September 2010 Volume 13 - Webtraders

Interviewafter three successful days. Istanbul,as the only city in the world thatspans two continents geographically,managed to enable building of newbridges in geomatics and geospatialbusiness. Please, share with ourreaders your fresh impressions ofthis event and its effect on yourbusiness.Our outreach efforts to universities andtechnical high schools are integral part of ourcompany’s vision, since we have been doinglong-term planning. We are in continuing contactand discussions with instructors and studentsin several educational programs relatedto geospatial study. We also support themwith hardware and software tools either forfree or at a very low cost. In addition to ourwork with universities, we also develop relationswith worthy councils and institutes thatmay benefit from our help. Depending on theneed, we may assign our staff to develop softwaretools or to train their staff.We have been supporting the Middle EastTechnical University, which is the leading engineeringscience university in Turkey. Our supporthere ranges from lending GPS receiversfor field applications to providing softwaretraining in lab sessions, and in lectures relatedto spatial information systems.Promark 500 Field TestQ: The global process of transitionfrom “old-style” national coordinatereference systems to new ITRSbasednational coordinate referencesystems is in various phases in alarge number of countries worldwide.How far has Turkey come inthis regard, and what are the crucialGNSS-related considerations andpossible dangers in this process oftransition?Transition to a new coordinate system isnot a very big issue in Turkey. Since 2000,new maps have been produced in the newcoordinate system by most of the major organizations,thanks to a well-established newnetwork of ground control points. However,of course, old maps need to be converted intothe new coordinate system. TUSAGA AKTIF, theTurkish CORS network, will help us to do so.It’s really positive for us as this means thatwe will continue selling more and more of theAshtech ProMark 500 network rover. TheProMark 500 GNSS receivers are greatlyappreciated by our land survey customers;they deliver reliable high-precision RTK positioningeven in difficult environments.Q: INTERGEO East geospatial tradefair and conference for land management,geoinformation, the buildingindustry and the environment cameto an end in Istanbul on 21st May,INTERGEO has justifiably become thefamous worldwide fair for geospatial technologies.Because this event is not organizedby a chamber with a special interest, itremains neutral and builds bridges among allcommunities with a stake in geospatial andearth measurement. This broad and receptivescope is important because it encourages visitorswith different profiles, which helps us allby enlarging our businesses. In particular, theIstanbul conference confirmed a growing interestin professional GNSS mapping devices,such as the MobileMapper for large GIS datacollection campaigns. We also met many surveyorslooking to move to high-end RTK GNSSsolutions, such as the ProMark 500 roverswhich are compatible with the TUSAGA AKTIFreal-time corrections network. We were veryhappy to host such an important organizationin Turkey. I hope every visitor enjoyed theirtrip to Istanbul, a historically unique city inthe world. Turkey is like a translator betweenthe developing and developed countries,helping each of us to understand the other.We are well-positioned to help in this effort,since we have, in a relatively short time, experiencedso many of the steps toward development;that helps us to see the whole picture.Joc Triglav jtriglav@geoinformatics.comis editor of GeoInformatics. Geomatics Harita:www.gpsturk.netIntergeoTraining8September 2010