2013 - Geoinformatics

Magazine for Surveying, Mapping & GIS Professionals 

4 

June 

2 0 1 3 

Volume 16 

Bentley Pointools V8i Esri 2013 Developer Summit 

Going for Gold with LiDAR Intergraph Geospatial 2013

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3 

GeoInformatics is the leading publication for Geospatial 

Professionals worldwide. Published in both hardcopy and 

digital, GeoInformatics provides coverage, analysis and 

commentary with respect to the international surveying, 

mapping and GIS industry. 

GeoInformatics is published 

8 times a year. 

Editor-in-chief 

Eric van Rees 

evanrees@geoinformatics.com 

Copy Editor 

Elaine Eisma 

Editor 

Remco Takken 

rtakken@geoinformatics.com 

Contributing Writers: 

Paul Ramsey, David Dubovsky Stephen Wood, 

Shay Har-Noy, Monica Pratt, Xavier Torret Requena, 

Josep Lluís Sala Sanguino, Carlos López Quintanilla, 

Robert Widz, Kevin P. Corbley, Urmi Bhattacharjee, 

Rick Tingey, John Timar. 

Columnists 

James Fee, Matt Sheehan, Bart De Lathouwer. 

Finance 

finance@cmedia.nl 

Marketing & Sales 

Ruud Groothuis 

rgroothuis@geoinformatics.com 

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svanderkolk@geoinformatics.com 

ISSN 13870858 

© Copyright 2013. GeoInformatics: no material may 

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About present and future 

LiDAR technology 

LiDAR is short for light detection and ranging. This technology has been around 

for about twenty years and, what was initially a technology for topographic mapping, 

is now used by many different groups of end users and for many different 

applications; a number of which will be covered in this issue. I hasten to add that 

these stories are really only the tip of the iceberg. There is a huge amount of additional 

information from offline and online sources about the technology, as well as 

its applications and related organizations. Additionally, there are special LiDAR 

publications, forums, corporate user groups and general events, and much more. 

Giving a summarized overview of this whole sector in one issue of this magazine 

would be impossible. 

The popularity of LiDAR (whether relating to mobile, terrestrial or airborne laser 

scanning) is also reflected in the popularity of events such as SPAR Europe, SPAR 

International and the International LiDAR Mapping Forum, Intergeo, as well as 

corporate events such as Optech, Riegl and Hexagon. Last April the SPAR Group 

announced the acquisition of both the International and European LiDAR Mapping 

Forum, which means that both these European events will be held together from 

11th-13th November in Amsterdam (the North American conferences will be separate 

events next year at two different locations). 

What is worth a mention is how much the interest in LiDAR has broadened substantially 

over the last few years. Take for instance the support for LiDAR in the latest 

version of Esri’s ArcGIS software, which undoubtedly will result in greater interest 

in LiDAR from a mapping community which used to be preoccupied only with 

2D. Another example is Bentley’s software tools geared towards the use of point 

clouds. For this issue, I had a chat with Bentley’s Faraz Ravi and discussed Bentley’s 

Pointools V8i software, which provides preprocessing of point clouds for downstream 

distribution. A recently announced strategic agreement with Trimble makes 

sense from a LiDAR view point and seems a very good fit when you look at 

Bentley’s position in the virtual design world and Trimble’s very strong presence in 

the physical world. Time will tell how this collaboration will work out, but it’s definitely 

something of great significance to the community. 

When looking at airborne laser scanning, the popularity of UAVs has 

given a boost to this technology and will probably continue to do so in 

the future. The data volumes are huge and, when considering software 

and data standards, it’s impossible to ignore facts on how to effectively 

transfer, access, manage and exchange LiDAR data. Yes, this means 

data standards will have to be established, and the choice between 

proprietary and open source software, as well as limitations of current 

IT when talking about performance. 

But there’s more. The industry is, on the one hand digesting all the 

possibilities that current LiDAR technology provides, but on the 

other hand asking for a broader education. This is to ensure 

that tomorrow’s workforce will know how to merge data from 

a broad range of different sensor types and bring these 

together through data fusion. This is a whole other side of 

the industry which is of a more academic nature and 

will show its commercial applications sooner or 

later. In addition to this, your contributions on the 

topics discussed in this editorial and the rest of the 

magazine are very much welcome in the form of 

columns, articles, emails and tweets. 

Enjoy your reading, 

Photography: www.bestpictures.nl 

GeoInformatics has a collaboration with 

the Council of European Geodetic 

Surveyors (CLGE) whereby all individual 

members of every national Geodetic 

association in Europe will receive the 

magazine. 

Eric van Rees

On the cover: 

Point cloud colored by height, data acquired with RIEGL VZ-400 Terrestrial Laser Scanner. Multiple 

target capability of RIEGL V-Line Laser Scanners enables even detection of small branches and inner 

tree structures. Source: Riegl. 

A r t i c l e s 

A Better World with Enhanced Analytics Capabilities 6 

Bentley Pointools V8i 10 

Open Source Tools 14 

Powering Smarter Decisions 18 

Going for Gold with LiDAR 22 

Ensuring Seismic Safety 26 

Preserving Patagonia National Park 32 

Geospatial Software’s Open Future 34 

Innovative Mapping in India 44 

C o l u m n s 

Open GIS Means What? 31 

Stars Aligned, finally, for CAD/Civil/Geo Convergence? 37 

Mobile, Web and Desktop Apps - Collaborative & Complimentary 49 

E v e n t 

Esri 2013 Developer Summit 42 

I n t e r v i e w 

New Appointment at Pitney Bowes Software 28 

N e w s l e t t e r 

CLGE 46 

C a l e n d a r / A d v e r t i s e r s I n d e x 50

The commercial geospatial 

6 

industry has excelled in meeting 

customers’ need for the 

quick delivery of satellite imagery, 

whether for military, environmental 

or humanitarian efforts. 

The use of these types of techno- 

14 

logies provides the user with 

technological authority, as well 

as transforming him or her into 

a provider with added value 

and a source of innovation and 

development. 

Bentley Pointools 

10 

V8i is a new 

software product from Bentley 

Systems providing preprocessing 

of point clouds for downstream 

distribution. It was recently 

used in a different context 

– a heritage project at 

Stonehenge in the United 

Kingdom. 

Today’s organizations require 

18 

a new generation of geospatial 

solutions that 

encompass the full life cycle 

of capabilities, from sensors 

to apps in the field. 

22 

McElhanney Consulting Services 

Ltd. of Vancouver, B.C., 

Canada, has introduced two 

new bare-earth mapping services 

developed specifically for 

the exploration and exploitation 

phases of the mining industry. 

Pacific Gas and Electric 

Company (PG&E) required 

detailed geologic information 

of the land around the Diablo 

Canyon Power Plant. WSI 

conducted an orthophotogra- 

26 

phy and LiDAR survey of the 

area by using the Microsoft 

UltraCam Eagle large-format 

digital aerial camera and 

state-of-the-art LiDAR sensors. 

42 

Nearly 1,600 members of the 

software development community 

got a chance to see what’s 

under the hood at the Esri 

International Developer Summit 

(DevSummit), held March 

25–28, 2013, in Palm Springs, 

California. 

Conservacion Patagonia and 

32 

its partner organization 

Round River Conservation 

Studies needed to create a 

comprehensive map of the 

Patagonia National Park.

6 

A r t i c l e 

The damage of Hurricane Sandy from Oct. 

31, 2012 in Seaside Heights, NJ. 

T u r n i n g I m a g e s i n t o A n s w e r s 

By Stephen Wood and 

Shay Har-Noy 

The commercial geospatial industry has excelled in meeting customers’ need for 

the quick delivery of satellite imagery, whether for military, environmental or 

humanitarian efforts. However, the analytics side of the geospatial industry is 

growing in importance. DigitalGlobe’s constellation of five satellites can collect 

more than 1 billion square kilometers of imagery per year, but the company is 

taking it a step further by applying critical thinking and problem solving to turn 

its images into answers. 

June 2013

7 

Excelling in the era of analytics 

DigitalGlobe keeps a constant eye on the 

world to help customers gain an early 

insight into the business, military, environmental 

and political changes that impact 

people around the world. But moving forward, 

it is clear that the insight derived from 

imagery will become as important as the 

pixels themselves. The insight provided by 

imagery, geospatial and all source analysts 

can make a significant difference in evacuation 

planning, disaster response, recovery, 

and rebuilding in regions worldwide. 

DigitalGlobe plans to continue enhancing 

its analytical capabilities to excel in the 

increasingly important era of analytics. 

As a result of DigitalGlobe’s recent combination 

with GeoEye and its acquisition of 

Tomnod, a crowdsourced intelligence pioneer, 

DigitalGlobe is now a driving force 

in the analytics industry. Equipped with a 

more advanced satellite collection system 

and some of the world’s best geospatial 

production and analysis professionals, 

Digital Globe can provide timely insights 

and information about critical events worldwide. 

Using analytics to support disaster 

management 

DigitalGlobe has a long history of providing 

imagery for disasters and crises across 

the globe, ranging from war crimes in 

Sudan to the wildfire devastation in 

Colorado. Satellite images provide an effective 

way to gauge the damage from disasters 

through comparisons of before-duringand-after 

images that geospatial analysts 

can use to provide answers to the right people. 

In fact, DigitalGlobe’s FirstLook service, 

which monitors disasters and crises worldwide, 

leverages its satellite constellation 

and ground infrastructure to collect and 

deliver up-to-date imagery of an event to 

customers in as little as four hours. 

Before Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast 

last October, DigitalGlobe satellites captured 

images of the affected areas, 

enabling the employment of change detection 

to narrow in on the most damaged 

areas. After the storm hit, DigitalGlobe’s 

analysts quickly staged the before and after 

imagery within hours of collection so rescue 

workers and relief personnel could 

quickly understand the most affected areas 

and how to route first responders and relief 

supplies. 

High Park Fire, Colorado from June 13, 2012. 

This image shows the fire’s west and northwest 

extents and areas where beetle kill is evident. 

In this image the burnt areas are dark blue and 

red is healthy vegetation, smoke from the fire is 

mostly white. 


8 

A r t i c l e 

DigitalGlobe is driven by its purpose, vision 

and values and plans to continue growing 

and bringing attention to world issues 

through satellite imagery and analysis, helping 

first responders on the ground after 

major world events. 

Tajalei village, Sudan-March 8, 2011: At least 300 buildings at Tajalei village in Sudan’s Abyei region were intentionally destroyed by fire, according 

to Satellite Sentinel Project analysis of this DigitalGlobe satellite image, taken March 8 and analyzed by UNITAR/UNOSAT and the Harvard 

Humanitarian Initiative, with additional analysis by DigitalGlobe. Roughly two-thirds of those buildings appear to be consistent with civilian residential 

structures, known as tukuls. 

Adding predictive analytics and crowdsourcing 

capabilities 

Satellite images can have an incredible 

impact in the aftermath of natural disasters 

and crises. As satellites get better and better, 

mapping accuracy becomes more 

important - it’s a central part of what 

DigitalGlobe and other industry leaders 

have been doing. The data DigitalGlobe 

provides is accurate enough for end users 

to build maps and projects remotely. This 

enables the company to move beyond providing 

only raw data to now being able to 

deliver insight and analysis that can be integrated 

with the imagery. DigitalGlobe has 

a constellation of five high-resolution satellites, 

a worldwide network of polar and 

equatorial remote ground terminals, and billions 

of square kilometers of archived, highresolution 

imagery. DigitalGlobe analysts 

are also capable of examining a crisis situation 

and predicting possible outcomes 

before and after an event occurs. 

Additionally, by acquiring Tomnod, Digital - 

Globe can add crowdsourced human analysis 

and deliver even more value to customers. 

Tomnod has been at the forefront of 

innovation in the growing field of crowdsourcing 

of earth observation imagery. 

Tomnod’s advanced data reliability algorithm, 

CrowdRank, ensures that contributions 

from the crowd are properly filtered and 

weighted to maximize accuracy. By tracking 

crowd members’ contributions over time, 

CrowdRank is able to rank the individual 

members of the crowd by tracking the areas 

of agreement and disagreement. This 

enables the system to identify inaccurate 

and even malicious contributions to truly 

leverage the wisdom of the crowd. Digital - 

Globe will continue offering Tomnod’s rapid 

information capture and validation services 

directly to customers. In addition, information 

gained by the service will increasingly 

act as a key data source for DigitalGlobe’s 

analytics team, enabling them to provide 

more accurate insight and analysis to customers 

faster. 

These improvements to DigitalGlobe Ana - 

lytics are in support of the company’s vision 

of being the indispensable source of information 

about our changing planet by 2020. 

Seeing a better world with a global 

team of experts 

DigitalGlobe’s analytics team isn’t only 

engaged in times of crisis. Satellite mapping, 

imagery and analysis play an important 

role in preserving important historical 

sites, conserving natural resources and helping 

governments in developing countries create 

food and water sustainability. Digital - 

Globe’s analysts can assist several other 

industries beyond government disaster relief, 

such as the oil, gas and insurance industry 

to determine oil inventory and monitor 

insured assets. 

Last year, DigitalGlobe delivered high resolution 

satellite imagery of significant heritage 

sites for the Global Heritage Network, 

an early warning monitoring system for 

endangered cultural sites. In addition, 

DigitalGlobe is currently monitoring 16 

glaciers for Extreme Ice Survey and has 

been working with the Jane Goodall 

Institute for several years, providing satellite 

imagery of areas in Tanzania, Uganda and 

Congo in order to make effective conservation 

decisions. 

The new DigitalGlobe analytics team 

includes expert analysts from all over the 

globe who have experience in disaster management, 

predictive analytics and now 

crowdsourcing. DigitalGlobe is looking forward 

to expanding its value with World - 

View-3, which is expected to launch in mid- 

2014. The enhanced capabilities of the 

WorldView-3 satellite will enable a wider 

range of new automated applications in 

industries, such as defense, intelligence, 

land use, water management, mining, oil 

and gas, environmental monitoring, disaster 

and humanitarian relief. 

Ultimately, DigitalGlobe is equipped to provide 

even more answers to customers, helping 

them save time, resources and lives. 

Every day, the company strives to see a better 

world by giving customers the power to 

see the Earth clearly and in new ways and 

enabling them to make our world a better 

place. 

Stephen Wood, Vice President of DigitalGlobe Analytics. 

Shay Har-Noy, Director of Research and Development at DigitalGlobe. 


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10 

A r t i c l e 

By Eric van Rees 

Bentley Pointools V8i is a new software product from Bentley Systems providing 

preprocessing of point clouds for downstream distribution. It was recently 

used in a different context – a heritage project at Stonehenge in the United 

Kingdom – that resulted in the discovery of 71 carvings of Bronze Age axes not 

previously seen for more than three thousand years. 

Bentley Pointools V8i 

P o i n t C l o u d s , A p p s , a n d M o r e 

An important feature of Bentley Pointools V8i is its ability to layer the data into different, more logical layers, making it much easier to visualize and work with them. 

Recently, Bentley Systems an - 

nounced a new release of Bentley 

Pointools V8i and two new iWare 

apps, followed by a new release 

of Bentley Descartes in April. 

Faraz Ravi, Bentley director, product management 

for point-cloud technology, 

explains how these product offerings complement 

each other and discusses the 

Pointools V8i release and its complementary 

iWare apps. Also covered are issues with 

navigating point clouds and a recent heritage 

project at the Stonehenge site in the 

United Kingdom. 

Bentley Pointools V8i and iWare Apps 

Point clouds have become both vital and 

pervasive in infrastructure design and man- 


11 

Faraz Ravi 

Object animation in Bentley Pointools V8i. 

agement use cases. Bentley Systems has 

acknowledged this and created a number 

of product offerings that facilitate the use of 

point cloud files in various ways. A new, 

recent offering is Bentley Pointools V8i, 

which was released in January 2013 and 

is geared towards point-cloud-centric workflows. 

The product now includes point-cloud 

differencing and clash detection functionality. 

