert Schrock. “By using the Leica SmartPole you are no longer tied to the geometry of fixed points. The freedom of choice of control points ensures that surveying can be carried out in situations where

28 Points for the Leica SmartPole

Das Magazin der Leica Geosystems | 17

intervisibility is seriously restricted. The switch bet-ween GPS and total station modes takes place at the touch of a button. A GPS point can be used straight away as a control point and as soon as the sta-tion coordinates have been calculated the instrument turns towards further GPS control points. Therefore when carrying out single-person surveying you can use the minimum number of clear lines of visibility to survey the stations and optimise their geometry.”

Setup on the fly“Lost” control points, levelling benchmarks kilome-ters away or overgrown riverside vegetation are no problem for the Leica SmartPole: “The control points are checked using terrestrial surveying methods and this immediately gives you the deviations of the indi-vidual independent GPS measurements. In the event of deviations, perhaps through unfavourable GPS points, it is a simple task to measure additional con-trol points,” says Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Schrock. This also increases the level of accuracy of the survey. Some of the 28 monitoring stations were in wooded areas, but here as well it was possible to survey from at least three control points, which were either in clea-rings or on an embankment. There was no need for time-consuming traverses.

Main activities: Construction and engineering surveyingHydrographic surveyingPipeline surveysCadastral surveying

Proprietor: Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Robert Schrock, Accredited Expert in Construction Surveying

Founded: April 2005

Schrock Surveying and Geoinformation Consulting Engineers, Geiselhoering/Germany

One-Man-Surveying made easySchrock decided in favour of Leica Geosystems instruments many years ago: “You simply could not wish for more; from well-designed instrument boxes to customer support. The specifications of the GPS, total station and digital level components are fully compatible with one another and they can be inter-changed without any problems. The modular design allows us to expand our range of equipment in stages, which is particularly important for the financial liqui-dity of a newly established practice.”

Commercial considerations also influenced the head of waterway management at WWA Deggendorf, Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Siegfried Brunner, and Robert Schrock: “All the points could be picked up using one-person surveying techniques!” Services location records, watercourse profile measurements and earthworks surveying are the next activities for which Schrock will use the Leica SmartPole.

China uses Leica ADS40

18 | Reporter

by Richard Xu

The Chinese ShanXi Province Bureau of Survey-ing and Mapping expected an economic benefit when they purchased a Leica ADS40 Airborne Digital Sensor approximately a year ago. In terms of process flow and precision index, the sensor has achieved an unprecedented breakthrough for the Bureau. In only four months (October 2006 to January 2007), digital image acquisition for an area of 6'800 km², orthophotography using georeferenced data, ground feature data and ground elevation data collection were com-pleted. Precision and quality of the Leica ADS40 imaging data and the digital map were other major benefits gained during the project.

By order of the ShanXi Bureau of Surveying and Map-ping, the Aerial Surveying Department of ShanXi Project and Mapping College collected the data from October to November 2006 and the data was pro-cessed by their Information Center. Orthophotogra-phy data had to be delivered at the beginning of 2007, by which time results also had to be entered

into a Geo-database. This meant only three months were available from the installment of the equip-ment and flighttest to the submission of the results. The team not only faced a new technical challenge with the Leica ADS40, but also a very tight delivery schedule.

The area to be imaged included all types of terrain such as mountains, hills and plains. In addition, in order to develop a “real photographic image”, vir-tual 3D scenery was established. Among them, in old built-up areas like Ping Yao, a side lap of 80% for various flight lines was required. The ground sample distance (GSD) was fixed at 8 cm.

Data collection conditioned by clouds, fog and sunThe team flew over eleven different areas from Octo-ber to November and accumulated a rich store of data and experience. Most of the area of ShanXi Province is located more than 1'000 meters above sea level – the mountainous area takes up over 70%. During this season, it is often foggy in the mornings and evenings. Collecting data under such bad weather

The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems | 19

conditions tested the capability of the Leica ADS40 system. Local weather data and GNSS constellation information were used in the preparation. On sunny days, the team adopted the high altitude image pho-tography flight plan to conduct rapid data collection in large areas. On overcast days, if the cloud cover was high and did not influence low altitude flight, the flying height was changed and low altitude image photography was implemented to exploit the capa-bility of the cameras. Two airplanes and four experi-enced pilots collected data for this project.

