Magazine for Surveying, Mapping & GIS Professionals

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Making GPS Measurements in the French AlpsBuilding Apps with the Esri PlatformAutomated Point Cloud ProcessingRain, Destruction and a Modern Mapping Stack

Magazine for Survey ing, Mapping & GIS Profess iona l s Janu

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GeoInformatics is the leading publication for Geospatial Professionals world-wide. Published in both hardcopy and digital, GeoInformatics provides cover-age, analysis and commentary with respect to the international surveying,mapping and GIS industry. GeoInformatics is published 8 times a year.

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Editor-in-chief:Eric van Rees [email protected]

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GeoInformatics has a collaboration with theCouncil of European Geodetic Surveyors (CLGE)whereby all individual members of everynational Geodetic association in Europe willreceive the magazine.

Although the beginning of the new year is the ideal occasion to look forward, I´d like to take a moment to do the exactopposite. Let’s look back and discuss an intriguing blog post that appeared in August 2015 called “Why is GIS stillstuck in the 1990s” (1). The author of this post works in the retail property sector which, according to him, lacksprogress in GIS as vendor case studies have not changed since the early days of GIS. The reason for this stag-nation, according to the author, is a lack of competition in the GIS sector and competition, he believes, wouldautomatically lead to innovation. Although Google has disrupted the GIS market, he thinks that it is notenough to lead to evolution.

This is an interesting post for many reasons. The most significant point in his train of thought, which Iwould like to draw attention to, is what is said about innovation. A recent O’Reilly Media publicationon this subject explains a lot about what´s happening in the geospatial industry of today (2).Primarily, there is absolutely no lack of competition in the GIS industry (in fact, it has become a highlyaggressive market in terms of acquisitions) and there’s a reason for that: the last sentence of the bookstates that innovation is the only defense and the only long-term strategy for survival for a company.This explains why the biggest GIS company spends so much on R&D – there´s simply no other way tostay ahead of competitors and survive.

Barlow states that almost every large company has developed some kind of program or process to smooththe path for innovation, such as encouraging employees to submit ideas for new products or businessprocesses. This wasn´t the case twenty years ago in the GIS industry, but it is now. An excitingrecent example is a blog post on LinkedIn by John-Isaac, who is now Director, ProductManagement - Geospatial Big Data (GBD) at DigitalGlobe. He approached the GBD teamof DigitalGlobe when he saw the time was right to build better products. His current goalis to find ways to integrate evolving technology with products and solutions in highly-scal-able ways so that today's business user can easily leverage it. Stuck in the 90s? I don´tthink so.

Enjoy your reading,

Eric van Rees

(1 :) https://capioit.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/why-is-gis-still-stuck-in-the-1990s/

(2 :) “Innovation: Discovering Processes for Bringing New Products to Market” by Mike Barlow, O’Reilly Media.

Photography: www.bestpictures.nl

Why Innovation is a Necessity Edito

rial

January/February 2016

A r t i c l e s

Building Apps with the Esri Platform 6

What Next for the Geospatial Industry? 8

Rain, Destruction and a Modern Mapping Stack 12

Automated Point Cloud Processing 14

Social Location Search Tools 16

Safe Software releases FME 2016 18

A Matter of Centimeters 22

A 3D Web Sharing Service for Cities 24

Spherical Displays and Earth Visualizations 32

GNSS Update 34

B o o k r e v i ew

Getting to Know ArcGIS 27

C o l umn

2016 A Year of GIS Opportunity 31

E v e n t s

Bentley’s Year In Infrastructure 28

I n t e r v i ew

The Status of Topographic Mapping in the World 20

News l e t t e r s

European Maps and Land Information 36

CLGE 38

C a l e n d a r 42

Conte

nt

On the cover:Jacques Blanc, surveyor from Avignon, on the top of the Barre des Écrinsinstalling a Trimble R10 GNSS receiver.

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See article on page 22

6Location technology is becoming increasingly

important. Not only consumers, but also businessesare discovering the power of location technology,

resulting in a growing number of developers moving to the Esri platform and the associated

building apps. This article describes Esri’s ongoinginitiatives and engagement with the developer

community, as well as new and upcoming technology releases.

16Over the past two years Echosec has evolved fr-om a simple, and accessible map-based searchtool, into a three-tiered solution that connects

users with information and solves real problems.Echosec is enabling users to leverage the powerof big data, and to provide situational aware-ness to government, military, law enforcementagencies and many others who depend on theresults for critical decision making and security.

22In the summer of 2014, an expedition was organized to make precise GPS measurements ofthe Massif des Écrins’ summits, a mountain in theFrench region Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur. This article describes the preparation, data collection

and results.

20Professor Gottfried Konecny from Leibniz UniversityHannover sent us his report to the United Nations,the UNGGIM Secretariat in New York, which wasprinted after the completion of a joint project by

ISPRS and UNGGIM on the Global Status ofTopographic Mapping in the World. He also senta blog, which Albert Endres, his study colleague from Ohio State University in the 1950´s, and

himself have recently produced in the form of an interview about this project.

28Earlier this winter, 54 finalists presented their innovations at Bentley’s Year In Infrastructure in

London for the ‘Be Inspired Awards’.

Article

Article

Interv

iew

Article

Event

Location technology is becoming increasingly important. Not only consumers, but alsobusinesses are discovering the power of location technology, resulting in a growing num-ber of developers moving to the Esri platform and the associated building apps. This arti-cle describes Esri’s ongoing initiatives and engagement with the developer community,as well as new and upcoming technology releases. By Eric van Rees

Building Apps with the Esri Platform

IntroductionOver the last few years, Esri has put a lot of effort into engaging withdevelopers. This engagement has been deliberate and is connectedwith Esri’s web GIS vision and related technological developments.GIS has developed from a back-end technology to something thatcan be used for everyone within an organization; especially now thatan increasing number of the differing divisions within businessesunderstand the benefits of location and mapping. For Esri, this hasmeant that its existing client-server technology has had to be exten-ded to make it easier for everyone to work with GIS. Euan Cameron,Chief Technology Officer Applications and Runtime at Esri, explainsthat the company is now in a transition phase where GIS technologyis taken beyond traditional uses, allowing users direct access to theinformation products that are being produced.

There are two types of developers Esri is targeting: firstly, there´s thetraditional GIS developer, who is building for the enterprise.Secondly, there´s the non-traditional GIS developer – people whounderstand the power of location and understand how they can useit in products that they´re building. Although the majority of the peop-

le who visit the Esri Developer Summits are traditional GIS developersalready familiar with Esri technology, more and more non-traditionalGIS developers are realizing that location is important and are deve-loping applications that build on location. “We´re starting to see anexplosion of developers coming to the Esri platform for this reason”,says Cameron.

App development: writing web and native appsThere are a number of different options for developers to engagewith Esri technology through apps. Firstly, there are the APIs(Application Programming Interfaces) and SDKs (Software DeveloperKits), which require programming, as opposed to configurable appsthat do not. From a platform perspective, apps can also be dividedinto native and web apps. Native apps have been developed for useon a particular platform or device, whilst web apps run on all plat-forms.

ArcGIS JavaScript APIAll of the capabilities of the ArcGIS platform are accessed throughdeveloper APIs, says Cameron. For web apps running within a brow-

Engag ing w i t h Deve l ope r s

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Euan Cameron

ser, the ArcGIS JavaScript API is very important as it guaranteesreaching as many people as possible, which means everyone with abrowser: “If your audience is broad and your functionality is alwaysin a connected environment, then web applications are a great wayto go”, says Cameron.

With such a large audience, it’s logical that there´s a big develop-ment effort around the ArcGIS JavaScript API: Esri previewed the newArcGIS API for JavaScript 4.0 during the latest Esri Developer Summitin Berlin. It showed lots of support for 3D, which is another one ofEsri’s big initiatives with software releases such as ArcGIS Pro andArcGIS Earth. Cameron explains the focus on 3D at Esri: “Someareas of the world are definitely already thinking “3D first”. We wantto make sure that 3D covers the entire platform. It´s no longer a spe-cialist running on a workstation machine: people want to be able tolook at 3D content in browsers as well as on their devices, so we´reworking hard on the technology to do that.”

Discussing the new ArcGIS JavaScript API, Cameron adds: “The nicething about the new ArcGIS JavaScript API for 3D is that it is writtenusing WebGL, which stands for Web Graphics Library. This is aJavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D computer graphics and2D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use ofplug-ins. Furthermore, the API has been simplified and has lots ofcommon patterns shared with Quartz release of the Runtime SDKs.You can also read and write web scenes and web maps with it.”

Writing native appsGoing native happens as soon as you want to work disconnected orwant access to some of the capabilities of the platform that the brow-ser doesn´t give you access to. ArcGIS Runtime SDKs help develo-pers build and deploy native applications to a variety of popular plat-forms and devices. Built natively from the ground up using C++ andGPU acceleration, ArcGIS Runtime SDKs expose the full capability ofthe ArcGIS Platform to mobile, desktop, and embedded devices.They enable everything from simple map display or routing to advan-ced analysis.

Cameron explains how writing a native app works: “If you're wan-ting to leverage an application that is disconnected from the plat-form, you'd use our Runtime technology. Depending on the platformyou're on, you can use one of the native APIs, iOS or Android forinstance, or .NET on Windows platform. Alternatively, we do havesome cross-platform technologies: we've got QML, and we have theApp Studio product, which is built on top of our QML API. That's atechnology that allows you to write your application once, boththebasic business logic and the UI, and then you can compile it specifi-cally for these devices.”

QuartzThe next generation of ArcGIS Runtime, entitled Quartz, was also dis-cussed in detail during the Berlin event. This is a major release thatwill include many new capabilities, as well as new and enhancedAPIs and an improved internal architecture. The release will includeworking with maps, scenes, portals, and layers for 2D and 3D. Thegoal of this release is to support the ArcGIS platform and supportArcGIS Engine developers moving to ArcGIS Runtime. APIs across allArcGIS Runtime platforms will be synchronized and the release willsupport specific user workflows.

Cross-platform .NET development with XamarinAt the Esri Developer Summit in Berlin last November, a preview wasshown of Xamarin, a third-party software suite for cross-platform.NET development. It is to be released next year, but there’s a lot ofexcitement already in the Esri developer community, mainly becausethe vast majority of Esri’s native developers today are using .NET onWindows: “it’s a tough challenge across the development world tobe efficient supporting all different Android and iPhone devices. Withour upcoming .NET SDK, we will ship Xamarin pieces that allowdevelopers to write their code and quickly move it from a Windowsphone to an iPhone or Android. Xamarin allows .NET developers totake their C# or VB.NET developments, use Visual Studio as the deve-lopment tool, but compile natively down to Android or IOS.”

Esri Developer subscriptionsEsri’s applications and technology are more focused on the enterpri-se, which is logical because that´s where existing users are and arebeing supported. The development of consumer-based applications isleft to business partners and app developers. The way Esri helps appdevelopers build on Esri technology was changed once the companyrealized that developers wanted easy access to Esri technology tobuild applications. Now, the company offers free developer subscrip-tions, which might no longer be free once an app is deployed tocustomers: “the idea is if you´re being successful, then you´re goingto pay for the use of the Esri platform.” For device apps that are being developed for complete offline use,there´s another model where one would have to actually purchasesdeployment licenses. There are no costs for deploying an applicationperforming fairly simplistic things, such as having a map inside yourapp, but if you´re using some of the more advanced features such asrouting offline, you´ll have to pay a deployment cost. “Here, the ideais that you only pay if you´re selling your app”, says Cameron. In conclusion, Cameron has some advice for building a successfulapp: “there are already a lot of apps out there. A lot of our app deve-lopers are building apps that possibly embrace similar concepts.Ultimately, if you're a developer and you're building an application,if you make that application fun to use, you've got a much betterchance of it actually catching on. Go to any app store and there'smultiple apps that you can download to do a certain task, but there'ssome very successful ones and there's some not so successful, butthat's par for the course.”

For more information, have a look at: http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis andhttps://developers.arcgis.com/en.

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Our industry is evolving rapidly and in the last two years we have seen impressive hard-ware releases from the main manufacturers, all designed to speed up and enhance thecapture of data. But should the geospatial industry, manufacturers and users alike, nowbe focusing on how technology handles this data and in particular, how technology canturn this data into something even more usable? KOREC’s Managing Director OliverBrooks thinks so.By Oliver Brooks

What Next for the Geospatial Industry?

