Geoinformatics 2011 Vol08

Airborne Bathymetric Laser Scanners Intergraph in Transition
PostGIS 2.0 Smart Grid Workshop

Magazi ne f or Sur veyi ng, Mappi ng & GI S Pr of essi onal s
December
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Volume 14
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Augmented Reality Asset
Management
Location-based systems are about numbers. No matter how simple the application
is, its the numbers that count. Furthermore, mass-market apps require less accurate
data it seems. For this reason, the market for location-based systems is still miles
away from the geospatial industry, although there are exceptions. One example of
this was an augmented reality-app that is used for asset management in Catalunya,
Spain. A telecommunication company uses GIS for their asset management, so that
maps show where poles are in the eld, and eld workers can use mobile devices
with a special augmented reality-app for getting information about a specic pole.
The company won an award for their work, and I can easily understand why: they
make their work easier with smart use of technology. Now why dont I hear stories
like this at location-based systems conferences? Answer: because its all about the
numbers.
Another thing that big companies fail to understand is that private companies are
not keen to give their data away, for example when choosing a platform such as
the mentioned augmented reality app. This is another big difference with mass-
consumer market who are willing to give away their privacy in exchange for using
services like search engines or social network sites. Again, there are exceptions
here that serve both markets, such as Google. But they seem to be the only one who
understand that to get private companies share their data, they have to offer
something big in return. And not everyone has such a large data infrastructure at
hand like Google has.
The geospatial market seems hesitant or rather conservative in its approach to
sharing data. But I have the feeling this will change. A clue for this is the huge
amount of young people who now develop web-apps that make use of mobile,
desktop and cloud devices. Store data in the cloud and make it available locally,
whether its desktop or mobile. Its a good thing that workows are changing because
of changing technologies that incorporate whats out there to make
workows better (faster/cheaper/safer). Companies that facilitate this and are
successful understand the wishes of the users or network managers, who want to
keep an eye on who owns their data.
Enjoy your reading,
Eric van Rees
evanrees@geoinformatics.com
GeoInformatics is the leading publication for Geospatial
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Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com December 2011
C o n t e n t
Ar t i c l e s
Environmental Research 6
Asset Inventory Management 10
Automatic Photogrammetric Solution 14
Airborne Bathymetric Laser Scanners 18
PostGIS in Action 30
Improving GIS Field Surveys 34
Sextante 36
An Interactive Petroleum map 44
E v e n t s
Esri European User Conference 40
2011 BE Inspire Awards 42
Smart Grid Workshop 46
FIG Workshop in Mongolia 48
I n t e r v i e w
Intergraph in Transition 26
C a l e n d a r / Ad v e r t i s e r s I n d e x 54
At the cover:
Hydromapping of river Loisach, Bavaria by AHM company, Innsbruck with the
RIEGL LMS bathymetric laser scanner VQ-820-G. Picture displays the bird-eye
view of a power plant with weir structure (right side), turbine intake (left side)
and upstream reservoir. The sediment accumulation reduces the storage
capacity, a clear underwater ow structure moving the sediment to the power
intake can be seen infront of the weir. The scan is calibrated and referenced
by terrestrial survey cross sections achieving a accuracy failure smaller 2 cm.
30
40
14
This paper will describe the
use of the Icaros
Photogrammetric Suite (IPS
2.0 and IPS3.0) through a
case study of an extremely
difficult project, captured with
a small format sensor.
8
Partners and users of Esris
software products gathered for
a three-day program of keyno-
tes, technical workshops and
user presentations.
The Belgian company Orbit
Geospatial Technologies focu-
ses its Asset Inventory
Management tool on the large
scale and massive use of geo-
data. Ease of use is at the fore-
front with technology develop-
ment continuing behind the
scenes.
With PostGIS 2.0 coming up,
huge exposure during this
years FOSS4G event, its
safe to say that PostGIS is
here to stay.
26
Intergraph finds itself in a transition
after Hexagon acquired the compa-
ny last year. Integration of products
of the different companies under the
Hexagon name is now happening,
such as image
analysis products from erdas with
Intergraphs video motion analysis
software.
42
The 2011Be Inspired Awards
honor the work of Bentley
users improving the worlds
infrastructure. They were pre-
sented at a gala dinner dur-
ing the annualBe Inspired:
Thought Leadership in
Infrastructureevent, held Nov.
8-9, in Amsterdam,
Netherlands.
18
A new generation of airborne
bathymetric laser scanners is
currently being introduced that
promise an improved speed
and density of data acquisition
and the extension of bathyme-
tric surveys to ever deeper
coastal waters on the one
hand; and the acquisition of
dense data sets in shallow
water.
6
The common denominators are
sustainable studies in the fields
of energy and environmental
catastrophes as well as the
Leica ATHENA Program for
Higher-Education and Non-
profit Organizations.
6
Ar t i c l e
Sustainable Studies with GNSS
The Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry (IGP) at the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) carried out three
closely linked interdisciplinary projects, two of which are within
the remit of the Competence Center Environment and Sustainability
of the ETH Domain (CCES). The scope of the projects extends from
research into tectonics, the movements of rock glaciers right up to
the determination of atmospheric water vapour content. The
common denominators are sustainable studies in the fields of
energy and environmental catastrophes as well as the Leica
ATHENA Program for Higher-Education and Non-profit
Organizations.
By Agnes Zeiner
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
7
T
he three projects demonstrate how GNSS can be used in a wide
range of research. We see GNSS as a valuable multifunctional
tool in geodetic seismology and tectonics, in hazard monitoring
and last but not least in atmospheric research, explains Professor Alain
Geiger from the Geodesy and Geodynamics Lab (GGL) at the Institute of
Geodesy and Photogrammetry. The aim is to make new discoveries and
gain better knowledge of particular processes so that natural catastro-
phes can be predicted and even more importantly, averted.
Earthquake Research
In COGEAR (COupled seismogenic GEohazard in Alpine Regions), an
ETH Domain project in the canton of Wallis, high-precision Leica
GRX1200 reference stations are used to study tectonics, in particular the
long-term movements of the earths crust and to detect the displacements
arising from earthquakes. This task requires a whole network of stations,
explains Geiger. The project studies earth crust movements and the team
around Geiger hopes to highlight zones under high and increasing strains.
We also wish to research earthquake risks in the Alpine area and the
associated displacements that could lead to soil slips and rock falls, says
Geiger.
Water Vapour
APUNCH (Advanced Process UNderstanding and prediction of hydrolog-
ical extremes and Complex Hazards), another ETH Domain project, uses
Leica GRX1200 reference stations to determine the distribution of water
vapour in the atmosphere. If a network has enough receivers, the high-
precision measurements can be processed to reveal a threedimensional
image of the distribution of atmospheric water vapour, explains Geiger:
Water vapour and rain are at the start of the chain that can lead to ood-
ing, soil slips and build-ups of water. We wish to work out when and how
much rain will fall by studying the whole chain.

ETH Domain and the CCES
In addition to the two universities of applied sciences, ETH Zurich and
EPF Lausanne, ETH Domain also includes four federal research estab-
lishments:
Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI)
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
(WSL)
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa)
Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)
The ETH Board has supported four theme-oriented competence centres
for interdisciplinary research in which the relevant areas of each insti-
tute work closely together. They form a platform that interlinks basic
research and applied research to produce innovations with economic
or social benets and provides a point of contact for external enquiries.
One of these is the Competence Center Environment and Sustainability
of the ETH Domain (CCES).
Ar t i c l e
8
December 2011
Rock Glaciers
In the third project X-Sense, part of the Swiss
federal programme Nano-Tera, research is
taking place on Rock glaciers, among them
the Dirru in the Mattertal valley. In this study
we are looking into the detailed movements
of rock glaciers and trying to assess the
potential risk of slips, because thawing rock
glaciers pose a danger for whole valley
communities, says Geiger, who along with
Dr. Philippe Limpach and doctorate students
is supporting this project from the GNSS
side. Low-cost receivers from a third-party
supplier are used as local references on the
glacier, with the Leica GRX1200 GNSS
receiver acting as the regional reference
instruments. The Computer Engineering and
Networks Laboratory from ETH Zurich, the
Department of Geography from the
University of Zurich, the Swiss Federal Ofce
for the Environment and the company
GAMMA Remote Sensing are working
alongside Geigers team on the X-Sense pro-
ject.
The three projects are spread over a period
of time and overlap one another and will
take up to six years to complete. The GNSS
stations, which are used for all three pro-
jects and form our backbone network, will
be maintained afterwards. To augment the
information from the reference stations, we
are working very closely with the Federal
Ofce of Topography (swisstopo), we can
use its AGNES network as a higher-order
reference network and therefore also include
its data, for example, in our atmospheric
research, explains Alain Geiger.
The Leica ATHENA Program
The use of the high-precision GRX1200 ref-
erence stations falls within the framework of
the Leica Geosystems ATHENA Program.
ATHENA stands for Advanced Technology
for Higher-Education and Nonprot Asso cia -
tions. The objective is to support academic
and research bodies with the latest GNSS
and monitoring technology.
About the author:
Agnes Zeiner is Director Corporate Messaging at
Leica Geosystems in Heerbrugg/Switzerland.
agnes.zeiner@leica-geosystems.com
Reference station on a swisstopo trig point above the Randa avalanche zone (Wallis Canton, CH).
The Dirru rock glacier can be seen on the opposite side of the valley.
Orbit measures All Panorama Images
Asset Inventory Management
The Belgian company Orbit Geospatial Technologies focuses its Asset Inventory Management tool
on the large scale and massive use of geodata. Ease of use is at the forefront with technology
development continuing behind the scenes.
S
urveying data is now available every-
where. With the arrival of mobile map-
ping and laser scanning technologies,
together with the ability to integrate into your
survey data geo-located stereo imagery, the
ways of processing all this data back in the
ofce has certainly changed. There is a risk
that large quantities of data pile up and that
organizations are not conscious of the broad
operational capabilities of their investments in
geodata.
Managing public space
Managers of public spaces have a lot to gain
by the smart use of surveying data, particular-
ly photogrammetric imagery. They should
have access to up-to-date detailed information
that cannot be found by default in base maps
and in regular geospatial datasets. These
managers count trees, trafc signs, roadside
xtures and other things that are subject to
constant change. They may be moved, paint-
ed or destroyed. To send somebody to carry
out an inventory on the street is a very expen-
sive undertaking, and can entail a vast
amount of work. Peter Bonne, VP Business
Development at Belgian Orbit Geospatial
Technologies: Updating an asset inventory
is fundamentally different using software that
is capable of extracting information from a
point cloud that contains millions of scanned
points. However, theres a link: all these points
contain information that a manager is looking
for.
Pieter Jongert is the manager for the Dutch
market at Orbit GT. He sees that quite often
organizations already have different datasets
available to them: Cycloramas, aerial
images, stereophotos: a whole legacy of data.
What these municipalities would like is to pre-
sent this geodata in an easy way, so that past
investments can be employed optimally.
Surveying from the ofce
A layman can perform surveys from the ofce
with Orbit GT Asset Inventory (in full: the
Asset Inventory Management Solution for
Mobile Mapping), for example in a point
cloud that has been created through laser
scanning. Bonne: This sounds more compli-
cated than it really is. In fact, the user clicks
on an image, that has already been
enhanced with 3D information from a scan.
Also, performing surveying with stereo
images works very intuitively. He adds: The
tools are easy to use. What is noticeable
about our viewer is the lack of a menu: we
innovate in an invisible technology that does
the work for you.
Bonne sees a huge advantage by applying
easy to use geospatially-centric tools: It is of
little use to educate fty people on a new
piece of software. Firstly, all those people, in
which a lot of investment has now been put,
will have to stay in the organization with that
knowledge for it to be of benet. Also, main-
taining that level of knowledge is a challenge.
Even after summer holidays, a lot of what has
been learned has already faded away or dis-
10
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
By Remco Takken
Measuring points in panaroma image. On the aerial image the location and view direction can be seen, and also other panorama images can be selected.
appeared altogether. By maintaining the tools
as easy to use and self-explanatory, the learn-
ing threshold is automatically lowered.
Information out of a point cloud
Surveying inside a point cloud works as fol-
lows: on the screen an image is shown, a fol-
lowing point cloud adds intelligence to the
image. Bonne: What is surveyed, consists of
point cloud information out of the back ofce,
that enters through web services. To make this
technology work optimally, the panoramic
image and point cloud should be captured
simultaneously, or unwanted differences will
occur that will make the surveying inaccurate
or even unusable. In practice, clients of Orbit
GT often work with images and point clouds
that have been acquired with, for instance, a
Topcon IP-52 system.
The comparison with Google StreetView and
Cyclomedias GlobeSpotter seems logical.
Bonne sees this more broadly: Not only do
we support all types of panoramic images, the
image is also the gateway to the point clouds
from laser scanners. But the utilization of point
clouds is not a prerequisite: Cyclomedia, FIS
and other vendors are local support with
whose data we can survey exactly. The whole
Flemish database of trafc signs has been sur-
veyed with our tools with the aid of
Cycloramas, all-in-all around one million
objects.
Stereo imagery
Measuring in stereophotos from out of the
ofce is also possible. When a point is select-
ed in two images, its possible to determine
the distance and the location of that point.
This is not quite a new technology: mapping
of base les happens also through forward
cutting in (stereo) aerial images. Stereo
images however are by-products that are
often unused by organizations: they can be
complex and too expensive. The biggest
investment is the acquisition of the sets of
images. Compared to that, acquiring a tool
to unlock and process them is a small invest-
ment and furthermore makes them very acces-
sible.
11
Ar t i c l e
The simplification of working processes will popularize the use of geospatial data without a doubt, but thesetools are not meant for the casual user looking for a simple map.
On the screen an image is shown, a following point cloud adds intelligence to the image.
On top of the GIS platform
Bonne explains that Orbit GT can function on
top of an existing platform: Because our
technology is fully non-intrusive, there are big
changes ahead for GIS data managed by
other software. Although the Asset Inventory
Management solution is a broadly applicable
application on top of an existing GIS environ-
ment, theres an important difference with a
web-GIS solution: A web-GIS is fantastic to
unlock things easily, but there is not much else
you can do with it. He adds: The simplica-
tion of working processes will popularize the
use of geospatial data without a doubt, but
our tools are not meant for the casual user
looking for a simple map.
Independent
Orbit GT also has its own GIS platform that is
used by the Belgian municipality of Gent and
two hundred other municipalities across the
country. Orbit GT is realistic enough to under-
stand that theres already a lot of software
available within other organizations. The com-
pany operates independently and respects
existing structures. Bonne: We enter an orga-
nization, install our tools and they can start
working immediately. We also help with inte-
grations where needed or wished for, and
then were open for collaboration with present
software vendors.
Independence is also recognized by the data
providers that are being supported in the view-
er. Not only are Cycloramas supported (from
the Dutch company Cyclomedia), but also
other formats. Bonne: We support all types
of panoramic images, which is of course very
interesting for customers who work with
mixed data. We dont start with a specic
data type in mind. We look at the working
processes rst, because the end result is all
about unlocking the information from munici-
palities in a convenient way and setting up an
efcient workow.
Remco Takken is editor of GeoInformatics.
For more information, have a look at www.orbitgis.com
Ar t i c l e
12
December 2011
The blue points show the location where the panorama images were taken, in the aerial image the reach of the current chosen panorama image can be seen.

A Case Study
Automatic Photogrammetric
The use of small and medium format sensors for traditional photogrammetry can present a number of
prominent challenges. For these formats, the relatively small image footprint usually leads to a large
number of images needing to be processed. Traditionally this fact has limited the use of small and
medium format sensors to simple projects of small and unchallenging areas. This paper will describe
the use of the Icaros Photogrammetric Suite (IPS 2.0 and IPS3.0) through a case study of an extremely
difficult project, captured with a small format sensor.
Introduction
The use of small and medium format sensors
can present many photogrammetric chal-
lenges and limitations. Due to the problemat-
ic base-to-height ratio of small format sensors,
it is usually necessary to collect data at a high-
er resolution than needed in order to achieve
the desired accuracies. This leads to a very
large quantity of images per area unit. Not
only does this raise the cost of data acquisi-
tion, but it also increases the cost and time of
the photogrammetric process. Processing
such a project in a traditional photogrammet-
ric workow requires a large team of skilled
operators, powerful hardware and high qual-
ity project management. This fact has encour-
aged most companies using small and medi-
um format sensors to avoid the traditional
photogrammetric workow and apply direct
geo-referencing techniques. This requires the
use of high precision IMU and GPS systems
to generate telemetric measurements of the
external orientation data at the time of image
capture. These systems are extremely expen-
sive and have very limited export licenses.