This makes differences and clashes easy 

to detect and visualize. Commenting on the 

release, Ravi says: “Bentley Pointools V8i is 

a stand-alone product that offers a very highperformance 

environment in which users 

perform editing operations, and produce 

communication and simulation content from 

the point clouds.” 

But the most important feature of Bentley 

Pointools V8i is the ability to arrange the 

data into different, more logical layers, making 

it much easier to visualize and work with 

them. Says Ravi: “For example, if you have 

an oil rig and want to be able to separate 

out the different floors, or you have aerial 

LiDAR data and you grid that into different 

grid cells, this can be done with Bentley 

Pointools V8i.” 

Released simultaneously with Bentley 

Pointools V8i were two iWare apps: Bentley 

Pointools View and Bentley Pointools 

PODcreater. Bentley Pointools View is meant 

for point-cloud data visualization and sharing 

and Bentley Pointools PODcreator for 

converting laser scans to the POD file format. 

Ravi: “The Bentley Pointools POD - 

creater app is geared towards the batch 

conversion of different file formats into the 

POD format. This is for users who don’t necessarily 

want to consume a Pointools V8i 

license with a conversion process that can 

take time when the files are large. To enable 

users to do that offline, take advantage of 

When asked how this product relates to 

Bentley’s existing product offerings that 

involve point-cloud use (Bentley Descartes, 

ProjectWise Point-cloud Services, and 

Bentley Map), Ravi answers that Bentley 

Pointools V8i is being used higher up in the 

workflow than the other three product offerings, 

which are for infrastructure design 

workflows. Ravi: “Bentley Pointools V8i is 

perhaps slightly closer to collecting and processing 

and using point-cloud data, which 

can then be used in design workflows in 

Bentley Map and Bentley Descartes, and 

can be shared through and integrated with 

ProjectWise Point-cloud Services. This is possible 

as all the applications are using the 

POD file format.” 

Clash detection 


12 

A r t i c l e 

the ability to batch the process, and have a 

repeatable process, we offer Bentley 

PODcreater.” 

POD File Format 

Bentley Systems uses the POD file format for 

all of its point-cloud offerings, so that these 

can be used in different environments. Ravi 

points out that the POD file format was 

designed for extremely fast access from disk 

and is structured in that way. 

Since point-cloud files tend to be very large, 

the question arises as to how Bentley 

Systems achieved such high performance in 

rendering point-cloud files. Ravi points out 

that this is achieved by focusing on various 

bottlenecks in the disk to screen visualization, 

in particular file read speed. Ravi: “In 

order to be able to load the data quickly, 

we have to employ techniques like compression 

and structure the data correctly so we 

can access the parts that we need when we 

need them.” 

Thus, many factors influence the user experience. 

But there’s also another element to 

this issue, which is very important and often 

overlooked – user perception. Ravi: “This is 

about how the user experiences the performance 

and usability of the product. As you 

navigate around a point cloud, Bentley 

Pointools is maintaining visual density by 

“If you have surface normals from the point cloud, you can 

apply lighting to that. In Bentley Pointools, you can virtually 

move an object around at different angles to the light and 

balancing point density and point size while 

maintaining a high frame rate to deliver the 

fluid experience.” 

The Stonehenge Heritage Project 

Bentley Pointools’ visualization technology 

was recently used for a heritage project at 

Stonehenge, one of the world’s oldest built 

environments. The technology was used to 

visualize and analyze the most detailed 

laser scan survey ever conducted of this historic 

site. 

The laser scan resulted in an enormous data 

resource of 850 gigabytes. Preliminary 

to help interpret the geometry.” 

examination of the meshed models identified 

individual tool marks over 5,000 years 

old, but it was evident that the data contained 

more prehistoric artwork carved onto 

the surface of the stones. The research team 

decided to visualize the original point-cloud 

data and created a workflow using Bentley 

Pointools for the preprocessing of point 

clouds. The software’s shading function was 

instrumental in visualizing the most subtle 

features, which resulted in the discovery of 

71 carvings of Bronze Age axes not seen 

for more than three thousand years. 

The project received a lot of press. Ravi 

explains that Pointools has a proven track 

record in the heritage field: “The Stone - 

henge project was quite interesting and 

unique because of the level of detail 

reached, and the project team specified a 

very dense point cloud on those stones. It 

was important to use a tool that could work 

effortlessly with large amounts of data, and 

that’s why Bentley Pointools was selected.” 

What the researchers were looking for was 

deviation from the surface of the stones, 

which would not be visible to the naked eye, 

but could possibly be picked up computationally. 

The shading tools that they used 

would shade across human distance and on 

any plane. They were able to pick up patterns 

of heathen markings, which would 

have been impossible to do using other techniques. 

Finally, another shading tool was 

used for lighting. Ravi: "If you have surface 

normals from the point cloud, you can apply 

lighting to that. In Bentley Pointools, you can 

virtually move an object around at different 

angles to the light and to help interpret the 

geometry." 

Rock art on stones from the Stonehenge project 

For more information, have a look at www.bentley.com/pointools 


14 

A r t i c l e 

By Xavier Torret 

Requena, Josep Lluís Sala 

Sanguino and Carlos 

López Quintanilla 

This article presents a management model about open source technologies for 

the consideration of the government. The use of these types of technologies provides 

the user with technological authority, as well as transforming him or her 

into a provider with added value and a source of innovation and development. 

In addition, in Public Administration, when attempting to implement these types 

of tools, a new framework is created whereby new relationships with suppliers, 

based on information sharing, is established. The training of the municipal manager 

is a key element in implementing this change. 

Open Source Tools 

A R e a l i t y f o r L o c a l M a n a g e m e n t 

3. Freedom to study. The source code is available. How it has been 

created can be studied and an understanding of all of its structure 

can be obtained. 

4. Freedom to Modify. As there is access to the source code, it can be 

changed for improvements or customizations, and the new code will 

also be free and accessible. 

The only restriction imposed by free software is that it cannot be privatized. 

Free software will always be free. 

There are many examples of free software, from technology for Apache 

servers to operating systems such as Linux corporate databases such 

as MySQL, Postgre SQL, Desktop programs such as Openoffice, gvSIG, 

or Mozilla Firefox, as well as other types of content management technologies 

such as Moodle, Drupal or Joomla. 

Interface gvSIG Management System of Urban Pavement 

Introduction 

The objective of this paper is to present public officials with as much 

information as possible on open source technologies and the benefits 

obtained by opting for this type of technology. This document focuses 

on the management of urban services, where a great deal of responsibility 

is assigned to the manager, rather than the city, and where the 

efficiency and quality of service can be monitored by the public. 

Open Source Tools 

Open Source Tools are applications whose sources are freely released: 

– only software that is free can be freely released, and this is carried 

out through licenses that comply with the following four freedoms: 

1. Freedom of use. They can be used as many times, as often and for 

as long as desired. 

2. Freedom of distribution. They can be distributed to as many others 

as want to use them and as many copies as desired. 

Advantages of using open source tools 

These tools are a reality of the present, but more importantly the choice 

of the future; an option which will allow us to put effort into what really 

matters. In this sense, the software which will manage the information 

will not be as relevant as the data generated. Without a doubt, the 

data will be the most important. 

As these tools are open source and comply with interoperability standards, 

they provide us with the independence of the supplier, and thus 

we can have a broad professional structure at our disposal which 

always offers the best technical service possible. 

As they are free sources, they allow for scalable implementation, which 

will allow us non-convulsive migration living with proprietary models. 

Additionally, we can align the functionalities to the necessary services, 

which means that we will have software adapted to our needs. 

As there are no license costs, the savings we make will allow us to 

change spending into investment, enabling the training of employees 

or contracting businesses and local personnel. This approach will provide 

new opportunities. Free software provides opportunities. 

Finally, we should point out some further ideas to break away from the 

myths which have historically been associated with free software. 


15 

- Free software is of poor quality. A program will be good or 

bad depending on how it is made. This has nothing to do with whether 

this software is then freely released or not. 

- Free software is not professional. Free software generates a 

business model based on sharing knowledge, innovation and supporting 

the development and implementation of the software. This business 

model facilitates the proliferation of a business network with added 

value and a high degree of professionalism. Although this structure 

exists, there is no doubt that it is difficult to measure and quantify. In 

any case, a clear example is the gvSIG. Association with its 40 associate 

members, doing business around the ecosystem generated by Free 

Geographic Information Systems gvSIG. 

-With free software I will not get good technical support. 

This doubt can be cleared up not only by taking into account the professional 

structure discussed in the previous point, but also by simply 

signing up to any mailing list and, thereby observing the technological 

sovereignty of this software. This is apparent in the number of professionals 

within the community, who are using it and, thereby, making it 

become the best service imaginable. 

- Not everything can be done with free software. This is, 

indeed, true and currently there are some applications which cannot 

be replaced with the level of demand and usability that may be 

required, but this isn’t a reason not to freely use what is available 

for use. In this regard, it is important to be aware of our needs and, 

above all, to begin to use technology based on our real requirements 

and the objectives we want to achieve. 

Components of an integrated management system 

Urban services are those whose aims are to provide a service for the 

public welfare and to serve the community in any public aspect. There 

are areas of software application where free technology already has 

the same or a better level of development and usability than private technology. 

Corporate Databases or technologies which publish maps are 

examples of this scenario. 

This breakthrough in technology makes us want and even foresee that 

this equalization in the short and medium term can be complete in all 

modalities. However, in applications areas where further development is 

required, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), it is worth noting 

that currently there are free professional tools available which are of 

high value and have enormous potential use, as is the case in gvSIG. 

Below, a series of concepts are defined which will be used in this paper 

and which should be clarified and explained in further detail: 

Geographic Information Systems (GIS). 

Geographic Information Systems are a highly valued tool for managing 

information linked to territory. In this sense, they are being used in 

different fields where the analysis of spatial information has had special 

importance. These fields include the relationship with the environment, 

forestry, socio-economic applications, etc. 

In this sense, 80% of the information managed by the local administration 

can be georeferenced. 

Corporate Databases 

A dataset is made of one context and stored systematically for later 

use. There are programs called database management systems (DBMS) 

to store and subsequently access data quickly and in a structured way. 

The main features of these technologies are that they have multiple 

users, they can apply SQL statements, allow for simultaneous work, 

allow synchronization and backup, and the information is stored in 

one format and in a centralized format. 

gvSIG Interface of our Network 

Publication of maps services 

A publication service is a tool to connect GIS to share information with 

the community, whether externally or internally. The type of information 

which can be shared has to be placed in a relational database. All types 

of technology related to the publication of maps can be connected and 

integrated to this type of database, for example Web Map Service 

(WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS) Web Coverage Service (WCS), 

Catalogue Web Systems (CWS) or Web Map Tile Service (WMTS). 

Management Systems 

With a relational database, we can connect and integrate all kinds of 

management technologies such as acquisition systems and data acquisition 

(SCADA) systems, content management (CMS), the customer management 

systems (ERP and CRM) or the maintenance and management 

systems (CMMS). 

Introduction to Municipal Management 

Before delving into the world of municipal services, it is interesting to 

take into account other opportunities provided by GIS that pertain to 

Local Government. In this sense we can efficiently manage categories 

of information such as those explained below: 

Cartography and Map of the city 

GIS is useful to access, visualize and consult all kinds of map information 

and the map of a city in a simple and ordered fashion, which will 

always be georeferenced. We could have, for example Cadastre, 

Urban Planning Information, property, goods catalogs, orthophotomaps 

of topographic maps, etc.; all in different series and different scales 

and several possibly in published map service (WMS or WFS). 

Urban Management 

It will also be useful for urban management, including discipline, planning, 

and licensing. In this sense we can have land use or zoning with 

information from each of the zones and, for example, produce statistics 

of numeric fields such as area, population, height, etc. 

The gvSIG 3D module allows for three-dimensional volumetric management 

on the basis of an elevation model. Therefore, we can plan the 

city in height, taking into consideration the orography terrain by analyzing 

the view shed from different points and thus design the city volumetrically 

and scenically. 

Inventory activities 

Another interesting field to include is the economic activities that occur 

in the municipality. For example, there can be a layer with the industrial 

activities and another with the commercial activities, each one with 

its own data base. 


16 

A r t i c l e 

EPA SWMM Interface of our network 

This offers the possibility of a global analysis of all of the activities, as 

well as a level of compliance with various regulatory aspects which 

can store all kinds of information. 

In this sense we can provide municipal inspectors with this tool for fieldwork, 

which will enable them to instantly analyze and edit information. 

Application in Urban Service Management 

There is no doubt that we are emerging from an era with a solid investment 

in new infrastructures, and that we are entering into another era 

where there will be a demand for optimal management of economic 

resources in order to maintain them. GIS will allow us to manage assets, 

through careful planning and analysis, monitor operations and enable 

their interaction with other technologies. 

For asset management, we will have to know what we have (inventory 

of each of the different elements). Once inventoried, we can plan and 

analyze; in this case performing multi-scenario analysis (levels of service, 

conservation, regulatory compliance, efficiency) in order to plan 

investments in operation and maintenance based on this analysis. 

We may also include monitoring operations with query interfaces and 

custom forms for this purpose, and finally make a documentary record 

of all events and actions that occur to the infrastructure, whether they 

interact or not with other technologies. 

Below, we can observe in detail how GIS can provide support in each 

of the different areas of urban service management. 

• Public roadway services 

With regard to public roadway services, a Management System of 

Urban Pavements can be found in gvSIG. Each of the elements that 

comprise this system, such as sidewalks or curbs, can be inventoried in 

pieces to later provide the user with a comprehensive and customized 

data model. This data model can have tables with characteristics, such 

as the dimensions, materials or geometries and also tables to store 

information that may evolve over time, such as the state of conservation 

or cleanliness, etc. 

All of this information will allow us to obtain an overview of the infrastructure 

to determine some service indexes of these services. These service 

indexes are based on all of the information of the pathologies 

gathered in the field, which will apply to evolution models. This makes 

planning conservation actions possible, with technical criteria, by optimizing 

the economic resources available for this purpose. 

Finally, it is also possible to have information on the degree of accessibility 

of the routes. This can be obtained by simply incorporating the 

necessary information, such as the minimum dimensions or elements 

which could limit such access into the data model when performing an 

inventory in the field. 

• Sewerage and Urban Drainage 

As for the infrastructure, our elements’ catalogue will be comprised of 

the major entities such as: wells, pipes, scuppers, water supply or singularities, 

as well as the elements necessary for mathematical modeling. 

Our topological construction will be carried out with the classical 

arc-node GIS that will provide us with a series of management facilities, 

including being able to use network extensions developed in gvSIG 

for any network analysis with this topology. 

For this purpose, using the 'connectivity' tool, we can analyze the sections 

of network to remain upstream or downstream from a given point 

and, in this way, plan various maintenance operations. 

Additionally, it would be useful if this infrastructure was connected with 

technologies for mathematical calculations of our network. In this specific 

case, this will be possible with gvSIG and EPA SWMM, as our 

team has specifically developed the INPcom communication extension 

that will allow for this. 

EPA SWMM is a calculating code developed by the U.S. E.P.A.,. The 

first version was released in 1971. One of its main advantages is being 

able to calculate up to an unlimited number of sections and to have a 

stable and robust code for hydrology, hydraulic or water quality. It 

does have a drawback, however, and this is that it does not have a 

GIS interface. With the developed extensions we can overcome this 

weakness, by combing both programs into a powerful tool for calculating 

and analyzing all types of sewerage and urban drainage. 

• Drinking Water Supply and non-consumption use 

The drinking water service supply can also be integrated into gvSIG, 

and as with the sewerage and urban drainage, we can outline our 

installation over the topographic base and communicate with EPANET 

code a program that is also USEPA, to analyze the networks of drinking 

water supply, provided that this exportation is also possible thanks 

to the INPcom extension. 

