GEOmedia 3 2017

Rivista bimestrale - anno XXI - Numero 3/2017 - Sped. in abb. postale 70% - Filiale di Roma 

LAND CARTOGRAPHY 

GIS 

CADASTRE 

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION 

PHOTOGRAMMETRY 

3D 

SURVEY TOPOGRAPHY 

CAD 

BIM 

EARTH OBSERVATION SPACE 

WEBGIS 

UAV 

URBAN PLANNING 

CONSTRUCTION 

LBS 

SMART CITY 

GNSS 

ENVIRONMENT 

NETWORKS 

LiDAR 

CULTURAL HERITAGE 

Mag/Giu 2017 anno XXI N°3 

La prima rivista italiana di geomatica e geografia intelligente 

Numero 

dedicato a 

INTERGEO 2017 

completamente 

in Inglese 

Emerging 

Technologies 

the digital revolution around and above us 

NEW TRENDS IN 

GEOMATICS 

IMPROVING RESILIENCE TO 

EMERGENCIES 

VGI AND MAPPING IN 

EMERGENCY

(c) 2017, Trimble Inc. All rights reserved. GEO-140 (05/17) 

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TRANSFORMING THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS

20 years of GEOmedia 

I would like to remember to our readers that GEOmedia started in Italy more than twenty years 

ago, while the revolution of Geomatics was approaching to the field of interest and development 

of topography, remote sensing and photogrammetry. At the same time the University of Calgary in 

Canada began the first course and experimental programs on innovation of geomatics engineering 

in the world. 

We are proud to announce in this publishing, completely in English to celebrate the INTERGEO 

Fair in Berlin, the start of the first Italian MSc in Geoinformatics engineering at the “Politecnico di 

Milano”, about what you’ll read inside our papers, among the others, specifically in the short article 

by Ludovico Biagi. 

During last years GEOmedia, the Italian magazine on Geomatics, occasionally accepted for 

publication English insert or special issue, especially when the review has been regarding papers for 

the annual trade INTERGEO, the global hub of geospatial Community. 

GEOSPATIAL 4.0, BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING, BIG DATA, SMART 

CITIES, OPEN DATA are among the INTERGEO’S important issues we all need to address. 

At today the geo industry is claimed as one of the sectors with the biggest shortage of skilled labour, 

moreover the request to recruit competent young professionals is growing mainly in the public 

interest. In INTERGEO event the employers and the skilled professionals are together with many 

geo-technology experts of the public services, to explain this changing world to young workers. 

Europe needs not only good recruitment strategies, but also new ideas to overcome bottleneck 

problems and meet the needs of an ageing workforce. 

In the very next future we’ll need both spatial data analysts and geodesists. INTERGEO 2017 is an 

inspirational experience and surely an initiative that will give us new insights. 

For this GEOmedia, now as official media partner of the event, is in the distribution desk of the 

Conference Hall, for dissemination of the Italian knowledge and experience in the geospatial field, 

that we consider as one of the main cornerstone for land management, territory, environment and 

development of our smart (historic) cities. 

The Italian contribution to Geomatics has a long tradition for advancing purposes in the field of 

topography, photogrammetry, remote sensing and mapping. Floods, marine coasts, hydrogeological 

hazards, volcanic and earthquake risk monitoring and management are at the daily information 

of the citizens and attention of all people involved in the organizations appointed. Across a fragile 

territory to be protected, rich of Monuments, Sites and Archaeological remains, we extend a field 

where the Geomatics methods and technologies are almost indispensable and so necessary. 

For this aim too, some years ago we imagine Archeomatica, a magazine oriented to a wide 

dissemination of changing technologies for Cultural Heritage throughout the times. The 

internationalization of Archeomatica is one of our future goal for which we hope to excite all the 

interest we can among our readers so as to get additional collaborations. 

Enjoy your reading, 

Renzo Carlucci

In this 

issue... 

FOCUS 

REPORT 

COLUMNS 

36 NEWS 

New Trends in 

Geomatics, in the Era 

of Lowcost Sensors, 

Free and Open 

Source Software and 

HPC GeoBigData 

infrastructures 

by Roberta Ravanelli, Martina 

Di Rita, Valeria Belloni, 

Andrea Nascetti, Augusto 

Mazzoni, Mattia Crespi 

6 

46 AGENDA 

The image on the background is 

a Sentinel-2A satellite taken over 

the peninsulas and islands of the 

Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar. 

With a length of over 2200 

km, the Irrawaddy River is the 

country's largest, flowing northto-south 

before fanning out into 

the delta and emptying into the 

Andaman Sea. 

Evident by the brown colour of 

the rivers and streams, sediments 

carried by the water are deposited 

in the delta. These deposits make 

the area very fertile, and the accumulation 

of deposits over time 

causes the coastline to advance. 

Owing to the rich soils, the region 

is the country’s largest rice producer. 

This image was captured in 

March 2017 after the harvesting 

season but before the planting, so 

bare ground appears beige. 

This image, also featured on the 

ESA Earth from Space video programme, 

combines two acquisitions 

by the Copernicus Sentinel- 

2A satellite in March 2017 

On the cover image of Autonomous 

Driving. Significant advancements 

in satellite-based positioning are 

contributing to the development of 

better transport services and new 

applications for safe transport and 

smart mobility. With its flexibility, fast 

growing capability, low infrastructure 

costs and long-term sustainable use, 

GNSS is an important asset in the 

design of new Intelligent Transport 

System (ITS) infrastructures. 

Significant advancements in satellitebased 

positioning are contributing to 

the development of better transport 

services and new applications for safe 

transport and smart mobility. With 

its flexibility, fast growing capability, 

low infrastructure costs and longterm 

sustainable use, GNSS is an 

important asset in the design of new 

Intelligent Transport System (ITS) 

infrastructures. 

12 

18 

Emerging 

Technologies: the 

digital revolution 

around and above us 

by Marco Lisi 

Improving 

Resilience to 

Emergencies 

through 

Advanced Cyber 

Technologies: the 

I-REACT project 

by Claudia Maltoni, Claudio 

Rossi, Guzmán Sánchez 

geomediaonline.it 

GEOmedia, published bi-monthly, is the Italian magazine for 

geomatics. Since 20 years is publishing to open a worldwide 

window to the Italian market and viceversa. Themes are on 

latest news, developments and applications in the complex 

field of earth surface sciences. GEOmedia dial with all activities 

relating to the acquisition, processing, querying, analysis, 

presentation, dissemination, management and use of geo-data 

and geo-information. The magazine covers subjects such as 

surveying, environment, mapping, GNSS systems, GIS, Earth 

Observation, Geospatial Data, BIM, UAV and 3D technologies.

ADVERTISERS 

3D Target 45 

AerRobotix 38 

26 

The new MSc in 

Geoinformatics 

Engineering at 

Politecnico di 

Milano 

by Ludovico Biagi 

Aeronike 23 

Codevintec 34 

E-geos 24 

Epsilon Italia 37 

Esri Italia 39 

Geogrà 41 

Geomax 29 

INTERGEO 35 

ME.S.A 17 

Planetek Italia 48 

Stonex 40 

VGI and crisis 30 

mapping in an 

emergency situation 

by Lucia Saganeiti, Federico 

Amato, Gabriele Nolè, 

Survey Lab 44 

TECHNOLOGY for ALL 36 

Teorema 46 

Topcon 47 

Trimble 2 

Beniamino Murgante 

42 

Rheticus: Dynamic 

and continuous 

geoinformation 

service for critical 

infrastructure 

and enviromental 

monitoring 

VERTISER 

by Giuseppe Forenza 

Chief Editor 

RENZO CARLUCCI, direttore@rivistageomedia.it 

Editorial Board 

Vyron Antoniou, Fabrizio Bernardini, Mario Caporale, 

Luigi Colombo, Mattia Crespi, Luigi Di Prinzio, 

Michele Dussi, Michele Fasolo, Marco Lisi, Flavio Lupia, 

Beniamino Murgante, Aldo Riggio, Mauro Salvemini, 

Domenico Santarsiero, Attilio Selvini, Donato Tufillaro 

Managing Director 

FULVIO BERNARDINI, fbernardini@rivistageomedia.it 

Editorial Staff 

VALERIO CARLUCCI, GIANLUCA PITITTO, 

redazione@rivistageomedia.it 

Marketing Assistant 

TATIANA IASILLO, diffusione@rivistageomedia.it 

Account manager 

ALFONSO QUAGLIONE, marketing@rivistageomedia.it 

Design 

DANIELE CARLUCCI, dcarlucci@rivistageomedia.it 

MediaGEO soc. coop. 

Via Palestro, 95 00185 Roma 

Tel. 06.64871209 - Fax. 06.62209510 

info@rivistageomedia.it 

ISSN 1128-8132 

Reg. Trib. di Roma N° 243/2003 del 14.05.03 

Stampa: SPADAMEDIA srl 

VIA DEL LAVORO 31, 00043 CIAMPINO (ROMA) 

Publisher: mediaGEO società cooperativa 

Science & Technology Communication 

Paid Science subscriptions 

& Technology Communication 

GEOmedia is available bi-monthly on a subscription basis. 

The annual subscription rate is € 45. It is possible to subscribe 

at any time via https://geo4all.it/abbonamento. The cost of one 

issue is € 9 €, for the previous issue the cost is € 12 €. Prices and 

conditions may be subject to change. 

Magazine founded by: Domenico Santarsiero. 

Issue closed on: 20/08/2017.

FOCUS 

New Trends in Geomatics, in the Era of Lowcost 

Sensors, Free and Open Source Software 

and HPC GeoBigData infrastructures 

by Roberta Ravanelli, Martina Di Rita, Valeria Belloni, Andrea Nascetti, Augusto Mazzoni, Mattia Crespi 

This review briefly presents some 

methodologies and applications developed at 

the Geodesy and Geomatics Division (DICEA) of 

University of Rome “La Sapienza”. 

Directly related to the current and increasing 

availability of new and innovative software and 

hardware, they are already ready for industrial 

applications and hopefully can broaden the 

interaction between Geomatics and other 

scientific and technological disciplines. 

Fig. 1 - Real-time tracked movements with VADASE using GALILEO E1 observations acquired 

by a low-cost single frequency receiver with a patch antenna 

The present and continuously 

increasing 

availability of more 

and more low-cost sensors (in 

the frame of the Internet of 

Things (IoT)), Free and Open 

Source Software (FOSS) and 

High Performance Computing 

(HPC) infrastructures for 

managing GeoBigData has 

obviously a strong impact in 

Geomatics. The availability of 

these hardware and software 

tools enables both to develop 

new applications but also to 

stimulate new challenging 

investigations related to the 

modeling of the observations 

supplied by these sensors, in 

the well known circular fashion 

between science and technology 

(Sansò and Crespi, 2015). 

Exploiting GALILEO for realtime 

displacements detection 

with low-cost single frequency 

receivers 

In last years, mainly thanks to 

their low cost, single frequency 

GNSS receivers started to be 

used in many applications. 

Evaluation kits, based on this 

kind of hardware, are nowadays 

available at few hundreds of 

Euros. Most of them are able 

to collect code and phase single 

frequency observations not 

only from GPS systems but also 

from other GNSS constellations 

like GLONASS, GALILEO 

and BEIDOU. 

On a technical point of view, 

these kits are quite easily usable 

and it is possible to set them 

up in order to broadcast both 

real-time streams (for real time 

precise positioning application) 

and collected observations in 

RINEX format (for post processing 

analysis). 

Our research group carried 

out many experiments on this 

topic. In particular, we investigated 

also through low-cost 

receivers the potentialities of 

GALILEO system, starting 

from the very first availability 

of GALILEO signals. Thanks 

to these research, the VADASE 

team was awarded by ESA on 

1st April 2014 as one of the 

first 50 users worldwide able 

to get a “fix” with GALILEO 

system (Branzanti et al., 2014). 

Through the application of 

the VADASE variometric approach 

(Benedetti et al., 2015), 

we managed to reconstruct the 

movement of a low-cost NVS 

patch antenna, suitably fixed 

to a bike wheel, processing E1 

phase observations in a realtime 

scenario, achieving 1 cm 

accuracy; this experiment clearly 

showed the relevant potential 

of the low-cost single frequency 

receivers for real-time movements 

detection (Fig. 1). 

Moreover, many tests were performed 

in order to evaluate the 

potentialities of low-cost single 

frequency receivers also in 

Network Real Time Kinematic 

(NRTK) positioning. It was 

demonstrated that, using u- 

Blox receiver with GPS, it is 

possible to achieve fixing times 

6 GEOmedia n°3-2017

FOCUS 

(less than a minute) and accuracies 

(few centimetres) not so far 

to double frequency approach, 

provided good surveying conditions 

(full sky visibility, stable 

and reliable Virtual Reference 

Station augmentation needed 

to handle ionospheric delays 

through double differentiation 

with very short baselines) 

are guaranteed and an external 

topographic antenna is used. 

The contribution of GALILEO 

E1 observations in NRTK 

positioning is currently under 

investigation. 

Finally, in the last months, a 

focus on GPS and GALILEO 

interoperability with VADASE 

was undertaken. VADASE 

routines have been extended to 

make it possible to use GPS and 

GALILEO phase observations in 

a twin fashion mode: independent 

solutions or staked observations 

combined solutions. Some 

tests have been carried out in 

collaboration with the University 

of Trento (Tesolin et al., 2017) 

using u-Blox receivers. 

Also in this application, results 

are very promising, paving 

the way to a wider use of single 

frequency receivers also as 

multi-constellation low-cost 

permanent stations. For these 

purposes a single frequency 

low cost GNSS permanent 

station, named LOW1 (Fig. 