Presuming a company was able to acquire
the necessary licenses to purchase these
expensive systems, they are still susceptible
to systematic and random errors such as drift
and satellite signal blockage.
Low quality orientation data can be correct-
ed in the aerial triangulation (AT) stage usu-
ally with manual editing. As a result, difcult
ight conditions or inherent system errors will
result in low accuracy of the end product or
time consuming manual editing during the AT
stage. In this case, the images might not be
useful and the ight will need to be repeat-
ed, thus causing costs to exceed the initial
project budget.
The accuracy of the aerial triangulation pro-
cess and the accuracy of the nal product
are highly dependent on the quality and cov-
erage of the extracted tie-points. Recent
advances in the eld of computer vision
have led to new extraction and matching
schemes that are less dependent
on accurate mutual orientation
reducing the need for highly
accurate GPS and IMU systems.
Earlier this year (2011), Icaros
was approached by an Israeli
surveying rm that had pho-
tographed a project in Bots -
wana using a medium-format
sensor, after two years of failed
attempts to process the project
themselves. The photogrammet-
ric block would not converge
with their standard photogram-
metric software making it impossible to
extract a DEM and create an Orthophoto.
Icaros succeeded in converging the block
solution and producing a high quality
Orthophoto within two working days. (Using
the new IPS3 shortens this process to a few
hours maximum)
This article summarizes what made the com-
pletion of this challenging project possible,
and focuses on the AT process in the Icaros
IPS 2.1 software suite and the automatic tie-
point extraction and bundle block adjust-
ment modules, MatchMe and Solution
Manager.
Aerial Triangulation
Aerial triangulation was performed with the
Icaros MatchMe and Solution Manager pro-
prietary software modules.
MatchMe offers a unique tie-point extraction
approach based on the innovative vector rep-
resentation of image points. The MatchMe
14
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
By Dor Yalon
Figure 1: The strength of the block tie-points
automatically created by MatchMe
module implements several algorithms includ-
ing Keypoint extraction, fast Keypoint match-
ing, and several steps of geometric ltering
that ensure capture of tie-points with virtually
no outliers.
To increase efciency and streamline the pro-
cess, the extraction phase is performed in the
original image scale without any need to
downscale the image dimensions. MatchMe
uses a unique descriptor found to be more ef-
cient in the case of aerial images. This frame-
work is especially efcient for matching large
groups of images.
Applying these algorithms effectively yields
thousands of correct tie-points. The tie-points
with the highest contribution to the geometric
stability of the block are selected by a projec-
tive-driven mechanism. The selected points are
then imported into the Icaros bundle block
adjustment software (Solution Manager).
The bundle block adjustment process applies
a state-of-the-art numerical approach. The
adjustment includes another outlier detection
algorithm (as a triple-check) in order to lter
out slightly inaccurate tie-points.
Major challenges in this project
1. Problems in heading measurement (Kappa
angle) caused some of the images to rotate
up to 180 degrees. The rotation was not
constant and occurred randomly; in one
ight line we found a variety of Kappa
angular inaccuracies from less than one
degree to 180 degrees.
2.Large visual (radiometric) differences
between images that were captured on dif-
ferent dates and during different illumina-
tion conditions; the differences were so
large that in some parts of the project even
a skilled operator could not detect mutual
features in two overlapping images.
3. Due to difcult weather conditions, some
of the Omega and Phi angles from the
images where large (18 degrees from
nadir) resulting in poor overlap in some
areas and weakening the geometric
strength of the block.
4. Some of the image GPS centers had inac-
curacies of more than 200 meters (the
largest image inaccuracy was 250 meters).
Given all of these problems, the mutual orien-
tation of this block was totally unacceptable.
Because there was no possibility to repeat the
ight, this block had to be converged and
solved, including DTM extraction, Ortho -
photos and a nal mosaic.
Tie-point extraction
Tie-points where extracted with the MatchMe
module. In this project, the unique approach
taken by MatchMe was very signicant due
to the poor mutual orientation measured dur-
ing the ight and the differences between
the images caused by different ight dates.
The MatchMe tie-point correlation phase
does not need external orientation in order
nd correct tie-points. MatchMe uses the
X/Y image coordinates to determine neigh-
boring images, done mostly in order to save
time. Finding tie-points between images is a
time consuming process and therefore there
is no reason to correlate images that de-
nitely will not have any connections.
Tie-point Extraction Results
Figure 1 shows the Solution Manager UI.
Each line represents the connection between
two images created by shared tie-points. A
thicker line means there are more shared tie-
points between the image pair and red lines
indicate three points. It is evident from the
dominant red color that this was a challeng-
ing project to correlate.
Bundle adjustment process
After connecting all images with a sufcient
number of tie-points, the Icaros team started
the solution process. During this stage anoth-
er challenge came up when images showed
Kappa angle inaccuracies of up to 180
degrees.
While MatchMe can extract correct tie-
points without external orientation, the
Solution Manager module (a bundle adjust-
ment engine and interactive tie-point editing
tool) cannot converge the location and ori-
entation parameters and automatically com-
pensate for the huge gaps in the data. The
Icaros team needed to detect the inaccurate
images and rotate them back to their
approximate correct Kappa.
Identifying the rotated images can be done
manually but this process may take a long
time since the image inaccuracies, in this
case, were random and the photogrammet-
ric expert does not know which images out
of the 1500 need to be rotated. Therefore,
for this mission the Icaros team used the spe-
cial characteristics (rotation of the inaccu-
rate Kappa value images) of the MatchMe
and Solution Manager modules. Following
the initial iterations of the solution process,
some tie-points had high residuals in pixels,
contrary to the fact that the MatchMe mod-
ule has a negligible amount of outliers. After
thorough examination, all of the high resid-
ual tie-points appeared on images with inac-
curate Kappa values.
Ar t i c l e
15

Solution
Technical project related data
Sensor: 39 Mp with a focal length of 35mm
Stabilization: 3-axis automatic stabilization.
IMU: The payload contained a high accuracy
IMU but due to a serious technical malfunction
the measurements were highly unreliable.
Project Details:
Number of images in the project: 1500.
GSD: 10cm.
Number of Ground Control Points: 200.
After realizing that the rotated images did
indeed exist, the team needed to determine
which images to rotate. Solution Manager has
many data attributes that are collected during
the solution, and one of them is the Kappa dif-
ference between the airborne measurement
and the adjusted solution of the angle. In the
inaccurate images, the photogrammetric
expert could see the Kappa trend of the image
and after rotating it to the right Kappa angle
the images where converged adequately and
the nal pixel RMS was 0.764. The Icaros
team discovered 46 images out of the 1500
that were completely (~180) rotated.
Solution Manager uses an adaptive weighting
function that enables the user to converge very
difcult blocks or in more typical cases gain
better accuracies.
An adaptive weighting function strengthens the
weight of the low residual tie-points and weak-
ens the weight of the high residual tie-points.
In this particular project the high residual tie-
points were located mainly in the areas of the
inaccurate Kappa value images. The fact that
the photogrammetric expert ruled out the
option of many outlier tie-points due to the way
MatchMe works, led him to immediately under-
stand that one of the external orientation
parameters (in our case the Kappa angle) was
radically incorrect and he was able to solve
the problem.
Results
The whole bundle adjustment process took
two working days and included sampling
control points and running an automated
DEM extraction.
Final pixel RMS was 0.764 and the accura-
cies met the clients requirements, which were
a vertical accuracy of 50cm and a positional
accuracy of 35cm.
Following a thorough Quality Assurance stage
the Icaros team found adequate geometric sta-
bility with maximum height differences
between neighboring stereo pairs of 40cm
that led to the adequate creation of a DEM
and Orthophoto.
As a result of other similar projects that
encountered the same challenges of severely
inaccurate angles (i.e. IMU drift), Icaros has
developed a new and innovative functionality
with its IPS3.0 bundle block adjustment that
automatically converge images with an indif-
ference to angular values. Today, this process
is done in a completely automatic manner and
does not require any human intervention.
Moreover, these types of processes are now
completed in a matter of hours and not days.
Summary
This photogrammetric project was challeng-
ing due to the severe inaccuracies in the exter-
nal orientation measured during image cap-
ture, the quality of the images and the visual
radiometric differences. Despite these factors,
the Icaros team succeeded in converging and
solving the aerial triangulation problems and
completed the project within a short time mak-
ing it cost-effective.
The project was deemed a success due to the
short processing time and the products high
accuracy, which met the standards required
by the client.
It could be argued that a typical ight with an
adequate inertial navigation system would
make these abilities unnecessary. Also, a clas-
sic automatic tie-point correlation based heav-
ily on mutual orientation will work with the
same level of automation. However, the harsh
reality of everyday airborne systems means
that many malfunctions can occur, especially
on large projects where thousands of images
have been captured.
The IPS (Icaros Photogrammetric Suite) suit-
ability to rmly establish that the automatic tie-
point correlation has negligible errors, regard-
less of the type of area the software is trying
to correlate, enables the photogrammetric
operator to efciently solve thousands of
images in one block. Reducing the amount of
photogrammetric blocks shortens the time it
takes to complete the project, reduces the
amount of ground control points required and
gains better accuracies.
This solution creates new opportunities for
many low cost systems (i.e. UAVs). These sys-
tems are usually carrying small frame, stan-
dard calibrated SLR cameras, and hence are
very limited in the scope and accuracies of
the projects they are used for. Now, with
IPS3.0 diminishing the need for expensive
IMUs systems, it enables whole new families
of products to participate in the market as
equals.
Dor Yalon is the Co-Founder & CTO of ICAROS Inc. With more than
20 years experience with GIS systems, he has led the development of
new GIS technologies throughout his career. Dor led the GIS
departments of many companies in Israel, including Nesher Aerial
Photography. In addition, he established the GIS department for the
Ministry of Construction and Housing.
Ar t i c l e
16
December 2011
Figure 2: DTM
A New Generation is Being Introduced
Airborne Bathymetric Laser
A new generation of airborne bathymetric laser scanners is currently being introduced that promise (i)
an improved speed and density of data acquisition and the extension of bathymetric surveys to ever
deeper coastal waters on the one hand; and (ii) the acquisition of dense data sets in shallow water,
both in the problematic coastal surf zone and also in inland waters.
Introduction
A previous article that was published in the
January/February 2011 issue of GEO Infor -
matics gave an overview of current devel-
opments in airborne topographic laser scan-
ners. With an estimated 400 of these
devices in current service world-wide, they
form a major segment of the airborne map-
ping industry. By contrast, there are fewer
than a dozen airborne bathymetric laser
scanners in current operation world-wide.
However, almost certainly, this situation is
going to change with the introduction of a
new generation of these instruments.
As their name suggests, airborne bathymet-
ric laser scanners have been developed prin-
cipally to carry out the mapping of the
seabed and the adjacent land in coastal
areas and in inland seas such as the Great
Lakes in the U.S.A. This activity has also
included the detailed surveys of ports and
harbours and the navigation channels asso-
ciated with them, although, in this case,
sometimes the demands for high depth accu-
racies may be difcult to meet. Obviously
airborne bathymetric laser scanners can
also be used to carry out the mapping of the
beds and the shoreline areas of lakes, reser-
voirs, large rivers and other similar inland
bodies of shallow water. Until now, this last
application has not been a matter of major
interest. However this situation may be
about to change with the introduction, in
many countries, of more stringent govern-
ment regulations requiring the regular moni-
toring of lakes, rivers, canals and other
inland water bodies, especially those sup-
plying drinkable water.
Basic Principle
The basic principle of measuring the depth
of the seabed (or a lakebed) below the sea
(or lake) surface with an airborne bathymet-
ric laser scanner normally involves the use
of two laser rangenders. These are
usually coupled together in a single frame
or chassis and point downwards towards
the water surface. The two rangenders emit
their pulses simultaneously, albeit at differ-
ent rates and at different wavelengths in
the near infra-red (NIR) and the green parts
of the electro-magnetic spectrum respective-
ly. The NIR radiation (emitted at = 1064
nm) is reected back from the water surface,
whereas the pulse of green radiation (emit-
ted at = 532 nm) passes into and through
the water column and is reected by the
seabed back towards the rangender [Fig.
1]. The actual depth that can be measured
by this green pulse is normally limited to
between 25 and 50 m, depending (i) on the
specic system that is being used and its out-
put power; and (ii) the clarity or turbidity of
the water column through which the radia-
tion is passing. The NIR-based laser
rangender will of course also be used to
pick up the shoreline and the coastal land
features, since this type of rangender is
already in widespread use in airborne topo-
graphic laser scanners. However, in this con-
text, it should be noted that the green laser
rangender can be used to pick up coastal
land features, besides its role in depth mea-
surement. The reected radiation at each
wavelength is then gathered and measured
by the appropriate detectors located within
the respective laser rangenders. In this
way, the elapsed time intervals between the
emitted and received signals are measured
for both sets of pulses. From these measure-
ments of the elapsed time, the correspond-
ing ranges (and depths) can then be
derived, having due regard to the differ-
ences in the speed of the radiation passing
through air and water respectively.
While this information provides depth val-
ues and creates a simple depth prole along
the ight line, the addition of an angular
18
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
By Gordon Petrie
Fig. 1 Showing the system design of a typical airborne bathymetric laser scanner. The pulses from the NIR laser rangefinder are reflected direct-
ly from the sea (or land) surface, while the pulses from the green laser rangefinder penetrate the water and are reflected back from the seabed.
(Source: Airborne Hydrography AB)
Ar t i c l e
19

Scanners
Fig. 3 On the left is the cabinet
containing the system control
units; while on the right is the
operators display monitor and
keyboard of the Optech SHOALS
1000 system. (Source: Optech)
scanning mechanism (employing a rotat-
ing mirror or prism) provides additional cov-
erage in the form of a cross-track prole.
Since the laser rangenders are usually set
pointing towards the water surface in a slight-
ly tilted conguration (of circa 20 degrees to
the vertical) in the ight direction, the prole
takes the form of a curved arc of discrete
points across the sea surface and the seabed.
The successive series of these measured cross-
track proles that are acquired as the air-
borne platform ies forward results in the cov-
erage of a swath or area of the sea (or lake)
surface and the underlying seabed (or
lakebed) [ see Fig. 2]. As with an airborne
topographic laser scanner, measurements of
the position and attitude of the airborne
platform and the bathymetric laser scanner
that is mounted on it are provided continu-
ously throughout the period of the acquisition
of the scanner data by an integrated
GPS/IMU or GNSS/IMU sub-system.
Existing Systems
The earliest attempts to develop instruments
that could implement airborne laser
bathymetry were carried out during the
1970 and 1980s in the U.S.A., Canada,
Sweden and Austra lia. By the mid-1990s,
operational bathymetric laser scanning sys-
tems were being used in all four countries.
Indeed the same four countries remain in the
forefront of developing airborne bathymet-
ric laser scanners today.
Optech
In Canada, over the last 20 years, the
Optech company has developed a series
of these bathymetric laser scanning systems
that are entitled SHOALS - which is an
acronym for the full title of Scanning
Hydrographic Operational Airborne Lidar
Survey system. The rst in the series was
the SHOALS-200 system that was deliv-
ered in 1993 to the U.S. Army Corps of
Engi neers (USACE). In 1998, this system
was upgraded to become the SHOALS-
400, the numbers 200 and 400 being the
pulse repetition frequency (PRF) values in
Hertz (Hz) that could be achieved by the
green (bathymetric) laser rangender.
In 2003, Optech introduced its SHOALS-
1000 model [Fig.3], in which the green
laser rangender could not only reach the
Fig. 2 This diagram shows the scanning pattern over the sea surface (and seabed) that is generated by a typical airborne bathymetric laser scan-
ner. H = the flying height; = the forward tilt of the laser rangefinder in the direction of flight (V); and S = the scan width or swath covered by
the scanning pattern. (Source: Airborne Hydrography AB)
Fig. 4 The Optech SHOALS 3000 system. The scanner module is
in the central cabinet. It is flanked on the left by the laptop
computer, pilot display monitor and data storage unit; and on
the right by the electronics cabinet containing the system
control units. (Source: Optech)
much improved PRF value of 1,000 Hz (1
kHz), but was much lighter and more com-
pact than the two previous models. The rst
example was delivered to the U.S. Navy,
where it formed the major element of the
CHARTS (Compact Hydrographic Airborne
Rapid Total Survey) system which was being
implemented by the Joint Airborne LiDAR
Bathymetry Center of Excellence (JABLTCX).