Based on Arc-node topology with which we will be working, all of the 

analysis potential of the gvSIG network extensions will also be operational 

for this service. Obviously the management of a drinking supply 

network can incorporate a lot of complicated technical technology 

depending on the information that you want to manage with it. It is 

important to mention that the tracking of operations can be carried out, 

such as communicating customer management software (CMS) with 

our database, which will give us access to the full potential of geographical 

management of such networks. 

Starting is easy 

The degree of complexity which can be achieved with this management 

system depends on the needs of the service be covered. The fact 

that we can carry out a scalable implementation, allows us to propose 

the first step, in which we only use a Geographic Information System 

(GIS) and to add technologies at a later date, as needs dictate. 

In this sense, after a GIS, we can consider implementing a relational 

database to connect field elements, publish maps, or connect with 

advanced management systems at a later date. We would like to make 

it clear that beginning is easy. It can be done at no cost, where the 

only investment is in education. Most importantly, we can get you started 

and we can do it now. 

Xavier Torret Requena, xtorret@tecnicsassociats.com. 

Josep Lluís Sala Sanguino, jlsala@tecnicsassociats.com, 

TECNICSASSOCIATS, ARQUITECTURA, ENGINYERIA I GIS 

Carlos López Quintanilla carlos.lopez@psig.es 


18 

A r t i c l e 

By Robert Widz 

Today’s organizations require a new generation of geospatial solutions that 

encompass the full life cycle of capabilities, from sensors to apps in the field. 

Such geospatial solutions are founded on one simple premise, namely connecting 

users to the right tools and information they need to make smarter decisions – 

whether as a member of the public needing a service or as an engineer reducing 

water leakage. 

Powering Smarter Decisions 

I n t e r g r a p h G e o s p a t i a l 2 0 1 3 

This shows a classified LiDAR dataset of a power line corridor with the ground class turned off. We see the planimetric view and 3 profile views, 

and we are measuring encroaching vegetation. 

Changing the Status Quo 

Throughout past decades, incremental evolution 

of departmental systems has given rise 

to information silos. This unintentional separation 

delays or limits the delivery and use 

of valuable information. Intergraph’s 2013 

Geospatial Portfolio eliminates these information 

and processing silos that have existed 

between conventional GIS, remote sensing, 

and photogrammetry software, and 

provides the flexibility demanded of modern 

ICT. 

The portfolio combines best-in-class, end-use 

products for all three disciplines with enterprise 

geospatial information management 

and flexible delivery across desktop, web, 

and mobile. This enables organizations to 

simplify and control how data and workflows 

are maintained, shared, accessed, 

and applied – satisfying the most demanding 

and diverse user base. 

Embracing a Changing Marketplace 

The past decade has seen the predictable, 

albeit accelerating, cycle of computing platform 

evolution, which has given way to an 

explosion of operating systems, networks, 

and devices. Unlike its IT peers, GIS solution 

providers have been slower to adapt to 

marketplace changes. This is a risky strategy 

in such a dynamic industry awash with 

new and disruptive offerings – the cloud, 

new mobile platforms, open source, and 

consumer mapping, just to name a few. To 

survive an increasingly crowded and commoditized 

sector, GIS providers need to 

embrace change and develop specialized 

capabilities that closely match specific enduse 

needs. 

To move with the rapidly changing market, 

Hexagon AB acquired Intergraph in 2010 

at a time when Intergraph was building 

more depth to its product offerings – both in 

core geospatial capabilities, but also in their 

application to specific industry needs, from 

asset infrastructure operation to public safety 

incident management. The foundation of 

Hexagon’s strategy was for it to complete 

its own geospatial software offering, 

expanding upon the remote sensing and 

photogrammetry expertise in its existing 

companies, ERDAS and Leica Geosystems. 

The overall capabilities of the collected businesses 

under Hexagon can now address 

complete enterprise workflows previously 

only conceivable as large-scale, custom integration 

projects. The collaborative effort 

between the various Hexagon companies is 

focused on increasing automation, effectiveness, 

and efficiency. The objective is to cut 

the cost and time between detecting change 

in the real world and making that information 

readily available to decision-makers. 

For example, Leica Geosystems has long 

been a leader in the machine control field, 

automating farm equipment such as tractors 

and applicators via guidance and control 

systems. By adding Intergraph’s GIS and 

data analysis capabilities, the workflow is 

expanded, allowing farmers in the field to 


19 

not only collect information, but also perform 

in-depth crop yield analysis, transforming 

massive amounts of data into useable 

information. 

The acquisition also transformed Intergraph 

internally. Hexagon already owned the leading 

remote sensing software provider, ERDAS, 

and its integration into Intergraph created a 

unique scope of capabilities (spanning GIS, 

remote sensing, and photogrammetry). The 

new 2013 Geospatial Portfolio represents 

the culmination of this work, unifying both 

the ERDAS and GeoMedia product families 

as a great enterprise solution. 

A Changing User Base – 

Creating a Modern 

Geospatial Experience 

Today, user expectations for software 

applications change at a 

dramatic pace. End-users now 

demand simple solutions that 

are dynamic and work in any 

environment. Simply put, users 

expect clever and well-designed 

desktop, web, and mobile products. 

In addition, a new and young 

generation of users is entering 

the workforce, bringing change 

to mature markets and driving 

emerging markets. With 

advanced and different expectations 

of how software applications 

should work and operate, 

this new generation has been 

moulded by the proliferation of 

This shows a Mobile LiDAR dataset in 3D colored by Intensity. 

This shows a LiDAR dataset that has been RGB encoded in 2D and 3D. 

elegant and highly intuitive “apps.” 

When presented with conventional GIS 

package designed for niche, specialized 

users, this new generation disengages, productivity 

suffers, and projects get delayed. 

To meet this need, geospatial providers need 

to embrace a rebirth, and essentially reinvigorate 

systems initially created in the 

1990s. 

With this in mind, Intergraph has adopted 

a modern and fresh approach for its geospatial 

portfolio – essentially redefining how 

geospatial workflows can be streamlined to 

improve productivity, lower training costs, 

and increase utilization. The refined, yet simple, 

experience makes it faster for users to 

both create reliable data and gain greater 

insight from multi-source content. 

Dynamic GIS in a Dynamic World 

Global events are continually shifting. From 

natural disaster to economic crisis to international 

conflict, organizations need to be nimble 

to stay ahead of changes that could result 

in severe financial, social, or political 

impacts. Geospatial solutions are the fundamental 

underpinning for all organizations’ 

decision-making. Whether it is tracking assets 

in the field or gaining full situational awareness 

during a hurricane, smart organizations 

look to dynamic geospatial tools that can be 

leveraged across the entire enterprise. 

With this in mind, the Intergraph 2013 

Geospatial Portfolio supports critical decision-making 

in time-sensitive situations by 

providing powerful solutions for creating, 

analyzing, and extracting information from 

dynamic, multi-source content. The complete 

portfolio allows organizations to securely 

manage and rapidly deliver geospatial 

information products integrated with other 

forms of business data – both inside and outside 

of the organization. 

Recognizing the significance of this in 

today’s rapidly transforming world has 

resulted in new expectations for information 

on-demand, delivered in a context and 

application-relevant form to the field, office, 

or online. Contemporary geospatial solutions 

are designed to meet this expectation 

and allow organizations to be more agile 

and respond effectively when faced with 

change. 


20 

A r t i c l e 

The Emergence of “Smart Maps” 

With this unified, modern, and dynamic 

approach to developing and integrating our 

full product portfolio, Intergraph fully supports 

the development and use of “smart 

maps.” 

This next-generation approach to GIS breaks 

down all barriers and unleashes the power 

of geospatial solutions to anyone, anywhere. 

For example, smart maps draw from 

the most current sources of information available 

to synthesize a multi-dimensional view 

of the world. They are also highly accurate, 

enabling smarter decisions from high-fidelity 

content sources fused together. 

The information contained within a smart 

map is application and context specific, 

enabling it to reflect the needs of a customer’s 

unique workflow. As the world 

changes, smart maps are actively updated 

by combining multi-source content from sensors, 

business intelligence, databases, web 

services, social media, and multimedia. 

Ultimately, we live in a completely mobile 

world where smart maps can be taken anywhere 

and accessed everywhere. 

Successful geospatial solutions need to be 

dynamic, easy to use, and accessible across 

entire organizations. As the world keeps 

changing, so, too, will the right solutions that 

enable global organizations to be more 

effective in meeting mission requirements, 

GeoMedia 2013 introduces the user to a new 

ribbon interface styled after other professional 

applications like Microsoft Office. 

The ability to customize the toolbar makes 

it easier for users to define the specific 

workflows. 

addressing their customers’ needs, and realizing 

their business goals. 

Intergraph’s aim with the Intergraph 2013 

Geospatial Portfolio is to do precisely this, 

and the company looks forward to an exciting 

time ahead. 

Robert Widz, Executive Director, Geospatial for Europe, the Middle 

East and Africa at Intergraph SG&I. 

Perspective views of the new Semi Global Matching Algorithm output, available in the latest release of ImageStation Automatic Elevations Extended, displayed in ERDAS IMAGINE’s Point Cloud viewer 


THE FORCE THAT 

DRIVES SMARTER 

DECISIONS 

Welcome to Intergraph Geospatial 2013 

WE ARE 

UNITED. 

Whether it’s by desktop, 

server, web, 

or 

cloud – our integrated geospatial portfolio delivers what you 

need, where you need it. 

Less hassle. 

Complete workflow. 

One partner. 

WE ARE 

MODERN. 

Our fresh and intuitive interfaces and 

automated technology transform the way you see and share 

your data. This world has new challenges. 

Combat them with 

a smarter design. 

WE ARE 

DYNAMIC. 

Leverage our single integrated, dynamic 

environment for spatial modeling. 

Our core geospatial tools 

enable you to exploit the wealth of information found in data 

from any source. 

GEOSPATIAL.INTERGRAPH.COM/2013 

GRAPH.COM/2013 

TEAM GEO-FORCE 

INTERGRAPH RAPH GEOSPATIAL 2013 

Experience the force that’s driving smarter 

decisions at a road show near you. 

© 2013 Intergraph Corporation. 

All rights reserved. Intergraph is part of 

Hexagon. Intergraph and the Intergraph logo 

are registered trademarks of Intergraph Corporation or its subsidiaries in 

the 

United States 

and in other 

countries. .

22 

A r t i c l e 

Going for Gold with LiDAR 

M a p p i n g S e r v i c e s f o r t h e M i n i n g I n d u s t r y 

Airborne LiDAR is a fast and relatively inexpensive means of gathering topographic 

information critical to the success and safety of mining operations. 

McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd. of Vancouver, B.C., Canada, has introduced 

two new bare-earth mapping services developed specifically for the exploration 

and exploitation phases of the mining industry. In the first application, 

McElhanney used LiDAR to find surface structures and lineaments that have been 

missed by aerial photography and satellite imaging because of dense vegetative 

cover. McElhanney, an engineering, mapping and surveying company, verified the 

use of LiDAR bare-earth digital elevation models (DEMs) for lineament and fault 

identification in a gold mining district of British Columbia. 

By Kevin P. Corbley 

Surface lineaments are 

linear ground features 

associated with complex 

subsurface geological 

structures, inclu - 

ding faults, fractures, and other 

features such as contacts 

between different rock types. 

Sometimes just a half meter 

wide, lineaments may extend for 

hundreds of meters in length. 

Due to their large scale, these 

features can be difficult to spot 

from ground level, and they can 

be even harder to see in most 

remotely sensed imagery if 

obscured by vegetation or loose 

sediment. 

“Lineaments provide clues to 

underground geology and are a 

valuable aide to geological mapping 

- a crucial part of any gold 

exploration or mine engineering 

project”, said Azadeh Koohzare, 

Ph.D., P.Eng. “Geologists can 

interpret the pattern and direction 

of these surface features 

and, as many gold deposits are associated with geological structures, 

use this information when selecting and prioritizing exploration 

targets.” 

Colour image of Kitimat Arm, British Columbia 

High Point Density Required 

The key to revealing the hidden surface geology is a powerful multipulse 

airborne laser scanner, or LiDAR, explained Koohzare. 


23 

Composite of Kitimat Arm and LiDAR data with shaded relief 

McElhanney, which owns three Leica Geosystems LiDAR scanners 

and two Leica Geosystems ADS digital cameras, initiated the lineament 

mapping project using the Leica ALS60 and is upgrading to 

the more powerful 500 kHz ALS70-HP system. 

This LiDAR systems provide the minimum 2 points per square-meter 

(2 points per 2.4 square yards) density required to generate bareearth 

DEMs with the accuracy and resolution sufficient for revealing 

the narrow linear surface features. In the British Columbia pilot project, 

McElhanney operated the LiDAR at an altitude of 2500-3000 

meters above mean sea level to collect the data set. Standard processing 

removed the returns associated with vegetation to generate 

a bare-earth DEM with 10-cm (4 in) vertical and 30 to 50 cm (12 to 

20 in) horizontal accuracy. 

“The Leica Geosystems ALS LiDAR operates with a high pulse rate 

to ensure the vegetation is penetrated with a point density that is 

sufficient to find surface lineaments measuring just 50 centimeters 

(20 inches) in width,” said Koohzare. “And the high power of the 

unit means the dense point data can be captured at high aircraft 

speed, which saves time and money.” 

Ground Subsidence 

McElhanney devised its idea for ground subsidence monitoring in 

Saskatchewan where potash deposits are mined and used for fertilizer. 

Potash extraction poses a higher risk of ground subsidence than 

many other types of mining because the evaporate deposits are 

found in soft rock formations that are structurally less than ideal for 

tunneling. As a result, potash mines must be continually monitored 

for subsidence or sinking, of ground above and around the excavation 

site. 

“Subsidence above the mine gives advance warning that personnel 

inside may be at risk of a cave-in or collapse,” said Koohzare, 

adding that subsidence and uplift can cause problems for up to five 

kilometers in any direction from the mine site. In addition to dangers 

inside the mine, the ground movement can also sever pipelines, damage 

roads, and crack building foundations in the affected region. 

Monitoring subsidence around potash mines – and other mineral 

extraction projects – is typically carried out using traditional ground 

survey techniques, which are expensive and time consuming. Based 

on LiDAR operations in hundreds of projects, many involving energy 


24 

A r t i c l e 

and mining clients, McElhanney says that 

airborne LiDAR is the fastest and most 

cost-effective way to monitor ground subsidence. 

The 10-cm ((4 in) vertical accuracy of 

bare-earth DEMs routinely generated from 

the firm’s Leica ALS60 and ALS70 laser 

scanners can identify significant shifts in 

the ground surface – either up or down – 

that may signal dangerous conditions in 

the mine. McElhanney recommends collecting 

an initial baseline data set above 

each mine site and then continuing to collect 

new data every year. Once subsidence 

is revealed, monitoring flights should be repeated while steps 

are taken inside the mine to minimize the danger. 

As is the case with the lineament mapping, the high-pulse rate of 

the LiDAR sensor is crucial to penetrating the vegetative canopy 

around the mine site to get extremely accurate elevation measurements 

of the ground surface, or bare earth, according to Kooh zare. 

With vegetation removed from LiDAR data, geologists can identify possible gold deposits by viewing the bare-earth surface structures. 

The Leica ALS70 is one of the few airborne laser scanners with the 

power and multi-pulse capability able to provide the quality of bareearth 

DEM required for these mining applications. 

Kevin Corbley is president of X-Media and principal of Corbley Communications, a firm that provides business 

development and strategic communications services to high-tech organizations worldwide. 

(kevin.corbleycommunications). 

This article was first published in Leica Reporter 67.

26 

A r t i c l e 

By PG&E Geosciences 

and WSI 

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) required detailed geologic information 

of the land around the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. WSI conducted an orthophotography 

and LiDAR survey of the area by using the Microsoft UltraCam Eagle 

large-format digital aerial camera and state-of-the-art LiDAR sensors. The 

high-resolution imagery, fused with high point density LiDAR data, highlights 

the complex terrain and will ultimately make a difference for PG&E scientists 

who analyze the land for regulatory reporting. 