Over the past 12 months there have been plenty ofopportunities for us to learn about where our indus-try is heading, from the presentations at Trimble’sDimensions event to Intergeo’s conference program.At all of these events a clear message came

through; we can capture more data than ever before – a 3D laserscanner can collect a million points a second, a mobile mapping sys-tem a whole street and buildings in just 12 seconds – but new oppor-tunities lie not in the capture of the data, but in what can be derivedfrom this data, namely answers, knowledge and added value for ourclients. This message in particular has been reinforced by numerous industryjournalists, manufacturers and of course surveyors. Turning data intoknowledge was also the central theme of Trimble’s Lee Braybrooke atour own recent technology days and is a subject that’s definitelyworth our closer attention. The geospatial industry is well served byreports and white papers and of particular interest to Lee was the“Future trends in geospatial information management: the five to tenyear vision – United Nations Initiative on Global Geospatial

Information Management” report. Amongst other things, this usefulpaper highlights six key future trends that will impact on our industry.Below we’ve examined them and asked ourselves ‘what next?’ ineach particular case.

2D-3DThe report emphasizes that the trend of moving from 2D to 3D andon to 4D visualisations is both user and technology driven and willaccelerate in the next five years. Clients are likely to expect morecomplex and realistic 3D models to enable better planning and deci-sion making. In short, the report states that 3D will increasingly be anintrinsic part of the core geospatial data rather than a distinctiveaddon as it is now. It is these expectations that have driven the demand for 3D laserscanning which in turn have pushed manufacturers to develop scan-ners with higher specifications to meet these new requirements, forexample: • a desire for increased speed of data capture, breaking the mil-

lion points per second barrier.

Manag ing More Da ta Than Eve r

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A scan of Titanic Belfast shown in Trimble RealWorks, ScanExplorer and Sketchup Pro.

• a scanning capability beyond the 100m mark AND a consistentlevel of accuracy across the entire dataset and no degradationof accuracy with range.

• usability which is key to maximizing take up of scanner use.Consequently we have seen some notable new products on the mar-ket that meet these new trends, Trimble’s TX8 being a good examplewith its incredibly high scan rate, usability and very low scan times.

What next?The real power of these high specification scanners come when theyare paired with other software solutions. For example, the picturesshow a scan of the tourist attraction Titanic Belfast shown inRealworks, Trimble’s 3D scanning visualisation and manipulationsolution. With this point cloud project saved in Realworks, it can be opened inScanExplorer, Trimble’s extension for SketchUp Pro. ScanExplorerallows us to use the scan data to rapidly construct highly accurate 3Dmodels from point cloud data; simply click in the interface to con-struct points, lines or even planes. The end result is a model of theattraction in SketchUp suitable for construction work etc.

Mobile MappingIn the past few years we have seen a considerable drop in the cost ofentry for mobile mapping systems as well as an increased range ofunits available as they become smaller and easier to transport andinstall on vehicles. The KOREC mobile mapping portfolio reflects thiswith 3 options including the MX2, a twin or single headed mobilemapping solution. The MX2 can be mounted on a car, a boat or asany visitor to our tech days would have seen, a buggy! What’s more,the operation of the device is very simple – it is connected to a laptopin the vehicle, not a complicated computer rack.

What next?In the picture we can see MX2 scan data loaded into Trident(Trimble’s software solution for handling and processing mobile map-ping datasets), showing a section of road where vegetation hasencroached on the roadway and grown out of control. This poses athreat to road users, particularly on blind corners. Using Trident’s cle-arance measurement tools, we can classify the particular area of inte-rest and then transfer it via our cloud servers to a handheld GNSSrunning K-Mobile data capture software. Field workers can then be

sent immediately to theexact location to rectify theproblem. Our partnership with aLondon based BoroughCouncil is a perfect exampleof how an end to end solu-tion can turn data into know-ledge. Using a general purpose KOREC K-Asset

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MX2 scan data

management system, the council will not onlyhave a complete inventory of an estimated onemillion assets with a full inspection history, butalso a scheduling tool to assist in producingwork schedules to ensure that every asset isinspected exactly as planned.

UASsCosts are coming down, UAS are easier to useand different sensors are opening up even moreapplications. We are also seeing increased inte-gration into “survey methodologies”. All of thesefactors have driven the enormous surge in theUAS market over the last twelve months and interms of product, there’s plenty of variety outthere covering both fixed wing and multirotoroptions with a range of cameras.

What next?We are starting to see the first steps towards360° applications as geospatial professionalsadd value to their offering by looking to provideknowledge as well as maps by completing thefull ‘fly, analyse, act’ circle. eCognition Essentials is Trimble’s easy to useentry level image classification software. It iscapable of transforming image data into usableintelligence thanks to the hard coding of all the standard rules of landuse and identification and it will play a major part in the future forthose that wish to provide answers rather than just data. Add to thisa KOREC software feature that sufficiently compresses aerial data foruse on handheld GNSS and we have in place a full 360° solution.This 360° approach has already been used for applications as diver-se as topical medicine research programmes, farming crop analysisand landfill site monitoring. For example in the landfill application,areas of land where gas is escaping have been pinpointed usingaerial imagery. This data can then be taken into the field on a hand-held, the area navigated to and the gas captured for re-use.The picture shows how eCognition Essentials has been used on aerialimagery to check the percentages of plant and soil as a potato cropgrows. This enables the farmer to identify problematic/underperfor-ming areas that can then be treated individually with additional ferti-liser.

ImagingTerrestrial photogrammetry is having a resurgence due to an incre-asing demand from the end customer for imagery deliverables and

also the growing adoption of photogrammetrictechniques into data capture workflows.Additionally, as geospatial information becomesmore widely used outside our core areas of busi-ness, pictures can provide a vital extra level ofunderstanding to a survey. Many total stationsnow come with an integrated, calibrated digitalcamera whilst Trimble’s V10 goes further to pro-vide an integrated camera system that preciselycaptures 360° digital panoramas for efficientvisual documentation and measurement of thesurrounding environment. Already popular withthe police for forensic work, this type of techno-logy will again increase in popularity as BIM-for-infrastructure becomes more important.

What next?In a word, modelling, another way to add valueto data.In the picture is a V10 panorama that has beenregistered in Trimble Business Center; this parti-cular example is for bridge monitoring. Theregistered panoramas can be used to measureand extract data. Simply click in the images tocreate geometry. Once created, this geometrycan be exported to Trimble SketchUp directly,where further modelling can take place.

GNSS ubiquityWe are likely to see 90 GNSS satellites in orbit by 2016 and over120 by 2020 allowing us to survey in more locations than ever befo-re. Frequencies and signals will change, for example GPS L.1 willchange to L.1c. The signals will contain new and additional informa-tion and will require more power to process. These developments area timely reminder to future proof our GNSS investments if we are toachieve true productivity.

What next?Again we can turn our data into knowledge and provide answers.For example, a Trimble R10 GNSS was used to survey a proposeddrainage channel running alongside of a roadway in an area withpatchy mobile coverage – that means patchy RTK corrections. TheR10’s xFill fills in the corrections providing survey grade accuracyuntil mobile coverage is regained. Next, this data can be loaded into the Advanced Drafting module ofTrimble Business Center allowing the user to perform design worksuch as producing measurements for increasing the channels capaci-

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Captured data can be transferred via the cloud to handheldGNSS running K-Mobile data capture software in the field and

acted on immediately.

eCognition Essentials has been used on aerial imagery to check the percentages of plant and soil as a potato crop grows.

ty and presenting this as crosssection schematics for the siteengineers.

Using the cloudThere is a growing need forgeo information resources tobe accessible to anyone,anywhere, anytime. Using thecloud lowers costs by remo-ving heavy weight infrastructu-re and allows for any numberof applications includingcloud based data collection,equipment management orcloud-based data transfer con-necting the field and office.

What next?The future is online and it’s inthe cloud; we can expect tosee more collaboration, moresharing of data and a continu-al live loop between user anddata provider. It means thatinformation sent from the fieldcan be pushed straight intodecision support software andacted upon immediatelysaving time and increasingefficiency.A useful example is the incre-asing take up of rapid datacollection using mobile map-ping systems. Processing datafor a large project can taketime with the client waiting forupdates and progress reports.However, courtesy of soft-ware such as KOREC’s K-Asset web based software,

whenever a change is made to the system, or a recordamended, or checked data becomes live, all users willsee the most up to date information available. Regularreports are not required because the customer is con-tinuously receiving data via the cloud. The picture shows a screen grab from a recent projectshowing in yellow, the first road to go ‘live’.

And in conclusion…… it would seem that our ability to capture data is nolonger an issue. Now we have new challenges; theseinclude applying our skills and the technology availa-ble to us in ways that allow us to change our collecteddata into usable knowledge to provide answers andadd value to our offering.

For more information, have a look at: www.korecgroup.com.

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Trimble V10 panorama in Trimble Business Center and Trimble SketchUp.

A screen grab from a recent project showing in yellow, the first road to go ‘live’.

Rain, Destruction and a Modern Mapping Stack

The StoryFor our readers outside ofthe UK we’ve had somerain recently, and yes I canalready hear some of youasking “but I thought itnever stops raining in theUK?” Jokes aside we doget quite a bit of rain, andthat’s normal. 2015 andspecifically Decemberhave not been normal,they’ve both been the wet-test on record. I’m notgoing to forget this for awhile, as having consumedmy Christmas dinner &grumbled about how it wasstill raining, I went to sleeponly to wake up to a lakeoutside my front door(Figure 1).

This, as it turns out, was aprelude of what was tocome for my local town ofYork. While our issue wascaused by a small pum-ping station being unableto cope with the volume ofwater, another more funda-mental piece of equipment,the Foss Barrier, was aboutto fail on the other side oftown. We were fortunate in that our small floodrequired only the use of waterproof boots, formany in York though the sudden end to theirChristmas became clear as the ground floor oftheir homes and businesses were destroyed.

More Refined InformationWhile through pure luck our house was spared,we feared the worst, and I found myself constant-ly monitoring the Environment Agency’s websitelooking at flood warning areas and river levels,trying to figure out if we too should evacuate. The

trouble is, like many data-driven government websi-tes, I found it difficult tonavigate, needing to jumpback and forth betweenpages, and has informa-tion spread not only acrossits site, but in multiple for-mats and styles.

Alteryx the EngineThankfully the EnvironmentAgency provides all thedata they collect via APIswhich can be accessed byanybody without the needfor pesky authentication.Using Alteryx to connect tothese APIs I was able to dotwo things. First downloadall areas classed as floodalert, flood warning andsevere flood warning (i.e.your house is about to beflooded). Then I expandedthese areas by a mile andspatially matched the resultwith a list of river levelrecording stations againprovided by theEnvironment Agency.Finally, with a list of appli-cable river stations I down-loaded seven days worth

of readings giving me two datasets, river levelsand flood areas.

Mapbox the CanvasThe visualisation I had in mind combined the riverlevel data with the context of which areas of thecountry were most in danger, something I hadn’tseen from the Environment Agency. For a custombackground map the only answer is Mapbox(and if you’ve got Tableau 9.2 it’s super easy tointegrate thanks to its addition to the ‘MapServices’ menu).

The Power o f A l t e r yx , Mapbox and Tab l eau

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A modern mapping stack needs to be quick and easy to create, integrate and update.Just as Tableau and Alteryx can plow through any and all data from parsing to visu-alising, with the addition of Mapbox taking on GIS is just as simple. Here’s howCraig Bloodworth recently put it to use.By Craig Bloodworth

Figure 2.

Figure 1.

Using Mapbox Studio Classic the data is easy to upload as a zippedshapefile. Once there all you need to do is write some CartoCSS sty-ling information against it. For my flood area layer, the result can beseen in Figure 2. Notice how you can ‘filter’ your styles based on thedata in the shapefile. In this case the severity level for each polygon

determined which colour was used.Once uploaded and ingested by Mapbox it’s ready to use inTableau. It of course needs a basemap of land, rivers, roads, buil-ding, etc. and for that I took Mapbox’s Emerald style and modified itby removing many of the filled areas to allow focus on the floodedareas.

Tableau the PublisherAnd so all the pieces were ready to put into Tableau and publishedto Tableau Public. Figure 3 combines the background flood map fromMapbox with the river level data to show the trend of each river inthe affected areas with reference to its typical range and previoushighest recorded level. In Figure 4, a polygon map of the flood alertareas combined with a bar chart allows for easy exploring of pro-blem areas across the entire country, allowing the user to get eachalert and description for the areas of interest using the tooltip.Finally I wanted to better understand the river level trend across anentire region of rivers (or across the whole country) to try and identifyhotspots. For this I made use of a horizon chart which shows rivers 1-5 times over their typical high level (Figure 5).

Keeping it FreshFor this to be a modern mapping stack used for an ever changingevent the data must of course be easy to update. For Alteryx it’s justa case of running the workflow as often as needed. With Mapboxhaving the data and the style separate in your studio account meanssimply using the replace function in the data section, with the upda-ted shapefile from Alteryx. Job done.

Craig Bloodworth, CTO & Tableau Zen Master.Internet: www.theinformationlab.co.uk.

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Figure 3.

