A Student’s Reflections on Intergeo

A group of around 20 MSc students from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, spent two days at Intergeo 2013 in Essen, Germany, as part of their course on Sensing Technologies for the Built Environment. One of the students has written a blog, reflecting on the value of the experiences gained at the largest exhibition and conference on geomatics.

(By Maarten Pronk, MSc student of Geomatics for the Built Environment at TU Delft, The Netherlands)

The Sensing Technologies course, led by lecturer Mathias Lemmens, provides an introduction to the major geodata instruments, their principles and applications, physics of EM signals and least squares adjustment. At Intergeo we visited booths that sparked our interest. We saw unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) which are also known as drones, land surveying devices and huge cameras as well as software for transferring images into point clouds and, in general, software solutions for every imaginable operation. Open source software was also present, the most prominent being OpenStreetMap. The fair allowed us to see the main manufacturers of hardware and software and the application areas: the services and the techniques. There were applications ranging from software engineering to skiing with a camera mounted on your back.

Students’ Background

During our tour of the event, the diversity of the students came into play. Around 20 students are enrolled on the MSc in Geomatics for the Built Environment at TU Delft. They come from a wide range of countries and have differing backgrounds and interests; some have a degree in architecture, others in mechanical engineering or geodesy. About half the students come from abroad, from as far afield as Lithuania, Greece and China – TU Delft runs a joint research centre together with Wuhan University in China. Therefore, the MSc features great diversity in many respects, and this became even more apparent when some students came across former colleagues or teachers on the exhibition floor. I talked at length with an engineer who had developed Marble, an open source variant of Google Earth. All the students got valuable insights into their future working environments and career opportunities.

Guided Tours

During the two days our professor Mathias Lemmens took us on guided tours of the major manufacturers including explanations either by him or by

R&D experts from the companies in question. We received information about Leica airborne cameras and Lidar, but also about software from Microsoft and many other companies. It was interesting to get information about the niche in which each company excels. The students were also allowed to have a go at steering a ‘copter’, a UAS for aerial imaging, which was a unique, hands-on experience. Although easy to control, wind and rain challenge piloting. We could easily understood the basic workings of each device thanks to the lectures and assignments we had received in the run-up to Intergeo. Visiting the show enriched our academic experience, as we saw theoretical concepts come alive in demonstrations. We gained, for example, more insight into the size and handling of measuring devices and the different phases of software processing.

Team Building

The visit also was a powerful tool for team building. A group of students who frequently have to work together certainly benefit from planning, organising and ultimately visiting an exhibition together. Being able to share our experiences of the fair further improved our understanding of mutual interests and skills and how to combine these while working together. At the end of the second day, we split up into smaller groups and went in search of companies that were

active in our own specific field of interest. Intergeo is an excellent place for students to come in contact with manufacturers and broaden their network. Exchanging information with companies provided us with opportunities for internships, a place to work on the graduation thesis or future employment. Business cards were exchanged and many students hope to meet specific companies again. In general, we were really satisfied with the wide range of potential jobs in geo-related fields, which are diverse not only in their application but also in their geographical location. Intergeo provided us with a useful academic experience by making the theoretical parts very real and even practical. Furthermore it provided a valuable team-building exercise because of the shared experiences, both inside and outside Intergeo. It was not only a good opportunity for the students but also an opportunity for the market to meet young novice professionals.

We're looking forward to returning to Intergeo next year in Berlin.

Biography

The author, Maarten Pronk, holds a BSc in architecture and is presently a first-year student on the MSc in Geomatics for the Built Environment programme at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. The curriculum focuses on advanced technology for capturing, storing, analysing and disseminating geoinformation. The resulting information and technology is needed for a great variety of geo-related decision-making.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Godelief, Martijn, Rushne, Dimitris and Mathias Lemmens.