Geoinformation Forum Japan 2006

The Geo-information Forum Japan 2006 and Exhibition took place in Yokohama from 5th to 7th July 2006. On not one of the three days did the number of participants fall below six thousand, about 5% coming from outside Japan. The top day was Friday 7th July, with 8,300 participants. These numbers make the Forum and Exhibition the biggest geo-information event in the whole of Asia.

The Geo-information Forum and Exhibition was organised by Japan Association of Surveyors, Japan Federation of Survey and Planning Associations, Japan Surveying Instruments Manufactures’ Association, and the Association of Precise Survey Applied Technology. Held in conjunction with this event was the annual technical and scientific conference of Japan Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. The meetings took place in Yokohama, the historic port town 30km south of Tokyo so famous and popular with tourists. The Mayor of Yokohama welcomed participants, and director-general of the Geographical Survey Institute Mr Akira Yaguchi presented the keynote speech.

Exhibition
Seventy-six companies, many from abroad, demonstrated their products and services at the accompanying trade exhibition. Trends seemed to be headed up by increasing accuracy in both distance and angle measurements of Total Stations. Another trend was evident in the striking colours and strong lines commented upon earlier this year (see Product Survey on High-end Total Stations, GIM International, June 2006). We may have been overwhelmed time and again by so much new stuff that we thought automation had surely reached its summit, but manufacturers are still managing to further cheer up the life of the surveyor. Progress includes spoken operation guidance and error messaging, automatic collimation and tracking, and high-speed control of axis rotary motion. And we may readily expect the future to bring many more sweeties for the surveyor! The innovative sister of the Total Station, the 3D-laser scanner, is gaining in popularity. Threedimensional laser scanning is a powerful measurement technology for obtaining 3D coordinates of points on object surfaces with a speed of up to 5,000 points per second; an ability which offers many new opportunities for surveyors. In the near future, surveying stakes will be provided with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, RFID being an operational technology that enables remote storage and reading of RFID tags mounted at or in objects. The application of RFID in surveying will require product specification and standardisation. New developments in GPS receivers could also be spotted. Particularly remarkable was the massive move towards totally wireless data transmission using Bluetooth.

Symposium
GPS was also the subject of intensive discussion during the paper track on ‘Application of Real Time Positioning Technol-ogy’; especially the possibilities of RTK-GPS for use in mapping, precision agriculture and road maintenance. The public is increasingly using geo-information in digital format. What are the needs of the soon coming geo-information society and how will the public get access to geo-information? What will be the requirements for geo-information with respect to standardisation and quality control? These were some of the topics discussed during the Spatial Information Society track. Communication between local government and citizens will be increasingly dominated by mutual information exchange over the internet. GIS is expected to play a crucial role in this communication process. During the Information Services track six experts discussed research results for using Web-GIS and the Japanese Standards for Geographic Information.

Exactly fifty years ago, in 1956, Japan began its participation in international efforts to investigate the Antarctic continent, then a complete terra incognita. One former expedition member evaluated how the Antarctic was surveyed in the past and, using this as starting point, envisioned the future of surveying.