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

The cloud can be used to process raw 3D data into directly usable features and layers.Although this work is still outsourced to manual annotators by many tech companies,Civil Maps shows that it can be done fast and with a high level of accuracy.By Eric van Rees

Automated Point Cloud Processing

Converting raw 3D scan datainto GIS layers is the corebusiness of Civil Maps, acompany from Silicon Valley.What sets the company apart

from competitors, is that they´ve innovateda cloud-based infrastructure that can pro-cess terabytes of 3D scan data into mega-bytes of GIS layers, making large-scaleLiDAR mapping a reality. Civil Maps’ solu-tion has enabled the timely competition oflarge scale projects in the utilities, transpor-tation, energy, telecommunication, gover-nment and automotive sectors.

The technology works by pushing raw 3Dscan data into the cloud where it gets pro-cessed and classified into vectors and clas-sified points by a super computing platform.After completion, it is ready to be used by acustomers’ GIS analysts. The geospatialintelligence reports produced from 3DLiDAR data are used for solutions such asasset management infrastructure planning,change detection, feature identification andclassification and a variety of 3D models,such as elevation models and surfacemodels. Sravan Puttagunta, chief executiveofficer at Civil Maps, explains all.

“We are a provider of GIS solutions forinfrastructure planning and asset manage-ment. We identify, classify and report on3D point cloud data in a format that isexportable to the most popular GIS soft-ware. The GIS industry bottleneck is thatcontextualization of raw data does not existtoday: processing work of raw data is out-sourced to manual operators who navigatethrough the data and classify objects. Raw3D data look like a giant Excel spreadsheetconsisting of XYZ and density RGB. A com-puter doesn´t understand context from thesequence of coordinates, so we have toteach computers to contextualize raw 3Ddata into metadata which is meaningfulinformation.”

Conve r t i ng 3D Da ta i n t o G I S Laye r s

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Sravan Puttagunta

Cloud processingThe core of Civil Maps’ solution is a cloud pro-cessing procedure that returns the results backto the users’ computer. Because of the largedata volumes, it’s logical that the processinghappens through the cloud: 40 terabytes ofdata in a single job is no exception. SravanPuttagunta explains: “We use a 133,000core supercomputer to identify feature andasset descriptors in the 3D scan data. There

are 500 feature descriptors, describing primi-tives such as lines, points, textures or coloranalysis. You can think of these as Lego buil-ding blocks, that are put together in differentorders to describe an object, which are calledasset descriptors. We have 55 asset descrip-tors from using 500 feature descriptors, sotheoretically the number of possible combina-tions with those descriptors is 500 trillion. Oneach run, we assign and refine fit scores to

combinations. This enables us to intelligentlyrun the most promising combinations first andreduce the number of cycles.

Input and outputThe data that can be used for input is 3Dlaser scan data in LAZ, LAS or PTS format.The output data are classified point, andgeometric primitives (points, lines and poly-gons) that can be converted from GeoJSONto a variety of geospatial data formats. Thatdata is categorized through a self-develo-ped data model that has cities, buildings,utilities roads, rail, etcetera. For this, thecompany created a spec so that each layercan put different types of GeoJSON. Forexample, a road center line is a line stringthat´s in GeoJSON, which can be convertedto a shapefile or a DWG file. The data typethat is supported by Civil Maps isGeoJSON, which is a text format based onthe JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) for-mat and provides a standard way to definegeometry, attributes, bounding boxes andprojection information: “JSON is a methodto serialize and de-serialize an object inJavascript and is really good for web messa-ging, especially between different types ofsoftware.”

Users can leverage Civil Maps solutions byrequesting a quote that is based on the maparea and desired map features, saysSravan: “Each layer that is created has acost associated with it.” The company claimsthat its service enables 3x faster report gene-ration from 3D surveys, thanks to its ArtificialIntelligence generated graph search and256-bit encrypted file transfer. High dataquality is ensured through this self-learningArtificial Intelligence that gets smarter witheach project, combined with a third partyquality control trough a team of veteran geo-spatial analysts.

At the moment, the company is working withEsri on integration with Esri Web Apps, sothat ArcGIS users can use a web app andupload raw 3D data and get their featuresand layers returned. Partners create a self-serve website where users can communicatetheir mapping needs. Through this collabo-ration, map creation is made more fasterand easy once again.

For more information, have a look at: http://civilmaps.com.

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CivilMaps visualizer showing a raw point cloud along with annotated energy assets.

Randomly generated transmission lines in a dense forest setting.

Randomly generated transmission lines with sparse vegetation.

Over the past two years Echosec has evolved from a simple, and accessible map-basedsearch tool, into a three-tiered solution that connects users with information and solvesreal problems. Echosec is enabling users to leverage the power of big data, and to pro-vide situational awareness to government, military, law enforcement agencies andmany others who depend on the results for critical decision making and security. By Glenn Letham

Social Location Search Tools

What is Echosec?Simply put, Echosec is a service to easily search through social media, usu-ally by starting with a location of interest. The idea began as a freely acces-sible application that provided users with search results from several popu-lar social media sources.

While Echosec still maintains a free version, it has added a robustEnterprise offering as well as a pay-as-you-go, or software as a service(SaaS) solution called Echosec Pro. In both the Pro and Enterprise versionsof the software, users are provided with the capability to conduct advancedsearches using a custom “omnibar”. Searches are started by providing alocation, social media username or keyword. Users can also simply zoomin to an area on the map and draw a search over a region of interest witha polygon, rectangle, or circle on the map. The results are displayed on themap, with intuitive icons revealing the location of social media “hits.” Theuser can then filter through the results by date and social media source.The method of marking off an area on the map to search is called geo-

fencing. It’s worth noting that if you have a physical fence surroundingyour property, you probably also need a geo-fence to maintain your secu-rity. The Enterprise platform incorporates advanced filtering parametersincluding filtering by map display, multiple geo-fence locations, keywordand any alerts that have been set up. Also exclusive to the Enterprise offering is a “bring your own data” option,enabling the integration of additional custom data feeds that the customerhas access to. These feeds can include things such as real-time trafficcameras, webcams, and IP camera streams owned by the customer.

It should be noted that Echosec takes privacy issues very seriously andstrongly supports an individual’s rights to privacy. Echosec searches areconducted only on information that individual authors have made publi-cly available. What helps to separate Echosec from their competitors, isthe company’s commitment to protecting privacy, and maintaining ageneral policy of openness about how they collect, use and discloseyour personal information.

GeoTech Startup Leverages the Power of Big Data16

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Viewing search results with Echosecand the many search parameters.

All of the versions of Echosec give users an unfiltered, real-time view ofthe world. Think of Echosec as a proximity search tool for analysts andusers who want a visceral connection with the information in the areathey are searching.

Echosec and EsriAs an ArcGIS supported platform, Echosec was recently accepted intoEsri’s Emerging Business Program. The program has two huge benefits for the team. Echosec can nowleverage industry leading mapping technology to deliver a better servi-ce, and Echosec can tap into Esri’s vast commercial network. The first isobvious once you open the application, you are met with world classmaps and even better performance. The second resulted in Echosecgoing toe to toe with GIS giants at the Esri User Conference Start-upZone showcase.

UsersEchosec has become an indispensable resource for law-enforcementagencies and media outlets looking for information on global events.Defence and security applications for Echosec’s technology are ratherevident. Public safety officials use Echosec while investigating criminalactivity and to protect the public during major events.

Echosec is also used for maintaining geo-fences for large, multi-nationalcompanies. Generally, employees don’t mean to post sensitive informa-tion, but sometimes secure building schematics end up in the backg-round of their photo. Echosec helps companies educate their employ-ees, while enabling security teams to act quickly and avoid potentialinformation breaches.

Additionally, direct marketing companies can draw a geofence in anarea of interest and send offers to potential customers active onsocial media in the area. Marketers can also engage with potentialcustomers at conferences and other events across the country.Echosec makes it easy to identify social media influencers in anylocation. The Echosec team is continuing to realize the software’spotential and the huge customer opportunities that exist worldwide.

In the beginningIn his last life as a cartographer and serial entrepreneur, Echosec CEO,Karl Swannie had a client ask him to identify areas where people con-gregated. He used Twitter geotags to find major hubs. Karl was imme-diately blown away by the wealth of information, and began exploringother verticals that could leverage the social data.

Initially, Echosec was a small side project. “Two years ago we startedout with a concept. We soon realized that there was far more data thanwhat we could have conceived. We also realized the value to our clientsof our unique visualization”, says Karl Swannie.It turned out that the demand for Echosec was huge and the possibilitiesfor future enhancements were even greater. The small side project hadbecome a viable business opportunity. Karl then approached OwenMatthews, son of tech mogul Sir Terry Matthews (Mitel and NewbridgeNetworks), from the Wesley Clover Group, in pursuit of angel funding.Owen introduced Karl a group of talented engineers that were workingthrough an academic and industry collaboration set up by Owen and theUniversity of Victoria. The group’s goal was to establish new, excitingtechnologies in the Victoria tech sector. The trio was brought in to supple-ment technical and business operations as Echosec co-founders. Since those early days, the company has swelled to a savvy team of four-teen people spread over two continents. According to CEO Swannie,“We’re always on the hunt for outstanding individuals.. People that areself-motivated, focused, have ideas, and want to affect change. Peoplewho are not afraid to make major decisions, mess up, and be ready to fixit, every day. Hiring people like that will always be a challenge, but it willalso build the strongest team for the future.”The past two years have been full of unexpected events. Most notably,when the Echosec team was recognized for saving a life. Swannie notes,“Echosec has seen how GIS technology can shape the world. Just thisyear, we received a civic award from our local police department forsaving a life. We could not be more proud and excited for our future.”

The future looks brightThis year alone, Karl and his team, have been around the world tomeet with Echosec users, provide demonstrations, and deliver presen-tations. Karl even gave Ted Talk. The year has also seen Echosecform strategic partnerships with some of the largest organizations inthe world, including Esri and Motorola Solutions. A quick scour ofnews on the web reveals impressive articles and mentions from thelikes of The Globe & Mail, Guardian UK, CBC, Vancouver Sun, andmany others.

The potential uses and users of Echosec keep growing, with requestscoming in from professionals not only in law enforcement, military,and security but from local government, advertising, even the finan-cial sector. There’s no doubt that geointel, security, social mediamonitoring and the like are going to grow in importance in the yearsahead.

For more information, have a look at: www.echosec.net.

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Echosec with Jack Dangermond, President, ESRI participating in the Esri Emerging Business Program and Startup Zone at the 2015 Esri UC (Image Credit: Esri).

The Echosec team was nominated from within the Victoria Police Departmentfor the VicPD Award for providing software that enabled the Victoria Police to

help save a life.

The development of FME 2016 was driven by industry trends, user feedback, and anongoing dedication to the objectives Safe Software co-founders Don Murray and DaleLutz set from the beginning. Along with the usual improvements to formats, transfor-mers, performance, and security, FME 2016 boasts an ease-of-use that makes itsmoother than ever for users to get their data where it needs to be.By Tiana Warner

Safe Software releases FME 2016

Data FusionWeb-based formats have been sidling ontothe data landscape for a while, and 2015saw a leap in the number of available webservices and cloud platforms. The latest cloud-based engines from big businesses likeAmazon and SAP support the industry-widemovement towards a cloud-first businessmodel. In addition, point cloud formats, rasterformats, and other key data types continue toflourish, with GIS and CAD enduring as themost popular data types translated by FMEusers in 2015. With enormous volumes ofexisting data and new sensors and systemsgathering information every day, the world isstriving for data fusion across the Internet ofThings (IoT).Connecting disparate systems is the heart ofFME. To that end, FME 2016 was designed toembrace the IoT revolution. This release inclu-des support for several new formats andimprovements to many existing ones.Following last year’s leap into the world ofAmazon, FME 2016 extends its AWS supportwith a new Aurora Reader/Writer. Additional

web data is embraced through support forPortal for ArcGIS, as well as a new transfor-mer for connecting with Dropbox. FME Server2016 offers more ways to connect data acrossvarious protocols, including an SFTP Sub -scriber for sending data to SFTP sites, and anFTP Watch Publisher for monitoring changeson FTP sites. The workflow for WMS/WFScreation has also been simplified.New functionality within FME Workbenchincreases flexibility over how and when datais written. The FeatureWriter is a new transfor-mer that can output data at any point during aworkflow, making it easy to continue transfor-ming data after it is written. Controlling theoutput dataset based on layers and attributes(fanout) has also been simplified.

Simplifying ComplexitiesAs data grows in volume and intricacy, themodels used to represent it must scale to meetthe demand. Data types like XML, BIM, anddatabases are designed to handle massiveamounts of information. As a result, their for-mats can be difficult to understand and process.

Safe’s developers continue to work on ways tosimplify complex formats and operations. InFME 2016, many parameters — like thoserelating to XML and database formats — arepresented in a tree view for easier navigationthrough schema and elements. SQL queriescan now be automatically generated with aright-click, and executed inline before runningthe workspace. New user interfaces for SQLqueries and regular expressions will help alllevels of users perform advanced operationswith little effort.

