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SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2015 GeomaticsWorld Issue No 6 : Volume 23

Surveying for geographical and spatial information in the 21st century

Geomatics: it’s all about robust measurement

The future for Measurement The Sagrada Familia: Plaques, geodetic HxGN LIVE! 2015: surveyors is BIM techniques for geometry and a pendulums and shaping smart consulting vessel sensor offsets client in no hurry James Joyce change

FREE DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION FOR PROFESSIONAL SURVEYORS see page 3

Contents Geomatics World is published bi-monthly by p.12 For surveyors the future is BIM consulting PV Publications Ltd on behalf of the Royal Institution The collaborative approach encouraged by BIM is one from which surveyors can profit of Chartered Surveyors Geomatics Professional Group argues Stephen Ward, but the route will be through consulting. and is distributed to group members and other subscribing professionals. p.16 Develop 3D: put it in the cloud Editor: Stephen Booth Although this event was primarily about CAD for manufacturing, there were plenty Technical Editor: Richard Groom of lessons for construction, reports Richard Groom. Advertising: Sharon Robson p.18 HxGN LIVE Subscriptions: Jason Poole It’s all about smart change driven by smart apps, explains Adam P. Spring reporting Editorial Board from Hexagon’s HxGN LIVE! show in Las Vegas. Ian Coddington, Pat Collins, Professor Ian Dowman, Richard Groom, Alan Haugh, James Kavanagh, p.20 Sagrada Familia and a client in no hurry Professor Jon Mills, Dr Stuart Robson, Dr Martin Smith An extraordinary building project in Barcelona, which began well over a century ago, is planned for completion on the 100th anniversary of the architect’s . Overseas Sources Roy Dale – New Zealand p.22 Robust measurement techniques for vessel sensor offsets Nick Day – USA Hydrography is grappling with many new sensors. But surveyors need to accurately know Editorial and advertising: where they’re positioned on a vessel. Stuart Leakey and Geoff Wharton explain. e-mail: [email protected] Web: www.pvpubs.com p.26 Singapore’s SEACS T: +44 (0) 1438 352617 It was all about expanding geospatial futures at the 13th South East Asia Survey Congress, F: +44 (0) 1438 351989 where delegates heard 15 keynotes and 94 presentations, reports Gordon Adreassend. Mailing: p.28 Major change ahead for AutoCAD PV Publications Ltd Cloud computing heralds a change in licensing for software developers. But there are 2B North Road benefits too for the project team, argues Richard Groom. Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 4AT p.30 Leica debuts new range on Rugby’s home ground Material to be Published With the aim of captivating its audience, Leica unveiled a host of new products, from a While all material submitted for publication will be super DISTO, 3D viewing on total stations to an Android app for data collection. handled with care and every reasonable effort is made to ensure the accuracy of content in Geomatics World, the publishers will have no responsibility for any errors p.05 Editorial p.27 Book Review or omissions in the content. Furthermore, the views and opinions expressed in Geomatics World are not p.06 News p.32 Overcurrents necessarily those of the RICS. p.08 Calendar p.36 Legal Notes Reprints: Reprints of all articles (including articles p.09 Chair’s Column p.37 Downunder currents from earlier issues) are available. Call +44 (0)1438 352617 for details. p.10 Undercurrents p.38 Products & Services p.15 Policy watch p.39 Classified Advertising: Information about advertisement rates, schedules etc. are available in the media pack. Telephone, fax or write to PV Publications. >> GW: get the electronic edition first Subscriptions: Yearly subscription (six issues) is £45 Receive a free electronic link by email to the latest issue of GW before the print edition is published. (UK) £49 (worldwide). For more details, including Email your request to [email protected] (please note that if you are not already a special offers, go to: www.pvpubs.com subscriber or member of RICS or IIS, you may be asked to complete a digital form so that we can validate your application). If you would also like to receive the printed edition you can subscribe at No material may be reproduced in whole or in part www.pvpubs.com. Please note that RICS overseas members need to advise us if they want to receive the without written permission of PV Publications Ltd. printed edition by opting in at: http://www.pvpubs.com/OverseasRICS © 2015 ISSN 1567-5882 Printing: The Manson Group, St Albans, UK Note: the current edition can be viewed online and downloaded as a PDF at : http://www.pvpubs.com/DigitalEdition/GeomaticsWorld PV Publications Ltd 2B North Road, Stevenage, Herts SG1 4AT T: +44(0)1438 352617 Did you get your FREE copy? W: www.pvpubs.com Engineering surveyingshowcase2015 ISSUE ONE Did you get your FREE copy of Showcase issue 1? RICS members in the UK COVER STORY are entitled to receive a FREE copy upon registration or request. Just drop The Sagrada Familia is us an email with your full postal address and we’ll pop a copy in the post one of the world’s most to you. Overseas readers can still view the latest issue by going to: extraordinary buildings with incredibly intricate http://www.pvpubs.com/DigitalEdition/Showcase shapes and challenging geometry. Fortunately today it is aided by IN THE NEXT ISSUE of GW. . . CAD, which was not Intergeo – all the latest gismos and launches available when construction began in The Open Geospatial Consortium – what does it do for surveying? 1882. Full story on page 20. Copy dates for November/December issue: Editorial: 05 October Advertising: 19 October September / October 2015 Geomatics World 03 ur One receiver ter for o Regis ys ogy Da chnol .com Configured for today Te nowhow .koreck Scalable for tomorrow www

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Read it how you like but are you taking it in?

The rise of digital ow are you reading this copy of GW? Are sounded by RICS Geomatics Professional Group you holding the printed copy in your hand chair Chris Preston, page 09; and Carl Calvert reading poses Hor are you peering at it on the screen of a examines some of the legal issues around cloud challenges for tablet or laptop? Perhaps you’ve viewed it computing (page 36). online, downloaded it and printed a PDF of the Turning to the wet world and hydrographic publishers. It seems page. surveys, with the rise in the type of geospatial all too easy to go It’s not only the way we view printed material sensors now installed aboard survey vessels it is that’s changing. Not all children are learning to essential to know their exact positions as digital, but are write today in the way that generations before accurately as possible. Stuart Leakey and Geoff readers still did. I read recently that the teaching of cursive Wharton explain how this has been done for a (joined up) writing is on the wane as more and Port of London survey vessel, using total station, comprehending as more teaching involves tablets and other digital laser scanner and metrology devices like the much? devices. I’ve also read that those wunderkinder Leica Tracker and T-Probe. of Silicon Valley are insisting that their kids get a Two reports highlight the lightest technology proper with books and joined-up launches from Hexagon and its Leica Geosystems writing. Interesting. subsidiary. There are indeed some exciting new So a word of caution to those who read only gismos, including a DISTO that’s almost a total on screen. I am currently reading Naomi S station. As Richard Groom observes, ‘a rather Baron’s Words Onscreen. Her research finds that useful piece of equipment’. In the next issue we digital reading is reshaping our understanding of shall be looking at the latest launches from arch what we’ve read. Tests have found that those rivals Trimble and Topcon, as they hold their who use e-readers retain less than printed book roadshows and we report from the Intergeo readers, while those who read and scan text exhibition in Stuttgart. online have been found to adopt an “F” shaped pattern of reading, scanning from left to right Struggling with geometry but increasingly reading less of what’s to the We’ve also taken a look at a remarkable right, as they rapidly descend the page. I hope I construction taking place in Barcelona that can persuade you to pay more attention than the began more than a century ago and involves scan readers, for this is a worthwhile issue of some of the most challenging geometry GW packed with something for just about imaginable. The Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi’s everyone engaged in geomatics. Please read it Sagrada Familia is one of Spain’s top tourist wherever and whatever you like and just attractions but whilst you may marvel at its remember that the printed version comes in a soaring, spiralling spires, surmounted by bowls of handy letterbox-friendly package that doesn’t fruit and nuts, you will probably need to be a need an internet connection or batteries. Let’s surveyor or engineer to appreciate the incredible see what we have. construction difficulties this presents. Although incomplete, the building is already a UNESCO Pendulums just swing well for some world heritage site. Nick Day, whose writing skills and lively curiosity Turn also to the News columns (p.07) to learn drive him into visiting all sorts of unusual about an extraordinary Cyark project backed by locations and recording the results in both word Topcon to document what must be one of the and image, has recently been to Trieste in Italy oldest hydroelectric power plants in the world, The editor welcomes your near the border with Slovenia where he and in Japan. Here too there are plans to get the comments and editorial discovered a vast cavern in which were located plant identified as a world heritage site. contributions by e-mail: geodetic pendulums, whose sensors and Lastly I am able to publish a response from [email protected] recording equipment can detect earthquakes on the TSA (page 08) regarding Richard Groom’s or by post: the other side of the globe. Big geodesy indeed. review of the TSA’s Briefing Note on Calibration Geomatics World Turn to page 32 to read Nick’s account. published in the last issue. PV Publications Ltd Stephen Ward argues that the future for 2B North Road surveyors in the growing world of BIM is to focus Stevenage on the bigger picture and the opportunities it Herts SG1 4AT offers through BIM consulting (page 12). United Kingdom Meanwhile a word of caution on BIM software is Stephen Booth, Editor

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 05 NEWS

Survey School graduates celebrated companies to think holistically Five UK satellites launched about the environmental and social by Indian rocket impact of their business activities, In what is believed to be the and strategic investment decisions. largest number of wholly British- The executive summary of built spacecraft to go up on a ‘Advancing Responsible Business single launch, an Indian rocket has Practices in Land, Construction, put five UK satellites in orbit, part Real Estate Use and Investment’ of the DMC constellation. Built by and full report can be seen at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd http://www.rics.org/uk/about- (SSTL), the DMC-3 type satellites rics/responsible-business can see features on the ground down to a metre across. Each Future cities pilot project platform weighs 447kg and sees The Open Geospatial Consortium the Earth in a range of visible and (OGC) in collaboration with infrared wavelengths. The quintet buildingSMART International (bSI) includes three satellites to image is inviting sponsorship in a pilot the Earth and support disaster project to help cities around the monitoring and relief, and two to world benefit from modern test technologies that could be The graduation ceremony marking the achievements of students on standards for geospatial used on future spacecraft. the 2015 TSA Surveying Course positions the Survey School as the technologies. The pilot, to be based An unusual business model is major supplier of the next generation of qualified personnel. Speaking in Europe, will demonstrate the being used to commercialise the at the presentation, The Survey Association (TSA) president Mark ability of cities to use diverse, satellites. In the past, imaging data Combes paid tribute to manufacturers, Leica Geosystems, Topcon and interoperating spatial technologies has been sold by the square Trimble for donating equipment supporting the School’s ambitions to to deliver improved quality of life, kilometre. Merely leasing spacecraft be the ‘jewel in the crown’ of survey training providers. Since taking civic initiatives and resilience. time is something that is done in over the running of the School in May 2014 TSA has transformed the Human, natural, and physical the telecoms sector. “Most folk facilities and updated the IT systems at the Worcester site. systems interact in space and time, don’t buy a whole Combes urged this year’s graduates to act as ambassadors for the and the digital systems in cities will telecommunications satellite; they school and hoped they would be encouraged to go on to gain become increasingly diverse and buy transponder time by the hour,” further professional qualifications in an industry which has a major numerous, with many owners. explained SSTL chairman Sir Martin impact across many sectors. Cities thus need an open, vendor- Sweeting. Chinese company 21AT Best Assignment and Best Student awards were sponsored by the neutral standards platform for will be leasing the capacity of three Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors and Leica communicating spatial and of the satellites for the next seven Geosystems. CICES president Ian Bush and John Fraser, Leica’s MD, temporal data. Many of the years. “That’s what the BBC does, were on hand to make the awards. The Best Assignment award was longstanding technical boundaries for example, for some of their live won by Keith Gunn of Global Surveys for a measured building survey separating indoor, outdoor, broadcasts: they just use the that tutors said was completed to “a very high professional underground and atmospheric telecoms satellite for a couple of standard”. A consistently high performance in exams and a diligent information have been overcome. hours and then walk away”, approach to class work and assignments delivered an overall 90% The FutureCities Pilot will show explains Sweeting. “And we mark for Steve Cottis of Atkins, named as Best Student. how cities can begin to reap the thought: why don’t we apply that Neil Gamble, survey manager, transportation at Atkins explained benefits. to Earth observation? We will why he believes the TSA Surveying Course is a good model for launch the satellites and run the today’s employers and ambitious employees. “It really takes students FIG NZ working week service, and then customers can back to basics on the principles of surveying, which in today’s push- Next year’s FIG Working Week will come in, lease the imaging capacity button world is not so easily acquired. As a result their surveying be held in Christchurch, New and do all the value-added they capabilities and problem solving skills are strengthened. The course Zealand from 2 to 6 May 2016. want on top of that.” is very important to us as it plays a great part in the development of The event is hosted by FIG and the Source: BBC website our surveyors individually and our team as a whole. I am absolutely New Zealand Institute of delighted with Steven’s outstanding and fully justified result”. Surveyors, NZIS. The conference County boundaries To date more than 300 students have graduated from the School expects to attract between For 224 years OS has been and this year’s class of 13 could potentially double by July 2016 as 700–900 local and international mapping the changing physical two TSA courses will be offered in parallel. More at delegates with an overall theme of landscape of Great Britain. www.tsa-uk.org.uk/opportunities/the-survey-school/ “Recovery from Disaster”, However it is not only the Caption above, from left: Rory Stanbridge, TSA Secretary General, Mark following the deadly magnitude landscape which has changed, Combes, TSA President, Steve Cottis, Atkins, John Fraser, MD Leica 7.1 earthquake that shook Great Britain’s county boundaries Geosystems, Keith Gunn, Global Surveys and Ian Bush, President CICES Canterbury. A “call for papers” is have also moved over the last two announced both for peer reviewed centuries. As part of a project with and non-peer reviewed papers. the Department for Communities RICS – UN collaboration Compact on identifying the most Abstracts for peer reviewed papers and Local Government (DCLG) OS An ongoing collaboration between critical issues facing companies by 1 October 2015 and abstracts has created two new datasets of RICS and UN Global Compact has with a stake in land, real estate for non-peer-review papers by 15 county boundary information: the culminated in the Global Compact and construction. The aim is to November. More at current ceremonial and historic toolkit. RICS has been working make responsible business the http://www.fig.net/fig2016/sub county boundaries. The new with the United Nations Global status quo and encourage mission.htm datasets have been released

06 Geomatics World September / October 2015 NEWS through the OS OpenData portal Topcon facilitates preservation of heritage site and can be freely downloaded, as either Shape or Tab files.

