GeomaticsWorld JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2011

Issue No 2 : Volume 19

Surveying for geographical and spatial information in the 21st century

Scanning and Addressing How to get the Why is this woman Cadastral Surveying Milan problems solved, best students for important in the headache after Cathedral. for some. surveying. history of Iraq? NZ’s big shift.

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p.06 News Geomatics World is published bi-monthly by – Geomatics committee for oil & gas PV Publications Ltd on behalf of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Geomatics Professional Group – GLONASS catastrophe and is distributed to group members and other subscribing professionals. – NZ quake causes cadastral problems Editor: Stephen Booth – Predicting avalanches by laser scanner Technical Editor: Richard Groom News Editor: Hayley Tear Advertising: Sharon Robson p.12 GeoPlace: one address database Subscriptions: Barbara Molloy The Government has at last moved to sort out Britain’s addressing Editorial Board muddle. Significant savings should result, reports GW’s team. Pat Collins, Professor Michael Cooper, Richard Groom, Alan Haugh, James Kavanagh, Professor Jon Mills, p.14 Surveying the spire of Milan Cathedral Dr Stuart Robson, Dr Martin Smith, David A Wallis About to undergo extensive restoration work, Prof Carlo Ponti and his Overseas Sources team have captured a 3D model of the duomo using various techniques. Roy Dale – New Zealand Nick Day – USA p.17 SPAR Europe Editorial and advertising: e-mail: [email protected] This inaugural event reflects how rapidly 3D scanning is catching on Web: www.pvpubs.com but doubts remain about several aspects, says our reporter Pat Collins. T: +44 (0) 1438 352617 F: +44 (0) 1438 351989 p.18 Inspiring event rewards UK Rail Mailing: PV Publications Ltd Bentley’s “Be Inspired” awards attracted delegates from around the globe 2B North Road but Richard Groom also found potential rewards for chartered surveyors. Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 4AT United Kingdom Material to be Published p.20 Leica HDS conference and a new game While all material submitted for publication will be With worldwide sales and conference attendance up, Adam Spring handled with care and every reasonable effort is made also found new games to play at this popular annual event. to ensure the accuracy of content in Geomatics World, the publishers will have no responsibility for any errors or omissions in the content. Furthermore, the views p.23 Lidar Forum captures right note and opinions expressed in Geomatics World are not A trip to the Hague for this first time event finds plenty to interest necessarily those of the RICS. the Editor from cliff monitoring to modern art. Reprints: Reprints of all articles (including articles from earlier issues) are available. Call +44 (0)1438 p.24 Promoting the Surveying Profession 352617 for details. An aging profession has forced Australian surveyors to come up with Advertising: Information about advertisement rates, new ideas to attract youngsters. Craig Roberts and Ian Iredale explain. schedules etc. are available in the media pack. Telephone, fax or write to PV Publications. p.27 Gertrude Bell: surveyor, mapper & kingmaker Subscriptions: Yearly subscription (six issues) is £45 90 years ago an extraordinary English woman had a lasting impact on (UK) £49 (worldwide). For more details, including the shape and politics of Iraq, explains Professor Michael Cooper. special offers, go to: www.pvpubs.com No material may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission of PV Publications Ltd. Regulars © 2011 ISSN 1567-5882 Printing: The Manson Group, St Albans, UK p.5 Editorial p.30 Overcurrents p.6 News p.32 Book review + OS’s new hq PV Publications Ltd 2B North Road, p.7 Calendar p.33 Downunder Currents Stevenage, Herts SG1 4AT p.10 Undercurrents p.34 Products & Services T: +44(0)1438 352617 W: www.pvpubs.com p.13 Chair p.35 Classified

COVER STORY Would you like to receive the electronic version of GW? Our main image From this issue RICS overseas members may receive only an electronic shows a plan of a version unless they have confirmed their requirements. Please go to belvedere on Milan Cathedral as part of http://www.pvpubs.com/OverseasRICS to register. a project to record Other readers and subscribers can also receive the electronic version, which is the entire dome of sent ahead of the printed copy, by emailing [email protected] the structure using a range of techniques including scanning, Next issue photogrammetry, and total station. The next issue of GW will be that for March / April 2011. Full story begins page 14. Copy dates are: Editorial: 07 February Advertising: 18 February

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 03 SURVEY AT SPEED

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www.topcon.eu Editorial

Addressing the new age of 3D

t is not often you get a text message "No for the "plateau of productivity". What I can tell lecture tonight. Full riot in progress", especially you is that the first issue of GW for 2011 again Iin connection with an RICS event. Such was has a strong 3D focus with articles reporting on the scenario that attended last year's stalled events in the closing weeks of last year (Leica's Christmas Lecture for Geomatics members and HDS conference, Bentley's Be Inspired Awards, the Michael Barrett Award (now re-scheduled the European Lidar Forum and SPAR Europe) for Monday 10 January). Once RICS personnel and a superb edited paper previously presented were safely evacuated, I understand the rioting at FIG Sydney last year on the problems and students who managed to get into the building difficulties in surveying and modelling the Rioting and didn't stay long once they discovered the joining Duomo of Milan Cathedral. addressing may fees! I digress, because this editorial is not In between we have another FIG paper on meant to take any sides in the UK's recent spate promoting the profession and how to catch seem unrelated but of protests over rising university fees, but is young people's attention. A very worthwhile dig a little and there meant to be about addressing. However, the report that other institutions should study are similarities. latter is a subject not entirely unrelated to carefully. There are no easy solutions or magic rioting. Both can be very confusing, involve bullets; just sustained action as we compete Meanwhile, the large numbers of people who have no idea against so many other career opportunities, relentless rise of 3D what's going on, are highly dynamic and will some initially more attractive but less remain work in progress. rewarding than surveying. surveying and It is extremely good news, as we report on The final article I commend to you is modelling continues. page 12, that at last the British Government Professor Michael Cooper's study of Gertrude Bell has grasped the addressing nettle and forced (not Gertrude Lawrence, an Edwardian actress, But has it reached a the Ordnance Survey and NLPG address as I promised readers in the last editorial. A critical point yet? datasets into a merger. Geocoding of special "thank you" to John Harries who alerted addresses, a bit like policing a riot, looks easy me to this possibly Freudian typo and apologies to control until you start to examine the issues to anyone hoping to read a racy account of in detail. How do you cope with buildings in thespians). However, like the actress, Gertrude multiple occupancy? What about places Bell has probably much to answer for; for it was without letterboxes - war memorials, electricity she who was responsible for surveying and substations, public toilets - venues whence mapping the then ill-defined territory of emergency services may be summoned? The Mesopotamia and recommending the borders of Post Office Address file, developed over 40 modern Iraq, borders contested to this day. years ago, is not always suitable for locating an Cooper presents an engaging narrative of a incident. Neither is it suitable for geocoding in remarkable and doughty English woman whose the sat-nav age. PAF is basically a massive skills and influence were extraordinary for the age. spreadsheet with one row for every address in the country. But even when linked to Stephen Booth, Editor coordinates, it may be too coarse a location for TEN YEARS AGO the addressing envisaged by the NLPG for the At the beginning of 2001, when we were still Surveying emergency services. Hill Farm will have a World, several now mature technologies were attracting postcode but the incident could be a mile or coverage. Airborne technologies like lidar, IfSAR and two away in one of the farm's fields. Read our The editor welcomes your digital cameras were just emerging for commercial use. article and ponder on the problems our GIS comments and editorial The market for 3g mobile phones was also predicted for colleagues involved in addressing face. contributions by e-mail: rapid take-off; it didn’t until much more recently, held [email protected] Tipping point? back then by overpriced licence bids and market or by post: reluctance. Also holding it back and many other It is very striking just how quickly 3D surveying Geomatics World technologies was the Internet. Still to reach puberty, the and modelling has taken off, driven by rapidly PV Publications Ltd child demanded ever more bandwidth. Meanwhile evolving software, miniaturisation of technology 2B North Road Ordnance Survey was acrimoniously letting go long- and falling prices. We seem to be near a tipping Stevenage serving senior managers, judged as having “deficiencies point, rather like that identified in a Gartner's Herts SG1 4AT of competence”. And Leica had just bought a little hype cycle (see Engineering Surveying Showcase United Kingdom company called Cyra Technologies. 2010 issue 2) where we are heading upwards

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January / February 2011 Geomatics World 05 NEWS

A model resource along a course beneath the river exchange of seabed survey or to follow a more direct, and data (beta) cheaper, route to Beckton. • GIGS (Geospatial Integrity of Why do we need it? Much of Geoscience Software) London’s sewer system is a Guidelines, Checklist and Test combined foul and surface water Dataset network dating from Victorian • GN14 Guidance on times. It works well until it is Coordinate Reference Systems overwhelmed by excessive rain to be used in Reserves when the overflow from the Unitisation Agreements system, including sewage, The P-format task force is discharges into the river. The undertaking a comprehensive Thames Tunnel will intercept this revision of the heritage UKOOA overflow sewage and transport it P1/90 Post Plot Data Exchange, to the treatment works instead the UKOOA P2/P4 Exchange of the river. Format for Raw Positioning Data The projected cost of the and associated SEG P-formats. The project is £3.6 billion. Design and current formats are becoming consultation work will take place obsolete due to technological A 3D architectural computer model generated from laser-scanned over the next couple of years. In developments with acquisition and measurements has been used to help design and build a “futuristic” library 2012 the planning application processing and the existing resource centre (LRC). Using software from Pointools, TMJ Interiors created will be submitted and formats suffer from a proliferation a model of the two-storey structure from which over 7,000 different construction is due to start in of variations, ‘add-ons’ and components were designed, manufactured and installed. The LRC pod at 2013, with completion in 2020. specials. The task force is due to Suffolk One, a new college in Ipswich, has a complex curving structure that For more information visit deliver the revised formats in required precision design and engineering of both the frame and external www.thameswater.co.uk 2011. For more information visit: cladding. ‘The need for accuracy in the model was essential to eliminate, to http://info.ogp.org.uk/geodesy a large degree, hand fitting work,’ says Rob Form, design technician. ‘Rhino Geomatics Committee and Pointools worked together seamlessly and allowed the construction of for oil & gas The GeoVation challenge a large model of a complex project resulting in minimal waste on finished The International Association of “How can we improve transport components and very high levels of accuracy’. Oil & Gas Producers (OGP) in Britain?” is the challenge set by Surveying and Positioning Ordnance Survey in their second Committee has changed its name GeoVation initiative. The closing Tunnel to clean up Thames project, the Thames Tunnel, is in to better reflect the activities of its date is 11th February 2011, so The engineering and construction the making. members. These cover acquisition, there is still time to submit those industry in London has benefited If it follows the preferred processing, managing, visualising bright geospatial ideas and from several high profile projects in route, the 7.2m diameter tunnel and analysing geo-information. perhaps win a slice of the recent years. The London Olympics, will be 22km long and run from With this change there also £150,000 fund on offer to turn the extensive improvements to Acton in West London to Beckton comes a logical restructure of the ideas into reality. In addition, OS underground and overground rail Sewage Treatment Works in East group. Detailed work will be is offering a £7,000 award to the networks and of course Crossrail London. The route will run done in subcommittees, which innovator who makes best use of are well known and have helped to beneath the River Thames as far will allow the Geomatics its OS OpenData service. relieve the effects of the recession. as Limehouse at which point Committee to focus on strategy GeoVation is a four-stage But another massive tunnelling there are options to continue and to spread the workload more process. Firstly, think of an idea, evenly amongst individuals and then post it on the GeoVation member companies. The new Challenge website. A panel of Geomatics structure will offer personal judges then select entries to go development opportunities for forward based upon their Evening Lectures 2011 many of the less experienced potential to create social and Geomatics colleagues in the oil environmental value using RICS Geomatics lectures are CPD relevant and counts towards your CPD/LLL quota as specified within RICS regulations. All and gas industry. geography. Stage three is the lectures are free and open to all (especially students) unless Looking back, 2010 has been GeoVation Camp at which the otherwise specified. All lectures take place at RICS Great one of the busiest and most ideas are developed into George Street lecture hall and are timed at 17.30 for 1800 productive years in the prototyped working models of unless otherwise stated. committee’s history. Seven task new ventures. At the end of the Monday 10 January forces have been at work with camp, finalists are selected to go Michael Barrett Award 2010. Rescheduled lecture - Martin Pratt IBRU. up-coming publications: forward to the GeoVation • Guidelines for GNSS Challenge Awards Showcase in Thursday 27 January UK geo forum lecture - Geography in Schools and Education positioning in the offshore Oil London in May 2011. for Survival - Prof David Lambert and Gas Industry Here are some questions to ask Thursday 3 March • Guidelines for the conduct of yourself when submitting an idea: The Future of Field Data Capture Neil Ackroyd OS. marine drilling hazard site What problem are you solving? Thursday 3 March surveys for offshore drilling Who are you solving it for? Prof Paul Cross' farewell lecture. More detials TBA. locations How painful is this problem for • GIS Model for the delivery and them?