Task AutomationThe purpose of automating tasks is to finish thejob more quickly than if it was done manually.This is the ongoing struggle of the developer, theengineer, and anyone who knows how to writea script. Of course, there is a threshold wherethe time spent building an automation workflowexceeds the time spent doing it manually.FME was created to make people’s lives easierthrough workflow automation. With this objec-tive in mind, the software itself should be assimple as possible to use. A drag-and-dropapproach is a start, but complex transforma-tions can still require advanced (and sometimesconfusing) configurations. The FME 2016 inter-face therefore gained some improvements tohelp streamline workflow creation. It’s easierthan ever for users to get their data where itneeds to be.One notable time-saver is the ability to savedatabase and web service connections. Afterentering credentials, users can store this infor-mation in a centralized, secure location for futu-re use. Other improvements include one-clickdata inspection, an AttributeManager forhandling all attribute-related tasks, and a book-mark navigator that makes it easy to maneuverthrough complex workflows. Further, a usercan right-click a transformer in his or her workf-low and automatically upgrade it to the latestversion, easily keeping any FME Workspace

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The new web user interface for FME Server 2016 offers many improvements to aesthetics, ease-of-use, and functionality.

Conne c t i ng t he Wor l dA

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up to date with the latest improvements fromSafe’s developers.FME Server is the hub of all automation, ena-bling users to run workflows on a schedule orin response to a trigger. FME Server 2016 hasa revised homepage that displays recentlypublished workspaces, recently run jobs forthat account, and a list of favorite workspaces.FME Cloud, the hosted version of FME Server,now has scheduling options to automaticallyrun and pause instances as needed. This auto-matic start-and-stop functionality is a time andmoney saver for users.

Data ValidationThe sheer volume of information being pulledfrom sensors and devices means users must bediligent about checking for bad data. A majorfocus of FME 2016 is on quality control.Sophisticated attribute validation can be donewithin a single transformer, the Attribute -

Validator. A new Reader type has also beenadded for reading an FME Workspace (.fmw)file like any other format. This gives users gre-ater knowledge of their workflows and canhelp in managing a complex setup.To automatically detect bad or deviant data,many transformers will flag what’s wrong asthe features pass through the <Rejected> port.In FME Server, any configured notificationswill now flag why a job failed.FME Server also has automatic validation forconnection settings when creating subscrip-tions and publications. Even FME Cloud has anew feature to keep workflows runningsmoothly: custom alerts on the dashboard,allowing the user to be notified when aninstance is low on resources.

Getting Started Without FrictionFor FME 2016, a big effort was put intomaking it easy for new users to get started,

and for existing users to find the resources theyneed. Part of this is a new start page in FMEWorkbench, which has interactive demos tohelp new users build their first workspace. Inlate 2015, a new FME Knowledge Centerwas launched, offering resources and a placeto connect with other FME users. Articles, tuto-rials, videos, sample workspaces, and docu-mentation can all be found in the same place,along with online training and webinars. FMEusers can create a profile, then ask questions,offer answers, vote, comment, and followtopics and profiles. The idea is to make iteasier for the FME community to share tipsand connect with experts.FME Server is easier to install and license,making the process refreshingly quick andpainless. The new licensing system lets usersactivate an FME Server installation in a fewseconds by pressing a button — a huge impro-vement. Distributed installations have alsobeen made easier. Within an FME Serverinstance, file cleanup tasks can now be confi-gured through the Web UI. This is intended tohelp with troubleshooting by correcting a fulldisk before it happens.

Discussions with the FME CommunityIn 2015, an ongoing conversation with FMEusers determined much of where FME 2016would go. This was first explored with a phy-sical idea board during the FME World Tour2015, and then through a Trello board,where anyone could submit an idea online.A key part of the new FME KnowledgeCenter is Ideas Exchange. Safe Software co-founders Don Murray and Dale Lutz, alongwith the development team, regularly brow-se all submitted ideas and comment onthem. These ideas helped shape severalFME 2016 features. Moving forward, muchof what goes into an FME release will conti-nue to be determined by its users. The peop-le who use FME every day are the ones bestqualified to decide what needs to be impro-ved and where the software should go next.Between Ideas Exchange, customer surveys,conversations with users at the FME WorldTour, and other venues, the quality of ideasfor the future of FME is impressive. At theSafe Software headquarters, wherever2016 takes them — whether it’s deeper intothe web, higher into the cloud, or further outinto the branches of XML trees — the team isexcited to explore the possibilities with theFME community.

Tiana Warner, Technical Content Marketing.

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The new FME Knowledge Center contains a library of resources, a community of FME users and experts, and a place to submit and vote on ideasfor future versions of FME.

This KML workflow has been published to FME Server; in the background, the data is viewed in real time in Google Earth. A few new features canbe seen in this screenshot of FME 2016, including transformer upgrades in the sidebar, the bookmark navigator in the top toolbar, and one-click

inspection on the ‘intersections’ feature type.

Professor Gottfried Konecny from Leibniz University Hannover (Germany) sent us hisreport to the United Nations, the UNGGIM Secretariat in New York, which was printedafter the completion of a joint project by ISPRS and UNGGIM on the Global Status ofTopographic Mapping in the World (Figure 1). He also sent a blog, which Albert Endres, hisstudy colleague from Ohio State University in the 1950´s, and himself have recently produced in the form of an interview about this project. An adaptation was made from thisinterview for this publication.By the editors

The Status of Topographic Mapping in

Q: You, Gottfried , have been enga-ged in geodesy and cartographyduring the last 60 years. Todaythese topics are considered as partof geoinformatics, covering dataacquisition, storage, analysis, visu-alization, interpretation and distri-bution of geospatial data. Since youare still active in these fields at anage of more than 80 years, I wouldlike to ask you a few pertinentquestions. Informatics and geoinfor-matics are closely related. Theyboth contribute significantly todevelopment of the modern world.Do you see this in a similar way?

Gottfried Konecny: When I beganmy studies of geodetic engineering atthe Technical University of Munich in1950 geodesy was considered as thefundamental science for surveying andmapping. Friedrich Helmert (1843-1917), the founder of the PrussianGeodetic Institute in Potsdam (1872)and the founder of the InternationalGeodetic Commission (1886), whichlater became the International Association of Geodesy, defined geo-desy as the discipline to measure and to display the earth´s surface.Already in the 1950´s it was clear that new survey technologies, likeelectronic distance measurement, would replace the classical angularmeasurement of triangulation, or at least supplement it. This includedthe use of electronic computers, which began in geodesy in 1955. Itis due to this rapid computer development, that surveying and map-ping has now become geoinformatics or geomatics. Geoinformaticsis of course a small part of informatics, from which we draw enor-mous benefits, since it permits us partial automation of our work pro-cesses.

Q: Since your study years photogrammetry was the predomi-nant method to generate bas data for mapping. What is the

role of digital photogrammetrynow? Which role plays satelliteimagery? How is the updating ofmaps carried out?

Gottfried Konecny: Photogrammetryhas been used for mapping sinceWorld War I, when a mapping camerafor overlapping images has becomeavailable in 1915. During World WarII maps of vast areas of the globe(Europe, Asia) have been generatedindependently by all nations involved inthe war. This was only possible by pho-togrammetry. After the war many deve-loping countries have received accessto photogrammetric technology throughtechnical cooperation (in which theNetherlands played a primary role).About 25 years ago analog film came-ras were replaced by more efficientdigital cameras. I addition, since about15 years, high resolution satellite ima-ging systems offer additional capabili-ties for mapping. These possibilitiesmay be utilized, if the governments ofthe countries on the globe have the

financial resources for mapping and map updating and are determi-ned to do so. It is clear, that a country coverage by maps takes sever-al years. Our study shows, that a desirable map update at the scale1:25 000 every three years is only possible in very few countries ofthe globe.

Q: To what extent play national mapping agencies (still) amajor role in surveying and mapping? Which role is played byprivate companies or single persons (crowd sourcing)?

Gottfried Konecny: There is no real alternative with respect to thenational mapping agencies, since the need is for authoritative relia-ble information for data acquisition and data distribution. Otherwisea national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI) cannot be realized. Only

An I n t e r v i ew w i t h Go t t f r i ed Kone cny

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Figure 1: ISPRS Report to UNGGIM on the Global Status of Topographic Mapping.

few countries include crowd sourcing efforts intheir data acquisition. If they do that, qualitycontrol must take place by an independentpublic institution or authority. The procedure isthen similar like for countries, in which the enti-re data acquisition is outsourced to interna-tional companies, e.g. in Saudi Arabia. Thegovernment then concentrates on specifica-tions, issue of the tenders, quality control, datamanagement and data distribution.

Q: Your report shows, that the actualcoverage of maps in the world is veryheterogeneous. That Africa lags behind isno surprise. That Siberia is fully coveredsurprises me. Is the demand different, or are there funding dif-ficulties or is there a lack of established local facilities? Howdoes the UN assist?

Gottfried Konecny: This entirely depends on the priorities set bythe countries and their financial donors. In Russia of 1917 Lenindeclared the importance of cartography. In developing countriesinternational cooperation has attempted to improve the status of thecartographic coverage. Especially France and Japan have beeninvolved in bilateral activities. Germany has been multilaterally invol-ved, even though technical geodata infrastructure was not specifical-ly supported.

Q: A special topic are cadastral data and cadastral maps. ThatGreece is lagging behind, is well known. But also Albania,Serbia, Portugal and even the USA, Canada and Brazil do notattain the level known in Central Europe. Why is this so? Arethere alternatives in these countries? England and Ireland donot use boundary monuments? Have the German surveyorsdone too much?

Gottfried Konecny: Emperor Joseph II of Austria and NapoleonBonaparte of France have introduced the real estate cadaster in the18th and 19th century for the purpose of taxation. Since the 20thcentury we also know, that the real estate cadaster is also a goodbase to update topographic data. Topo -graphic data (e.g. buildings) were for theadministration of land of equal importanceas the property boundaries.In England and Ireland the opposite appro-ach to Central Europe was chosen. The maininterest was on topography. The location ofexact property boundaries was of lesserimportance. “General Boundaries” (hedges)sufficed.The developments in Central Europe hadtheir impact in Eastern Europe. England extended its system to the for-mer British Empire including the United States. The real estate proper-

ty administration there was transferred to the lawyers as an add-onactivity, while in Central Europe it became a primary activity of thesurveyor including the maintenance of the cadastral system.The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto (*1941) has describedthe severe disadvantages if a proper land administration system is

lacking. Land, for which the legal status is notclarified, is dead capital. Therefore the WorldBank has been able to establish efficient newland registration systems in the countries of theformer Soviet Union between 1990 and2005. Now the World Bank proposes a simi-lar program for the countries of Africa andAsia under the term “fit for purpose”, in whichland registration can be quickly and inexpen-sively established.The International Federation of Surveyors(FIG) has summarized the requirements for anefficient real estate cadaster under the name“Cadaster 2014”. Unfortunately so far only40 to 50 of the 193 UN member countrieshave such a system in operation.

Q: Everyone knows, that Google Earth and Google Maps isnumber one in electronic maps. Are these based on officialdata? How reliable are they? What is the role of Bing maps,Nokia and TomTom? Did Google go too far with Streetview?

Gottfried Konecny: Google has seemingly surpassed the effort ofnational mapping agencies, but only seemingly. The generation of acartographic object structure of the data including names would havebecome, without the incorporation of purchased official authoritativedata, a non-manageable task. Where good cartographic data areavailable, Google practices their “Ground Truth Model”, which helpsto improve and update Google Maps by Streetview, aerial imagesand satellite imagery. Where official maps have not been updated“Google Street View” helps to renew them (even though it is notknown where such updates have been completed). Google StreetView is even used by Google for their own purposes, if it is not pos-sible to use the data for the public. However this is only possible withlimited geometric accuracy of about 1m for aerial images and ofabout 10m to 100m for satellite images taken in oblique direction inhilly terrain.The future of Bing maps is uncertain, since Microsoft has turned overthe project to Uber. For the navigation systems HERE and TomTomthe traffic routes with their restrictions are the priority and not the mapcontent.

Q: Nearly 20 years after your retire-ment, you continue to be professionallyengaged. Is this your method to remainfit?

Gottfried Konecny: I feel very fortunateto have made my career in the academicsector. In this sector you really never becomejobless. The Internet is a good source toobserve the progress of our profession. Then

you can attend some conferences and occasionally make a smallcontribution.

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the World

Figure 2: Present 1:25,000 map coverage

Figure 3: Ground Truth areas of Google (green)

In the summer of 2014, an expedition was organized to make precise GPS measure-ments of the Massif des Écrins’ summits, a mountain in the French region Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur. This article describes the preparation, data collection and results.By Fulvio Bernardini

A Matter of Centimeters

Prior to the 1860 annexation of the Savoy region whereMont Blanc lies, Barre des Écrins—at 4,102 m (13,458ft)—was the highest peak in France. The mountain is locatedin the French region of Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur (PACA)and was climbed for the first time by a group of British clim-

bers in 1864. Today, Barre des Écrins—which, together with neighbo-ring peaks Pic Lory and Dôme de Neige form the Massif des Écrins—remains a significant peak. It is the only peak higher than 4,000 m(13,120 ft) that lies entirely in French territory and represents a chal-lenge for many alpinists who attempt to climb it every year.