Ensuring Seismic Safety 

Detailed Geologic Information 

A Global Focus on Earthquakes and 

Utilities 

In the wake of the devastating Fukushima 

nuclear power plant incident that occurred 

in Japan in 2011, utility companies are 

more sensitive than ever to the potential 

impact of seismic activity on power plants. 

Companies that own power plants in active 

seismic zones take particular care to ensure 

that their facilities are resilient to natural 

hazards, and regulatory bodies require 

proof of seismic safety. 

That’s certainly true for the Diablo Canyon 

Power Plant (DCPP), located on the 

California coast and owned by Pacific Gas 

and Electric Company (PG&E). In 2010, 

PG&E began advanced seismic testing at 

Diablo Canyon to verify that it continues to 

meet the safety requirements necessary for 

operating the two units at DCPP. To map the 

approximately 380,000 acres, PG&E relied 

on its long-term relationship with Watershed 

Sciences (WSI), which uses state-of-the-art 

technology to provide remote sensing and 

analysis with a focus on aerial imagery and 

high-resolution LiDAR data. 

The Right Tools for the Job 

The PG&E geosciences group worked with 

WSI on a three-phased, detailed study of the 

Diablo Canyon area. The first two phases 

involved seismic surveys of portions of the 

area in 2010 and 2011. In 2013, PG&E and 

WSI launched the third phase, an in-depth 

survey focused on the San Simeon and 

A map of the San Simeon and Cambia fault areas. 

Cambria fault regions within the Diablo 

Canyon area (Figure 1). For that phase, WSI 

designed the project to take advantage of 

high point density and high-resolution 

imagery by using the latest sensors commercially 

available. 

WSI used the Microsoft UltraCam Eagle 260- 

megapixel large-format digital aerial camera 

to capture the considerable amount of photographic 

data it needed. The system is gyrostabilized 

and simultaneously collects 

panchromatic and multispectral (RGB, NIR) 

imagery. Combining raw image data from 

the panchromatic lens with the multispectral 

image data yields crisp 4-band orthoimagery 

with 3-inch pixel resolution (Figure 2). 

Although it used multiple medium-format digital 

cameras in the past, WSI appreciated the 

efficiencies that came with the large-format 

camera. “The larger UltraCam Eagle footprint 

meant that we could make fewer 

flights, which equates to less time in the air 

and less fuel,” says Susan Jackson, Chief 

Marketing Officer at WSI. “Plus, because 

we could take fewer pictures, we didn’t 

have to stitch together as many images 

back at the lab, so there was less data 

management involved. All that saved us 

time and reduced costs for both WSI and 

PG&E.” 

Blending Technologies for Greatest 

Clarity 

The next step involved fusing the orthoimagery 

with LiDAR data (Figure 3). WSI 

acquired the LiDAR data at an overall point 

cloud resolution of greater than 15 pulses per 

square meter (ppsm), rather than the 8 ppsm 

it had used in previous surveys of the area. 

The horizontal accuracy of the UltraCam 

Eagle was 21 cm, and the LiDAR absolute 

accuracy was 3 cm. 

The combination of the 3-inch orthophotos and 

15-ppsm LiDAR data illuminates subtle geologic 

and geomorphic features that might not 

be visible with lower-density data. This 

enables geologists to find small fault splays 

and lesser known areas of movement. Higher 

data density also reveals other seismically 

induced features, such as landslides, which 

can affect dams, pipelines, and other infrastructure, 

creating safety concerns that extend 

beyond the power plant. 


27 

“Upgrading the pulse density and 

using a large-format camera like the 

UltraCam Eagle resulted in unparalleled 

image quality and spectacular 

photo clarity,” says Jackson. 

“Anything less than this high-quality 

imagery wouldn’t have sufficed. 

Using it, PG&E can examine all 

potentially affected infrastructure 

within the region and base its decisions 

on extremely accurate, defensible 

data.” 

For optimal mapping of the intertidal 

zones of the San Simeon and 

Cambria fault regions, WSI acquired 

LiDAR data of the coastline during maximum 

seasonal low tides. Sensitive to environmental 

impacts, WSI operated all aircraft and 

equipment in accordance with the regulations 

of the Monterey Bay National Marine 

Sanctuary. Because flights below 1,000 feet 

above ground level violate regulations from 

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA), WSI aircraft 

remained at 2,000 feet while within the 

sanctuary. 

Making Seismic Data Accessible 

Working with regulatory agencies to make 

survey data available in the public domain 

is also a key focus for PG&E. Therefore, WSI 

worked with PG&E to deliver full-resolution 

A 3-inch pixel resolution orthophoto (from the UltraCam Eagle) of Morro Rock 

(Morro Bay, CA) and adjacent jetty. 

LiDAR points and bare-earth and highest-hit 

rasters of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant 

study areas to OpenTopography, a datahosting 

service supported by the National 

Science Foundation. OpenTopography provides 

community access to high-resolution 

topographic data; this is the first time that it 

has hosted orthoimagery on its site. It is also 

a first for PG&E facility data to be hosted. 

WSI has other high-density LiDAR data hosted 

on the site, but the Diablo Canyon Power 

Plant data is now the highest-point density 

LiDAR data hosted (see URL underneath the 

article). 

Continued Analysis for Future Peace of Mind 

The survey data will help PG&E further 

define the level of seismic activity that 

earthquake faults in the area are 

capable of producing. The company 

is finishing its evaluation of the 

onshore survey data and the lowenergy 

offshore survey data for a 

comprehensive understanding of the 

entire area. It also plans to install 

seismometers to detect seismic activity 

on the ocean floor. 

About PG&E Geosciences www.pge.com: PG&E employs a 

seismic department staffed with experts who continually 

study earthquake faults in the region of the power plant 

and global seismic events as part of the plant’s comprehensive 

safety program. PG&E remains focused on ensuring 

that Diablo Canyon continues, and improves upon, its strong 

record of safe operations. This includes making the facility resilient to 

natural hazards, such as earthquakes and tsunamis. 

About WSI www.wsidata.com: WSI brings a wealth of collective industry 

experience working with utilities and in the integration of imagery 

and LiDAR with other technologies. WSI specializes in applied airborne 

remote sensing and analysis, including LiDAR, orthophotography, 

ground surveying, feature extraction/analysis, high-definition videography, 

planimetric mapping, multispectral and hyperspectral imagery, 

thermal infrared imagery, software development, and various assessment 

and visualization tools. 

For more information, have a look at: 

http://opentopo.sdsc.edu/gridsphere/gridsphere?cid=geonlidarframeportlet&gs_action=lidarDataset&opentopoID=OTLAS.032013.2 

6910.2. 

A shaded digital elevation model (DEM) 

superimposed on an orthoimage that 

illustrates the San Simeon Fault within 

the project area. 


28 

I n t e r v i e w 


The changing nature of retail, a new partnership with Autodesk and how location 

is being adopted by new markets, thus providing new business opportunities 

for Pitney Bowes Software. Newly appointed Director & GM Location 

Intelligence EMEA James Brayshaw explains all. 

New Appointment at Pitney Bowes Software 

P r o v i d i n g L o c a t i o n - e n a b l e d S o l u t i o n s 

Population density map of Reading in the U.K. Created in MapInfo Professional v11.5 

Introduction 

James Brayshaw has recently been appointed 

to lead Pitney Bowes Software’s GIS and 

Location Intelligence (LI) business in EMEA 

to meet the growing demand for location 

software and data solutions. Having nearly 

30 years of experience in this field, most 

recently as the main board Director of 

Ordnance Survey, he is able to put the 

recent changes in the geospatial area into 

context and to predict where the future is 

headed. Also, the announced strategic 

alliance between Autodesk and Pitney 

Bowes Software is discussed, as well as the 

interesting market areas where Pitney Bowes 

has a strong presence such as retail and 

insurance. 

James Brayshaw 

Pitney Bowes Software provides desktop 

products, enterprise solutions, software 

tools, as well as services and data and is 

known for its use in retail, insurance and 

commercial businesses. Its user base is also 

very strong in telecom and public sector, 

and particularly in local government within 

the highways area. At the same time, Pitney 

Bowes Software’s customers also work very 

extensively with business partners around 

the globe in areas such as health, banking 

and specialist markets such as mining and 

natural resources. 

“With the MapInfo brand and MapInfo 

Professional software we have very strong, 

well-respected software suite of desktop and 

server applications, but we also have a 


29 

Site analysis example in Dubai, incorporating driving regions, street data and business data 

whole range of additional software tools, 

platforms and services that reach out into 

the broader marketplace in terms of enterprise 

GIS. On top of that, we have an enterprise 

platform that embeds location intelligence 

within customer solutions, which is 

increasingly where location intelligence 

enabled services are heading”, says 

Brayshaw. 

Location-enabled solutions 

Brayshaw’s role will be to provide some 

strong market insight into the capabilities 

and uses for Location Intelligence and GIS 

solutions, as well as his thoughts on what, 

in his experience and observation, could be 

the upcoming trends in this space. 

Brayshaw: “we’re now seeing a shift in the 

market to location-enabled solutions in the 

non-core GIS market, areas that wouldn’t 

think of GIS but are interested in what location 

and intelligence can provide to add 

value to the business’s bottom line. It is not 

just about maps. That to me is really where 

the market is shifting to and where the 

growth is going to come from. This is why 

my role is about location intelligence in the 

wider context, not just geographic information 

and GIS. Most leading technology companies 

are getting excited by the power of 

location.” 

He continues: “increasingly, a lot of our 

major clients are using our technology and 

solutions to support their customers on mission-critical 

communications and to provide 

insight into their customers’ behaviours and 

buying patterns. This is what everyone 

wants to know and why it is about how their 

data and our software can provide real business 

intelligence. Our business brings location 

to this marketplace which is where we 

are unique as we span across customer communications 

management, analytics and 

location intelligence.” 

Facebook is one of these new breed of 

clients. Brayshaw: “they are using our technology 

primarily for geocoding and 

reversed geocoding and other location intelligence 

applications and data for integration 

into their applications and services. It’s 

all about location-enabling data which is 

increasingly happening in the server end at 

the enterprise, rather than from a traditional 

GIS point of view.” 

Retail and Insurance 

Retail is an important market for Pitney 

Bowes, since location has always been 

important for site selection. But today, retailing 

is more about customers than it is about 

site selection, says Brayshaw. Brayshaw 

says retail is about how organizations fulfill 

a retail function, and that organizations 

have started to recognize that the power of 

location is not just about a physical building: 

“every organization that has a wide 

customer base and is selling products and 

services in a traditional retailing way is looking 

at better ways of understanding who’s 

buying what, why and where and how to 

improve their bottom line. The use of our 

location enabled solutions with customer 

data is really where the power comes.” 

It is about the intelligence that one gains 

from location that provides a different perspective: 

“Analysing my customers behavior 

with a location perspective, paints a different 

picture and can answer very different 

questions. In insurance for example, location 

intelligence is used to drive better business 

and to understand the risks from a global 

perspective down to a local level. 

Many leading organisations are looking at 

location to provide them with that bottomline 

advantage, cost savings and other efficiencies. 

Retail, insurance, banking and telecoms 

are definitely moving in that way to 

tailor and personalise their customer offerings 

more effectively. The key is to understand 

how better to interact with your customers.” 

Autodesk 

Last year Pitney Bowes Software and 

Autodesk announced a strategic alliance. 

This will serve as a framework for both companies 

to provide resources, services and 

solutions to help infrastructure owners and 

architecture, engineering and construction 

(AEC) organizations make more informed 

decisions. This will drive greater efficiencies 

across the plan, design, build, manage lifecycle 

of infrastructure. From a user’s perspective 

this partnership enables the coordination 

of the existing applications and the 

integration of data from both companies. 

Having been involved in civil engineering 

and in the Autodesk world since 1986, 

Brayshaw is excited to come back to this 

relationship. He sees great opportunities for 

both companies in bringing together the 

spatial context that infrastructural projects 

need through the different phases of the 

management lifecycle: “bringing together 


30 

Interview 

The MapInfo GIS suite includes desktop GIS, web mapping and spatial data management capabilities 

Autodesk and MapInfo technology, will 

seamlessly provide a single source of information 

across the management lifecycle.” 

For instance, GIS capabilities come in 

handy when doing spatial querying, demographic 

analysis or optimization of routes 

and placing a project in a mapping context 

as a part of the planning process of an 

infrastructural project. When this becomes 

a real project, Autodesk’s BIM enabled IDS 

solutions are the preferred choice to provide 

the information flows through the project lifecycle. 

Brayshaw: “before I joined Pitney Bowes 

Software, I’d been doing some work for the 

BIM UK taskforce around data flows, processes 

and data management. Effectively, 

what this alliance does is bring BIM and 

geographic information together to provide 

the context of the project right from planning, 

through the construction phase and 

then more importantly into the asset-management 

phase. Imagine you have one set 

of data that Autodesk’s 3D Design technology 

and our MapInfo Suite can talk to. No 

more headaches of data conversion. That’s 

where core benefits are going to come.” 

For more information, have a look at www.pb.com 


31 

Open GIS Means What? 

C o l u m n 

If you want to argue about something over beers or on Twitter, 

“Open GIS” is a great subject to pick. 

When someone uses the word 

open to describe something in 

the GIS world people 

inevitably argue on its applicability. 

Here in the United 

States, generally government data is open (public 

domain) but you still see local governments selling 

data to “recoup development costs”. There is a 

whole organization (OGC) devoted to making 

data sharing open, yet most GIS software either 

supports the standards poorly or most likely not at 

all. There are open source GIS projects that give 

technologists freedom to develop applications their 

way, yet most are unapproachable to average 

users. Even the largest GIS software company has 

embraced open as a way to describe using their 

products but most users disagree with Esri’s definition 

of open. If you want to argue about something 

over beers or on Twitter, “Open GIS” is a great 

subject to pick. When I think “open” in relationship 

to GIS I break it up into 3 areas; open data, 

open standards and open technology. 

use when it’s shelf life should have expired years 

ago. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) 

was founded to address these concerns. I’m going 

to say besides WMS, I can’t think of any standard 

that they’ve created that I’ve seen people use. The 

OGC is littered with 3 letter acronyms that are 

implemented in one place or another, but most are 

not across platforms. Even when companies say 

they support WMS/WFS/etc., it is usually so poorly 

that you can’t leverage it in production applications. 

I think it has come to the point where GIS 

professional just expect new OGC standards to 

fail and in turn it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy 

of defeat. I see some hope though in the web 

mapping world. GeoJSON and the newer extension, 

TopoJSON have given web developers community 

standards to develop web map applications 

across platforms and browsers. I think there 

is a ton of innovation happening in this space and 

the compact TopoJSON format might be usable in 

areas outside the browser (especially since it is 

topology aware). 

James blogs about geospatial technology 

at his blog http://spatiallyadjusted.com 

and has a weekly video hangout 

http://spatiallyadjusted.com/video 

where he talks about what it means to be 

a cutting edge GIS professional. He is 

owner of Spatially Adjusted, LLC 

http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/consulting, 

a GIS consulting company that 

helps organizations get better value out of 

the geospatial data and applications. 

As I mentioned earlier the United States has a history 

of public domain government data. We’re all 

familiar with the TIGER data project, which gives 

somewhat detailed mapping of the USA freely 

without any limitations. There are other examples 

but I think this is a great way to show what I think 

is a truly open dataset. One of the biggest datasets 

to ever appear in the history of the world is the 

OpenStreetMap (OSM) project. Given that the 

word open is in the project title, clearly it is an 

open dataset. It has some restrictions on sharing 

compared to true public domain datasets. See how 

quickly open gets dirty? OSM is in my mind an 

open datasets, but I know people who view it as 

a closed repository and wish it was all public 

domain. Compare that license with the Natural 

Earth Data project’s public domain data to see the 

difference. I don’t like to get too twisted around 

with data licenses because for most of my professional 

GIS life I had to deal with close, proprietary 

datasets so the freedom provided by “share alike” 

licensing is so open to me. 