This is a partnership of the USACE, USGS,
NOAA and the U.S. Navy, which is based
at the Stennis International Airport, located
near NASAs Stennis Space Center in
Mississippi in the U.S.A. Besides this rst
example, two further models of the SHOALS-
1000 system were built and delivered to the
Fugro Pelagos commercial hydrographic sur-
vey company and the Japanese Coast
Guards hydrographic organisation. A third
additional system was made available to
other organisations for use in individual pro-
jects on a lease basis from Optech.
In 2006, a further development took place
in the form of the SHOALS-3000 [Fig. 4],
which essentially was an upgrade to the
SHOALS-1000 model with an improved per-
formance, the pulse measuring rate of the
green (bathymetric) laser rangender being
increased to 3,000 Hz (3 kHz). This
improved model again formed a major part
of the CHARTS system, which also incorpo-
rates a CASI pushbroom imaging scanner
from ITRES Research that simultaneously gen-
erates hyperspectral linescan imagery.
This imagery allows the construction of the-
matic charts showing the areas of sand,
mud, rock, coral, sea grass, kelp, etc. that
are present on the seaoor, besides incor-
porating the depth information produced
from the laser scan measurements.
Obviously, since the CASI is a passive imag-
ing system, it does not posses the same
depth penetration capabilities as the active
bathymetric laser rangender.
AHAB
The Saab group from Sweden was another
early pioneer in this particular eld. In 1994
and 1998, with cooperation from Optech,
it delivered two Hawk Eye systems to the
Swedish Navy and Swedish Maritime
Authority respectively for use in shallow-
water surveys in the Baltic Sea. In 2002,
Saab sold the product rights to the Hawk
Eye system to three former Saab employees
who had been involved in its development.
They formed the AHAB (Airborne Hydro -
graphy AB) company and developed a new
Hawk Eye II system. This system operates
in a similar manner to that used in the
SHOALS systems, emitting its pulses at 1
kHz for the green (bathymetric) laser and
16 kHz for the near-IR (topographic) laser.
However it uses a quadrature receiver array,
so creating a point density of 4 kHz with the
returning green laser signals and 64 kHz
with the returning near-IR signals. The rst
example of the Hawk Eye II scanning sys-
tem was delivered in late 2005 to Admiralty
Coastal Surveys [Fig. 5], a commercial sur-
vey company that was owned jointly by the
UK Hydrographic Ofce (UKHO), Blom and
AHAB. In 2007, the Blom company bought
out its two partners and started to operate
the Hawk Eye II scanner on its own account.
In 2009, Blom sold its bathymetric survey
operation to Pelydryn, a newly formed com-
pany which is based in Newport, South
Wales in the U.K. The Pelydryn company
now owns three of the Hawk Eye II scanners,
which are operated on a commercial con-
tract basis world-wide [Fig. 6].
LADS
LADS (Laser Airborne Depth Sounder) was
another early airborne bathymetric laser
scanning system that was developed in
Australia by BHP Engineering and Vision
Systems. The rst example was delivered to
the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in 1992.
In 1998, a second system with an improved
performance called LADS Mk II was
brought into commercial operation by the
Tenix Corporation, which had bought out the
partners who had constructed the original
LADS system. This system has been used very
successfully undertaking surveys on a com-
mercial contract basis world-wide. In 2008,
a second LADS Mk II system was brought into
operation by the RAN, which continues to
deploy it on its coastal bathymetric surveys
of Australian waters. Like the Optech and
AHAB systems, the LADS systems utilize two
(green and NIR) laser rangenders. However,
20
December 2011
Fig. 5 The original model of the AHAB Hawk Eye II airborne
bathymetric laser scanner, as operated by Admiralty Coastal Surveys.
(Source: Airborne Hydrography AB)
Fig. 6 The current model of the AHAB Hawk Eye II bathymetric
laser scanner. (Source: Airborne Hydrography AB)
Fig. 7 (a) The simple rectilinear raster scan pattern of the green
laser rangefinder of the LADS Mk II system is shown in green, while
the along-track depth profile that is acquired by its near-IR laser
rangefinder is shown in red. (Source: Fugro-LADS Corporation)
(b) A perspective view showing the pattern of pulses (in green)
that are emitted through the cross-track scan movement which is car-
ried out using the green laser rangefinder, while the pulses emitted
by the near-IR rangefinder (in red) remain in a fixed vertical orienta-
tion. (Source: Fugro-LADS Corporation)
Ar t i c l e
only the green (bathymetric) laser rangend-
er scans the sea surface and seabed which
it does in a simple rectilinear raster pattern
rather than the curved arc pattern that is uti-
lized by the Optech and AHAB systems [Fig.
7 (a)]. The NIR laser rangender remains in
a xed vertical pointing attitude and pro-
duces a continuous prole of the sea surface
along the line of ight [Fig. 7 (b)], rather than
a series of scanned proles in the cross-track
direction to cover an area, as is done in the
Optech and AHAB systems. In 2009, the
Tenix Corporation sold the Tenix-LADS opera-
tion to Fugro, which has re-named it as the
Fugro-LADS Corporation. In 2010, Fugro has
operated the LADS Mk II system together with
a HySpex VNIR-1600 hyperspectral imaging
line scanner that has been developed by
Norsk Elektro Optikk (NEO) in Norway.
EAARL
NASA designed and built its EAARL
(Experi mental Advanced Airborne Research
Lidar) bathymetric scanner specically to
undertake high-resolution surveys of shallow
aquatic topography. The system has been
operational since 2002. It differs from all
the previously discussed systems above in
that it uses a single green laser rather than
the twin (NIR + green) lasers used in the
rangenders of all the systems discussed
above. The single green laser (emitting its
radiation at = 532 nm) is comparatively
low-powered; which means that the maxi-
mum depth that it can measure is 20 to 25
m, even in very clear water. The EAARL laser
rangender generates very short (1.3 ns)
pulses and has a fairly high pulse rate (up
to 10 kHz). Each pulse is very well collimat-
ed with a narrow eld-of-view that generates
a small diameter spot at the water surface.
The laser rangender is pointed vertically
downwards in the aircraft and utilizes a
scan mechanism with an oscillating bi-direc-
tional mirror to scan the area of the sea sur-
face and seabed on either side of the ight
line [Fig. 8]. In this particular respect, it is
similar to the airborne topographic laser
scanners of Optech and Leica. The receiver
side of the EAARL instrument is extremely
sensitive, its detectors being able to count
the individual photons of the returning radi-
ation being reected from the sea surface
and seabed. This digitizer only design
eliminates many of the specialized electron-
ic components that are used in other
designs. The EAARL system also includes
two digital frame imaging cameras compris-
ing (i) a conventional RGB model; and (ii) a
three-band CIR model. The system has been
used extensively for marine science research
purposes around the southern and eastern
coasts of the U.S.A. and those of the
American islands in the
Caribbean Sea, espe-
cially those areas that
have been hit by devas-
tating hurricanes in
recent years.
New Systems
As will be seen below,
nearly all the existing
system suppliers are in
the course of introducing
new models of airborne
bathymetric scanners,
and they are now being
joined by RIEGL, which
is a well known and
established supplier of
airborne topographic
laser scanner engines
and systems.
Optech
The National Center for Airborne Laser
Mapping (NCALM) is a joint collaboration
between the University of Houston and the
University of California, Berkeley in the
U.S.A. For several years, this Center has pro-
vided research quality airborne laser map-
ping and imaging data for use by the U.S.
scientic community. The Center is support-
ed in this mission by the U.S. National
Science Foundation (NSF). Currently it owns
and operates an Optech ALTM Gemini air-
borne topographic laser scanner. In the sum-
mer of 2010, the Foundation provided the
funding to Optech to build an additional
laser rangender that would operate in the
green part of the spectrum. The idea was that
this new rangender could be swapped with
the standard Gemini laser rangender for
use in shallow water mapping (<10 m) and
could still utilize the existing Gemini control
module and electronics. The development
and testing of the new system has just been
completed and the system delivered to the
NCALM in Houston. The system offers a PRF
Ar t i c l e
21
Fig. 8 This diagram shows the operation and the scanning pattern
of NASAs EAARL bathymetric lidar system. (Source: NASA)
Fig. 9 The new Optech ALTM Aquarius bathymetric laser rangefind-
er module is at right rear. The system electronics cabinet is at left
rear. In front is the laptop computer that is used to control the over-
all system, together with a separate small pilot display monitor.
(Source: Optech)
Fig. 10 This block diagram shows the arrangement of the main
system cabinet of the new CZMIL system. N.B. It does not include the
systems additional imaging devices. (Source: JABLTCX)
Fig. 11 The Fresnel prismatic optical element that is used to produce the circular scanning pattern of
the CZMIL system. (Source: Optech)
of 70 kHz and a scan rate that can be set
at values up to 70 Hz. The new system
called the ALTM Aquarius is now
being offered commercially by Optech,
either as a complete stand-alone system or
as an additional swappable module for use
with an existing Gemini ALTM system [Fig.
9]. The new Aquarius system is viewed by
Optech as being complementary to the
existing SHOALS systems and being more
compact and far more affordable for those
applications that only require shallow
(<10 m) depth measurements in clear
water.
A second airborne bathymetric laser scan-
ning system that has been developed by
Optech and is now undergoing nal tests is
the CZMIL (Coastal Zone Mapping &
Imaging Lidar) [Fig. 10]. This system is
being constructed for the JABLTCX organisa-
tion for use in the USACE Coastal Mapping
Program. It can be regarded as a very sub-
stantial development and upgrade of the
Centers existing CHARTS system that incor-
porates a number of completely new inno-
vations. In particular, the CZMIL features a
single laser rangender capable, through its
use of the frequency doubling technique, of
generating both the required green and NIR
pulses simultaneously. The green laser gen-
erates a narrow pulse having a high ener-
gy; a short pulse duration; and the much
higher PRF of 10 kHz. The scanning mecha-
nism features a novel rotating Fresnel prism
[Fig. 11] to generate a circular scan that
can provide two look angles towards those
points that are lying in the surf zone and
which are often difcult to resolve [Fig. 12].
Furthermore the system employs a segment-
ed detector and high-bandwidth electronics
that can operate in a scanned ash
approach. The result is that the overall sys-
tem provides a higher density of measured
points; a better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR);
and much better shallow water discrimina-
tion, as compared with the particular char-
acteristics of the data that were obtained
with the existing CHARTS system. As with
the existing CHARTS system, the CZMIL
incorporates an additional CASI pushbroom
line scanner that can carry out hyperspec-
tral imaging. This has been supplied by
ITRES Research and integrated into the over-
all CZMIL system.
LADS
The Fugro-LADS company has also an -
nounced the entry of its new compact and
uprated LADS Mk 3 system into service
[Fig. 13 (a)]. The main design objectives for
this new model were, on the one hand, to
reduce its mass, dimensions and power con-
sumption. By doing so, this would allow
much smaller and more economic aircraft
such as the Cessna Conquest and Beechcraft
KingAir twin turbo-prop business aircraft
[Fig. 13 (b)] to be used instead of the Fokker
F-27 and DHC Dash-8 twin turbo-prop pas-
senger aircraft that had been employed as
the platforms for the Mk I & II LADS systems.
22
December 2011
Fig. 13 (a) The Fugro LADS Mk 3 bathymetric laser scanner. (Source: Fugro-LADS Corporation)
(b) The LADS Mk 3 scanner is mounted in Fugros Cessna 441 Conquest II survey aircraft. (Source: Fugro-LADS Corporation)
Fig. 12 The CZMIL laser scanner generates a uni-directional circular pattern of laser pulses at a uniform angular interval to provide the area
coverage and spatial density that is required for bathymetric mapping purposes. (Source: JABLTCX)
Ar t i c l e
[a] [b]
Besides which, the second main requirement
was (i) to increase the laser PRF; and (ii) to
improve the accuracy and the depth perfor-
mance of the system. Both sets of objectives
appear to have been achieved, the new and
more powerful green laser rangender in the
LADS Mk 3 system allowing greater ying
heights (up to 3 km) which permit wider
swath coverage; and deeper depths to be
measured (down to 70 to 80 m in very clear
water). The laser rangender PRF has also
been increased to 1.5 kHz to allow a greater
density of points to be acquired. At the same
time, the systems positioning capabilities
have also been improved through the use of
a top-of-the-range Applanix POS-AV 610
GNSS/IMU sub-system. Improvements in
shallow water performance have also been
realised through a minor adjustment to the
rectilinear scan by tilting the rangender off-
nadir by up to 5 degrees forward in the ight
direction. This reduces the saturation from
reected radiation from the sea surface
around the nadir position, which can occur
in sheltered waters with glassy seas, whilst
still maintaining the benets of a near nadir
scan.
In September 2011, Fugro-LADS announced
that it has signed a contract with the
Languedoc-Roussillon regional branch of the
French DREAL (Regional Directorate for
Environment, Planning and Housing) agency
for the bathymetric survey of the inshore
coastal area of the Gulf of Lion in the south
of France. This will be the rst international
deployment of the LADS Mk 3 system and is
intended to monitor the changes that have
taken place in the area since a previous sur-
vey that was undertaken in the same area in
2009 using the LADS Mk II scanner. The
work will be supervised by the French nation-
al hydrographic and oceanographic service
(SHOM).
RIEGL
As will be apparent from the discussion
above, airborne bathymetric laser scanners
that are capable of measuring maximum
depths and therefore covering the greatest
possible area of coastal waters for the pro-
duction of navigation charts have been
available and operational for the past 20
years. However RIEGL has decided to enter
this eld of airborne bathymetry with a sys-
tem that gives a very high data density and
a high spatial accuracy but a restricted
water penetration and is aimed principally
at surveys of inland waters with shallow
depths. Over the past year, the company
has presented a number of conference
papers detailing its research into the devel-
opment of this type of instrument, which it
has carried out in cooperation with the
Hydraulic Engineering Unit of the University
of Innsbruck. Finally the company has
unveiled its new VQ-820-G airborne
bathymetric laser scanner at the Intergeo
2011 trade fair and exhibition that was held
recently in Nuremberg.
The RIEGL VQ-820-G scanner [Fig. 14] is
equipped with a powerful green laser that
emits a very narrow beam (pulse) with a
divergence of 1 mrad. This results in a very
small diameter pulse that is 1 cm in width
when leaving the instrument and 50 cm in
diameter on the water surface when the
scanner is being operated from a ying
height of 500 m. The instrument has a
lightweight scan head [Fig. 15] that accom-
modates (i) the actual scanning mechanism
with its rotating optical polygon prism; (ii)
the laser transmitter optics; and (iii) the
23
Fig. 15 The scan head of the RIEGL VQ-820-G airborne
bathymetric laser scanning system. (Source: RIEGL)
Fig. 14 A CAD drawing showing a RIEGL VQ-820-G airborne bathymetric laser scanning system that has been placed on top of a customized
mount incorporating shock absorbing elements. The main box contains the scanning head of the system. Attached to the sides are the systems
laser unit, IMU and medium-format digital camera. (Source: RIEGL)
Ar t i c l e
receiver optics and processing electronics.
The actual green laser source is attached to
the side of the scan head and is connected
to the scan head via an armoured bre-optic
cable and the required electrical cables. The
optical axis of the laser rangender is tilted
at an angle of 20 degrees in the ight direc-
tion - as used in the Optech and AHAB scan-
ners. The high PRF value of 250 kHz results
in a maximum rate of 110,000 measure-
ments per second. The scan rate can be var-
ied between 100 and 200 lines per second.
On the receiver side, full waveform record-
ing of the radiation that has been reected
from the water and lakebed surfaces is per-
formed. The scan head also has the
GNSS/IMU sub-system attached to it; this is
needed to generate the positional and atti-
tude data that is required by the system.
Finally it is worth noting that a prototype of
the VQ-820-G scanner instrument had been
shown at the previous Intergeo 2010 exhi-
bition. This had been tted to the belly pod
attached to a Diamond DA42 MPP twin-
engined aircraft, together with a RIEGL LMS-
Q680i topographic laser scanner [Fig. 16].
This represents a possible system congura-
tion for a survey project that requires both
topographic and bathymetric laser scan
data.
Conclusion
Currently a new generation of airborne
bathymetric laser scanners is being intro-
duced into operational service. It will be
seen that two distinct trends appear to be
taking place. On the one hand, there are
the much improved models of the well estab-
lished bathymetric scanners that are being
used at sea, where there is a real need for
greater depth penetration in order to extend
the area of coverage of detailed charts for
coastal navigation purposes. The new Fugro
LADS Mk 3 scanner is representative of this
development. On the other hand, there is
the introduction of a new type of airborne
laser bathymetric scanner that is designed
specically for shallow water operation,
both in inshore coastal waters as well as in
inland waters. The new Optech ALTM
Aquarius and RIEGL VQ-820-G scanners
are, in different ways, representative of this
second line of development. It will be very
interesting to observe how this whole eld
develops with the advent of this new gener-
ation of bathymetric laser scanners.