2), has been installed and activated 

at the Faculty of Civil 

and Industrial Engineering 

- University of Rome “La 

Sapienza”. Single frequency 

observations are routinely collected 

and archived at 1Hz observation 

rate since doy 100 of 

2017; all the data are available 

to the scientific community. 

3D Modelling of 

Archaeological Small Finds by 

Low-Cost Range Cameras 

Nowadays 3D models may play 

a key role in archaeology and 

cultural heritage management 

in general, since they can easily 

provide answers to scientific 

needs in the field of conservation, 

monitoring, restoration 

and mediation of architectural, 

archaeological and cultural heritage. 

It is thus essential to identify 

new techniques, capable of 

easily providing low-cost and 

real-time 3D models of cultural 

heritage objects, with the required 

accuracy. Range cameras 

can give a valuable contribute 

to achieve this goal: they are active 

imaging sensors, low-cost 

and easy-to-use, able to natively 

measure the distances of several 

points at high frame rate 

(30 - 60 Hz) and can be used 

as 3D scanners to easily collect 

dense point clouds practically 

in real time. Furthermore, 

Simultaneous Localization And 

Mapping (SLAM) algorithms, 

such as KinectFusion (Izadi et 

al., 2011; Newcombe et al., 

2011) leverage the depth data 

and the high frame rate that 

range cameras offer, in order to 

fuse the depth maps captured 

from different view points as 

soon as they are acquired. In 

this way, through the use of 

user-friendly scanning apps 

(through Augmented Reality, 

the 3D model appears in real 

time on the tablet/smartphone 

connected to the device, guiding 

the user during the scanning), 

range cameras can collect 

Fig. 2 - Low-cost GPS permanent station LOW1 

easily and practically in real 

time the overall 3D model of 

the scanned scene. In addition, 

such sensors are continually 

evolving and they will be soon 

integrated in consumer grade 

smart devices, enabling their 

use together with other sensors. 

Thanks to all these features, 

nowadays this technology is sufficiently 

ripe to play an important 

role for modelling archaeological 

objects. Indeed, range 

cameras can be easily used for 

documenting small finds, thus 

representing a valid alternative 

to the often time consuming 

traditional techniques, and 

preserving at the same time the 

mental energy of archaeologists 

for the study and interpretation 

of the artefacts discovered during 

excavations. 

Therefore, our research group 

has investigated the 3D modelling 

capabilities of a promising 

low-cost range camera, 

the Structure Sensor TM by 

Occipital TM for rapid modelling 

Fig. 3 - Comparison 

between the model of a 

globular jug obtained 

with the Structure 

Sensor and with 

photogram-metry: the 

first can be easily 

obtained in real-time by 

a not ex-pert user 

(archaeolo-gist, etc.), the 

second required a high 

level of competence for 

processing the im-ages 

with a dedicate software 

(Cypro-Phoenician juglets 

from Achzi b ( Inv. 

M677 ; courtesy Museum 

VOEM , Sapienza 

University of Rome). 

GEOmedia n°3-2017 7

FOCUS 

Fig. 4 - Example of measurements that can be taken on models (in meters). Canaanite Jar from the 

Necropolis of Bardhaa (BL1536, Al-Bad Giacaman Museum, Bethlehem - Palestine : Nigro et al. 

2017, fig. 42) 

archaeological objects, in order 

to assess the metric quality of 

their 3D geometry reconstruction 

(research group of Prof. 

Nigro, Ravanelli et al., 2016, 

2017a, 2017c). In general, the 

performed analysis shows that 

Structure Sensor is capable to 

acquire the 3D geometry of a 

small object with an accuracy 

comparable at millimeter level 

to that obtainable with the 

more traditional photogrammetric 

method, even though 

the finer details are not always 

correctly modelled (Fig. 3). The 

obtained results are therefore 

very promising, showing that 

the range camera used for this 

work, due to its low-cost and 

flexibility, is a suitable tool for 

the rapid documentation of 

archaeological small finds, especially 

when not expert users are 

involved. 

Finally, it is worth underlining 

that a “geomatic” 3D model, 

showing therefore a geometry 

with a real metric, provides 

all the necessary information 

to completely describe the 

archaeological small finds. 

Furthermore, it allows to take a 

posteriori in depth measurements, 

such as the volume 

computation and section 

visualization (Fig. 4). 

Digital Image Correlation 

Software for Displacement 

Field Measurement in 

Structural Monitoring 

Applications 

Recently, there has been a growing 

interest in studying noncontact 

techniques for strain 

and displacement measurement 

in structural monitoring applications. 

For this reason, a free 

and open source 2D Digital 

Image Correlation (DIC) 

software, named py2DIC and 

completely written in Python, 

was developed at the Geodesy 

and Geomatics Division of 

DICEA, University of Rome 

"La Sapienza" (Ravanelli et al., 

2017b). 

In particular, DIC is the term 

used in structural engineering 

applications to refer to the 

well-known template matching 

method, generally used in 

photogrammetry and computer 

vision to retrieve homologous 

points. DIC is indeed an optical 

technique able to measure 

full field displacements and 

to evaluate the corresponding 

strain field, by comparing 

digital images of the surface of 

a material sample at different 

stages of deformation. 

The potentialities of py2DIC 

were investigated by processing 

the images captured during 

a tensile test performed in the 

Lab of Structural Engineering, 

where three different Glass Fiber 

Reinforced Polymer samples 

were subjected to a controlled 

tension by means of a universal 

testing machine. 

The results, compared with the 

values independently measured 

by several strain gauges fixed on 

the samples, denote the possibility 

to successfully characterize 

the deformation mechanism of 

the analyzed material (Fig.s 5 

and 6). Py2DIC is indeed able 

to compute displacements at 

few microns level, in reasonable 

agreement with the reference, 

both in terms of displacements 

(again, at few microns in the 

average) and Poisson's module 

(Fig. 7). 

Fig. 5 - Comparison between the vertical displacements obtained by the py2DIC software and the strain gauges measurements 


FOCUS 

Fig. 6 - Comparison between the horizontal displacements obtained by the py2DIC software and the strain gauges measurements 

A New and Unified Approach 

for Digital Surface Models 

generation from optical and 

SAR satellite imagery: DATE 

FOSS4G 

By now, satellites are overwhelmingly 

present in our daily 

life, for a big variety of different 

services and applications 

(weather report, navigation system, 

Earth observation, ect.). In 

particular, remote sensing data 

obtained from space, complement 

and complete Earth-based 

measurements: they are essential 

if a global view of our Earth is 

required. 

One of the most important 

applications of remote sensing, 

is the generation of Digital 

Surface Models (DSMs), that 

have a large relevance in many 

engineering, environmental, 

surveying, Earth sciences, 

safety and security applications. 

DSMs can be derived 

with different approaches, the 

stereoscopic approach, starting 

from satellite images, is a wellestablished 

one. Every day, a big 

amount of images are acquired 

by the thousands of satellites 

orbiting around the Earth, creating 

a multi-view and multitemporal 

bunch of images, 

that allow to obtain redundant 

information for monitoring and 

analysing our world. 

The development of a Free and 

Open Source Software (FOSS), 

able to generate DSMs from 

such satellite images, is therefore 

a topic of great interest. In 

the framework of 2014 Google 

Summer of Code, our research 

group developed DATE, a 

Free and Open Source for 

Geospatial (FOSS4G), having 

as early purpose a fully automatic 

DSMs generation from 

high resolution optical satellite 

imagery acquired by the most 

common sensors (Di Rita et al., 

2017a, 2017b). Nowadays, it 

is also able to exploit Synthetic 

Aperture Radar (SAR) images 

Fig. 7 - Comparison between the Poisson’s ratio obtained by the py2DIC software and the 

strain gauges measurements 

for radargrammetric applications 

(Di Rita et al., 2016). As 

a matter of fact, SAR satellite 

systems may give important 

contribution in terms of Digital 

Surface Models (DSMs) generation 

considering their complete 

independence from logistic 

constraints on the ground and 

weather conditions (Nascetti et 

al., 2015). In recent years, the 

new availability of very high 

resolution SAR data (up to 20 

cm Ground Sample Distance) 

gave a new impulse to radargrammetry 

and allowed new 

applications and developments 

(Capaldo et al., 2011). 

The main idea behind DATE, 

is to overcome the issues related 

to epipolar resampling 

for satellite images, for which 

epipolar geometry achievement 

is not straightforward (Di Rita, 

2017): epipolarity is achieved 

in the object space (Ground 

quasi-Epipolar Imagery (GrEI)) 

(Fig. 8) thanks to the images 

ground projection. Moreover, 

DATE key features include also 

the capability to handle a large 

amount of data since it manages 

to process different images in a 

sequential and totally automatic 

way; the use of computer vision 

algorithms in order to improve 

the processing efficiency and 

make the DSMs generation 

process fully automatic; the free 

and open source aspect of the 

developed code (https://github. 


FOCUS 

com/martidi/opencv_dsm/tree/ 

imageStack). An innovative 

approach based on a coarseto-fine 

pyramidal scheme is 

adopted to take advantage of 

iterative solutions at gradually 

increasing resolution in order 

to refine the epipolarity constrain 

between the image pair: 

raw satellite images resolution 

is initially reduced by a downsampling 

factor, then these 

sampled images are projected 

in a ground geometry using an 

a-priori (freely available and 

even coarse) DSM, in order to 

generate orthorectified images 

with a transversal parallax error 

below the initial reduced 

resolution. These orthorectified 

images can act as GrEI and can 

undergo a dense image matching 

procedure at the chosen 

reduced resolution, obtaining 

the initial DSM corresponding 

to the first pyramidal level; this 

DSM becomes the input for 

the next pyramidal level. 

The achievable results are good 

in terms of statistical parameters, 

and they are comparable 

with those obtained through 

different software (even commercial) 

by other authors on 

the same test sites, whereas in 

terms of efficiency DATE outperforms 

most of them. 

Google Earth Engine potentials 

and capabilities for 

GeoBigData management and 

analysis 

Google Earth Engine (GEE) 

is a computing platform recently 

released by Google “for 

petabyte-scale scientific analysis 

and visualization of geospatial 

datasets” (Google Earth Engine 

Team, 2015). The GEE can be 

used to run geospatial analysis 

using a dedicated HPC infrastructure. 

GEE enable users to 

access geospatial information 

and satellite imagery, for global 

and large scale remote sensing 

applications. The free and 

public data archive includes 

more than 30 years of historical 

imagery and scientific datasets, 

daily updated and expanded: 

it contains over than two petabytes 

of geospatial data instantly 

available for analysis. 

The main idea behind GEE 

is that, also for the analysis of 

satellite and geospatial data, we 

are now moving towards the 

Big Data paradigm and consequently 

it is necessary to change 

the processing way from the 

standard procedure “bring data 

to users” to the opposite “bring 

users to data”: as a matter of 

fact, users can directly upload 

algorithms to the dedicated 

infrastructure removing the 

required time for data transfer 

and allowing the development 

of innovative applications. The 

platform supports generation 

of spatial and temporal mosaics, 

satellite imagery composites 

without clouds and gaps, as well 

as a variety of spectral indices, 

and can also be expanded and 

modified by the user even for 

customized applications (Pekel 

et al., 2016; Donchyts et al., 

Fig. 8 - Comune di Fiumicino: confronto tra le sezioni di Censimento 1991 e quelle del 2001 e tra 

le sezioni di Censimento 2001 e quelle del 2011 (Fonte : Istat, Portale Cartografico Nazionale). 

2016). Indeed, GEE also includes 

an application programming 

framework that allows 

scientists to access to computational 

and data resources, to 

scale their current algorithms or 

develop new ones. 

As a significant example of 

GEE potentials, we analyzed 

the possibility to implement 

and deploy a tool for large-scale 

DSMs comparison, with a focus 

on two available free global 

DSMs (SRTM and ASTER 

GDEM) precision and accuracy, 

with respect to a more 

accurate reference DSM, that is 

the National Elevation Dataset 

(NED) for the American States, 

and a LiDAR DSM for the 

Italian region (Nascetti et al., 

2017). Over the years, several 

studies have been conducted to 

evaluate the accuracy of both 

SRTM and ASTER DSMs, 

but in most of the cases the accuracy 

has been evaluated only 

on limited areas (Colmano et 

al., 2007; Koch et al., 2001). 

The main goal of this analysis 

was to perform a more global 

assessment exploiting the potentialities 

of GEE, and to demonstrate 

its capability for a nearly-global 

assessment of SRTM 

and ASTER accuracy. Proper 

routines to evaluate standard 

statistical parameters to represent 

DSM precision and accuracy 

(i.e. mean, median, standard 

deviation, NMAD, LE95) 

were implemented inside the 

GEE Code Editor. Moreover, 

the routines were used to characterize 

the accuracy of the 

input DSM within different 

slope classes. The evaluation has 

been performed on five different 

wide areas: four American 

States (Colorado, Michigan, 

Nevada, Utah) and one Italian 

Region (Trentino Alto-Adige, 

Northern Italy). The selected 

areas provide different land use, 

land covers and slopes, and are 


FOCUS 

therefore suited for a comparison 

aimed at accuracy and reliability 

understanding. 

Overall, all the results achieved 

(Fig. 9 represents the results for 

Colorado) are pretty consistent 

showing a good accordance 

in their behaviour: SRTM and 

ASTER achieve almost the 

same results when compared 

both to NED and to LiDAR. 