UK Land use map reveals large-scale changes A free land cover map of the UK reveals national loss of habitats and agricultural land. The CORINE land cover map 2012 shows change between 2006 and 2012 and covers an area of over 2,250 km2. Typical change includes: • over 100,000 hectares of coniferous forest lost to clear- cutting • over 7,000 hectares converted from forest to artificial surfaces, and over 14,000 hectares changed from agricultural to artificial surfaces • over 3,000 hectares of arable land and 2,000 hectares of Data from participation by Topcon Positioning Group in the digital preservation of the historic Sogi pastures converted to mineral hydroelectric plant in Japan was unveiled at a special event in Bonn, in conjunction with the extraction sites recent UNESCO World Heritage Committee meetings. The committee examined proposals to inscribe 36 The ‘Coordination of Information on properties on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. the Environment’ (CORINE) map Located in Isa, the Sogi power plant was constructed in 1909. At its height the hydroelectric plant was prepared by researchers at the generated 6,700 kW. The plant closed in 1965 with the construction of the larger Tsuruda dam downriver. University of Leicester together with Considered a significant contribution to Japan’s Meiji era industrial revolution, the plant was mapped as consultancy company Specto Natura part of the CyArk 500 Challenge – an international project to digitally preserve and create awareness of and is a central part of the some of the world’s most significant cultural heritage sites. European Land Monitoring Service The Sogi site was recorded in 3D by an international team using the latest Topcon geopositioning under the Copernicus programme. A technologies including the GLS-2000 scanner, the IP-S2 mobile mapping system, as well as aerial mapping standardised classification system is solutions. Topcon teamed with CyArk and the National Congress to develop a three-dimensional map of used of 44 land cover and land use the site for future preservation and visualization. Explore the project at cyark.org. classes, which are structured in a three-tier system that shows how much of the UK is made up of having been sales & marketing Committee in Bonn Germany, digital maps with real-time artificial surfaces, agricultural areas, director since 2012. ICOMOS and CyArk announced data more closely. forest and semi-natural areas, Papers announced to date an MOU to launch a programme http://www.bbc.com/news/busi wetlands and water bodies. include subjects as diverse as marine for the emergency ness-33756603 management, the National Trust, the documentation of high risk GeoCom’s Resilient Futures Census, 3D geospatial analysis, cultural heritage. The initiative, Topcon has announced a The UK’s leading GIS event, AGI sensors in the management of sewer named Project Anqa, the Arabic worldwide distribution GeoCommunity is set to take place networks, mapping underwater noise word for the Phoenix, intends partnership with Germany this autumn. Scheduled for 23-25 from anthropogenic activities and to deploy teams of international based UAS provider Ascending November at Chesford Grange in INSPIRE. In addition, a number of professionals, paired with local Technologies. The agreement Warwickshire, GeoCom: Resilient debate sessions will provide the professionals to document at- gives Topcon exclusivity for the Futures has already attracted opportunity to hear from industry risk sites in 3D before they are global distribution of the new several inspirational keynote thought-leaders on Privacy; The role destroyed or altered. AscTec®Falcon 8 rotary-wing speakers. of ‘where’ in managing ‘things’; Is model, the GeoEXPERT and the Mark Bew, MBE chairs the HM there a need to legislate? Smart A group of German carmakers, InspectionPRO sensing and Government Construction BIM Task Energy and How do you pay for including Audi, BMW and Daimler, feature packages. Group. It will also be an free? are buying Nokia’s Here digital opportunity to hear Nigel Clifford, mapping business for 2.8bn Duke University in North Carolina the new CEO of Ordnance Survey. • See more at: (£2bn). The company is developing has opened a new research and who joined OS earlier this year. http://www.agi.org.uk/news/agi technology that it hopes will help training facility for the use of Sir Alan Wilson, FBA FAcSS /751-confirmed-speakers-at- create self- cars using cloud unmanned aircraft systems in FRS is Professor of Urban and geocom-in-november technology to build digital maps. marine science and conservation. It Regional Systems in the Centre for #sthash.r2plQxLA.dpuf “High-precision digital maps are a flew its first operational missions Advanced Spatial Analysis at crucial component of the mobility earlier this month to support University College London. A BRIEFS of the future,” said Dieter Zetsche, University of North Carolina further speaker is Stuart chairman of the board of Daimler. researchers who were mapping Bonthrone, MD of Esri UK who The 39th Meeting of the The carmakers plan to use Here’s nesting beaches and at-sea took on the role earlier this year UNESCO World Heritage technology to combine precise aggregations of endangered olive

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 07 NEWS

ridley sea turtles in Costa Rica. Airborne LiDAR Bathymetry (ALB) and traditional acoustic New UK flood map Fugro has extended its survey technologies. EOMAP’s integrated survey services in technology platform can process coastal management to enable satellite images and deliver more informed decision-making. global bathymetric and benthic A new agreement with global habitat data through its specialist EOMAP enables the proprietary, sensor-independent creation of integrated Modular Inversion Processor bathymetric survey products that (MIP). comprise elements from Satellite Derived Bathymetry (SDB), The international surveying

TSA’s Response to Richard Groom’s comment in Geomatics World July / August 2015 Issue No.5: Volume 23 We welcome open communication and discussion on our publications but TSA Council are disappointed that Geomatics World felt it necessary to publish Richard Groom’s ill-advised and inappropriate Following an agreement between aerial mapping company Bluesky comments on TSA’s Briefing Note on Instrument Calibration. and hazard mapping specialists JBA Risk Management, visitors to It is unfortunate that Richard Groom chose to respond in this way Bluesky’s online mapshop can now view and download a high- rather than debating within professional industry bounds such as the resolution flood map for the whole of the UK. Detailing peril from Survey Liaison Group (which comprises RICS, CICES and TSA). The topic six different types of flooding, the Comprehensive Flood Map (CFM) of calibration is, as Mr Groom points out, fundamental but to suggest is a leading tool for flood insurance underwriters and is used by over that our members should ‘go read a textbook’ to find out about it, is 70 percent of the UK insurance industry. Bluesky will also be able to patronising in the extreme. supply the data for offline sales to their client base, including local TSA’s free of charge documents fall into three categories and are authority planners, property developers, emergency responders and downloaded by member companies at an ever increasing rate. It may be environmental consultants. that Richard Groom is unaware of the difference between our documents. Briefing Notes are intended to provide information and explanations to members on specific topics of relevance to the organization FIG has re-designed page Samuel Leung has profession. Briefing notes are not intended to recommend or advise on its website. FIG hope that you will highlighted an article in the professional procedures. like the new design and that you Economist that draws parallels Guidance Notes are generally aimed at survey companies and can easily find relevant between a 14,000 year old map clients who require detailed information on a subject. Where information. The site will be drawn on a cave wall showing procedures are recommended for specific professional tasks, these are updated and improved constantly. the best locations to hunt and intended to embody ‘best practice’, i.e. procedures which in the Go to: www.fig.net how digital mapping companies opinion of TSA meet a high standard of professional competence. are vying with each other for Client Guides are primarily aimed at other professionals such as In a post on the GW’s Linkedin the best solutions. engineers, architects, planners and clients in general. They are not intended to go ‘in depth’ into practical issues but to act as a basic guide on a particular topic and, in particular, on procedures and regulations EVENTS CALENDAR 2015 which may govern how a particular aspect of the survey is carried out. • SEMINARS • CONFERENCES • EXHIBITIONS • COURSES • WORKSHOPS As President of TSA and also a member of RICS and CICES I stand GW welcomes advance details of events of interest to the Geomatics community. by our Technical Committee’s great professional work in producing Details to: [email protected] these documents which are used and specified by client organisations BCS-SoC Mapping Together KOREC Technology Day and receive excellent feedback from member companies. 8-10 September, York, UK 22 September, Carton House, TSA’s Briefing Note on Instrument Calibration does not, as Richard www.cartography.org.uk Maynooth, Ireland http://korecnews.com Groom states, ‘degrade the profession’ but in fact references the RICS INTERGEO document on - EDM Calibration 2nd Edition, dating back to December 15-17 September, Stuttgart, Germany UAV Expo 2007’, as a source of further information. www.intergeo.de 5-7 October, Las Vegas http://www.rics.org/uk/shop/EDM-Calibration-16993.aspx Topcon Technology Days www.expouav.com We have taken on board Richard Groom’s suggestion of a joint panel 22-24 September, Stoneleigh Park, Commercial UAV Show comprising all the organisations that represent the Geomatics profession Kenilworth, UK. 20-21 October, ExCel, London in the UK, although this is to formalise the existing collaborative http://www.cvent.com/d/prq4ng/6X www.terrapinn.com approach TSA has with RICS and CICES. The Briefing Note on Instrument KOREC Technology Day 2015 Cyark Summit Calibration will not be changed or edited because of Richard Groom’s 22 September, HAC, London 20-21 October, Berlin Germany comments and will not be withdrawn from TSA’s website. http://korecnews.com www.cyark.org TSA have always sought to work positively with Geomatics World for the good of our industry and will continue to do so. We hope that KOREC Technology Day Maximising Airborne ISR Strategy 22 September, Novotel, Manchester West 26 -27 October Holiday Inn, London this statement now draws a line under this matter. http://korecnews.comCommercial http://www.smi-online.co.uk Mark Combes, President of TSA, BSc (Hons), DipSvy, MRICS, MCInstCES KOREC Technology Day The Capturing Reality Forum • GW stands by Richard Groom’s review and does not 22 September, Titanic, Belfast 23-25 November Salzburg, . agree with all of the statements made in this letter. http://korecnews.com www.CapturingRealityForum.com

08 Geomatics World September / October 2015 Geomatics PGB Chair

Stereotypes and software costs hinder BIM take-up

As even large s the autumn in the UK rapidly of staff training. The type of technology for approaches, it is a good time to take a BIM in larger corporates is only being corporate systems Alonger look at where BIM seems to be developed by a few suppliers making costs struggle to handle developing. The Survey4BIM group has been expensive. However, alternative open source beavering away in the summer to produce the model solutions are being developed, e.g. 3D constantly evolving “Digital plan of works” (DPOW), which I am REPO (http://3drepo.org/) and Cognicity software and sure you will be hearing more about soon. (Canary Wharf Group – http://cognicity.london/). This has been a great effort on behalf of Moreover, large organisations also have issues prohibitive costs numerous contributors and shows the power with corporate IT systems being able to cope with restrict the uptake of collaboration across industry sectors and software that is constantly evolving. Few of them of BIM by smaller provides a good demonstration of how deal with this in a satisfactory manner at the collaboration is key to BIM at several levels. moment and open source software is a real issue. firms, could open A recent RICS funded research project has There is also a need to change the source provide an been looking at behavioural economics and stereotypical relationships between disciplines. incentive theory, associated with BIM. This We need to change our thinking to embrace a answer? Chris provides interesting insights different mindset. Future generations will not Preston, chair of (www.rics.org/collaborativebim). It also asks accept these conventions and survey and some challenging questions: construction will not be a career of choice for RICS Geomatics talented people. • what are the factors hindering the Professional Group implementation of BIM? Guidance amid angst • what are the motives of individuals to comments. There has been some discussion recently explore the potential of BIM enabled regarding guidance notes that are published by collaborative working practices? the main survey industry bodies and a recent In SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises), work is article by Richard Groom has further caused being done to find out how the interface of trust some angst. Through the Survey Liaison Group and collaboration supports BIM implementation. (TSA, RICS, ICES, AGI), we are trying now to It has been discovered that non-monetary ensure that all guidance notes, from whichever motivations are important such as pride in doing of the organisations represented, are badged a good job and loyalty to a firm. from us all. However, that does require Key influences identified were information, sufficient time for a thorough review process risk and uncertainty. Building trust and and it is clear that at times, that does not allow cooperation through collaboration can reduce the TSA to respond to the perceived needs of a supplier’s incentive for concealing their members. This means that some are often information as it ensures contracting parties put together quicker than the RICS, ICES, AGI take a longer term view. Learning and can easily respond to. exchange of information from partners in As a result of this it has been suggested alliances make collaboration appealing, even that to overcome the lack of time that all when elsewhere the partners may be in prospective contributors may have, the competition. However, does in-built guidance notes will now be written by a Chris Preston welcomes conservatism stand in the way? “We’ve always combined group overseen by a single person, your comments and done things this way”, it works, why change? in the hope that such differences of opinion thoughts so please email Perhaps one of the biggest hindrances to the can be avoided. to the following address uptake of BIM, especially for SMEs is the As ever your thoughts are always welcomed [email protected] prohibitive costs of investing in technology and to the usual e-mail address.

How to ensure that you always get your copy of GeomaticsWorld If you receive GW as part of your RICS membership, you must inform the Institution of any change of address. As publishers of GW we cannot change the RICS membership database for you. Call +44 (0)870 333 1600 or log on to the RICS website or write to: RICS Contact Centre, Surveyor Court, Westwood Way, Coventry, CV4 8JE, UK or email [email protected] Subscribers to GW can call +44 (0)1438 352617 or email: [email protected]

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 09 UNDERCURRENTS

Going to war and finding Captain Bligh

by Malcolm Draper, Rentalength

A visit to south guidance systems fell virtually at random. At ground level you can inspect a U-boat, London finds big tanks, military including the remains of guns, fashion and one destroyed in Iraq by one of those nasty IED’s. Head up a floor and the cockpit of a Lancaster some grim bomber awaits with examples of various bombs reminders. (hopefully minus explosives), a miniature submarine, rifles, swords, and much else. There Meanwhile there’s is also a very good World War I exhibition which a response to the apart from trench warfare covers some of the big events like the Gallipoli campaign, the first air last issue’s raids and the way the war changed things at editorial, with home bringing women into the factories in large numbers for the first time. which our columnist ndercurrents recently visited the magnificent We visited several special exhibitions including concurs. Imperial War Museum in south London. It “Fashion on the Ration”, a commemoration of Useems rather odd that we have a museum in (mainly) how women struggled to continue London, ostensibly part of Europe, when only a looking smart during the second world war. From generation or two ago we were killing each other. a ‘onesie’ to wear in the air raid shelter, to dresses Now we’re all good neighbours, well mainly! The made from parachutes (German presumably?) and museum is tucked away in a rather nondescript jewellery created from aeroplane parts, the fairer area between Lambeth North tube station and the sex did its bit to keep up morale. A darker side is Elephant & Castle where it resides within a rather a Holocaust exhibition, which for my generation fine par. It announces its purpose with two we know only too well of the horrors that took enormous guns (above) removed from a World place. In my personal view the exhibition is Below: a short walk from War I battleship. They are scarily huge. ‘Gawd ‘elp’ difficult to fully take in, not least because it’s so Lambeth North underground anyone on the receiving end of what they could big. A grim large scale model of Auschwitz station reveals this blue have delivered. occupies a whole room. plaque marking Bligh’s The museum, to quote its blurb, covers “. . .all The museum is an absolutely brilliant and London home. aspects of twentieth and twenty-first century informative day out, indeed you will need more conflict involving Britain, the Commonwealth than a day to study it all. When we went it and other former empire countries.” seemed extremely popular with tourists from all The building was constructed in the 1850s as over the world, judging from the babble of a . The museum’s collection was first foreign tongues. Put it on your bucket list. housed in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill before it caught fire in the 1930s (according to Bligh’s plaque and the LCC the indispensable Wikipedia). In 1924 the As I walked to the Imperial War Museum I noticed museum moved to space in the Imperial Institute this interesting plaque on a fine Georgian house, in South Kensington, and finally in 1936 the placed there by the old London County Council. museum acquired its current home, which was William Bligh was commander of the Bounty and previously the Bethlem Royal a protégé of Captain James Cook (who fortunately Hospital in Southwark. taught him navigational skills). He had set sail for The museum houses some the South Seas on a mission to obtain breadfruit fantastic exhibits. You walk into the to see whether it would be suitable to feed slaves enormous entrance hall and look but the crew mutinied, possibly due to Bligh’s up to a see a Spitfire and a Harrier enthusiasm for dealing brutally with minor Jet almost rubbing wings with a transgressions by crew members or may be for World War II German doodlebug other reasons as we shall see. (the V1 and what today we would The mutineers led by Fletcher Christian set call a cruise missile). To one side Bligh and 18 loyal crew members off the Bounty stands a German V2 rocket, far in a small boat. In an amazing show of more terrifying than the V1, which navigation and endurance they sailed over 6,700 could be seen and heard. The V2 kms to Timor, the nearest European settlement came silently and invisibly out of from which Bligh returned to England and nowhere and due to the poor continued his career with the Royal Navy.