06 Geomatics World January / February 2011 NEWS

Shaky Isles quake causes Events Calendar 2011 cadastral boundaries move • SEMINARS • CONFERENCES • EXHIBITIONS • COURSES

We welcome advance details of events likely to be of interest to the Geomatics community. Please send details to: [email protected]

GIS in Mining & Exploration 2011 Esri UK Annual Conference 2011 18-19 January, Grand Hotel 16-17 May, London Hilton Stockholm, Sweden. Metropole, London, UK. Contact: http://gisinmining.com Contact: http://eukac.esriuk.com/

Defence Geospatial FIG Working Week: Bridging the Intelligence (DGI) 2011 Gap Between Cultures 24-27 January, QEII Centre, 18-22 May, Marrakech, Morocco. Prior to 4:35 am on September 4th 2010 this road was straight. An London, UK. Contact: www.fig.net/fig2011/ earthquake measuring at 7.1 on the Richter scale shifted it by three Contact: www.wbresearch.com/ metres and jolted Cantabrians awake, reports Roy Dale, GW's New dgieurope/home.aspx Second Innovative Lidar Zealand correspondent. Damage to buildings and infrastructure in Solutions Conference (ILSC) Christchurch and its surrounding areas was considerable. Aftershocks, 6th EARSeL (European 31 May - 3 June, Toronto, Canada. some severe, continued for over a month. Association of Remote Sensing Contact: www.optech.ca/ilsc2011/ Land surface displacement has occurred over a large area of both Laboratories) Workshop Remote rural and urban land, reports Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). There Sensing of Snow and Glaciers: The British Cartographic Society are parcels affected by: Cryosphere, Hydrology and Annual Symposium: - Fault shear across the parcel. Climate Interactions The Power of the Image - Parcels distorted due to proximity to the fault line. 7-9 February, University of Bern, 8-10 June, Shrigley Hall, Nr. - Parcels subject to distorted boundary evidence due to liquefaction (liquidising of Switzerland. Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK. the subsoil -often sandy in the Christchurch area). Contact: www.earsel.org/SIG/ Contact: www.cartography.org.uk/ - Wholesale displacement of parcels and cadastral survey network marks from Snow-Ice/workshops.php their pre-earthquake geographic positions. 11th South East Asian Survey The first step in evaluating boundary movement is to resurvey 251 International Lidar Mapping Congress (SEASC 2011) and control marks in the Canterbury region. This fieldwork started on 11th Forum (ILMF) 2011 the 13th International October, GNS Science having advised that seismic movement had 7-9 February, New Orleans, USA. Surveyors’ Congress (ISC 2011) stabilised. The results obtained from this survey and its adjustment will Contact: 22-24 June, Kuala Lumpur, indicate where further control is needed and to what extent lower order www.lidarmap.org/ILMF.aspx Malaysia. marks can be adjusted without resurvey, LINZ advises. Contact: www.seasc2011.org/ It is expected that, where land has moved, boundaries will have moved SPAR International 2011 by a corresponding amount. In a few cases, parcels have been bisected 21-24 March, The Woodlands Esri International User by the fault trace and more careful consideration will need to be given. Waterway Marriott Hotel and Conference 2011 Fences and walls that were on the boundary before the quake can be Conference Center, Houston, 11-15 July, San Diego reasonably assumed to be still on the boundary now; wholesale Texas, USA. Convention Center, CA, USA. redefinition of boundaries should not be necessary, LINZ believes. The Contact: www.sparconference.com Contact: www.esri.com/events/ positions of boundaries are based on physical evidence - mainly survey user-conference/index.html marks, including boundary pegs. A Regulatory Impact Statement From GEO-11: World of Geomatics LINZ published on 16 December last year provides an analysis of options and GIS Innovations 11th International Conference to allow the Surveyor-General to issue a new rule for cadastral survey to 6-7 April, Holiday Inn, Elstree, UK. on GeoComputation address problems caused by the quake. Key assumptions include a new Contact: Email Sharon Robson, 20-22 July, University College rule to address the problem of lateral shear. [email protected] or London, UK. Contact: http:// Sources: GNS Science Ltd, a Crown Research Institute www.gns.cri.nz Tel, +44 (0)1438 352617 or standard.cege.ucl.ac.uk/workshops/ Land Information New Zealand www.linz.govt.nz www.pvpubs.com/events.php Geocomputation/index.html

GITA's 2011 Geospatial The Remote Sensing and How is this problem currently satellites, that would have Solutions Conference: Photogrammetry Society solved? brought the constellation up to Intelligent Infrastructure for a Annual Conference 2011 What ideas have already been its fully operational status of 24 Sustainable Future 13-15 September, submitted? satellites, crashed shortly after 10-14 April, Grapevine (Dallas), Bournemouth, UK. To answer the last question and launch on December 5th. Texas, USA. Contact: Email, Dr Ross Hill, most others, visit As a result of the loss, Contact: www.gitaservices.org/ [email protected] or www.geovation.org.uk President Medvedev has ordered websites/gita2011 www.rspsoc.org the Prosecutor General, Yury GLONASS disaster Chaika, to carry out an For more events, visit our online calendar at The Moscow Times reported that investigation as to whether the www.pvpubs.com a rocket carrying three GLONASS money used to develop GLONASS

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 07 NEWS

award for better mapping. Applanix Corporation and ITRES Further information, including Research Ltd, a company in the entry details, is available at airborne remote sensing industry, www.cartography.org.uk/awards have entered into an OEM supply agreement. Under the agreement, CONTRACTS & PROJECTS the former will supply the POS AV and POSTrack products for Predicting Underwater with GNSS integration with ITRES optical Ashtech’s ProFlex 500 receiver has imaging systems. avalanches been selected to provide GNSS position data to the FieldSens BRIEFS underwater utility mapping system from Optimal Ranging Inc. Used Eric Pickles MP, UK secretary of for locating underwater utilities, state for Communities and Local the FieldSens towed unit only Government, has announced that needs to be in the general vicinity addressing information from local Laser mapping technology is being employed to predict avalanches in the of a utility line to provide accurate authorities and Ordnance Survey Himalayas. The Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) is using 3D mapping of it. will be brought together to create SiteMonitor technology to monitor the snow cover build up, as well as a “National Address Gazetteer access its displacement with passage of time, and provide inputs for SmartNet in Bulgaria Database” to provide one improving the accuracy of avalanche prediction. Using the laser monitoring In November, Leica SmartNet definitive source of accurate system, it is quicker and safer to capture accurate, reliable and repeatable Bulgaria was launched in spatial address data. Turn to page measurements for the calculation of snow mass, displacement etc. The partnership with IPOS (owners of 12 for a full article reporting and SiteMonitor system, developed by 3D Laser Mapping, is being distributed Bulipos), who will operate the commenting on this news. by M/s Elcome Technologies, Gurgaon in India. control centre, and Leica distributor, Metrisys, who will take Survey Instrument Services Ltd charge of the full commercial has been appointed as an has been used “effectively”. University was tasked by the UK service, including user support and authorised service partner for Ominously, the investigation will government with undertaking an subscriptions. Leica Geosystems. The look for individuals who have independent review of the survey accreditation was issued after a been “complicit with what is techniques employed at the time Resolving property claims comprehensive audit of SIS’ going on”. $2 billion has been and so conducted cultivation Forty-nine MobileMapper 6 service facility at its Dublin office. spent on the GLONASS system surveys from 2005 to 2009. After GPS/GIS field terminals have over the past ten years. on-going security issues made been purchased by two Republic Intergraph Government Solutions employing aerial remote sensing of Kosovo agencies, the Kosovo (IGS), a wholly owned subsidiary New UK Sokkia dealership techniques difficult, Cranfield Property Agency (KPA) and the of Intergraph, has been CG Surveying Ltd are now official evolved alternative methods using Kosovo Cadastre Agency (KCA), established to serve the dealers for instrument high-resolution satellite imagery to map property boundaries to company’s US federal customer manufacturers, Sokkia. CG, as well integrated with medium resolution help resolve private property base. The company will embrace as Irish partners CGSR Surveying imagery from the Disaster claims. all of Intergraph’s federal agency Ltd, were rewarded with the Monitoring Constellation (DMC) and intelligence community dealership in November 2010 by satellites and streamlined their Mapping urban trees classified businesses: defence and Precision Geomatics Ltd, sole UK methods based on the timing of A computer-generated 3D map of intelligence; federal solutions and importers of the brand. CGS are poppy flowering to optimise Manchester’s urban trees has Intergraph services corp. surveying equipment and laser imagery acquisition. Resulting been created to help authorities specialists and offer their reports were available earlier than understand the impact on the Since January, satellite imagery customers hire, sales and repair in previous years and were more environment, public health and and geo-information company, services. For a full range of Sokkia detailed at district level. the aesthetic qualities of the Spot Image, and Infoterra, Astrium products and more information, region. A consortium of Services subsidiaries, have visit www.cgsurveying.co.uk or Closing date for awards organisations commissioned combined to form a new geo- contact CGS on 020 8953 1333 The closing date for the next Bluesky after learning about the information business division. or email [email protected] British Cartographic Society (BCS) company’s ProximiTREE product. award entries is 25 February The first call for papers has been Improving opium 2011. The commercial award Leica Geosystems AB and Swepos, issued for the Remote Sensing monitoring ceremony forms part of the the national GNSS network and Photogrammetry Society Remote sensing techniques have society’s annual symposium, provider in Sweden, have signed an Annual Conference: Earth proved critical in providing which will be held at Shrigley agreement for the data exchange Observation in a Changing World, accurate information on opium Hall, Macclesfield, UK on 9 June of GNSS raw data. With the taking place on 13-15 September poppy production in Afghanistan. 2011. The four commercial award agreement, Leica can build up a full 2011 at Bournemouth University, In 2003, the quantitative categories comprise: Stanfords network-RTK coverage for the UK. Abstract submission opens on information gathered annually by award for printed mapping; country in combination with the 31 January and the deadline for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Avenza award for electronic Swepos reference sites. The test submission is 31 March. For more (UNODC) and the US government mapping; John C. Bartholomew phase started immediately with information, email Dr Ross Hill at were identified as different and award for small scale mapping; plans to go live with full coverage [email protected] often contradictory. Cranfield and Ordnance Survey MasterMap by the beginning of April 2011. or visit www.rspsoc2011.org