Processing of ground data with Leica GPro and Leica IPASThe Leica GPro v3.2 data processing software was used to download data and to generate orthopho-tos. For this purpose the team relied on the highly precise radiometric and geometric calibration param-eters provided by Leica Geosystems. They also used orientation data calculated with Leica IPAS Software and data from reference stations to rapidly perform digital image processing. The processed data results could be transferred directly to third party software and used to produce additional imaging products.

Benefits of modern mapping instrumentsThe project proved the easy handling of the Leica ADS40 system, even for new adopters. With the application of Leica ADS40 Airborne Digital Scanner by the Chinese mapping industry, the traditional way of production has completely changed. The benefits of modern mapping instruments reduce the complex-ity and the production cost of the mapping industry, as well as improve the pace and quality of produc-tion. Thanks to excellent product performance and perfect system integration, the national mapping industry has come to rely more and more on Leica Geosystems Aerial Surveying instruments.

About the author: Richard Xu works as Technical Manager, Airborne Sen-sor Division in Leica Geosystems AG, Beijing Repre-sentative Office.

With the Leica ADS40 sensor system, one flight simul-taneously captures panchromatic, true color and col-or infrared multi-band data, avoiding the repeated captures necessary when working with traditional film. The system encompasses highly precise physical parameter models and the IPAS Inertial Positioning & Attitude System for direct geo-referencing. Togeth-er these greatly reduce the heavy work intensity of aerial surveying in the open country. Compared with traditional aerial surveying, time consuming tasks such as developing film and scanning negatives are eliminated. Even cloudy days with lower illumination did not detain the team from collecting data as nor-mal. Thanks to the parallel arrangement of 12 linear CCD arrays and the wide angular field, the effective range of photography is broadened, reducing the necessary number of flight lines and the flight time, resulting in lower data acquisition costs. The Leica FPES Flight Planning & Evaluation Program and Leica FCMS Flight & Sensor Control Management System

Fewer flights, lower costs

expedited the project as well. At present, ShanXi Sur-veying and Mapping Bureau has realized an all-digital operation, from flight plan arrangement design to rapid processing, storage and compiling of ground data. It is the leading Chinese department in the field of domestic aerial survey technology.

20 | Reporter

Melissa Songer, Ph.D., manager of the Conservation

GIS Lab for the Smithsonian National Zoological Park (the

National Zoo) Washington, DC, uses Digital Imaging.

In July 2005, many Americans were delighted by new reports about the birth of Tai Shan, a Giant Panda, at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. This was a momentous event bought about by years of collaborative effort between reproduc-tive biologists and veterinarians from the U.S. and China. Using Digital Imaging, Chinese and American experts are also working together to save the habitats of the Giant Panda in the wild.

Giant Pandas are one of the world’s most endangered mammals and those kept in captivity, including nine in the U.S., serve as an “insurance policy” against extinction. Although much excitement accompanies every zoo birth of a Giant Panda, the ultimate surviv-al of the species depends on having a self-sustaining population in China. Thus, the National Zoo in Wash-ington puts a lot of effort and funding into research and capacity building for panda reserves in China.

Tai Shan’s parents were both born at the China Research and Conservation Centre for the Giant Pan-da at Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province, one of nearly 50 protected areas in China. There are an estimated 1'600 pandas remaining in the wild

according to results of China’s national panda survey published in 2004. Pandas rely almost entirely on bamboo for their nutrition and therefore have very specific habitat requirements. Through the years, climate change and human activities have severely reduced the amount of panda habitat remaining. In the last 30 years alone, it has decreased by almost 25 percent – from 29'500 km² in 1974, down to 23'000 km² in 2004.