10 Geomatics World September / October 2015 U

UNDERCURRENTS

Christian meanwhile, as the story goes, founded for generations to come. If we are not careful we a colony on Pitcairn Island. may see an unseemly turf war which will do To this day, the reasons behind the mutiny are neither a great deal of good. a subject of debate. Many believe that Bligh was I was involved in survey and mapping for a cruel tyrant whose abuse of the crew led them more years than I would like to remember before to feel that the crew had no choice but to take recently retiring. During that time I have seen over the ship. Others argue that the crew, many changes to the tools we use in creating inexperienced and unused to the rigours of the and presenting survey information. But they are sea and, after having been exposed to freedom just the tools of our trade. The same people and sexual licence on Tahiti, refused to return to involved in producing surveys for, say, the “Jack Tar’s” life of an ordinary seaman. They government agencies were, and still are also the were led by Fletcher Christian in order to be free people providing data for new highways and from Bligh’s acid tongue. This view holds that the flood defences. These professionals (surveyors, . . . professionals . . . crew took the ship so they could return to photogrammetrists, geomaticists, etc) use the use the same tools comfort and ease on Tahiti. Source: Wikipedia same tools to provide a survey solution for a particular specification. As surveyors, we have to provide a survey Miscellany always been required to be flexible to the solution for a The BBC’s website recently provided a classic individual needs of a specific client. As well, the example of British sangfroid. A man had driven use of CAD, GIS, BIM, and any other future particular his car into a river. He called for assistance. He abbreviation is only a common presentation tool specification. As then sat in his car surrounded entirely by water for the whole survey spectre and not confined to surveyors, we have quietly smoking his pipe as if nothing could one narrow part. possibly be wrong with the world. A great My biggest concern now is the confused always been example of that world war two saying, “Keep message the profession may be giving to new required to be calm and carry on”. graduates and others wishing to enter into the profession. How they are educated and trained flexible to the Here’s one or two more of those idiot things will not change because their chosen working individual needs of people give as answers on quiz shows. life may encompass more engineering type projects rather than, say building information or a specific client. • From GWR FM, Bristol: What happened in boundaries. But they are now required to make a Dallas on November 22 1963? Contestant: “I choice early in their careers of how and where don’t know, I wasn’t watching it then”. they should seek chartered status or align themselves to the RICS, the CICES, or both. • From Beacon Radio Wolverhampton: For 10, Those of you that may know me also know what is the nationality of the Pope? Contestant: that I am not originally from these parts. “I think I know that one. Is he Jewish?” However, I have been here [the UK] long enough to now understand how the offside rule in soccer • Geography never seems to be a very strong works and have almost sussed out the point amongst many young Brits. From the Chris complexities of the LBW law. I have, as yet, been Searle Show, BBC Radio Bristol. In which European unable to comprehend what in the British psyche country is Mount Etna? Contestant: “Japan”. creates an overwhelming need to invent a club, Giving the contestant another chance in case he’d society, or institution for what appears to an missed the word ‘European’, he asked again and outsider a small variation to what is already got the answer “Er. . . Mexico?” covered by an existing organisation. This British idiosyncrasy is not necessarily irreversible. Undercurrents heartily concurs with the following I remember when, in the early 2000’s, the from my old mate Mike McKay who came to the Remote Sensing Society and the UK many years ago from Canada. His comments Photogrammetric Society was challenged with about how we Brits always want to create a club the issue of amalgamating their learned Got a tale to tell? for whatever variant of a specialism we’re societies. Some members of both societies saw Please send letters for interested in, reminds me about a now defunct little merit in their integration and, indeed, were publication by e-mail and rare make of British car. Unbelievably, two hostile to the proposal. At the time there was to the Editor: editor@ clubs existed for the enthusiasts, one for each of strong leadership from the management of both the two factories where the cars were made! societies, which combined with a realisation by pvpubs.demon.co.uk the majority of members that the overlap or contact Letter from Mike McKay between the two societies provided an Undercurrents, in I read with interest Stephen Booth’s somewhat opportunity to modernise for future challenges. strictest confidence if innocuous comments in his editorial on his The value of this integration can now be seen by concerns as to whether a BIM article in the all as it has created a larger umbrella society . you wish (we promise CICES Journal could be considered the remit of Perhaps we can learn from this, get our to change names, the RICS rather than the CICES. Yet, ironically, thinking caps on, and find a way forward which places, etc to there was an excellent article in the same edition benefits the members of both institutions and [of GW] on monitoring for Crossrail which could, provides a comprehensive home for all future protect the guilty!), also in a narrow context, be considered in the surveyors rather than try to place them in a via e-mail: realm of the CICES. I believe that this goes to the narrower context. It may also save me paying [email protected] root of a problem which may plague surveyors two subscriptions!

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 11 BIM

BIM: the future is ‘BIM Consulting’

BIM is the strategy uilding Information Modelling (BIM) has collaborative ones. The government expects that taken the construction industry by storm. its detailed programme of measures will reduce being pursued BIf you want to hold a seminar or write an costs by up to 20% by the end of this across infrastructure article, put “BIM” in the title and it will parliament. BIM is one of the strategies that may guarantee a large audience. It’s a bandwagon help to achieve this. development. But and survey companies appear to be trying to The government saw other industries such as how can surveyors jump on it by hiring laser scanners and manufacturing save costs by working within a promoting themselves as BIM surveyors. digital 3D environment. The design data could benefit? Stephen Unfortunately scanning a building or a plot of then be fed to machine tools, creating a direct Ward, of the Faculty land is NOT BIM! link between design and manufacture thus BIM is a process graded into different levels eliminating intermediaries. The vision was to of Science, of communication involving the whole have building projects modelled in 3D so that Technology & construction team and is not just restricted to design proposals could be easily evaluated and Mathematics, Coleg buildings. BIM can be applied to roads, bridges, implemented by the whole construction team. etc. In this article the levels of BIM are In order to define the term 3D BIM and y Cymoedd, South examined in the context of a highway remove ambiguity the BIM industry working Wales urges them to construction project. It will then go on to group recommended that a ‘maturity model’ discuss the place of and potential opportunities should be used consisting of four levels from 0 find their role in the for land surveyors in the BIM process. to 3. Although the government’s strategy bigger picture. report did not specify which maturity level was From adversarial. . . to be met by 2016 it is widely accepted that, The public sector is responsible for 40% of as a minimum, level 2 is the goal. A BIM task construction work with central government group was set up to provide advice, being the biggest customer, yet the supporting standards and guidance notes for government’s perception of the construction organisations implementing BIM. industry is generally poor. Since the 1920s There are those there have been numerous reviews. For Level 0 ‘‘who believe, 20 example, architect and MP Alfred Bossom BIM Level 0 uses traditional paper drawings to described it in 1934 as fragmented, inefficient, convey information and the surveyor’s provision years on from wasteful and adversarial, frequently involving of a site plan marks the end of his involvement. Latham, that this delays, going over budget and having These surveys require basic equipment and dissatisfied users. This has been a continuous minimal training, either in-house or from local is a dream that theme, which many still believe applies today. further education colleges, making them ideal will never be There are too many parties, i.e. clients, for self-employed or small survey companies. designers, contractors and sub-contractors, Most further education colleges offer Btec realised. involved in the construction process, all with a civil and construction courses which contain ’’ vested interest to make or save money. some individual modules on site surveying and the use of CAD. This makes non-surveyors, for . . . to collaborative example, civil engineers or building surveyors, Part of the solution concluded by the Latham equally capable of producing simple 2D site (1994) and Egan (1998) reports was to remove surveys. This being so, the surveying profession the adversarial nature of the industry by could be devalued, unless surveyors can add Below: Figure 2 - GPS promoting ‘teamwork’, ‘co-operation’ and additional value during the later stages of the Machine guidance. Source: ‘partnering’. There are those who believe, 20 building process. It is a pity that small survey Topcon. years on from Latham, that this is a dream that companies have not supported colleges who will never be realised. wish to develop surveying apprenticeships etc. Construction is just too The danger for the profession according to complex for the design team Richard Groom (GW Nov/Dec 2014) is that to avoid changes and it is specialist surveying knowledge may be lost, considered normal to rectify causing expensive mistakes on site. mistakes or respond to clients changing their minds. Level 1 In 2011 the Cabinet Office BIM level 1A specifies a 3D model for published its latest strategy visualisation purposes and can be satisfied by, for report into the construction example Google Earth 3D images. The model industry which again called for would have little or no data attached to it. ‘designers and constructors’ to At Level 1B the scanned 3D ‘point cloud’ work together replacing model has to be converted into a vector adversarial cultures with model using standardised structures and

12 Geomatics World September / October 2015 BIM formats. The purpose of the vector 3D model the 3D site model at this stage of the design is that other ready for other users. specialists, for example geologists and ecologists, are able to add their data. Level 2 It is possible to create a 3D model relatively It is assumed that at cheaply using Trimble Sketchup software (less BIM level 2 there would than £500) and conventional total stations. A be a single 3D design more expensive way to provide a ‘vectorised’ 3D model for the new model is to use a UAV or terrestrial scanner, which road. This can be the cost a minimum of £30,000, although small result of one way survey companies would probably hire rather than collaboration (BIM 2A) purchase. The advantage of scanning is that it whereby the BIM speeds up and simplifies the data collection. model file would be In reality a scanned image will not be able exported to various to show everything due to features hidden, for disciplines such as; example, in wooded areas. Consequently structural engineers, drainage consultants and ‘boots on the ground’ are still needed to fill in contractors. Feedback would be received Above: Figure 1- the gaps. Whilst the field work may be separately using traditional formats and the Concurrent engineering. reduced, the time for producing a vector original model updated accordingly. Source: Salomone. model for other users will increase. Alternatively, two-way collaboration (BIM 2B) There are a number of 3D modelling could be established. In this case, common file software packages that can use point cloud formats would be used between different data. Autodesk Revit is a popular choice for disciplines. However, the flow of data would architects and mainly used for building design, need to be managed by employing a ‘BIM but Autodesk also produces ‘Infraworks 360’ manager’ and, depending on the size of the specifically for road, bridge and drainage design. project, a team of modelling experts to integrate However more advanced software comes with a and update the original design. Once the design . . .it’s a price tag, a need for further training and is complete it would be possible to obtain ‘‘ inevitably, more powerful hardware, which will material schedules, programming time scales (4D bandwagon and be a burden for small survey companies. information) and project costs (5D information). survey companies The only way to become competent at The essential difference between BIM level 1 using 3D software is to use it on a daily basis and 2 is the amount of collaboration between appear to be supplemented with support from ‘YouTube’ the design team, consultants and contractor. trying to jump on and other forums. Since land surveyors are not designers their role would be simply to trace Level 3 it. . . the point cloud data. Tracing a point cloud is At BIM level 3 the design model would be ’’ time-consuming, although software to fully integrated and available to all parties via automate the process is continually evolving. local servers or the internet, employing There is also a severe lack of pre-defined concurrent engineering processes - an idea components that could be downloaded into the illustrated in Figure 1. In a construction model. The NBS National BIM Library provides context the concept and detail designs would free components such as kerbs, fencing, etc. be undertaken simultaneously. The actual that can be downloaded into the 3D model building work would start before the whole conforming to a standard BIM specification. project had been fully detailed. Unfortunately, components that site surveys need do not exist; thus companies have to Construction phase create components themselves, for example, Traditionally land surveyors may have been pylons, furniture etc. resulting in more involved in establishing setting-out control time and cost to the client in order to complete networks. Today site engineers would 5 1 9 0 /

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September / October 2015 Geomatics World 13 BIM

undertake the perhaps with their own BIM manager to setting out of the maintain the 3D model at BIM level 3. road using total stations or GNSS. Conclusion As with total Most small survey companies provide architects stations, with 2D site surveys and 3D DTM information, technology now which can be categorised at BIM level 0. exists to transfer Architects then use this data to produce 3D BIM the 3D design co- level 1 designs. They can also provide a ordinates directly complete 3D site survey in Revit for example, to earthmoving (BIM level 1) but a lot of on-going training is graders and needed to be competent at using the 3D asphalt pavers. No modelling software. Clearly experienced CAD doubt in the future technicians are going to play an important role. these machines Although new technology, offering high will become precision, will speed up data collection there will driverless robots, be times when specialist surveying knowledge Above: Figure 3 - GPS i.e. the road builders equivalent of 3D printing. will be required. The decline in provision for Asphalt Paving. Source: It is not possible at the moment for surveying and mapping courses by colleges and Topcon machines to build everything; human activities universities makes it uncertain where this (www.topconpositioning.co.uk) will inevitably lead to mistakes or unexpected specialist surveying knowledge will come from. ground conditions may be encountered. Survey companies that wish to expand above Therefore some form of as-built monitoring BIM level 1 will need wider construction and verification of accuracy will be needed. knowledge because at BIM levels 2 and 3 other Remote sensing using a UAV platform cannot disciplines start to add to and extract information currently deliver RICS ‘Accuracy Band C’ data, from the 3D model. This flow of data will need so conventional survey equipment is required. to be managed. It is possible that specialist BIM There would however be a potential conflict of consultants would be employed to oversee the interest if contractors use their own engineers data flow. In addition they would be responsible to provide as-built surveys, although the for quality assurance by collecting as-built philosophy of BIM dictates this is the preferred information during construction and amending way of working. The conflict of interest could the 3D model accordingly. BIM consultants would be resolved if the BIM manager’s team of CAD need to be multi-disciplinary and may include; technicians were also skilled in verifying survey specialists in GIS, civil engineers, quantity as-built data prior to updating the 3D project surveyors etc. – surveying and mapping skills on design model. This regular monitoring would be their own will not be enough. essential throughout the project. The philosophy of BIM has been set in motion by the government, whether it delivers Post construction its aims by 2016 remains to be seen. Small When the project is complete the client would survey companies will probably shrink if they do . . . Survey companies receive an as-built 3D model of the road nothing. Companies that invest in scanning ‘‘that wish to expand together with all the associated technical data, equipment will face competition from other such as structural analysis, material schedules disciplines who can obtain their own survey but, above BIM level 1 etc. This would be used for facilities more importantly, add value to the data, e.g. will need wider management (Trimble’s 6D BIM model). building materials, biodiversity data etc. Although surveyors would not be involved in Therefore survey companies that wish to expand construction the day-to-day maintenance, a re-survey would into BIM projects need to widen their knowledge . . . be needed if, for example, full resurfacing is knowledge base or form partnerships with other ’’ required. It would be the client’s responsibility professionals as multi-disciplined practices.