Gordon Petrie is Emeritus Professor of Topographic Science in the
School of Geographical & Earth Sciences of the University of Glasgow,
Scotland, U.K. E-mail Gordon.Petrie@glasgow.ac.uk ;
Web Site http://web2.ges.gla.ac.uk/~gpetrie
Ar t i c l e
24
December 2011
Fig. 16 (a) A diagram showing the combined operation of a VQ-820-G bathymetric laser scanner (tilted and shown in green) and an LMS-Q680i topographic laser scanner (pointing vertically and shown in red) from a
Diamond DA42 MPP aircraft equipped with a belly pod. (Source: RIEGL) Fig. 16 (b) A photograph of the belly pod containing the RIEGL bathymetric and topographic laser scanners. (Source: RIEGL)
[a]
[b]
I believe in reliability.
Reliability means peace of mind knowing that
your equipment will never let you down.
Regardless of the situation, you want to be able to rely on your
equipment and the results you get. Thats why Leica Geosystems
places great emphasis on dependability. Our comprehensive
spectrum of solutions covers all your measurement needs for
surveying, engineering and geospatial applications. And they are
all backed with world-class service and support that delivers
answers to your questions. When it matters most. When you
are in the field. When it has to be right.
You can count on Leica Geosystems to provide a highly reliable
solution for every facet of your job.
Leica Geosystems AG
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www.leica-geosystems.com
The Leica Viva GNSS this exceptionally rugged,
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interface is a fine example of our uncompromising
dedication to your needs. Reliability: yet another
reason to trust Leica Geosystems.

Integration of Organizations and Products
Intergraph in Transition
Intergraph finds itself in a transition after Hexagon acquired the company last year. Integration of
products of the different companies under the Hexagon name is now happening, such as image
analysis products from ERDAS with Intergraphs video motion analysis software. These developments
are commented here by Horst Harbauer, Senior Vice President EMEA Security, Government &
Infrastructure (SG&I).
Intergraph in transition
In the summer of 2010, Hexagon acquired
Intergraph. The transition was closed and
nally signed in November of last year. At the
moment, Intergraph nds itself in a transition,
states Horst Harbauer, Senior Vice President
and Head of SG&I at Intergraph EMEA. He
adds: It was decided from the beginning that
Z/I Imaging photogrammetry business, for-
merly part of Intergraph) would be integrated
into Leica, to be merged with their camera
business, and the ERDAS software, that was
owned by Leica, would be integrated into
Intergraph.
This was easier said than done,
because of some specic and strict
US regulations in terms of handling
non-US owned companies doing
Federal business in the US. These
regulations require that for Federal
business you must have a separate
and independently acting compa-
ny with an independent board of
directors. Since ERDAS was owned
by Leica Holding (non US-compa-
ny) and is doing business with
Federal organizations in the US,
ERDAS US Inc. was controlled by
such an independent board of direc-
tors. The process to include this struc-
ture into Intergraph did take many
months until approval from the US
Government. This long duration of
time was a surprise since nobody did
expect this.
All was nally done in August 2011.
Following this, a plan for product integration
of both, ERDAS and Intergraph products was
made. For example, ERDAS products will be
enhanced with GIS vector functionality of
Intergraphs GeoMedia, and GeoMedia will
be enhanced with ERDAS imaging functionality.
Harbauer: ERDAS has the outstanding APOLLO
server product, and we combine it with our
SDI product: the ERDAS APOLLO is very strong
in raster functionalities, while the GeoMedia
SDI suite is very strong in vector functionali-
ties - and altogether this combination makes a
much stronger product with many benets for
the customer.
Combining full motion video
exploitation and image analysis
Intergraph immediately realized the
potential and need of UAVs for many
commercial industries. Especially
since in our times security gets
more and more important and
sometimes even vital. When
Intergraph introduced their
Motion Video Exploitation solu-
tion (MVE), which makes use of
UAV capabilities and com-
bines aerial photos, satellite
images and surface analytics
with video live streams the
popularity of UAVs wasnt
so high. But this is different
nowadays. When ERDAS
realized Intergraph had
this product, they got very
excited and integrated
the Video Motion Ana -
lysis product with their
December 2011
I n t e r v i e w
By Eric van Rees
Horst Harbauer, Senior Vice President
EMEA Security, Government &
Infrastructure (SG&I).
26
products. This combined product is now being
used for image analysis, change detection and
these kind of offerings.
The UAV market is a new one. One that offers
opportunities that didnt exist in the past.
Theyre not only used because theyre low
priced, but also because you wouldnt get
these accurate data otherwise, states
Harbauer: the typical way of doing business
with standard images is to provide your cus-
tomers with two or three year old data. Now,
with using UAVs, those data are easily updat-
ed in very short terms. You just y over your
matter of interest, and superimpose the video
data with the relevant KLV data of the UAV pro-
viding meta data as e.g. ight path, altitude
and camera angles on top of your orthopho-
tos and vector data. Those combined data you
see on a regular geo-referenced scale which
gives you completely new actual data you nor-
mally wouldnt have.
The idea for this product was originated in
Defense & Military. Intergraph has developed
some projects in utilities as well, like ying
along their pipelines using UAVs to document
situational changes that may impact their
pipelines.
GeoMedia Smart Client
Last year, Intergraph successfully launched a prod-
uct called GeoMedia Smart Client . This is an
enterprise geospatial platform engineered to sup-
port large numbers of users who are unable to
operate full desktop products, but whose work-
ows need advanced geospatial functionality that
cannot be supported by Web mapping tools. This
solution consists of two key components. One is
an enterprise server, where you can dene roles
and privileges to act as an enterprise server. The
other is a smart and thin client. The communica-
tion between server, smart and thin client is per-
formed by web services.
I n t e r v i e w
27
Forrest Map
Topo Edit
Spatial Query
Harbauer: Especially the smart client is really unique because you
have excellent caching, with vector data on the client and outstanding
performance. Because of the fact you have vector data, you can act
on the smart client, like snap to vector data and intelligent plotting. We
have launched this product worldwide and now we are enhancing it
with application data models. Besides this, Smart Client is a cloud-
ready, very web-oriented platform, and we build applications for indus-
try specic purposes, to be closer to the requirements of various busi-
nesses, like local government asset management, emergency operation
management, etc.
Smart Client is a full web solution software with server and clients, and
with the possibility so serve up to 10.000 and more clients. As an
example: in Germany and Austria we have customers e.g. computer
centers, who have up to 10.000 customers. Harbauer adds: with this
solution we are very successful in the areas of SDI, water, forestry, local
government, utilities, and many others. And with Smart Client our mar-
ket share grows very fast in many European countries.
Integration of different organizations worldwide
Product integration was the rst step of the company-internal transi-
tion. The second step is the integration of the ERDAS and Intergraph
organizations worldwide. This integration needs to be implemented
differently worldwide, because we got different organization mod-
els in different countries. In Europe e.g., ERDAS did business with a
distributor model; they sold the ERDAS products mainly via certied
distributors. In other regions of the world, like India, they do their
business via their direct sales organization.
Harbauer explains the situation for Europe: Right now were in dis-
cussions with the European ERDAS distributors to align their business
with our geospatial sales channels. This means we check if our busi-
ness partners can sell the ERDAS products and in parallel we are in
discussions with the ERDAS distributors whether they will be able and
capable to sell Intergraph products to their customer base.
Besides the geospatial business unit with its sales channels,
Intergraph SG&I has large direct sales organizations in Europe cov-
ering sales for industries segments like public safety and security,
utilities & communications, and defense & intelligence. Also for the
enterprise business we are checking how to offer and sell the ERDAS
products into the existing Intergraph customer base and so improve
our offerings. Harbauer hopes to have this sorted out until the end
of the year, and to offer an integrated approach to the market.
For more information, have a look at
www.intergraph.com
www.ERDAS.com
www.hexagon.com
28
December 2011
I n t e r v i e w
Screenshot Motion Video Exploitation solution
Janes information
Today and Tomorrow
PostGIS in Action
With PostGIS 2.0 coming up, huge exposure during this years FOSS4G event, its safe to say that
PostGIS is here to stay. The authors of the book PostGIS in Action describe in the following article
everything you need to know about using PostGIS, its user base and its future release, PostGIS 2.0.
What is PostGIS and why use it?
PostGIS is an open source spatial database
extension for the PostgreSQL open source
relational database. PostgreSQL is an exten-
sible relational database with a 25-year his-
tory that dates back to the dawn of relation-
al databases. It is the most powerful of the
open source relational databases and can
handle terabytes of data and complex SQL
constructs with ease. It boasts features you
would expect of an enterprise-class relational database such as
advanced SQL window analytic predicates and functions useful for
business intelligence reporting applications. It also has the ability to
create new data types and aggregate functions, various options for
replication and clustering, and a myriad of stored procedure lan-
guages to choose from, more so than any other database including
proprietary.
User Base
PostGIS is used by numerous large companies, on projects such as
Skype, Aflias (the Web .Org registry), OpenStreetMap, the French
Mapping Agency IGN, and the US Government in various capaci-
ties. VMWare recently launched its own avor of PostgreSQL for the
cloud called vFabric. In addition, there are GIS-specic cloud host-
ing offerings such as SkyGone that are tailored to PostGIS users.
The PostGIS project started life in 2001 by Refractions Research to
support a project for British Columbia Ministries. It has since been
continually developed and adopted by hundreds of thousands of
users and has a thriving community. It is the most popularly used
and powerful open source spatial database around. Recently it
became an incubation project of the Open Source Geospatial
Foundation (OSGEO).
Support
PostGIS is supported on Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OSX, and
any other platform supported by PostgreSQL. It is a favorite of non-
prot organizations, research agencies, government agencies, and
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
By Regina Obe and Leo Hsu
Figure 1: The Portland Trimet Transit trip planner which utilizes PostGIS, GeoServer, GeoExt (a framework
built on top of OpenLayers).
Figure 2: The recently launched FCC National Broadband combines the powers of GeoServer, PostAIS, and
OpenLayers.
Figure 3: An example from an application utilizing Adobe Flex, that utilizes PostGIS input and output geom-
etry functions, to grab a user-defined region, perform spatial buffering and intersection of geometries and
output the result both as statistical rollup and geometry outputs for generating custom PDF reports using
ASP.NET.
30
Book cover
dot coms because of its breath of power,
speed, ease of use, and plethora of inte-
gration options. The fact that its free means
you can deploy it on numerous servers and
in clustering without incurring costs beyond
hardware and bandwidth. This makes it
especially attractive for cloud computing
where exorbitant software licensing costs
of competitors mitigate their ability to scale
affordably. Most FOSS GIS applications
support it; common favorites on the web
mapping front are Mapserver, GeoServer,
Degree and on the desktop front QGIS,
uDig, gvSig, and OpenJump to name a
few, all of which support Windows, Unix,
Linux, and Mac. There is a wealth of
options for data loading there is the
included PostGIS Esri shape file loaders
(both GUI and command line), open source
GDAL, and other open source GUI ETL
tools such as GeoKettle. At the high end
you have the proprietary Safe FME work
bench with a wealth of geoprocessing ETL
options that support PostGIS as a data
source.
OpenStreetMap
No other spatial database inte-
grates as easily with the popular
Open Street Map crowd sourcing
project. OpenStreetMap itself is
powered by PostgreSQL. PostGIS
is commonly used for Open Street -
Map tile generation using Mapnik
and a variety of other renderers. There are
several free tools available for loading
OpenStreetMap xml data format into Post -
GIS. osm2pgsql is the most common and is
cross platform. Another tool, osm2pgrouting
loader, is specically design ed for loading
OSM data into a structure suitable for road
routing using an open source PostGIS add-
on called PgRouting.
PostGIS and proprietary GIS
Although PostGIS is an open source spatial
database, it enjoys great support from pro-
prietary GIS vendors. Esri ArcGIS 10.1 has
native direct-connect support for it as well
as CadCorp SIS, Safe FME workbench,
MapInfo 10+, Manifold 8+, and AutoDesk
to name a few. Database drivers for JDBC,
.NET, and Python exist targeting its specic
spatial types, but even without these extend-
ed drivers, you can still take advantage of
PostGIS with the plain vanilla drivers. The
fact that PostGIS is fully integrated with
PostgreSQL, and has more output functions
than any other spatial database on earth,
makes it a no-brainer for using in spatial
analytics reporting, even with the basic
JDBC, ADO.NET, ODBC, PHP, Python com-
mon variety drivers. Even if you are using
something as commonplace as Microsoft
Access or OpenOfce/LibreOfce Base,
you can still take advantage of its spatial
analytics features using the PostgreSQL
ODBC and JDBC drivers.
Latest release
PostGIS latest stable release is PostGIS
1.5.3 which came out in June 2011. The
PostGIS 1.5 series came on the scene in
March 2010 and introduced geodetic sup-
port via its geography data type and com-
plementary functions similar to those offered
with SQL Server 2008. The geography type
allows for measurements using longi -
tude/latitude with measurements output in
meters.
The main thing it has, which SQL Server
lacks, is built-in reprojection support that
Ar t i c l e
31
Latest News?
December 2011
Figure 5
Figure 4
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8
Figure 9
allows you to transform longitude/latitude
data to a planar projection for easier analy-
sis. PostGIS 2.0 makes transform support
even sweeter by providing this same func-
tionality for raster data. In addition it added
on improved speed, fancy buffering func-
tions for visualization, more import/export
options adding functions for importing
KML,GML data and exporting in GeoJSON
format (Javascript Object Notation). Also
added were several more analysis functions
such as computing closest point between
planar geometries and max distance.
PostGIS in Action
In April 2011, a book completely dedicated
to PostGIS came out, called PostGIS in
Action published by Manning Publications.
The book has received rave reviews with a
perfect 5-star rating on Amazon. The book
covers PostGIS 1.3-1.5, PostgreSQL 8.3-9.0
with highlights of the upcoming PostGIS 2.0
(a whole chapter dedicated to PostGIS 2.0
raster support) and newly released Post -
greSQL 9.1.
The book walks you through the fundamen-
tals of spatial databases in general, PostGIS
specically, exposure to commonly used GIS
terminology and concepts, and how to inte-
grate PostGIS with other open source GIS
tools. It contains a wealth of information rel-
evant to beginning users as well as interme-
diate and advanced users. It has chapters
covering how to get up and running with
PostGIS, how to load data, view data with
open source desktop tools, how to optimize
for performance, and tricks for solving com-
mon spatial problems.
In addition, it provides a primer for SQL,
integrating PostGIS with web mapping tools
- OpenLayers, GeoServer, and Mapserver.
Even a chapter covering integration with R
statistical package using the PostgreSQL
PL/R procedural language, writing Python
stored procedures in PostgreSQL using
PL/Python, an introduction to PgRouting (a
common companion for road routing speci-
cally for PostGIS), and PostGIS extra pack-
aged Tiger geocoder that uses US Census
Tiger data for geocoding. The geocoder has
been updated to support Tiger 2010 since
the publication of the book.
PostGIS on the Web
PostGIS is most commonly
combined with web map-
ping frameworks. It does
the heavy spatial lifting
and analysis, which is then
rendered using web map-
ping servers such as
GeoServer, MapServer,
and often combined with
tile map offerings Open -
StreetMap, Bing, Google
Maps, and MapQuest and
then rendered on client web browsers and
mobile devices using javascript or ex
clients. The most popular javascript client
used with PostGIS is OpenLayers. Some
examples of this are The Portland Trimet
Transit trip planner, which uses PostGIS,
GeoServer, and GeoExt (a framework built
on top of OpenLayers). See gure 1. The
recently launched FCC National Broadband
combines the powers of GeoServer,
PostGIS, and OpenLayers (see Figure 2).
PostGIS for Spatial Processing
and Analytics
PostGIS is most well-known for its enormous
variety of analysis and processing functions,
(which probably outnumber any other spatial
database including the proprietary software
vendors) as well as the impressive speed with
which it can perform these operations. One
common use is clipping geometries by buffer
areas. Here is an example from an applica-
tion using Adobe Flex that utilizes PostGIS
input and output geometry functions, to grab
a user-dened region, perform spatial buffer-
ing and intersection of geometries, and out-
put the result both as statistical rollup and
geometry outputs for generating custom PDF
reports using ASP.NET (see Figure 3).
What is coming in PostGIS 2.0?