More than just a mountainIn the summer of 2014, concurrently with the 150th anniversary cele-brations of the first ascent of the Barre des Écrins, the UnionNationale des Géomètre Experts (UNGE) with his partners Geotopoand Geomesure organized an expedition to the mountain to makeprecise GPS measurements of the Massif’s summits. The measure-ments would determine the centimeter-level elevations of the threepeaks and provide baseline data for an on-going campaign to assessAlpine uplifting over time. The expedition was open to surveyors ofthe PACA region.Michel Baud, one of the organizers of the expedition recalls: “Due tothe complexity of the approach to the peak, the ascent of the Massifdes Écrins is a huge undertaking even under normal circumstances,but doable with careful preparation. On our expedition we faced

extreme weather conditions, the worst in recent memory. However, itwas important for us to succeed: for the scientific goal, of course, butalso for the personal challenge. We were all surveyors from thePACA region doing an expedition on the region’s mountains.Everything was highly symbolic.”

The expeditionThe expedition took place in two phases on separate climbs. Phase oneinvolved the installation of small metal anchors near the tops of Barre desÉcrins, Pic Lory and Dôme de Neige; these stainless steel rods—each 20mm (0.8 inch) in diameter and 10 cm (4 inches) long—featured threadedends for mounting the metal support rods and instruments during thesecond phase. Each anchor was to be placed in a hole drilled by a bat-tery-powered pneumatic hammer as close as possible to each of thepeaks. The Phase one climb took place on June 26th, and involved six members,including engineers, geologists and surveyors. The group successfullyinstalled two of the metal anchors on top of the Barre des Écrins and PicLory, but dangerous weather conditions blocked them from installing thethird anchor on Dôme de Neige. This remaining anchor was installed onAugust 13th when four members—despite the wind and cold—managedto place it on top of Dôme de Neige. Phase two began on August 27 and involved taking GPS elevation meas-urements to provide the baseline data as well as the first ever, centimeter-level measurements of the Massif. For the survey, the surveying team

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Jacques Blanc, surveyor from Avignon, onthe top of the Barre des Écrins installing a

Trimble R10 GNSS receiver.

Mak ing GPS Measu remen t s i n t he F r en ch A l p s

chose Trimble R10 GNSS receivers and Trimble TSC3 controllers.Expedition surveyor Arnaud Ollivier explains: “In addition to being preci-se, we needed instruments that would be light, resistant and easy to trans-port: you can’t support any unnecessary weight in the conditions wefaced.” In order to gain more control over the calculation and greaterprecision, the team chose post-processing to calculate results.

The Phase two group included about 20 participants and 5 mountain gui-des. The group was equipped with crampons, ropes, and carabiners.They carried laptop computers, four Trimble R10 GNSS receivers andthree Trimble TSC3 controllers. On the first day, they were to install oneof the Trimble R10 receivers on the roof of a mountain shelter located at3,175 m (10,420 ft), just below the three peaks; this receiver would pro-vide a control point for the measurements that were to be taken the dayafter, once the remaining three R10 receivers were positioned on supportrods screwed into the metal anchors on the each of the peaks. To provideaccurate geodetic reference, the survey was carried out using the InstitutGéographique National’s (IGN) GNSS network in France.

The trek towards the mountain shelter was successful: after a day of clim-bing the sun-kissed Alps, the climbers reached it and, according to theplans, installed the Trimble R10 receiver on its roof. With a difference inaltitude approximately 3,000 m (9,300 ft) between the IGN stations andBarre des Écrins, the team established the control point on the mountainshelter to reduce the chance of errors.On August 28, at about 3:30 a.m., three roped parties set off from themountain shelter in pursuit of their respective goals. Each party was direc-ted towards one of the three peaks and was equipped with an R10 recei-ver, its support rod and a TSC3 controller. To avoid having to manipulatethe devices in extreme weat-her conditions, the receivershad been configured viaWeb interface to collect dataautomatically at one-secondintervals once the climb star-ted. The TSC3 controllerwould ensure that the dataacquisition would be reliablycarried out.

After three hours of climbing,all three groups encounteredextreme weather conditions.The groups climbing Pic Lory

and Dôme de Neige were forced to stop halfway and return to themountain shelter; snow and ice had made the climb too dangerous.The third roped party was thankfully able to achieve its goal, reachingthe metal anchor on which the Trimble R10 was to be mounted, at thesummit on Barre des Écrins. They mounted the R10 onto the anchorand for about an hour collected data simultaneously with the R10 onthe mountain shelter. “The team encountered significant challenges,but despite this and the other two groups having to turn back, theymanaged to reach the summit of the Barre. It was cold and humid, butthe Trimble equipment performed excellently.” After collecting the data, the successful party headed back towardsthe mountain shelter. After a well-deserved rest, the entire group clim-bed down.

Precise measurementsOnce back from the expedition, the team post-processed the datausing Trimble Business Center software to confirm data integrity andproduce preliminary results. They sent their data to IGN where thedata was verified and corrected while taking into account variablessuch as atmosphere or variances of satellite orbits. It was determinedthat 4,102.10 m (13,458.3 ft) was the final result. A new validation campaign is expected to take place in order to col-lect direct measurements of the rock (the metal anchors had beeninstalled on the snow cover instead of the rock, due to the unusual coldweather), as well as to measure the two remaining peaks. More scien-tific expeditions are also planned in order to obtain the additionalmeasurements necessary to assess the Alpine uplifting over time. Despite the weather, the expedition was considered a success. Inaddition to having acquired the first measurement of Barre des Écrinsto centimeter precision, the expedition turned out to be an adventure,

brought awareness of thesurveying profession to thegeneral public and servedan associative purpose bybringing together the elitesurveyors of different PACAdistricts in service of a com-mon goal. And last but notleast, surveyors were able toprovide scientists with a vitaltool for monitoring Alpinemovements in the future.

For more information, have a look at:www.trimble.com.

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Arnaud Ollivier from Geotopo (one of the partners of the expedition) and Denis Gras at work with a TrimbleTSC3 controller and a Trimble R10 GNSS receiver: these devices have been used to collect centimeter-level

measurements on top of the Massif of the Écrins.

The preliminary expedition was important to set the anchors on top of the three peaks of the Massif: hereOllivier, Baud and Gras pose on the Dôme de Neige. Behind them, the Barre des Écrins.

Concurrently with 150th anniversary of the first ascent of the Barre des Écrins, UNGE and his partners gathered surveyorsfrom the French region of PACA in order to measure at centimeter-level the massif in which the Barre lies.

A number of software companies have been releasing solutions for sharing 3D contentover the web lately. A recent cloud-based offering from SmarterBetterCities calledCloudCities does exactly this. The company is also involved in bridging the gap betweenGIS and BIM and has been increasing its current client base by opening up to multiplenew 3D file formats. This article discusses some of the recent and upcoming initiativesfrom the company.By Eric van Rees

A 3D Web Sharing Service for Cities

Introduction SmarterBetterCities was initiated in 2012 as a spin-off from ETHZurich - the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Its goal is to deve-lop easy-to-use business developer tools for urban planning andmanagement. The tools are all web-based, making it easier to share3D projects over the web. Co-founder Antje Kunze explains that thecompany has a strong market focus on government, city planners,architectural companies and consulting companies, but that smallercities and towns are also of great interest to them: “this concernscities between 10,000 and 500,000 inhabitants, that don´t have themanpower to do different planning scenarios or visualize a new plan-ning scenario in 3D. The idea is to help these towns and cities so thatthey´re not left behind and help them take good decisions”.

To help their clients with these planning scenarios and visualizations,the company offer apps, 3D building content and a cloud-based plat-form, called CloudCities, which enables the different parties to share3D content. Whereas in the early days of the company it was allabout 3D city content creation and visualization, the focus has shifted

to sharing this content with others over the web, applying cloud com-puting capabilities and rendering capacities of current internet brow-sers. The release of CloudCities is a good example of this shift.

A YouTube for 3D CitiesCloudCities is an online 3D web sharing service for towns and cities,allowing users to easily upload 3D models and embed them into awebsite. It can also be described as a “YouTube for 3D cities”, as thecontent can be uploaded, shared and discussed, just like someonewould do with a video on YouTube. As the name says, this is a cloud-based solution, which is distinctive from other software solutions onthe market, such as the recent release of ArcGIS Earth from Esri.CloudCities has been in beta since December 2014, but was official-ly released in July 2015 (Figure 1).

Kunze explains how the service works: “CloudCities can be accessedusing a regular web browser on tablets, smartphones or regular desk-top computers. No additional software installation is required. It´s aneasy-to-use service where users can choose to share their data publi-

Up load ing , Sha r i ng and D i s cu s s i ng 3D Con t en t

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Figure 1: CloudCities example

cly or with a limited amount of users. You can also add dashboardsto the 3D model, which is helpful for decision makers or colleagues,providing detailed information about space allocation, energy con-sumption and costs. With a new discussion function, you can addcomments to a 3D web scene. The interface is also completely custo-mizable.”

The next update of CloudCities, to be released February 2016, offersnew support for other 3D formats, such as Autodesk and SketchUpfile formats. Google Earth customers can also use it to upload andshare KML and KMZ files. For 2016, more formats will be supported,such as Collada and CityGML. With the Autodesk support, the com-pany has made the first step in bridging the gap between GIS andBIM. It marks the start of an ongoing collaboration between these twocompanies and will result in inclusion in the Autodesk partner netw-ork. “With the new file imports, we can increase the customer baseand offer them a platform to share and view 3D content”, addsKunze.

3D Cities LibrariesApart from the CloudCities service, the company offers analytic 3Dbuilding models which can be imported directly into Esri CityEngineand ArcGIS Desktop. The 3D Cities Libraries can be used for easy3D scenario creation. But they do not stop here. The 3D CitiesLibraries offer straight access to perform detailed energy demandanalysis, 3D zoning code validation, to optimize existing buildinggeometry for the web and much more. A recent project for HarvardUniversity shows how CloudCities and the 3D Cities Libraries fromSmarterBetterCities can supplement each other (Figure 2). HarvardUniversity obtained 3d model data of the university campus fromCyberCity3D. SmarterBetterCities enhanced the 3D campus modelso that it was later embedded as a CloudCities webscene onHarvard University’s website, so that all of Harvard’s buildings arenow visible in a browser when people visit the website.

The approach taken is likely to be pursued in the near future, saysKunze: “we are integrating the 3D Cities Libraries functionality inCloudCities, this is something for the second half of this year. Inspring we will also release a novel streaming-based technology for3D content in CloudCities”.

These city libraries are not only about the exterior of buildings, whichalways used to be the case with 3D models: the interior is now mode-led too. Some examples of this were made for the Esri UserConference in San Diego this year, where a 3D model of theConvention Center was produced, showing all company booths onthe exhibition inside of the venue (Figure 3). They also created a 3Dmodel of all the floors of the Omni Hotel near the venue (Figure 4).Furthermore, for the next phase of the 3D campus map created forHarvard, Esri and SmarterBetterCities are collaborating to develop amore advanced interior model that will include rooms, stairways, ele-vators, and building systems. Kunze explains the demand for thesemodels: “these models could be used in other markets too, such asreal estate or airports. You can combine 3D indoor maps with real-time sensor data of the physical location and integrate both into adashboard”.

The futureAlthough the company originated in Europe, the majority of its cur-rent customer base is in the US. Therefore, a new office was opened2015 in Redlands. The interest for 3D libraries to create city modelsis substantial in the US, says Kunze: “often, cities are not as far alongwith 3D models as in Europe. They are interested in low-level detailanalytic libraries, and as a next step they can upgrade to moredetailed content”. However, the company is moving now the officeup to San Francisco in order to boost sales.

In Europe, Kunze sees a strong interest in adding intelligence to cur-rent 3D city models, for instance by applying the company´s

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Figure 2: Harvard 3D Campus Map in CloudCities.

SmartZoning app. This app visualizes zoning constraints and showsonly the building footprints, floor areas and roof shape which will beallowed to be built. Kunze adds: “a lot of 3D models out there arenot intelligent. Maybe you get some information if you click on a buil-ding in a model, but our solutions add intelligence and allow you todo analysis, like overlays.”

It´s no surprise that cities are interested in working with the companyfor smart city pilot projects: “There´s a local specification inSwitzerland for reducing CO2 emissions and now cities are lookingfor tools which will help them make good planning decisions. So, we

did some prototyping in our Smart Zoning library, where you couldgather the solar potential, greenhouse gas emissions or energydemand of a building, in order to reduce energy and CO2 emis-sions. We’re planning to release similar applications in the newyear.” SmarterBetterCities’ technology has been recently officiallyaccredited by the Swiss Environmental Protection Agency for theeffective reduction of GHG and energy waste.