14 Geomatics World September / October 2015 R

Policy Watch

outputs and events on the go. function within their respective Busy agenda kicks off autumn The Survey4BIM output focuses national borders. Both are also on the geo elements within the very involved with and are key Committee of Experts on Global BIM process (design to build) and partners for RICS within the Geospatial Information is due to be published in the European surveying organisation Management (UN-GGIM) was held CICES journal with a launch CLGE (www.clge.eu) and FIG from 3-7 August 2015 at UN event planned for 12th Nov 2015 (www.fig.net). headquarters in New York. UN- at UEL east London. Another GGIM brings together senior output on five Big issues within Apprenticeships in UK executives from national geospatial BIM (Interoperability & exchange The UK Government is particularly and statistical authorities with of geospatial data, Level of detail keen on construction related geospatial experts from across the / definition, Accuracy, Metadata apprenticeships and has recently globe. 290+ participants from 86 and Generalisation) is also due released details of several new A very busy autumn countries, 9 international for completion and release this schemes aimed at the rail and schedule ahead for all organisations, 10 UN bodies, and autumn. The Digital Construction road infrastructure sectors. Figures involved in RICS geomatics, 30 private sector/non-government Show in London (October), Spar of 30k new apprenticeships have entities took part. The discussions Europe in Salzburg (November) been bandied about by ministers. with some significant and outcomes recognise and and GeoBIM Amsterdam RICS is working with our activity having taken place determine the critical role of (December) will all showcase BIM colleagues in the Chartered geospatial information in its “geo-wonderfulness”. Surveyor Training Trust CSTT in the dog days of summer, management and the need for http://www.cstt.org.uk/about- reports James Kavanagh, strengthened collaboration and Evening lectures cstt/what-is-the-cstt to make Director of the Land Group. joint initiatives. A major emphasis The 2015-16 sessions will get sure survey is seen as integral to was placed on the role of national underway in October with the this initiative. Geo and RICS GEOMATICS has input mapping agencies within the land possibility of a lecture at the new engineering survey usually suffers heavily into the forthcoming 2nd administration space and how HQ of the Royal School of from a lack of capacity (and lack ed Rights of Lights guidance good geospatial information is core Military Survey at Wyton, of numbers in this regard) with note; members should watch out to land tenure, security and land Cambridgeshire; more on this in so few wanting to train that a for its release later this year. rights. The UK was represented by due course. The November lecture scheme is difficult to push Rights of light is specialised area Ordnance Survey GB with former will be held on 12th Nov, with forward (over 100 potential of practice but is heavily reliant DG Dr Vanessa Lawrence receiving this year’s Christmas Lecture and apprenticeships need to be on the production of accurate 3D a well-deserved certificate of Michael Barrett Award to be held highlighted); our colleagues in geo-models and calculations. recognition from the UN for all of on Tuesday 08th Dec. This year’s quantity surveying have the her hard work in establishing the award recipient is Paul Munro- numbers to make this work. Intergeo UN GGIM initiative. Faure, FAO Land Tenure Director. By the time you read this Papers and downloads can be 2016 will see the annual UK Indaba 2015 Intergeo will be imminent in accessed from the url below; I GeoForum lecture being held on Almost 800 representatives from Stuttgart. This is the event of the would recommend the Global Thurs 21st Jan. the South African geospatial year for global geomatics and Geodetic Framework output, land industry gathered at Emperors geospatial technologies and is administration documentation Allez Geo uber alles! Palace in Ekurhuleni to hear the the model for GeoBusiness. RICS and legal and policy frameworks. RICS views intra-institutional latest geomatics news and research, will again be at Intergeo and http://ggim.un.org/ggim_commi collaboration and the and to view cutting-edge surveying, working to build on our fledgling ttee.html development of professional ties mapping and GIS technologies at direct entry agreement with the with great importance; and Geomatics Indaba 2015. German professional surveying Survey4BIM geomatics has always been a The event, which took place body DVW (more below). Autumn is gearing up to be very truly global industry. Links with from 11 to 13 August 2015, active on the Survey4BIM front our professional surveying featured top international keynote UN-GGIM (http://www.bimtaskgroup.org/ colleagues in Germany and speakers including Kees de Zeeuw The Fifth Session of the UN’s survey4bim/) with a number of France have been taken to a new (Cadastre, the Dutch Land Registry level of cooperation with the and Mapping Agency), Dr Carl signing of direct entry Reed, former chief technology agreements and MOUs with the officer at the Open Geospatial French professional surveying Consortium; and Dorota Grejner- body Ordre Géomètre Expert Brzezinska, president of the (OGE - http://www2.geometre- Institute of Navigation. Rob expert.fr/oge/accueil-stu_5078) Mahoney FRICS represented RICS and with the German Society for and gave a very well received Geodesy, Geoinformation and session and panel on the recently Land Management (DVW released RICS futures initiative http://www.dvw.de/dvw- (www.rics.org/futures). Rob also seite/herzlich-willkommen-auf- met with representatives of the homepage-des-dvw). South African Geomatics Industry Both OGE and DVW are highly to help firm up on direct entry respected at home and abroad, details and procedures. Some of the Indaba keynote speakers, Rob Mahoney FRICS 2nd from left and fulfil the ‘cadastral licensing’ Have a great autumn.

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 15 3D Documentation

DDeevveelloopp33DD:: ppuutt iitt iinn tthhee cclloouudd

Develop3D Live at his was the fourth annual Develop3D event. software to students. The third speaker, Dan It’s all about CAD for manufacturing. So Staples from Siemens PLM, asserts that this is Warwick University Twhy should I attend? There was a line-up the software industry’s contribution to helping in Coventry found of notable speakers and besides, digital close the gap between the number of graduate manufacturing was the inspiration for engineers and the number that is needed to our technical editor engineering and construction’s rush to BIM. So, sustain manufacturing industry. So we conclude Richard Groom there could be some pointers for the future: if that weaning students on their software is of no manufacturing has a cold today, construction long-term commercial benefit to the software up for an early may catch it tomorrow! suppliers. He urged the industry to actively go start to “beat the The most influential speaker was Carl Bass, out and inspire young people to become CEO of Autodesk who, like the following manufacturing engineers. It seems that crush” expected by three speakers had flown over from the US. manufacturing suffers the same problem as the organisers. They He says that CAD was originally intended to engineering and construction. need not have document designs and convey those designs to others. He reckons that 3D CAD is “quite 3D printing worried; there was good”, but still conveys documentation, 3D printing is the technology that makes it no crush. Maybe whereas he would like it to explore design, possible to manufacture prototypes on demand. which involves interdisciplinary collaboration There were numerous printers on display ranging they all went and that depends, he says, on the cloud. upwards from Autodesk’s printer at £6,000, instead to Bass presented this as if it was something which can produce beautiful but very small new, which made one wonder whether the models. Scott Schiller from HP printing outlined Warwick! manufacturing CAD people really are members the technology behind their printer, which will of a more advanced race. He reckons that we be available from the second half of 2016 and still treat computing as if it is expensive, when will involve colour and other attributes, such as in fact it is very cheap. He chose a rather odd translucency conductivity and flexibility. The comparison between the cost of his rail ticket to printer will be developed on an open platform, Coventry with the number of CPU hours (or so he is concerned about file formats and is something) that he could buy on the cloud. looking for partners for collaboration. Rather than concluding that UK rail fares are Faro had a stand which offered my first outrageous, he suggested that computing opportunity to see the company’s new handheld power is ridiculously cheap and getting cheaper. scanner. It is certainly impressive and can operate up to a maximum range of 5m. Each scanning Minimising time to market session produces a point cloud which can then Bass argues that a new mindset is needed for be integrated with those produced by the longer the new era and that the challenge is to range Faro scanners. The method of operation is minimise the time taken for products to progress similar to DotProduct’s but the Faro’s greater from innovation to the market. His vision is for a range and higher accuracy mean that it has workflow that takes a product from design to much greater potential as a survey tool. manufacture without the need for any Definitely worth a closer look at GEO Business. documents. Jon Hirschtick from software supplier Onshape, echoed many of Bass’s views. He sees Joining the dots the cloud as a way to remove the problems It is interesting to compare the digital route caused by downloading multiple copies of for manufacturing with that of engineering software to computers, resulting in the risk of and construction. I suspect that the latter is incompatibility through the use of different ahead – particularly in the use of optimisation versions. He showed that it is possible for more techniques in design. It’s difficult to see . . . the challenge than one designer to work on the same model significant value in 3D printing for visualisation at the same time, so models will be in the cloud because virtual visualisation is so much more ‘‘is to minimise the too. Both Autodesk’s Fusion 360 and Onshape effective for viewing designs covering large time taken for can be run from the cloud for annual fees of a areas. 3D printing for manufacturing is few hundred dollars for the basic versions up to perhaps the equivalent of using machine products to a thousand or so for the all encompassing ones. control to build a road and so there is certainly progress from Optimisation of design is seen as the next major a parallel. There is also potential for 3D software development. The future for Bass is a manufacturing design models to be innovation to the system that takes design criteria at one end and incorporated into BIM models and indeed market. produces an optimised design at the other. prefabrication of building units is seen as a ’’ Both Autodesk and Onshape offer free major benefit to be gained from BIM.

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HxGN LIVE 2015

HxGN LIVE! 2015: shaping smart change

Smart change xGN LIVE 2015 was hosted at the MGM presentation documented a time when Grand for the fourth year running. It will industries were forming around personal driven by smart Hbe its last outing in Las Vegas for a while computers. Jobs and other key figures like Ed apps, new system with a move next year to Anaheim, California. Catmull, president and CEO of Disney Pixar, The economic upturn in the NAFTA region were at the heart of what Menuez sees as a architecture and has led to a lot of new faces at HxGN LIVE this transformative process. Where the lines new partnerships year. Attendee numbers were at 3500 plus, between market growth, technology and and new partnerships with both Autodesk and innovation start to blur. This can be seen in are at the heart of Esri were announced. Overall, the event today’s technological climate when every time what distinguishes seemed geared toward shaping what Hexagon Silicon Valley is referred the phrase ‘gold rush’ is calls “smart change”. Users of Hexagon used. Menuez’s portion of the keynote was it from its products are clearly at the centre of many timely - especially when new relationships with competitors reports production cycles and smart content is seen to Autodesk and Esri were announced by Hexagon. generate smart information. Adam P Spring Content management on Hexagon’s Opening keynote Content management and useable annual show. Opening proceedings, president and CEO of information were prominent themes at the Hexagon AB, Ola Rollén, discussed human event. The “iTunes model”, used to describe ingenuity and progress in the first part of the Hexagon’s approach to data monetisation, has opening keynote. He put things into context been fully implemented. Announcements like by examining great thinkers of the past, such the Hexagon Imagery Programme (HxIP) – a as Leonardo da Vinci. As in previous HxGN cloud-based service built around Leica LIVE events the digital world versus the real Geosystems’ aerial sensors – and crowd- world is a topic that continues to be sourced maps are shaping information use. examined. Rollén used it to bridge gaps Hexagon is moving in a direction that appears between past and present: “The digital world, to separate it and clearly distinguishes it from the way we know it today, is no different than competitors. our imagination. It is just that we have gotten fancier tools than Leonardo Da Vinci.” Mobile mapping Photographer and author Doug Menuez Mobile mapping solutions also feed into then took to the stage for the second part of content-driven workflows. Simultaneous the keynote. The author of Fearless Genius localisation and mapping (SLAM) is a hot topic walked his audience through a collection of within Leica Geosystems and is at the core of the photographs. These documented the software behind their newly launched Pegasus computing boom in Silicon Valley from 1985- mobile mapping backpack. This wearable 2000. Steve Jobs and his various states of solution contains multiple sensors - GNSS, being in Apple were at the heart of his cameras and LiDAR. Its wearer thus becomes a presentation. walking high definition information receiver. Menuez emphasised that innovation can be both a lonely and a rewarding path. His ScanStation P40 – new system architecture The laser scanning market has now reached another stage of maturity. The advent of smaller and cheaper sensors like the Stonex X300LS (badged by Hexagon’s other survey instrument developer, Geomax) has grown associated markets. The Leica ScanStation P40 is also set to change such markets again. This time via a fibre laser. Despite looking similar, the P40 features an entirely new system architecture to that of its Left: HxGN Live predecessors. This architecture generates TV, podcasting impressively clean point cloud data - even on and other surfaces with low reflectance values. The fibre content laser inside the P40 gives what Gregory Walsh, generation was now senior product manager of innovation at a key part of Leica Geosystems, describes as its “punch”. His the conference. presentation on the P40 also featured sample

18 Geomatics World September / October 2015 HxGN LIVE 2015 data of the vessel SS Great Britain, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic, now residing in Bristol.

HDS sessions The high definition survey (HDS) sessions were an interesting mix of building information modelling (BIM), forensics, oil and gas, architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) based applications. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have also started to make their way into point-cloud driven workflows. Structure from motion (SfM) based data is being fused with scan data too. Both Historic England (HE) and Historic Scotland (HS) presented their work at HxGN LIVE this year. The impressive visualisations shown by Chris McGregor, deputy director of Above: “The Mantis” is a giant fire-breathing art installation originally the conservation group at HS, married well with made for the Burning Man festival. It now greets visitors to the Downtown the considered approaches outlined by Paul Container Park. Bryan, geospatial imaging manager for HE. Paul demonstrated that the UK is a melting pot for their user community. The company wants laser scanning. Point clouds of Stonehenge also them to be at the centre of all the services proved to be eye candy to his audience. and solutions which they provide. Hence, a strong message of “we want to hear your user Smart M.Apps stories and experiences.” The ongoing development of Hexagon’s Geospatial Division has been one of the most Downtown Container Park interesting things to come out of the Over the four years that HxGN Live has been acquisition of Intergraph. The division’s held in Las Vegas, each year has brought with . . . the UK is a announcement of Smart M.apps is something it a new experience as the local economy ‘‘melting pot for that’s worth keeping an eye on in the future. recovered and is now booming, reflecting the laser scanning. Smart M.apps is geared toward creating growth of Hexagon as a company. There is ’’ dynamic and experience-driven maps, which always a different experience to be had in ‘Sin feed into trends like big data and distributed City’ on a conference-by-conference basis. computing. Mapping is application driven says HxGN LIVE 2015 was no different - especially Mladen Stojic, president of Hexagon with the local economy is booming. Geospatial, as well as being shaped by users Downtown Container Park (DCP), for and uses. example, is an open-air sustainable shopping area and community revitalisation project. It Machine control forms part of Fremont Street, which is Machine control has continued to play an considered the historic heart of downtown Las increased role in infrastructure and asset Vegas. The 41 modular cubes that make up the management. Already popular in the EMEA DCP allow for it to be disassembled and moved region, it has also started to regain traction in elsewhere. Each cube is also multifunctional and a revitalised NAFTA region. Johan Arnberg, can be reused as a standalone structure if president of machine control for Hexagon, needed. Another notable feature is “The was keen to emphasise that the solutions his Mantis”: a giant fire-breathing art piece division offers are making construction based originally constructed for Burning Man. Adam P. Spring is a environments more efficient. For example, the consultant and visiting iCON product range - iCONstruct, iCONtrol or Summary lecturer in Applied iCONnect – which provide complete off- and HxGN LIVE 2015 presented a company that is Technologies and Reality on-site machine guidance, positioning and certain about itself and the direction it is going Capture in the Department visualisation for users. Recently announced, in. Competitive separation, which is often of Archaeology, University of the iGG4 grader uses a dual GNSS system for discussed in technology-driven best sellers like Plymouth. He has featured in improved ditch and foundation management. Crossing the Chasm, was also apparent. For numerous academic and example, Leica Geosystems was very much its research publications. In Social media own entity in the precise measurement driven addition to reselling 3DM Analyst, he has been a Social media played a substantial role at HxGN markets it operates in. Hardware like the consultant for Autodesk and LIVE this year. Blogging, podcasting and HxGN ScanStation P40 is generating high resolution Leica Geosystems. For more TV for YouTube were used in order to improve and high quality information, which is becoming information, visit business-to-customer communications. Much easier to work with in project management http://remotelyinterested. like Ola Rollén’s part of the keynote, this softwares like JetStream and Leica Captivate as com/. You can follow Adam aspect of the conference indicated that well as providing an holistic approach to 3D on Twitter at Hexagon was doing more than just listening to rendering and site management. @ThatInterested

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 19 Geometry & construction Geometry and a client in no hurry