In particular, the accuracies 

decrease with the increase of 

the slopes, with better results 

generated with SRTM for the 

first classes and, instead, a better 

behaviour shown by ASTER 

for the higher classes. This is 

due essentially to the different 

nature of the two DSMs 

(SRTM is SAR-based, ASTER 

Fig. 9 - Colorado: SRTM and ASTER assessment results 

is optical-based) and it could 

lead to make some assumptions 

about an optimum free nearlyglobal 

DSM: starting from the 

knowledge of the slope classes 

where they present a better accuracy 

with respect to the other, 

a more accurate global DSM 

can be generated as a result of 

an integration of both 

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Benedetti, E., Branzanti, M., Colosimo, G., Mazzoni, A., Crespi, M. (2015) VADASE: 

State of the Art and New Developments of a Third Way to GNSS Seismology. In: Sneeuw 

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ABSTRACT 

Nowadays, the increasing availability of low-cost sensors, Free and Open Source Software 

and High Performance Computing infrastructures allows Geomatics to widen its 

application scope, by stimulating new challenging investigations related to the modeling 

of the observations provided by these new tools. 

In this review, some methodologies and applications, developed at the Geodesy and 

Geomatics Division (DICEA) of University of Rome “La Sapienza”, are shortly presented. 

Directly related to the mentioned software and hardware new availability, they 

are already ready for industrial applications and hopefully can broaden the interaction 

between Geomatics and other scientific and technological disciplines. 

KEYWORDS 

Geomatics; Low-cost Sensors; Open Source Software; GeoBigData infrastructures 

AUTHOR 

Roberta Ravanelli, roberta.ravanelli@uniroma1.it 

Martina Di Rita, martina.dirita@uniroma1.it 

Valeria Belloni, belloni.1489430@studenti.uniroma1.it 

Andrea Nascetti , Andrea.nascetti@uniroma1.it 

Augusto Mazzoni, Augusto.mazzoni@uniroma1.it 

Mattia Crespi, Mattia.crespi@uniroma1.it 

Geodesy and Geomatics Division - DICEA - University of Rome “La Sapienza” 

via Eudossiana, 18 - 00184 Rome, Italy 

GEOmedia n°3-2017 11 

View publication stats

FOCUS 

Emerging Technologies: the digital 

revolution around and above us 

by Marco Lisi 

Fig. 1 - GNSS Multi-Constellation Scenario 

The article describes the 

main trends which are at the 

basis of the digital revolution 

affecting our society. 

Internet of Things (IoT), 

broadband and ubiquitous 

wireless communications 

(5G), ubiquitous Positioning, 

Navigation and Timing (PNT): 

they are different facets of the 

“New Digital World” ahead of 

us, characterized on one side by 

the integration and fusion of 

different technologies, aiming 

at a new, enhanced representation 

of our physical world; on 

the other side by a progressive 

dematerialization of products 

and by their transformation in 

services. 

This epochal process will also 

require a change in the way 

we approach engineering: a 

more systemic, concurrent and 

through-life perspective. 

We are at the dawn of the discovery 

of a “New World”: not 

a virtual one, but the digital 

representation, in all its minute 

details, of our physical world, 

of planet Earth. But also the 

world of manufacturing is going 

to be radically transformed, 

both in terms of organizational 

paradigms (Industry 4.0) and in 

terms of radically new technologies 

(Additive Manufacturing). 

This epochal transition is being 

triggered by four main technological 

trends: 

1. Ubiquitous Localization and 

Timing: Global Navigation 

Satellite Systems and 

other similar Positioning, 

Navigation and Timing 

(PNT) infrastructures make 

possible a very accurate localization 

in space and time 

of both people and things; 

2. Ubiquitous Sensing: from 1 

to 10 trillion sensors will be 

connected to Internet in the 

next decade (a minimum of 

140 sensors for every human 

being on the planet; 

3. Ubiquitous Connectivity: 

2.3 billion mobile broadband 

devices and 7 billion mobile 

cellular device in 2014. In 

the next years 5G will dramatically 

increase both connectivity 

and data rates; 

4. Progressive and ever detailed 

3D modeling of our surroundings. 

Enormous amounts of data are 

being collected daily and at an 

exponentially increasing rate. 

99% of them is digitized and 

50% has an associated IP address. 

We are practically going for a 

detailed digital representation 

of the world around us. It is an 

entirely New World we are facing, 

but we have not learnt yet 

how to navigate and explore it. 

Ubiquitous Localization and 

Timing 

Global Navigation Satellite 

Systems, such as GPS, 

GLONASS, Galileo and 

Beidou, constitute together a 

potentially interoperable and 

coordinated infrastructure, 

supporting in a vital way most 

industrial and economic aspects 

of our society (fig. 1). 

GPS in particular is nowadays 

considered a worldwide utility, 

tightly interconnected with all 

other critical infrastructures, 

from electric power distribution 

systems to air traffic management 

systems, from railways to 

water and oil piping networks. 

In the mind of the average user 

(but also in that of many engineers) 

the main contribution 

of GNSS’s, their true “raison 

d’être”, is in providing one’s accurate 

position and in allowing 

a reliable navigation, be it by 

Fig. 2 - the global PNT infrastructure. 


FOCUS 

car, by airplane, by train or by 

boat. 

Precise timing is understood, 

at least by engineers, as an enabling 

feature of GNSS’s and a 

very useful by-product, after 

positioning and navigation. 

The reality, as shown by studies 

performed e.g. by the US 

Department of Homeland 

Security (DHS), is that in fact 

timing is the most strategic and 

essential of the services offered 

by GNSS’s, and the one most 

affecting all critical infrastructures 

of our society. 

Non-GNSS PNT systems and 

technologies are also being developed 

worldwide. 

In the not so far future, a PNT 

system of systems, including 

GNSS and non-GNSS infrastructures, 

is likely to take 

place, while, at user receiver level, 

a fusion of data from GNSS 

and other sensors (such as inertial 

platforms, Wi-Fi, GSM, 

signals of opportunity, etc.) will 

become normal practice (fig. 2). 

Data deriving from different 

systems and platforms will 

be seamlessly “fused” at user 

receiver level, guaranteeing a 

high degree of availability and 

continuity. 

Ubiquitous Sensing 

(Internet of Things) 

The Internet of Things (IoT) 

envisions many billions of 

Internet-connected objects 

(ICOs) or "things" that can 

sense, communicate, compute, 

and potentially actuate, as well 

as have intelligence, multimodal 

interfaces, physical/virtual identities, 

and attributes. 

The IoT is likely to revolutionize 

all aspects of our society and 

daily life (fig. 3). 

Its exponential growth will 

actually imply the practical 

feasibility of an Ubiquitous 

Sensing: from 1 to 10 trillion 

sensors will be connected 

to Internet in the next decade 

(a minimum of 140 sensors 

for every human being on the 

planet). 

Ubiquitous sensing, or ubiquitous 

“geo”-sensing to emphasize 

the spatial dimension, as deriving 

from IoT and from mobile 

broadband communications, 

will mean that we will be able 

to probe, even in real time, 

the phenomena around us, the 

surrounding reality, with capabilities 

far beyond those made 

so far available by our senses. 

Enormous amounts of data will 

be available for our analyses, all 

of them referenced in space and 

time. 

Fig. 3 - IoT impacts on business and society 

Ubiquitous Connectivity (5G) 

5G, the forth coming wave in 

mobile communications, will 

realize a quantum leap towards 

the goal of ubiquitous connectivity 

(fig. 4). 

As a matter of fact, 5G will not 

simply extend in a linear way 

the capabilities of the previous 

four generations of mobile 

networks. Its dramatically enhanced 

performance in terms 

of flexibility and throughput 

will make fully feasible those 

“smart” applications and infrastructures 

that require networking, 

high data rates, real 

time processing. It is evident 

how 5G will become the natural 

complement of the IoT, its 

technological enabler (fig. 5). 

Fig. 4 - 5G infrastructure architecture. 


FOCUS 

Fig. 5 - 5G and the Internet of Things. 

Additive Manufacturing (3D 

Printing) 

Additive Manufacturing (AM, 

also known as “3D Print) 

enables the fabrication of objects 

through the deposition 

of material in order to obtain 

fit-for-purpose hardware, as 

opposed to traditional subtractive 

processes, where material 

is removed from larger, semifinished 

products (fig. 6). 

Like many new manufacturing 

processes, 3D printing arose 

from the merging of previously 

existing technologies: the 

coming together of Computer 

Aided Design (CAD), inkjet 

nozzles and automated machine 

systems. 

AM includes a large family 

of processes and technologies 

Fig. 6 - 3D printer at work 

and can be applied to a wide 

range of materials ranging from 

metals, polymers and ceramics 

but also food, living cells and 

organs. 

Today, AM is a standard manufacturing 

process in a significant 

number of industrial applications 

and high potential is 

anticipated (and in many cases 

already demonstrated) in high 

end technology sectors, including 

aerospace, turbine industries 

and medical applications. 

The increasing availability, at 

affordable prices, of 3D printers 

for personal use, is likely 

to revolutionize the world of 

manufacturing as well as that of 

retail commerce of goods: in a 

not so far future (applications 

are already available on the 

Web) people, by clicking on a 

specific product in a specialized 

catalog online, will purchase 

and download digital files allowing 

the manufacturing of 

chosen products at their own 

premises, with their personal 

3D printers. 

In this way, the progressive 

dematerialization of products, 

that has already conquered the 

music and books markets, will 

further extend to many other 

consumer goods, such as, e.g., 

housewares, toys and tools. 

As a matter of fact, in the future 

we will be exchanging and 

trading not physical goods, 

but rather their Intellectual 

Property Rights (IPR’s). 

Autonomous Driving 

Significant advancements in 

satellite-based positioning are 

contributing to the development 

of better transport services 

and new applications for safe 

transport and smart mobility. 

With its flexibility, fast growing 

capability, low infrastructure 

costs and long-term sustainable 

use, GNSS is an important 

asset in the design of new 

Intelligent Transport System 

(ITS) infrastructures. 

Smart mobility applications 

improve the efficiency, effectiveness 

and comfort of road 

transport through: 

• Navigation, the most widespread 

application, provides 

turn-by-turn information to 

drivers via portable navigation 

devices (PNDs) and invehicle 

systems (IVS). 

• Fleet management on-board 

units (OBUs) transmit GNSS 

positioning information 

through telematics to support 

transport operators in monitoring 

the performance of 

logistic activities. 

• Road traffic monitoring 

services collect floating car 

location data from vehicles 

through PNDs, IVS and mobile 

devices to be processed 

and distributed to users and 

other interested parties. 

Safety-critical applications leverage 

precise, reliable and secure 

positioning in situations posing 

potential harm to humans or 

damage to a system/environment: 

• Advanced Driver Assistance 

Systems (ADAS) support the 


FOCUS 

Fig. 7 - Autonomous Driving. 

Fig. 8 - Technology adoption curves. 

driver during the driving process 

and act as a first stepping 

stone towards Autonomous 

Vehicles. 

• In cooperative ITS and 

connected vehicles, GNSS 

positioning is a key element 

for providing situational 

awareness through vehicleto-vehicle 

(V2V) and vehicleto-infrastructure 

(V2I) communications, 

enhancing the 

safety and comfort of the 

driver. 

• Dangerous goods can be 

tracked by transmitting 

GNSS-based positioning data 

on the vehicles carrying them, 

along with other information 

about the status of the cargo. 

Liability- and payment-critical 

applications can have significant 

legal or economic consequences 

depending on positioning data: 

• In Road User Charging 

(RUC), GNSS-based solutions 

are designed to charge 

motorists for the actual distance 

travelled, without barriers 

or gantries, and provide 

interoperability between national 

cross-border schemes. 

• In Pay-As-You-Drive 

(PAYD), insurance telematics 

rely on GNSS data to increase 

the fairness of motor insurance 

for both insurers and 

subscribers. 

Regulated applications apply 

the transport policies introduced 

by national and international 

legislation: 

• GNSS-enabled IVS are used 

in the pan-European eCall, 

which accelerates emergency 

assistance to drivers and passengers 

by sending an emergency 

call to 112 and also 

providing positioning information 

in the unlucky event 

Fig. 9 - The Moon Village 

of accident. 

• Smart tachographs leverage 

GNSS positioning to support 

road enforcers, recording the 

position of a given vehicle at 

different points during the 

working day. 

The emerging technology that 

is going to act more disruptively 

in our everyday lives, showing 

in a most evident way how the 

fusion of other technologies can 

make new services available, is 

Autonomous Driving (fig. 7). 

Autonomous vehicles can take 

over activities traditionally performed 

by the driver, thanks 

to their ability to sense the environment, 

navigate and com- 


FOCUS 

municate with other vehicles 

and road infrastructure when 

combined with connected vehicle 

solutions. Widespread adoption 

of autonomous driving can 

reduce traffic accidents, reduce 

fuel consumption and improve 

traffic flow, as well as improve 

driver comfort. 

Autonomous vehicles are enabled 

by the combination of different 

technologies and sensors, 

allowing the IVS to identify the 

optimal path of action. 

The adoption of Autonomous 

Driving is going to happen 

much faster than everyone 

thinks, following adoption 

curves closer to those typical for 

digital technologies, rather than 

to those typical for transportation 

systems (fig. 8). 

In other words, while cars took 

decades to be widely adopted, 

Autonomous Driving will have 

a worldwide spread in just a few 

years. 

Many believe that Autonomous 

Driving will probably be the 

single largest societal change 

after the Internet. One thing is 

for sure: Autonomous Driving 

will destroy the traditional 

concept of the car as a personal 

good to be owned, moving to 

the paradigm of transportation 

Fig. 10 - Moon Communications and PNT infrastructure. 

as a service and hence confirming 

the transition from products 

to services mentioned in 

the introduction. 