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Scott, Roy, Che Guavara, the Met and more

By Malcolm Draper

In a particularly he final lectures of 2010 at the RGS have astronaut who has flown in the space shuttle been exceptional. “Scott of the Antarctic – three times. He is a brilliant bloke with a really wide and free Tfrom hero to villain?” by Max Jones looked engaging style. He showed us a very vivid film ranging column Mr at how the explorer’s death was rapidly of his training, launch and time aboard the exploited by the media into a great national International Space Station, which seems to be Rentalength tragedy with remembrance services in St Paul’s the venue for much fun and jolly japes amongst reflects on a and around the country. Scott was held up as a the mixed crew, if you count avoiding a floating shining example of a great British hero, (and fortunately sealed) bag of your fellow brilliant series of especially for young men. More recently travellers’ urine. autumn lectures at historians have cast doubts on Scott’s leadership. He was strongly advised against Helping the Police? the RGS, provides using motor vehicles (primitive as they were in There seems to have been a spate of surveyors more recollections 1911) and relying too much on ponies. His first helping the police in one way or another. Shane of Eric Radcliffe expedition, with Ernest Shackleton in the party, Jones has been busy working outside Scotland had more limited aims than reaching the pole Yard with his Topcon instrument and Ben Darlow, and finds more and was successful. Following this Shackleton once with Thames Water and now helping the than one surveyor set out on his own expedition and whilst not Metropolitan Police with their surveying, has sent successful in reaching the pole, it did not end in this excellent photo of one of the canons that helping the Police. death and disaster. History is increasingly finding demarcate William Roy’s baseline measured on Shackleton the better leader. Hounslow Heath in 1784 and now mostly On a lighter note, Jones’ lecture included an absorbed into Heathrow Airport. excerpt from the Monty Python sketch “Scott of Roy is regarded by many as the father if not the Desert”. Filmed very obviously on Paignton the founder of the Ordnance Survey. His work in beach, it included the scene where Scott (played mapping Scotland after the ’45 Rebellion and by Michael Palin) wrestles with a stuffed lion development of geodetic measuring techniques looking about as fierce as a soppy Labrador (bet led to his being charged with trying to get a he never dreamt then he’d be president of the RGS one day!). Right: working at That vehicle again the Met. Staying with the Antarctic, more on that odd vehicle we featured back in the July/August Below: armed issue. This propeller-driven device sitting on officers guarding three skiis runs on bio-fuel and was part of Roy’s canon. the Moon Regan Transantarctic Expedition, designed to test whether man’s environmental impact on the otherwise pristine continent could be reduced. The vehicle was inspired and funded by Professor Winston Wong, a Taiwanese business leader and a physics alumnus of Imperial College. Then there was Palestinian writer and keen walker Raja Shehadeh talking to the President Below: all is now revealed. about his latest book. For those who don’t know much about the history of this part of the world and how its people have past under the control of the Romans, Ottomans, British and now Israelis, Shehadeh’s matter-of-fact and non-partisan account of current life as well as recent history was a real eye-opener. But probably the finest lecture I have ever heard at the RGS was given by Piers Sellers, a British born

10 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Undercurrents better connection with French surveyors and Are you a Jasbeen? scientists between the Greenwich and Paris We’re trying to arrange a reunion of former observatories. The Hounslow base, which was employees of JA Story & Partners. The land measured at first with wooden rods then with survey firm was for many years one of the glass ones, enabled the triangulation all the way largest survey companies in the UK. We last to Dover. Interestingly, back in the 18th century gathered in Brighton at the FIG Congress held Hounslow Heath was infested with highway there in 1998. Before memories fade robbers and other undesirables (bit like altogether and time takes its toll, we’re Heathrow today then). For more on Roy’s legacy planning another reunion. If you’re interested turn to our book review of Map of a Nation on or know of former colleagues you’re still in page 32 and also the excellent Twickenham contact with who worked for Storys, please Museum website (http://www. twickenham- email me at [email protected] and we’ll see museum.org.uk - search for “William Roy”). what we can set up.

Refraction and Che Guavara Winter Puzzle Since the last issue of GW and Eric Radcliffe’s Readers tell us they enjoy our little puzzles obituary we’ve received some more and teasers and we haven’t had one for a recollections of this great engineering surveyor. while, so here goes. What do the following Ron Craven writes: “I first met him when I was numbers have in common? 16, when I joined the OS at Wakefield, he 3, 7, 10, 17, 11, 12, 73, 77? must have been 23, an old hand by that time. I have vivid memories of him always upsetting . . . and no, they don’t all come with rice! our ‘superintendent’, who was always reading Answers please to [email protected] the Daily Telegraph with his morning cuppa The first correct answers from both overseas and opposite was Eric, dressed like Che and the UK will receive a small literary prize. Guavara with beret, combat boots (up on desk) reading The Daily Worker!” Miscellany Dave Davies has fond recollections of Eric’s I had never thought the Russians excelled at work on the Channel Tunnel and the problems understatement until recently. The Russian he had in dealing with lateral refraction. “. . . satellite disaster when three Glonass I remember several of us having a long chat navigation satellites were lost and jettisoned with Eric one lunchtime when we were at the near Hawaii had one pundit explaining it as an ICE . . . Eric said that his major problem was “unplanned situation” making it sound more that due to the project being behind for most like a burst water main than a multi-million of the construction period, the management dollar catastrophe. had decided to run the Boring Machines for 20+ hours a day instead of the tunnelling Thoughts on mapping: A road map tells you norm of 2 × 8 hour working shifts and a third everything except how to re-fold it! 8 hour shift for maintenance, survey, etc. This left very little time for anyone who had work Ray Adams, an old friend from Storys, has to do whilst the TBMs weren’t running and sent me a list of predictions stretching back they were all trying to work at the same time over 300 years from the great and the good so with the interruptions from traffic and the about the future. They pay close study and continual stirring-up of the atmosphere the air reflection for those of an unimaginative and never had a chance to stabilise enough to get conservative bent. decent results. Eric suspected at about the quarter [way] point under the Channel that 1868: “Well informed people know that it is they could be up to 10m off line because of impossible to transmit the human voice over the problems he was having. wires” – A New York Newspaper Got a tale to tell? He borrowed. . . the grand-daddy of all 1876: “It’s a great invention but who would Please send letters for gyroscope/inertial navigation systems that had want to use it anyway?” US President publication by e-mail some incredible degree of accuracy – I recall he Rutherford Hayes on being shown Bell’s to the Editor: editor@ said it was about the size of a small car with telephone. its power supply and other accessories. They pvpubs.demon.co.uk set this beast up near the portal for about 24 1927: “Who the hell wants to hear actors or contact hours to let it stabilise, then very carefully took talk?” HM Warner, co-founder of Warner Undercurrents, in Brothers and presumably a tad less imaginative it down the tunnel recording as they went and strictest confidence if established that Eric’s suspected 10m was than his brother. you wish (we promise actually nearer 15m. He presented the results 1957 and two weeks before the launch of to the construction management and told Sputnik: “Space travel is utter bilge” Sir to change names, them that if they continued working in the Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal. places, etc to same way they’d be getting two tunnels instead of one because they would miss the 1977: “There is no reason anyone would want protect the guilty!), French machine quite comfortably in mid- a computer in their home” Ken Olsen via e-mail: channel. Shortly after that he got exclusive president, chairman and founder of Digital [email protected] time slots for his surveyors. . .” Equipment Corporation.

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 11 Addressing GeoPlace: one address database