For more information, have a look at: www.smarterbettercities.ch.

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Figure 3: 3D model of the Convention Center in San Diego.

Figure 4: 3D model of the OmniHotel San Diego.

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Earlier this winter, 54 finalists presented their innovations at Bentley’sYear In Infrastructure in London for the ‘Be Inspired Awards’.By Remco Takken

Bentley’s Year In Infrastructure

Over recent years, this annualevent has evolved into aunique blend, made up of avariety of ingredients. Thishas been accomplished by

combining a regular user conference with afair amount of award ceremony spice. Withthe addition of the most poignant corporatenews highlights of the past year or so, top-ped off with a quick run through the obligato-ry annual report, a successful result was pret-ty much a certainty. For added zing, theyensured that during the procedures users,technology partners and researchers felt freeto intermingle and made sure that a glass ofsomething pleasant was always withinreach.

Although it would have come as no surprise tofaithful MicroStation, MX (and perhaps evenMOSS) users, it was a reassuring sign whenSingh, Senior Vice President of BentleySoftware, stated that data compatibility com-mitment transcends software generations“from V8i to CONNECT Edition”. Attendeeslearned from Bhupinder Singh that WesternPower Distribution has a whopping 3500iPads with Bentley Map Mobile out in thefields. Bold statements like these from co-foun-ders of the company, Bhupinder Singh andGreg Bentley, meant that the listener could getan in-depth look at new developments. SandraDiMatteo demonstrated the 3D Spatial capa-bilities in AssetWise Asset PerformanceMaintenance v 7.4. and Bob Mankowski

showed the ‘outage planner’ in Bentley OpenUtilities. This deals with possible scenarios andsubsequently the impact for users: water, elec-tricity outages. Not only did Mankowskiexplain how the CONNECT editions ofMicroStation and Navigator ‘looked and felt’,he also introduced ContextCapture, a recentBentley acquisition.

Context Capture“ContextCapture lets you design within thecontext of existing conditions”, explainedJean-Philippe Pons to the crowd that gatheredin the Government Utilities track.ContextCapture is Bentley’s first product relea-se of the Acute3D software technology itacquired earlier this year. With

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I ng red i en t s f o r s u c c e s s

The winners of 2015’s Be Inspired-Awards during the Year In Infrastructure event in London.

ContextCapture, users can easily producehigh resolution 3D models of existing condi-tions using photos taken with any digitalcamera. The software generates a detailedreality mesh incorporating the referencedphotography. This results in a navigable 3Dmodel with fine and photo-realistic detail,

sharp edges, and precise geometric accura-cy. These highly detailed models can be ofvirtually any size or resolution, up to cityscale, and can be created much more quicklythan with other technologies. It features amulti-platform browser plug-in and desktopviewer that supports multi-touch and allows

users to share their ‘reality meshes’ on desk-top and mobile devices. It also directly provi-des context for engineering and geospatialworkflows, including native support withinMicroStation.

Landinspektørfirmaet LE34, DenmarkLandinspektørfirmaet LE34 presented aCadastral & land surveying project in whichthe feel of a ‘forest as far as the eye can see’was to be protected by building Height Line-of-sight Restrictions From the HermitagePalace in Copenhagen, Denmark. Land -inspektørfirmaet LE34 was contracted by themunicipality of Lyngby Taarbaek to createguidelines for new building construction thatcomply with height restrictions set by theRoyal Court. The task was to ensure buildingsconstructed in or around the Dyre havenrecreational park rise no more than 28meters and not be visible over the horizontaltree line from the Erimitageslottet huntinglodge. To execute the DKK 20,000 project,data was critical. In recent years, laser scan-ning from planes as digital surface models(DSMs) feature point clouds that are denseand accurate. By using Bentley Map andBentley Pointools, LE34 was able to manipu-late the DSM point clouds in new ways. Theresulting presentation enables the length andheight to be measured from any point alongthe line of sight, providing more detail andaccurate results for the municipality.

Tata Consulting Engineers, IndiaThe most disarmingly beautiful project of thisyear was brought in by Tata ConsultingEngineers, the rightful winner in the LandDevelopment category. In Dharampur, In dia,the company built an innovative religious (jai-nist) ashram. On this project, the SRM AshramCommittee requested that Tata ConsultingEngineers provide a detailed design for aneconomical ashram and surrounding infrast-ructure that would be sustainable for the nexthundred years. A primary challenge was thesite’s sloping terrain and it being hemmed inby valleys. The team also had to plan for con-siderable pedestrian traffic of up to 8,000 visi-tors per day. Tata Consulting Engineers usedMicroStation, Bentley Map, GEOPAK,InRoads, Bentley MXROAD, PowerCivil,STAAD, and Hae stad products to generateconcept options, schematic design, and detail-ed design. The team created 3D presentationsfor the client, which reduced the project deli-very cost, and they also performed cost-benefitanalyses to arrive at the best design in terms ofminimum operation and maintenance.

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In Dharampur, India, Tata Consulting Engineers built an innovative religious (jainist) ashram. Winner of a Be Inspired Award in the LandDevelopment category.

Singapore Land AuthoritySingapore Land Authority showed the challen-ges this small country has when it comes to landscarcity, creating space ‘above & below’ andthe subsequent need for mapping for their pro-ject in the category ‘Innovation in Government’.A high-resolution 3D map of the country was cre-ated and maintained. The project encompassesall of Singapore, an area of more than 700square kilometres. The project involved captu-ring large amounts of data, creating 2D/3Ddatasets in several data formats, and supportingthe interoperability of the data and managementof datasets in a single repository. The projectemployed multiple rapid mapping technologiessuch as oblique imagery, airborne laser scan-ning, mobile laser scanning, and terrestrial scan-ning, resulting in more than 50 terabytes of datain multiple formats. The challenge was mana-

ging and updating the data. This is not anotherpilot or research project. Singapore LandAuthority 3D map will stand up in court whenconflicts arise on unwanted shadows, unlawfulpermits etcetera. Using Bentley Map, the projectteam created, maintained, and disseminated 3Dinformation directly from Oracle Spatial andprovided multi-user access to the database. It tur-ned out to be the biggest geodataset ever collec-ted homogenously in Singapore. To date, sever-al hundreds of Terabytes of data and productshave been produced as 3D City Maps.

Sydney AirportNot all presenters came up with the latest inno-vations, but, in the case of Sydney Airport, it’sstill good to recognise that Bentley Map is thelogical next step after CAD drawings. Theirnew Infrastructure Facilities Management

System was designed to create, edit, manage,and archive engineering design and geospa-tial content and provide a portal for informa-tion mobility among project teams, internaldepartment stakeholders and external agen-cies. The system was built using a combinationof server applications (ProjectWise, BentleyGeo Web Publisher, and SQL Server), desk-top applications (MicroStation, BentleyDescartes, Bentley Map, and BentleyPointools), Web applications (ProjectWiseWeb Explorer and Bentley Geo Web MapViewer) and mobility applications (Map Mo -bile, Bentley Navigator, and ProjectWiseWorkSite [formerly Field Supervisor]). Project -Wise is the primary data storage for facilitiesdesign and related business content, whichenables multi-discipline collaboration.

Visions for the futureDuring ‘The Year In Infrastructure’, some delibe-rate ‘future looking statements’ were madethroughout the conference. Of course, a numberof ‘sneak previews’ escaped from the plenarysessions, but the unexpected fireworks camefrom a special track called ‘Visions For TheFuture’. Video motion-magnification, cameras-as-sensors, feature extraction from laserpointcloud data and big 3D geospatial data. There’sno doubt that these and other mindbogglinginnovations will find their way into Bentley pro-ducts and will be presented in upcoming edi-tions of Bentley’s Year In Infrastructure.

http://pages.info.bentley.com/beinspired2015

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Meet the finalists for a quick 3D demo.

CEO Greg Bentley in London during the YearIn Infrastructure 2015.

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GIS in 2016

1. Integration of GIS into BusinessIntelligence (BI) platformsGIS really forms part of the much bigger world ofbusiness intelligence. We can tout location intelli-gence (LI) until the cows come home. Alone that isa hard sell. But built into BI it becomes anotherbusiness tool. We have already seen this processbegin with the MapBox Tableau integration. Wewill see more of this integration in 2016.

2. New players entering the marketThe location technology market is rife with innova-tion. We will see new players coming into themarket in 2016. Many will not use the GIS tag.These companies will be building both new solu-tions, and better solutions than already exist: thatmeans competition. Traditional GIS solution provi-ders will see new, nimble upstarts enter the mar-ket. Lean and mean, these companies will beginto shake up the location technology market.Companies like Novotx who provide asset & workmanagement software.

3. Rise of MobileThe use and adoption of mobile GIS has beenslow. Mobile has been big news across the ITlandscape for many years now. But in GIS thingshave been moving at a glacial pace. All eyeshave been on Collector for ArcGIS. But towardsthe end of 2015 we began to see a shift: a reali-zation of the potential of mobile GIS. For 2016we predict there will be greater interest in mobileWeb GIS. Why? Mobile web apps are cross-plat-form and cross-device.

That means there is no need to build multiple ver-sions of the same GIS application for mobile use.Pull up a browser on your mobile device and go!The popularity of hybrid laptops will help drive thedemand for mobile Web apps (as well asWindows as an operating system) providing aseamless GIS experience or:

GIS anywhere, anytime, on any device

4. Morphing of the GIS Big BoysThe GIS industry is undergoing dramatic changes.Technological advances with cloud and mobilecomputing has created an environment for disrup-tion. Location technology is coming out of the sha-dows. Mainstream demand has created hugeopportunities. Change is in the air. And that canbe confusing and a little scary. For 2016 I believewe will see morphing of the GIS big boys. Whatdoes that mean? Transition, gradual alteration thatis what! Our comfy little industry is being turnedon its head. No longer the bastion of geographynerds (like me). Business folk are moving in, focu-sed on problem solving and talking the languageof the non-GIS community. 2016 will see the suc-cessful transformation of the GIS big boys, drivenby this world of opportunities.

5. Rise of Corporate, Commercial GIS JobsThe public sector has been the bread and butter ofGIS historically. Many of us (have) worked for orwith cities, counties, state and federal entities. In2016 we will see a rise in demand for GIS profes-sionals in the corporate sector. Geospatial will beone of the more in demand (job) skills. Universitieswill see increasing demand for geo-science cour-ses. The employment picture overall for our profes-sion will be rosy in 2016.

6. Integration, integration, integrationOk, a play on the location, location, location man-tra. But we will see a big demand for integrationwith GIS in 2016. That’s more than just with BIplatforms. We spent time in 2015 integrating themining focused Acquire platform with ArcGIS.There will be an increasing demand for thesetypes of integration’s in 2016.

There you have it. Evolution not revolution is whatI see for 2016. If 2015 was a year of understan-ding, 2016 will be the year we see action. Thechanges will gradual, but very discernible forthose who keep their eyes and ears open.

2016 A Year of GIS Opportunity

31

Matt Sheehan is Principal and SeniorDeveloper at WebmapSolutions.

The company build location focusedmobile applications for GIS, mappingand location based services (LBS).

Matt can be reached [email protected].


Predictions, predictions. I’m not one to go off into la-la land when it comesto looking ahead at this new year for GIS. Drones, 3D, sensors etcetera I’llleave to others. I like to go for a more grounded approach, look at what wesaw in 2015 and extrapolate into 2016. But I do believe this is a time ofhuge opportunity for our industry.

Pufferfish was founded on the principle of translating traditional digital media from 2D pla-nar viewing formats to 3D multi-viewer platforms, specifically spheres, which presentobvious opportunities for visualising the earth. The company soon realised that they werenot alone in believing that a spherical platform would be implicitly well suited to displayingglobal data, with Esri, Google, NASA and the UK Met Office, all identifying spheres as thenative physical platform and future for global data. By Ben Allan

Spherical Displays and Earth Visuali

IntroductionPufferfish never set out to offer GIS related pro-ducts or even globes, but rather was foundedon the principle of translating traditional digi-tal media from 2D planar viewing formats to3D multi-viewer platforms, specifically sphe-res. Their early displays were as likely to featu-re in stadium concert tours, TV sets and eventspectaculars as they were to be turned to thepurpose of displaying a globe.Inevitably though, the shape of the sphericaldisplay presents obvious opportunities for visu-alising the earth. The company soon realisedthat they were not alone in believing that aspherical platform would be implicitly well sui-ted to displaying global data, with Esri,Google, NASA and the UK Met Office, allidentifying spheres as the native physical plat-form and future for global data. Will Cavendish, Technical Director, describeshow Pufferfish’s focus has been on the harnes-

sing of this innate property of form to facilitatean intuitive understanding of global data: “It isan on-going challenge that Pufferfish has beenable to meet with increasing sophistication, asour technology has moved forward to keeppace with GIS capabilities. Our latest innova-tions in touch-enabled spherical displays haveopened up the opportunity for us to explorehow multiple users can view and interact withlarge volumes of data in a collaborative andinteractive manner.”