Emerging Technologies in 

Space 

The Director General of ESA, 

prof. Woerner, set forth the 

idea of a “Moon Village”, a village 

on the moon built by huge 

3D printers and inhabited for 

months at a time by teams of 

astronauts. The plan outlined 

by the ESA is that, starting 

from the early 2020s, robots 

will be sent to the Moon to begin 

constructing various facilities, 

followed a few years later 

by the first inhabitants (fig. 9). 

Back in 2013, ESA teamed up 

with building companies to 

start testing out various Moon 

base-building technologies, and 

determined that local materials 

would be the best for constructing 

buildings and other 

structures, which means no 

need for transporting resources 

from Earth at an astronomical 

cost. But the problems to 

be solved for the realization 

of such stable manned infrastructure 

on the Moon (a true 

follow-on of the International 

Space Station) involve much 

more than just building technologies. 

The Moon Village will 

be a large and complex system 

where requirements related to 

operations and safety of life will 

be of paramount importance. 

Moreover, from an architectural 

viewpoint the “village” will have 

to be expandable and “open” 

to the integration with other 

systems, hence integrability 

and expandability will be two 

key issues. But first and above 

all, the Moon Village will have 

to be affordable and sustainable, 

i.e., its cost will need to 

be assessed over its life-cycle. 

As a “Wild West” town in the 

old times, “Moon Village” will 

have to provide a number of 

essential infrastructures. In particular, 

the exploration of the 

Moon with human and robotic 

missions and its colonization, 

through the establishment of 

permanent bases, will require 

planetary communications and 

navigation infrastructures. 

Even in space, emerging communications 

(5G) and PNT 

technologies will provide reliable 

and affordable solutions 

for a communications and navigation 

infrastructure (fig. 10). 

Conclusion 

Ubiquitous Localization and 

Timing, Ubiquitous Sensing, 

Ubiquitous Connectivity, 3D 

Digital Modeling: these four 

main technological trends are 

triggering an epochal transition 

in the history of mankind, 

characterized by an increasing 

predominance of services in our 

economy. 

We are practically going for a 

detailed digital mapping of the 

world around us, for an evolution 

of reality as we can sense 

it today towards an enriched, 

augmented reality. 

It is an entirely New World we 

are facing, but we have not yet 

learnt how to navigate and explore 

it. 


FOCUS 

Moreover, the emerging technologies 

will cause radical transformations 

of our society, such 

as those related to Autonomous 

Driving. 

Our space exploration activities 

are also going to be affected, a 

good example being ESA’s vision 

of a Moon Village, a stable 

base on our natural satellite 

from which to start the commercialization 

of Space. 

ABSTRACT 

Ubiquitous Localization and Timing, Ubiquitous 

Sensing, Ubiquitous Connectivity, 3D Digital Modeling: 

these four main technological trends are 

triggering an epochal transition in the history of 

mankind, characterized by an increasing predominance 

of services in our economy. 

These emerging technologies will cause radical 

transformations of our society: it is an entirely New 

World we are facing 

KEYWORDS 

Digital era; technological trend; GNSS; PNT; 

5G; autonomous driving; 3D modeling; Galileo; 

Additive Manufacturing; IoT 

AUTHOR 

Dr. ing. Marco Lisi 

marco.lisi@esa.int 

European Space Agency 

Keplerlaan 1, 2200AG Noordwijk, 

The Netherlands 


REPORT 

Improving Resilience to Emergencies 

through Advanced Cyber 

Technologies: the I-REACT project 

by Claudia Maltoni, Claudio Rossi, 

Guzmán Sánchez 

Society as a whole is increasingly 

exposed and vulnerable to natural 

disasters because extreme 

weather events, exacerbated by 

climate change, are becoming 

more frequent and longer. In 

this context, the access to an 

integrated system providing the 

main emergency management 

Fig. 1 - The I-REACT project integrates a large number of data sources to fight disasters. 

information and data coming from 

multiple sources is even more 

critical to successful disaster risk 

management. 

In the last ten years, natural 

hazards 1 have caused 2 billion 

causalities and costed 

up to $1.4 trillion worldwide, 

as registered in the Emergency 

Events Database (EM-DAT, 

2017). In Europe, disasters 

caused around 7 million causalities 

and up to €113 billion of 

overall economic losses in the 

decade 2007-2017. In this period, 

flood is the biggest hazard 

in terms of occurrence, affected 

people and economic damage 

in Europe, while the deadliest 

hazard remains extreme temperature, 

followed by flood and 

earthquake. Wildfires are less 

impacting; however, it ranks 

second in affected people. 

Worryingly, extreme weather 

events will be even more frequent 

and last longer in the 

future, mainly due to climate 

change. Greater evaporation 

will lead to increased water 

vapour in the atmosphere, 

producing more intense precipitation. 

This, together with 

rapid snow melting, intensifies 

the likelihood of floods. 

Also, higher temperatures 

will increase the frequency of 

wildfires as well as other natural 

disasters. According to the 

Intergovernmental Panel on 

Climate Change (IPCC, 2013), 

the surface temperature is projected 

to rise over the 21st century 

under all assessed emission 

scenarios. 

The European Commission's 

Humanitarian Aid and 

Civil Protection department 

(ECHO) and the Federal 

Emergency Management 

Agency (FEMA) of the United 

States agree upon the need to 

invest in disaster prevention. 

One of the key message in the 

2017 ECHO Factsheet stats 

that “for every €1 invested in 

disaster prevention, €4 to €7 

are saved in disaster response” 

(ECHO, 2017). According to 

the “Nature Climate Change” 

journal, improving flood defences 

across the EU to prevent 

100-year flood would save €7 

billion a year by 2050 but cost 

only €1.75 billion to implement 

(Jongman, 2014). 

Despite that, current systems 

for risk management are still 

limited in their effectiveness. 

Even if technological progresses 

are registered and large amounts 

of data are available, there is 

no platform that integrates and 

analyses in real time all the useful 

data to improve prediction 

and management of natural 

disasters. On the other hand, 

the need for systematic data for 

disaster mitigation and prevention 

is an increasing concern for 

both development and response 

agencies. In the past, data needs 


REPORT 

Fig. 2: The I-REACT partners, advisors and end-users at the International User Requirements Workshop (IURW) 

were addressed on an ad hoc 

basis, which included collecting 

the information at the time of 

the emergency. However, there 

is a growing understanding that 

data collection, analysis, and 

management can help both 

short and long-term development 

goals and support to 

identify and address disaster 

risks. The I-REACT project has 

been conceived in this context, 

considering that “you cannot 

manage what you cannot measure”, 

as stated by Margareta 

Wahlström, the United Nations 

Special Representative of the 

Secretary-General for Disaster 

Risk Reduction. 

The project: I-REACT in brief 

I-REACT (Improving 

Resilience to Emergencies 

through Advanced Cyber 

Technologies) is a Horizon 

2020 3-year project (2016- 

2019) funded by the European 

Commission under the Secure 

Society Work Programme 

(DRS-1-2015). 

I-REACT integrates existing 

services, both local and 

European, into a platform that 

supports the entire emergency 

management cycle. In particular, 

I-REACT will implement a 

multi-hazard system with a focus 

on floods, fires and extreme 

weather events, as they are the 

most impacting natural hazards 

driven by climate change. 

To reach this objective, 

I-REACT brings together a 

multidisciplinary team of 20 

European partners. From researchers 

and technologists to 

industry leaders, UN officials, 

consultants or communicators, 

these partners are working 

collaboratively on the 

different tasks of the project 

providing their experience 

and expertise to generate the 

best solution against disasters. 

The project is coordinated by 

the Istituto Superiore Mario 

Boella of Turin. Consortium 

partners include: Geoville, 

Eoxplore, Terranea, Alpha 

Consult, UNESCO (Regional 

Bureau for Science and 

Culture in Europe, Venice), 

Politecnico di Torino, Celi, 

JoinPad, Fondazione Bruno 

Kessler, Finnish Meteorological 

Institute, Meteosim, Bitgear, 

Ansur Technologies, Technical 

University of Vienna, 

Scienseed, CSI Piemonte, 

Aquobex, Answaretech, and 

Joint Research Centre (JRC) of 

the European Commission. 

The project will broaden the 

scope of its predecessor, a 

FP7-funded initiative named 

“Integrating GMES Emergency 

Services with satellite navigation 

and communication for 

establishing a flood information 

service” (FLOODIS 2 ), 

which already involved some of 

I-REACT partners. Ended in 

2015, FLOODIS focused on 

implementing a crowd-sourcing 

approach to support the emergency 

response in case of floods 

with dedicated demonstrations 

carried out in Italy and 

Fig. 3 - The project empowers different stakeholders with several new technologies and essential information 

to improve the fight against disasters. 


REPORT 

in Albania. FLOODIS implemented 

a smartphone application 

to collect real-time reports 

from both citizens and civil 

protection agents, and to provide 

short and long-term projections 

of the flood extent for 

supporting in-field emergency 

rescue units. I-REACT extends 

this approach, multiplying the 

opportunities and serving as a 

tool during all the three emergency 

management phases, i.e. 

prevention, preparedness and 

response phases. 

The first one mainly deals with 

the preparation of a community 

to eliminate or reduce the impact 

of future disasters. For this, 

the I-REACT platform will 

integrate historical data, realtime 

reports, weather data and 

satellites observations to derive 

detailed statistics and accurate 

risk maps. These maps, coupled 

with a decision support system, 

will allow decision makers to effectively 

plan prevention measures 

aimed at increasing the 

resilience to future disasters. 

The second is the preparedness 

phase. During this phase, the 

coordination between governments, 

civil organizations and 

citizens will be promoted to be 

prepared in case of an emergency. 

To reach this objective, 

I-REACT will analyse weather 

Fig. 4 - The I-REACT workflow infographics. 

forecasts, data from both local 

and European early warning 

systems, such as the European 

Flood Awareness System 

(EFAS) and the European 

Forest Fire Information 

(EFFIS), and warnings extracted 

from social media or 

received through crowdsourced 

reports from authorities and 

citizens, as well as using the 

I-REACT mobile application. 

The third one is the emergency 

response phase, in which an 

effective reaction, first aid and 

evacuation are crucial. To help 

on-site operators, I-REACT 

will allow to get a quick and 

complete operational picture 

thanks to the ingestion of realtime 

reporting (from mobile 

phones or wearable devices) 

and its integration in nowcast 

and forecast models. To improve 

self-protection behaviour 

and reduce exposure, I-REACT 

will support public authorities 

to immediately warn citizens 

with real-time information and 

instructions. 

Where we are: I-REACT at its 

second year 

The project officially started at 

the beginning of June 2016 and 

it is now entering its second 

year. 

The innovation design phase, 

based on a user-centred design 

and including the requirement 

definition, is concluded. 

Within this activity, the international 

workshop “Increasing 

Resilience to Natural hazards 

through Information and 

Communication Technology” 

was organised on 14-15 

September 2016 at UNESCO 

Headquarters in Paris. It 

brought together policy-makers, 

emergency service providers and 

science and technology experts 

from different European countries. 

The workshop aimed at 

gathering their needs, assess the 

implementation gaps in their 

operational procedures, and 

co-design some key features of 

the I-REACT system, e.g. the 

data collection and visualization 

process. Also, a survey to gain 

knowledge on citizen’s perception 

of risks was launched. The 

results have been used to design 

tips and quizzes that will be 

inserted in the mobile application 

to improve citizen’s risk 

awareness in all phases of the 

emergency. 

The three main technical work 

packages, based on a “Plan- 

Do-Test” agile approach, are 

still on-going. More in detail, 

they foresee the integration of 

external services and data, such 

as the Copernicus Emergency 

Management Service (EMS), 

open data, Sentinel satellites, 

EGNSS and historical information. 

At the same time, 

up to March 2018, the team 

will deliver all main models 

of I-REACT (modelling and 

engines), including weather 

and climate forecasts, extreme 

weather event detection, flood 

and fire nowcast and forecast, 

risk forecasts, and a social media 

data engine. Last, but not 

least, the service oriented architecture 

stage has started, which 

is aimed at the implementation 

of the centralized system archi- 


REPORT 

tecture and of all in-filed technologies 

for data collection. 

Since June 2017, the team is 

approaching other two main 

activities. First of all, to achieve 

a full system integration and 

consolidate the performance of 

the I-REACT solution, simulations 

and direct involvement 

of end-users and emergency 

responders are foreseen during 

the validation and demonstration 

phase. At the moment, 

five demonstrations (in Italy, 

Spain, Finland, UK, Malta) 

have been planned. After each 

demonstration, a user workshop 

will be organized to gather 

feedback that will be used to 

improve (tune) the system. 

Second, the business assessment 

and exploitation phase recently 

kicked-off, including a costsbenefits 

analysis, business plan, 

implementation roadmap and 

exploitation activities aimed 

at assessing I-REACT socioeconomic 

impact and preparing 

its roll-out. 

The project workflow is completed 

by the overall project 

management and the dissemination, 

communication and 

engagement phase, both lasting 

for the overall project duration. 

Thanks to this second activity, 

I-REACT is now present 

in different on-line channels 

(e.g. website, Facebook, Twitter, 

YouTube) and promoted 

through several materials (e.g. 

videos, infographics). 

Where we want to be: 

I-REACT final goal 

“By 2018, I-REACT will implement 

a European-wide platform 

that integrates emergency 

management data coming 

from multiple sources. In this 

way, we will be able to produce 

information faster and allow 

citizens, civil protection services 

and policymakers to effectively 

react to natural disasters and 

Fig. 5 - 3D model of the fisrt responder's wearable for improved positioning and environmental sensing. 

mitigate their impact on the 

society”, says Claudio Rossi, 

Project Manager at ISMB, 

who is in charge of the project 

management and the technical 

coordination. How? 

