Latest Blog

Following the Curves of Road Design with Aerial Lidar

They say accuracy isn’t important for horseshoes and hand grenades – getting close is good enough, writes Brian Stevens. But if you are charged with improving the safety of the nation’s transportation system, accurate road curves, grade and width measurements are absolutely critical. All too often, transportation agencies don’t have the data to help them address specific safety concerns, maintenance budgets or technology such as autonomous (self-driving) vehicles. So, whe... (read more)
Blogs

How Accessible and Reliable Is Your National Government's Data?

From now until January 2017, you can join individuals and organisations around the world in assessing the quality and availability of data from national governments. The Open Knowledge International (OKI) Global Open Data Index 2016 survey is now open. This annual index has been measuring the state of open government data throughout the world since 2013. This yea... (read more)

Photogrammetry Meets the Consumer Drone

Photogrammetry has made huge progress over the past 15 years, on both hardware and software fronts. Dedicated large-frame cameras enable increasingly high geometric and radiometric precision, capturing overlapping images to be used by software with new, tailored algorithms. Large-scale surface models with proven accuracy and high detail are produced from these images by de... (read more)

Blockchain in Geospatial Applications

A blockchain is an immutable trustless registry of entries, hosted on an open distributed network of computers (called nodes). It is potentially safer and cheaper than traditional centralised databases, is resilient to attacks, enhances transparency and accountability and puts people in control of their own data. Blockchain technology is already being used in some geospati... (read more)

Supporting Geomatics Education in Uruguay

While reading the latest Spanish edition of GIM International (June 2016) I came across an article expressing concern about the ability of education and geomatics to solve some of the main problems of our times. That article (‘La Educación es clave/Education is key’) encouraged me to write about some initiatives that are being supported in Uruguay and to... (read more)

Young People and Geomatics: Time to Act

In an earlier contribution, I wrote about the strong necessity of making the geomatics discipline more attractive to students. In terms of careers, the geospatial sector is probably one of the best kept secrets. There is a startling lack of public awareness about the geomatics surveying profession – which goes a long way to explain why many universities find it diffi... (read more)
Want Exposure?

At GIM International, we are always searching for great stories and the most relevant news. However, we are sure there is much more going on than our editorial team can cover alone. So we are encouraging geomatics professionals to share their insights too. Are you interested in writing a blog about an exciting or unusual survey, game-changing innovation or project? If so, let us know!

Send a mail to Wim van Wegen, our content manager: [email protected]

Read the Magazine!