The architect pre-empted our applied science of geomatics: “I am a geometrician, meaning I synthesise.” “Geometry, for the execution of surfaces, simplifies rather than complicates construction” – A. Gaudí A few days break in othing quite prepares you for the first around his native city. But Gaudi was not the view of the Sagrada Familia. It is every first to work on the project. the wonderful city of Nbit as startling as the Grand Canyon. Initial designs were prepared by the Barcelona saw the You emerge from the efficient Barcelona diocesan architect Francesc de Paula Villar. He Metro system, turn around and there it is; this envisaged a conventional neo-Gothic cathedral Editor visiting the extraordinary concoction in stone and with a dome climbing to 80 metres and a sights. One left him concrete, unlike any similar building you’ve 100-metre tower above the entrance. Villar ever seen. It is truly jaw-dropping. I saw a resigned a year later and the management of almost frozen to the tourist emerge look up and stay frozen on the the project was given to Antoni Gaudi. spot. spot for several minutes taking it all in. I did Gradually, as he gained the confidence of the much the same. promoters, he changed the design to the Pinnacles and towers soar to the sky radical structure we see today. He spent 43 to be surmounted by baskets of years working on the project, exclusively for coloured fruit, nuts and vegetables. the last 12 of his life. Although redolent in Christian symbolism, delicately carved scenes Nature’s influence surround entrances, some with the Gaudi’s designs were inspired by nature where finest of detail drawn from nature. A curves flow naturally, there is a feeling of triumph of the stonemason’s art. movement, and form defies Cartesian Beyond the overall concept, there is geometry. The archetypal main pillars of the barely a straight or symmetrical figure in nave are a radical departure from traditional the whole construct, or so it seems. Its forms. They begin as square in plan, transform architecture is described as combining to octagons, 16 and 32-sided polygons as they Gothic and curvilinear Art Nouveau flow upwards becoming circles as they near forms. Not surprising, it is a UNESCO their apex, all the while twisting. The final world heritage site. appearance of the pillars resemble trees with branches running along the ceiling. Below, Painstaking work creatures hold two of the pillars up, one by a How do the builders, for this is work turtle and the other by a tortoise – representing still in hand, manage to make progress respectively the earth and the sea. on a site visited by millions of tourists This is a nightmare, or so it seems, to (over 3 million in 2012)? When I was define as geometry for the builders. But Gaudi there in May they were painstakingly developed his ideas over many years and positioning a slab high above the nave, although challenging to build all of these the operation controlled by a hydraulic features are geometrically defined. In the levelling device between the tower Sagrada Familia he created what has become and the slings attached to each a new architecture, which endures today corner of the slab. Inside the great through the works of others. Above: a slab is carefully lowered nave the sound of drilling and using a telescopic rig to control hammering reverberates amid the Walker inspiration positioning whilst an apostle looks on. ethereal sound of medieval music. This So how have the builders fared working from is seriously challenging work for the models, drawings and sketches made almost a Below: Ground plan of the vaults builders who, incidentally, have been century ago? Gaudi left highly detailed models to the apse at a height of 30m. at it on and off since 1882. and drawings of key features with carefully The design of drawn ellipsoidal geometry. His paraboloids this unique and hyperboloids help to define the great cathedral-like inclined columns, vaulting and other structural structure – Temple elements. To achieve greater stability and a La Sagrada Familia slender harmonious effect, Gaudí designed all to give its full title the branching columns as a double-twist – was conceived formed by two helicoidal columns. The base of by the Catalan each column has a cross-section as a polygon architect Antoni or star which then twists to the right and left Gaudi, whose transforming into a circle as it rises. Gaudi was works can also be once asked why he designed the columns on found in many an incline. “For the same reason that the other buildings weary walker, when he stops props himself up

20 Geomatics World September / October 2015 Geometry & construction with the walking stick at an angle, since in the upright position he would find no rest”.

Proportions and ratios Gaudí’s architecture relied on a system of proportions to be applied to all the dimensions of all parts of the Sagrada Familia. He repeatedly used simple ratios based on twelfths of the largest dimension, as in 1 to ½, 1 to , 1 to ¾… etc. to provide proportions for the width, length and height of every part of the temple. For example; dividing the total length of the temple (90 metres) by 12 gives us a module of 7.5 metres, which is used in the design of the floor plan and the heights of the cathedral. The construction site according to www.sagradafamilia.org, is one of the largest testing grounds for construction methods in the world. Many structural elements are in reinforced concrete, the more delicate ones formed under workshop conditions. Today stone cutting is done by computer control and CAD guides the builders. But there is much work still to do if the current completion date of 2026 (the centenary of Gaudi’s death) is to be achieved, not the least of which is the erection of the great tower which will rise 170 metres above the 17 other towers, each commemorating key biblical characters decorate the fantastical façades. Sculptures of biblical figures are by J. Busquets, Etsuro Sotoo and the controversial Josep Subirachs whose angular style contrasts strongly with Gaudi’s architecture. Why has it taken so long to build? Medieval cathedrals were always work in progress. York Minster’s principal layout and design spanned well over 200 years and continues to evolve today. Questioned on how Above: Gaudi’s carefully calculated table of proportions and sizes for individual long construction might take, Gaudi is elements of the structure. Within each group the different measurements are reported to have said, “My client is not in a twelfths of the largest one. Below: a riot of fruity decoration and complex detail. hurry”. Alas the works of man intervened. He perished long before the cathedral was even half built, the victim of a . His tomb is in the crypt of his life’s work.

End piece This brief article can only hint at Gaudi’s genius. You must visit the great temple itself to understand one of humanity’s crowning achievements. If you visit no other great heritage site in the world the Sagrada Familia has to be the truly standout of those built by man.

Acknowledgements and sources The Basilica of the Sagrada Familia (in English) by Jordi Fauli, director architect and coordinator of the project. ISBN 978-84-8003- 665-8. This book is outstanding with excellent translated English that describes Gaudi’s forms alongside photographs and drawings. The author also acknowledges the official website of the Sagrada Familia, www.sagradafamilia.org.

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 21 V

Hydrography

Vessel Sensor Offsets: developing robust measurement techniques

The world of he Port of London Authority (PLA) is arrays of gyroscopes and accelerometers, responsible for managing the tidal River mechanically aligned orthogonally on the hydrography is being TThames. Its Hydrographic Service has three principal axes. opened up for new dedicated survey vessels each permanently fitted applications using a with multibeam systems and with the ability to Surveying SV Yantlet integrate a much wider variety of survey The PLA commissioned Capture As-Built Ltd to variety of boat- equipment as required. With the move to high- conduct a laser scan of the SV Yantlet, a 16m mounted sensors. resolution multibeam systems it became clear Catamaran with a permanently installed Reson that the organisation was in possession of a 8125 MBES. In order to validate the data Measurement of the resource with value far beyond traditional using a traditional total station, the PLA, relative positions of bathymetry. Indeed, a large proportion of the exploiting its partnership with UCL to deliver a the sensors on board PLA Hydrographic Service work now sees its Category ‘A’ accredited MSc in Hydrographic vessels utilised to conduct surveys for Surveying, sponsored a dissertation entitled, is vital for making the monitoring and pre-works investigations as well “Investigating the use of Terrestrial Laser most of these new as engineering-level surveys for asset Scanner for Hydrography; Vessels Sensor technologies. Stuart management (Figure1), and as-built surveys. Assembly”[1]. With this demand comes the requirement to Ensuring the Yantlet was in her standard Leakey from the Port mobilise a variety of survey equipment, from operational condition before being removed from of London Authority vessel mounted lasers and photographic systems the water, multiple measurements were made and Geoff Wharton to towed arrays of sub-bottom equipment such from fixed points around the hull to the as boomers, pingers and magnetometer arrays; waterline. This was done in calm water and the from Capture As-Built all of which rely on accurate definition of sensor inclination, list and heel, was measured at the Ltd describe new positions and layback. same time. This enabled the water plane to be ascertained within the point cloud at a later date. techniques for the The demand Once clear of the water the boat was accurate With improvements to GNSS positioning and positioned in open space within the boatyard so measurement of sonar resolution it was becoming apparent that as to allow access around the vessel and to limit the accuracy of sensor offset data had become the need for oblique vertical observations. The relative sensor a significant factor in the system error budget, control survey network was simulated using positions. made more critical due to the increasing use of StarNet to estimate the number of rounds of GNSS heighting to reduce bathymetric data to angles required to achieve the desired accuracy chart datum, and the temporary mobilisation of and then the observations were made using a survey equipment to the vessels. Leica TS15 total station. In order to position the It was decided to re-survey the vessels to IMU within the vessel a double resection was determine high accuracy sensor positions. required to locate the IMU within the starboard Critically, the survey needed to define the hull of the Yantlet. The total station survey used positions of the primary a combination of reflectorless shots to define sensors: the multibeam the hull, and self-adhesive retro reflective targets echo sounder (MBES), the when re-secting or when high accuracy inertial measurement unit repeatable observations were required, such as (IMU) and the positions of around the sensor assemblies. The StarNet least the aiding GNSS squares adjustment showed error ellipses of up antennae. The alignment to 17mm in the vertical. of the IMU was also The scanning was conducted in a critical as it comprises conventional manner utilising a Leica C10

Above: Figure 1 - Example of Asset Management - Richmond Lock and Weir showing scour protection and undermining. Acknowledgement: Jed Green, “Richmond Lock and Weir”, Hydrographic Surveyor, Port of London Authority Hydrographic Service, 2013. Above: Figure 2 - SV Yantlet – total station error ellipses and table, courtesy of UCL.

22 Geomatics World September / October 2015 V

Hydrography

laser scanner with multiple circular planar targets within each scan. Scans were co- registered and processed using Leica Cyclone. When conducting the scanning, planar targets were fitted to the total station control network so that a comparison could be made Right: Figure 3 - The IMU point between the two surveys. The method of cloud. establishing control within the boatyard when surveying the SV Yantlet meant that when the vessel was moved, the control no longer had any relationship with the boat.

The SV Verifier Building on the success of the initial survey the PLA commissioned Capture As-Built Ltd to with an 800mm extension. use refined techniques to scan the SV Verifier, It should be noted that as the control was a 21m mono-hull with a permanently installed already installed, it was possible to conduct Reson 7101 MBES. these measurements whist the vessel was still The major change was to install recoverable afloat. With the vessel located in sheltered control aboard the Verifier. Threaded inserts waters within Tilbury docks, reflector-less with M8 internal thread were permanently measurements of the water surface were taken installed on board. Eight inserts were positioned with the MS50 relative to the onboard control such that at least three were visible from any to establish the waterline level under static trim required survey station location. The inserts whilst the survey with the tracker continued. accommodate spigot adaptors for round prisms and holders for spherical reflectors. Deliverables A Leica Nova MS50 Multi-station was used The acquired data was processed using Leica to observe the on-board control for all Cyclone software and compiled in AutoCAD. subsequent survey activities. It was also used The vessel coordinate system was aligned to scan the external parts of the vessel at relative to the IMU mounting bolt centres and relatively low resolution and the MBES and the point data was exported using the data mounting gondola at higher resolution to extraction function within AutoCAD to create enable extraction of dimensional data. Total the spreadsheet of offsets. A drawing was station observations were made with the created showing the location of all relevant MS50 to Leica round prisms installed in temporary spigot adaptors on the GNSS antenna mounting points. The IMU itself was removed from the vessel and scanned off site using a Romer Arm supplied by Hexagon Metrology, producing a Leica Tracker and T-Probe very accurate high-resolution scan that could be independently positioned within the point cloud and defined the orientation of the IMU to sufficient accuracy to enable extrapolation of its alignment. The IMU could not be accurately surveyed with the MS50 because it was located 700 mm below floor level and with restricted The Leica tracker has two technologies. Firstly, the base system is a access. But both the IMU and its mounting polar coordinate measuring machine, with two angles and a distance plate are precision engineered to millimetric but with ultra high accuracy encoders and an absolute interferometer, level. It was possible to position the IMU scan which measures rapid change in distance with an interferometer and within the point cloud by surveying the mount absolute distance with an absolute distance meter. points on the permanently installed mounting Secondly, the tracker uses videogrammetry through a built-in video plate using a Leica Absolute Tracker AT960 camera with a very fast and accurate variable zoom. This is used to take and T-Probe. The tracker was set up on deck images at 100 Hz of ten LEDs on the T-Probe, which are synchronised to relative to four control points with a line-of- flash and for the camera to record the position of each LED. sight through the wheelhouse to a point Effectively we measure the position of an in-built tooling ball reflector below deck. Temporary targets were located on the T-Probe with the Laser Tracker and then the orientation of the T- using heavy duty double-sided tape such that Probe by measuring the rotational angles of the LEDs giving us the ability they would be visible from a location below to measure XYZ and the rotations around each directional axis. deck with clear sight of the floor access hatch The benefit of a variable zoom camera is that the image size of the for the IMU. The laser tracker was then set up T-Probe remains the same whether it is up close to the tracker or at its below deck and positioned by observing the maximum distance away, which is currently 30m. same four targets. The IMU was removed to reveal the mounting bolt holes and the bolt Steve Shickell, Hexagon Metrology centres were surveyed using the Leica T-Probe

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 23 Hydrography

survey points and the waterline plane. inherent generalisations required with a less . . . the point cloud The primary deliverable was simply a set of dense dataset such as that offered by ‘‘itself has also orthographic drawings and a table of offsets conventional total station measurements. which defined the positions of all the installed The scanning method utilising the Leica proved a powerful sensors relative to the IMU reference point. ScanStation C10 has some advantages over deliverable. It has However, the point cloud itself has also proved the MS50 method, primarily the data capture a powerful deliverable. It has been used for rate is faster but at a lower quoted accuracy. been used for fitting of equipment within the vessel, and However, with the MS50, the installation of fitting of installation of the equipment for positioning the control and the scanning are carried out for sensor offsets and for management and concurrently with one instrument and the equipment within maintenance of the vessel itself. For example, separate scans are co-registered on board the the vessel, and if a piece of fendering is lost it can be instrument, which streamlines the processing measured and cut to fit utilising the point workflow. The MS50 data is of higher installation of the cloud data or model and be waiting quayside accuracy and has a lower noise level. equipment for for the vessel, thus reducing vessel down-time. On vessels small enough that they may be positioning for Additionally, we were able to define the considered rigid, the installation of permanent centre of rotation of the vessel. This point needs control aboard the vessel allows for repeat survey sensor offsets and to be defined relative to the IMU in order for work on deck, and within the vessel without the for management the software behind the IMU to effectively requirement to remove it from the water. This uncouple the motions thus avoiding artefacts remains true as long as the measuring instrument and maintenance such as roll induced heave. As stated by Euler: and observables move as one body. Consequently of the vessel. . . “The oscillatory movement of a floating body although the initial survey may be costly, as the ’’ (rolling or pitching) can be described as a boat must be removed from the water, rotation about the Centre of Flotation.”[2] subsequent surveys aboard may be achieved Thus by defining the water plane within the whilst afloat, and the cost of the initial survey point cloud, the water plane area is defined by may be reduced if the work is conducted the intersection of the two components and the alongside scheduled maintenance. centroid may be found by either using the Although the established control on the facilities within the software if displaying within Verifier has already proved to be a valuable a CAD package, by numerical integration or, if asset, the distribution of the control, as the shape of the water plane is maybe displayed within Figure 4, is poor in that it is sympathetically simplified, by taking moments. very flat being primarily on the plane of the deck. The construction of the vessel dictated Conclusions where the control could be positioned as one When examining the error ellipses of the total may not just drill a hole anywhere on a vessel. station measurements, it is apparent that the Using alternatives to drilled inserts may allow total station method is weak when conducting for a better control distribution to be oblique vertical observations, which are established at a later date. necessary when re-secting to establish a Both the surveys of the Yantlet and the position within the confined spaces within the Verifier proved to be a success, and allowed us vessel, or when surveying within the confines to state the relative positions of the installed of a busy boatyard. The registration technique sensors to millimetric level, rather than the of the laser-scan survey process removes this previous centimetric level. Along the way we issue; and increasing the density of the have shown the weakness of total station registration targets adds redundancy and measurements and the value of point cloud brings down residuals. The increased density data and on board control. of measurements on a particular feature which Below: Figure 4 - SV is facilitated by point cloud data aids accuracy Further work Verifier Point Cloud by reducing the interpolated distances and The PLA has commissioned an 18.5m custom- built survey boat, which is being designed and built by CTruk in Essex. She has been designed to specification around the premise that she is a survey instrument that floats and is able to sustain an economical 20 knots. Building on the lessons of the Verifier, she will have control installed strategically around her deck, coach roof, and internally within every compartment such that the distribution of the control varies through the principal dimensions. She will have two in-built IMU mounting points and is designed for permanent installation of the