Leveraging on innovative cyber 

technologies and ICT systems, 

the I-REACT platform will be 

designed as an articulated and 

modular system based on different 

components. As mentioned 

before, it will integrate many 

different information sources, 

including Copernicus EMS 

maps, early warnings from the 

EFAS and EFFIS, satellite data 

(Sentinel), social media streams 

and crowdsourced information 

from emergency responders 

and citizens. All this information 

will be merged to provide 

added-value products, such as 

a decision-support system for 

authorities and an app for citizens. 

Also, wearable devices and 

smart glasses will be provided 

to first-responders, who will 

benefit from high-precision 

positioning thanks to Galileo 

and EGNOS and Augmented 

Reality to make hands-free reports. 

Thanks to this architecture, 

I-REACT will be able to provide 

greater emergency anticipation 

through accurate weather 

forecasts that, coupled with 

historical knowledge, satellite 

and risk maps, crowdsourced 

reports, and social media information 

will allow to better anticipate 

extreme weather events, 

floods, and fire. The modularity 

of the system, and its interoperability 

with existing systems, 

will allow a strong flexibility of 

the platform in terms of future 

exploitation, making it able 

to answer to different market 

needs. 

Our target: I-REACT as a 

multi-user platform 

“At I-REACT we want to 

gather all the participants involved 

in the different phases 

of the emergency management, 

to translate their needs and 

ideas into effective solutions 

with a real social impact. We 

collaborate with groups of end 

users that will benefit from the 

I-REACT technology and can 

provide first-hand experience. 

We also have a strong advisory 

board that provides valuable 

counselling and support” explains 

Claudia Maltoni, Project 

Manager at Alpha Consult, the 

SME in charge of project business 

assessment and exploitation. 

Even if mainly addressing 


REPORT 

emergency management, the 

proposed system has been conceived 

as a multi-user platform 

as well. It mainly targets public 

administration authorities, but 

also private companies, as well 

as citizens in order to provide 

increased resilience to natural 

disasters. 

A Costs-Benefits Analysis 

(CBA) conducted by ALPHA 

Consult during the FLOODIS 

project and based on tests undertaken 

together with Civil 

Protections, namely in Veneto 

Region and Albania, provides 

some interesting preliminary 

inputs. Key impacts 3 has been 

described and quantified with 

respect to the functionalities of 

the system for both emergency 

managers and the society as a 

whole. Specifically, in the two 

case studies 4 , a final saving of 

c. €15,8 million for Albania 

and €1,9 million for Treviso 

could have been achieved, in 

case of having FLOODIS in 

place. These benefits are mainly 

driven by decreasing costs for 

emergency management operations, 

less damages to productive 

sectors, assets, properties 

and infrastructures, together 

with a reduction of affected 

people. It is worth noting that 

these estimations are not negligible. 

As a consequence of 

the overall project results and 

impact assessment, FLOODIS 

has been finally integrated with 

DEWETRA, a real-time system 

for hydro-meteorological and 

wildfire risk forecasting, monitoring 

and prevention in use in 

Albania. At the same time, these 

impacts are clearly conservative 

with respect to the much higher 

potential of I-REACT. 

Besides the benefits brought 

by the proposed solution to organisations 

in charge of disaster 

management, governments and 

society as a whole, I-REACT 

could foster market growth and 

produce impacts for other private 

stakeholders, such as current 

system providers, insurance 

companies and third parties 

with an interest on information 

produced by I-REACT. For this 

reason, “a set of interviews are 

being carried out with different 

types of private actors, from 

insurance companies to firms 

specialised on business continuity 

and disaster recovery, in 

different countries in Europe 

to assess their requirements and 

interest in I-REACT. A dedicated 

CBA could be undertaken 

to quantify potential benefits 

also in some relevant private 

sectors”, concludes Maltoni. 

NOTES 

1 Drought, earthquake, extreme temperature, flood, 

landslide, storm, volcanic activity, mass movement 

and wildfire are considered 

2 www.floodis.eu 

3 Reduction of costs for emergency management operations, 

human losses, affected people, infrastructure 

damages and damages to private sector activities, environment, 

housing and education buildings and cultural 

heritage have been all assessed. 

4 The 2015 flood in Albania and water bomb in Treviso. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Emergency Events Database, EM-DAT, 2017 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2013), 

Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution 

of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report 

of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC 

report. 

European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil 

Protection department (2017), European Disaster Risk 

Management, ECHO Factsheet 

Brenden Jongman (2014), Increasing stress on disasterrisk 

finance due to large floods, Nature Climate Change 

journal. 

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Disaster 

Statistics, UNISDR website. 

KEYWORDS 

I-REACT; natural hazards; climate change; disaster 

management; Copernicus 

ABSTRACT 

Due to climate change, floods, wildfires and other extreme 

weather events are becoming more frequent and 

intense. This scenario poses a challenge for current risk 

management systems. I-REACT project aims to develop 

a solution through the integration and modelling 

of data coming multiple sources. Information from European 

monitoring systems, earth observations, historical 

information and weather forecasts will be combined 

with data gathered by new technological developments 

created by I-REACT. These include a mobile app and 

a social media analysis tool to account for real-time 

crowdsourced information, wearables to improve 

positioning, as well as augmented reality glasses to facilitate 

reporting and information visualisation by first 

responders. With this approach, I-REACT will be able 

to empower stakeholders in the prevention and management 

of disasters. Citizens will be involved in reporting 

first-hand information, policymakers will be supported 

in the decision-making process, and first responders will 

be equipped with essential tools for early warning and 

response. At the same time, private companies could 

leverage specific set of I-REACT components to improve 

their business, when linked to disaster management. 

Overall, I-REACT aims to be a European-wide 

contribution to build more secure and resilient societies 

to disasters. 

AUTHOR 

Claudia Maltoni 

cm@alphacons.eu 

Alpha Consult 

Claudio Rossi 

rossi@ismb.it 

Istituto Superiore Mario Boella 

Guzmán Sánchez 

guzman.sanchez@scienseed.com 

Scienseed 


Aeronike introduces City Explorer 3D: 

know how e innovation 

REPORT 

Aeronike, is operating in the aero photogrammetry 

market since 1966. 

During its 40 years of operations a complete 

portfolio of aero surveys activities 

and services have been developed, from a 

high detailed digital cartography to the 

core competence of the 3D restitution of 

aerial images. 

City Explorer 3D is a technological 

platform which integrates a 3D virtual 

model with data and aero photogrammetric 

surveys from different sources (plane, 

drone, terrestrial) to give a tool to public 

administration, associations, consortiums 

to satisfy their respective specific needs. 

With City Explorer 3D the user can experience 

an immersive 3D visit to his city or 

territory, of a site or monument of 

interest. Specific touristic itineraries can 

be designed with additional contents as 

Multilanguage narrator voice to enter 

within the context at 360° with a fly through 

approach. (Virtual Tours). 

This platform represents a very useful tool 

to boost promotional activities and can 

be integrated with more standard tools as 

paper guides, web site, etc... 

The user can access the 3D immersive 

virtual tour via WEB, mobile APPs with 

devices as Google Cardboard or via 

Totem/Monitor Touch Screen which 

could be available along different Point of 

Information with Virtual and Augmented 

Reality integrated contents. 

BERLIN 

26/28 Sept. 

Hall 4.1 | B4033 

VISIT US AT INTERGEO 2017 

Additional application fields of the 3D Territory Model 

Analysis & Planning 

Support to Design 

4D Analysis 

3D environment to build the final design 

GIS 3D 

Cartography integration 

Dimensional checks 

CAD BIM models integration 

Spatial relation analysis 

(void/full report) 

Export 

to 

CAD 

format 

Cartography obtained from the 3D model 

Mock up 

Support for environmental impact assessment 

Simulations (Hydrogeological, acoustic, CFD) 

Street Profiles 

www.aeronike.com 

Aeronike GEOmedia n°3-2017 City Explorer 23D

NEWS 

IN THIS PICTURE THERE IS A 

MULTITEMPORAL COMBINATION 

BETWEEN 2 SCANSAR WIDE 

ACQUISITIONS OF THE LARSEN- SEA BY 

THE SAME COSMO-SKYMED SATELLITE 

WITH ONLY 1 ORBIT DISTANCE (ABOUT 96 

MINUTES) 

N 

24 COSMO-SkyMed GEOmedia composite n°3-2017 image. ASI Agenzia Spaziale Italiana - processed and distributed by e-GEOS

NEWS 

e-GEOS, an ASI (20%) / Telespazio (80%) company, is a 

leading international player in the Earth Observation and 

Geo-Spatial Information business. 

e-GEOS is the global distributor for the COSMO-SkyMed 

data, the largest and most advanced Radar Satellite 

onstellation available today. 

e-GEOS offers a unique portfolio of application services, 

specially thanks to the superior monitoring capabilities of 

COSMO-SkyMed constellation, and has acquired a leading 

position within European Copernicus Program. 

Covering the whole value chain, from data acquisition to 

the generation of analytics reports, e-GEOS is working in 

the field of big data analytics based on the integration of 

different sources. This approach is one of the key assets 

for the new services and products offered by the company. 

DEFENCE AND INTELLIGENCE 

RISK AND ASSET MANAGEMENT 

10+ 

SATELLITE MISSIONS 

DATA ACQUIRED. 

750+ 

MARITIME REPORTS/ YEAR 

9+ 

COMMERCIAL USER TERMINALS 

AROUND THE GLOBE 

206+ 

ACTIVATIONS OF THE e-GEOS 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICE 

MARITIME SOURVELLIANCE 

AND ENVIRONMENTAL MONIOTORING 

2500+ 

MAPS PRODUCED 

IN 4 YEARS 

70Millions 

AGRICULTURAL PARCELS 

FORESTRY AND CLIMATE 

LAND MANAGEMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURES 


REPORT 

The new MSc in Geoinformatics 

Engineering at Politecnico di Milano 

by Ludovico Biagi 

This paper describes the first 

italian MSc in Geoinformatics 

Engineering started in 2016 at 

Politecnico di Milano. 

Fig. 1 - Four examples of Geoinformatics expertizes. 

Upper, left. Positioning by GNSS (a GPS III satellite, United States Government). 

Upper, right. Analysis of remote sensed images (LandSat multispectral image of Como 

lake, GeoLab of Politecnico di Milano). Lower, left. Creation and analysis of digital 

elevation models (example of high resolution DEM from LiDAR, GeoLab of Politecnico 

di Milano). Lower, right. Advanced environmental analysis (4D modelling of temperatures 

in the Mediterranean sea, GeoLab of Politecnico di Milano). 

The vision of Digital 

Earth was proposed by 

Al Gore in 1998 as a 

multi-dimensional and multiresolution 

model of the planet 

to contextualize the huge 

amount of spatial information 

relating to the physical and 

socio-economic environment. 

Every day humans generate 

more than 2.5 trillion (10 18 ) 

bytes of data: 80% of them are 

spatial data. In the ‘80 of the 

last century, first digital spatial 

data were acquired by scanning 

hardcopy archives; now they are 

endlessly acquired in massive 

quantities from fixed and mobile 

in-situ sensors, from sensors 

on satellites, on aircrafts, on 

UAVs or on land vehicles, from 

digital documents and social 

media. Such a massive flow (Big 

geodata) generates new challenges 

since stored data have to be 

analyzed and processed, often 

in real-time, to extract information. 

Therefore, a new scientific 

and technical figure who combines 

expertizes in Computer 

Science, Environmental 

Engineering and Geomatics is 

needed. 

Geoinformatics engineers are 

high level experts in technologies 

for measuring, georeferencing, 

managing, analyzing, 

visualizing and publishing 

spatial and time varying information, 

with a particular 

concern to environmental data. 

Geoinformatics engineers will 

thus be involved in the design, 

implementation and management 

of geodata projects to 

support the new paradigms 

of Participative Digital Earth, 

Smart City and Smart Society 

as well as a variety of decisions 

at regional, country and global 

level. Urban and agricultural 

land planning, monitoring and 

management, infrastructure design 

and building information 

management, transport and 

traffic monitoring and management, 

environmental modeling, 

geography, Earth sciences are 

the main application fields of 

Geoinformatics Engineering. 

All those fields attain to the general 

context of sustainable management 

of environment and 

land. In Figure 1, few examples 

of Geoinformatics expertizes are 

shown. 

As the academic teaching is 

concerned, some universities 

in Europe propose courses in 

Geoinformatics. In Italy, in 

2016 Politecnico di Milano 

planned and started the first 

Italian MSc in Geoinformatics 

Engineering. 


REPORT 

The new Master of Sciences 

in Geoinformatics Engineering 

at Politecnico di Milano 

The MSc in Geoinformatics 

Engineering at Politecnico 

di Milano aims at preparing 

technicians who possess deep 

preparation and strong attitude 

to solve problems relevant to 

geospatial information. The following 

skills are needed on the 

methodological and the practical 

points of view: 

1. spatial information managing: 

a. acquisition and georeferencing, 

b. analysis, classification and 

processing, 

c. archiving, representation, 

publication and distribution; 

2. computer infrastructures: 

design and implementation of 

infrastructures to 

a. acquire, model and analyze 

spatial data and phenomena, 

b. manage, publish and share 

the spatial information; 

3. methodologies and instruments 

to model and analyze 

environmental phenomena; 

4. advanced technologies for 

Big Geodata and internet of 

Places. 