1010101010100101010101010101001 0101010101010010101010101010010 1010101010101010101010101010101 0101001010101010101010100101010 1010101010101010101010101010101 0101010101001010101010101010101 or surveyors, an address has usually been no Geographic Information (AGI) believes the 0101010101010010101010101010100 1010101010101001010101010101001 more than what it is for the rest of the move is “providing one definitive source of 0101010101010101010101010101010 population; somewhere to live, work or accurate publicly-owned spatial address data, 1010100101010101010101010010101 F 0101010101010101010101010101010 perhaps shop. Somewhere with a letterbox. We for the whole of the public sector.” Tim 0101010101010010101010101010101 0101010101010100101010101010101 have always concerned ourselves with position; Maxwell, managing director of GGP Systems, 0010101010101010010101010101001 and the more precise the better! But with the which supplies GIS software to the public sector 0010101010101010101010101010101 The0101010100101010101010101010010 UK has long rise of GIS and GPS controlled delivery and and utilities, adds, “This is a really positive 1010101010101010101010101010101 emergency services, the lines between address move for all connected to the GIS industry.” struggled with and position have become fuzzier. Location has Michael Nicholson, MD of Intelligent having three become the critical word, usually a point, which Addressing, says: “Commercial competition over you will recognise when you get there. the nation’s addressing has been quite a feature address databases, In the UK, whilst many find the postcode of the UK’s geographic information scene for causing problems system reliable enough it is not accurate or about ten years. The JV approach is something and friction between suitable for locating those features that will be we first proposed in 2000 to resolve the muddle on large-scale mapping like OS MasterMap. To and again in 2001 but perhaps conditions were public sector bodies deal with this Ordnance Survey developed their not right then. Now, the changes at Ordnance as well as Addresspoint and Address Layer 2 products, Survey, the success of the NLPG and the new which assign accurate coordinates to addresses. focus on efficiency in government have created commercial These objects also have a TOID - a topographic conditions where resolution is both more operators that rely identifier. This geo-coding of addresses is the achievable and more urgent.” fuel that drives GIS. Meanwhile, the Local Subject to approval from the Office of Fair on location. The Government Group (LGG) invested in the Trading, the JV will combine local new Coalition National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), government’s address and streets gazetteers, primarily for local authority and emergency the NLPG and NSG with Ordnance Survey’s OS Government has service use – also with geocodes. Repeated MasterMap Address Layer 2, although the now moved to sort attempts to bring these two competing datasets NSG will continue to be managed separately, together have foundered due to a lack of as it is at present. The initiative supports the out the muddle, government will. Sorting out this very British UK Location Strategy’s concept of a “Core report Richard muddle has at last stepped closer. Reference Geography” and the key principles Groom, Robin On 3rd December the Department of of the INSPIRE* directive, including that data Communities and Local Government (DCLG) should only be collected once and kept where Waters and announced the formation of a joint venture (JV), it can be maintained most effectively. Stephen Booth. “GeoPlace™”, between Ordnance Survey and While existing customers will continue to be LGG. The JV will develop a single definitive set supported for awhile, new products will bring of address data for England and Wales. This together the currency and consistency of existing follows years of pressure to resolve the address products and allow organisations to difficulties arising from non-interoperability of readily exchange address information with each Britain’s two national address datasets. other, streamlining government services, The joint venture reducing duplication and facilitating partnership What is an address? includes the acquisition working. This should deliver significant efficiency It sounds like a simple question but that perhaps is why we of Intelligent Addressing, savings and improvements for both the public ended up with what Michael Nicholson calls ‘a muddle’. the company currently and commercial sectors. Ask people what an address is and they will say that it’s a compiling NLPG and The new national address gazetteer place where letters are delivered. But what about running the National database will be developed by April 2011, churches? What about electricity substations? What about Street Gazetteer hubs allowing customer engagement prior to Post Boxes? What about buildings in multiple occupancy? (primarily used by the product release between July and September Perhaps it is better to think of an address as the utilities). Intelligent 2011. It will be free at the point of use for all accepted name for a parcel of land, a building or self- Addressing’s government bodies via the Public Sector contained unit in a building, a reasonably permanent management team will Mapping Agreement. Commercial customers topographical feature – in other words an attribute. Then transfer to the new will be able to license it in the same way as it is simply a case of assigning coordinates – sometimes in company although, it is they currently license OS and NLPG products. It 3D - to the object and it becomes usable for GIS. understood, not its is envisaged that over time all customers will The first OS product, Addresspoint, was little more than directors Michael migrate to the products created from the the Post Office Address File with coordinates for every Nicholson and Tony Black. national address gazetteer database but initially address. The NLPG address product was developed The move has been the existing address products will continue to independently to cater for local government and the widely welcomed. be made available as they are today. emergency services. Importantly, they have no common Describing it as “an *INSPIRE stands for Infrastructure for Spatial Information key, which makes it impossible to relate them directly. important step forward”, in Europe and is a directive from the EU that requires the Association for member states to harmonise their geospatial infrastructure.

12 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Chair Join in and get involved!

welcome you to the first Chair’s column of International Boundaries Research Unit, Durham 2011 with a small apology. In my last University, to rearrange this lecture for early 2011. Icolumn I completely overlooked wishing you all a Happy Christmas and prosperous New Significant outputs last year Year. I do hope that you were able to relax At the close out of the year it is always useful to and enjoy the festivities with your family and reflect on achievements and plan for the future. friends and now feel recharged and ready to Last year saw some significant outputs from the face the year ahead. PG Board and its associated panels, e.g., the December 9th 2010 was a memorable date Mapping and Positioning Practice Panel (MAPPP) for me for two reasons: it was my first chairing and the Boundaries and Party Walls Panel. The challenge of the of the Geomatics PG Board and, coincidently, Highlight deliverables include: a full revision of December the date chosen by parliament for the final vote our A5 client guides; the publication of the 2nd on future student fee levels in Higher Education. edition of the GNSS guidelines, the 5th edition Geomatics PG Board The December meeting has traditionally been of the Vertical aerial photography and digital brings members to attended by both National and World Region imagery guidance note, 1st edition of the Rights representatives and this year was no exception of Light GN and related events, development London from around with members in attendance from Hong Kong, and finalisation of two new Geomatics the world. Alas, the Middle East, the Americas and Germany. AssocRICS routes to membership, including This mix always makes for a meeting with a competencies, for Marine and Land/Engineering protests brought a somewhat different dynamic and I knew I would Surveying and the launch of GW online. temporary halt to need to be on good form to control the Amongst such excellent successes it was energetic discussions and debate. disappointing to note that the official launch of proceedings whilst However, what I hadn’t factored in was the these membership routes by RICS has been an alternative venue excellent view of the student protests against further delayed until spring 2011. The RICS was found, reports the fee increases afforded by our meeting room Business Plan 2010-13 places ‘increasing in Great George Street which at times made my membership’ at its cornerstone and such Stuart Edwards, task more difficult than anticipated especially as slippages in delivery are simply embarrassing. Chair, Geomatics the day drew on and the mood of the crowd changed from relaxed to tense and finally to Restructuring ahead Global Professional aggressive! This final stage led to the closure of The year 2011 will see the restructuring of the Group Board. our meeting prematurely as the RICS building PG Board and there is still time for you submit was evacuated and locked down by order of your application to join the Board (closing date the police. I’m happy to report though that we of 18th February 2011). The MAPPP will tackle were able to finish our meeting after a short a full revision of the now ageing client walk to our nearby hotel. The closure of the specification guidelines for Surveys of Land, building did however mean the late Buildings and Utility Services at Scales of 1:500 cancellation of the scheduled RICS evening and Larger, whilst the PG Board will, amongst lecture. To those of you who made every effort other business, ensure a full programme of to reach Great George Street in time to attend evening lectures, contribute to a full review of this lecture (battling through crowds and police the RICS APC process and investigate the Members of the Geomatics lines) I can only apologise for any viability of a NEW generic ‘Land’ related AssocRICS PG board on the roof of inconvenience caused. We are working hard route that should prove more suitable for RICS headquarters. with the speaker, Martin Pratt, Director of the colleagues whose work encompasses some key elements of geomatics but is not dominated by the discipline. Looking further into the future, continued PG Board representation on the Comité de Liaison des Géomètres Européens (CLGE) has produced a proposal to host the CLGE General Assembly in Edinburgh during 2012. From the foregoing I hope you get a sense of the work the PG Board has undertaken over the past 12 months and I’m sure you will join with me in thanking the tireless efforts, given freely, of Board and Panel members alike. In closing I leave you with the bombshell news of the dissolution of university accreditation by RICS Americas. This move must surely put RICS accreditation of university courses globally firmly in the spotlight! As ever I welcome your comments and thoughts so please email on the following address ([email protected]).

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 13 Heritage 3D Modelling Surveying the Spire of Milan Cathedral

The main spire of he aim of this project is to know the state part is measured and modelled separately, all of health and geometry of the spire in elements were georeferenced together in a Milan Cathedral is Torder to prepare and support restoration topographic network anchored to the four roofs. about to undergo operations. In addition to classical plans and elevations, an accurate 3D model is required for Trigonometrical survey an extensive future visualisation, for reference and in To survey the whole building using total station restoration project: support of restoration work, including structural technology would be truly arduous. analysis. For our research activities, the job Nonetheless, measurements were essential to work that is to be provides an interesting test bed for comparison control and georeference the photogrammetric completed in time of different kinds of survey methodologies. It and scanned data and to survey parts that will be the pretext to identify an “operating could not be surveyed in other ways and to for the International template” to model such huge and complex check and test the final results. Expo in 2015. Under structures using different measurement sensors A relatively complex control network was the direction of Prof and to elaborate the result integrating together established using four closed traverses: one at all the different data. the apex of the cathedral roofs, one on the Carlo Monti, The main spire was built in 1765 and is the dome cladding, one on the first belvedere and researchers unitary block that overtops the main vault of one on the last belvedere. All these the Cathedral. It is divided into four main measurements were computed and adjusted Francesco Fassi, parts: the structure of the octagonal lantern to high precision measurements previously Cristiana Achille containing the dome, the architectural taken inside the central dome for the static complex apparatus, composed of four control of the whole structure. and Luigi Fregonese Gugliotti and sixteen small spires, eight flying The cathedral is constructed from Candoglia from Politecnico di buttresses and the large central spire. The marble. This presented some difficulties for the total height of the spire, including the statue, survey. Distance measurements made using a Milano have been is about 43 metres and is composed of a 9m total station laser and by laser scanner on to the commissioned to high octagonal base, which rests on the marble surface gave inaccurate results. For the lantern and is connected to the side walls control survey, this problem was overcome by survey and model through the flying buttresses. On the fixing temporary targets to the marble. the cathedral’s main octagonal base there is an octagonal prismatic spire. pipe, 19.4m high and surrounded by eight Laser scanning columns, inside which is a spiral staircase that A complete laser-scan is the obvious way of leads to the last landing, or belvedere. Above obtaining a 3D point cloud of the object from this, there is a finely decorated terminal which to extract the desired information. The pyramid and then the statue of the Madonna. instrument at our disposal was the Leica HDS6000, a phase shift scanner with a very fast The survey acquisition rate (500,000 points/sec). The The survey process relies on the integration of acquisition speed and the extremely high global and local techniques that can ensure resolution made it ideal for this survey but, as 360° coverage of the complex. A medium scale mentioned, the marble does not lend itself of 1:20 is used, reserving a scale of 1:50 for the easily to scanning due to its crystalline less accessible portions that do not affect the structure. Penetration of the laser beam into general purpose of the task. Trigonometrical the heterogeneous material causes grooves in Figure 1: the base of the survey using total station measurements, laser the data and systematic errors in distance spire taken by a UAV scanner and close range photogrammetry are measurements, particularly for short ranges. In helicopter. used to produce an accurate 3D model of the some cases, as for example on the high part of whole object and, in the marble staircase, there were errors of 3-4 particular, to centimetres. The problem can be mitigated, but recursively check the only partially, by reducing the power of the results and overcome laser. We also tested a time-of-flight scanner, the limitations, but with the same results. difficulties and errors Modelling the data was not always a simple associated with each operation. For example, a perfect registration survey method. of the several point clouds was impossible To help manage using surface-matching algorithms. It could data acquisition, the only be done trigonometrically, using project was divided measured targets. into seven different Despite the problems, it was decided to areas, which were complete the scanning, using the scanned surveyed and data as a macro-reference and cross-check for modelled separately. the model that was built in other ways and as Even though every a base to georeference together all the single