“Using a spherical display to represent aglobe almost seems too obvious to merit furt-her explanation”, remarks Cavendish, “but atthe most basic level, globes reflect the actualshape of our world, assisting cartographers increating maps that resembles reality as closelyas possible. When compared to flat maps,globes are superior for showing the relativelyundistorted shapes, positions, and sizes of

landmasses and bodies of water. They areboth intuitive and unexpected; even an appa-rently familiar feature such as the PacificOcean is startling in terms of the portion of theglobe it occupies.”

Pushing the boundariesFor Pufferfish the development of thePufferSphere M High Res display representedan opportunity to start to push the boundaries ofwhat was possible with a projected globe dis-play. For the first time, the pixel count on a sing-le projector display rose above two millionpixels and, with the small format of the displays,meant that the brightness of the displays nega-ted the need for a totally dark “theatre” styleenvironment.

Uniquely, Pufferfish was able to deliver a dis-play with the right brightness to be used in awide range of lighting environments, portable

GIS on a P ro j e c t ed G l obe D i s p l ay

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Art

icle Utilising the displays interac-

tive capabilities, users ofPufferSphere with ArcGISintegration are able to zoom in on web maps sing an on-sphere ‘pinch zoom’ gesture.

enough to travel to temporary activations andwith a pixel size small enough to allow users tostand close to the display and still see with cla-rity.

According to Cavendish though, it was whenthe company added the ability turn the surfaceof the sphere into a touch screen that it reallychanged the game in terms of the Puffer -Sphere’s potential as a global display: “Wefound that clients from across a range of sectorswere coming to us with challenges of visualisingglobal activities that were in their nature verydynamic. Anything from the position of shipsand aircraft, meteorological or geological acti-vity to the location of resources and personnel,even demographic data on consumer activities.We needed to find a way to be able to offerroutes to integrate with the GIS solutions thatthey were using to visualise their activities.”

Translating ArcGIS functionality to thePufferSphereThe team knew that a GIS-based systemoffered the tantalising prospect of being able todeliver a globe visualisation with much morepower and flexibility than anything previouslyachieved on a physical sphere. If they couldget the technologies to work together, it wouldoffer a route to addressing some commonlyrequested features, such as the ability to zoomin on data and locations, and the ability to deli-ver a system where data was very current, oreven live, and could be interrelated and inter-rogated.

When Charles Kennelly of ESRI UK reachedout to Pufferfish with the same thought in mind,the two companies immediately became exci-ted by the idea of translating ArcGIS functiona-lity to the PufferSphere. Esri maps are data richin that they facilitate layering of multiple datasets, adding of features and extensive metada-ta, creating in turn, extremely rich contextuali-sed mapping. The question was then one ofidentifying and addressing the challenges uni-que to getting ArcGIS to run effectively on thePufferSphere platform.“As a rule, the best way to render things on asphere is to render directly onto the sphere”,notes Cavendish. “Taking a flat map applica-tion and wrapping it onto the sphere stretchesand contorts that application in a way thatgenerally renders it hard to use. Starting by uti-

lising the Mercator Webmap, we directly mapthis to a virtual sphere utilising a cube map andmapping it to an azimuthal projection that iscorrected for the optical function of our opticalsystem. This allows us to create a precise andaccurate real world projection over any size ofsphere, which can also be rotated freely wit-hout distortion at any point,” he adds.

Key challengesPufferfish Lead Developer Jeremy Green sum-marises the key challenges the team werefaced with; “With ArcGIS, recreating the widearray of available features is a daunting task.We sidestepped the issues associated with ren-dering ourselves and have concentrated ourefforts on wrapping the ArcGIS javascript libra-ry onto the sphere. In future, this approach willallow us to use alternative ArcGIS compatiblelibraries like Leaflet to meet the needs of clientswho've already tuned their webmaps for theselibraries.”

He continues: “We use an embedded webbrowser to do the rendering using the ArcGISjavascript libraries. Because the library is ren-dering a web Mercator map we must by neces-sity have a few degrees missing from the topand bottom of the sphere. That's an inherentlimitation of that projection.”

Even standard features such as zooming pre-sented unique challenges. For this, Pufferfishcreated a circular zoom window, or a “lune”or segment of the total sphere as a portal intothe zoomed area. As someone scrolls aroundwithin the zoom window, the rest of the globerotates proportionally, providing context. Theuser always keep site of their location on theglobe in the area around the window. Betterstill, the more zoomed in you are the slower therest of the Earth will move when you scrollrapidly over the landscape, giving you an intui-tive feel for the scale difference, which is somet-hing that's often hard to otherwise effectivelycommunicate.

In order to create a zoom window Pufferfish cre-ated a second embedded web page. For agiven position and zoom level, they can calcu-late the extents it wants the web page to dis-play. Once the page has updated, it wraps itonto the sphere, with a little bit of maths.

This lets the user the user scroll and zoom aboutfreely, translating and stretching the current webpage appropriately for instant results. The actu-al web page only gets updated with a newrequested position once every couple of

seconds. Getting a good synchronization poli-cy between the web page and the sphere appli-cation took a fair amount of experimentation.

Cavendish explains that the team has now tur-ned its attention to preserving more of the func-tionality offered by ArcGIS; “Now we want tobe able to click on locations in feature layersand find out information about them. InArcGIS clicking on a location marker usuallybrings up a little information dialog listing infor-mation gathered at that location, perhaps a listof ethnic make-up of a city, or a graph of sealevel readings from the last week at an oilrig.”

However, displaying this dialog brings a newset of problems. The web page will display thisdialog and its fonts at a fixed size, but becausePufferfish can adjust the perceived zoom of theweb page when they map it to the sphere, itvaries in its display size. In addition the com-pany found that its warping of the map projec-tion also warps the dialog making it curvy andoften the dialog will be half cut off by the edgeof our circular zoom window. The team is nowfocused on implementing our solution to theseproblems and others to bring the functionality itline with the potential offered by ArcGIS.

Local vs globalBut even with the increased functionality, is thePufferSphere really a go to format for GISapplications in the widest sense? Pufferfishunderstand that a large part of the GIS com-munity is focused on a more local scale,where the global view may seem to be lessrelevant.

“We are asked what the relevance of theglobe is when so much mapping analysis isfocused on localised areas of interest,” saysCavendish. “To that I answer, in an ever incre-asing data rich world, the correlation betweensimilar localised areas of interest can readilybe explored within a global context.”

He concludes: “We can utilise our worldviewto visualise correlations between local data,moving between them and zooming downinto higher mapping resolutions through asingle, collectively experienced platform. Infuture marrying this platform with secondscreens, such as tablets and large format pla-nar displays, facilitates a full suite of visualisa-tion tools for in depth and improved under-standing for both experts and laymen alike.”

Ben Allan, Marketing Manager,Pufferfish Limited.

33


zations

Despite some debate following the introduction of the last leap-second in July2016, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has announced that theuse of the leap-second in UTC will be kept operational until at least 2023.By Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk

GNSS Update

Leap seconds were introduced tocompensate for irregularities in theearth’s orbit with respect to the conti-nuous time indication of atomicclocks and, as such, to keep UTC in

line with mean solar time. As they introduceirregularities in timing applications mostGNSS (with the exception of Glonass) igno-re UTC and choose to run their own timefra-mes. By no longer adjusting UTC with anyleap seconds, atomic time and UTC wouldbecome synchronous (but with an offset)making it easier for timing applications suchas accurate surveying systems.

GalileoWith the last launch on December 17th2015, Galileo now has a total of 12 satelli-tes in space. The three launches in 2015constituted the highest number of GNSSlaunches for any system to date. It has takenGalileo 10 years since the launch of the firstsatellite, GIOVE-A to get this far. Frequentreaders of this update will recall, however,that of the current 12 satellites a total ofthree are not entirely up to spec. At the startof 2016 the system should be able to begin

initial services with 24 satellites availableaccording to the current planning. From2016 to 2020 additional satellites will belaunched and the system will be improvedupon.

Two of the ‘not-functioning-as-expected’satellites, numbers 5 and 6, were launchedinto an incorrect orbit but saved from totalfailure by slow orbit corrections allowing thepair to at least start transmitting navigationsignals to be used by researchers worldwi-de. The two satellites were used most recent-ly to test Einstein’s General Theory ofRelativity. This theory predicts that time willpass more slowly close to a great mass.With the satellites in an elliptical orbit andwith the accurate hydrogen-maser clocks onboard the two satellites should be able tomeasure accurately any changes over thenext year or so.

Last November a set of so-called CommonMinimum Standards were approved by theEU member states for the use of the PublicRegulated Service. This is an encrypted ser-vice available to governments of the EUmember states. Nations outside the EU needto apply separately. The United States andNorway have both done this and both aremembers of NATO.A more public document, which has recentlybeen updated, is the new Interface Control

To Leap o r No t t o L eap – Tha t ’ s t he Que s t i on

34

Art

icle


Galileo Interface Control Document (gsc-europa.eu/)

Artist rendering of GPS III satellite (lockheedmartin.com)

Document of the Galileo Open ServiceSignal In Space (OS SIS ICD). This docu-ment details the signal structure and is arequirement for manufacturers when develo-ping their equipment. To boost this develop-ment the EU has made 100 million eurosavailable to manufacturers between 2015and 2020.

BeidouAlso slated to become globally operationalin 2020 is the BeiDou Navigation SatelliteSystem (BDS). During 2015 a total of 4satellites were launched bringing the num-ber up to 20 out of a projected 35 satellites.The last satellite, launched in September2015 is transmitting a new signal which issimilar to the future GPS L1C signal and hasthe first Chinese build hydrogen-maser clockonboard. Researchers at Javad were able totrack the new signals.For 2016 an additional three satellite laun-ches are planned together with the construc-tion of a BeiDou augmentation system alongsimilar lines as Egnos, WAAS, GAGAN,MSAS and SDCM.

GPSThe GPS budget for 2016 was signed bypresident Obama in late November 2015.Funding is almost fully as requested with theexception being a reduction of 2 million dol-lars for IIF support. The IIF program is, howe-ver, coming to a close with the next to lastlaunch in December and the launch of the

last satellite planned for February 2016.This next launch will close the second gene-ration (Block II) of GPS satellites. The nextsatellite to be launched should be the new,third generation of GPS III satellites.

It is, however, uncertain which company willlaunch that first GPS III satellite as the UnitedLaunch Alliance (ULA) declined to submit abid for that first launch, which is expected tooccur in 2018. The lack of a bid from thegovernment-run ULA leaves the field wideopen to commercial companies. They gavethe major reason for not bidding as the lackof an Atlas 5 rocket. The unavailability ofthe Atlas 5 presumably came about as aresult of congress passing an act requiringthe phasing out of the Russian RD-180 rocketengine used on the Atlas 5. On anotherlegal note, the Location Privacy ProtectionAct was passed in the US requiring compa-nies to obtain customers’ permission beforecollecting or sharing location data.

During fall 2015 Lockheed Martin, supplierof the GPS ground control system, upgradedthe system with GPS Intrusion ProtectionReinforcement (GIPR) technology to betterensure satellite availability and data protec-tion. At the same time some obsolete parts ofthe equipment were replaced.

Glonass and IRNSSAnother Glonass launch was predicted forthe end of December 2015. At the time of

writing this article, however, the launch hadnot taken place. The satellite to be launched(M51) is to replace a satellite from 2005which has ceased operations after a life of10 years; 3 times more than the design lifeof the Glonass M satellite. The satellite con-stellation of Glonass is, nevertheless, stillabove the minimum of 21 with a total of 23satellites. The first launch of the new GlonassK type with a design life of 10 years hasbeen postponed until late 2017/early2018.

India also has additional launches plannedfor 2016 and hopes to complete the IRNSSconstellation by March 2016. Unfortunately,scheduled launches for November andDecember of numbers 1E and 1F werepostponed, with the launch of 1E now sche-duled for January 2016.

Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk [email protected] is a freelance writer and trainer in the fields of positioning and hydrography.


Launch of BDS satellite (news.cn) GPS IIF satellite before launch (gpsworld.com)

35

Record-breaking numbers of delegates attended EuroGeographics’ 2015 General Assembly which focused on the European Location Framework.

European Maps and Land Information

More than 150 people from 47 member organisa-tions took part in the annual meeting, which thisyear was hosted by Republic Geodetic Authority,Serbia in Belgrade. The theme was a vision forEuropean maps and land information and gave

members an opportunity to contribute their views, about the future ofEuropean location services.

