New Event REAL-ly Hits the Spot!
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New Event REAL-ly Hits the Spot!

This issue is all about 3D Documentation but we’re not forgetting the infrastructure, mapping small islands and trying to get our fellow professionals to understand what we mean by scale.

When you boil surveying down to the essentials it’s mostly about capturing a scene in sufficient detail so that others can design, plan or take action. Today we have some fantastic technology to enable us to do that and we increasingly describe what we do as 3D Documentation, which is very much the theme for this issue. You will find different aspects of it across at least four articles including, for those thinking about buying, Adam P Spring’s review of the current market for terrestrial 3D scanners.

It’s not often that a brand new event really hits the spot but Nick Day’s report on the first REAL event makes absolutely riveting reading; it is a must-read. The sheer variety of applications and industries reported which are now using 3D documentation is breathtaking. They are benefiting from the synergy that comes from such a comprehensive event. From fashion and haute couture to restoring and replicating classic cars, from aerospace to the film industries, to reproducing fine art down to the individual brush strokes, laser scanning and imaging are driving so many applications including 3D printing. Lots of opportunities ahead for geomatics for those imaginative enough to diversify.

Clever but does it Work?

Do you ever feel that the clever techy people who develop and create some of the amazing toys we have around us haven’t the faintest idea what we actually use them for? We have smartphones many of which are actually rather difficult and unreliable for. . . phone calls! Google’s gmail service, which I have been forced to start using for business due to the failure of our near 20 year email provider to stay up-to-date, has a bewildering interface where the four basic things you are likely to want to do with an email – reply, delete, print or save somewhere – are lost in meaningless icons and graphics. Thank goodness most of the software we use in geomatics operates in a rather more relevant manner.

Vote for Infrastructure

In his Chair’s column Chris Preston laments the failure of our politicians to focus on infrastructure in the recent UK general election. An article in The Observer newspaper prior to the election looked at the cultural and social beliefs of Britons. It found transport and infrastructure right at the bottom of a list of 21 issues that bother us. We need to move it up in time for the next election. There is much wrong with Britain’s infrastructure. Roads are crumbling, rail fares are the costliest in Europe and bus services offer little inducement for us to get out of our cars. Perhaps we’re spending too much on headline-grabbing projects like HS2 and Crossrail. Whatever your personal beliefs, let’s move infrastructure up the agenda. And whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to describe our general election in John Brock’s colourfully blunt Aussie terms as a “Pick a Dope Quest” (see page 36), nevertheless, we do need to wake up our representatives. Better still, start by lobbying your freshly-minted (or old re-tread) MP.

Must-reads

Other stand-out articles in this issue include Mike Reid on Renishaw’s capture in 3D of the two Forth bridges (page 22); Dr Catur Aries Rokmana on mapping Indonesia’s 13,500 or more named islands (page 32) and James O’Connor and Dr Mike Smith on the pitfalls of using consumer grade cameras in UAV surveys. All three are must-reads. I must also mention Carl Calvert’s column (page 34). He reports on a recurrent theme for surveyors: getting our fellow professionals to understand what we mean by scale. Alas, the UK’s Supreme Court struggle with it too.

Geomatics World and our publishers, PV Publications, will be in Islington in late May for the UK’s No 1 geospatial event: GEO Business 27-28 May at the Business Design Centre, Islington, London. See you there.

Stop Press

Just as we were going to press GW learnt with great sadness that former Geomatics Professional Group Chair Ken Hall had died. Ken was principal of K J Hall Chartered Land Surveyors, a member of RICS Council and a former president of CICES. Our deepest sympathies are extended to Ken’s family. A full obituary will appear in the next issue and in the RICS magazine Modus.

This article was published in Geomatics World May/June 2015

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