14 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Heritage 3D Modelling modelled pieces. Apart from the marble scanning problem, the single georeferenced scans provide a useful aid to understanding the complex geometry of the place and helped to resolve misunderstandings during the difficult modelling phase. The plan view of the The scanned survey will be used in the photogrammetric future for visualisation and demonstration free block with the purposes as well as “museum entertainment” raw model of the for which purposes, the scans’ low accuracy is first belvedere. The not critical. symbols indicate camera positions. Close Range Photogrammetry Close range photography can be used: i) for precise texture mapping, ii) to produce rectified images for the description of the restoration operation and the classification of the material source approach in order to concentrate deteriorations and in particular efforts on the construction of an accurate 3D model and then to extract the necessary 2D iii) to create the 3D base model of the objects. information. This has three benefits: The difficulties with this technique are the i) efforts during the survey phase are orientation of a huge number of photos and minimized management of all the orientated blocks. ii) it is possible to extract all future 2D Choosing the right images to be orientated and information from the 3D model (whilst it is getting accurate results, both in the adjustment impossible to generate 3D from 2D data) and in the image modelling phase, is a difficult, iii) it can suggest to the customer a new way manual time-consuming task. The main to work and design, moving from a difficulty, in the narrow and cramped conditions, traditional two-dimensional to a innovative is to acquire strong stereo coverage for all three-dimensional logic, which is still not objects with an optimal relative orientation and yet rooted in professional daily activities. base-height ratio. This can result in serious uncertainty in the XZ placement of the extracted Data processing workflow 3D points. To mitigate the problem, many To achieve this result, it is evident that the 3D control points were observed, using a total model should be really precise and that a station, to perform a better orientation, to make good data-processing workflow is required in stronger blocks and to have sufficient check order to check the accuracy during the various points available to evaluate the accuracy of the modelling steps. The cathedral is final 3D restitution. Inside this logic, the integration of different constructed from For the photogrammetric survey we used a datasets and the employment of a number of Canon 5D Mark II 21Mp camera with a 35mm different sensors provides many advantages: Candoglia lens. The camera is calibrated on site • Redundant information: when multiple Marble. This simultaneously with the ongoing sensors perceive the same feature of the presented some photogrammetric survey. environment, the redundant information can The project involves acquiring hundreds of be exploited to reduce the uncertainty about difficulties for the photographs, observing thousands of tie points feature status and increase the reliability in survey. and fixing dozens of control and check points. case of a sensor failure or in a situation where From our experience, it is better to orient the a sensor cannot work in optimal conditions, as entire block of images for each survey area. This happened with the laser scanner. is a more complicated and difficult block • Complementary information: multiple sensors adjustment computation but the results are may perceive different features of the better, in terms of mean accuracy. Sub-dividing environment at different scales; this the survey areas into mini-blocks makes the task consequently allows us to measure and virtually easier, but requires more photos, more control re-build even complex features (which could not points, and duplicate effort in orientating some be sensed by each sensor independently). photos several times. The mini-blocks approach • Increased robustness: the final elaboration of a also gives rise to topological and connection single sensor can be used to control the problems, which are difficult to evaluate and product of another one or it can be integrated correct in post-processing. in another process to increase the final accuracy. • Speeding up data acquisition and processing: Modelling with data from multiple sources the complexity and the size of the spire and in Taking into account what has been previously particular the site’s intrinsic difficulties in discussed, it is clear that the photogrammetric relation to the placement and positioning of and laser-scanning techniques have their pros the object, make it beneficial to simplify the and cons. Our aim is to conduct a multi data- field survey by collecting multiple datasets

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 15 Heritage 3D Modelling

quickly and integrating them during the Rhino is very close to CAD in terms of logic By creating a processing phase. and operation. It represents position in double- complete, accurate precision floating-point numbers and First step: photogrammetric modelling consequently is as accurate as, for example, 3D model it is The modelling phase begins with an AutoCAD. possible to extract approximate, but relatively complete, model We use Pointools for Rhino which lets us based on the images. In particular, only those visualise a huge number of points with colour from the dataset parts that can be called “linear based objects” or intensity information, using a series of all the desired 2D are modelled photogrammetrically using the shading options. By importing the Photomodeler scanner. photogrammetric raw model into Rhino it is information This model is checked and corrected using possible to check its precision directly in the requested... sample total station measurements (check 3D space using the laser scanner point cloud points and profile points). The laser scanner as a reference and model parts which could data are also used to find gross errors, to not be extracted due to the limited modelling check the global georeferencing and complete capabilities of the photogrammetric software the model in a real 3D modelling space. At the or due to the hidden and narrow areas that end, the model is integrated with manual could not be reached photogrammetrically. geometric survey measurements for the After the check phase, it is possible to smaller details or for the hidden zones that construct the real model by generating the cannot be reached by any other instruments. surfaces. In order to create a 3D degradation Decorations and more complex “surface map, the whole 3D model is then cropped in type objects” are scanned and acquired with the various blocks that compose the object. So small and dedicated sensors; for example every stone or marble block can be analysed, triangulation scanners or structured light catalogued and labelled separately. scanners, and are then integrated into the global model. An additional difficulty is that Third step: extraction of the 2D drawings. the 3D virtual object is built considering all the With Rhino it is possible to extract 2D views single parts that compose its complexity: every automatically from 3D models, materializing constructive element is modelled individually every time the desired projection plan. and only then inserted in the global totality of By creating a complete, accurate 3D model it Below: Summary schema the object and topologically integrated with is possible to extract from the dataset all the of the projected modelling the other parts. desired 2D information requested before workflow The image modelling approach provides an fieldwork starts as well as additional require- optimal level of “visual ments that can arise as the work progresses. interpretation”, because Using traditional survey processes it may be it allows the extraction necessary to return to site to collect additional of information that can data but frequently this is extremely difficult or be only acquired from even impossible. During this operation it is very images. On the other important to control accuracy and test that hand, the modelling every measurement respects the representation capabilities of the scale. Sample total station data is useful to photogrammetric evaluate and validate the data. software do not offer optimal 3D modelling Fourth step: 3D model completion and visualisation tools. The model is integrated with the texture Thus the model information using classical texture mapping obtained from this first procedures, or photogrammetric image re- step is called a “raw projection for the areas where it was possible to model”, because it conduct a photogrammetric survey. Modelled needs to be completed decorations, such as statues and ornaments, can and built following the also be surveyed using high-resolution Right: 3D model of the standards of three- instrumentation and then added into the model. Cathedral’s dome dimensional modelling. cladding and the first Acknowledgements This work was supported by Veneranda Fabbrica of Milan’s Belvedere. Second step: scanner cathedral and in particular by the director Eng. Benigno Moerlin check and modelling Visconti Castiglione. The preliminary 3D The authors would like to thank all colleagues and students model is extracted by who are contributing to this project: Cesare Cogni, Fiorella image restitution then Gaudio, Chiara Monti, Stefano Parri, Federico Prandi, Francesco Brusegan, Laura Galbusera, Susanna Pacchetti, Francesco imported into Rhino Stillittano, Angelo Lagostina and Ilaria Girardi. modelling software, This article is an abridged version of: Fassi, F., Achille, C., which can create, edit, Fregonese, L., & Monti, C. (2010). Multiple data source for survey analyse, document, and modelling of very complex architecture. International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial render, animate, and Information Sciences. Commission V Symposium, (p. Vol. XXXVIII, translate curves, NURBS Part 5). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Readers are referred to the surfaces and solids. original paper for full references.

16 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Laser Scanning

PAR, the specialised laser scanning and traditionally taken 8 nights. 3D Laser Mapping Diverse and related technology conference has been International showcased a project where they Srunning in the USA for the past seven years had been commissioned by a group of and in Japan for the past five years with an ever construction companies on a highway impressive increasing annual attendance, now up to 750 resurfacing project. Normally survey would be people. On the back of this demand SPAR carried out to support the design process but projects teamed up with Plant-Tech to hold the inaugural here it was used as evidence to support a SPAR Europe in early December last year at the variation order showing discrepancies between showcased. RAI Convention Centre in Amsterdam, where actual road surface and the original designs, more than 325 people attended from 35 resulting in variations in excess of £4million. countries. A little more than 40 minutes from Even in these sectors innovation continues with But are they London, it is certainly a lot closer to home than examples of automatic asset recognition (road Texas and this was reflected in the large number signs etc.) by using reflectance values from the sustainable? of attendees from the UK. point cloud and improved pipe recognition As with its American cousin, the conference software shown by ClearEdge 3D. was arranged around a number of concurrent In my own area of interest there were several “streams” covering Process Industry, Geo- fascinating sessions, particularly the Scan-to-BIM Technical, Historic Preservation, Mobile Survey, case study of the Bozar Brussels Fine Arts Centre An inaugural event Security & Forensics, Construction and New and also work done by the DIAPReM Centre at Technologies; although the last topic could be Ferrara University. The Brussels project was a in Amsterdam considered to cover almost all of the others. It is relatively modest building survey where they showed how rapid hard to believe that some of these technologies were required to provide 3D and 2D models and can now be considered “old” but the rate of drawings. DIAPReM showed a whole array of the growth has change is now so rapid that significant shifts are historical building projects in Italy with been in 3D occurring every two to three years. Indeed amazingly detailed drawings. Both sessions several presenters commented on rapid changes showed survey drawings that were beyond scanning but there making it difficult to develop and adopt reproach in terms of detail and accuracy and the remain doubts standards and they needed to move from an DIAPReM drawings were some of the finest innovative to a proven technological base. measured survey drawings I have seen. about universal The sessions are a mix of service providers, However, when both presenters showed their acceptance says end-users and academics sharing experiences metrics on the projects one realised they had in scanning projects. Subjects are as diverse as been done at a cost that is probably not our reporter Pat Forestry to Forensics through BIM and sustainable in the commercial marketplace. The Collins of Michael Morphometric Survey, and these are Brussels project had taken only 8 days on site Gallie & Partners. supplemented by technical seminars with a and a further 8 days to process the data but parallel exhibition. It’s impossible to attend all had then taken 300 days to model, all done for the sessions but the ones I went to ranged under 60,000 euros. A project in Milan by from the sublime to the downright quirky. DIAPReM had taken 3 months of topographic One of the most significant hardware shifts control and 1920 hours of laser scanning of the year has been the introduction of the equating to over 300 site days. With drawing Faro Focus 3D scanner, offering both a large and modelling, this project could well cost reduction in size and cost of the instrument. The £500,000 – something which could only be Faro technical seminar was one of the busiest at considered an academic exercise. the conference and the demonstration also Individuals are producing impressive results showed their Scene software upgrade to include through extraordinary efforts. The development cloud-to-cloud registration using feature of a lower price entry point coupled with point recognition and an extended web-share cloud integration in the major CAD programs, capability. Both these developments will expand will all improve market adoption. Innovations the use of scanning technology and having seen such as Pointools’ recent integration of point Faro’s recent adverts in non-surveying clouds into SketchUp and Alice Labs professional journals they are certainly development of point cloud rendering without keen to widen the market beyond the the need for modelling will diversify the demand surveying profession. Given the for point cloud data. Development will continue complexity of the underlying to improve processes and we will eventually see processes this may not be a simple or a shift from basic point cloud collection to smart easy path. clouds using feature recognition, photo- The industrial plant and mobile grammetry and knowledge-based rules. But as surveying markets can be considered the technology evolves there are still enough some of the more mature applications questions being asked about scan quality, data in laser scanning and there were exchange, fragmented software processes and diverse and impressive projects delivery standards to raise doubts about universal illustrated and discussed. Dutch acceptance. SPAR Europe was excellent in that it company M3DM showed a 3½km of showed both sides of what can only be runway survey completed in 8 hours considered the complete re-engineering of of scanning which would have survey processes and methodologies.