The acquisition of these capabilities 

requires the knowledge 

of all the methodological and 

practical topics that allow to 

identify, model, and solve the 

relevant problems. In particular, 

at the end of their Master’s 

degree, students must have a 

wide knowledge of methods representing 

the state of the art of 

the discipline. Moreover, they 

not only gain the knowledge 

but also the habit to autonomously 

and creatively face and 

solve Geoinformatics problems, 

which are often unusual and 

new at a level that is both 

methodological and practical. 

Indeed, a main aim of the 

Master is to make students able 

to autonomously face cutting 

edge and original subjects, 

with a pro-active attitude to 

problem solution. Accordingly 

to this mission, the Master at 

Politecnico di Milano has been 

designed as follows. 

The study programme 

The MSc in Geoinformatics 

Engineering is a two years 

international master course 

taught in English for Italian 

and foreign students. The 

study program satisfies both 

the Italian Ministerial classes 

LM-32 (Computer Science 

Engineering) and LM-35 

(Environmental and Land management 

Engineering). At the 

enrollment the student must 

choose his Ministerial class: the 

choice can be modified during 

the first year of study. 

Students having mainly a 

background in Environmental 

Engineering find an introductory 

course in Computer 

Science, while those with a 

computer oriented first level 

degree follow a basic course on 

Geomatics and Environmental 

issues. In the geomatic / environmental 

field, the mandatory 

courses cover topics such 

as Geospatial data analysis, 

Geographical Information 

Systems (GIS), Positioning and 

Location Based Services; in the 

Computer Science field, mandatory 

courses cover topics like 

Databases, Software engineering, 

Computer Infrastructures. 

In the first year, the plan of 

mandatory courses allow the 

students to modify the choice 

of the Ministerial class. In the 

second year, mandatory courses 

alternate with elective courses, 

that allow students to deepen 

their expertise. 

Elective courses are specifically 

proposed for Geoinformatics 

Engineering students. They are 

either in computer programming 

and computer systems 

design, dealing for instance 

with multidimensional and 

mobile applications; or in environmental 

management and 

sustainability issues dealing for 

instance with Earth observation 

techniques and geophysical data 

processing. 

The ability to autonomously 

face problems and implement 

solutions is achieved through 

laboratories and projects that 

are paired to traditional courses 

lectures; the final thesis on an 

original scientific topic further 

stimulates it. 

More details are given in the 

official study rules that are published 

at www.geoinformatics. 

polimi.it. 

Access requirements 

The access to the MSc in 

Geoinformatics Engineering 

implies prior acquisition of a 

Bachelor of Science, obtained 

from the Politecnico di Milano 

School of Engineering or other 

Italian or international universities. 

Admissions are evaluated 

by a commission, accordingly 

to the previous career, the adequacy 

of personal preparation 

and the knowledge of English. 

Access requirements are differentiated 

according to the acquired 

Bachelor of Science. 

Fig. 2 - The logo of the MSc in Geoinformatics 

Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. 


REPORT 

Graduates in Environmental 

and Land planning 

Engineering, Computer 

Science Engineering and other 

Engineering courses at the 

Politecnico di Milano, must 

pass a selection that is based 

on results (marks and time 

taken) of their Bachelors. 

Graduates from other Italian 

or international universities 

must pass a selection that is 

based on the final marks of 

the Bachelor of Science degree 

together with an analytical 

evaluation of their prior curriculum. 

A limited enrollment is 

planned for the MSc in 

Geoinformatics Engineering 

at Politecnico di Milano, with 

a maximum number of 50 

students. In particular, 30 

places are reserved for non-EU 

students, the remaining 20 are 

available for Italian students, 

EU students and non-EU students 

resident in Italy. 

Career perspectives 

According to the selected 

study track, the graduated 

Geoinformatics engineers 

can participate to the Italian 

state certification exam to 

enter either the Civil and 

Environmental Engineers’ 

register (LM-32) or the 

Computer science Engineers’ 

one (LM-35). 

Accordingly to the cultural 

and technical organization 

of our MSc, Geoinformatics 

engineers from Politecnico di 

Milano find a job where an 

Environmental engineer with 

strong expertize in Computer 

Science is needed, for example, 

a technician for the management 

and analysis of a network 

of environmental sensors. On 

the opposite, they find a job 

in the branches of Information 

Technology finalized to the design 

and implementation of 

tools for the Environmental 

and Land management. 

Consequently, 


find a placement in all the 

branches that directly manage 

and develop environmental 

and spatial information. 

Furthermore, nowadays spatial 

information is everywhere: 

therefore, Geoinformatics 

engineers find job also in 

big companies or agencies 

that need and use spatial 

information. In summary, 


find employment in: 

• small and medium-sized 

companies working in the 

field of GIS development 

and management, of 

Computer Science applied 

to spatial data-base management, 

to logistics and 

land planning, 

• public and private, national 

and local companies working 

on territorial mapping, 

on cadaster, on spatial data 

infrastructure, on territorial 

data collection, on environmental 

data management 

and analysis, 

• big industry (e.g., for telecommunications) 

and big 

companies which needs 

experts for spatial information, 

• companies developing systems 

for the analysis and 

management of networks of 

environmental sensors, 

• companies developing 

hardware and software for 

environmental applications, 

• advanced research institutes 

or companies working 

on the Internet of Places, 

Big Geodata, Sensor 

Enablement, Urban Data 

City Analytics, Earth 

Observations. 

REFERENCES 

Webpages of international MSc in 

Geoinformatics 

Aalto, http://www.aalto.fi/en/studies/ 

education/programme/geoinformatics_ 

master/ 

ETH, https://www.ethz.ch/en/studies/ 

prospective-masters-degree-students/ 

masters-degree-programmes/mastersdegree-programmes-architecture-and-civilengineering/master-geomatics.html 

KTH, https://www.kth.se/en/studies/master/ 

transport-and-geoinformation-technology/ 

description-1.198559 

TU Delft, http://www.tudelft.nl/en/study/ 

master-of-science/master-programmes/ 

geomatics/ 

TU Twente, https://www.utwente.nl/ 

en/education/master/programmes/ 

geo-information-science-earthobservation/#masters-programme 

TUM,https://portal.mytum.de/ 

studium/studiengaenge_en/geodaesie_ 

und_geoinformation_master?ignore_ 

redirection=yes 

Twente, https://www.utwente.nl/ 

en/education/master/programmes/ 

geographical-information-managementapplications/#masters-programme 

UCL, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospectivestudents/graduate/taught/degrees/spatiotemporal-analytics-big-data-mining-msc 

UCL, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospectivestudents/graduate/taught/degrees/ 

geoinformatics-building-informationmodelling-msc 

UCL, http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/study/ 

graduate-taught/msc-geospatial-analysis 

Webpage of Politecnico di Milano 

www.polimi.it 

Webpage of the MSc in Geoinformatics 

Engineering of Politecnico di Milano: www. 

geoinformatics.polimi.it 

Webpage with information for international 

students at Politecnico di Milano 

http://www.polinternational.polimi.it/howto-apply/ 

KEYWORDS 

Geoinformatics; Digital Earth; Big 

Geodata; 

Master of Science 

ABSTRACT 

In the new digital scenario, new professional 

figures are needed to manage the spatial and 

environmental information: geoinformatics 

engineers are high level experts in technologies 

for measuring, georeferencing, managing, 

analyzing, visualizing and publishing spatial 

and time varying information, with a particular 

concern to environmental data. As the academic 

teaching is concerned, some universities 

in Europe propose courses in Geoinformatics. 

In Italy, Politecnico di Milano started in 2016 

the first national MSc in Geoinformatics Engineering: 

this paper describes it. 

AUTHOR 

Ludovico Biagi 

ludovico.biagi@polimi.it 

Politecnico di Milano, DICA, 

P.zza Leonardo Da Vinci 32, 20133 

Milano 


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VGI and crisis mapping in an 

emergency situation 

Comparison of four case studies: Haiti, Kibera, Kathmandu, Centre Italy 

di Lucia Saganeiti, Federico Amato, Gabriele Nolè, Beniamino Murgante 

Fig.1 - Sequentially mapping 

OSMs to Port-Au-Prince: 

the first concerns the pre 

earthquake situation, the 

second situation as of January 

29, 2010 and the latest 

situation in December 2016. 

Source: http: www.openstreetmap.org; 

www.hotosm.org 

Over the last decade 

new voluntary 

mapping patterns are 

commonly known as 

VGI – Volunteered 

Geographic Information 

– that is, geo-localized 

information created 

voluntarily and 

consciously by web 

users. These are 

supported by platforms 

such as OpenStreetMap 

that have been shown 

in many emergency 

cases and not, a valid 

source of data, such 

detailed to be used for 

rescue operations. 

In recent crisis contexts, 

the use of geo-spatial data 

analysis has been a precious 

resource in coordinating of 

rescue operations (Boccardo 

& Pasquali, 2012). As a 

consequence, numerous Open 

Source platform born to 

answer to the growing demand 

for geo-information. Crisis 

Mapping (CM) consists of 

the spontaneous process of 

gathering and geo-locating 

data from different sources, 

including closed/open-data, or 

crowdsourcing databases. These 

data are verified, catalogued and 

finally made visible in ad hoc 

platforms (Poser & Dransch, 

2010). 

With the overwhelming of 

technology, the spread of 

smartphones and mobile 

or fixed connections, 

humanitarian aid management 

during the post-emergency 

phases has radically changed. 

Today, even in less developed 

countries, most people have 

a mobile phone and they are 

able to send at least a simple 

SMS. Therefore, the term 

Crisis Mapping is often used 

to identify mapping activities 

during humanitarian crises. The 

activity of CM is targeted at 

collecting, displaying, updating 

and analysing real-time data 

in emergencies due to natural 

disasters such as earthquakes, 

floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, 

or anthropic disaster such as 

landslides, terrorist attacks or 

serious industrial accidents. 

When a disastrous event occurs, 

local or remote people (Crisis 

Mappers via web) mobilize 

themselves to update maps, 

report emergencies and spread 

news. This participation also 

helps to increase awareness of 

the event. Crisis Mappers are 

generally (unpaid) voluntary 

with or without specific skills. 

Indeed, a group of mappers is 

generally composed by simple 

resident of the area affected 

by the disaster who want 

to contribute to the rescue 

activities, computer science 

experts, web programmer 

who want to provide their 


REPORT 

scientific contribution to 

the coordination operations. 

To this purposes, a number 

of online groups have been 

created. Among them, one 

of the most important is 

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap 

Team (HOT), which supported 

OpenStreetMap (OSM) 

mapper activity in the first 

use of the application for an 

humanitarian goal: he Haiti 

earthquake in 2010 (Soden & 

Palen, 2014). Another example 

of Crisis Mapping is Ushahaidi, 

a web platform that uses OSM 

maps and is updated through 

the geo localization of messages 

from SMS, tweets and emails 

that contain certain keywords, 

called alert. 

Other experiences adopted 

during the Hurricanes Sandy 

and Irene classified tweets on 

maps based on hashtags (http:// 

faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/ 

TtT_Hurricane_Map_byEvent. 

html). 

The availability of free satellite 

data and the experimentation 

of ever-new remote sensing 

techniques played a primary 

role in the spread of these 

approaches. CM activities 

can be considered as open 

participatory policies. Indeed, 

anyone join these communities, 

update their country map or a 

distant country one that they 

do not know, report discomfort 

launching a crisis map or report 

the quality values of a region 

through a map showing all the 

parks in the area, the paths 

without architectural barriers, 

or anything else. 

This article proposes an 

analysis of several case in 

which volunteering activities 

were carried out in some postemergency 

phases to contribute 

to the rescue operations and to 

build a previously non-existent 

cognitive framework. 

The analysed web platforms are 

OpenStreetMap e Ushahidi. 

Four case studies are considered: 

the Haiti earthquake of 2010, 

the post election crisis of Kibera 

in 2007/2008, the Kathmandu 

experience with the Nepal 

earthquake of 2012 and the 

central Italy earthquake of 

2016. These four cases show 

substantial differences: 

Haiti 

With the disastrous earthquake, 

affecting Haiti in 2010, begins 

the spread of OSM in a natural 

emergency situation. Here 

the OSM community has 

had to endure a hard work to 

gain credibility before being 

recognized as an association. 

This is the first striking case in 

which is the population with 

SMS, Tweet e App, direct the 

rescue. The rescuers, with the 

support of platforms such as 

OSM and Ushahidi, receive 

updates without any third party 

intermediation (Neis, Singler, 

& Zipf, 2014) (Fig.1). 

Chart 1a - utilization crowd mapping 

platforms Haiti 

Chart 1c - utilization crowd mapping 

platforms Kibera 

Kibera 

Ushahidi is born in a contest 

of electoral violence. In Kibera, 

following the presidential 

elections in 2007, there was a 

climate of civil violence and a 

part of the population felt the 

need to make the whole world 

aware of the situation that was 

affecting their country. This 

led to the birth of Ushaihdi, 

which in swahilli means 

“witness” (Goldstein & Rotich, 

2008). This case highlights 

how technology can be used 

not only as an evidence of the 

violence suffered but also to 

spread messages of hatred and 

violence. 

Kathmandu 

In Nepal, a country with a high 

seismic and tsunami risk, the 

OSM community started to 

take shape since 2012, helping 

to update the cartography 

of the country and to create 

information and interest toward 

the topic of disaster risk, 

Chart 1b - utilization crowd mapping 

platforms Kathmadu 

Chart 1d - utilization crowd mapping 

platforms Centro Italia 


REPORT 

especially in schools (Soden, 

Budhathoki, & Palen, 2014). 

In 2015, when the earthquake 

occurred, the country was not 

taken unprepared by the fact 

that the OSM community 

had long been consolidated 

and could therefore act more 

easily (Poiani, dos Santos 

Rocha, Castro Degrossi, & de 

Albuquerque, 2016). 