24 Geomatics World September / October 2015 Hydrography

R2Sonic 2024 MBES (with the 700kHz About the authors upgrade package). The control will be Stuart Leakey studied established prior to her maiden voyage and ship science (Naval the sensor position survey will form part of Architecture) at the commissioning process prior to her Southampton University delivery at the end of this year. but then went on to The PLA is sponsoring another UCL MSc build railways, working dissertation utilising the point cloud data of for Carillion managing the Verifier. This will be jointly sponsored with the Infrastructure Applanix and explore whether significant Consolidation Centre improvements can be made in removing vessel before spending two years as a forensic QS. motion (heave) artefacts by accurately defining During that time he did the UCL MSc in the centre of rotation (flotation) as enabled Hydrographic Surveying and then joined the when using point cloud data with the PLA as a Hydrographic Surveyor in 2012. observed water plane defined therein. Geoff Wharton has a background in Acknowledgement mechanical engineering AT960 and T-Probe were supplied by Hexagon and has progressed from Metrology and the works were carried out a draughtsman through onsite by Beatrice Alix of Hexagon Metrology. to CAD and then 3D CAD designer working on ship References design and within the [1] Lidong Ding, “Investigating the use of process plant and marine Terrestrial Laser Scanner for Hydrography; industry in USA and Europe for more than 26 Vessels Sensor Assembly”, University College years. Subsequent years as design/construction London, MSc Hydrographic Surveying interface coordinator introduced Geoff to the Dissertation, 2013. practical aspects of surveying and today he [2] L. Euler, “Scientia Navalis seu Tractatus de runs Capture As-Built Ltd which focuses on Construendis ac Dirigendis Navibus”, 2 vols., dimensional control within the marine industry Academiae Scientarum, St.Petersbourg with significant involvement in the (Russia), 1749. performance sailing sector.

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 25 Conference report

SouthSouth EastEast AsiaAsia surveyorssurveyors expandexpand geospatialgeospatial futurefuture

particularly enjoyed were: A highly successful he 13th Congress theme was ‘Expanding the Geospatial Future’ and was a goer from * Dr Paramesh Banerjee, director at the Earth three days of Tstart to finish: three days of speeches, Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang keynotes, papers, presented papers and technical exhibitions, and Technological University is a geophysicist who a final half day for technical tours. spoke on the use of the GPS geodetic technical tours and The tone was set from the opening session network, and LiDAR initiatives to study socialising marked where Ms Indranee Rajah, Singapore minister tectonic faults. of law and education spoke of the spread of the 13th SEASC geospatial development in Singapore, then * Mr Kwoh Leong Keong, with 15 years congress in opened the technical exhibition. The morning experience as the director of the Centre for session moved on to a plenary of three Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing, Singapore, reports speakers, and after lunch, five parallel sessions National University of Singapore, detailed Gordon of papers on selected topics. current applications in research into producing This same format was used for days 2 and 3D city models, and studying environmental Andreassend. 3. Morning plenaries of six speakers – applications. followed by five sessions running concurrently * Dr Keith C Bell, of the World Bank, gave an each afternoon. In this way, 15 keynote interesting insight into the process of funding presentations were made by speakers who are for development assistance in what he calls a recognised as experts in their field, and a two-speed world – the haves, and the have- further 94 learned papers were delivered by nots. He quoted OSGB former head, Vanessa delegates coming from at least 20 countries. Lawrence as saying “Everything happens The countries now participating in this SE somewhere.” So deep! Asian event have certainly diversified over the years, though some have participated consistently *Mr Anselm Haanen, deputy surveyor general since 1979. Countries such as Australia, New of Land Information New Zealand, spoke of Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the recent revision of cadastral surveying rules, Indonesia and Brunei, and two years ago the and the development of a 3D cadastre to Philippines, have hosted the SEASC on one or encompass strata ownership. And now two occasions. This 13th congress was the third another 3D problem: position and height to be held in Singapore. However delegates now change due to crustal shift. also come from Europe, North America and There were 94 technical papers listed in the increasing numbers from the Peoples Republic of programme, and I managed to attend about China, South Korea and Japan. 20 or so, by a quick shuffle at times from one room to another, due to the need to have five The venue and events The venue of the Sands Expo and Convention BACKGROUND Centre is very new, and must be the prime The first South East Asia Survey Congress was held Below: Ms Indranee Rajah, convention location in Singapore today. The in Singapore in 1979, then a joint-venture between Singapore’s minister of law main ballroom was used for the opening event the Australian Institution of Surveyors and the and education,spoke of the and the plenary sessions, also the congress Survey Institutes in Singapore and Malaysia. spread of geospatial dinner. The ballroom has one continuous wall Organised by the Australian Institution’s Kevin development in the country. that must be about 150 metres in length. The Blume, he gained the support of the Singaporean wall is fitted with four extremely and Malaysian institutes as well as almost every large video screens, which ensure other survey institute in SE Asia. that wherever you sit, you can All delegates agreed that the inaugural congress see the display on a screen. was a great success and that future ones should be held at regular intervals in any of the SE Asia countries Plenary presentations. which had professional surveying institutes. Two The 15 presentations, each of 30 organisations in Hong Kong took up the challenge at minutes, went like clockwork, the closing of the 1979 SEASC to stage the next event and were extremely good. The in 1983. The Hong Kong Branch of the RICS, and the speakers were all experienced HK Land Surveyors Institute jointly organised a most professionals, and they gave successful 2nd SEASC – and the die was well and truly some of the most interesting cast. During the next 32 years ten SEASC events have talks I have heard, on a wide been staged in several countries, until July 2015, when range of topics relating to the the 13th SEASC commenced, once again in Singapore. geospatial theme. Four I

26 Geomatics World September / October 2015 Conference report sessions running in parallel so delegates have to be fairly selective in choosing what to attend, but this seems to be the norm today, with a large number of papers available and only a limited time for the congress. However, the standard and quality of the papers I attended was quite high. You can see these papers and the keynote Right: it seems to speeches by viewing the congress website – be written in the www.seasc2015.org.sg stars for these delegates, or at Technical exhibition least in the ceiling. With Leica as the major sponsor, and Trimble and Oracle participating amongst a large raft of industry providers and surveying companies, the Exhibition was very popular. Attendance in May 2016. The theme, Recovery from was assisted by generous 45-minute tea- Disaster – a process that is very survey breaks, and one-and-a-half hours for lunch. dependant – is most appropriate, given the Christchurch situation. Congress dinner and closing ceremony (See www.fig.net/fig 2016) The dinner was held on the evening of day 2, and allowed delegates to relax and mingle Technical tours with old and new friends. The closing That concluded the congress, except for the About the author ceremony on the afternoon of day 3 was three technical tours held on the morning of Gordon Andreassend, originally brief, and to the point. The task of running day 4. I visited the Marina Barrage, a major from New Zealand, is a retired the 14th SEASC in 2017 was handed over to engineering project built on reclamation, which surveyor based in Hong Kong. the Brunei representative, and a video controls the outflow of what is now called He is a Fellow of both the New showing various Brunei attractions was shown. Marina Reservoir. The enclosed area was once Zealand Institution of Surveyors The four large screens were also opened to seabed, but now contains a large reservoir of and Hong Kong Institution of a New Zealand delegate to promote the FIG stormwater drainage that is treated to augment Surveyors as well as a member Working Week to be held in Christchurch, NZ, Singapore’s precious fresh water supply. of the RICS.

Book Review Geographic Information Science and Systems (Fourth Edition) a comprehensive work and ideal for some serious CPD!

very limited knowledge or as a ‘Epilog: GISS in the service of GI to be spun to deliver top-up for those who have been Humanity’. In this chapter the misleading ‘messages’. taught GIS but have become rusty. authors set out how GISS Surveyors will not be greatly It could be used as the basis for (Geographical Information interested in the chapters some serious CPD. Science and Systems) can referring to surveying techniques, The text is laid out logically, contribute towards equitability in because we already know about starting with discussion of the an interdependent world. them. But it is worth mentioning nature of spatial data, An attractive feature of the that the section on coordinate georeferencing and data quality book’s layout is the emphasis of systems does not mention through to techniques of data key points using bold text after datums and the section on collection, databases and the they are mentioned within the triangular irregular networks By Paul A Longley, Michael F GeoWeb. There are chapters on text. It is also largely jargon-free does not mention break lines. Goodchild, David J Maguire and cartographic representation, – so there is no need to keep Worryingly, ‘Geomatics’ is not David W Rhind. visualisation, spatial analysis, reminding yourself what mentioned at all and there is no Published by Wiley, 477pp, inference and modelling. The final ‘ontology’ means! An interesting advice (such as ‘consult a £143.99 (Amazon) paperback, three chapters cover management feature is the inclusion of many surveyor’) for GI people who £40 (Kindle), £33.33 (online from of GI systems, taking the subject biographical paragraphs about might be tempted to make http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Wil to its highest level by going into leading figures in the GI world. It assumptions about what lies eyTitle/productCd- detail about business cases, risk is debatable whether these are outside their area of knowledge. EHEP003247.html#purchase) management and project necessary, but they do at least There are also some strange ISBN: 978-1-118-67695-0 management. These topics are of give the student some insights references in the further reading course applicable to many aspects into the sort of jobs that could boxes. Surely Dava Sobel’s This comprehensive book covers of what surveyors do and await them after completing excellent book Longitude is all things GI. It is not so much a approaching them from a different Chapter 19. Ethics are discussed something the serious GI student reference work as a course, which direction is, as always, useful in in several places within the text should read on the beach! surveyors would have no difficulty helping to consolidate knowledge. and there is an interesting in following, either starting from The final chapter is entitled section covering the potential for Reviewer: Richard Groom

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 27 3D Documentation

Autodesk heralds big licence change for 2016

The arrival of cloud n June, Autodesk reseller, Cadline, hosted a expenses. Thirdly, as we enter the new BIM day out at Mercedes Benz World near world, the change in licensing makes sense based computing is ILondon to let its customers know what’s new because all collaborators will be using the same enabling software in Autodesk products. Having been an version of AutoCAD to edit drawings and so AutoCAD user since 1989, it would never have the risk of degrading the DWG file by vendors to switch occurred to me to buy from a reseller, rather processing using an earlier version is eliminated. from perpetual than simply download from the Autodesk website, but this event has made me think Autodesk at the core licences to a pay-as- twice. Clearly Cadline wants to sell added AutoCAD remains the core product. A number you-go approach. value, in the form of its own products as well of the changes in the 2016 version appear as those of Autodesk, along with training and cosmetic. In earlier versions when you zoomed There are benefits support services, but it is churlish to ignore the into a drawing curved features would appear for project teams considerable experience that these service jagged until you applied the REGEN function. companies have built up over the years. That is no longer the case. Curves remain too, as Richard curved. The dimensioning function is slicker. For Groom discovered Pay as you Go example, if you select a curve it will assume that as he heard about The main innovation with the new software you want to display the turning angle. MOVE release is a move from perpetual to term and COPY have been improved. Revision clouds the latest offerings licences. From January 31st 2016 there will no have also been improved as has the production at a Cadline hosted longer be an option to purchase perpetual of PDFs. For the latter, file sizes have been licences but it will be possible to maintain reduced whilst fidelity has been improved and it information day. existing perpetual licences until around 31 is possible to embed hyperlinks and bookmarks January 2017 – although the date has not been within PDFs and to carry out text searches. fixed. The effects will be firstly, that it is no Autodesk seems to have adopted the term longer necessary to pay a large capital sum up- ‘reality computing’ – meaning point clouds – front, and indeed so far as the accountants and and AutoCAD 2016 has an improved method of taxman are concerned, Autodesk products will extracting cross-sections from slices of data. no longer be classified as assets. Secondly, entry cost will be substantially lower, making it more Infraworks – the future attractive to purchase licences to try out the The middle of the day was devoted to three software and easier to attribute the costs to break-out session streams geared towards particular projects: they will become operating users’ applications of Autodesk products – manufacturing, buildings and infrastructure. I joined the infrastructure stream, focusing on Infraworks and Autodesk Civil 3D. I first saw Infraworks at Survey Ireland and there was no doubt this is an impressive product. A live demonstration showed the software being used for the conceptual design of a road with river bridge and roundabout. The base data can be supplied by the user, but Infraworks can also search for open data in the form of mapping, city models and DTMs. It is certainly slick and it is possible to take the design to quite a detailed level, including for example, road drainage and details of the road cross-section. The software demonstrated works with AASHTO standards but Cadline is currently working on developing it to Above: latest Civil3D use UK standards. Volumes can be allows draped images, calculated to compare scenarios and data shortcuts and visualisations assist in the software’s aim much more. of helping the engineer to investigate options and present them to clients. Right: Autodesk are Horizontal and vertical alignments can pushing the boundaries be optimised and we were even shown of Infraworks. an app for traffic flow analysis

28 Geomatics World September / October 2015 3D Documentation visualisation. Having settled on the concept, the modelling and the presenter suggested that design data from Infraworks can be exported as Autodesk Recap was the place to clean up DTMs. an ‘IVM’ file, and then imported into Autodesk Civil 3D. Linear infrastructure design In the early 1990s I was introduced to a piece Keep it in the Vault of software for road design that built up The BIM process emphasises sharing of data design cross-sections in much the same way between stakeholders; but with that has to that Civil 3D does road design. Each feature come some robust data management and in the cross-section is defined using a closed audit trails. This is provided by Autodesk Vault. polygon. From this, the software can produce Collaborators who wish to use a common solid 3D features so, for example, an asphalt dataset can check it out, work on it and then course becomes a SOLID entity, from which check it back in to the Vault. Users can see volume calculation is straight-forward. the history of the dataset in some detail and it Where does Infraworks stop and Civil 3D Where does is possible to add comments to the audit trail. start? The answer is that Autodesk are pushing ‘‘Infraworks stop Vault can also store non-drawing documents, the boundaries of Infraworks. The danger is of such as emails and spreadsheets. I wonder if course that designers will take their eye off the and Civil 3D Autodesk Vault could end up being used underlying data. It may be fine to use a crude start? universally for data management. Autodesk DTM for conceptual design but use it for ’’ has a similar product called Autodesk 360, detailed design and the engineer could which is a ‘lite’ version of Vault, without the become seriously unstuck. This is an area security needed for widespread collaboration. where surveyors are experts and should be part Civil 3D also includes ‘data shortcuts’. A of the engineering design team. strange term for what is effectively an intelligent On many levels this was an interesting and XREF. The concept is almost one of separating informative day. Perhaps most striking was the layers into individual drawings. The new version contrast between previous events run by also includes more point cloud functionality. We Autodesk, in which one felt that jargon were shown a function to clean up point clouds prevailed, and this event run by a service which involved the meaning of data rather than company for its customers. Cadline have a filtering. There is however, a high risk of misuse useful website, which is open to all – which could result in horrendous ground www.cadlinecommunity.com.