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 17 3D Design UK rail wins Bentley Awards by Richard Groom

The authors of he event kicked off with presentations that was during the global banking collapse! from CEO Greg Bentley and senior vice The largest infrastructure owner is the US MicroStation hold an Tpresident, Bhupinder Singh. Bentley government with $282,700,000,000 followed annual conference Systems has been around for many years but in second place, and at some distance, by has a lower profile than its louder but not Electricité de France with $186,466,000,000. at which finalists much bigger competitor. They argued that, With reinvestment of 20% of revenues in present papers to following the investments in physical R&D, 3D cities symbolises the way forward for infrastructure during the last century and Bentley because they encompass all problems compete for “Be more recent investment in digital on a global scale. They can only be solved Inspired Awards”. infrastructure, the focus is now returning to holistically by having all disciplines in one physical infrastructure. In Bentley’s world integrated environment. V8i was released in This year’s event “infrastructure” seems to encompass anything November 2008, a few months after a major brought UK rail to built, so the word found its way into almost release by Autodesk. It is continually being the fore and our every sentence. A Bentley vice president even added-to and now includes 148 software composed and sang a song on the subject packages. V8i, the website says, “helps reporter Richard during the awards dinner. engineers, architects, GIS professionals, Groom found clear In the western world physical infrastructure constructors, and owner-operators by now needs to be renewed; but this time in a promoting collaborative, streamlined workflows evidence of the more intelligent way. Intelligent infrastructure among multiple disciplines and across project value of an encompasses not just geometry and design but teams”. The aim is intuitive design. factors, like economics. For example, design They have also noticed that customers do not embedded chartered would be able to simulate the economic effect favour frequent releases with low innovative surveyor from day of an earthquake, not just its physical impact. content where the aggravation outweighs the “Everything happens somewhere” is a well-worn advantages afforded by the upgrade. one of the project. slogan, but whereas the spatial component of a piece of information used to be considered a Fusing 2D and 3D useful add-on, one gets the impression that the Point clouds are a native format for mainstream is beginning to see location as core MicroStation and there are plans to detect information and everything else as attributes. clashes between design and point cloud soon. This must be good news for us. They also use the 3D model as an index for 2D deliverables thus fusing 2D and 3D. Indeed one Moving into operations way to produce 2D drawings is to take slices The economic return during the infrastructure from the 3D model, and some of the presenters asset lifecycle is the ultimate benchmark. demonstrated this. Management is as ...the focus is Bentley are already strong in planning and important as design and Bentley use the now returning to design and are now extending their reach into diagram (Figure 1) to illustrate how their operations, maintenance and renewal. collaborative software – AssetWise and physical ProjectWise is the collaboration platform that ProjectWise fit into the infrastructure lifecycle. infrastructure. sees projects through the design and planning Many speakers praised the performance of phases. Their new AssetWise platform takes ProjectWise as a means of a integrating and co- the completed infrastructure through to its ordinating work by multiple disciplines working operational phase and is therefore aimed at in distributed teams. Information modelling owner operators. includes not just the geometrical and Bentley and Autodesk have entered into an engineering properties and behaviour of the agreement to co-operate by advising each other objects in the model but also their business about their data models at code level. The properties, such as cost and delivery. ProjectWise objective is that .dwg files can be read helps manage the trade-offs between the completely by Bentley and likewise .dgn files by physical and the business properties. Autodesk, enabling customers to choose which A primary purpose behind models is to design programs they want to use. detect clashes between different aspects of the design and Bentley aim to enable this to Bentley top 500 happen dynamically as early as possible in the During the conference, Bentley published their design process. By correctly modelling the list of the top 500 global infrastructure behaviour of elements it becomes possible to owners. The total value of this infrastructure is simulate and optimise. ProjectWise enables Below: Figure 1. $13 trillion. The last time I saw a figure like distributed teams at different offices within one consultancy or between different Intelligent Infrastructure Information Modelling Integrated Projects consultancies, to work together on large AssetWise ProjectWise projects. Arup were awarded the main contract for Marina Bay Sands Integrated

18 Geomatics World January / February 2011 3D Design

Resort in Singapore with the expectation of they digitised what they had completing the project in an “impossible” and added it to the model. timeframe. They completed the job by The Victoria Station combining resources from ten of their offices project is a ten-year and third parties using ProjectWise. programme and the BIM model will continue to be Generative components used for operations and Generative components are powerful maintenance. This is fine, compound objects. The Autodesk equivalent is but seldom is the question the parametric block. Imagine a road of as-built records discussed, centreline. Attached to this will be width of even though they have lanes, depth of surface courses, width of tended to be treated with pavements etc. These are the relationships disrespect in the past. One that can be modelled using generative LUL project, the upgrade of Neasden Depot, did Christopher Pynn from Arup components along with constraints such as, not run so smoothly. The presenter, Chris Abdee Singapore Pte Ltd, speaking for example, crossfall, sight lines and so on. from AECOM, said it had been plagued by on the Marina Bay Sands They enable the designer to move the numerous changes to design. When I asked Integrated Resort. centreline to accommodate a change and why, he claimed that a substantial number were bring all the related features with it. caused by defects in the preliminary survey. The Generative components can be used to model depot is the largest on the Underground. To architectural features and Arup used them in survey it by contact methods seems to invite Singapore to establish dependency and disaster and yet we were told that laser constraints between component objects in the scanning was not employed. design of complex roofs. It takes longer to define the objects but it means that when City model chat changes were made to the design constraints, The subject of Crossrail re-emerged at a and this happened eight times, the design discussion group on 3D cities. There seemed to could be revised in minutes. Impressive. be plenty of enthusiasm for them from the GIS Bentley has realised that the same principles community but also a large measure of muddled can be applied to project management. thinking. They did not seem to appreciate that Fine, said one To produce an engineering model is one thing, the Crossrail models were produced for specific delegate, but why but to convert it into something that can be built engineering purposes or that an isolated building is quite another. So Bentley is working on does not constitute a city model. It was however should my clients construction modelling that will include, for suggested that as-built building information pay for this? example, shuttering, bar bending schedules and models could go into city models along with all excavation requirements. This should smooth the information about surrounding buildings the interface between engineering and collected in order to obtain planning consent. construction and eliminate the need for “Fine” said one delegate, “but why should my remodelling, which is current practice. clients pay for this?” There seems to be little appreciation of the Survey Keynote cost or benefits of collecting data at high or Although many of the papers from the low precision and applications still seem to be finalists were excellent there were a few that couched in vague terms that would not look really did not cut the mustard. I had the good in a business case. It is clear that, judging feeling that these finalists had been invited as from the participants, we have a long way to reward for using Bentley software rather than go before reaching a consensus over why we for outstanding use of it. Of the excellent need city models, what level of detail will give a papers there were several from the UK rail return on investment or how they should be sector including Crossrail and London maintained. This is a rapidly developing area Underground. Indeed Malcolm Taylor, Head of that requires a strong understanding of the Technical Support Services at Crossrail even standard for building information modelling. presented a keynote. Better still, he displayed The conference ended with an awards a slide showing the Crossrail survey control dinner. It was perhaps no surprise that network. Hopefully the audience was suitably Crossrail won the award for “Connecting educated. This could not be a clearer Project Teams” and Mott MacDonald won the demonstration of the value of having a “Rail and Transit” award. chartered surveyor embedded, from its inception, at the heart of a major project. Right: Meanwhile, on the Underground Neasden Andy Smith, CAD manager from Mott Underground MacDonald presented an award winning paper Depot – on the redevelopment of Victoria Underground Courtesy Station. It appears that even London AECOM. Underground Ltd (LUL) does not have accurate records of underground services on its sites, but

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 19 Laser Scanning HDS User Conference 2010: confessions of a laser scanning Bocce player!

he fruits of Cyra Technologies’ labours in presentation by Professor Giovanni Pancani and With increased the mid 1990s had clearly ripened by Leica Graziella Del Duca of the University of Florence, attendance and TGeosystem’s Worldwide High Definition was also one of the strongest, taking previous growing sales Survey User Conference 2010. Though San workflows and knowledge obtained from Ramon, California (the heartland of Leica’s HDS photogrammetric solutions and applying them worldwide, Leica’s brand) was uncharacteristically wet for the time to scanning. The bravery demonstrated by annual HDS of year, the Marriott based pilgrimage was non-native English speaking presenters also noticeably well attended. There would be no highlighted the increasing multilingual conference notched graveyard shifts at this event. dimension that HDS is taking; a factor Juergen up new highs, as The 300 plus strong attendance figures were Dold was keen to point out, which had also up 15% from last year, reflecting increased and been incorporated into the technologies. our correspondent recovering sales of HDS solutions. A successful Adam P. Spring development, which CEO of Leica Geosystems, Parallel Forensic track Juergen Dold, described as “a direct result of A parallel session on HDS’s increased application discovered. innovations made in both software and to forensic and crime scene analysis took place hardware, where versatility of application is key on the Tuesday afternoon. Here fact dispelled to market success”. fiction, painting a drastically different picture to Running parallel to technological innovations the general perceptions of 3D crime solutions was an impressive, sophisticated and rapidly influenced by what Sergeant Mike Miller labelled maturing user community. One that, at least in “the CSI effect”. The reality is a lot more 2010, was not afraid to discuss alternative political and bureaucratic, with more than one solutions like Adam Technologies 3DM Analyst department within a civic structure having a photogrammetry package, or disruptive vested interest in using visually appealing competitors like the freshly launched Faro technologies like scanning. In Mike's case, Focus3D scanner. These underlying threads of friction within the Mayor's department was conversation – occurring inside and outside the used as an example that, at times, clashed with conference theatre – were true testament to a "mass demand for scanning – a demand Leica’s dedication to understanding both outweighing manpower". market and consumer needs. At the end of day one, Geoff as master of ceremonies organised a surprise dinner State of the Nation address designed to work up a thirst but not a sweat. The relationship between user and solutions provider was engrained within Dold’s opening The name of the game is Bocce! presentation. Themed around Mount Livermore Valley Wine Country is one of Rushmore and scan data produced to help California’s oldest wine regions with over manage the National Park as a whole, he drew forty-five boutique wineries. After an exciting Cyrax inventor Ben Kacyra inspiration and business ethics from the and insightful first day it was also the place (left) chats with Erwin wisdom of a major figure from America’s past, where great company was intermingled with Christofori. Abraham Lincoln: “The best way to predict flavoursome, locally produced wines. Bocce the future is to create it”. Fortunately was also the name of the game! for attendees, diligent master of Like Bowls and Petanque, Bocce has a ceremonies Geoff Jacobs was ready to common ancestry in the games played in the put this advice into practice and tell Roman Empire. This Italian take on the everyone how the week would unfold. “beautiful game” is played on a natural soil or Similar to previous years, the themes asphalt court 27 metres in length and 2.5 to 4 running through the main stream of metres wide. The balls can be made of metal or presentations included Plant, Civil, plastic but, unlike lawn bowls, are completely Survey, Architecture and Heritage. This spherical in shape. When it came to Leica’s year’s heritage based keynote, focusing Bocce, bottles of wine for the best team and on the scanning of Mount Rushmore, individual technique were at stake. Needless to was given by Elizabeth Lee of CyArk and say this made competition fierce – to the extent Doug Pritchard of the Glasgow School of that everyone had to ease their nerves by taking Art. In fact, heritage was a theme that advantage of the open bar. The only thing more was noticeably stronger this year than at apparent than the merriment and laughter at previous user conferences, with five the end of the evening was a room full of wine- heritage specific presentations out of the red cheeks! Geoff outdid himself in terms of forty plus programme. A Wednesday conference organisation in 2010, and also led