Ingrid Vanden Berghe, President of EuroGeographics, remindeddelegates that 2015 is a celebratory year for EuroGeographics.

“It is 25 years since European National Mapping and CadastralAuthorities started to meet together as the Comité Européen desResponsables de la Cartographie Officielle (CERCO); 15 years sinceEuroGeographics was first established; and 5 years sinceEuroGeographics became an International Not for Profit Asso -ciation,” she said.

“We’ve come a long way together in the last quarter century and thework we do together is important at a European and, increasingly, aglobal level. Membership had grown from 35 organisations in 1980to 60 members in 46 countries in 2015. We have also been involvedin, led and successfully delivered many important projects whichhave driven us forward as an Association. Whilst we have much tocelebrate, there is still more to do.”

“By meeting the expectations and demands of the next generation ofdata users, as well as those of today, the European LocationFramework is absolutely vital to the future of National Mapping,Cadastral and Land Registry Authorities.”

During the official opening, Zorana Mihajlovic Deputy Prime Ministerof the Republic of Serbia said that the European Location Framework

was of ‘utmost importance’. Goran Vesić, Manager, City ofBelgrade, adding that it was important for attracting investment.Borko Draskovic, Director General, Republic Geodetic Authorityspoke about their commitment to increasing data transparency, inter-operability and availability whilst also delivering significant financialsavings to government.

“The most expensive thing you own is that which you do not use,” he said.

Other speakers included Frank Leyman, International RelationsManager at FedICT, Belgium who gave the keynote presentation ondelivering efficiencies and citizen services through e-Government pro-grammes. Delegates also heard from representatives of the EuropeanEnvironment Agency as well as EuroGeographics Members whoreported on their national activities and regional collaborations.

Maps for EuropeEuroGeographics’ members continued to look to the future at a seriesof events in Brussels – including a Maps for Europe exhibition at theEuropean Commission.

The focus was on the European Location Framework and the use ofmaps, geographic and land information to better understand infor-mation related to people and places. The exhibition demonstratedhow geospatial data from National Mapping, Cadastral and LandRegistry Authorities can help the European Commission to achievethe EU’s priorities. It was organised by EuroGeographics in collabo-ration with Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union,under the patronage of European Commissioner Marianne Thyssen.

Speaking at the opening reception, Walter Radermacher, DirectorGeneral of Eurostat emphasised the importance of integrating statis-tics with geospatial information.

A Sha red V i s i on

36

New

slet

ter


Bengt Kjellson, Chair UN-GGIM:Europe Executive Committeeand Ms Irena Vojáčková-Sollorano, UN Resident

Coordinator & UN DevelopmentProgramme Resident

Representative in Serbia.

Discussions from the floor

“The goal of the European Location Framework is to deliver authori-tative, interoperable, cross-border data to benefit both the public andprivate sectors,” he said.

“It builds upon the success of the INSPIRE Directive and will clearlyhave a positive impact upon policymaking within the Commission.”

Catherine Stihler MEP added: “I am delighted to see for myself howthis “gateway to maps” can work for Europe. Maps provide contextand clarity, and contribute to the successful delivery of manyEuropean policies. Confidence that the information provided is con-sistent and comparable, regardless of its national source, is key.”

Ingrid Vanden Berghe, President of EuroGeographics said: “Fromprotecting against flooding or other natural hazards to intelligenttransport and economic growth, many European initiatives need up-to-date, harmonised geospatial information.”

“The Commission already has access to European maps from ourmembers through our agreement with Eurostat. In the future, we hopeto expand the availability of authoritative maps, geographic and

land information through the European Location Framework. This willcontribute to a number of European initiatives, including the DigitalSingle Market, INSPIRE and Copernicus, and will encourage thereuse of public sector information and e-government.”

“The European Location Framework is not an island; it is a buildingblock within a European framework supporting the legal base provi-ded by the INSPIRE Directive and the strategic vision for a EuropeanLocation Strategy. It complements the national activities of our mem-bers and is aligned to their future, enabling them to meet the needs ofexisting data users as well as those of the next generation.”

EuroGeographics also held a workshop for users within theCommission who have access to members’ data through our agree-ment with Eurostat, and a high-level Directors forum for members todiscuss their vision for the future.

More information is available at www.eurogeographics.org and www.elfproject.eu.

37


Discussions from the floor Catherine Stihler MEP; Walter Radermacher, Director General, Eurostat and IngridVanden Berghe, President of EuroGeographics.

Group shot of EuroGeographics GA delegates

C L G E n ew s l e t t e r

CLGE’s delegate for Germany, Clemens Kiepke, has developed a spatially-based smartphone application to organ-ise the work of volunteers during flood emergencies. He shows the social relevance of geoinformation and survey-ors in a highly efficient way. Perhaps this will act as an incentive for others to develop similar applications or to

take part in our Europe-wide initiative ’blueparking.eu.’

An App to organise Flood Response

Coastal and fluvial flood defence protection is an age-oldresponsibility, which is especially relevant at the presenttime, when the world seems to be experiencing an increas-ing number of extreme flood events. In Germany thelargest areas of recent flooding have occurred due to

weaknesses in the river flood banks and defence systems.Geodetic surveyors play an important role as data managers in tacklingthese problems. Their work has become increasingly important as a resultof events such as the four major floods which have taken place on theRiver Elbe over the last thirteen years. Investigations into these disastershave clearly shown that surveyors are able to contribute as data expertsand managers for the entire process; from data collection to the provisionof spatial data.During the flood of 2013 there was a problem with the distribution of vol-unteers, who gathered to help with filling sandbags. In some places therewere too many and others too few. One of the main aims of writing theApp was to organise volunteers in disaster situations by providing suit-able geographical information on modern mobile media. This measurewould guide the right people to the right place at the right time.In order to reach as many people as possible, anapplication for smartphones was developed forIOS and Android to provide easy access to gen-eral and geographical information covering alarge area. The App has been implemented for aregion on the River Elbe for the Artlenburger DikeAssociation of Lüneburg (Lower Saxony,Germany). Following the success of this pilotscheme, it could be adopted by other organisa-tions.

Data organisationThere were several stages in the development ofthe App:• Identification and structuring of information

required for modelling• Spatial data management: the collection, man-

agement and provision of the necessary geo-graphical information. This involved the collec-tion and survey of the required basic andadvanced geographical information and man-agement of the data to ensure it would be suit-able for modelling.

• Deployment of user-orientated cartographicprocessing using suitable modern media.

ProgrammingIn the region covered by the pilot study extensive data had already beenrecorded. This was restructured, mapped and analysed in the context ofspatial data management to be provided for the most appropriate medi-um to deliver the information. It was decided that smartphones were themost suitable medium for the App.The following was identified as neces-sary information in the context of such an application:

• Display of the current alarm level• Mapping of the wider area and specific information about the immedi-

ate surroundings of the flood defence• Accurate representation of the defence• A defence directory• Positioning• Routing• Representation of the points (defence maintenance zones) where help

is needed• Recording of data by and for the use of flood management partner

organisations• Recording of data by and for the use of flood war-

dens• Current water levels• Information about packing sandbags, etc.

Implementing the appThe size of the resulting application is approxi-mately 50MB. It is relatively large, as it is neces-sary to keep the core content, i.e. the geographi-cal information relating to the embankments,accessible even when offline. The system shouldwork, therefore, even when mobile networks areoverloaded during periods of flooding. Theexpansion of mobile infrastructure and networkswould also contribute to the protection of flooddefences!

The application’s start screen is shown in Figure 1.

The application includes the following components:

1. Spatial data covering the direct embankmentarea. The user is directed to the DSK mapping(German digital street map 1:10,000). This mapis overlaid with information about road access

38

Clemens Kiepke

Figure 1: The start screen, showing the current alarm


39

for emergency crews, flooddefence maintenance zonesas points of interest and theshape, slope and height ofthe flood embankment.Google maps is an underly-ing layer, through whichpositioning and routing areenabled – see Figure 2.

2. An alphabetical directory,which gives users someinformation about the flooddefence.

3. Water levels for areas of inter-est, which are updated daily.

4. Anyone wishing to helpcan go to the ‘volunteers’tab and will find a list of theflood defence maintenancezones. The system is con-trolled through a traffic lightsystem – ‘Red’ – showingthat help is needed –‘Green’ – that there is noproblem (see Figure 3).When pressing the desiredmaintenance zone on thescreen, the graphic jumpsto it and a route will then bemade available. In thisway, volunteers are direct-ed to areas where help isneeded, efficiently andaccurately.

5. For each section ofembankment, the organisa-tion responsible, for exam-ple, flood wardens andpatrols, can create reportson damaged areas of theembankment. The reportsare formalised and sentafter their completion withphotos and location to acollection database. Fur -ther more, in this section,users can find extensiveinformation, but not publiccontact information. Thereports help in organising the deployment of embankment guards inan easier, faster and more economical way. This is an internal area.

6. There is a ‘more’ tab where users can find general information aboutthe Dike Association and also practical information, such as how topack sandbags.

Harnessing HelpGenerally, the willingness to help, in the areas concerned, is good. ThisApp is intended to make it easier for all those involved to coordinate andact in the event of a disaster, bringing potential volunteers to the areaswhere they are needed most. This application seeks to inspire young peo-ple to participate and to subsequently bring about a ‘culture of help’through the medium of smartphones.

The App allows more effective action to be taken, as many functionsinclude spatial data and a routing system. Institutional bodies, such as thefire brigade, army and other organisations can also be led directly to thelocations where they are most needed. The development of the applica-tion is ongoing, in order to fulfil various additional purposes.

It is necessary to develop a clear chain of responsibility throughout theindividual alarm levels. In Lower Saxony, the jurisdiction changes at acertain stage from the embankment associations to the county.

About the author

Clemens Kiepke studied geodetic surveying at the University of Hanover.He has years of experience of working practice in Germany and abroadand is a publicly appointed surveying engineer and head of his compa-ny. Clemens is a member of the board of BDVI in Lower Saxony (the busi-ness association of publicly appointed surveyors) and has served for nineyears as chairman. He is also German delegate to CLGE. He teachescadastre at the HCU (Harbour City University Hamburg) and is vice pres-ident of BDVI for Germany.


Figure 2: Information about a section of flood

Figure 3: Smartphone screen showing the help status foreach flood defence zone using a traffic light system.

Clemens Kiepke

The first round table of surveyors and notaries gathered inStuttgart in Germany, on 15th September 2015. Chairedby Professor Rudolf Staiger, FIG Vice President andProfessor Limmer, it was aimed at improving mutual under-standing between the two professions. Both are equally

important for the exact and secure registration of immovable propertyrights and the meeting highlighted the similarity between the two pro-fessions, established how they can complement each other and deter-mined areas of strength.

During the first meeting it became apparent that an internationalcooperation between notaries and surveyors is essential.The ideal secure system is based on 3 objectives: the precise identifi-cation of immovable goods, the establishment of a property title andthe registration at the State level of rights, people and goods. The firstobjective is the responsibility of surveyors. They have to identify theimmovable goods and to document them in the land register. The sec-ond objective is the delivery of the title, which will be done by thenotaries in countries with civil law. The notaries will check severalpoints (absence of mortgage, that the land is suitable for building,etc.). The third objective is to secure land tenure and this depends onthe land register which can be interpreted differently depending onthe country (Grundbuch, land registry). In every case it will determineto whom the goods belong.

When working on land reforms in developing regions such as inAfrica, Vietnam or Haiti, the process could be weakened if it relies on

a simple system without the intervention of a professional. However,if professionals can check that the boundaries are correct, that sellershave the legal capacity and that the goods are well registered, thena coherent reform can be implemented. The reason why manyreforms initiated in developing countries have been unsuccessful overthe last 30 years is due to the fact that most of them fail to unite all theland professionals, especially the surveyors and notaries. It is impor-tant to unite these skills and knowledge.

The World Bank currently measures the efficiency of transactionsbased on the complexity of the title process and the monetary costneeded to establish ownership titles. A legal security index will beincluded for the first time at the World Bank level in 2016. This indexis essential for secure land tenure. In France, Germany and Austria,for example, the transactions take a considerable amount of time, butthe process is very secure and there is no litigation, which demon-strates a high level of land security.

It was agreed upon in Stuttgart that additional events will unite CLGEand UINL with the aim of drawing a roadmap to demonstrate theircollaboration and compatibility. We will report back how thisendeavour is progressing in future issues of our newsletter. There’s anurgent need to cover pressing topics such as continued professionaldevelopment (CPD), common EU law, regulated professions and thehigh level of security required when providing services.

C L G E n ew s l e t t e r

40

After an initial, fruitful roundtable organised in Stuttgart, during INTERGEO in September 2015, the Surveyors andNotaries are continuing to collaborate on how to improve cooperation between the two groups. They are planningworkshops and other common activities in the coming years. This will be formalised in a common road map.

Surveyors and Notaries join forces

Jean-Yves Pirlot and Bénédicte Fournier-Schmitt


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