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 29 L

Leica Roadshow 2015 – captivated by technology and a skateboard

Left: Alex McDonald, Leica’s technical specialist for GIS asset collection & management, explains the finer points of data collection.

pening proceedings Mike Skicko assured making sense of the changing world. Leica Twickenham the audience that they would be sees two markets for the Zeno – enterprise Stadium, the home O‘capitvated’ and indeed we were. He data and simple projects. Besides being a of rugby, was the stressed Leica Geosystems’ commitment to pre- demonstrably rugged device subjected to and post- sales support through online services rigorous testing, it also incorporates a multi- venue for the final and training as well as via the company’s constellation GNSS receiver, which can process date for this year’s network of regional representatives. He also network RTK signals to achieve ‘centimetre reiterated the offer of meeting room space for accuracy’ – in practice about 5cm. This is in Leica Roadshow. As customers at Milton Keynes. response to user demands for more accurate ever, a keen crowd The morning’s presentations were delivered GI. The Zeno 20 can use either Android or by James Whitworth, UK sales manager, Windows Mobile operating systems. heard the Nathan Ward, asset collection segment Applications include, according to Leica, company’s experts manager and Paul Burrows, HDS/UAS and providing ground control for UAS aerial mobile mapping manager. photography, BIM data and forestry talking about the Whitworth described the developing role of management. latest technology in surveying in terms of virtualising the real world. BIM was once again top of the agenda. Super-DISTO the morning and Leica sees its role as taking BIM out of the A new DISTO, the S910, is almost a spent the afternoon office and into the field – describing it as the theodolite because, when mounted on a on equipment ‘BIM field trip’. To do this demands close links tripod, it measures horizontal as well as with BIM in the office and this is being vertical angles. Put a Zeno 20 on the same demonstrations enabled via a new strategic partnership tripod and what do you have? The answer is, outside the between Leica and Autodesk. a rather useful piece of equipment. A piece of equipment that needs some survey sense to stadium, reports High Accuracy Handheld use. How ironic that low precision equipment Richard Groom. The Zeno 20 is Leica’s new handheld GI data should demand more expertise than its high- collector. It is designed to meet a number of spec cousins! challenges – increasing data volumes, The software for asset data collection is an capturing the important information and Android app called Leica Zeno Mobile, which turns it into something that ‘even a kid could Below: Mike Skicko assured us we would be ‘captivated’ at use’. A thought that prompted a video Twickenham stadium. starting with son on skateboard and dad on Zeno and ended with son on Zeno – we couldn’t see what son was doing – but dad was falling off skateboard!

Crowning achievement There can be little doubt that Leica’s crowning achievement in the last twelve months has been the P40 laser scanner. I know a company that bought one as soon as it was launched. Its defining feature is its precision – noise reduction over the full range of the instrument. This must make cloud-to-cloud registration a lot more reliable. It looks like any other Leica scanner on the outside but its innards, according to Paul Burrows, are 85% new. It also obtains returns off black and shiny surfaces that were previously severe problems.

30 Geomatics World September / October 2015 Roadshow

Not only does the P40 have a range of 270m and incorporate a filter that removes features beyond the ambiguity range, but it can also be used for close-range scanning of objects like statues due to ‘mixed pixel filtering’ for pixels along edges.

“Be Captivated” ‘Captivate’ is the name that Leica has given to a new interface for all its equipment including a new series of total stations – TS16, TS60 and MS60. The user is able to pan, tilt and zoom into 3D views in the field via a familiar touch screen. Inevitably, the captivate interface looks most impressive on a large tablet and Leica’s CS35 rugged Windows tablet can also act as a PC, which could eliminate the need to transfer data between the field and the office, or indeed a second computer in the office. Automatic target recognition (ATR) has now been developed so that after setting up, Above: Three of several new instruments introduced by Leica. From left to right, the instrument can detect all objects returning the Leica MS60 Smart Station with the new ‘Captivate’ interface. The Leica Zeno 20 a signal whether they are reflective tape, shiny rugged data collector and the Leica S910 Disto which also measures angles. surfaces or survey prisms. The user can then tell the total station to ignore the false should it lose lock. The new range of targets. Similarly, if given a file of control instruments can augment reality by coordinates, the instrument can identify and superimposing the surveyed objects onto the observe prisms set on the control points instrument camera image, which makes it automatically. It also ‘learns’ the dynamics of a much easier to spot mistakes – such as moving prism so that it knows where to look, incorrect prism height.

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September / October 2015 Geomatics World 31 Overcurrents

(Geodetic) Perambulations, Pendulums & Plaques

usually find a few things of an to the Pole Star. The channel is now crossed by engineering/surveying bent while exploring two bridges and a pedestrian walkway. The IEuropean cities, things I don’t exactly seek Red Bridge, in mid-channel, was built of wood out, but that seem to find me. I am writing in 1756. It was rebuilt and enlarged ten years this column from Trieste, Italy, a lovely city I later, then again in 1832, but that time in iron. nearly bypassed on my way to Slovenia from After finishing my coffee, I strolled over to Sicily. It’s a great base, noted by Lonely Planet Joyce’s statue. After looking at it, and taking a as the most underrated city in the world to few photos from several angles, I noted a visit; and I can attest to that! bronze plaque on the bridge parapet... and a diagram. Both were a little hard to make out, A trip to the historic James Joyce and the Canal Grande plaque but the plaque reads: Seated one morning at the Caffè Stella Polare Since 1785, during the reign of Emperor city of Trieste for our (Polar Star), one of several fine cafés built after Joseph II, who succeeded Maria Theresa in correspondent Nick the Austrian style in the mid-1800s (Trieste was 1780, there has been an instrument in the part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until Ponterosso Channel (Idrometro) which Day found ancient annexed by Italy just after WWI), enjoying a measures sea levels and tides. It is called ‘Zero plaques, a statue to cappuccino, when I read that it had been James Ponterosso (ZPR)’. It is engraved in the stone Joyce’s favourite hangout. It was there that he and graduated in feet and Parisian inches (1 James Joyce (above), wrote The Dubliners and was inspired to start foot = 32.484 cm = 12 inches = 12 × 2.707 a grand canal and an Ulysses. From the café, Joyce could see the cm), and was probably used for occasional even grander giant Canal Grande and the Red Bridge. And, now, I observations of the sea for vessels sailing in was looking across that bridge at a bronze the canal. The canal was then used for grotto with statue of the writer, erected in honour of his 14 mooring merchant ships. The altimetrical pendulums – the years spent in the city. Trieste, apart from being network of Trieste is still based on that zero set a major commercial seaport years ago attracted by the Vienna Military Geographical Institute focus for some many well known writers, artists, and (Z.I.G.M.V.) interesting philosophers, including: Sigmund Freud, Oscar Despite a careful look, I found no stone Wilde, Joseph Conrad, Mahler, Haydn, and Sir engraving. But note the graduations in feet gravitational research. Richard Burton. Trieste was, and still is, the and Parisian inches, and not being equal to crossroads of many cultures, and the coffee today’s 2.54 cm. capital of Central Europe. The Canal Grande was built from 1754- Grotta Gigante (45°42 35.62 N, 1756, designed by Venetian Matteo Pirona. It 13°45 52.33 E) was built so that boats could go directly to the Billed as the world’s largest tourist cave (St centre of the city. Merchants would sit beside Peter’s Basilica in Rome would fit comfortably the canal sipping their coffees, just as they did inside) this would belie its value to science, at Lloyd’s coffee houses in London, waiting for particularly in the area of crustal monitoring. their ships to come in. However, no longer do Ten million years old, with a constant year ships set out from this canal into the Adriatic round temp of 11° C, it’s just the place to Sea to travel the oceans, with sailors spending store your ’66 Dom Pérignon collection! months at sea, finding their way by reference I’d never heard of this cave, but while in the city in early July, locals suggested I visit the Left: it’s far more Grotta Gigante, a few miles outside town. To interesting to take get there, one could take the #42 bus all the the tram, an way from Trieste city centre, but it’s far more engineering marvel. interesting to take the delightful tram, an After winding its engineering marvel in its own right, up onto way through city the Karstian limestone plateau. After winding blocks, it turns into its way through a few city blocks, it turns into a cog rail for the a cog rail on a steep incline before zipping steep incline. The through countryside and villages, on a more little buggy on the gentle gradient to its terminus in Opicina. A back is attached just bus then takes you to what seems like the for the steep cog- middle of nowhere, with green fields, round rail section to act as hay bales, and dry stone walls, more an emergency reminiscent of Somerset. A few minutes’ walk failsafe brake. from the stop and you’re at the visitor centre,

32 Geomatics World September / October 2015 Overcurrents replete with all kinds of interesting building at the bottom of the cave.. The information about this gigantic hole in the distance between upper and lower mountings The movement is ground. The thought of climbing down exactly is 95 m, the total weight of each pendulum ‘‘recorded by an 500 steps to the bottom was daunting, (including wires) being 18.7 kg. Each geodetic because that meant 500 steps back up again, pendulum consists of a metal rod, 1.4 m long, electronic sensor, albeit by a different route – a total walk of suspended horizontally on a long wire fixed to which measures 850m. The steps alone, many clinging to the the ceiling of the cave, and on a shorter wire side of rock faces, with stalactites hanging fixed to the bottom. The period of oscillation the position of a overhead like Swords of Damocles, are of each pendulum in the horizontal plane is 6 laser beam another feat of engineering design and min. Should the rock surrounding the cavern construction. Needless to say, the cave was deform, oscillate, or tilt, the pendulum will reflected by a impressive – rated a 5-star attraction. swing horizontally. The movement is recorded mirror fixed to the The first scientific-based research, in the by an electronic sensor, which measures the pendulum rod and Grotta Gigante, dates back to 1840 and was position of a laser beam reflected by a mirror conducted by Friedrich Lindner for the fixed to the pendulum rod and rotating with rotating with it. Municipality of Trieste. They were searching it. A computer receives the data and sends it ’’ for the River Timavo’s underground water to to the Dipartimento di Matematica e supply the town with potable water, when Geoscienze (DMG) at the Univ of Trieste, they came across the cave. In 1897, it was which owns the instruments, for further fully mapped by Andrea Perko, and opened to analysis and interpretation. The particular the public in 1908. pendulum set-up amplifies by 40,000 times The entrance to the cave is at 274m asl, the cave’s tilting moments. These can be due the bottom of the research area at 160m asl. to various causes, such as: earthquakes, earth Its central cavern is 107m high, 65m wide and tides, free oscillations of the earth, 130m long. The cave contains numerous large hydrological movements, and thermal stalactites and stalagmites, many of deformation. exceptional beauty. A feature of the Trieste has a long tradition in seismology, and Below: plastic tubes stalagmites is their “dish-pile” appearance, by the end of the 19th century, already had a suspended from the roof of formed by water dropping from up to 80m functioning station for recording earthquakes. the cave contain the twin above and depositing calcium carbonate over These ultra broad-band horizontal geodetic 95m long pendulum wires. a wide area. The highest is over 12m. Its pendulums are long-base tiltmeters with Zöllner available space and constant temperatures type suspension, measuring variations of the throughout the year led to the placement of plumb line in respect of the direction of two two geodetic pendulums, the longest in the earth-fixed reference points. They have been world (apparently only two others exist in the continuously recording tilt and shear for nearly world, one being in Belgium). 60 years in the Grotta Gigante since their installation by Prof. Antonio Marussi in 1966. The pendulums and recording system Their system has been completely overhauled Looking to be about one foot in diameter, and several times since then. This timeframe has made of translucent opal-coloured plastic, the provided a long-term tiltmeter record of crustal tubes are suspended from the roof of the deformation. cave, and tethered at the base. They protect The original recording system, still steel wires which are attached to scientific functioning, was photographic with measuring instruments housed inside a mechanical timing and a paper-advancing

Left: the schema pendolo and below a scale model of the pendulum explains the principles.

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 33 O

Overcurrents

system; it has never given extremely stable throughout the year no matter problems, being very stable and the outside ambient temperature. Due to its not vulnerable to such external uniqueness and suitability, the Grotta Gigante factors as high humidity, power provides the perfect environment for also supply, or lightning. In December monitoring fauna, flora, Radon concentration 2003 the new recording system variations, stalagmite growth rate, gravimetric was installed, based on a solid- and geo-electrical measurements, and laser state acquisition system scanner surveys. intercepting a laser light reflected from a mirror mounted on the High res 3D topo survey + video horizontal pendulum beam. The OGS has carried out traditional photo and video sampling rate is 30Hz, which turns shooting, and a high resolution 3D topographic the long-base instrument into a survey using aerial LiDAR for the outside of the tiltmeter, capable of recording a cave, and terrestrial laser scanning, Total station broad band of frequencies, and GPS for geo-referencing, and topographic ranging from secular deformation reconstruction of the underground area. Map through earth tides to seismic datum used was WGS 84. For the first time, waves. processing and analysis of collected data allowed determination of the exact size of the Grotta Earth tides observatory Gigante; an estimate of its internal volume; and The Grotta Gigante station was the real depth from ground level to all parts of originally built as an earth tides the cave. A geomorphometric database was observatory, with a series of created for the entire site, which updated the studies carried out to determine planimetry and details of the stalagmites, loading effects of the Adriatic Sea. stalactites and calcite flows. Videos and 3D The instruments also proved useful models of the cave were carried out for scientific in subsequent years in detecting research, to promote tourism, and allow visitors earth signals for increasingly unable to have direct access to the cave a shorter periods, down to those chance to enjoy a virtual tour, by combining laser typical of surface waves. Due to point clouds, videos, and photos. their long-period eigenfrequency The topographic surface was mapped to (6–9 min), the Chilean earthquake centimetre precision, 15 million laser points Above: The laser scanning scheme of 1960 activated free oscillations being acquired with a density of 15 points/m2. which captured 15 million points. which were recorded by the The orthophoto plane of the survey area had a pendulums for 82 hours on both ground pixel of 10 cm. For the interior cave components, as was the 2004 survey, three terrestrial laser scanners were Sumatra–Andaman Islands earthquakes. And, used simultaneously to acquire 4.5 billion a comparative analysis with tide gauge points from approx 70 stations, with sub- observations of sea level along the NE Adriatic centimetre precision, and an average density coast confirmed tilting indicated by the long- of 10,000 points/m2. base tiltmeter data. Tenze et al. (2011) In 2013, a geophysical survey was carried investigated whether the inflow volume of the out in the cave to collect over 70 Reka/Timavo river has an impact on crustal measurements of the gravitational acceleration deformation and the Karst system. This river, around the cave. Once the raw data was along its pathway from the mountains to the corrected by means of standard gravity Adriatic Sea, flows underground at the base of reductions, a 1mGal amplitude and 200m the Karst, after disappearing in the Škocjan wavelength was determined. Compatibility Caves in Slovenia. The tilt data from Grotta between the observed data and the gravity Gigante were analyzed and compared with the effect of a 3D density model was derived from hydrologic measurement from the Trebiciano the elaboration of an internal laser scan Abyss, where the water level of the survey: the point cloud was reduced in underground river is measured. They showed a number of data points, filtered from outliers, clear correlation between the hydrologically and divided between two surfaces (basement induced tilt signal and the high levels in the and vault). The prism model was then easily Abyss –a maximum phase shift of a day. developed, consisting of over 40,000 prisms DMG installed these longest pendulums in with a final resolution of 1m. An air/limestone the world, as well as a sensor that records the density contrast, based on rock samples, was resurfacing of underground water and one that then assigned to each prism. The model’s evaluates the lowering rates due to dissolution gravity effect was calculated for the same About the author of old carbonate rocks. It also installed a points as those where the gravity Nick Day, FRICS, FRGS, PLS, seismographic station in collaboration with OGS measurements were carried out; observed and is retired from the California of Trieste (Instituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e modelled data were in excellent agreement. Department of di Geofisica Sperimentale). Outside the cave one The map of residuals reveals an interesting Transportation (Caltrans). can find the Osservatorio Climatologico del gravity minimum extending northwards, and it He can be reached at Carso and a real-time monitoring system of the is thought this could be the effect of an [email protected] temperature at the bottom of the cave, which is unknown underground Karst structure.

