The Parallels between Surveying and Journalism

Wim van Wegen, content manager of 'GIM International', recently attended the Year in Infrastructure Conference in the UK, organised annually by Bentley Systems. Comments by the company's chief communication officer, Chris Barron, set him thinking about the parallels between surveying and journalism. In this column, he probes the similarities further against the backdrop of today's data-driven society and the digital transformation. In October I was in London to attend the Year in Infrastructure Conference, organised annually by Bentley Systems. Chris Barron, chief communication officer at the software solution provider for engineers and construction professionals, kicked off the Media Day with warm... (read more)

2018-11-22 10:16:01

Report: First European Aerial Surveying Summit

Generating Sustainable Business for an Innovative Industry

Today’s digital societies require a continuous supply of updated, reliable and correct geodata, and new technologies are arriving with increasing speed. The manned aerial survey is by far the main source of high-resolution geographical data in the geoinformation ecosystem. This article looks back on the first edition of the European Aerial Surveying Summit, which was held in Denmark in December 2018. When people talk about geographical data and its creation, then satellites or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or ‘drones’) – ubiquitous in the daily media stream – often spring to mind. Lately, mobile surveying systems have started to take on... (read more)

2019-01-16 10:13:32

Land Surveying: Towards a Smarter Life

FIG Working Week in Hanoi, Vietnam, 22-26 April 2019

Surveyors and land professionals from all over the world came together in April in the heat of Hanoi to take part in the FIG 2019 Working Week. This year’s theme was ‘Geospatial information for a smarter life and environmental resilience’. The conference had a strong focus on tackling climate change by working towards a smarter life, both through the development of smart cities and also in rural areas. Spatial information, big data, surveying, BIM, land administration and much more are recognized as being essential factors in this development. There is a strong awareness that Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are directly... (read more)

2019-06-27 09:25:08

Re-surveying Firms for Levelling after Earthquake

Following a competitive tender process, Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) has appointed Opus, Beca, and CPG to carry out critical re-surveying work in post-quake Canterbury. The three firms will share the significant task of restoring the region\'svertical control network - the system of about 400 survey markers that enable the accurate determination of heights. The work is expected to be completed by June 2011. Government recently gave LINZ an additional NZD850,000 towards this and other earthquake-related surveys in order to discover how the position of the land has changed - information that is critical as the region's infrastructure is re-established."We... (read more)

2011-01-28 03:51:43

Focusing on High-quality Surveying Instruments

FOIF

FOIF (Suzhou FOIF Co., Ltd.) is located in Suzhou Industrial Park in China, near Shanghai. The company has integrated the disciplines of R&D, manufacturing, sales, logistics and after-sales service to address the measurement needs of the construction and surveying industries by providing high-quality instruments including gyroscopes, GNSS receivers, total stations, theodolites, levels, laser plummets, etc. The company has evolved into the leading manufacturer of its kind in China. The origins of FOIF date back nearly 50 years, with the founding of Suzhou First Optical Instrument Factory in 1958. Over the past almost half a century, FOIF has achieved many ‘firsts’... (read more)

2014-04-30 12:07:02

20 GNSS Instruments for Seismic Surveying Company

Altus Positioning Systems has delivered 20 APS-3U GNSS surveying instruments to TerraView Surveys, a Canadian seismic surveying company based in Calgary, Alberta. Altus’s Canadian dealer, Butler Survey Supplies, was responsible for the sale and provided extensive technical support and training. The Altus APS-3U receivers are being used with Nautiz NX7 data collectors and MicroSurvey Seismic Surveyor software for seismic surveying and GIS mapping applications. TerraView also uses GPSeismic and GrafNav software for post-processing. Ron Stewart, president of TerraView Surveys, commented that the Altus APS-3U receivers have significantly improved their productivity, especially when working beneath heavy tree cover. Occupation times have... (read more)

2013-02-22 10:24:43

Total Stations for Bavarian Surveying Agency

The Bavarian Agency for Surveying and Geographic Information (Landesamt für Vermessung und Geoinformation Bayern (LVG), Germany) will equip all of its Cadastral Offices with total-station technology from Leica Geosystems. Up to 500 Leica Viva TS15 total stations will be provided over a period of five years. The first batch of 154 TS15 total stations was delivered through this framework contract in December 2011. The LVG has 51 state survey offices with 22 satellite offices in Bavaria, which between them manage and continuously update the official land survey register containing over 10 million plots of land. 500 survey teams... (read more)

2012-01-11 04:54:19

DJI’s Metric Camera for Aerial Surveying

DJI has released the X4S camera, a lightweight version of the large aerial cameras carried in manned aircraft. How do aerial or metric cameras differ to a DSLR? An aerial mapping camera is primarily designed to have a low distortion metric lens and reliable construction to maintain its calibration. To achieve this the cameras have very few moving parts, particularly those that would affect the lens focal length. Aerial camera lenses are very high quality and virtually distortion free. This, and a constant lens focal length, means that every pixel is in the right place. 3D mapping from photogrammetry is based on... (read more)

2018-03-19 11:43:13

Photogrammetry Tool for UAV Land Surveying Missions

Before the introduction of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for aerial photogrammetry, planes, helicopters and metric cameras were used. Aerial mapping projects were often not only costly, but also complex due to the images being taken from high altitudes. UAVs have provided more affordable and faster aerial mapping solutions. When it comes to planning survey missions for small UAVs, UgCS is suitable software for the job. It supports most UAV platforms and provides useful tools such as a photogrammetry tool and an image geotagging tool. The photogrammetry tool in UgCS (designed by SPH Engineering) allows creating and flying photogrammetry missions... (read more)

2017-03-08 11:54:19

Surveying and Mapping with Your Smartphone

When we interviewed Professor Thomas Kersten back in 2014, he predicted that the smartphone would become a valuable surveying instrument within just a couple of years – and he was not far wrong! Thanks to the rapid pace of technical advancement, smartphone photogrammetry now enables us to capture reality in 3D. Some smartphones come with a 3D scanning application already integrated, while others can be turned into a 3D scanner by simply downloading an app. And who knows what the next few years will bring. Will we soon see smartphones equipped with a Lidar sensor – a 3D laser scanner... (read more)

2018-06-07 12:47:35