The upcoming release of PostGIS is PostGIS
2.0 due out in the rst quarter of 2012. It
promises to signicantly raise the bar not just
for open source GIS, but for spatial GIS in
general and spatial SQL specically. Some
people like to call it Post GIS because its
breaking the GIS barrier. It includes features
that you wont even nd in common propri-
etary spatial databases Oracle, SQL
Server, and DB2 no matter how much you
are willing to pay for those other databases.
This is what you can expect in PostGIS 2.0
and is available now in its prerelease form:
Better 3D support 3D distance, enhanced
3D export functions (GML, X3D), proximity
functions. This includes 3D Closest Point,
intersects functions for polyhedral surfaces
and 2.5D geometries.
nD spatial index (support XYZM)
New 3D types TINs (targeting landscape)
and PolyHedralSurface (targeting city mod-
eling)
SQL/MM compliant Topology support plus
additional functions for ease of use
K Nearest Neighbor index operators for
doing speedier order by distance limit
queries
Improved Esri shapele loader to allow load-
ing multiple les at once
Packaged in extras US Tiger 2010 tiger
loader, geocoder/reverse geocoder/tiger -
> postgis topology loader which includes
functions for loading Tiger 2010 for Unix-
based as well as windows platforms.
Support for PostgreSQL 9.1 CREATE EXTEN-
SION install framework
New raster support with seamless vector
integration
Ability to export vector/raster as any GDAL
supported raster format
Raster loader supporting any GDAL sup-
ported type
Raster transformation and resampling
Raster/vector spatial intersections to dump
raster as polygons or pixel values
Raster analysis histograms, pixel value
counts, map algebra
32
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
Figure 10
Figure 11
PostGIS Geometry data with desktop tools
Most new PostGIS users nd it easiest to
manage their PostGIS enabled spatial
database with PgAdmin III. PgAdmin III is a
cross-platform graphical database manage-
ment tool that comes packaged with many
PostgreSQL distributions or can be down-
loaded separately from www.pgadmin.org.
Here is a snapshot of its management tree
view showing a new PostGIS 2.0 extension
installed in a 9.1 PostgreSQL database (see
Figure 4). In addition, PgAdmin has a plug-
in architecture that allows for registration of
other tools. The shp2pgsql-gui Esri shapele
loader is a common one, enabled and
installed by default with the windows stack
builder installs (see Figure 5). Figure 6
shows the PostGIS 2.0 shape le loader.
Another example of the PgAdmin plugin
architectures is the QGIS PostGIS Layer
viewer, which uses QGIS to view layers.
It can be downloaded from
https://github.com/imincik/QgsPostGIS-
Viewer.
Viewing PostGIS Raster data
Although PostGIS raster is a new type intro-
duced in the 2.0 series, you can still view
the data with tools that have no support for
PostGIS raster by using the prepackaged
raster sql functions. For example, Figure 7
shows a view in OpenJump that uses the var-
ious geometry/raster functions to display
geometry intersections and stats from the
tutorial demonstrating how to analyze ele-
vation data with PostGIS raster.
The raster sql functions make it easy to use
common variety database drivers with no
raster functionality to render PostGIS raster
data. This is an example of an adhoc
PostGIS viewer built with open source
Npgsql .NET PostgreSQL driver, ASP.NET
and a sprinkling of JQuery. Another exists
built with PHP and the PostgreSQL PHP driv-
er instead of .NET components.
Figure 8 demonstrates a query to output a
single raster tile and a single band of the
same tile using this adhoc viewer. Behind
the scenes, the viewer is using the raster
ST_AsPNG function to output the native
PostGIS raster object returned by the queries
as PNG images suitable for web consump-
tion.
Working with PostGIS topology
In PostGIS 2.0, the SQL/MM Topology sup-
port was completed. Details are summarized
in http://strk.keybit.net/blog/2011/10/
14/postgis-topology-iso-sqlmm-complete.
Figure 9 is a screen shot using the QGIS
PostGIS topology plugin that is part of DB
Manager plugin.
In addition, the topogeometry type can cast
to a PostGIS geometry, which allows you to
use existing tools to view topogeometry
objects by casting them to regular PostGIS
geometries. Figures 10 and 11 show a
query in OpenJump that outputs a topoge-
ometry column as a PostGIS geometry for
easy viewing.
Quantum GIS support for
PostGIS 2.0
Quantum GIS (QGIS) was one of the rst
desktop tools to support PostGIS and it con-
tinues to be one of the rst that has support
for the newer features of PostGIS. You can
already see support for the newer PostGIS
2.0 types Topology and Raster in QGIS
1.7 and up via QGIS plugins. There already
exist Python plugins for PostGIS raster and
topology via the PostGIS raster and DB
Manager plugins (see Figure 12).
The PostGIS Raster Python plugin adds addi-
tional menu options on QGIS database
menu for handling PostGIS raster layers as
shown in Figure 13.
In order to use these new features with
PostGIS 2.0 raster, you will need QGIS con-
gured with GDAL 1.8+. The DB Manager
plugin adds support for PostGIS topology
via the TopoViewer (menu shown in Figure
14). Partial view using TopoViewer of a
topology loaded with tiger.topology_load_ti -
ger function packaged with tiger_geocoder
(Figure 15).
http://trimet.org
Ar t i c l e
33
Figure 12
Fig 13
Fig 14
Figure 15
34
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
For Utilities Industries and Local Governments
Improving GIS Field Surveys
A typical field survey involves detailed assessments of hundreds, if not thousands of poles for power
companies, cable companies and government regulators. New industry requirements for safety and
reliability in recent years have increased the demand for these surveys in many states. For example,
in California fires traced back to pole attachments have led to new regulations requiring certification
of each and every pole by a professional engineer. The demands placed on survey companies like
xpoGIS are enormous. They must find a way to capture pole data more quickly and more efficiently
while meeting more rigorous standards.
P
aul Toto is the primary IT/GIS
lead for xpoGIS, a company
that provides comprehensive
geo-spatial eld surveys and inte-
grated information services to clients
in the utilities industries and local governments. Paul has worked in the
telecommunications industry for over 25 years with extensive experi-
ence in construction, maintenance, facilities planning and rehabilitation
of outside plant. The challenges facing Paul and his crews are numer-
ous. The new safety and reliability standards require recording more
data more accurately than ever before and transferring eld data to
backofce applications smoothely and efciently. Prior to using ikeGPS,
crews were forced to make measurements by hand using calibration
poles and tape measures and record the data on paper.
New Regulation
With the new regulations, each pole required more complex and
detailed measurements than ever before. Returning from the eld, staff
needed to transcribe the hand-written data to GIS applications and
other industry-specic programs. If any data seemed inconsistent or
out-of-place, a crew would need to
return to the location and re-
acquire the data. The old methods
required each crew to have sever-
al members working with multiple
devices, and the transcription
errors led to loss of efciency and
additional time to complete each
survey.
In light of the economic challenges
facing his company, Paul Toto
researched the available mobile
GIS technology searching for a
comprehensive solution that would
improve accuracy, increase ef-
ciency and reduce survey costs.
We were looking for an integrated
system that allows us to accurately locate poles on a GIS map, take
calibrated photos and measure the heights and positions of pole attach-
ments. The GPS is very accurate and the device is easy to use. Prior
to ike, Pauls crews had to use multiple, disconnected devices mounted
on a heavy, cumbersome pole to
achieve the same results, and it
was difcult to capture some of
the newer requirements, such as
the angle between lines.
Field Data Acquisition
Now Pauls crews are using ikeGPS in the eld regularly, and the results
are dramatic. What used to take a crew of twelve can now be done
with a crew of two. Field data acquisition now takes one-third the time
required previously resulting in substantial cost savings and faster oper-
ations. A eld crew used to be able to survey 35 poles in a seven hour
day. Now a smaller crew can measure 100-150 poles in the same
amount of time. In addition, data transcription is seamless between the
ikes onboard pc and backofce systems resulting in far fewer errors
and redos. The bottom line is that xpoGIS is able to meet more dead-
lines and achieve quality requirements more readily using ikeGPS.
Business is picking up again for xpoGIS as the economy recovers and
safety regulations become more rigorous. Using ikeGPS, Paul Toto and
his crews are better able to meet the increasing demand for their ser-
vices and make the company more
protable. Paul is helping ikeGPS
team make improvements to the
device and its applications to
streamline operations even more
and solve new eld challenges. He
is looking forward to upcoming soft-
ware and hardware advancements
that will make ikeGPS even more
accurate and easy to use in all kinds
of conditions.
Ron Elsis ron.elsis@ikegps.com is the Vice President
of Product Management of ikeGPS by Surveylab
Richard Taylor richard.taylor@ikegps.com is the Vice
President of ikeGPS Americas.
For more information, have a look at
www.ikegps.com and www.xpogis.com.
Images Courtesy of Express Order LLC (xpoGIS).
By Ron Elsis and Richard Taylor
Prior to ikeGPS mobile GIS, xpoGIS crews were forced to measure pole data using tape measures and
hand written notes.
With ikeGPS, xpoGIS crews spend less time transcribing data to mapping systems and with fewer errors
36
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
A Free Java Library for Geospatial Analysis
SEXTANTE
SEXTANTE is a free Java library initially developed in 2004 to give local government forestry agencies a
tool for GIS analysis. Since then it has quickly become clear that SEXTANTE (Sistema Extremeo de Anlisis
Territorial) is not just suitable for forestry agencies, but also for other institutions where a professional
GIS tool is needed. At that same time gvSIG was also developed and it was decided to adapt SEXTANTE
(already having about 200 algorithms) to be used in gvSIG and therefore improve its existing analysis
capabilities.
Information on the project
The ofcial SEXTANTE website offers access to the bug tracking system
can be found there that shares a platform with gvSIG CE, besides
general information about the project (e.g. user manual, guide to
programming, link to video channel or mail-
ing lists).
Recent developments on the SEXTANTE project
can be found in a frequently updated blog.
SEXTANTE was developed in English in order to
make the project accessible to everyone. The
current release and the source code can be
downloaded from the ofcial platform
Spatial data processing
Although SEXTANTE is a library and can be used
by programmers to incorporate analysis func-
tionalities into their software, it also provides
graphical interfaces for calling algorithms
from the interface of the GIS or application
implementing SEXTANTE. Running a SEXTANTE
algorithm can be done from the toolbox or the
command line interface. The SEXTANTE GUI and
the process itself work independently, there-
fore users do not need to know anything about
the algorithm itself but have to understand the
parameters they want to dene for the data
and what results they want to achieve with it.
The execution of processes are performed
using the following steps: First, the selection
of one (or more) input layer(s) as raster-, vec-
tor-, or table- format. Next, the desired algo-
rithm is dened via command line or toolbox.
It should be noted that the parameters for the
particular algorithms must be set correctly
(e.g. cell size for a raster map as a result, the
projection of input and output layers). Last, the specication of one
(or several) output layer(s) in the desired format needs to be done.
In some cases, les are created and will be displayed automatically,
e.g. a graph with histogram generation.
By Ruth Schnbuchner, Jos Canalejo, Victor Olaya and Juan Carlos Gimenez
Figure 1: SEXTANTE toolbox including GRASS GIS, SAGA GIS, R, gvSIG CE
and SEXTANTE algorithms
Figure 2: process chain for calculating a topographic i
ndex with the SEXTANTE modeler.
Ar t i c l e
37
Currently, more than 300 algorithms are available in SEXTANTE that
allow data analysis on various issues. For most algorithms, contextu-
al help has been prepared, which provides insight into the function-
ality of the tool or the technical program implementation.
Depending on the type of geometry loaded the various functional
blocks of the toolbox are activated. The processing of formats
depends on which GIS system SEXTANTE is being used with, and which
formats are supported there: gvSIG: shp, dxf, tif, asc or OpenJUMP:
shp, tif, uDig: shp, tif. There are general tools, and depending on
the geometry type, vector tools, such as conversions from one geom-
etry type to another (polygon -> lines) or the calculation of point
coordinates.
A broader range of functions allows for the processing of raster data.
There are for example special tools in the eld of hydrology, such as
those that permit the generation of river networks (channel networks),
watersheds (watersheds) or surface runoff (ow accumulation).
Further examples can be mentioned: raster basics like histogram,
void lling, tools for surface analysis (shaded relief), visibility or
solar radiation, the calculation of different indices (vegetation or
topographical index) and much more.
GRASS GIS
GRASS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is the oldest
OpenSource DesktopGIS, developed in 1982. The software uses the
GPL license (since 1999) and the ofcial website is
http://grass.osgeo.org.
GRASS GIS can be used as a portable version, platform-independent
on GNU / Linux, MS-Windows or Mac OSX. The community com-
municates in various mailing lists and togeth-
er has numerous algorithms for spatial data
analysis and processing of various input and
export formats, such as OGC web services
(WMS, WFS, ..), shapeles, GeoTIFF, table
formats, CAD data formats, GPS (Garmin,
gpsbabel), and PostgreSQL / SQLite. Other
features in GRASS GIS are the processing of
3D vectors (e.g. KML Export for virtual
globes), saving models as Python scripts,
topological digitizing, OpenGL-based 3D
viewer (nviz 3D), and more.
gvSIG CE, GRASS GIS and more
In the current version of SEXTANTE it is possible to use an interface to
the free software GRASS GIS. It can be installed in the program settings
dialog via SEXTANTE. GRASS GIS algorithms can then be executed.
Performing GRASS GIS algorithms is done using the following steps:
import data on-the-y into GRASS GIS and data processing there,
export resp. automatic opening mechanism of results through SEX-
TANTE in a GIS application (e.g. gvSIG CE).
gvSIG CE is a community-driven GIS project based on a version of
gvSIG bundled with SEXTANTE, GRASS GIS and SAGA. In the technical
preview (a version for testing) of the upcoming gvSIG Community
Edition 1.0, SAGA GIS and GRASS GIS need to be installed to gvSIG
CE. Using this interface, and maintaining the automation of data
exchange and calculations, GRASS GIS and SAGA GIS can be used
with little knowledge of the software systems themselves.
In august 2011, it was decided to integrate SEXTANTE into ArcGIS,
Esris GIS software. The result is that ArcGIS can now be connected
to all SEXTANTE algorithms taking advantage of the GRASS GIS and
SAGA GIS tools.
Although many innovations have been realized, the SEXTANTE project
team members continue with new interesting ideas such as the inte-
gration of R, the powerful statistical software, into SEXTANTE. In the
blog entry you can nd rst video impressions on performing R algo-
rithms (e.g. create distance map, compare gure 1) and executing
them from the ArcGIS toolbox.
Automating the processes modeler
To obtain good results for specic applications, often the combina-
tion of different processes is necessary. For this, a modeler has been
integrated into SEXTANTE that can be used to
depict various algorithms by simple process
chains. There is also the possibility of com-
bining algorithms from GRASS GIS and SEX-
TANTE within the modeler.
Figure 3 shows the generation of a topo-
graphic index (TI), where three algorithms will
be calculated on a given raster dataset.
First it is necessary to dene one or more
input data for the model, for which the fol-
lowing items in the left pane of the modeler
are available: band, raster layer, vector
layer, String, Table, Field, Coordinate (Point),
Figure 3:
Result raster as a topographic Index
Figure 4: Batch Processing
Ar t i c l e
38
December 2011
Table, Fixed table, Multiple Input,
Selection, numerical value, Boolean
value.
As an input layer, in this example,
a digital elevation model (DEM)
was used. The data errors (e.g.
sinks, pits) were corrected rst with
the SEXTANTE tool called sink lling,
after which the calculation of sur-
face runoff with the tool ow accu-
mulation was performed. After the
cleanup with sink lling, the data
set interacts only as an intermedi-
ate layer used for further calcula-
tion to get the surface runoff. The
calculation of the slope (using the
tool slope in the calculation of the
TI) must be included, so this is taken
into account in the process chain of
the modeler. The result is a raster
output as shown in Figure 3.
Models can be saved and integrat-
ed into the directory tree of the tool-
box, so that these can be controlled
directly from there. By using the
command line it can often make
more complex and exible workow models. It is also possible to
document processes within a model and to indicate the author of
the process chain.
Batch processing
This method offers the ability to automatically calculate an algorithm
or a model for multiple layers. If, for example, many les need to
be reprojected at once, batch processing could be a good way to
save time.
Figure 4 shows how batch processing can be initiated via the con-
text menu for an algorithm.
Saving of processes
Whenever a process is running, an entry is created in the History
Manager, which can be accessed via the function button of the GUI
SEXTANTE. Parameters used in this case, the date and time of the exe-
cution, are stored. In addition, the History Manager gives more infor-
mation about errors or warnings.