Lastly the one area in GIS that I use “open” is for 

software. Projects such as QGIS, PostGIS, and 

GDAL/OGR are well known to all GIS users. Each 

one is licensed so that you can take the code and 

have the freedom to use it the way you wish. That 

said, it is not just applications that are open. The 

Leaflet mapping library and Data-Driven 

Documents (D3) are great visualization tools that 

are completely open to users. I don’t need to go 

over the reasons why open source software benefits 

the user, but it’s a big difference between proprietary 

projects such as ArcGIS, Oracle or 

Google Maps. I’ve transitioned my professional 

life from using closed source applications for my 

clients and customers to one of open source projects 

that not only give us the freedom to implement 

them to best solve problems but also give 

them the ability to extend it further into their workflows 

without fear of getting into a licensing nightmare 

down the road. That’s the key to open GIS 

software for me, freedom to innovate without limitations. 

That’s liberating! 

Now sharing spatial data is still something that I 

think we as a community have failed. The 

Shapefile and its archaic DBF database format is 

the standard that we’ve all agreed upon and still 

So that’s my open thoughts on open GIS. I encourage 

you to let me know on twitter (@cageyjames) 

how you feel about these points. 

Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com

32 

A r t i c l e 

Patagonia National Park 

By Rick Tingey and 

John Timar 

Conservacion Patagonia and its partner organization Round River Conservation 

Studies needed to create a comprehensive map of the Patagonia National Park, 

a 650,000-acre expanse of mountains, grasslands, forests, wetlands, rivers and 

alpine lakes located in Chile’s Aysen Region. With numerous independent 

scientific researchers uncovering new information about the landscape, the organizations 

needed a shareable system for recording data about the region in a 

geospatial context. They turned to a geospatial collaboration software solution 

which finally yielded a rich and detailed information base that any collaborator 

and view and edit. 

Preserving Patagonia National Park 

U s i n g G e o s p a t i a l C o l l a b o r a t i o n S o l u t i o n s 

With a commitment to the 

wild future of Patagonia, 

a region located at the 

southern end of South 

America, Conservacion 

Patagonica is an organization that works to 

create national parks that save and restore 

wildlands and wildlife, inspire care for the natural 

world, and generate healthy economic 

opportunities for local communities. 

Created by Conservacion Patagonica, the 

future Patagonia National Park is a 650,000- 

acre expanse of mountains, grasslands, 

forests, wetlands, rivers and alpine lakes located 

in Chile’s Aysen Region. When 

Conservacion Patagonica began the 

Patagonia National Park project, it set off into 

uncharted territory to create comprehensive 

and functional maps of the landscape. 

Through its partner organization Round River 

Conservation Studies, which provides student 

study abroad programs and extensive field 

research and community planning, the organizations 

needed to generate baseline mapping 

data about wildlife and plants in 

Patagonia National Park. The organization 

found that while government survey maps provided 

an accurate rendering of the terrain, 

they did not offer collaboration and data customization 

capabilities. In addition, Web map 

services could only provide so much in a 

region where Internet connectivity is scarce. 

Collaboration and information sharing 

With numerous independent scientific 

researchers uncovering new information about 

the landscape, the project required a shared 

and shareable system for recording place 

data. As such, Round River Conser vation 

Studies set out to create a platform that encouraged 

and supported collaboration and information-sharing 

among the various people 

working on the ground in the park: the wildlife 

recovery team, independent scientists, the trail 

building team, historians and archeologists 

and others. 

Round River Conservation Studies needed the 

right geospatial collaboration solution to help 

create a central repository for all work that is 

being done in the region, and that could be 

shared with the larger scientific community 

and beyond. More importantly, the solution 

needed to be easy to manage, update and 

ultimately, enable everyone on the team share 

this data. 

The organization turned to TerraGo’s geospatial 

collaboration software for creating cus- 


33 

RIEGL 

LMS-Q780 

The RIEGL LMS-Q780 airborne laser scanner 

offers great versatility, accuracy, and data 

quality. The scanner enables you to 

successfully deliver your projects with 

industry leading efficiency. 

Students with iPad 

tomizable GeoPDF maps that allowed users to create their own custom 

spatially referenced data (map layers) in the form of point, line, or polygon 

features and that could be added to the map using simple drawing 

tools within the software. These could then attribute the geo-located data 

layers with descriptive information about plant, wildlife and other features. 

Grassland survey 

Using GeoPDF maps and imagery produced by TerraGo Publisher, a 

team of Round River students conducted a grassland survey in the park 

during the summer of 2012. Over the course of the semester, they identified 

and catalogued the composition of grass species at nearly one 

hundred sites, along a gradient from east to west across the Chacabuco 

Valley, which is part of the park. 

These study site locations were recorded as waypoints in a GPS, and 

easily added to the GeoPDF files for collaboration and sharing. The students 

then added photos, text, and other media directly to these map 

locations, which helped to build a rich and detailed information base 

that any collaborator can view and edit. Round River Conservation 

Studies then shared these custom map layers with other interested parties. 

The use of TerraGo’s collaboration solutions is playing a key role for 

both organizations’ staff and independent scientists who come regularly 

to study the region’s ecosystems. Prior to using TerraGo, there was no 

central repository for updating and managing all geospatial data regarding 

the park. 

As this is a major project, Round River Conservation Studies needed to 

use the right tools for sharing with the scientific community at large the 

lessons they’re are learning about what is being protected in this delicate 

ecosystem. Moving forward, they want anyone to easily, no matter 

where they are in the park, make notes on the GeoPDF and share them 

instantly with other scientists and collaborators. This solution will be used 

for tracking and monitoring very rare species like the Austral Vizcacha, 

a large, endangered rodent that only lives in the Patagonia region. 

Leading Technology 

in Airborne Scanning 

The RIEGL LMS-Q780, with up to 10 simultaneous pulses in the air, results 

in the best point spacing on the ground. This eliminates the need 

of terrain following while retaining a high effective rate. Industry 

leading digital signal processing, combined with the comprehensive 

RIEGL software suite, delivers best in class results. 

Wide Effective 

Swath Width 

Matrix 

Scan Pattern 

The RIEGL LMS-Q780, operated at up to 

10,000 feet above ground with its full FOV of 

60 degrees, provides both a wide effective 

swath width and a narrow point spacing 

simultaneously. 

The RIEGL LMS-Q780 delivers straight parallel 

scan lines and more equally spaced laser 

footprints on the ground. Even small objects 

can be detected by the high-resolution 

matrix scan pattern. 

RIEGL 

FOV 

60° 

One Versatile LIDAR Sensor 

The RIEGL LMS-Q780 is the versatile airborne 

LIDAR sensor for all projects: from corridor to 

wide-area, and large-scale national mapping. 

RIEGL delivers unrivaled efficiency at low 

operating costs. 

Others 

colored point cloud 

Rick Tingey, Conservation Geographer at 

Round River Conservation Studies 

John Timar, Vice President, Worldwide Sales at TerraGo 

For more information on Conservacion Patagonica visit: 

www.conservacionpatagonica.org 

For more information on Round River Conservation Studies: www.roundriver.org 

www.riegl.com 

RIEGL LMS GmbH, Austria RIEGL USA Inc. RIEGL Japan Ltd.

34 

A r t i c l e 

By Paul Ramsey and 

David Dubovsky 

Although modern open source geospatial software is known to have a lot of 

advantages over proprietary, closed source systems, often enterprises find 

themselves asking from whom and where they will get support. The emergence 

of companies offering enterprise class, commercial support, combined with open 

source growth outpacing closed, has enterprises everywhere replacing legacy 

software with modern web-based solutions. OpenGeo, and their flagship 

product, OpenGeo Suite, has become the choice for those looking for a 

comprehensive spatial data platform for the web. 

Geospatial Software’s Open Future 

O p e n G e o S u i t e 3 . 0 

The technology TriMet used— the OpenGeo Suite —packages several 

open source projects into a modular enterprise spatial IT solution: 

TriMet 

In 2007, Portland TriMet was facing a technology conundrum: 

though they served a technology-savvy metropolitan population, 

which was rapidly adopting transit use, their trip-planning system 

presented an old fashioned user interface, backed by proprietary 

technology which was difficult to customize and expensive 

to scale. To drive and support transit ridership they needed a 

quick, easy-to-use trip-planning system that both looked modern to 

their users and was built with a modern design, anticipating growth 

and adaptation. 

TriMet utilized the commercial open source OpenGeo Suite when 

building their new public facing maps, including those used in the 

online schedules and trip planner. Additionally, TriMet has adopted 

open source and open data as central tenets of their systems philosophy: 

the data behind those web maps is now all open; and the trip 

planning algorithms themselves come from an open source algorithm 

which TriMet co-funded. 

The reasons TriMet went open source are simple: open source provides 

the flexibility to adapt systems to new requirements; open 

source provides the scalability necessary to support public facing 

web sites; and finally, open source provides the velocity of development 

to keep up with the leading edge of technology. 

• PostGIS, a spatial database extension for the PostgreSQL database 

• GeoServer, a geospatial server capable of connecting to a variety 

of data back-ends (e.g., Oracle Spatial, Microsoft SQL Server, 

Esri ArcSDE) and publish as OGC services (e.g., WMS, WFS, 

WCS, WPS) 

• GeoWebCache, a robust caching engine to improve the speed 

and performance of serving map tiles 

• OpenLayers, a JavaScript library for displaying map data in web 

browsers 

• GeoExt, a JavaScript library for creating rich map applications in 

web browsers 

The flexibility of the Suite comes from the ability to incrementally 

integrate with existing infrastructures, as TriMet integrated the Suite 

with their systems: 

• First by bringing in GeoServer to render maps from existing data 

formats and database. 

• Then building a web interface with OpenLayers/GeoExt, to provide 

public web applications for trip planning and map viewing. 

• And finally moving the data persistence layer to the 

PostGIS/PostgreSQL database. 

Unlike many technology platforms, the OpenGeo Suite doesn’t 

require organizations to completely re-architect their back-office data 

management to start building new applications, and that flexibility 

has suited TriMet, and many others. 

OpenGeo Suite 3.0 

OpenGeo recently released version 3.0 of the Suite, building on the 

existing web services, web application toolkit and spatial database, 

updating the capabilities of the core components and adding new 

features: 


35 

USGS 

pipelines much cross flow lines either above or below the line; and 

so on. 

OpenGeo stack diagram 

• OGC Web Processing Service (WPS) provides a standard for 

inputs and outputs (requests and responses) for geospatial processing 

services such as polygon overlays, buffers, or custom processes. 

• Rendering transformations make processing operations easier 

in browser-based visualizations by enabling just-in-time use of 

any WPS process as part of any layer’s style. 

• Server-side scripting in Python and JavaScript allows users to 

easily deploy their own server-side processes using concise and 

straightforward APIs. 

• PostGIS 2.0 brings vector and raster analysis into the database. 

• GeoServer security now supports user groups as well as a number 

of new authentication mechanisms including LDAP, digest and 

X.509 certificate authentication. 

• OGC Web Feature Service 2.0 (WFS) adds some interesting new 

capabilities, including paging, stored queries, and extended operators. 

While improved security support and WFS services will be welcome 

news for administrators, the feature that will find most use in complex 

applications is server-side processing via the “Web Processing 

Service”. 

What’s the big deal about Web Processing Service (WPS)? 

WPS allows any calculation to be exposed via a web services interface. 

The classic trivial example of a WPS is a service that takes in 

a simple point, line or polygon and returns a buffered version of the 

input. Buffering can be handy, but the really exciting processes are 

ones that make use of rich back-end data stores. 

For example, the US Geological Survey manages a rich database 

of hydrological data; the National Hydrologic Database (NHD). 

NHD data is useful because it conforms to a large number of strict 

structure rules about how features can interact: flow obstruction 

points must be on flow lines; flow lines much join up end-to-end; 

Editing the NHD requires a special desktop environment loaded with 

all the structural rules in place. Every potential change is checked 

against the rules after editing and before the data is pushed to the 

central database. This workflow sharply limits the number of people 

who can edit NHD; if more people could edit, with simpler tools, it 

would be easier to spread out the load of maintaining this useful 

data. 

What if you could edit the NHD over the web, while still maintaining 

the structural rules? 

Using WPS, the USGS built a demonstration application that does 

exactly that. Each rule set is codified in a WPS script running in 

GeoServer. When an edit is completed, the rule sets for the changed 

features are run on the server, checking the new web feature against 

the data in the back-end database. If it passes, it is committed. If it 

does not, the user has the option of fixing it, or for easy cases (snapping, 

vertical displacements) having the system auto-fix it for them. 

With the web editing system, more users are able to work on data 

management, with lower licensing overhead. And by utilizing the 

auto-fixing facility, each user can get more productive work done. 

We can find another interesting implementation of WPS within the 

GLOBE project. For over a decade, students at schools around the 

world have been taking meteorological observations and entering 

them into the GLOBE database. As a result GLOBE also has a rich 

database, not of hydrology, but of weather observations. The 

GLOBE system is supposed to turn those point-by-point observations 

into a compelling visual representation of weather data. 

Rather that writing a custom piece of software to produce color 

ramps from raw data, the GLOBE project chose to add incremental 

capabilities to GeoServer via the WPS system. The GLOBE 

database had points with measurements (temperature, air pressure, 

etc). To get to a colorful output, the system needed to: 

• Convert the irregular point data into a regular grid via interpolation. 

• Convert the regular grid of values into a colorful image via a color 

ramp. 

• Convert the regular grid of values into a contour map via contouring. 


36 

A r t i c l e 

WPS, server-side scripting and the others available in 

OpenGeo Suite 3.0 enable you to break free of the 

traditional notion that spatial data must be routed 

through a specialized GIS workflow 

GLOBE system 

By chaining the interpolation process to the color ramp process, or 

the interpolation process to the contouring process, the GLOBE could 

generate attractive outputs that were calculated in real time, so a 

contour map for the world or any smaller region could be generated 

for any day that the GLOBE system had data (over a decade’s 

worth!). 

Because the GLOBE solution was WPS chaining inside GeoServer it 

could take advantage of existing facilities to: 

• Read the data out of the database-agnostic backend. 

• Convert the value grid into a color grid with existing styling mechanisms. 

• Convert the grid into contours with an existing contouring WPS. 

So the only net new code required was the interpolation WPS. This 

code would read data from any GeoServer data source (files, 

databases, remote WFS services) and build an interpolated grid 

using the Barnes interpolation scheme. The results are both attractive 

and impressively fast. In addition to the interpolation process, 

the OpenGeo Suite 3.0 ships with a WPS for heat map generation. 

It works the same way as the interpolation WPS, reading from any 

data source, and building a value grid that can then be arbitrarily 

colored using the standard GeoServer styling system. 

The GLOBE example shows the power of chaining processes together, 

particularly as the library of available processes grows over time. 

For upcoming releases of the OpenGeo Suite, additional user interfaces 

to chain processes visually, as well as clustering capabilities, 

will be added. This ensures that high loads will be easily distributed 

between multiple back-end servers. 

General adoption of open source geospatial and in 

particular the OpenGeo Suite is being driven by organizations 

like TriMet, USGS and GLOBE, which require 

a stable, enterprise ready platform on which to build 

innovative applications. The transparency of the open 

source code base and the speed with which fixes and 

changes can be added, allow organizations building 

new systems to get beyond the usual routine of working 

around limitations and waiting for upcoming 

releases. 

For the organizations who are wondering, “where will we get support 

for this software?” and “who is going to fix my bugs?” we also 

have a ready answer: OpenGeo. Commercial open source providers 

fill in the gaps between the raw code available from the open source 

community and the enterprise needs of customers. Until recently, a 

closed source provider has dominated geospatial web services, but 

increasingly open source alternatives have been closing the gap. 

Companies like RedHat and OpenGeo provide an enterprise face 

and offer a reliable partner to work with on issues from feature development 

to security enhancements. This cuts software development 

costs and gives customers a chance to share and optimize resources 

by working with an expert to steer the software development 

roadmap. The OpenGeo Suite 3.0 provides enterprises with superior 

value in delivering geospatial web services, whilst simultaneously 

increasing the reach and functionality of enterprise systems and controlling 

costs. 

