GEO Business 2017: Day Two
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GEO Business 2017: Day Two

The last session of the conference Day One included a presentation on cyber security. Like health and safety, much of this topic is obvious - when you think about it. Many readers will remember the British government’s flagship BIM project at HM Prison Cookham Wood, but was it wise to display the 3D model so proudly on the internet?

(By Richard Groom, contributing editor)

The second day of GEO Business was only fractionally less busy than the first. I decided to start with a few workshop sessions. The workshops included one which presented GPR (ground penetrating radar) applications for investigating the makeup of road courses and the use of interferometric radar for monitoring, which can detect movements of 0.01mm over 500m. As the name implies, Survey4BIM is the organisation tasked with putting the survey into BIM. It has set itself five challenges and is concentrating on the first two – accuracy and interoperability. Some serious progress has been made and they are now looking to engage with the wider BIM ‘community’.

Back to the conference and there was a talk by Jos Creese on Smart Places. He argues that the term Smart Cities is too restrictive – what about the rest of us! It got me thinking that like ‘BIM’, ‘Smart Cities’ is one of those terms that, whilst concentrating the mind on a topic, at the same time blinkers our vision.

The conference culminated in a ‘Question Time’ session, with a panel of experts presided over by Antony Oliver. The theme of the debate was the future of the geospatial industry. Debate ranged from Smart Cities to careers, Brexit, underground utilities and OSGB36.  And the conclusions? There will be more automation to which geospatial will have to adapt, Brexit will result in opportunities and take heart from the fact that geospatial is at the core.

GEO Business has become an old friend who we visit each year, have a few beers with and then arrange to meet next year. And so we will.

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