Another interesting feature of the History Manager is that processes
can be controlled and executed directly from there. It only needs to
be double-clicked on the appropriate line (= the entry in the histo-
ry), for the process to start automatically.
The different tabs (Commands, Errors, Warnings, Information, GRASS
GIS output, points) indicate the stored contents. Points stores pairs
of coordinates taken using the Catch Coordinates tool. Coordinates
can then be used in the input parameters for example to calculate a
prole starting at a specic point (x/y).
User guide and help
Because SEXTANTE can be used in different DesktopGIS systems it is
very user friendly. By using the SEXTANTE GUI, access to all the tools
and algorithms can be executed directly from the toolbox. The com-
mand line is used as a tool for experts. Since last year, there has
been available a context help for almost all algorithms in SEXTANTE. It
contains detailed information about algorithms and parameters, and
is further illustrated with pictures.
Innovations
In 2008, the execution of geo-processes was simplied through the
integration of a modeler, and a batch processing method. In combi-
nation with the interface to GRASS GIS (developed in 2010), current-
ly more than 500 algorithms for raster and vector data analysis are
available in SEXTANTE. In 2011, an interface to SAGA was created
increasing the total number of algorithms to more than 800. The lat-
est innovation is the possibility of connecting SEXTANTE to the ArcGIS
toolbox and modeler.
Ruth Schnbuchner and Jos Canalejo run a consultancy business in Munich, Germany
(CSGIS Gbr www.csgis.de) and provide services around FOSS GIS with
a focus on gvSIG and SEXTANTE and FOSS WebGIS.
Victor Olaya is the creator and main developer of SEXTANTE.
Juan Carlos Gimenez is the SEXTANTE project coordinator.
Links:
SEXTANTE official webpage: www.SEXTANTEgis.com
SEXTANTE blog: http://SEXTANTEgis.blogspot.com
SEXTANTE video tutorials: www.youtube.com/user/SEXTANTElibrary
GRASS GIS official webpage: http://grass.fbk.eu
SAGA GIS: www.saga-gis.org
gvSIG CE: www.gvsigce.org
Note: First published in Geo Business 4/2011 ISSN 1869-9286
Figure 5: History Manager
More on 3D and the Mobile Platform
Esri European User Conference
This year, the annual Esri European User Conference (EUC) was held in Madrid, Spain. Partners and
users of Esris software products gathered for a three-day program of keynotes, technical workshops
and user presentations. The mobile sessions were well attended by a youthful audience in particular,
and Esris new direction in the 3D realm (with a newly released version of CityEngine2011) were
highlights of the EUC.
Plenary Session
With an attendance of 3000 registered visi-
tors, this years Esri European User Conference
offered three days of paper sessions and tech-
nical workshops including a day of plenary
sessions and a map gallery.
The plenary session on Wednesday, October
26, was opened by Juan Soto, President of
Esri Spain. Alfonso Rubio, CEO of Esri Spain
handed out two Special Achievement in GIS
Awards, the rst one going to Ayuntamiento
de Madrid, and the second one to Centre de
Telecomunicacions i Tecnologies de la
Informacio, Generalitat de Catalunya. The
Ayuntamiento de Madrid (municipality of
Madrid) was praised for its use of GIS in
urbanism, transport, environment, cadastre
and crime prevention. The Catalan recipient
showed how to employ spatial technologies
for asset management, also going as far as
using mobile devices that show eld workers
which signals are being transmitted by poles
in the area. The eld workers are grateful for
this application and its one of the rst really
interesting applications of augmented reality I
have seen.
A Spanish presentation on Innovation fol-
lowed, delivered by Carlos Barrabs. This talk
didnt have anything to do with Esri or GIS for
that matter, and felt a little out of place. Also,
Barrabs failed to inform his audience what
exactly is meant by innovation, a term that is
used too often in a variety of different con-
texts. The speaker did make some interesting
points though: for instance, design thinking is
very important these days, with a whole new
world of mobile devices now on the market.
When buying a new one, the last thing you
want is to gure out how it works. Its more
convenient to build on top of what is already
there and has proven its value. This vision I
share highly. The topic of usability returned
one day later at a paper session on consumer
applications, where the presenter stated that
there is no such thing as the professional
40
December 2011
E v e n t
By Eric van Rees
Plaza Mayor, Madrid.
user (when it comes to consumer applica-
tions, I have to add). Things should therefore
not be too hard to learn or use. What this
means for Esri will undoubtedly become clear
in their mobile applications strategy in the
future (more on this below), since this is where
GIS is heading.
Jack Dangermond shared his vision for GIS,
in a short presentation that featured highlights
from the keynote he delivered in San Diego
during the Esri UC last summer. Again, he
stressed that the cloud will unite desktop, serv-
er and mobile GIS and that ArcGIS.com is the
platform that will enable this to happen. The
new release of ArcGIS 10 was also men-
tioned, but this seemed to confuse the audi-
ence, which was not very receptive towards
the new features and applications. The pre-
sentation simply touched on too many subjects
at once. ArcGIS 10 was presented later that
afternoon in separate presentations.
The remainder of the day featured presenta-
tions on the geospatial contribution to the dig-
ital agenda for Europe (delivered by
Eurogeographics), Census 2010 and map-
ping (delivered by the Spanish institute of
statistics) and a presentation by National Grid
(UK).
Technical Workshops:
Mobile Solutions
Thursday and Friday were reserved for tech-
nical workshops and paper sessions. In the
technical workshops, there was a lot of room
allocated to mobile GIS solutions. David
Cardella gave three long workshops on the
mobile topic, the rst giving an overview of
the Esri mobile solutions, the second on shar-
ing and publishing from desktop and mobile
devices and lastly, a presentation on the future
of ArcGIS for Windows Mobile and Apps for
Smartphones.
I visited the second presentation where
Cardella showed how to publish and share
maps between desktop and mobile devices.
First of all, I was surprised to see the amount
of visitors in the room, and secondly, to see
so many young people (mostly university stu-
dents with a background in programming). Its
clear that this is where GIS is heading, (and
probably surveying too, but this is another
matter) namely the mobile platform.
Cardella did a very good job in showing how
mobile and desktop can be used together by
publishing in the cloud, although it requires
some skills in nding the appropriate settings
in the software. However, the technology
proved to work very well, and very quickly,
which was not always the case during the
keynote demos where slow internet delayed
the demos and end results. And, I have to
add, those iPads really do look nice. It makes
sense to use them for projecting maps, since
paper maps are quickly becoming something
of the past. For sharing maps on an iPhone,
Im a little less enthusiastic. You will have to
make a map app that is very easy to navi-
gate, otherwise youve lost the user Im afraid.
Together with the EUC, Esri announced the
ArcGIS for Android application, so that
Google Android users can now access data
and mapping capabilities on their smart-
phones. ArcGIS for Android is a native appli-
cation that serves as a mobile gateway into
the ArcGIS system. It provides an intuitive user
experience for querying map layers and data.
People can also use the app to edit features
and attribute information on the y while col-
lecting eld data and performing inspections.
In addition, ArcGIS for Android includes a leg-
end, a Favorites feature, and a tool for mea-
suring area and distance.
Esri CityEngine
Also released at the same time and presented
during the event, was CityEngine2011, the
latest version of Esris software for creating
high-quality 3D content. The software is now
for the rst time released under the Esri name.
During the last Esri UC in San Diego the acqui-
sition of the Swiss company Procedural was
announced, and now with a new software
release, Esris plans become more concrete.
Esris Gert van Maren and Pascal Mueller,
director of the new Esri R&D Center Zurich,
formerly Procedural, gave a technical work-
shop were CityEngine was introduced.
CityEngine enables the quick creation of 3D
cities out of 2D data and allows the efcient
design and modeling of virtual urban environ-
ments in 3D. This latest release of CityEngine
makes it easier to use GIS data to create geo-
graphically accurate models for urban design,
historical reenactment models, or realistic
models of actual cities. It now includes sup-
port for georeferenced data such as Esris File
Geodatabase (GDB) and KML. The user inter-
face has been improved for ease of use with
drag-and-drop data importing features. A sub-
sequent issue of GeoInformatics will feature
more information about this software release.
For more information, have a look at:
www.esri.com/android
www.esri.com/cityengine
E v e n t
41

Retiro Park, Madrid,
2011 BE Inspired Awards
Award winners and acquisitions
The 2011Be Inspired Awards honor the work of Bentley users improving the worlds infrastructure.
They were presented at a gala dinner during the annual Be Inspired: Thought Leadership in
Infrastructureevent, held Nov. 8-9, in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
T
his invitation-only gathering of infrastructure
executives, users and journalists from
around the globe witnessed the pre-
sentations of Be Inspired Awards nalists
and winners. In addition, the winners of
the Be Inspired Special Recog nition
Awards, announced last month, were
recognized. Among them was the
Mexico City Cadastre, with its ambi-
tious Programme for the Moder -
nization of the Mexico City Ca -
dastre.
Five independent panels of jurors,
comprising Bentley users, journal-
ists and industry experts, selected
the Be Inspired Awards winners
from 57 nalists. Most of them present-
ed their projects in Amsterdam. Detailed
descriptions of all nominated projects in the
print and digital versions of The Year in
Infrastructure 2011, which will be published
by years end. Many of the infrastructural pro-
ject boasted geospatial content, some of them
within the context of ProjectWise, Bentleys
communication and collaboration platform.
Panama Canal Expansion
Belgian contractor Jan De Nul NV showed the hard work
behind the Panama Canal Expansion. This project is get-
ting a fair deal of attention in the geospatial community,
not at least because of the large scale monitoring of the
digging, using Trimble equipment mounted on the sides of
the new Panama Canal. The $5.5 billion program to
expand the Panama Canal will allow vessels to pass
through that are nearly 50 percent wider and 25 percent
longer than currently possible. Jan De Nul is engaged in
several projects, including dredging 5 million cubic meters
of rock from the new Pacic north access channel and
dredging 15 million cubic meters of material from the
canals Atlantic entrance.
Harbour Maintenance System in Finland
Port of Helsinki Vuosaari Harbour Main tenance
System (Helsinki, Finland) The new Vuosaari
cargo harbor complex in Helsinki, Finland, is
comprised of the main harbor, adjacent
business, trafc infrastructure, and logistics
zone and gate area. The Port of Helsinki
initiated a project to combine informa-
tion about all the harbor facilities in one
map-based maintenance system. The
system provides access to documents,
maintenance schedules, and mainte-
nance histories for about 80 struc-
tures, buildings, and systems.
GII/GIS asset management
The Izmir Waterworks Authority
(IZSU) developed the IZSU Geo -
graphic Infra struc ture Informa tion
System to store infrastructure assets in an Oracle
Spatial data base. The $470,000 system has an
Open GIS-compatible data warehouse that
allows data to be shared with other depart-
ments, companies, and municipalities. Existing
IZSU data was migrated to Oracle Spatial, and
information from multiple sources was convert-
ed to the new environment.
Point Cloud Visualizations
i-TEN Associates completed a series of visual-
izations to help special interest groups digitally
preserve artifacts of historical interest. These
videos are presented on websites and in other
E v e n t
By Remco Takken
Point Cloud Processing And Management_DataCourtesy HNTB
Bhupinder Singh, senior vice president of Bentley Software, explained,
A new ProjectWise capability will stream on-demand to Bentley applica-
tions only the subset of point cloud data being viewed or queried. This func-
tionality is what has been needed to allow point clouds to fulfill their poten-
tial as an intrinsic, fundamental data type in information modeling
42
December 2011
forums to showcase objects that may be otherwise lost. By creating an
efcient workow in the MicroStation environment, i-TEN produced an
immersive experience in a fraction of the time and expense compared
to established surveying and modeling methods.
Their timeliness was uncanny, presenting their well-crafted videos on the
same day as Bentley announced the acquisition of Pointools, with which
software those movies were made.
Pointools acquisition
Bentley Systems announced that it has acquired U.K.-based Pointools
Ltd, a hardware-neutral provider of point cloud software technology, in
order to integrate point cloud processing throughout its product portfo-
lio. Point cloud inclusion supports Bentleys commitment to advance
information mobility across design and operational workows. Point
cloud scanning devices are fast becoming commonplace, so images
are now more cost-effective to capture, but have served only for tempo-
rary and task-specic purposes because the scale of the data les over-
whelms both storage and query accessibility. Now that Bentley is over-
coming these challenges, point clouds, as a fundamental data type,
can usefully serve the function of an as-operated 3D model for every
infrastructure asset.
Through its acquisition of Pointools, Bentley is able to go beyond embed-
ding the powerful Vortex engine in MicroStation, to assimilate point
cloud processing and data management through the ProjectWise and
AssetWise platforms, extending point cloud value through all Bentley
solutions, applications, and workows.
Pointools Vortex engine is specically meant for the demanding require-
ments of architectural, engineering, and construction projects, with its
ability to handle the large point cloud datasets, comprising billions of
points, and from virtually every scanning source. The Pointools POD
le format retains key information pertaining to the origin of the point
cloud data (provenance) including scanner type, original scan le
name, scan date, scan location, and scan keywords. This information
can be indexed and searched to more quickly locate models when
managed, referenced, and maintained in Bentleys ProjectWise collab-
oration and work-sharing platform.
At the same time, with the introduction of the V8i(SELECTseries 3)
upgrade, the Bentley Descartes image management software now
becomes an information modeling environment for 3D image and point
cloud editing and processing. By eliminating point cloud distribution
and adoption obstacles through i-models and ProjectWise, Bentleys
project team collaboration and work-sharing platform, hands-on infor-
mation mobility can now bedeliveredand securedfrom design to con-
struction and operations and back again for reuse in rehabilitation,
upgrade, and retrot workows.
As Bhupinder Singh, senior vice president, Bentley Software, explained,
With Pointools, we have developed a breakthrough capability
unlocking the value of the gigabytes or even terabytes of point cloud
data to surmount the big data problem of point cloud users. A new
ProjectWise capability will stream on-demand to Bentley applications
only the subset of point cloud data being viewed or queried. This func-
tionality is what has been needed to allow point clouds to fulll their
potential as an intrinsic, fundamental data type in information model-
ing workows.
CEO Greg Bentley said, Point clouds need no longer be throwaways,
and, importantly, owner-operators can be supported by as-operated
3D models. This is a key contribution to information mobility with
integrityfor better-performing, safer, and resilient infrastructure.
Bentley Transmittal Services
Also at BE Inspired 201, Bentley announced an expansion of its strate-
gic relationship with Micro soft Corporation.
Through its commitment to the Microsoft Azure Platform partner pro-
gram, Bentley is bringing a broad range of Azure-cloud-based services
for sustaining infrastructure to architecture, engineering, construction,
and operations (AECO) worldwide at an accelerated pace. Initial offer-
ings on Azure will include the new Bentley Transmittal Services,
enabling organizations to accurately and securely package, and deliv-
er, receive, and track transmittals through a dashboard portal. These
shared services will benet the users of both the ProjectWise collabora-
tion platform and the AssetWise platform for operations information
modeling by reducing risk, saving time, and providing greater visibility
into project status.
Bhupinder Singh, senior vice president of Bentley Software, said, Most
of our users have invested signicant resources on manual processes
or enterprise systems to handle the crucial task of managing transmit-
tals and submittals. Unfortunately, most generic approaches arent well
suited for this infrastructure project need. Bentley Transmittal
Services streamlines and automates this critical business process,
enabling users to reliably access and include in the transmittal the cor-
rect versions of design content, transformed as appropriate.
Bentley Transmittal Servicesincludes a dashboard that provides noti-
cations and links to a secure transmittal portal where organizations can
see all the transmittals that pertain to their projects. Users will have the
option to deploy the por talon siteoron lineand connect with their exist-
ing Project Wise or AssetWise implementations.
www.bentley.com/BeInspired
www.bentley.com/beinspiredawards
www.bentley.com/Descartes
www.Bentley.com/Pointools
E v e n t
43
On the acquisition of Pointools, Greg Bentley said,
Point clouds need no longer be throwaways, and,
importantly, owner-operators can be supported by
as-operated 3D models. This is a key contribution
toinformation mobility with integrityfor better-
performing, safer, and resilient infrastructure.
A Museum on the Cutting Edge
On the website (listed at the end of this arti-
cle) users nd information about Norwegian
petroleum activities. The map was developed
by the data management rm KADME for the
Norwegian Petroleum Museum, and was of-
cially unveiled at the European Oil & Gas
Archives and European Oil Museums confer-
ence on May 26, 2011, in Stavanger. The
goal of the map was to gather publicly avail-
able information and publish it on a common
site.