Paul Ramsey, GeoSpatial Architect, OpenGeo 

David Dubovsky, Marketing Manager, OpenGeo 

URLs 

http://trimet.org/ - Portland TriMet’s website 

http://opengeo.org/products/suite/ - The OpenGeo Suite 

http://blog.opengeo.org/2012/10/03/opengeo-suite-3-0-released/ - OpenGeo Suite 3.0 details 

http://opengeo.org/publications/commercialopensource/ - Commercial Open Source Whitepaper 

All of these processes occur on the server, which in effect, designates 

the server as the place where new processes are defined. 

Although this is not a new idea, this is a major deviation from the 

status quo. Additionally, the combination of WPS and server-side 

scripting allows developers to create processes that perform complex 

analysis (like those previously mentioned) or any other processes 

a developer may write. All this is possible using familiar scripting 

languages like Python and JavaScript. Together these features enable 

IT professionals to build web applications that can run spatial processes 

against data in real time, from anywhere, using straightforward 

web development practices. This is especially exciting for those 

who recognize that spatial data has become just one aspect of the 

increasingly complex information technology ecosystem. Tools like 


37 

Stars Aligned, finally, for 

CAD/Civil/Geo Convergence? 

C o l u m n 

As the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) community, and also 

owners and managers of buildings, find new ways to use information technology, 

the lack of interoperability among systems becomes increasingly 

burdensome. 

Bart De Lathouwer, Director, 

Interoperability Programs, Open 

Geospatial Consortium (OGC) 

In March, the Open Geospatial Consortium 

(OGC) Land Development Domain Working 

Group in partnership with buildingSMART 

International hosted the inaugural Civil & 

Land Development Summit 2013 as part of 

the OGC Technical and Planning Committee meeting 

in Abu Dhabi. Representatives from building - 

SMART International, Geonovum, Oranjewould 

(representing Dutch engineering & construction 

companies), Esri, ViaNova, Autodesk, iScope 

(FP7 research project), Cyclomedia and OGC 

spoke on a variety of topics. 

Representatives from buildingSMART International 

(bSI) spoke about OpenINFRA, a fast track initiative 

to develop bSI/BIM compatible standards for 

Infrastructure and Civil Works. The openINFRA 

steering group under chair Christophe Castaing 

has been laying the groundwork for expanding 

the scope of bSI standards beyond buildings. 

OpenINFRA was started by several large infrastructure 

design, management and construction 

companies, especially in France, following on 

from the IFC Bridge project. 

budgeted over five years. The goal is to eventually 

have all UK government projects, including 

infrastructure and civil works, be designed, procured 

and managed as integrated BIM projects, 

starting in 2016 with high priority projects. 

In recognition of the amount of work to be accomplished, 

bSI has renewed and strengthened its 

memorandum of understanding with OGC. OGC 

and bSI are committed to coordinate and collaborate, 

to avoid duplication of effort and to develop 

interoperability between bSI and OGC standards 

in overlapping areas. The goal is to have 

transparent interoperability from the user perspective. 

Additionally, the new version of IFC has been 

released. IFC4 is significant in that it has for the 

first time a native as well as a simple ifcXML full 

equivalent. The important point is that this will 

enable, with some caveats, IFC in-flow data compatibility 

with new ifcXML-based software for 

infrastructure. Esri has expressed plans to enable 

input from IFCBIM to Esri tools. 

There are growing demands from several governments 

for integrated BIM that includes Infra - 

structure design, procurement and operation. The 

government groundswell is spearheaded by the 

UK government, but governments in France, 

Germany, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands and 

several others also have similar bSI/BIM for 

Infrastructure initiatives. The UK government is 

eager to help fund international standards and 

has officially invited high-level government officials 

from several countries for a meeting in 

London, in order to help bSI grow further support 

and coordinate the work. 

The UK government's BIM initiative has high-level 

cabinet support and funding of 50 million pounds 

The bSI Infrastructure work is being organized as 

a virtual Room, where several, or hopefully, many 

projects will simultaneously work on aspects of 

Infrastructure work. There will be small projects, 

such as standards for snapping building footprints 

into coordinates, and larger projects needed to 

define processes of design and alignments of 

roads, railways, waterways; linear construction, 

geotechnical, GIS and system related aspects such 

as environmental, traffic, control electronics etc. 

One concrete action agreed at the meeting is for 

the OGC Land Development Standards Working 

Group to work with OpenINFRA to create a joint 

use case repository to inform LandXML evolution 

and civil engineering standards in general. 


38 

R e v i e w 


Esri Press recently published an updated version of the second part of its GIS 

Tutorial series, offering exercises and data for the latest version of its ArcGIS 

software. 

U p d a t e d E s r i G I S T u t o r i a l 

Spatial Analysis Workbook for ArcGIS 10.1 

Contents and target audience 

This book was published early 2013 and 

has been updated for ArcGIS 10.1, which 

is the latest version of this software. It offers 

nine tutorials or hands-on exercises for performing 

spatial analysis, and comes with a 

DVD that includes data and a 180-day trial 

of ArcGIS 10.1 for Desktop Advanced software. 

The book’s key objective is to assist 

the reader in developing their knowledge 

of the analysis tools of ArcGIS and teaching 

them how to design the right sequences to 

bring the big picture into view. The tutorials 

focus on data representation and equip 

readers with the skills to build ‘big picture’ 

maps. As stated in the preface of this book, 

the user won’t create new data, but will create 

new files based on existing data. 

The contents can roughly be divided into 

two categories: tutorials 1-6 correspond 

with another Esri publication, called ‘The 

Esri Guide to GIS Analysis, Volume 1’, and 

tutorials 7-9 correspond with the second 

volume. It is recommended that the user of 

this book reads the corresponding chapters 

of these two volumes before each tutorial. 

Some of the tutorials require the ArcGIS 

10.1 Spatial Analyst for Desktop extension, 

which accompanies the book. 

Title: GIS Tutorial 2: Spatial Analysis Workbook for ArcGIS 10.1 

Author: David W. Allen 

Publisher: Esri Press 

Language: English 

Number of pages: 344 

ISBN: 9781589483378 

The book starts off with relatively easy instructions, but the tasks gradually 

become more complex and involve multiple steps in order to obtain 

the final results for analysis. The first four chapters are more about map 

visualization than complex spatial analysis, but from then on things get 

more interesting: creating buffers, performing distance analysis, measuring 

geographic distribution, and finally, analyzing patterns and identifying 

clusters through statistical analysis tools. 

In each tutorial, the reader has to fulfill a task that requires a number of 

steps for analysis. These are shown step-by-step, through helpful screenshots 

of the final results. In addition, there are tasks which support independent 

skill demonstration, as well as study questions and review sections 

after the exercises. At the end of the book there are a number of 

extra independent projects which combine the analysis functions described 

in the previous chapters. 

This publication is geared towards a more advanced readership than 

the first part of this series (‘GIS Tutorial 1: 

Basic Workbook) and requires use of 

ArcGIS and ArcGIS extensions, knowledge 

of ArcMap and ArcCatalog, as well as thirdparty 

tools and scripts. 

Verdict 

For a hands-on do-it-yourself course in performing 

GIS analysis with ArcGIS 10.1, or 

as material for a face-to-face course in a classroom, 

this book is an excellent choice. It 

has everything you could possibly need: you 

get the data, the software and helpful tutorials 

all in one package. The book is wellwritten, 

the layout is very good, the imagery 

is helpful in working your way through 

the exercises and the review sections are 

useful. You don’t get the answers to the extra 

tasks, but this isn’t a major issue. 

Although the book has information on the 

theoretical background of the analysis functions 

which are covered, this is not the key 

objective of the book. This becomes a problem 

in the last few chapters, which cover 

complex mathematical methods used in statistics, 

for instance when it comes to interpreting 

results after applying a certain function. 

The Help function of ArcGIS provides a lot 

of information on spatial analysis, as does 

the online Esri Resource Center, so there’s no need to pay for an additional 

publication offering this information. 

Since the book does cover a lot of ground, it can be a good thing to 

read through the whole tutorial again after finishing it to get ‘the big picture’ 

and distinguish between multiple analysis functions which may seem 

very similar, but should be used under specific circumstances and for 

specific purposes only. This is important, because if you’re not aware of 

what you’re doing, you might end up drawing the wrong conclusions 

from your dataset. What is a plus about this book is that the data provided 

on the DVD is ready for use, which is good for a learning environment. 

It’s important to remember, however, that the real world situation 

might be a bit more complex than shown in the book. 

For more information, have a look at: esripress.esri.com. 


40 

R e v i e w 


A new edition of Esri’s guide to map projections has been published by Esri Press, 

providing a practical working manual for lining up data in ArcGIS and a basic 

introduction to working with coordinate systems and map projections. 

Lining Up Data in ArcGIS 

S e c o n d E d i t i o n f o r A r c G I S 1 0 . 1 

with coordinate systems. It presents practical 

techniques to help readers identify data 

projections, create custom projections to 

align data, and resolve common issues. This 

most recent, second edition of the book is 

compatible with ArcGIS 10.1 and includes 

new sections on using CAD data and the 

appropriate use of the web Mercator projections. 

Title: Lining Up Data in ArcGIS: A Guide to Map Projections 

Author: Margaret M. Maher 

Publisher: Esri Press 

Language: English 

Number of pages: 200 

ISBN: 978-1589483422 

About the book 

Last February, Esri published the second edition 

of ‘Lining Up Data in ArcGIS: A Guide 

to Map Projections’, written by Margaret M. 

Mahee; a veteran member of Esri's support 

services team. The book is a troubleshooting 

reference for any GIS user who works 

Contents 

The book has 200 pages, divided into ten 

chapters, which tackle the problems and 

questions ‘most heard ‘over the last few 

years in phone calls and emails to Esri 

Support Services’. These include lining up 

data in a map projection in ArcMap and the 

application for making maps and analyzing 

data within ArcGIS for Desktop. When new 

data is received from sources outside one’s 

organization or department, problems often 

occur, which explains the need for this book. 

The book also covers the basics about working 

with coordinate systems and map projections 

and is written for users of ArcGIS 

working with vector data. As the basic principles 

also apply for working with raster 

image formats, it is useful for these users too. 

The book is meant to be a practical working 

manual. For the most part, the book is 

arranged so that each chapter addresses a 

specific question or problem and provides 

a solution for that issue. Each chapter is part 

of the whole, but also stands alone, addressing 

specific issues related to working with 

coordinate systems. The book includes three 

appendices, which contain references to a 

number of Knowledge Base articles from the 

Esri Support Center and to default installa- 


41 

tion locations and profile paths: necessary 

if you want to copy projection files installed 

on your computer. 

Topics discussed in the book include: how 

to resolve alignment issues reflected in common 

error messages and warnings, how 

(and when) to perform geographic transformations 

and which transformation to use, 

how to decide which map projection to use, 

what do the parameters in a projection file 

mean and what do they do, how to add x,y 

data to a map and much more. 

Verdict 

As the author writes in the introduction of 

the book, understanding coordinate systems 

is a challenge. A practical guide like this is, 

therefore, indispensable. The decision to 

write a practical working manual which isn’t 

overly lengthy was a very wise one, since 

there are already many theoretical sources 

available, which tackle the mathematical 

theories behind map projections. Although 

this is not a theoretical book, of course there 

is theoretical information available, but it’s 

not the chief focus of the book. 

One could criticize the decision to repeat 

certain information provided in some chapters, 

but I didn’t find this distracting, since it 

allows you to read the parts of the book you 

need most in order to complete your work 

or solve a specific problem. This is not a 

book you probably will read from cover to 

cover, but will use as a reference guide or 

as a gateway, leading you to other sources. 

Anything more detailed would be information 

overload. 

What makes this publication so valuable, is 

the amount of experience reflected on every 

page of the book – the author undoubtedly 

has years of experience in solving problems 

about coordinate systems in ArcGIS. This 

book is clearly written by an expert and written 

and presented in an accessible way. As 

with all Esri books, there are many large 

illustrations, which clarify text examples. 

What is worth mentioning, however, is the 

amount of information on aligning CAD 

data, which is not an easy task, according 

to the author. 

The downside of this book is that the examples 

of coordinate systems and illustrations 

of sample data are taken from the United 

States. Given the scope of this book, this 

choice is understandable, but a missed 

opportunity in some way. Apart from this 

criticism, I found this a very informative and 

practical book to read, with tons of information, 

which should prove useful to every person 

working with coordinate systems in 

ArcGIS. 

For more information, have a look at: http://esripress.esri.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


42 

E v e n t 

By Monica Pratt 

Nearly 1,600 members of the software development community got a chance to 

see what’s under the hood at the Esri International Developer Summit 

(DevSummit), held March 25–28, 2013, in Palm Springs, California. The attendees, 

more than a third of whom came from outside the United States, were 

made privy to Esri’s immediate and long-term software development strategies. 

Esri 2013 Developer Summit 

L i v e b y t h e C o d e 

Esri shared its software development strategies with nearly 1,600 members of the software development community at the 2013 

Esri International Developer Summit. 

The focus of the event, now in its eighth 

year, was tech, coding, and the people 

who live for both. Attendees 

learned about the latest developments, 

competed in hackathons, and played 

hard during four busy days. Mainstream developers 

and those who primarily work on GIS 

development came in nearly equal numbers: 

approximately 600 for each group. The balance 

of the attendees was made up of academics, 

managers, and business owners. For 

those actively writing code, JavaScript was the 

most popular language. 

Whatever their day job or favorite programming 

language, the DevSummit gave attendees 

the opportunity to build community. Esri sees 

tremendous value in building relationships 

between its developers and the larger developer 

community. As Esri president Jack Danger - 

mond noted, “You are the people who can think 

through what is needed and wanted.” 

Interacting with the more than 300 members of 

Esri’s development staff in attendance continues 

to be one of the event’s main attractions. 

Dangermond described the company’s new 

generation of development tools as “transformational.” 

ArcGIS has become a platform that 

integrates across mobile, web, cloud, server, 

and desktop to “take geography and geographic 

understanding everywhere.” 

Big Data, Real Time 

The ability to handle the flood of sensor data 

in real time was one of the major announcements 

made at the DevSummit. “There probably 

are more sensors in this room than there 

are people. As a developer, leveraging these 

sensors in your applications can provide 

tremendous value to your end users,” said 

Adam Mollenkopf, product lead for ArcGIS 

GeoEvent Processor for Server during the 

Plenary Session. 

Available with the ArcGIS 10.2 release, this 

extension lets ArcGIS for Server ingest realtime 

data. It can handle feeds from a variety 

of data sources, from Twitter to Sierra Wireless 

devices, and work with Hadoop and Mongrel 

DD. Continuous processing and analysis are 

performed on events as they are received. The 

stream processing logic can filter streams 

based on event attributes or the current location 

of sensors inside or outside an area of 

interest. Output can be integrated with operations 

dashboards or custom apps created with 

any ArcGIS API or ArcGIS Runtime to use realtime 

data for more immediate response. The 

popularity of Mollenkopf’s presentation and 

other sessions on GeoEvent Processor was predictable 

and overwhelming. 

During the plenary, Esri technology evangelist 

Mansour Raad introduced GIS Tools for 

Hadoop, another Esri technology for dealing 

with “volume, velocity, and variety of the 

data.” With these tools, big data can be spatially 

analyzed, visualized, and interactively 

queried. 

Disconnected but Productive 

Disconnected mode for web maps on mobile 

devices was another much-requested and 

anticipated capability, which will be available 

at ArcGIS 10.2, and was demonstrated during 

the Plenary Session. Project engineer lead 

Will Crick accessed a map authored in the 

cloud on a modest smartphone. After putting 

the phone in airplane mode, he queried and 

edited data, performed reverse geocoding, 

and did some routing—all with the airplane 

icon prominently displayed on-screen. 