Central Italy 

Following the earthquake 

swarm hitting the territory of 

Central Italy since 24 August 

2016, the OSM community 

has been working hard to 

update local maps and make 

them available to everyone. 

This promptness with which 

the community developed a 

huge quantity of useful geoinformation 

has aroused the 

interest of the Copernicus 

project, that has acquired OSM 

data and redistributed them 

to the rescuers, i.e. the italian 

civil protection. Therefore, 

there was not a direct passage 

between OSM and rescuers, 

as Copernicus mediation was 

needed. 

To correctly evaluate and 

compare these experiences, 

an evaluation of the temporal 

continuity of the projects would 

be necessary. Indeed, they 

sometimes produce the highest 

results right after the disasters 

to face an emergency, except 

Chart 2 - Comparison chart between the four 

case studies analyzed. 

Character of the 

event 

then die with the same speed 

when the emergency ends. 

The different cases were first 

evaluated individually, each 

from the OSM platform’s 

birth year (2004) up to the 

end of 2016 (Chart 1a-d). 

Subsequently, they were 

compared through a qualitative 

graph based on the period 

before the emergency event, the 

period of the emergency event 

and the next one. 

Therefore, analyzing the preemergency, 

emergency and 

post-emergency were given the 

following scores: 

Haiti (Chart 1a): as far as 

the pre-emergency period 

is concerned, a score of 0 

is assigned. This is because 

there was not an active 

technological community in 

the area before the seismic 

event. For the emergency 

period, the maximum score 

of 10 was assigned. In fact 

the OSM community is 

formed during the emergency 

period (seismic event) and the 

emergency responders directly 

use the datasets created by it. 

For post-emergence a score 

ranges from 9 to 5. Numerous 

initiatives and coordination 

Haiti Kathmandu Kibera Centro Italia 

Natural Natural Anthropic Natural 

Type of event Earthquake Earthquake, Tsunami 

Main open source 

platforms used 

Main closed source 

platforms used 

Web and social 

Developed projects 

and 

non-profit 

organizations 

Direct relationship 

between rescuers 

and the technology 

community 

OSM, HOT, 

Ushahidi, Sahana, 

Crisis Commons 

Google 

Mapmaker, 

DigitalGlobe 

GeoEye 

Facebook, Twitter 

HOT 

OSM, Ushahidi, 

HOT 

Post-elettoral 

violence 

Ushahidi, OSM 

Seismic swarm 

OSM, HOT 

Google Maps Google Maps Copernicus, DigitalGlobe 

Facebook, Twitter, 

Skype 

Open Cities 

Kathmandu, 

Kathmandu Living 

Labs (KLL), MapGive 

Facebook, 

Twitter 

Map Kibera, 

Voice of Kibera 

Facebook, Twitter, Flickr 

terremotocentroitalia.info 

YES YES YES NO 

Tab. 1 - A comparison table between the various case studies reveals the platforms used 

and the relationships between the data produced and the rescuers. 

operations with humanitarian 

organizations took place in the 

years after the event; today the 

OSM community continues to 

work on Haiti territory and is 

very active. 

Kibera (Chart 1b): as far as 

the pre-emergency period 

is concerned, a score of 0 is 

assigned. This is because there 

were not an active technological 

community in the area before 

the emergency event (electoral 

violence). For the emergency 

period a score ranges from 5 

to 7. The score is increasing 

in this period since during 

the emergency phase, several 

crowd mapping groups started 

to spread in the area; Ushahidi 

is born in this period and 

news are spread through crisis 

maps. For post-emergence 

a score ranges from 9 to 6, 

since immediately after the 

emergency, all site maps are 

updated to allow humanitarian 

organizations to be in direct 

contact with local events. 

Kathmandu (Chart 1c): as far 

as the pre-emergency period is 

concerned a score ranges from 

0 to 8. In a period of peace, 

in fact, Kathmandu (Nepal) 

becomes an active community. 


REPORT 

Tab. 2 – Assign score from 0 to 10 to 

four case studies with relative legend. 

The OSM community starts 

to update maps and spreading 

knowledge about seismic 

risk, especially in schools. For 

the emergency period, the 

maximum score of 10 was 

assigned. Thanks to the work 

done by the OSM community 

during the pre-emergence 

period, the emergency period 

becomes an opportunity to 

test the efficiency of crowd 

mapping. In fact, it is the 

time of maximum efficiency 

of the platforms thanks to a 

well-established community, 

ready to face the event. For 

post-emergence a score of 5 

is assigned. Today the OSM 

community continues to 

persist. 

Central Italy (Chart 1d): 

as far as the pre-emergency 

period is concerned a score 

ranges from 0 to 4 with a 

peak of 5 in 2009. The OSM 

community starts working 

already before the events. In 

2009, the score increases to 5 

as after the earthquake striking 

Abruzzo, the OSM community 

worked to update the maps 

of L’Aquila. Nevertheless, 

they only worked on the 

maps after the earthquake (to 

support the reconstruction). 

For the emergency period a 

score of 7 is assigned. In fact, 

during the emergency, the 

OSM community appears 

to be efficient in updating 

the maps. Despite that, 

the use of the data by the 

rescuers was only possible 

through the intermediation 

of other entities. For the post 

emergency period a score of 

6 or 5 is assigned. This score 

is indicative, it is only an 

estimate of what could happen 

considering that Central 

Italy is still in the state of 

emergency (January 2017). 

The qualitative chart represents 

the four case studies 

compared. The yellow zone 

represents the period before 

the event, the red zone the 

event and the green zone the 

following period. It showed 

that: In cases where prior to 

the event (seismic or other) 

there was a already stable and 

already active crisis mapper 

community, the use of the 

platforms and datasets made 

available was immediate. It 

is also evident, under some 

circumstances, that these 

platforms are being used 

most in the emergency period 

by reaching high peaks, 

and are left out in pre and postemergence 

periods. 

REFERENCES 

1. Boccardo, P. & Pasquali, P. (2012), Web mapping services in 

a crowdsource environment for disaster management: state of 

the art and further development, International Archives of the 

Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information 

Sciences, Volume XXXIX-B4, 2012 XXII ISPRS Congress, 25 

August – 01 September 2012, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 543-548 

2. Goldstein, J. & Rotich, J. (2008), Digitally Networked Technology 

in Kenya’s 2007–2008 Post-Election Crisis. Berkman Centre 

Research Publication No. 2008-09. The Berkman Centre for 

internet & society at Harvard University. http://cyber.harvard. 

edu/sites/cyber.harvard.edu/files/Goldstein&Rotich_Digitally_ 

Networked_Technology_Kenyas_Crisis.pdf.pdf last access 

20/05/2017 

3. Neis, P., Singler, P. & Zipf, A. (2010), Collaborative mapping and 

Emergency Routing for Disaster Logistics - Case studies from the Haiti 

earthquake and the UN portal for Afrika. In Proceedings of the 

Geospatial Crossroads@ GI_Forum, Salzburg, Austria, 6–9 July 

2010; Volume 10 

4. Poiani, T.H., Rocha, R.d.S., Degrossi, L.C. & de Albuquerque, 

J.P (2016) Potential of Collaborative Mapping for Disaster Relief: 

A Case Study of OpenStreetMap in the Nepal Earthquake 2015, In 

Proceedings of the 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference 

on System Sciences (HICSS), Washington, DC, USA, 5 

January 2016; pp. 188–197.Poser, K., & Dransch, D. (2010). 

Volunteered Geographic Information for Disaster Management 

with Application to Rapid Flood Damage Estimation. Geomatica, 

Vol.64. n.1. 

5. Soden, R. & Palen, L. (2014), From Crowdsourced Mapping to 

Community Mapping:The Post-Earthquark work of OpenStreetMap 

Haiti, Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on the 

Design of Cooperative Systems COOP 2014, 27-30 May 2014, 

Nice (France) , Springer International Publishing Switzerland 

2014, pp 311-326, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-06498-7_19 

6. Soden, R., Budhathoki, N. & Palen, L. (2014), Resilience-Building 

and the Crisis Informatics Agenda: Lessons Learned from Open Cities 

Kathmandu, Proceedings of the 11th International ISCRAM 

Conference – University Park, Pennsylvania, USA, May 2014 

KEYWORDS 

Crowdsourcing; OSM; Ushahidi; 

Crisismapping; VGI 

ABSTRACT 

Over the last decade new voluntary mapping patterns are commonly 

known as VGI – Volunteered Geographic Information – 

that is, geo-localized information created voluntarily and consciously 

by web users. These are supported by platforms such as 

OpenStreetMap that have been shown in many emergency cases 

and not, a valid source of data, such detailed to be used for rescue 

operations. Another completely open source platform that has 

revolutionized the world of geographic information and how to 

make reports is Ushaidi that through interactive maps represents 

testimonies, reports, diaries, and citizen reports. 

Tab. 3 - utilization crowd mapping platforms since birth of OSM in 2004. 

AUTHOR 

Lucia Saganeiti, lucia.saganeiti@gmail.com 

Federico Amato, federico.amato@unibas.it 

Beniamino Murgante, 

beniamino.murgante@unibas.it 

School of Engineering, University of Basilicata, Viale 

dellAteneo Lucano 10, 85100 Potenza, Italy 

Gabriele Nolè, gabriele.nole@imaa.cnr.it 

Italian National Research GEOmedia Council, n°3-2017 IMAA C.da Santa 33 

Loja, Tito Scalo, Potenza 85050, Italy

NEWS 

SCANFLY: integrated camera, point-cloud live streaming, 

RTK correction, backpack with SLAM and a universal 

mounting plate for Mobile Mapping applications. 

SCANFLY is the turnkey solution for 3D lidar mapping: ultra-compact and 

lightweight, it is the best cost-effective solution available on the market. The 

installation is possible on any vehicle (aerial, terrestrial, marine). 

Here the list of the options we will release in the next months: 

RGB Camera 

a 5 Megapixel Global Shutter camera would be available to add the RGB 

value to the pointcloud. 

SmartSurvey SCANFLY - new features 

• The remote control through a dedicated pc software; 

• The real-time point-cloud streaming on the pc; 

• The RTK correction of the position/trajectory in real-time. 

Backpack 

this solution will allow the indoor use of SCANFLY. Our R&D team developed a hybrid solution to allow an INS 

mode (with Inertial System and GNSS) and a SLAM mode for automatic indoor localization and mapping. A further 

option is an high resolution 360° panoramic camera. 

Universal Mounting Plate 

we would increase our mounting plate portfolio so we studied a universal solution to let the customer switch from 

backpack option to vehicle mounted mode, allowing also the use of the new high-resolution panoramic camera. 

Eppur… si muove? 

Ground based 

Interferometric SAR 

Real time monitoring of 

deformation and infrastructure 

Sub-millimeter deformation 

accuracy 

> landslides, open-pit mines 

> deformation and vibration 

> buildings, dams, towers, bridges 

FastGBSAR: RAR and SAR 

One system, dual-operation mode 

34 GEOmedia n°3-2017 

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NEWS 


NEWS 

I.MODI - Structural Monitoring 

through an advanced use of the 

satellite remote sensing 

I.MODI (Implemented MOnitoring system 

for structural DIsplacement) is a value added 

service, co-funded by European programme 

H2020, that integrates Earth Observation 

technologies, ground based data and ICT to 

develop services for monitoring the stability 

of buildings in large urban areas and for controlling 

critical civil infrastructures. 

Monitoring urban areas and critical infrastructure 

networks is a dominant socio-economical 

issue for the safety of the population. 

Structural deterioration with aging and effects 

of natural and man-made ground settlement 

processes pose a threat to structures and 

building strength. 

To guarantee a systematic and comprehensive 

control over large areas, satellite remote sensing 

can be effectively adopted. Differential 

Interferometry SAR (DInSAR) technology 

exploited by I.MODI represents an adequate 

alternative solution can be fully assimilated 

within the ground-based monitoring. 

Through multiple levels of services, I.MODI 

examines structural displacements and performs 

assessments on the level of damage and 

of its possible evolution. Reports are provided 

using WebGIS viewer or by user-friendly 

technical reports, allowing non-experts to utilize 

outcomes of a DInSAR analysis. 

The I.MODI monitoring system has a primary 

role in setting up mitigation and prevention 

actions based on the capability to 

perform back analysis using data archived 

since early 1990s and to be customizable for 

different monitoring end-user needs. 


NEWS 

City Explorer 3D 

Aeronike will participate to this year's InterGeo edition to be held in Berlin from the 

26th to the 28th of September within the booth acquired by EuroMed Mapping, a 

Consortium established in 2015 grouping Aeronike as leading partner and Helica, 

another Italian company operating in the sector of photogrammetry and remote sensing. 

EuroMed Mapping's booth will be located in Hall 4.1 with number B4033 where 

demos and some of the most innovative, recently developed tools and instruments 

concerning 3D modelling, virtual tours and environmental mapping will be shown 

and made available for being tested. 

Aeronike looks forward welcoming you in the above-mentioned occasion to introduce 

its proprietary platform “City Explorer 3D” and for letting you experience some exciting 

3D virtual tours within some of the most beautiful villages and towns of Italy!!! 

www.aeronike.com 

www.euromed-mapping.com 

Leica BLK360 Imaging Laser Scanner: the smallest and 

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The Leica BLK360 captures the world around you with full-colour panoramic 

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lightest of its kind. Anyone who can operate an iPad can now capture the 

world around them with high resolution 3D panoramic images. Using the 

ReCap Pro mobile app, the BLK360 streams image and point cloud data 

to iPad. The app filters and registers scan data in real time. After capture, 

ReCap Pro enables point cloud data transfer to a number of CAD, BIM, 

VR and AR applications. The integration of BLK360 and Autodesk software 

dramatically streamlines the reality capture process thereby opening 

this technology to non-surveying individuals. BLK360 Imaging Laser 

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MP spherical image generation, 360,000 laser scan pts/sec 

Teorema Milano can offer you a solution “all-inclusive” that includes: BLK360° with Software ReCap Pro, Ipad Pro 

12,9” and training courses with specialist. 

www.geomatica.it 


NEWS 

® 

® 


NEWS 


NEWS 

GIS for regional analysis. 

