Capturing, Modelling and Building the Reality

Interview with Aidan Mercer, Bentley Systems

Bentley Systems held its latest annual Year in Infrastructure Conference in London, UK. The event proved to be an excellent opportunity to take a look behind the scenes at Bentley, a leading provider of software solutions for advancing infrastructure. 'GIM International' talked with Aidan Mercer, global industry marketing director for utilities and government. In this in-depth discussion, he zooms in on the role the company plays in advancing the world’s infrastructure and how geomatics is a key element of many of Bentley’s applications. (By Wim van Wegen, content manager, GIM International) We’re hearing a lot about reality modelling at Bentley’s Year... (read more)

2017-02-01 10:04:53

Bringing Reality into the Information Space

Interview with Dr Bernd-Dietmar Becker, Chief Technology Strategist and Evangelist, FARO

FARO is known as a trusted source of high-precision 3D measurement, imaging and visualisation technology. In the surveying and mapping field, the company is particularly well known for its laser scanning solutions. On behalf of 'GIM International', Wim van Wegen recently met with Dr Bernd-Dietmar Becker, chief technology strategist and head of FARO Labs (the company’s research and innovation department), to discuss what we can expect from laser scanning and its role as key reality capturing technology in the years ahead. You recently announced that you have divided your business into six vertical sales and product management business units. What is... (read more)

2017-07-10 11:00:08

Solving Land Conflict in Africa

Cadastre Alone Not Enough

The governments of many African countries are currently investing in improving land administration with the aim of developing an efficient land market. A side objective is to reduce conflicts over land through implementation of a functioning land-registration and/or cadastral system. Experience teaches that additional preventative measures are required, such as conflict resolution, land management and psychotherapeutic approaches. Not even a perfect land market can prevent conflicts unless regulated by governing institutions. There are two types of institution: constitutive and regulative institutions. Constitutive institutions are needed to enable an economically efficient land market through land rights, land registration and rule of... (read more)

2006-05-22 12:00:00

Precise Point Positioning from Combined GNSS

Fugro Marinestar G4+ PPP-RTK Developments

Currently there are four global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) available: GPS, Glonass, BeiDou and Galileo. The satellites of these systems are used for positioning, and the accuracy is greatly improved if precise satellite orbit, clock and uncalibrated phase delay (UPD) corrections are available when using the precise point positioning (PPP) technique. Fugro operates a worldwide network of reference stations capable of tracking GPS, Glonass, BeiDou and Galileo systems. This network is used to calculate precise satellite orbit and clock corrections of all four constellations in real time for maritime applications. The corrections are broadcast to users by eight geostationary L-band... (read more)

2017-02-06 10:20:00

Automated Map Generalisation

Meeting Today's Information Demands

Nowadays spatial information is much more often displayed on digital devices than on a paper map. Within digital environments, users have high expectations regarding up-to-date information and consistent data when zooming in and out. The recent progress in automated map generalisation offers the potential to meet those high expectations. ‘Generalisation’ of geoinformation is the extraction of less-detailed data from highly detailed data to fit a specific purpose. Less-detailed data is more suitable for displaying geoinformation at small scales and for obtaining overview-like visualisations of a particular area. Interactive generalisation is time- and labour-intensive: it can take years to generalise a... (read more)

2014-10-24 10:23:15

Multi-level Implementation of SDIs

Emerging Trends and Key Strategic Issues

The debate on Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) has reached a level of maturity that encourages reflection and facilitates evaluation of past experience. The author considers some emerging trends in the field of SDI with reference to recent implementation, and reformulates four key strategic issues for future SDI development identified in GIM International several years ago. The largest change is the shift from the product model of the first-generation SDIs to a process-led model of second-generation SDI, essentially a shift in emphasis from the concerns of data producers to those of data users. Database creation was very much the key driver... (read more)

2006-02-23 12:00:00

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

Land Administration Domain Model

Impact on Implementation of International Policies

An international group of land administration professionals initiated the development of a data model that facilitates the quick and efficient set-up of land registrations. Just as social issues benefit from proper land administration, land administration systems themselves benefit from proper data standards. The Land Administration (LA) standard has been available since 1 December 2012 as a formal International Standard, published as ISO 19152. This standard is expected to have an impact on the development of Land Administration Systems. The International Standard for the Land Administration Domain serves the following goals: Establishment of a shared ontology implied by the model: The... (read more)

2013-05-27 12:02:07

Geomares: Quality is Our Motto

GIM International Interviews Durk Haarsma

Geomares Publishing is the new media company behind GIM International, having in October taken over ownership from previous GIM publisher of almost ten years Reed Business-Geo. Geomares publishing director Durk Haarsma has in house strong brands, dynamic publishing concepts for the future and a dedicated team that will keep working to deliver quality in every possible way. Could you outline your reasons for buying GIM International and establishing Geomares Publishing? I have been in post as publisher of GIM International now for five years and have a strong belief in GIM International as flagship brand. Together with our other publication,... (read more)

2009-12-29 11:32:43

Indoor Positioning

Technologies, Features and Prospects

Outdoor positioning and navigation techniques using GNSS have been well explored and are now a vital part of daily life all over the planet. Since GNSS was initially designed to support the military during open-air combat, there was no need for the signals to be able to pass through walls and roofs. Indoor positioning therefore requires the alternatives to GNSS. How can geomatics contribute to the deployment of indoor positioning solutions? In aiming to find answers to that question, this article also examines current technologies and the various types of applications they originate from. An indoor positioning system is a... (read more)

2013-10-28 01:54:29