He could do this because data and functionality 

were downloaded to the device as a geodatabase 

implemented using SQLite. In addition, 

if connectivity becomes available, the 

device can be synchronized with the cloud. 

“We’re going to release this across all the runtime 

SDKs at 10.2, and when we do that, we 

believe we’re going to be the first mapping 

API that has this offline capability,” said Crick. 


43 

Designing Great Products 

Beyond sharing the new capabilities of Esri 

software that will be incorporated in imminent 

ArcGIS releases, summit presentations focused 

on software design that promotes productive 

and pleasant user experiences. Interface and 

design in general were also the topic of summit 

keynote speaker Jared M. Spool. The 

founder of the world’s largest usability 

research organization, User Interface 

Engineering, Spool has spent a lifetime trying 

to figure out what makes great designs. He 

observed that “the best products are made up 

of decisions, lots of decisions,” but his challenge 

has been figuring out how design decisions 

are made. 

Using numerous examples drawn from web 

design, Spool showed how designs fall into 

one of five styles: unintended, self-design, 

genius, activity-focused, and experiencefocused. 

Over decades of studying how successful 

companies design, Spool has found 

that activity-focused and experience-focused 

design—neither is based on rules or dogma— 

yield far superior results. In design work, 

“exception cases far outnumber normal cases. 

So you’re always designing for exceptions,” 

he said. “You’re always designing for constraints. 

You’re always designing for trade-offs. 

So this is key.” 

Keynote speaker Jared Spool, founder of the world’s largest usability 

research organization, discussed how design decisions are made. 

The Elegant and Evaporating Interface 

In a subsequent presentation, Amber Case, 

former CEO of the recently acquired Geoloqi 

and now head of the Esri R&D Center in 

Portland, Oregon, approached interface 

design from another angle. A cyborg anthropologist, 

she is deeply interested in the interaction 

of humans and computers. She took the 

plenary stage to discuss the intersection of 

location and the future of interface development. 

Case noted that tools have moved from being 

extensions of our physical selves (for example, 

a knife being a better version of a tooth) 

to extensions of our mental selves. However, 

unlike physical tools that retain the same size 

and function, mental tools are much less constrained 

and are changing form and function 

rapidly. 

For some applications, with the addition of 

location, buttons disappear entirely and the 

user becomes the button. Interaction with these 

applications is less intrusive because the user’s 

location is the input that causes certain actions 

based on the locational context that anticipates 

the user’s needs and wants. 

In closing, Case urged developers to use location. 

“I’d encourage all of you to think a little 

bit wider—how you can solve real-world problems 

by adding locations and how you can 

actually bring more of what was formally stuck 

on the web as static content to life [by] assigning 

location to it and delivering it to where it 

actually is, where people actually are.” 

Learning, Working, Playing 

This year’s DevSummit featured additional, 

shorter, and more focused technical sessions 

that described how to work most effectively 

with Esri development tools in incorporating 

location into applications. Even shorter and 

less formal tech-transfer events occupied the 

late afternoon and evening hours. Speed 

geeking, introduced last year, was a roundrobin 

of five-minute sessions presented on the 

first evening by Esri staff on aspects of the technology 

to constantly changing groups of 8–10 

attendees. At Lightning Talks, attendees got 

quick bites of knowledge on a range of topics. 

Mingling poolside with Esri developers at 

the Meet the Team event, attendees chatted 

In addition to killer dodgeball, Dev Summit attendees could 

play a giant game of Jenga. 

with team members about technology interests 

in a relaxed setting. 

Developers also had opportunities to highlight 

their accomplishments and skills. User presentations, 

voted on by the community, were interspersed 

with tech sessions throughout the summit. 

Developers could also show off their 

coding prowess by participating in two 

hackathons associated with the summit. 

On March 24 at 1:00 p.m., the clock began 

ticking for teams participating in the Esri 

DevSummit Hackathon. Gathered in one of 

the large meeting rooms on-site, teams used 

the new ArcGIS for Developers website; Esri 

web and/or mobile APIs; and data from 

Riverside County, California, to come up with 

innovative, location-based projects during the 

24-hour contest. With dinner and snacks provided, 

contestants toiled through the night. 

Entries were judged on creative use of technology, 

user experience, and potential for 

real-world application. 

The Animal Spotter App—developed by 

Christopher Moravec, Mara Stoica, and Ryan 

Colburn—won first place and a set of 

DevSummit passes. Michael van der Veeken 

and Paul Kaiser won second place, and 

Christoph Sporri, Andry Joos, and Michael 

Faulcon earned third place. 

For the other hackathon, the100 Lines or Less 

ArcGIS JavaScript Code Challenge (ArcGIS.js 

44 

A r t i c l e 

By Urmi Bhattacharjee 

SECON, a GIS driven multidiscipline engineering company, developed a mapping 

system that was used for rapid generation of accurate base maps with a DTM 

for planning and designing irrigation projects in India. 

Innovative Mapping in India 

U s i n g T e c h n o l o g i c a l A d v a n c e s i n G e o m a t i c s 

Digital Terrain Model derived from HRSI 

Introduction 

With a population of 1.2 billion people and the vagaries of monsoon, 

India needs to develop its water resources to meet the growing 

demand for food production and security. The use of technological 

advances in geomatics for rapid generation of accurate base 

maps with Digital Terrain Model (DTM), to plan and design irrigation 

projects, is imperative. 

SECON is an Indian, GIS driven multidiscipline engineering company, 

who developed its own unique system to provide appropriate 

ground control, DTM and ortho from stereo high resolution satellite 

images (HRSI), thereby saving substantial ground input. This will 

serve as a forerunner for the development of further Water Resource 

projects. 

The map, which was generated using this system, was invaluable 

for demarcating catchment area, locations of interventions, sizing of 

storages, planning, design of a canal distribution network, structures 

and evaluation of Land Use/Land Classification. 

A base map for 16,000 sq.km was prepared within 18 months. An 

extensive PILOT test was carried out to confirm the accuracy and 

suitability of the method of hybrid combination of Ground and 3D 

(HRSI). The results were found to be satisfactory as a cost and time 

effective solution. The accuracy derived from this method is a benchmark 

even for the satellite image provider. 

SECON’s hybrid method combining High Resolution 3D Stereo 

Satellite Imagery (HRSI), in the planning and design of 10 

Watersheds for the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh India, for 

Base Maps on 1:2500, 4000, 10000 scales, proved successful. 

Longitudinal and cross sections were also developed for optimizing 

canal corridors and a distribution network. 

This method is more cost effective and faster compared to purely 

Aerial or Ground method in developing countries, where the economics, 

logistics and security issues for aerial photography/ LiDAR 

are the main constraints. 

The project, after completion, will provide water for millions of people 

and irrigate an area of around 2200 sq. km of fertile land. The 

base maps prepared by SECON will also be used for the rehabilitation 

and resettlement of affected people in this project area. 

Study Area 

The Study area encompasses the 10 Watersheds (sub basins) of the 

Narmada River in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is the fifth 

largest river in the Indian subcontinent. It is one of the few rivers in 


45 

India that flows from West to East. It flows through the states of 

Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and in Gujarat. The Narmada Valley 

Development Authority (NVDA) is the Government Agency responsible 

for the management of the Narmada River and its River Basin. 

The total length of the river from the head to the outfall into the sea 

is 1312 km. 

Objective 

The study was carried out with the following objectives: 

• Mapping the area for an extent of 16000 Sq Km. 

• Contour map preparation to obtain the contours of 0.50 m intervals 

so as to plan the medium and minor projects (Micro Water 

Sheds) in the 10 sub basins/Water Sheds. 

• Geo referencing 

• Establishing Ground Control Points. 

• Digitizing and Editing 

• DEM generation. 

• Ground Truth validation 

• Base Map preparation. 

• Screening of the projects. 

• Identifying and locating the projects (Location of Dam sites) 

• Water Availability Studies, Water Balance, Basin Plan 

• Assess Submergence and Command Area for 1300 Sq Km of 

Cultivable Command Area. 

• Size of storage 

• Planning and Design of Canal Network and associated structures 

• Classification of Land use/Land cover 

Data Use 

The different types of data used for the project purpose; 

• 0.50 m High resolution, Stereo Satellite Imagery 

• Topographical Maps. 

• Ground data obtained from field survey. 

Methodology - Case Study 

The basic requirement for Engineering Design, for a project of such 

magnitude, which must include Water Shed Management, Flood 

Control Studies and Rain Water harvesting, is the generation of an 

accurate Base Map. This must have extensive mapping and contours 

providing the details of 3D Terrain configuration, catchment area, 

Forest cover, Land use, Utilities, places of inhabitation etc, of sub 

Basin area. 

By the conventional ground survey method, the volume of work to be 

executed was estimated to require about 100 land surveyors working 

for 8 to 10 years in undulating and forested terrain on each of 

the Sub Basins. 

There are restrictions and limitations on successfully and rapidly executing 

Aerial Surveys in India because of security clearance, customs 

delay, and weather conditions. The High Resolution Stereo Satellite 

Image (HRSI) Mapping Method combined with ground control and 

validation was chosen as the fastest and most cost effective technique 

possible. The option of extracting 3D ground features from HRSI using 

a combination of suitable software, along with photogrammetric software, 

was implemented. The stability, speed and the user friendly 

interface of the software helped to extract the required information 

accurately from the large Stereo pair Images; each over 2 GB in size. 

In order to compile data from stereo HRSI, Differential Global 

Positioning System (DGPS) control was established. It was post pointed 

and processed to achieve the desired accuracy. Topographic compilation 

was performed and an automatic DTM was created. The 

Map compiled from Stereo HRSI Photogrammetry 

DTM was edited to eliminate any spikes or error points. Orthorectified 

images were generated. Planimetric details were digitized from 

Orthorectified imagery by on-screen digitization. Contours were generated 

from the DTM after generation of Triangulated Irregular 

Network (TIN). All data was merged to create a map on the desired 

scale with contours at 0.50 m intervals. CAD editing was carried out 

to create a map as per Cartographic Standards. Suitable software 

was used as a drafting tool during Photogrammetry compilation and 

CAD editing. 

The output produced by using modern methods was used for further 

planning for the design of medium and minor projects in the 10 sub 

basins. This combination of Ground Survey and Planimetric Topo - 

ºgraphic compilation in Photogrammetry work station using HRSI has 

helped the project authority to complete the desired tasks in a shorter 

time period than that required by conventional Ground Survey alone. 

Macro level mapping can be developed using Stereo HRSI followed 

with LiDAR mapping for micro level and more detailed and higher 

accuracy. Maps are utilized to support Flood Insurance and Flood 

plain management activities. The maps can also be used for a variety 

of applications including disaster preparation, response, recovery, 

risk assessment and diverse mitigation measures. 

Conclusion 

Modern technology using Stereo High Resolution Satellite Images 

was very helpful in this project. Remote Sensing and GIS proved to 

be very comprehensive in the study of large areas like Watershed, 

Flood plain studies and Rain Water Harvesting, where integrated 

and simultaneous activities have to be executed. Water preservation 

will remain incomplete if preventive measures are not undertaken. It 

is predicted that water scarcity is imminent in the future and this 

could also lead to conflicts and social unrest. 

It would be advisable, therefore, to explore Remote Sensing and 

GIS techniques and implement them appropriately. Merging conventional 

methods with modern techniques can be used for all Water 

Resource projects without compromising on the desired quality. This 

method is more cost effective and faster compared to purely Aerial 

or Ground method in developing countries, where the economics, 

logistics and security issues for Aerial Photography/LiDAR are the 

main constraints. 

Urmi Bhattacharjee, Manager - Business Development, 

SECON Private Limited 

Internet: www.secon.in 


46 

C L G E n e w s l e t t e r 

Francis Gäbele 

For a second consecutive year, the Council of European Geodetic Surveyors decided 

to organize the Day of the European Surveyor and GeoInformation in cooperation 

with sister organisations, such as EuroGeographics. The celebration took 

place on the 22nd March 2013 in Budapest, Hungary, during the first CLGE 

General Assembly of the year. Moreover, many other festivities were held 

throughout the European capitals by CLGE member organizations, from the 16th 

to the 24th March 2013. 

U n d e r t h e a u s p i c e s o f G a l i l e o G a l i l e i 

The Day of the European Surveyor and 

GeoInformation 2013 

André Flahaut, President of the Belgian House of Representatives (© Quentin Van der Vennet, 

www.quentinvdv.com) 

FIG Vice President Rudolf Staiger during his opening address at the European Space Expo in Budapest 

(© Mark Wijngaarde) 

On the 18th March 2013, a reception was organized in 

Europe’s capital, Brussels, in the House of the European 

Surveyor and GeoInformation, in the presence of distinguished 

guests. These included the President of the 

Belgian House of Representatives, Minister of State, 

André Flahaut, the President of the European Economic and Social 

Committee, Henri Malosse and the President of EuroGeographics, 

Ingrid Vanden Berghe. 

On the 22nd March 2013, CLGE solemnly announced who would be 

the European Surveyor of the Year and would hold this honoured position 

until the next celebration in March 2014. 

This time, Galileo Galilei (we use the Italian spelling on purpose) was 

declared European Surveyor of the year 2013. He follows Mercator, 

European Surveyor in 2012, honoured during the first Day of the 

European Surveyor and Geo-Information by CLGE, in the presence of 

Cheehai Teo, FIG President. 

On the 21st March, on the eve of Surveyors’ Day, the poster of Galileo 

Galilei was unveiled to the general public. This took place in the 

European Space Expo, organized in the Hungarian capital, in a joint 

effort by the European GNSS Agency (GSA), CLGE and the local 

Hungarian branch of Surveyors’ Associations. 

Rudolf Staiger, FIG vice-president, represented his organisation, together 

with John Hohol, president of the FIG Foundation. The latter also 

represented the National Society of Professional Surveyors from the 

USA (NSPS). The FIG Young Surveyors’ Network sent its secretary and 

incoming chair, Eva-Maria Unger, from Austria. The aim of this network 

is to establish a European Branch that will integrate with CLGE. 

CLGE, joined by NSPS, have decided to promote the creation of a 

worldwide Surveyors’ Day. 

This was confirmed in the Budapest Declaration, signed by John Hohol 

for NSPS, Gyorgy Domokos, delegate to CLGE for the Hungarian 

Umbrella Organisation and Jean-Yves Pirlot, CLGE president, who took 

this initiative. 


47 

Enrico Rispoli, Italian CLGE delegate and Secretary General of the 

Consiglio Nationale di Geometri e Geometri Laureati, had prepared a 

passage reminding us of the life and work of our illustrious predecessor, 

Galileo Galilei. We would like to thank him and Maria Grazia 

Scorza for this work, as well as Muiris de Buitléir and Judith & Maurice 

Barbieri for their proof reading. The text is available on our website 

www.clge.eu. 

A film produced by Enrico Rispoli is also available. It can be obtained 

by simply addressing a request to our secretary general, 

Michelle.Camilleri@clge.eu. 

All of this has been made possible due to the support of our partners 

and sponsors. CLGE wants to thank them sincerely. A special mention 

is due to Omar Pierre Soubra from Trimble who has committed his company, 

as primary sponsor, for these European events. Additionally, we 

would like to thank Steven Berglund, President and CEO of TRIMBLE 

and the rest of the entire company. 

We would also like to express our gratitude to Marie Ménard and 

Reinhard Blasi, from the European GNSS Agency GSA, and our 

Hungarian delegate Gyorgy Domokos, as well their respective teams. 

They did some excellent work in the preparation of the European Space 

Expo and our General Assembly. Our gratitude also goes to all the 

CLGE delegates who have celebrated this Day in their own way. 

W i t h d e e p r e g r e t , w e m u s t s a y o u r g o o d b y e s t o 

t h e h o n o r a r y m e m b e r o f C L G E a n d B D V I 

Dipl.-Ing. Klaus-Dieter Rürup 

Öffentlich bestellter Vermes sungs in gen ieur 

(Publicly Appointed Surve yor, Germany) 

2 nd April 1947 – 11 th March 2013 

In Klaus Rürup we lose a man who was able to 

move things along in professional politics, as well 

as on a personal level. He had his own individual 

way of doing things and we shall always remember 

his concern for people, his open mind and his 

kindness. 