The Interactive Petroleum Map allows users to
learn about oil platforms in conjunction with
elds, licenses, blocks, terrain and other rele-
vant data. Users can overlay different infor-
mation themes to view an integrated picture
of the offshore installations. The baselayer
map is from Google Maps, which permits a
terrain view and a satellite view. The satellite
view makes it possible to zoom in and, for
example, see the area of an onshore termi-
nal.
The Norwegian part of the map is linked to
articles with more background information
from the Oil Museum website. The British and
Dutch elds are shown on the map but arti-
cles about them are not included. The
Norwegian Petroleum Museum has an ambi-
tion to include information from more
European countries so that Museum visitors
(and web surfers) can gain an understanding
of oil and gas activities in Europe just by using
the map.
44
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
Understanding Historical and Living Information
An Interactive Petroleum map
The Norwegian Petroleum Museum had a vision to create an interactive map, linking their news articles,
fact pages, as well as public data sources together in one interactive map. Together with their partner
KADME, a technology firm with GIS specialization based in Stavanger, Norway, they created the Museums
first European Interactive Petroleum Map.
This interactive map could conceivably be a blueprint for the future of Museums containing troves of
geospatial data. No longer are visitors, researchers, and other customers reliant on the old ways of
understanding historical and living information.
By Gunleiv Hadland, Harald Tnnesen and Erin Lynch
Oil Museum Photo: High Quality photo (minimum 350 DPI) of the
Map machine.
How does it work?
From a technical perspective, the pur-
pose of the map is to integrate off-
shore infrastructure and online infor-
mation sources. This covers the North
Sea oil and gas exploration and pro-
duction (E&P) data, and includes a
variety of themes such as elds,
pipelines, shipyards, terminals and
supply bases.
First, the data has to be found, which
in this case are the shapeles. The
data is then processed by merging, converting,
performing quality control, removing duplicate
information, and adding any required attributes
to the data. Geoserver, an open-source software
server written in Java, reads the processed
shapeles, publishes and creates images from
the data in our spatial postGIS database, with
the resulting shapeles being copied via FTP to
the Petroleum map website.
Technical Information
The Petroleumskartet utilizes Geoserver 2.0, to
provide the mapping functionality, and Mapsh
for the application framework. The data driving
the application is stored on a server provided
by a local provider, Netpower. Customization,
such as layer congurations and styles, done
through the Geoserver web management inter-
face are in the data directory on the same serv-
er.
Data is stored in one of three stores within
GeoServer. Dynamic Cultural data, which
includes elds, installations, licenses and
pipelines, are updated and therefore subject to
change. Static cultural data, and reference data
are both given a separate layer for each indi-
vidual feature class together with a unique style.
Geoserver uses Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD);
an XML- based markup language to visualize
the spatial data.
The user interface has been extensively cus-
tomized to t the Museums requirements. A cus-
tom solution for identifying overlapping features,
was also developed as well as a mechanism to
link spatial features to corresponding articles on
the oil museum website.
The Norwegian Oil Museum uses a Content
Management System called Dashboard for
their website, which is hosted externally by the
provider Netpower. The dashboard contains
articles about oil and gas features such as elds
and installation, and references to the features
on the map. One of the biggest challenges was
to synchronize features and articles between the
map application and the corresponding article
on the Oil Museum Website. In order for arti-
cles to be linked spatially on the map, and thus
accessed via the map, each article had to be
tagged with the correct feature ID.
The geographical scope is currently UK,
Norway and the Netherlands. Shape les are
downloaded from public data sources and FME
workbenches are used to merge and harmonize
the data. This connects to display over Google
maps data.
Future Development
The Norwegian Petroleum Museum is pleased
with the success of the map and foresees a future
where the map expands geographically to
include similar information from the other Oil
and Gas Museums of Europe. Many maps of
oil and gas activities only include one country,
but if one includes more countries it becomes
clearer, for example, how the transport systems
interconnect. The challenge is to import this infor-
mation into one solution and make it interact
seamlessly.
Other future development goals are concerned
with the addition of new layers and features to
the current map, such as including an informa-
tion layer on geology, which would permit users
to really delve into the underground.
Gunleiv Hadland and Harald Tnnesen,
Norwegian Oil Museum, and Erin Lynch, KADME
Internet: www.petroleummap.no
Ar t i c l e
45
Screenshot of Museums webpage overlaid by Museums info page (corresponding to the screenshot from the petroleum map.
Interoperability Challanges
Smart Grid Workshop
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and European Committee for Standardisation CEN/TC 287 held
an OGC Smart Grid and SDI workshop at JRCs EnviroInfo conference 5-7 October 2011. Sparx Systems,
an OGC member, helped organize the workshop, and sponsored the event. Titled Smart Grid and
Spatial Data Infrastructure, the workshop included presentations about the relationship of Smart Grid
to Spatial Data Infrastructure, the relevant standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), and
interoperability challenges now and in the future.
S
mart Grid refers to next genera-
tion electrical power grids that
gather, distribute, and act on
information about electricity suppliers and
consumers in order to improve the efcien-
cy, reliability, economics, and sustainability
of electricity services. The Smart Grid is a
critical requirement for energy efciency
improvements that help reduce green house
gas emissions and use of increasingly
expensive fossil fuels. Technologies devel-
oped for smart power grids are also being
employed in smart water and natural gas
distribution systems.
Smart Metering
Dale McMullin, Principal Systems Architect,
Smart Grid at GE Energy Services was one
of the presenters. Spatial parameters are
important to the future success of Smart Grid.
Huge amounts of data are already being col-
lected, and even more data will be collected
in the future from meters, transformers, switch-
es, and other devices that play roles in criti-
46
December 2011
E v e n t
By Athina Trakas
Fig. 1: Many standards and many standards organisations are involved in the Smart Grid. (Figure from NIST.)
cal processes. One of the most obvious exam-
ples is found in smart metering. If a meter
goes down, it means an outage. If many
meters go down, it means a higher level fail-
ure. Knowing the location of each meter helps
the utility automatically pinpoint the location
of the outage within minutes or even seconds,
he explained. The OGC is involved because
standardizing the usage of spatial data will
make even more complicated Smart Grid
problems solvable, including electric car
charging and distributed renewable (i.e. solar,
wind) generation. Knowing where these
assets are located opens many doors to asso-
ciating them with other location-based data
sources and applications like weather track-
ing, crew management, and others. We are
just starting to scratch the surface. GE Energy
Services is a Principal Member in the OGC.
Sparx Systems provides modeling tools based
on open standards. The INfrastructure for
SPatial InfoRmation in Europe (INSPIRE), the
European Network of Transmission System
Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), the
International Electrotechnical Commission
(IEC) and many utilities use these tools for man-
aging complex information architectures. The
Smart Grid will necessarily involve many orga-
nizations working together collaboratively to
develop complex information architectures
based on open standards and this initiative
enabled a sharing of ideas between key stake-
holders.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are one of the energy ef-
ciency improvements supported by the Smart
Grid. Gerhard Triebnig of EOX presented at
the workshop, describing the BALLADE
Geospatial Infrastructure for Supporting Plug-in
Electric Vehicle Charging, Routing and
Implementation of Power Management
Policies. BALLADE uses the OGC Web Feature
Service (WFS) Interface Standard and derives
from his groups investigations of the suitability
of OGC Sensor Web Enablement standards for
management of smart meter networks.
The OGCs David Arctur, Director, Inter -
operability Initiatives, participated in the work-
shop. He noted that there was widespread
interest among the INSPIRE community work-
ing on electricity generation & transmission
themes to try to coordinate with Smart grid
standards activities in the US. Smart grid poli-
cy is organized in Europe as the Smart Grids
European Technology Platform. Smart grid
standards coordination in the United States is
a function of the US National Institute of
Standards and Technology. Standards coordi-
nation is an essential activity, because there
are many standards organizations involved in
the electric power industry and in the sectors
of the information technology industry that are
concerned with the Smart Grid.
Location Component
The OGC is involved because every Smart
Grid component transformer, meter, air
conditioner, power plant, electric car, solar
panel, etc. has a location on Earth. Every
grid event or phenomenon brown-out,
demand variability, power surge, regulation,
transmission loss, etc. occurs within some
time interval and at some location in space
along the grids physical network. The same
is true for every external event or phe-
nomenon that affects the grid, such as
weather alert or cyber-attack. Spatial param-
eters have signicant impact in every sce-
nario affecting the grid. Also, rst respon-
ders, civil engineers, street crews, and many
others will ask where questions that can
only be answered through inter-process com-
munication between the Smart Grid and sys-
tems created for other purposes.
The Smart Grid will include many sensors
and actuators, and the OGC Sensor Web
Enablement (SWE) standards address most
of the issues involved in communications for
publishing, discovering, assessing, access-
ing, and controlling/reading Internet acces-
sible sensors and actuators, and also sensor
data stores. The SWE standards have been
harmonized with IEEE 1451 smart sensor
standards and work is ongoing in the SWE
Domain Working Group and SWE stan-
dards working groups on topics such as sen-
sor semantics, lightweight encodings, and
alerts. Indoor/outdoor location integration
is another area in which the OGC is active
and this, too, is important for the Smart
Grid. The Smart Grid will co-evolve with
other developments in the Internet of
Things, and the OGC Mobile Internet
Concept Development activities are an indi-
cation of the OGCs involvement in this co-
evolution.
Athina Trakas, Director, European Services, OGC
A number of OGC members are involved in the Smart Grid market,
and discussions are taking place regarding the creation of an OGC
Technical Committee Smart Grid Domain Working Group. For more
information, email info@opengeospatial.org.
E v e n t
47
Efficient Geospatial Management of Earth Resources
FIG Workshop in Mongolia
The FIG Workshop of Commissions 5 and 6 on Innovative Technologies for an Efficient Geospatial
Management of Earth Resources took place at an unusual location, namely Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Gottfrid Konecny, Em.Prof. at Leibniz University, reports on the event that took place during September
4 to 8, 2011.
I
t is not often, that NGOs like the Inter -
national Federation of Surveyors FIG, the
International Society for Photo gram metry
and Remote Sensing ISPRS and the Inter -
national Cartographic Association ICA hold
meetings in faraway places, like Mongolia.
But this was done in Ulaanbaatar from
September 4 to 8, 2011, when the FIG Com -
smissions 5 and 6 held a workshop on
Innovative Technologies for an Efcient
Geospatial Management of Earth Resources,
with representatives from ISPRS and ICA join-
ing the meeting.
The organizer of the workshop was Dr.
Enkhtuvshin Baatar, the President of the
Mongolian Association of Geodesy, Photo -
grammetry and Cartography (MAGPF), assist-
ed by Prof. Vladimir Seredovich, Vice
President of the Siberian State Academy for
Geodesy, Novosibirsk.
Two NGO Vice Presidents came to the meet-
ing: FIG Vice President Rudolf Staiger from
Germany and ICA Vice President Milan
Konecny from the Czech Republic. The ISPRS
Foundation supported the attendance of some
excellent graduate students from Kazakhstan
and Siberia, who presented their work at the
workshop.
The Country
For FIG, ISPRS and ICA the event was a wel-
come opportunity to learn about the dynamic
developments of the resource-rich country with
an area of 1.5M km2, but with a population
of only 2.7M, with nearly half the inhabitants
living in the capital Ulaanbaatar.
Since the 1920s, Mongolia has been strong-
ly oriented toward Russia, and is the reason
why the professionals of the older generation
were educated in Novosibirsk and Moscow.
But in present University life a tendency
toward using English as a foreign language
is noticeable.
Due to resource development, modern geo -
desy and geoinformatics play an important
role in the country, and workshop topics were
closely related to local professional demands.
Paper Sessions
About half the participants came from abroad
(Europe, the Russian Federation, the USA,
China, Thailand and Korea). The foreign par-
ticipants enjoyed the excellent conference
facilities at the Genggis Khaan Hotel in
Ulaanbaatar. They will certainly remember the
Mongolian hospitality extended to them dur-
ing the visit to the Gorkhi-Terelj National Park,
where the impressive Genggis Khaan Monu -
ment, a yurt village and a Buddhist monastery
are situated.
Here are a few selected Mongolia-specic
highlights from the more than 30 papers deliv-
ered at the workshop on the use of new tech-
nology.
D. Amarisaikhan of the Mongolian Aca de -
my of Science presented a number of case
studies for Mongolia with the use of high
resolution optical and radar satellite images
and of hyperspectral satellite sensors for
land cover classication and for urban stud-
ies.
Ms. Munkkhtsesetseg of the Administration
of Land Affairs, Construction, Geodesy and
Cartography spoke on the overall technical
progress in Mongolia for mapping and
cadastre. The administration has a staff of
140, and has established a GNSS refer-
ence network and determined a new local
geoid for the country. Maps are still
classied however, but there are about
100 private survey companies in Mongolia,
3 to 5 of which have photogrammetric map-
ping capabilities for the government and for
industrial demands.
Eugene Levine, Russian educated, but now
Professor of Geoinformatics at Michigan
Tech, concluded that the Russian education-
al programs in geoinformatics at Moscow
and Novosibirsk meet industrial demands
because of their a strong research compo-
nent. This is not so for the United States B.Sc.
programs in the eld. Michigan Tech has
therefore embarked on distance learning
and it has corporate agreements with
Moscow State University for Land Use
Planning.
Round table discussion
A round table discussion on Emergency
Management, chaired by Milan Konecny of
the Technical University Brno, Czech Republic
concluded:
1. Disasters are the result of many causes;
50% are caused by humans.
2. Priorities for emergency management must
be set nationally.
3. There must be a close link between the data
providers and the implementation agencies
for disaster relief, as it is with the Russian
Emergency Ministry EMERCOM and the
Rus sian Army.
Enkhtuvshin Baatar concluded that Mongolia
has created a new law on emergencies.
Particular emergencies arise in Mongolia as
a result of snow storms, when people lose their
orientation and their cattle lose their life
because of it.
Congratulation to MAGPC for a well conduct-
ed workshop.
Gottfried Konecny, Em.Prof., Leibniz University,
Hannover, Germany.
The papers of the workshop can be ordered on a CD from
mgl_cartography@yahoo.com.
48
December 2011
E v e n t
By Gottfried Konecny
49
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
Defence Geospatial
Intelligence (DGI) 2012
Defence Geospatial Intelligence (DGI) 2012 is where all key decision-makers and strategic thinkers
responsible for this and many other missions will be discussing their plans, strategies and future
requirements. If these are your customers and partners, then you need to be at DGI 2012 in
Westminster, London on 23-27th of January.
T
he conference and exhibition are taking place over 4 days and
are designed to attract over 700 senior intelligence, geospatial
and architecture ofcers from defence and national security
organisations the world over. As many as 45 countries send their
heads of geoint to the event, because they see it as the key meeting
place for the geo community and they get so many new strategies
and new technologies from it.
Why you need to be at DGI 2012 listening and
meeting with the community
The strategic importance of partnerships with the industry grows
every day. The worlds defence and intelligence organisa-
tions continue to strengthen and deepen their ties
both on the national and on international levels
as they move forward together to create an
intelligence and decision advantage for
their decision makers, warghters and
international partners.
The task becomes impossible without
your contribution, ideas and solutions.
Each speaker and delegate will be look-
ing for new ideas, nding new solutions
and shopping for technologies to match
the requirements of their latest pro-
gramme, project and mission.
Conference Focus & Innovation
1. Maps to Apps Focus Focused on delivering
online on demand and on time data, information
and analysis to each user in-theatre and in HQ
2. GIS Architecture & Mission Management Focus - The way you
build your GIS system and its exibility determines its effective-
ness, its ability to collaborate with other agencies and its strength
in operations. The architecture stream aims to focus on the chal-
lenges GIS professionals have when designing and modifying
their systems. It will discuss the practical realities of providing
information and managing data on the day-to-day basis
3. GIS in C4ISR as part of Architecture As GIS becomes omni-
scient in all parts of the defence organisation, it is imperative that
all decisions made by C4ISR are made off a map and are sup-
ported by the latest GIS technologies. For the rst time ever DGI
is aiming to cover the GIS strategies and tools used within C4ISR.
These are big strategic capabilities based on GIS or involving
GIS.
4. Operational Focus - DGI is moving away from theory into practi-
cal operational case studies that will focus on current and latest
GIS strategies from war theatres around the globe. Real life exam-
ples, successful strategies and plans for the future will be dis-
cussed by operational military GIS personnel from around the
world.
5. Human Geography Focus Using not only military force, but intel-
ligence about the local people has proven to be one of the most
effective new strategies in Afghanistan, Lybia and many other in-
theatre operations.
