Galileo: Commercial Hopes Unrealistic

GIM Interviews Owen M. Goodman, Chief Operating Officer, Fugro N.V.

It is likely to be 2012 before the Galileo system itself is fully operational on a stand-alone basis, says this month’s interviewee Owen Goodman, and Galileo will never be a commercially viable service as long as GPS and Glonass are free. Given current plans, Galileo is heading inevitably towards a funding crisis. National security and defence agencies could make a substantial financial contribution, but this at the expense of Galileo’s status as a civilian system. The EU should leave the fulfilment of specialist civilian needs to commercial GNSS augmentation service providers and the makers of ‘RTK-type’ GNSS equipment, so that... (read more)

2006-02-23 12:00:00

Bringing Geography into Everything

GIM International Interviews Ed Parsons

As Google’s geospatial technologist, Ed Parsons is responsible for evangelising Google’s mission to organise the world’s information using geography. GIM International caught up with this ‘man with a mission’ in Barcelona during one of his countless foreign trips. (By Wim van Wegen, GIM International) You’re the geospatial technologist at Google, responsible for evangelising Google’s mission to organise the world’s information using geography. Can you describe that mission? In many ways it’s quite a unique role since the number of people within Google that are really focused on outside the organisation is quite limited. A key aspect of the role is... (read more)

2015-08-20 11:21:42

Linking Space Technology and User Needs

GIM International interviews Carlo des Dorides, Executive Director, GSA

Space technology has a big influence on the transformation of the way we live, work and play. The core mission of the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) is to ensure that European Union citizens get the most out of Europe’s satellite navigation programmes. In this in-depth interview GSA’s executive director, Mr Carlo des Dorides, talks about Galileo, EGNOS, Copernicus, UAVs, location-based services and much more. The developments in the GNSS industry are continuing at a steady pace. Where do we stand now? As our GNSS Market Report shows, the global GNSS market remains dynamic. GNSS is used around... (read more)

2017-02-06 10:32:07

Galileo: Commercial Hopes Unrealistic

GIM Interviews Owen M. Goodman, Chief Operating Officer, Fugro N.V.

It is likely to be 2012 before the Galileo system itself is fully operational on a stand-alone basis, says this month’s interviewee Owen Goodman, and Galileo will never be a commercially viable service as long as GPS and Glonass are free. Given current plans, Galileo is heading inevitably towards a funding crisis. National security and defence agencies could make a substantial financial contribution, but this at the expense of Galileo’s status as a civilian system. The EU should leave the fulfilment of specialist civilian needs to commercial GNSS augmentation service providers and the makers of ‘RTK-type’ GNSS equipment, so that... (read more)

2006-02-23 12:00:00

Need for New Players and Leaders to Enter the Land Sector

GIM International Interviews Dr Robin McLaren

Dr Robin McLaren is a widely known and recognised authority with more than 30 years of experience in the profession. Having developed GIS technology for a number of years, Robin set up his independent consulting company, Know Edge Ltd, in Edinburgh in 1986, providing GIS solutions for governmental and utilities clients across the United Kingdom. Following an introduction to international land administration and management during a UN-FAO mission to North Yemen in 1989, this became a major market for the company. 'GIM International' interviewed Robin to learn more about his involvement in many innovations and to hear his insightful opinions. Read... (read more)

2017-06-01 09:20:26

Downtown Dublin as a Lidar Point Cloud

A Highly Accurate, Diverse and Dense Annotated Laser Scanning Dataset of a City Centre

The advance of Lidar data acquisition technologies is substantially increasing the amount of spatial data obtained and it is becoming cost-prohibitive to process it manually. Artificial intelligence (AI) has now started to offer cost-effective solutions to analyse and utilize those big datasets. AI can be employed for scene understanding, accurately detecting objects and classifying 3D assets. These are the significant fundamentals of several applications including autonomous navigation, intelligent robotics, urban planning, emergency management and even forest monitoring. The most popular types of 3D spatial information for such applications are Lidar and imagery data. This article describes the dense annotated ground-truth... (read more)

2019-11-27 10:05:38

China Leaps Ahead with Geospatial Research

GIM International Interviews Professor Dr ZHANG Jixian

Prof. Dr John van Genderen, himself a leading western expert on geospatial developments in China, interviews Professor Dr ZHANG Jixian, acting president of the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping on the rapid evolution of geospatial ideas in China. Could you provide a brief overview of China’s earth observation missions, from their start up until now? China initiated a plan to develop a self-owned, proprietary (in terms of intellectual property rights) earth observation system after DFH-1, the first Chinese satellite, in 1970. Since then, many earth observation missions have been launched. As of today, we have developed five series of... (read more)

2005-03-24 12:00:00

Geohazard Management on the Canadian National Railway Corridor

A Multi-sensor Approach

In Western Canada, substantial lengths of the transportation corridors are located within steep mountainous terrain and deeply incised river valleys. This is also the case for the Canadian National (CN) rail lines, which traverse the Rocky Mountain, Cascade and Coastal ranges from Edmonton, Alberta, to the ports of Vancouver, British Columbia (BC). Along this corridor the railway infrastructure is exposed to various slope geohazards including landslides, debris slides and rockfalls, all of which are problematic for the safe and efficient operation of the railway. In a recent case of rock slope failure along the CN rail line in British Columbia,... (read more)

2016-11-03 04:44:19

Good Land Governance is Key in Sustainable Development

GIM International Interviews Daniel Roberge

Good, transparent land governance will serve a country’s national resources management, the rights of its citizens, and the reduction of poverty. Daniel Roberge is chair of FIG Commission 7 on Cadastre and Land Administration, and is director of the Office of the Surveyor General of Québec, Canada. He is convinced of the significant role that good land governance and transparent land management need to play in the future. The role of the surveyor will evolve to keep pace with the rapid growth of new ways of land management. Having completed the first year of your four-year term as chair of... (read more)

2012-04-12 04:14:17

Towards All-in-one Photogrammetry

A Case Study of Dense Image Matching Using Oblique Imagery

Modern photogrammetric camera architectures provide high-resolution imagery in nadir and oblique views. This case study sets out to prove the potential of oblique imagery to deliver dense point clouds to be used for DEM, 3D city model and true orthophoto generation – an important step towards ‘all-in-one’ photogrammetry. 3D point clouds for DEM or orthophoto production are typically collected using airborne Lidar systems. The recent development of dense image matching methods provides an efficient alternative by deriving point clouds from imagery. Within this fully automated image processing pipeline, corresponding pixels between multiple images are determined. Each pixel represents a sight... (read more)

2012-04-26 11:32:21