The Local Innovation Map 

The Local Innovation Map in the 

Sicani Area is the result of a didactic 

experimentation conducted in the field 

of GIS applied to Regional and Urban 

Planning, held by the writer in the context 

of the degree course in Regional, 

Urban and Environmental Planning at 

the Polytechnic University of Palermo. 

Inner areas are the focus of the 

National Strategy for Internal Areas 

(SNAI), which provides for significant 

investments both for the enhancement 

of services and infrastructures and for 

local development projects aimed at 

promoting entrepreneurial ideas in the 

sector of agriculture, sustainable tourism, 

handicraft, landscape and cultural 

values. 

The research arises from the belief that 

in inner areas, which can be defined as 

territorial suburbs but also as great reserves 

of local identity resources, there 

are marks of change that can produce 

new life cycles in rural and urban areas 

through investment in environmental 

and cultural heritage and local food. 

In spite of the critical features of a marginal 

area, some isolated experiences 

can be identified in the Sicani Area as 

evidence of the presence of creative talent 

in this "depopulated" inner territory. 

Some examples are: a innovative 

ICT start-up, a co-working space, some 

cultural associations, companies in the 

industry of renewable energies, manufacturing 

specialization and innovative 

food and wine production. 

By means of QGIS, the research work 

has been conducted in order to detect 

territorial distribution of innovative 

activities in the Sicani Area and recognize 

the connections or the absence of 

relationships between concentration/ 

fragmentation/lack of innovation activities 

with demographic dynamics, 

infrastructure, cultural resources and 

local productivity. 

The Local Innovation Map, implemented 

on the basis of updating the 

innovative activities progressively settled 

in this area, could be a useful tool 

for local administrations to understand 

progressive localization reasons and to 

direct future development policy aimed 

at the promotion of cultural/productive 

activities in the inner areas. 

By Marilena Orlando 

Phd Regional and Urban Planning, 

Professor in Charge of “GIS applied to 

Urban and Regional Planning” at the 

Polytechnic - University of Palermo. 

Via Indipendenza, 106 

46028 Sermide - Mantova - Italy 

Phone +39.0386.62628 

info@geogra.it 

www.geogra.it 


REPORT 

Rheticus: Dynamic and continuous 

geoinformation service for critical 

infrastructure and enviromental monitoring 

by Giuseppe Forenza 

Fig. 1 - Screenshot of the Rheticus platform. 

The article describes some activities 

of the Rheticus geoinformation 

service for both critical 

infrastructure and environmental 

monitoring. Two particular 

applications of the cloud based 

platform are shown below. 

Land and infrastructure 

monitoring is a key activity 

to ensure people’s safety, 

environmental protection 

and the safeguarding of assets at 

all stages of the life cycle of infrastructure 

design, production 

and management. 

Traditional campaigns for the 

regular monitoring of large and 

remote areas, however, employ 

considerable financial resources 

and time and are often complex 

to implement. The use of 

satellite technology allows overcoming 

these limitations and 

obtaining frequent, 

accurate and accessible 

information 

thanks to the wide 

availability of spatial 

information, even in 

open data mode. 

Among the different satellite 

technologies available, GPS 

and satellite images are widely 

used. In this context, Europe 

has decided to launch two constellations 

of satellites: Galileo 

and Sentinel. Galileo, currently 

under construction, which will 

have 30 GNSS satellites (Global 

Navigation Satellite System, 

the European GPS). The Sentinel 

satellites, of which four are 

already operational, are dedicated 

to Earth observation in the 

context of the Copernicus program 

and the data they collect 

are made available as open data. 

Rheticus platform 

and Displacement 

Images captured by the Sentinel 

satellites are at the basis of the 

monitoring services provided 

by the cloud platform Rheticus 

(www.rheticus.eu). Main 

application of these services are 

dedicated to the monitoring of: 

the stability of infrastructures 

(dams, roads, pipelines, etc.); 

slope stability and subsidence; 

the quality of coastal marine 

waters; forest fires; anthropic 

changes of the territory. 

The Rheticus cloud-based platform 

provides continuous monitoring 

services of the Earth’s 

surface. Shifting from data provision 

to geospatial knowledge 

and geo-analytics, its services 

are delivered by subscription 

and worldwide. 

Rheticus Displacement is one 

of the services provided through 

the www.rheticus.eu cloud 

platform. 

The Rheticus Displacement 

geoinformation service offers 

monthly monitoring of 

millimetric displacements of 

the ground surface, landslide 

areas, the stability of infrastructures, 

and subsidence due 

to groundwater withdrawal/ 

entry or from the excavation of 

mines and tunnels. The service 

also provides information on 

anthropic changes and infrastructural 

dynamics over the 

area where the infrastructure is 

established. 

Rheticus Displacement provides 

a yearly historical analysis with 

monthly updates. 

The mapping activity is made 

through the monitoring of 

points on the ground with 

high stability called Persistent 

Scatterers (PS). The PS is produced 

through the processing 

of the European Copernicus 


REPORT 

Sentinel-1 satellite images or 

COSMO-SkyMed satellite data. 

Already used by main European 

infrastructures and transportation 

engineering companies, the 

service is targeted to: Infrastructures 

and works managers and 

builders; Public Administration; 

Planners & professionals in the 

territory. 

This service was adopted by 

numerous customers in various 

application areas after only its 

first months of operation. 

Two success stories: 

• ANAS S.p.A. (National 

Autonomous Roads Corporation): 

analysis of slope 

stability to support the planning, 

design and monitoring 

of roads. 

• MM S.p.A. (former Metropolitana 

Milanese): analysis 

of the instability of roads 

overlying pipelines for the 

detection of leaks in the 

water and sewage supply network. 

Monitoring displacements of 

the sewer network in Milan 

(Italy) 

The public sewerage network 

of Milan runs for approximately 

1500 km. MM SpA (former 

Metropolitana Milanese 

SpA), the managing company 

of Integrated Water and 

Wastewater Services of the City 

of Milan, had been searching 

for a method to quickly detect 

ground surface movements caused 

by the structural defect of 

its collector that could affect the 

area above the primary network 

and adjacent areas. 

Satellite radar interferometry 

was considered the most accurate 

and affordable survey method 

to prevent and identify possible 

failures of the sewage system, 

even in relation to the high 

traffic volume of metropolitan 

cities like Milan. 

Thanks to the Rheticus platform 

(www.rheticus.eu) and its 

geoinformation service Rheticus 

Displacement, which processes 

the interferometric data of 

Sentinel satellites, 50 points 

with sensitive sub-vertical movements 

on 24 roads with heavy 

traffic were identified and will 

be investigated in a detailed 

field survey. 

Rheticus Network Alert - 

A new user experience for water 

& sewer networks 

Powered by Hexagon Geospatial’s 

Smart M.App technology, 

Rheticus Network Alert has 

been lauched at HxGN Live 

Conference – June 2017- Las 

Vegas. 

The objective of Rheticus Network 

Alert is to assist integrated 

water and sewer networks 

managing companies in their 

maintenance and inspection 

activities. 

Rheticus Network Alert simplifies 

the analysis of the Persistent 

Scatterers processed by Rheticus 

Displacement, providing information, 

filtered and applied 

directly to the network. Maintenance 

activity and inspection 

Fig. 2 – Displacements over the sewer Network in Milan, Italy. 

priority, are simplified and the 

Network Alert Smart M.App 

provides the level of warning on 

each pipelines. 

A growing network 

of Authorized Resellers. 

The distribution of Rheticus 

services is global. To guarantee 

assistance to organizations, professionals 

and decision makers 

in any part of the globe, Planetek 

Italia is building a network 

of valued Authorized Distributors. 

Several companies in 

Europe, Central America, Africa 

and Asia have already joined its 

innovative business model and 

started offering Rheticus services 

to their markets. To be part 

of this network write at info@ 

planetek.it 

Rheticus awards 

Developed by Planetek Italia, 

Rheticus has been already awarded 

in several competitions and 

prizes at Italian and international 

level, for the idea of shifting 

from the provision of data to 

the provision of services, intended 

as continuous access to 

information from the users. 

A few months after its official 

launch in April 2016, Rheticus 


REPORT 

was awarded: 

4As “Application of the Year 

2016” by OpenGeoData 

Association 

4the “TIM Telecom Best 

Practices for Innovation 

2016” during the Premio 

Best Practices for Innovation 

ceremony organized by 

Confindustria Salerno, Italy. 

4It was also listed among finalists 

of the European EO 

product of the Year 2016 

by the EARSC Association, 

and finalist of Hexagon 

Geospatial’s 2016 IGNITE 

Competition. 

Rheticus was recently presented at 

ENGAGE 2017, the DigitalGlobe’s 

forum, in London, UK, and 

at HxGN Live Conference 2017, 

Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Rheticus information and DEMO 

on http://www.rheticus.eu 

Fig. 3 - Dynamic geoinformation about displacements over the sewer Network in Milan, Italy. 

KEYWORDS 

geoinformation service; critical infrastructure; 

environment monitoring; rheticus network alert 

ABSTRACT 

Using free & open images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel satellites, the Rheticus cloudbased 

platform delivers industry-focused geoinformation services, in form of dynamic maps, 

reports, geo-analytics and alerts for professionals, private companies and Public Authorities, 

involved in engineering, utilities, energy, mining, land planning, environment and land monitoring. 

Subscribed users can receive contiuous information and analytics on the stability of infrastructures 

(dams, roads, railways, pipelines, etc.), slope stability and subsidence, the quality of 

coastal marine waters, forest fires and anthropic changes of the territory. 

AUTHOR 

Giuseppe Forenza 

forenza@planetek.it 

Planetek Italia 


REPORT 


AGENDA 

4 - 7 September 2017 

UAV-g 2017 International 

Conference on Unmanned 

Aerial Vehicles in Geomatics 

Bonn (Germany) 

www.geoforall.it/k9cwq 


RSPSoc2017 - Annual 

Conference Earth and Planets: 

Making the most of our 

observations 

Londron (United Kingdom) 

www.geoforall.it/kw3ua 


Strasbuorg (France) 

INSPIRE 2017 Conference 

www.geoforall.it/kwaky 


56th Photogrammetric Week 

2017 

Stuttgart (Germany) 

www.geoforall.it/k9cwr 


INTERGEO 2017 

Berlin (Germany) 

http://www.intergeo.de/ 

27 - 29 September 

Digital,Design and 

Development Fair 2017 

Hamburg (Germany) 

www.geoforall.it/kwawr 

9-10 October 2017 

EuroSDR / ISPRS Workshop 

on "Oblique Aerial Cameras - 

Sensors and Data Processing" 

Barcelona (Spain) 

www.geoforall.it/kwafq 

17 - 19 October 2017 

TECHNOLOGY for ALL 

2017 

Rome (Italy) 

www.technologyforall.it 

23 - 25 November 2017 

12th International 

Conference on Non- 

Destructive Investigations 

and Microanalysis for the 

Diagnostics and Conservation 

of Cultural and Environmental 

Heritage (AIPnD) 

Turin (Italy) 

www.aipnd.it 

16-19 January 2018 

Geospatial World Forum 

Hyderabad (India) 

www.geoforall.it/kwacw 

6 – 11 May 2018 

FIG Congress 

Istanbul (Turkey) 

www.geoforall.it/k9cwx 

Teorema has been working 

alongside professionists proving 

the most innovative topographic 

technology, the best technical 

training and accurate after-sales 

assistance since 1986, 

in order to make your work more 

reliable and productive. 

leica BlK360° 

The imaging laser scanner simplifies 

the way spaces are measured, designed 

and documented . 

New dimension in measurements technology 

❚❚Leica BLK360° captures the world around you with full-colour panoramic images overlaid on a 

high-accuracy point cloud. 

❚❚Simple to use with just the single push of one button, the BLK360 is the smallest and lightest of its kind. 

❚❚Anyone who can operate an iPad can now capture the world around them with high resolution 3D 

panoramic images. 

❚❚Using the ReCap Pro mobile app, the BLK360° streams image and point cloud data to iPad. The app 

filters and registers scan data in real time. 

❚❚After capture, ReCap Pro enables point cloud data transfer to a number of CAD, BIM, VR and AR 

applications. 

❚❚Teorema Milano can offer you a solution “all-inclusive” that includes: BLK360° with software ReCap 

Pro, Ipad Pro 12,9”, training courses with specialist. 

Contact us, you will discover much more. 

www.geomatica.it • www.disto.it • www.termocamere.com 

Via A. Romilli, 20/8 20139 Milano Italy • Tel. +39 02 5398739 • teorema@geomatica.it

GEOPOSITIONING SOLUTIONS 

topconpositioning.com/gls-2000 

INTRODUCING 

3D LASER SCANNER 

IMAGING 

LASER SCANNER 

FORM AND FUNCTION 

MAGNET 

FAST, PRECISE 3D SCANNING TECHNOLOGY 

The GLS-2000 offers quick, simple and effective ways of capturing 3D point cloud data at high-speed 

without sacrificing the accuracy desired by today’s demanding professionals. 

© 2017 Topcon Positioning Group

GEOmedia 3 2017

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