6. Intelligence Expansion - As interoperability and collaboration
become increasingly important, different governmental
agencies are striving to work together on their GIS
resources and capabilities. Duplication of efforts
and resources is one of the largest problems
in GIS generally. There will be a number of
case studies focusing on the current GIS
strategies and operational successes in
preparation for the Olympic Games in
London, London Transport GIS, anti-ter-
rorism work around the European cities,
use of imagery and data in border con-
trol and crime prevention and many oth-
ers.
7. MENA Focus this year the conference
will devote a special day to the latest
programmes, challenges and strategies
used in the GeoInt community in the
Middle East and North Africa. If your
business plan includes growth in the
MENA region, then you must attend this
conference day.
G3 readers are entitled to a 15% discount Quote
G315 when registering
To secure your G3 discount, contact us in the following ways:
1 Online at www.DefenceGeospatial.com
2 Email us on dgi@wbr.co.uk to request the latest agenda/nd out
more information
3 Call us on +44 (0) 20 7368 9465
By the editors
Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com
Is your Head in the Clouds?
Process Terabytes of Imagery
Cloud computing services are here, and bring real implications to the geospatial industry. A brief look
at the technology, the opportunities, the drawbacks, and how one company is looking beyond
cloud-based data-management services and exploiting massive scalability to redefine performance.
Buzzword or buzzworthy?
Youve undoubtedly heard about the coming wave of cloud comput-
ing. Gartner predicts that the global market for cloud computing
solutions will top $140 billion by 2014. Whats your cloud strate-
gy? has become the whats your sign? of the business world. How
much of this is realistic? How much of this is hyperbole? Is there even
a solid business case in trusting an immature technology or are we
all distracted by the latest shiny object?
Make no mistake; the migration of computing capacity from private
corporate networks to shared public or private clouds is a game
changer for anyone working with technology; and the geospatial
industry is no exception.
Cloud computing is nothing new. In fact, theres a good chance you
use some form of cloud computing every day. If you have an e-mail
account with a Web-based e-mail service like Hotmail or Gmail, share
personal photos on a web service like Picasa or Flickr, or create docu-
ments using Google Docs or Zoho, then youve had experience in the
cloud. These programs dont run on local computers, everything is per-
formed on the services computer cloud.
While it may seem undesirable to process and store your organiza-
tions valuable data offsite, cloud computing has a number of advan-
tages, including:
Data is no longer conned to a hard drive on a single computer
or even a corporations internal server. In a cloud environment,
users are able to access applications and data from anywhere at
any time through a web browser.
Cloud computing systems reduce the need for advanced hard-
ware on the client side; bringing hardware costs down. Yearly
hardware and software upgrades become a thing of the past.
Furthermore, organizations can save money on IT support.
Streamlined hardware on the client side will have fewer prob-
lems than a network of heterogeneous machines and operating
systems.
The massive redundancy and fault tolerance of cloud systems
keep your data secure with multiple levels of backup without the
added on-site IT infrastructure.
Most importantly, regarding Earth-observation imagery, if the
cloud computing systems back end is a grid computing system,
organizations can leverage the entire networks processing
power. Datasets are becoming so large and algorithmic calcula-
tions so complex; it can take signicant amounts of time for indi-
vidual computers to perform rudimentary tasks. On a grid com-
puting system the distributed cloud system harnesses the
processing power of all available computers on the back end,
signicantly speeding up production.
50
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
By Jason Hodgert
Figure 1: Opportunities beyond the typical cloud computing applications shown above are making their way into Geospatial industries.
That last point represents a signicant workload shift. With local
computers no longer responsible for the heavy lifting when it comes
to running applications, and the network of computers that comprise
the cloud handling them at record pace, productivity increases while
hardware and software demands on the users side decrease.
The moves from single-core to multi-core chips and from 32 to 64-bit
operating systems have done their part to alleviate bottlenecks in
various workows across industries. The move to cloud-based com-
puting represents the next step in the natural evolution of computing
infrastructure, and as noted by Victoria Kouyoumjian, Esri IT
Strategies Architect, in the October/November issue of GEO -
Informatics cloud based IT has moved quickly into the mainstream
geospatial environment.
Esri itself has recently been transforming ArcGIS Online to a full GIS-
in-the-cloud environment to complement its portfolio. The U.S.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is working with
Google on a project called Earth Builder that is purpose-built to
enable the NGA leverage cloud-based processing power to provide
timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence to its stakehold-
ers. Finally, PCI Geomatics has recently been leveraging the dis-
tributed parallelism of the cloud to process high-resolution satellite
imagery more efciently than ever before.
From Theory to Practice
One of the most challenging computing applications for the geospa-
tial industry is high volume image processing. To meet the demands
of an industry that is producing high-resolution raw imagery faster
than ever before, PCI Geomatics developed a parallel processing
system optimized for high speed performance. Known as the
GeoImaging Accelerator (GXL), the software is designed to orthorec-
tify, pansharpen, and mosaic vast volumes of imagery and is scal-
able to an organizations throughput requirements; making it an
ideal candidate to run as a cloud solution.
The implementation has not been without its challenges. With soft-
ware that was designed for optimized use on desktop processing
systems (which is traditionally limited in terms of the available mem-
ory and processing power), it is more efcient to implement multiple
read/write operations within algorithms. This type of implementa-
tion is not well suited to the massive scalability of the Cloud; PCI
had to re-write some of its code to ensure optimization some sim-
ple changes in the code resulted in performance gains of 10x to
20x when implemented on the cloud.
Another challenge, especially for the Earth Observation sector, is
limited bandwidth. For smaller e-commerce transaction types (eBay,
Gmail, PayPal, etc), volume of data being transferred is very small
compared to Earth-observation imagery. A typical high resolution
image (2 m multi-spectral + 50 cm panchromatic) can be very large
from 1-5 gigabytes depending on the number and types of bands
included in the dataset. I/O issues still represent a hurdle for Cloud
based processing, especially the initial transfer of data to the Cloud.
Depending on the size of the dataset, it may be preferable to physi-
cally deliver the data to the cloud provider.
With the size of the data were dealing with, bandwidth is still an
issue, said David Stanley, CTO of PCI Geomatics. Even with that
limitation, one can still win the cost/benet battle following this
model.
System Deployment
For their rst deployment to the cloud, PCI installed their GXL system
on the Amazon Cloud, but the system can be deployed in the same
manner to other public clouds such as Microsoft Azure, or even pri-
vate cloud environments. The company found that their GXL system
operated on the cloud much in the same way a standard GXL sys-
tem operates.
Ar t i c l e
51

per day
Figure 2: The Amazon Cloud architecture provides massive scalability that improves performance, capacity,
and reliability.
The software worked immediately, said Stanley. We found no
need to rebuild the software and were able to install in the same
manner as we do on a standard desktop.
Computing instances are created through a web console as required,
and allocated to the GXL system to add additional processing nodes,
as required; this provides unparalleled scalability and dramatically
reduces the lead time for system implementation. Instances can be
added on demand, where non-cloud systems require the purchase
and conguration of specic hardware.
With a handful of clicks, I can add virtual machines to a project
almost instantly, said Guillaume Morin, Project Lead at PCI
Geomatics. This is especially useful for the compute-intensive tasks
such as tie-point collection or orthocorrection.
The scalability in a cloud implementation works both ways. The abil-
ity to scale a system down for less intensive or lower volume work-
loads can also be of benet; removing the headaches associated
with the use of purchased hardware systems to maximize the value
of capital investments.
Processes like block bundle adjustment or color balancing may not
benet as greatly from extra processing nodes, said Stanley. In a
cloud-based system, you use only what you need and make those
adjustments in real time.
The scalability of PCIs cloud implementation extends to non-com-
pute tasks as well. For instance, if a large team can be deployed,
multiple quality assurance instances can be created on demand to
accommodate a large scale effort.
The Results Speak for Themselves
PCI is currently using its cloud implementation to process one-meter
resolution IKONOS imagery. In a workow that includes ingesting
raw imagery, tie-point collection, block bundle adjustment, orthorec-
tication, pansharpening, and mosaicking - the company has seen
impressive results. Using a small sample of 300 IKONOS scenes
totaling over 300GB of data, the company saw a job that would
typically take 11 hours of processing time completed in barely over
two hours using the cloud.
With minimal intervention, in the way of some minor code adjust-
ments, we were able to see incredible performance gains. As tech-
nology improves, Im certain we will be able to exploit cloud envi-
ronments to even greater extents, said Stanley. Imagine processing
millions of square kilometers of data in hours instead of weeks.
Imagine measuring manageable datasets in petabytes instead of
gigabytes. It will happen sooner than we think.
The parallelization and scalability of the cloud are changing our
industry. Although cloud based services on the surface appear to be
better suited to transactions that have a smaller data footprint,
geospatial organizations like Esri, Google, NGA, and PCI
Geomatics has been successful in demonstrating that larger applica-
tions can realize the same benets as other Cloud based services.
Jason Hodgert hodgert@pcigeomatics.com,
Marketing Specialist, PCI Geomatics
52
December 2011
Ar t i c l e
Figure 3: Quality Assurance steps like cutline editing can be performed by teams of operators using PCI Geomatics GXL system deployed in a cloud environment.
7-9 FEBRUARY 2012
A Conference cycle focusing on the issues and perspectives
related to 3D Geomatics technologies and data
Come and discover the 3D technologies
which are revolutionising Geomatics!
Two days of international conferences, round table discussions,
an exhibition and demonstrations to broaden your knowledge,
share experiences and strengthen your understanding
of the 3D technologies which are revolutionising Geomatics!
Wednesday 8 February
Improving Town Management
using 3D Geomatics
Using 3D to manage a town or city
Who adjudicates on 3D issues?
City services using 3D to work together
3D & GIS: what does the future hold?
Ready-availability of the Reference
Frame on a large scale
by the French IGN
Using 3D over the internet
Thursday 9 February
Urban planning and 3D cartography:
an immediate challenge!
The INSPIRE directive
and its effect on 3D
Using 3D to increase public
awareness of projects
Using 3D in geo-collaboration
Fighting urban sprawl
Urban planning in 3D:
for 3D experts only?
3D applied to long term land
development plans (SCOT)
Virtual urban regeneration
Join the 3D Virtual
Cities Forum!
An area dedicated to local authorities
in order that they may further their
knowledge, share experiences and
prepare their 3D projects
A special package inclusive of:
transport*, 2 hotel nights, 1 full
access pass, lunches, an exhibition
area with a plasma screen
Additional information & Registration: www.imagina.mc
Contact : participants@imagina.mc Contact : marketing@imagina.mc
*

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January
05-06 January GeoDesign Summit
Esri, Redlands, CA, U.S.A.
Internet: www.geodesignsummit.com
09-10 January Introduction to GIS
Newcastle University, Newcastle, U.K.
E-mail: ceg.cpd@ncl.ac.uk
Internet: www.ncl.ac.uk/cegs.cpd/cpd/gis.php
11-12 January Intermediate GIS
13 January Spatial Analysis
17-19 January Least Squares Adjustment for
Offshore Survey
Internet: www.ncl.ac.uk/cegs.cpd/cpd/lsadjust.php
23-25 January Symposium GIS OSTRAVA 2012
VSB-TU, Ostrava, Czech Republic
Internet: http://gis.vsb.cz/gis2012/authors.php
23-25 January International LiDAR Mapping Forum
Denver, CO, U.S.A.
Internet: www.lidarmap.org
23-26 January Defence Geospatial Intelligence
(DGI) 2012
QEII Conference Centre, Westminster, London, U.K.
E-mail: dgi@wbr.co.uk
Internet: www.dgieurope.com
February
07-09 February Imagina
Grimaldi Forum, Monaco
Internet: www.imagina.mc/2012
08-10 February EuroCOW 2012
Institute of Geomatics, Castelldefels, Spain
Internet: www.ideg.es/page.php?id=1094
24-28 February AAG Annual Meeting
New York, NY, U.S.A.
Internet: www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting
28 February-01 March RIEGL LiDAR 2012
Hilton Hotel, Orlando, FL, U.S.A.
Internet: www.riegl.com
March
19-20 March Network Analysis
Internet: www.ncl.ac.uk/cegs.cpd/cpd/netanalysis.php
26-27 March Free and Open Source Tools for GIS
Internet: www.ncl.ac.uk/cegs.cpd/cpd/osgis.php
26-30 March 6th GeoTunis 2012
Tunesia
Internet: www.geotunis.org/2011
April
17-18 April 6th International Satellite Navigation
Forum - NAVITECH 2012
Expocenter Fairgrounds, Moscow, Russia
E-mail: e.sinitsa@expocentre-europe.com
Internet: http://eng.glonass-forum.ru
23-27 April Geospatial World Forum 2012
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Internet: www.geospatialworldforum.org
25-27 April VI International Conference Remote
Sensing - the Synergy of High Technologies
ATLAS PARK-HOTEL, Moscow, Russia
Internet: www.sovzondconference.ru/2012/eng/
May
06-10 May FIG Working Week 2012 - Knowing to
manage the territory, protect the environment,
evaluate the cultural heritage
Rome, Italy
Internet: www.g.net/g2012
07-09 May 4th International Conference on
Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis - GEO-
BIA 2012
Windsor Barra Hotel and Conventions, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
E-mail: geobia2012@dpi.inpe.br
Internet: www.inpe.br/geobia2012
14-17 May Global Geospatial Conference 2012
(GSDI 13 World Conference, GEOIDE Annual
Scientic Conference and Canadian Geomatics
Conference)
Qubec City Convention Center, Qubec City, Canada
Internet: www.gsdi.org/gsdiconf/gsdi13
28 May-02 June 5th International Conference BAL-
WOIS 2012 on Water, Climate and Environment
Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia
Internet: www.balwois.com/2012
29-31 May MundoGEO#Connect 2012
Frei Caneca Convention Center, So Paulo, Brazil
Internet: www.mundogeo.com
30 May-02 June Geodetic Science and Technology
Conference EUROmatyka2012
Poznan University of Technology / LOS Puszczykowo,
Poland
E-mail: biuro@euromatyka2012.pl
Internet: www.euromatyka2012.pl
June
04-07 June HEXAGON 2012
Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A.
Internet: www.hexagonconference.com
18 June Mobile GIS
Internet: www.ncl.ac.uk/cegs.cpd/cpd/mobilegis.php
21-23 June G-spatial EXPO 2012
Pacico Yokohama, Yokohama, Japan
Internet: www.g-expo.jp/en/index.html
25-28 June 14th International CARIS User
Conference
Vancouver, Canada
Internet: www.caris.com/caris2012
25-30 June The World GIS Summit
Istanbul, Turkey
E-mail: info@gissummit.org
Internet: www.gissummit.org
July
01-03 July COM.Geo 2012: The 3rd International
Conference on Computing for Geospatial
Research and Application
Washington, DC, U.S.A.
E-mail: eddy@com-geo.org
Internet: www.com-geo.org/conferences/2012/index.htm
03-06 July GI_Forum 2012 Symposium and
Exhibit
Salzburg, Austria
E-mail: ofce@gi-forum.org
Internet: www.gi-forum.org
23-27 July Esri International User Conference
San Diego, CA, U.S.A.
Internet: www.esri.com/events/user-conference
August
12-16 August SPIE Optics + Photonics 2012
San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.
Internet: http://spie.org/optics-photonics.xml?WT.mc_id=
RCal-OPW
25 August-01 September XXII Congress of the ISPRS
Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne,
Australia
E-mail: isprs2012@icms.com.au
Internet: www.isprs2012-melbourne.com
September
21-26 September FOSS4G 2012
Beijing, China
Internet: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2012_
Beijing_Program
October
09-11 October INTERGEO
Hannover, Germany
Internet: www.intergeo.de
November
08-10 November CAMUSS, the International
Symposium on Cellular Automata Modeling for
Urban and Spatial Systems
Oporto, Portugal
Internet: www.camuss.dec.uc.pt
Please feel free to e-mail your calendar notices to:calendar@geoinformatics.com
C a l e n d a r 2012 / Ad v e r t i s e r s I n d e x
ERDAS www.erdas.com 17
FOIF www.foif.com.cn 29
Imagina www.imagina.mc 53
ITC Faculty www.itc.nl 39
Leica Geosystems www.leica-geosystems.com 25
Microsoft UltraCam www.iFlyUltraCam.com 9
NovAtel www.novatel.com 55
Sokkia www.sokkia.net 56
SuperMap www.supermap.com 35
Pacic Crest www.paciccrest.com/adl 13
Topcon Europe BV www.topcon.eu 2
Advertisers Index
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