20 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Laser Scanning by example when it came to wine tasting.

Rapidly developing user community This year’s set of speakers were a clear indicator of how far HDS has come since 1998 – not only in terms of variety of applications but also through the backgrounds, insights and skillsets each user brought to laser scanning. It was clear that in the short space of 12 years HDS had far outgrown its original use for Plant applications. Thousands of points per second captured have been replaced by millions per second, with datasets easily going into the gigabytes. Users unknowingly referred to fieldwork with older scanners as ‘slow’ – scanners that still far exceed using his 30 years’ experience in the timber All scanning and no play conventional survey in terms of time saved on trade to create a market for the preservation makes for a dull day! site. What once took hours with older models, and management of forests using scan data. Delegates enjoy an evening such as the HDS3000 or Scanstation 2, has The analogy he gave for using scanners to of wine and Bocce. been turned into minutes using the Scanstation accurately measure, fell and manage trees was C10. There was also a buzz about the new Leica “like moving from the horse and cart to the (rebadged Z+F 5010) phase shift scanner. jumbo jet”. For the first time laser scanning offers a solution for tree management, with Presentations younger trees planted absorbing more CO2 In true San Ramon fashion the presentations than older ones removed. McCaughey’s segment of the event got off to an explosive presentation had people following him out of start. Dr John Dehaan, Fire-EX Forensics, the building to get more information. California, talked about the use of scanning as Another man of vision was Kevin Akin of a tool for analysing fire and explosion California’s Transport Agency. This evangelist of patterns, along with his reasons for choosing multi-sensory data usage was putting the a Leica scanner. Running alongside future into practice by using a series of technological requirements, such as surface datasets, including bathymetric and reflectance information and rapid data geophysical, to help manage bridges spanning capture, was the human touch of Craig Fries. waterways in California, a region prone to The latter was something of a bonus for earthquakes. This helped form part of his work Dehaan and very much included in his on Transport Information Models for the purchase-making processes. The support and highways and byways of the golden state’s professionalism offered through Leica’s team – transport network. The future he painted, and not just US based but worldwide – was a clear is paving the way for, is one where “rich, multi- selling point for many of the users in sensory datasets are the way forward”. Indeed, attendance. This included ones who had with the impressive amount of mobile scanning crossed over from provider to user, such as work he has been doing, it was hard to not to Gabriel Callari, A.B.I. Group, Belgium. agree with him or other presenters like Alan Commercial and research applications were Barrow of Alan Barrow Associates, whose evenly balanced throughout the conference. extensive mobile scanning work in the UK has Callari’s presentation on starting up your own turned the science behind it into an art form. business around HDS was woven and flowed into research-driven ones like Robert Intergraph, business model and displays Washington Allen, Texas A and M University – Hexagon Metrology’s purchase of Leica and inspirational forefathers in terms of HDS Geosystems in 2005 was part of a long-term McCaughey’s users like Dietrich Evans. Evans, baseball player business model dedicated to providing the best presentation had turned 3D wizard, discussed fond yet back- metric solutions either through developing or people following breaking memories of carrying around a Cyrax buying into a potential market. This model HDS2400 on an early cultural heritage job, as again made itself apparent through the him out of the well as an intuitive approach to workflows, acquisition of engineering and geospatial building. . . which only time and a clear understanding of software giant Intergraph for $2.125 billion – a the tools you are working with can bring. decision reflected on at the user conference as Then there was Gerry McCaughey, Geoff a serious commitment and long-term strategy; Jacob’s Wednesday afternoon surprise. a strategy committed to the provision of the There was a certain irony to McCaughey, a highest quality software solutions available. former timber merchant from Ireland, financing At ground level, Hexagon’s business Treemetrics – a company using laser scanning strategies were made tangible through the as a way to manage the world’s forests. Much presence of already acquired companies like in the same way as visionaries like Ben Kacyra Technodigit (provider of meshing package and Johannes Riegl had seen a gap in the 3DReshaper) and strategic partners like Blue geomatics market for rapid, high precision View (Sonar Specialists using Cyclone as the survey on a commercially viable scale, Gerry is operating software for their sonar-based

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 21 Laser Scanning

underwater scanning solutions), Zebra Thompson, uses sonar to collect data, taking Imaging (a Texas based firm bringing 3D Leica solutions below water. With over four datasets to life using holograms) and hundred systems worldwide, Blueview use 2D TriGeo (an India based service provider and 3D sonar based tools for civil, law offering data processing services at a cost enforcement and oil and gas applications, as of $12.5 - $25 per hour, whose clients well as to help defend the seas as a commercial include National Geographic). contractor for NATO member navies. Getting access to Technodigit’s Zebra Imaging, much like TriGeo, was a managing director, Pascal Lefebvre-Albaret, company greatly aided by the growth of 3D was difficult due to the attention his stall mapping. Callie Bailey, Zebra’s commercial was getting. Acquired by Hexagon accounts manager, was keen to point out that Metrology in 2009, Pascal’s “the growth of 3D mapping in 2004/2005 entrepreneurial and technological journey actually created a market for them”. This has was one that mirrored the personalities become a market where they are now using PTS behind the rise of Leica’s HDS brand. files to produce 3D hologram representations Since then Technodigit’s intuitive meshing for 3D plans or presentations on a package – 3DReshaper – has quickly been photopolymer film, the largest being A1 in size. integrated into the Leica workflow, as well as being offered as a standalone Conclusion There was plenty of time in solution. In a presentation given on his Not even the weather could rain on Leica's the programme for birthday, Leica’s Guy Cutting (senior parade in 2010. Advances in technologies delegates to get their hands applications engineer) demonstrated this and, as a direct result, increased sales were on the kit. integration in Cyclone TOPO 2, showing maintained alongside a vibrant and hungry meshing features taken directly from user community – a community always looking 3DReshaper. Both he and Pascal were also at for new applications that not only have hand for the 3DReshaper training sessions commercial value but drive the development offered on the Thursday. of HDS in all its forms. Hexagon-owned BlueView is a strategic partner taking companies like Technodigit and strategic advantage of Leica software packages like partners exhibiting at the event, gave crystal- Cyclone. Born from US navy research, this ball insight into the direction Leica is currently Washington based company, captained by Lee exploring for HDS and its many offshoots.

22 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Lidar Forum

Lidar Forum captures right note

his two-day event run by Intelligent Warren landslide on the English south coast for The applications for Exhibitions at the elegant World Forum in Network Rail. The cliff base site has rail tracks airborne and TThe Hague attracted 50 exhibitors, running along it and is repeatedly threatened by terrestrial laser around 600 visitors and 300 conference adjacent chalk and Gault clay cliffs. Using a delegates for some 42 presentations spread “stop-and-go” technique from vehicle-mounted scanning continue through two tracks plus a series of “Basics” Riegl lidar and integrating the data with static to grow, whether workshops for novices and newcomers. terrestrial scanning, they have been able to While GW was able to visit on one day only, provide the client with comprehensive datasets as accurate base what we saw and heard was impressive hitting four times a year. The vehicle-mounted system mapping, just the right note of technical sessions, has saved time on site by reducing visits to one exhibitors and networking. Sessions covered day from four or five previously. deformation coastal zone and bathymetric applications, Improving the absolute accuracy of lidar monitoring, close- mobile mapping, data fusion, processing and can be helped by using longer GNSS baselines, modelling plus technology developments, which according to Halcrow’s Simon Canning. He has range heritage 3D focused mainly around improvements in been using lidar from a survey vessel (with data capture or extracting more detail from wave-form lidar. Applanix inertial positioning) and found that In the mobile mapping session, Alastair extending baselines up to 84 kms or more has even noise Duncan of the UK Environment Agency said that given accuracies down to 26mm in plan and mapping, reports some five million people in the UK are at risk 36mm height from OS National Grid. Archive editor Stephen from flooding. The Agency’s job is to predict data from Big F at the University of where that may happen based on 10, 100 and Nottingham has improved the height data Booth. 1000 year floods. They use a variety of from OS base stations. platforms for lidar data capture including Airborne lidar has been around as a airborne, which they have deployed since 1996. technology since the 1980s and the US The latest acquisition is a terrestrial Optech Lynx National Oceanic and Atmospheric mobile mapping system, which has enabled the Administration (NOAA) has led the way in its creation of ultra high resolution DTMs by fusion use for applications such as shoreline mapping with data from the airborne system. They are – essential for climate change modelling and also getting rather good, explained Duncan, at environmental studies. Dr Christopher Parrish detecting linear features like kerb lines from the brought us up to date on their latest work in data. Impressive are 3D moving street views, processing full wave-form lidar, which uses all from which colour draping shows properties the signals returned rather than discrete likely to flood as well as vandals likely to. . . points. Although this means processing ten well vandalise! times the data volume, techniques such as Such is the accuracy of lidar, backed up with Gaussian Decompression can help detect GNSS control points, that it can now be used in vegetation from the ground surface. some deformation monitoring applications. Dr An alternative to wave-form lidar is to use a Graham Hunter of 3D Laser Mapping and Ian high pulse rate system and analyse the data Anderson of consulting engineers Halcrow, using MRI – multiple return with intensity. Ron reported on their work at the Folkestone Roth of Leica Geosystems, which manufactures lidars for both airborne and terrestrial applications, showed that, by capturing more data, slope surfaces can be determined as well as improved classification of vegetation. Around the exhibition stands I was struck by how quickly lidar has become a mature technology, with a broad mix of service and equipment suppliers. However, one as yet untapped source of lidar imagery could be the art world. I was impressed by how vivid and colourful some captured The Forum provided the right imagery can be. The images on display by blend of technical presentation, Dutch company TerraImaging were particularly exhibition stands and attractive. They would sit comfortably in the networking opportunities. Tate Modern or any corporate reception.