His influence will continue to be felt, due to how he 

conducted himself in the associations with which he 

was connected and how he worked for the profession. 

Also the strides he made for the benefit of 

human relations, in his home country, as well as in 

Europe and the rest of the world. 

Klaus Rürup during the CLGE 

General Assembly in Porto, 

September 2005 (© Jyp) 

Klaus Rürup has always been part of public life. His attachment to those 

around him led him into many voluntary positions, where he was always 

sensitive to and ready to act for, and with, his peers. 

From the beginning he was not limited by the restrictions of his day job. He 

was not afraid of working for noble causes and not just within the German 

BDVI. Klaus Rürup did far more than talking; he was a man of action and 

committed himself in the interest of the younger generation, to the technological 

development of the profession and for the vast community of surveyors. 

John Hohol, Gyorgy Domokos and Jean-Yves Pirlot signing the Budapest Declaration (© MW) 

The Budapest Declaration 

The honourable and historic profession of surveying has been in 

existence since the beginning of civilisation. Surveying is recognised 

as the world’s oldest legal profession. 

From the rope stretchers of ancient Egypt through to modern society, 

the surveyor has been an essential foundation in civilisation’s development. 

They are qualified and ready to take on the same responsibilities 

in the future. 

Whether on land, in water or space, surveyors are always at the 

forefront. 

In recognition of the essential role surveyors play in all aspects of 

today’s world and to honour and publicise the surveying profession 

and the important work done by surveyors we hereby declare: 

22 March 2013 as SURVEYOR’S DAY 

Moreover, we ask the international Surveyors Federation, FIG, to 

consider the creation of a common worldwide Surveyors’ Day. 

He was not only active in the interest of private surveyors: his membership 

in the umbrella organisations DVW and CLGE allowed him to engage with 

and work for, the profession as a whole. For him, the important factor was 

the surveyor, regardless of his or her status as employee, civil servant or private 

surveyor. 

In 1998 he became vice-president of the CLGE and vice- chair of FIG 

Commission 1. Some years later, in 2001, he was appointed president of 

CLGE , where he obtained impressive results, such as the “Accord 

Multilateral”, which he achieved in cooperation with Geometer Europas, 

signed by professional associations from 15 countries. 

The well-known Market Report was published under his patronage. Important 

European meetings were marked by his signature. With his negotiation skills 

and linguistic abilities he united people. Collegiality, friendship and kindness 

were his “weapons”. Since his departure younger generations have 

come forward to take over the tasks he performed in his inimitable way. 

We will honour him with sincerity and great respect and would like it to be 

known that we will certainly never forget him. 

In silent remembrance, 

Jean-Yves Pirlot Michael Zurhorst Rudolf Wehmeyer 

CLGE President BDVI President BDVI Nordrhein Westfalen, Chair 

April/May 2013

48 

C L G E n e w s l e t t e r 

The CLGE Students’ Contest 2013 

As every year, CLGE organizes a European Students’ Contest for bachelor and master students in three 

categories. The slightly adapted regulations are available on the homepage of www.clge.eu. Papers must 

be submitted before 5th August 2013! 

European students can take part in two categories: 

• Geodesy and Topography (supported 

by Trimble); 

• GIS, Mapping and Cadastre (supported 

by ESRI). 

The third category is open to European students, 

but also to young surveyors (aged up 

to 35 years). Papers in this category should 

propose new approaches addressing the 

question of How to attract young people to 

the profession and young surveyors to professional 

associations (self-supported). If possible, 

the winner of this Prize will be asked to 

implement his or her project. 

Papers must be submitted before the 5th of 

August 2013 to contest@clge.eu. 

The winners in each of the three categories 

will receive a diploma and €1000, - prize 

money. It is probable that the sponsors will 

invite the winners to a special event. 

Eva Maria Unger, Austrian Secretary and future chair of the FIG 

Young Surveyors Network, during the Budapest CLGE GA. She is 

eager to cooperate with CLGE and to develop a European Branch of 

the Network. She welcomes the opening of the third category to 

young surveyors (© MW) 

All the nominated papers will be published 

on the CLGE website (the 2012 papers are 

still visible). 

The award ceremony will be organized 

during INTERGEO in Essen, Germany, in 

October 2013, for the two first categories. 

The awarding of the third prize is planned 

during the first FIG Young Surveyors Meeting 

– European Branch, in Portugal, in September 

2013. 

All submissions will receive an acknowledgement. 

If you haven’t received an acknowledgment 

of receipt after 5 days, please send 

again! 

Currently, PhD students are not allowed to use 

their PhD theses when applying for categories 

1 and 2. We are working on another 

prize for this. 

Posters Galileo Galilei 

Those who want to get this poster in 

a ± A0 format can obtain it on request 

at poster2013@clge.eu for the price 

of €80,– shipment within Europe 

included. This may become a collectors’ 

item. 

The 2012 poster can be added to this 

shipment, in which case the total price 

becomes €150,–. 

Please do not forget to mention your 

surname, first name, snail-mail 

address + poster 2013 (and if need 

be 2012). 

Conclude your order by confirming 

that you will pay the invoice by money 

transfer on receipt of invoice. 

Design of Both Posters: Arianne Weyrich 


49 

Mobile, Web and Desktop Apps - 

Collaborative & Complimentary 

C o l u m n 

Columnist Matt Sheehan discusses a collaborative, complimentary system 

for web, mobile, desktop and complimentary apps. 

Remember the dot com boom in the 90’s, 

when the Internet went from being a tool 

only known to academics to ubiquity. We 

all began feverishly buying computers, 

and installing Web browsers to access 

network based applications. The world of GIS was 

then a world filled with desktop nerds working with 

ArcInfo, ArcMap and the like. With Esri getting wind 

of this new shift to networked computing the IMS 

products were released; we remember fondly 

MapObjects IMS and ArcIMS. Using the Internet 

we began to be able to build networked GIS apps 

which allowed developers to share with everybody 

interactive maps. 

Exciting times indeed. But for those developing 

Internet GIS apps there were two major frustrations: 

1) Geo-data was hard to find; in particular base 

maps. 

2) There were no good API’s or tools for developers 

to use. Many older developers remember well building 

Internet GIS applications from scratch in Flash; 

cool output which took an age to build. For those 

unfamiliar with API’s, these are the building blocks 

for developing applications, they make the process 

easier. In the same way as constructing a car is the 

process of combining pre-built components; wheels, 

engine etc., this is the same process developers walk 

through to build an application. Imagine how long 

and painful car making would be if you had to build 

every component - wheel, engine - from scratch! 

Then along came Google. Gobs of data and API’s 

galore. Suddenly the world changed; slippy maps, 

easy to find data and no more reinventing the wheel 

when it came to coding. It was a joyous time. But 

for those of us in the GIS world, we were between 

a rock and a hard place; Google Maps was not 

GIS. Esri were shocked into action. The mid 2000’s 

was Google catch up time. Then came the cloud 

and mobile. 

The cloud provided server based services hosted by 

third party organizations. What does that mean in 

English? That organisations no longer need to host, 

maintain and configure services and servers in house. 

No set up, no load balancing and 24x7 access to 

data and apps. And mobile; access to this data and 

these apps from anywhere at any time. No longer 

were we limited to office or home based computing. 

Together mobile and the cloud have set the stage for 

a new paradigm, as impactful as the Internet. 

The Cloud and ArcGIS Online 

So now we can interact with data in 3 ways; via 

home and office PC’s using the Web and desktop 

applications respectively, and from mobile devices. 

For GIS this means different tools for different uses. 

Before we delve deeper here, let’s step back and 

discuss again the cloud. For those using Esri software, 

it is now possible to have ArcGIS Server hosted 

and maintained by the third part organisations 

in the cloud; all that is required is a license and 

monthly hosting fee. But, an organisation still needs 

experts familiar with ArcGIS Server to publish data. 

Now suppose this process was made simpler. 

Suppose publishing geo-data needed no special 

skills; imagine data being published in ArcGIS 

Server without the need to directly interact with 

Server. Welcome ArcGIS Online. 

Web, Mobile and Desktop and 

Complimentary Apps 

Using ArcGIS Online as the central platform, for 

storage and access to data, let’s look at collaboration 

using mobile, Web and desktop applications. 

Imagine a team of field workers. They each have 

iPads with an installed mobile ArcGIS Online editing 

app. Their task is to collect point data based on 

current location, to edit the attributes of each point 

and add an image attachment to the new point feature. 

When done, each new point feature is uploaded 

and stored in a (hosted feature) service in ArcGIS 

Online. Next an office based GIS analyst, through 

ArcMap 10.1, now has access directly to this new 

data. She can perform analysis on this and other 

organisational data. Finally, an executive loads a 

Web application in his browser. He is presented 

with a dashboard, which allows him to view this 

data, search and query based on specific criteria, 

and visualize the data in map, or chart form to better 

see patterns and help with decision making. This 

is truly a collaborative, complimentary system. One 

day in the not too distant future we will wonder how 

we ever used GIS in the isolated vertical way we 

use it today. 

Matt Sheehan is Principal and Senior 

Developer at WebmapSolutions. 

The company build location focused 

mobile applications for GIS, mapping 

and location based services (LBS). 

Matt can be reached at 

matt@webmapsolutions.com. 


50 

C a l e n d a r 2 0 1 3 / A d v e r t i s e r s I n d e x 

May 

28 May FME World Tour 2013 

Hong Kong 

Internet: www.gis.com.my/fme2013.php 


Brussels, Belgium 

E-mail: kristin@gim.be 

Internet: www.gim.be 

29-31 May UDMS 2013, 29TH Urban Data 

Management Symposium 

University College London, London, U.K. 

E-mail: info@udms.net 

Internet: www.udms.net 


Malmö, Sweden 

E-mail: mikael.mansson@sweco.se 

Internet: www.fmedagarna.se 

June 

03 June UAVveek 2013 

Siegen, Germany 

E-mail: info@hauspatmos.de 

Internet: www.microdrones.com/UAVveek/civil/index. 

php?goback=%2Egde_2938051_member_212842569 

06-07 June 4th EARSeL Workshop on Natural and 

Cultural Heritage 

Matera, Italy 

Internet: www.earsel.org/SIG/NCH/4thworkshop/index.php 

06-07 June 6th EARSeL Workshop on Remote 

Sensing of the Coastal Zone 

Matera, Italy 

Internet: www.earsel.org/SIG/CZ/6th-w orkshop/ 

index.php 

08-09 June State of the Map US 

Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco, CA, 

U.S.A. 

Internet: http://stateofthemap.us 

10 June OpenStreetMap Professional Large Users 

Summit 

Marriott Union Square, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A. 

Internet: http://osm.co 

11 June FME World Tour 2013 

Vienna, Austria 

Internet: www.axmann.at/fme_world_tour_2013.en. 

114.htm 


Belo Horizonte, Brazil 

Internet: http://inovacaogis.com.br/index.php?option= 

com_content&view=article&id=170&Itemid=366&lang=pt 

18-20 June MundoGEO#Connect LatinAmerica 

2013 

São Paulo, Brasil 

Internet: http://mundogeoconnect.com 

21-22 June 3rd WhereCamp Berlin 2013, Geo- 

”Unconference” 

Beuth University, Berlin, Germany 

Internet: www.wherecamp.de 

23-27 June INSPIRE Conference 2013 

Florence, Italy 

Internet: http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/events/conferences/inspire_2013 

25-26 June MapInfo Professional Foundation Level 

Training Course 

CDR Group, Hope, Derbyshire, U.K. 

E-mail: sales@cdrgroup.co.uk 

Internet: www.cdrgroup.co.uk/train_mi2info.htm 

25-27 June ILSC 2013, 3rd Imaging and Lidar 

Solutions Conference 

Holiday Inn Toronto Yorkdale, Toronto, Canada 

Internet: www.optech.com/ilsc2013 

2 5-27 June RIEGL International Airborne, Mobile, 

Terrestrial, and Industrial User Conference 2013 

Marriott, Vienna, Austria 

E-mail: userconference2013@rieglusa.com 

Internet: www.riegl.com 

03-06 June Hexagon 2013 (ERDAS, Intergraph, 

Leica, Metrology) 

Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A. 

Internet: http://2012.hexagonconference.com 

03-06 June 33rd EARSeL Symposium “Towards 

Horizon 2020: Earth Observation and Social 

Perspectives” 

Matera, Italy 

Internet: www.earsel.org/symposia/2013-symposium- 

Matera or www.earsel.org/welcome.html 

03-07 June 11th Vespucci Institute “Ontologies 

and models for integrated assessments of multiple-scale 

processes” 

Fiesole, Italy 

E-mail: info@vespucci.org 

Internet: www.vespucci.org 

04 June 4th EARSeL Workshop on Remote Sensing 

in Education and Training 

Matera, Italy 

Internet: www.earsel.org/SIG/ET/4th-workshop/index.php 


Barcelona, Spain 

E-mail: fme@conterra.de 

Internet: www.fme-wt.es 


Sao Paolo, Brazil 




Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 




Madrid, Spain 


Internet: www.fme-wt.es 

11-12 June MapInfo Professional Advanced Level 





12-13 June Geointelligence India 2013 

New Delhi, India 

E-mail: info@geointelligenceindia.org 

Internet: http://geointelligenceindia.org 

12-14 June FOSSGIS 2013 

Gelände der HSR Hochschule für Technik, Rapperswil, 

Switzerland 

Internet: www.fossgis.de/konferenz/2013 


Brasilia, Brazil 



13-14 June FARO 3D Documentation User Meeting 

2013 

Strasbourg Convention and Conference Centre, 

Strasbourg, France 

E-mail: Stefanie.Meier@faroeurope.com 

Internet: http://user-meeting.faro.com 

16-22 June 13th International Multidisciplinary 

Scientific GeoConference & EXPO SGEM2013 

Albena Resort & SPA, Bulgaria 

E-mail: sgem@sgem.org 

Internet: www.sgem.org 

17 June FMEdays 2013 

Berlin, Germany 


Internet: www.fmedays.de/index_en.shtm 

17-21 June FMEdays 2013 

ABION Hotel, Berlin, Germany 


Internet: www.fme-days.com 

July 

02-05 July GI_Forum 2013 

Salzburg, Austria 

Internet: www.gi-forum.org 

07-11 July The 9th European Conference on 

Precision Agriculture 

Lleida, Catalonia, Spain 

Internet: www.ecpa2013.udl.cat/registration_acomodation.html 

08-12 July Esri International User Conference 

San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, U.S.A. 

Internet: www.esri.com/events 

23-24 July MapInfo Professional Foundation Level 





August 

13-14 August MapInfo Professional Foundation 

Level Training Course 




25-29 August SPIE Optics + Photonics 2013 

San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA, U.S.A. 

Internet: http://spie.org/optics-photonics.xml?WT.mc_ - 

id=RCal-OPW 

25-30 August 26th International Cartographic 

Conference 

Dresden, Germany 

E-mail: manfred.buchroithner@tu-dresden.de 

Internet: www.icc2013.org 

Please feel free to e-mail your calendar notices to: calendar@geoinformatics.com 

Advertisers Index 

DATEM Systems www.datem.com 24 

ERDAS www.erdas.com 21 

Esri www.esri.com 51 

European Space Imaging www.euspaceimaging.com 2 

Global Geo Supplies www.soft-mouse-3D.com 13 

GSDI Afrika www.gsdi.org 41 

Intergeo www.intergeo.de 39 

Leica Geosystems www.leica-geosystems.com 52 

Microsoft UltraCam www.UltraCamOsprey.com 25 

Optech www.optech.com 9 

Racurs www.racurs.ru/France2013 30 

Riegl www.riegllidar.com 33 

Topcon www.topcon.eu 17 


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