Travelling With Technology to ChinaWhen the National Zoo received Tai Shans parents Mei Xiang and Tian Tian from China in 2000, they became ambassadors for a much larger mission. Beyond the excitement and educational opportunities provided by their arrival, a primary objective for the Nation-al Zoo was to work to improve the Giant Panda’s chances for long-term survival through research and capacity building. Soon after the arrival of the pan-das, we began to hold workshops with our Chinese colleagues to collaborate on research projects and to support their panda conservation efforts. Train-ing with geospatial technology was identified early as one of their top priorities – they recognized that imagery would be critical for wildlife management and research analysis projects.

At the Zoo’s Conservation GIS Laboratory we began working with our Chinese colleagues to adapt our applied GIS training course, “GIS and Remote Sens-

Geospatial Imaging saves Giant Pandas

The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems | 21

ing for Wildlife Managers,” for use in China. Modules of the course are based on data that’s specific to local panda research. For the past five years, we have travelled to China to present the course in pan-da reserves for staff working there and in forestry departments, as well as for researchers from science academies and universities. We see rising interest in protecting China’s pandas and using technology to speed up and improve conservation efforts.

Geospatial TrainingThe course provides step-by-step instructions for using Global Positioning System (GPS) units to col-lect data on the ground, the Leica ERDAS IMAGINE® software suite to rectify, view and mosaic imagery, and GIS software for analysis and data presentation. During the course, we try to make our case studies as realistic as possible, using examples from differ-ent reserves to give the students a good sense of what we do in assessing a protected area.

For example, one module is designed to illustrate how panda survey data can be used to assess habitat selection. Prior to habitat analysis, the students start by learning how to extract areas of interest from a satellite image. After they have extracted the data, they learn how to perform an unsupervised land cov-er classification using Leica ERDAS IMAGINE®. Once they have the basics of image classification, they move to the next module for habitat analysis.

The habitat selection analysis is based on data col-lected during surveys of panda dung and recorded via GPS in Wanglang Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province. Other data layers included are habitat, elevation, roads, and streams. By combining databases using spatial joins, querying attributes, buffering features and searching databases, the students identify what habitat characteristics are most important to pan-das. Next, they use these characteristics to map suit-able habitat. These modules teach students impor-tant operations as well as encourage them to think about the possibilities of using remote sensing and GIS in their own reserves.

Working TogetherWe hope that a side benefit of this training will be increased collaboration among the reserves to share data and findings. Staff members from most of the reserves have attended our training and are famil-iar with geospatial concepts and potential for their projects.

As geospatial technology becomes an ingrained part of research programs in China, it can be used to examine the living conditions and challenges fac-ing other endangered species sharing giant panda habitat, such as takin, golden monkeys, and even red pandas. Once the skills are learned, it is only be a matter of introducing new data layers and using the same analytical approach to understanding the data.

Tai Shan will return to ChinaThe birth of Tai Shan is an achievement shared by both National Zoo and Chinese conservationists. It’s anticipated when the cub is old enough he will be returned to China. Due to the great success of cap-tive breeding programs, China is now moving toward releasing captive born pandas into the wild, where we hope they will enhance the sustainability of the wild populations. He may only be one small bear, but Tai Shan is a symbol for the future, illustrating how we can work with together, using geospatial tech-nologies as our communication medium, to improve cooperation and understanding and help save the Giant Panda.

Melissa Songer can be reached at songerm@si.edu.

22 | Reporter

by Patrick Tuckerman, Boguslaw Swiatkiewicz and

Nicolas deMoegen

The Survey and Land Registration Bureau (SLRB) of the Kingdom of Bahrain fully trusted in Leica Geosystems when establishing a Perma-nent Reference Network of GNSS Receivers using Leica GPS Spider and Leica SpiderWeb Software, Leica GRX1200 GG Pro Receivers as well as Leica AT504 Choke Ring Antennas. The system provides continuous, accurate, real time position information to surveyors and other users requiring high accuracy positioning. H.E. Shaikh Salman Bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, Head of SLRB enthused that “this project is central to the Bureau’s aim to further develop the survey and mapping infrastructure of the Kingdom. This system positions Bahrain alongside other leading countries that have implemented similar systems.”