34 Geomatics World September / October 2015 Capturing Reality Forum 23 - 25 November @CRealityForum #capturingreality Salzburg, Austria

3D, laser scanning & LiDAR technologies forum

IImage:mage: InfoterraInfoterra LLtdtd Image: Topcon Positioning GGrereat Britain IImage:mage: DDigitaligital SurveySurvey RRegisteregister online at wwwwww.CapturingRealityForum.com.CapturingRealityForum.com

Incorporating the very best of SPAR Europe and ELMF to deliver one unique event focused on the technologies of laser scanning, LiDAR and 3D data capture and modelling.

Organised by: ONE EVENT COMBINING Legal Notes

Private Cloud computing and e-discovery

By Carl Calvert

ell, we all use, either directly or indirectly Technology (NIST) of the USA issued a draft report The rise of cloud cloud computing indeed HM Revenue & on the challenges for forensic science of cloud WCustoms has outlined plans for its computing. “The immediate goal of the document computing adds a delivery of digital services, including its focus on is to begin a dialogue on forensic science cloud computing and infrastructure automation, on concerns in cloud computing ecosystems. . .” further layer of its digital blog. As with most, if not all The following three observations are taken digital complexity technologies, cloud computing can be used lawfully from a study by Zimmerman and Glavach for those faced with or unlawfully, but before looking at the legality it (IAnewsletter, Vol 14, No 1, Winter 2011) and may be as well to describe a private cloud. quoted in the NIST report. the discovery A private cloud is a particular model of cloud If a forensic expert has a difficult time process as part of a computing with a distinct and secure convincing your legal counsel that the time environment for a particular client. Private clouds stamps from client side log files match time legal action. Carl provide a computing service within a virtual stamps on provider side log files, the forensics Calvert reviews environment using a variety of physical will be difficult to defend. computing resources. The technical mechanisms The legal venue can add to the complexity the process and used to provide the different services vary and is an important item to address early on. flags up some considerably. Private clouds get their resource Locating the evidence can be a big hurdle. from a distinct pool of physical computers but The U.S. Commission on Intellectual Property caveats and these may be hosted internally or externally and estimates over $300bn in annual losses to U.S. warnings. may be accessed across private leased lines or companies due to theft. The pervasive use of secure encrypted connections via public networks. cloud computing environments by employees for In all trials or legal actions discovery of evidence personal use could heighten the risk of insider is crucial and this evidence is no longer just paper theft given the low cost storage arrays available documents but e-documents such as emails and and low cost high-speed bandwidth to move data. geographical information held in computer files. According to an article on the legal issues in Getting that data often requires specialist obtaining and analyzing forensic evidence from knowledge. The following is an extract from an the private cloud, written by Shahaf Rozanski at article by Mark Surguy, Rob Jones & Tracey Cellebrite, there are various challenges. One of Stretton (New Law Journal 6 January 2014). the major ones is requesting the data from “A new philosophy emerging in the e-disclosure another country outside of Europe (where the industry is to view e-disclosure as a science – investigation is talking place): the data can take something that is repeatable, predictable, and up to a year to retrieve; most of the providers efficient, with higher quality results and not an being in the USA. “In the UK, during the first art or something that is recreated with every half of 2014, Facebook and Google’s response project. Underpinning this transformation is the emergence of new intelligent technology – rate was 70 per cent, while Twitter’s response predictive coding, smarter review tools, and rate was only at 40 per cent.” financial tools for managing a portfolio of cases. The identification, collection, and preservation This approach is likely to deliver real results when of cloud-based media is difficult due to various it comes to controlling the costs of litigation.” factors, including: identification of the cloud So, what is ‘e-disclosure’? In any court action the provider; the identity of the proper accounts parties are under an obligation to disclose (including aliases) held within the cloud; access evidence. They are also under an obligation not to the desired media; the co-operation of service . . . Facebook and to destroy it although there is no obligation to providers’ staff; E-discovery and the conflict of ‘‘ retain it. The Civil Procedure Rules Part 31 privacy rights; encrypted data and the availability Google’s response defines what a document is. of encryption keys. rate was 70 per “31.4 In this Part –‘document’ means Both definition and description of the anything in which information of any description particular private cloud is the primary problem cent, while is recorded;. . .” followed swiftly by identifying the information in Twitter’s response The above implies that any media on which that cloud and keeping it secure. Then the task information is recorded is liable to be disclosed. for the forensic scientist is the same as ever – rate was only at Therefore if information is held in a ‘Cloud’ then diligent and careful collection of data for the 40 per cent. that too is discoverable. lawyers to examine and decide how to plan the ’’ The National Institute of Standards and case for either Claimant or Defendant.

36 Geomatics World September / October 2015 Downunder currents

Speaking up for a south sea paradise

y the time you read this I will already have . . ?) This mob of faceless grim reapers are now entered the realms of the old as I was 60 on feverishly putting into action their blueprint to B21 August. I still have a lot to tell you about destroy paradise in true “Yes, Minister!” style. with Topp Tours viewing shipwrecks and a At the moment Norfolk Island has no dole, no brickpit at Homebush Bay Olympic Park as well reliance on mainland health benefits and cows as the Powerhouse Museum and the Sydney which roam most contentedly wherever they feel. Astute readers of this Cricket Ground – the hallowed turf of one of the Now the locals are dreading the imposition of a world’s most revered sports venues. Even my welfare regime and the unique charm of their column will recall granddaughter Sybella had her 3rd birthday to cattle being shoved behind a fence because some that our doughty rub in my agedness! bureaucrat demands compliance with codes, appropriate only where vehicles are permitted to columnist is a big fan Norfolk Island under siege travel at unsafe speeds through areas where beasts of Norfolk Island, an Another chance to go to my favourite South have escaped their barbed-wire prison farms. Pacific island was not by-passed. Kerima-Gae took Our representatives clearly have not a single Australian territory in 18 of us out to this idyllic haven with the various notion of the flawless beauty and wonderful the Pacific roughly activities arranged representing more brilliant residents that they are scaring and debasing. My attractions than I had experienced on all of the advice to them is to pick on someone else before mid-way to New other eight times I have been there. Most excellent you surrender this paradise to your programme Zealand. He’s taking was our participation in Bounty Day, which is the of perdition. Where is Fletcher Christian when a strong stand most respected occasion in the islanders’ year on you need him? [You can read more about June 8 as it commemorates the day that their Norfolk Island and the Australian government’s against proposed ancestors from Pitcairn Island arrived after a long proposals at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- changes to the journey to their new home, bequested to them in australia-32028175] perpetuity by the beloved Queen Victoria in 1856. island’s However, skulduggery is afoot with the Dawes in Demand constitutional status, Australian Federal Government passing an Act to It would appear that I have struck a chord of fully take over the external territory as of 1 July interest in one of our forgotten First Fleet and in a frank style 2016. The previous government had promised to surveyors William Dawes. My illustrated that is uniquely make a loan to the island’s government to cover presentation was made to Prospect Heritage their existing debts but when the new government Trust and Brush Farm Historical Society to great Aussie! took over they reneged on this pledge and made interest, while I am scheduled to give another to the financial bail-out conditional on Australia Hills District Historical Society in August, this • John Brock is a Registered exacting a coup d’état on this small democracy. event receiving much publicity in the local Surveyor in Australia and is a Can anyone recall when bureaucrats or newspapers to my delight. At History House in stalwart of FIG and its Permanent conniving politicians have ever been responsible for Sydney I listened to a terrific talk on one our Institution for the Art and History improving any place that they have overrun world famous aviators Lawrence Hargrave on the of Surveying. (Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein. exact night of the 100th anniversary of his death in 1915 at an ASHET (Australian Society for the Left: Acting Surveyor-General Jeff Brown, his History of Engineering Technology) regular event. wife Leigh and me at our Mutineers and Mariners dress-up night on our final evening Legends of Surveying on Norfolk Island. We are donning our minute One of my best allies in the surveying profession men resistance movement kit to wage guerrilla and a tireless contributor to the enhancement of warfare against the mainland oppressors! same is Mick Lockley and when he held a commemoration to the 30 years of Lockley Land Below: Federal Member for Penrith, The Title Solutions I was one of Mick’s special Hon. Fiona Scott MP who sought out my invitees. Having a common love for surveyors on company at an Open Day at the Arms of film he borrowed some of my vast collection to Australia Inn. demonstrate to the rest of the 300+ crowd how our profession has been included in many of the most famous productions of all time. VIP guests were Mark Taylor (former Australian cricket captain and Bachelor of Surveying from UNSW), Brett Papworth (RU Wallaby), Marty Roebuck (RU Wallaby) and Graeme Hughes (Canterbury First Grade RL player). Hughesy and Pappy have their own sports radio show on Sydney evening radio as well as spots on pay TV channels along with special guest appearances like that organized by Mick’s business partner Damian Maguire.

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 37 PRODUCTS & SERVICES

UAV flight restriction map small places. For example, the iXU- generated reports are easily R 180 is built around a large 80- distributed to multiple viewers. Mpx sensor, with 10,328 pixels Dashboard and status views allow cross-track coverage yet it is easy and fast interpretation of compact enough to be easily complex data of reference network integrated into a small gimbal or coordinates and area deformation. pod space or an oblique/nadir array. Or it can be used as a BRIEFS standalone photogrammetric camera with optional Forward Proteus, a provider of satellite Motion Compensation. The cameras derived mapping and geospatial offer direct communication with services has launched sensor GPS/IMU systems and the ability to agnostic professional satellite directly write data to image files. image procurement service. Dedicated expert account UAV mounted LiDAR managers provide customers with Routescene has collaborated with an end-to-end independent, fast Hanseatic Aviation Solutons to and reliable procurement service. develop a LiDAR system mounted on a UAV. The maiden flight of the Opti-cal Survey Equipment and integrated Hanseatic S360 and GeoSLAM have formed a Routescence LidarPod took place in partnership to market the ZEB1 Aerial mapping company Bluesky has produced a prototype map for July in Bremen, Germany to collect laser scanner, the first handheld the UK showing where it may be unsafe or even illegal to fly 3D point cloud data of the runway scanner which captures data in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Bluesky has combined an expertise at Bremerhaven Airport. The lidar previously difficult surveying in flight planning and 3D aerial mapping with various geographic pod is mounted in the nose cone of locations. Without the need of datasets to come up with the concept of a UAV Flight Restriction the fixed-wing aircraft, which tripods or targets, the user can Map designed for commercial operators and includes ‘No Fly Zones’, minimises the effects on the simply walk through an environ- areas where further advice should be sought as well as areas where GNSS/INS caused by noise and ment to be surveyed and rapidly no restrictions on flying are currently in place. vibration from the rear engine. The record more than 40,000 points S360 has a wingspan of 3.6m and per second. Raw scan data is can carry a payload of 6kg. It can then uploaded into the GeoSLAM Droneware unveiled receivers specifically designed for operate in winds up to Force 7. Cloud for conversion into a fully Progressive Technology Federal mainstream survey and registered point cloud. More Systems Inc. (PTFS), has launched construction applications. Rotary-wing UAS for Europe http://surveyequipment.com Droneware, a geospatial content The receiver features Z-Blade management system (GeoCMS) for GNSS-centric technology running An upgrade for Topcon’s unmanned aerial systems. on a new-generation, 240-channel ScanMaster software sees version Droneware facilitates the storage, 6G chipset and is capable of fully 3.05 enhance performance discovery and dissemination of utilizing all six available GNSS enabling larger point clouds from virtually any type of sensor data systems (GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, the company’s scanners. “The latest captured by a UAS or UAV. Galileo, QZSS and SBAS), but can version includes memory overflow “Unmanned Aerial Systems capture also be configured to use only Topcon Positioning Group has improvements when the operator large volumes of data that must be selected constellations in an RTK announced a rotary-wing unmanned creates large point clouds and quickly organized, interrogated and solution. The receiver can deliver aerial system (UAS) for the European views wide images” said Charles disseminated immediately,” said centimetre-level accuracy without marketplace. The Falcon 8 - powered Rihner, vice president of the Dan Quinn, PTFS vice president. terrestrial/cellular network by Ascending Technologies - is Topcon GeoPositioning Group. “Droneware makes it easy to availability. designed for inspection and manage enormous archives of UAS monitoring, as well as survey and Learn about the P40 scanner data so the right image, video or 80Mpx camera with high mapping. The UAS has an autopilot Log on to https://soundcloud.com/ other sensor data can be found performance optics safety feature that provides three hxgnradio/making-hds-work- and accessed instantly.” Phase One Industrial has levels of redundancy for protection for-you and listen to an interesting introduced the iXU-R camera against performance drop or loss of interview by GW regular writer GNSS receiver brings series. Available in 80 & 60Mpx control. Three IMUs synchronise all Adam P Spring as he interviews enhanced flexibility and 60Mpx achromatic versions, sensing data and identify, signal and Greg Walsh, Leica Geosystems Spectra Precision has introduced the cameras feature dedicated compensate when needed. senior product manager for the SP60 GNSS receiver with a interchangeable 40mm, 50mm and innovation. He talks to Adam about patented inside-the-rod mounted 70mm Phase One Rodenstock CrossCheck speeds reports the Leica P40 laser scanner and the UHF antenna. Described as a lenses equipped with central leaf The latest version of the web-based new technology within it. The versatile solution combining next shutters that can be quickly Leica CrossCheck service for GNSS interview provides insight to the generation GNSS technology, a changed in the field. The cameras reference station network integrity engineering and significant high level of configuration are small and lightweight with the and deformation monitoring now features of the P40, including the flexibility and an innovative design, high resolution of a medium format comes with enhanced visualisation integrated HDR camera, how it the SP60 is part of Spectra system, plus high performance and reporting options. works and importantly the end Precision’s latest portfolio of GNSS optics and flexibility to fit into Customisable, automatically products it delivers.

38 Geomatics World September / October 2015 GW Classified

G W C L A S S I F I E D To reserve your space call +44 (0)1438 352617 All ads go online immediately. Next issue: Nov/Dec copy date: 22 October

SURVEY SOFTWARE

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX Applications in CADD Ltd p.14 Bluesky p.13 Cadline p.29 HYDROGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT Capturing Reality p.35 FARO p.25 KOREC p.04 Leica Geosystems inside front cover der Opti-cal back cover o Soun ite Ech Survey Review p.39 SonarM Topcon p.17 www.ohmex.com RECRUITMENT

DDISTRIBUTIONISTRIBUTION MMANAGERANAGER

Due to the increasing demand for You’ll be joining a successful team Topcon positioning technology and with a great track record in account t-he expansion of the Topcon distribu m-anagement and sales to the con tion network throughout the UK, we s-truction, surveying and civil engi are looking to expand our sales team neering sectors. We’d like to hear to help deliver continued growth and from you if you have experience in support our customers. selling or working with construction lasers, GPS and Total Stations. This is a great opportunity for a highly motivated individual to join an If you’ll deliver excellent customer enthusiastic and successful team. service, commit to exceeding sales targets and don’t mind a bit of travel, The latest position available at then we’ll provide you with plenty of Topcon is for a Distribution Manager. support to help you succeed. T-he successful applicant will man age sales of Topcon surveying and If you‘d like to apply, please send construction systems with a number your CV and covering letter to of Topcon‘s authorised dealers in the U-K. You will be responsible for distri [email protected]@topconsokkia.co.uk bution across the East of England. - no agencies please.

September / October 2015 Geomatics World 39