The system uses information from the Global Naviga-tion Satellite System (GNSS). Each reference station acts as a fixed, known location which, when com-bined with the information collected from the other permanent stations in the network, enables the deri-vation of a very accurate error correction model for Network RTK positioning.

Reference stations are established at Amwaj, Hawar, Scout Camp and King Fahd Causeway through the generous support and cooperation of the site own-ers. Data from each reference station is transferred to a central control unit at the Topographic Sur-vey Directorate (TSD) office. Leica GPS Spider with SpiderNet software then processes the raw data to issue correction information to the users in the field via mobile phones.

“The network arrangement is a significant improve-ment on the previous GPS techniques utilised by SLRB, bringing numerous benefits to field survey operations,” said Waheed Ahmed Hadi, Director of TSD. “We have also refined our three-dimensional transformation to maximise the benefit of the sys-tem for horizontal and vertical survey tasks.” The system operation is now well under way and is rou-tinely used by surveyors to position themselves with an accuracy of a few centimetres anywhere within Bahrain.

With the extreme summer temperatures in Bahrain, special consideration was given to providing suit-able housing for the equipment. The Leica GRX1200 GG Pro receivers are housed in high quality, air-con-ditioned, sealed cabinets. The system has already passed a major test of durability in the Arab sum-mer. An electrical storm accompanied by high winds passed through the region on 29 March 2007. The only indication that this storm affected the GPS pro-cessing was a small spike in the usually very low number of cycle slips.

More information is available at www.slrb.gov.bh

GNSS for the Future Scout

Causeway

Amwaj

Hawar

TSD36 km

29 km

44 km

43 k

m

72 km

72 km

BAHRAIN

Joel van Cranenbroeck, Leica Geosystems, (2nd from

left) explains the reference station to the Minister

of Natural Resources, Environment and Lands.

The Global Magazine of Leica Geosystems | 23

AFREF Project Supportby Agnes Zeiner

The African Geodetic Reference Frame (AFREF) is conceived as a unified geodetic reference frame for Africa – the fundamental basis for the national and regional reference networks. In March, the first permanent GNSS reference sta-tion was launched in Kenya. Leica Geosystems supports the project with its knowledge, as well as via donation of a complete system.

Currently, African countries each maintain their own geodetic reference system. In the past, this resulted in mismatched maps at national borders or even in the same country; in Kenya alone there are currently two different mapping coordinate systems in use. The African Geodetic Reference Frame (AFREF) shall build a fundamental basis for a continent-wide refer-ence network system, consisting of permanent Glob-al Navigational Satellite Systems (GNSS) stations. The goal is to provide users free access to GNSS data and products, with a maximum distance of 500 km from the next reference station – anywhere in Africa.

Reference Station Network to guarantee Peace and DevelopmentIn March, the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resourc-es for Development (RCMRD) established the first permanent reference station in Kenya as part of the AFREF project. “As we move toward more regional integration and adopt regional approaches to peace and security, environmental management, trade and industry, we require maps that are accurate- both within each country and also across national bound-aries. This will now be possible through the estab-lishment of a common geodetic reference frame”, stated Prof. Kivutha Kibawana, Minister of Lands in Kenya, during the opening ceremony.

Global company to support AFREF projectLeica Geosystems supports the AFREF projects with both its knowledge, and financial sponsorship by

donating the complete system. The entire network consists of a Leica GRX1200 Pro GG receiver, a Leica AT504 GG Choke Ring antenna and the Leica GPS Spider Software and Site Server as well as the Leica GNSS QC Software for permanent quality control and data analysis.

Joel van Cranenbroeck, Business Development Direc-tor GNSS at Leica Geosystems says: “AFREF will serve both the sub-Saharan region and the international community. It will increase capacity, modernize and harmonize geodetic reference networks in the coun-try, thus strengthening survey work and providing accurate data to support the private sector as well as business and policy makers. As a global acting company, it is within our interest to help establish a geodetic network for Africa with the most advanced technology!”

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