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 23 Promoting Surveying Promoting the Surveying Profession

By Craig Roberts and Ian Iredale

Faced with an he state of New South Wales has about for predominantly year 10 and 11 students to 1500 registered surveyors of whom around consider the many career options available to ageing surveying T900 are active. The average age is in the them. These careers markets may attract up to profession, mid-50s. Faced with this imbalance, the 7000 students over (up to) two days and are Institution of Surveyors NSW Inc (ISNSW) is held at locations all over Sydney and NSW. surveyors in New actively encouraging young people to study ISNSW have been attending these markets South Wales have surveying to reinvigorate an ageing profession, since 2004 and in 2009 ISNSW attended and have established a Careers sub-committee fourteen events across the state. come up with some to do just this. The committee tries to use the Careers advisors also hold annual imaginative ideas ISNSW member base to help promote the conferences and members of the ISNSW Careers profession by engaging in a number of activities Committee recently attended as exhibitors. This to engage and ranging from offering work experience and seemed a very effective means of promoting the inspire teenagers attending careers markets to supporting a recent profession to the careers advisors who can then as Craig Roberts initiative called the Maths in Surveying days. pass on this advice to suitable students. and Ian Iredale Work experience Publicity DVD explain. One of the best forms of promotion for the A very successful DVD was funded in a profession is work experience. Not only does the partnership arrangement between ISNSW and surveyor have something real to offer a young the Association of Consulting Surveyors NSW in This paper was presented person, it is also a more amenable form of 2005. For five years, this DVD has been a core at FIG Sydney earlier this promotion for the surveyor who may not feel part of the advertising materials used to year. comfortable speaking to a room full of year 10 promote the profession. It features a short students. Most high school careers advisors try three-minute overview with upbeat music, fast to arrange work experience for one week for changing images and no words. This is year 10 students. Surveying, being a practical followed by eight categories of specialty areas profession, is particularly attractive especially in surveying such as Land, Engineering, GPS, with the opportunity for travel. However in GIS etc and some three-minute grabs of the recent years the regulations surrounding best parts of surveying. Limited tracking of new occupational health and safety, child protection, students at UNSW has indicated that the DVD privacy, equal opportunity and discrimination was the second most popular reason students have become so cumbersome that many gave for choosing to study surveying, behind surveyors have stopped offering work word-of-mouth advice about the career. experience. The Careers Committee has tried to address this problem by providing information Putting the Maths into Survey and help on its website. The idea of the Surveying Spectaculars (also The committee encourages surveyors to called the Mathematics in Surveying Day) develop a relationship with their local school evolved from Careers Committee member Ian careers advisor and, as well as offering short Iredale and some of his colleagues who are periods of work experience whilst students are practicing or retired mathematics teachers. in year 10, also to offer extended work There is an increasing concern that young experience during the year after students leave people are not choosing to study mathematics school. Hopefully they will then consider as it is perceived as difficult, irrelevant or boring. further formal study. To address this issue Ian formed his own Work experience can be counter productive if committee who set about developing a series of a company offers a work placement but is surveying activities for year 10 Advanced unprepared for the commitment to the student Mathematics students: the students are about and instead gives a bad experience. This can be 15 years old. The first Surveying Spectacular hugely destructive as the student will return to took place in August 2008. 180 school students school and speak poorly of the surveying and 45 surveyors engaged themselves in a day profession as well as potentially damaging the of surveying activities, including mapping, . . .the DVD was relationship between the careers advisor and the remote heighting, calculating the circumference the second most surveyor. Work experience must be taken of the Earth and setting out a pattern. This has seriously and conducted professionally. been followed up with two further Spectaculars popular reason per year in 2009 and 2010. students gave for Careers Markets The committee currently consists of three In NSW, local Rotary clubs and clusters of surveyors and four teachers. Five of these are choosing to study careers advisor organisations in common females and three are retired. The balance of surveying. . . geographical regions organise careers markets. the committee is important. The teachers These are designed to be “one stop shops” have a good understanding of the most

24 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Promoting Surveying appropriate students to target, the best time of the year to run the Spectaculars, have Students at the contacts with the professional Mathematics Surveying Association who support and promote our Spectaculars are Spectaculars, are best able to prepare the involved in field students’ worksheets and invite student mapping followed by teachers to volunteer in running the day. The CAD drawing in the surveyors’ role is to book the venue, organise office. Encouraging the volunteer surveyors required, organise and helpful the activities and the survey equipment supervision at all required, provide meals to the volunteers and times ensures arrange publicity. students come away with a positive Improving the Spectaculars experience. The Surveying Spectaculars have been reported in Azimuth, the ISNSW monthly newsletter. Those articles have attracted interest from surveyors and teachers in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, who also are likely to run Spectaculars in the future. The Hunter Manning group of surveyors (a sub group of ISNSW) invited the committee to present at Students at the one of their dinner meetings and they Surveying successfully ran their first Spectacular in 2009. Spectacular use One of the benefits of many groups running modern instruments Spectaculars is that the best features of one and receive group’s event can be adopted by other groups enthusiastic and to continually improve all the Spectaculars. engaging instruction ISNSW obtains a list of attendees and their from presenters. In schools. This list is cross-matched against this case, Technical those entering further education to monitor Programme Director the effectiveness of these events. For two of FIG2010 Associate years after the students have attended a Professor Bill Spectacular, they have to think about their Kearsley reaching for choice of career and make decisions about the Sun. which tertiary course to apply for. During this period their schools are targeted with the aim of having a surveyor attend their careers days. This should improve the chance of the surveying institutions also benefit from the students choosing surveying as a career. promotion of the profession and there are few The Spectaculars are also a very good better PR exercises available. public relations exercise. PR people have The role of the surveyor is often indicated that the story is of most interest to misunderstood. Students commonly mistake a the education and careers sections of the total station for a movie camera, but by the major Sydney newspapers. They do not believe end of the Surveying Spectacular, every one of that it will attract the TV news sections. The them will have looked through a telescope, schools’ area local newspaper is also targeted. booked a horizontal and zenith angle and The Spectaculars provide a win for everyone measured a slope distance. At the very least – teachers, students, surveyors, education students will better appreciate the role of faculties and surveying institutions. Many surveyors in the wider community. mathematics teachers mention that it is the first excursion they have been on in their Media coverage career. Mathematics students are either In the past, the Careers Committee has allocated classroom bound or at best allowed into a some of its budget to media professionals, on a computer laboratory. Students struggle to part-time basis, to seek out opportunities in the Many appreciate the relevance of mathematics and print media to promote the profession to the the Spectaculars provide them with a practical wider community. This has had limited success mathematics application for what they have learnt. with an often fickle media cycle and no way of teachers mention Surveyors really enjoy demonstrating the measuring the impact of a well written story tools of their profession to the students and at with a bright picture. However, as with all that it is the first the end of the day they are happy to have marketing efforts, doing nothing is worse. excursion they been able to assist the students to learn. Often, articles specific to the careers There are obvious benefits for the education section of a newspaper are the most have been on in faculties, although it is too early to measure successful and usually feature a young student their career. how successful the Spectaculars are. The or recent graduate and an outdoor picture

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 25 Promoting Surveying

with a surveying instrument. what surveying and spatial information is and Often it is easier Sometimes a short media article has been how it should be most effectively promoted. The to get a story into placed in a regional paper shortly before a result was the “A Life without Limits” campaign careers market to help generate some interest. and website: www.alifewithoutlimits.com.au a regional paper Often it is easier to get a story into a regional The campaign will use this site as a home base . . . paper and it may also be without cost. The to offer advice on what surveying is, where to stories are often pitched at the parents or study, job opportunities and links. The front grandparents, as younger people rarely read page features a video which is a “day in the the local paper. life” of a surveyor. Increasingly the committee is realising the Concurrently, a new website has been importance of the internet and making concise developed in Queensland which seems to target material available to potential new students and more the Spatial Information specialist. It is members of the profession online. called “Destination Spatial” www.destinationspatial.org The newly formed Scouting for surveyors Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) The Careers Committee recognises that the type will adopt this website as their promotional of young people attracted to scouting are more website. Links are provided to the ALWL website likely to be interested in a career in surveying. but again this highlights the problem in Scouting attracts young people with a love for Australia, with several organisations promoting the outdoors, map reading, navigation and the same outcome with different messages problem solving – all requisite skills for a career which potentially confuses the market and in surveying. At present, only limited approaches discourages uptake of new members. Further, to the Scout Association have been made. The for the potential new student the two main obstacle is having the resources (i.e. organisations of the ISNSW and SSSI which both surveyors able to volunteer some time) and contain the word “surveying” send a very regulations with regard to occupational health confusing message and portray our profession and safety and child protection legislation. as divided. This situation needs to be addressed for our own promotions as much as for the Putting the Survey into Maths efficacy of such a small niche profession. The Careers Committee has worked with the NSW Department of Education to try to ...and now for the Best... include surveying examples in the high school The annual “Excellence in Surveying and Spatial mathematics curriculum. Information Awards” organised jointly by ISNSW The Careers Committee has also worked and the Association of Consulting Surveyors with the author of a widely used mathematics NSW (the business association for professional textbook. Some surveying exercises dealing surveyors) have specific categories for “Best About the Authors with geometry and demonstrating GPS and a University Student Project” and “Best TAFE number of images to illustrate the book were Student” to raise the profile of younger people provided to the author, however since the in the profession. The university applicants for move to the new national mathematics these awards are also invited to present their curriculum, it is unclear whether this book will work at conferences organised by the need to be rewritten to comply with a profession. This is an intimidating assignment proposed new curriculum. for a young graduate but also recognition by the profession that the work of young surveyors A life without limits is valuable and important. Craig Roberts is a Senior Lecturer in Since submitting this abstract for the FIG Surveying/ GPS/ Geodesy at the conference, the “A Life without Limits Promotion can never stop University of New South Wales, campaign” (ALWL) has gained some The surveying profession is a small, niche Sydney, Australia. His current research prominence in NSW. The ALWL campaign was profession and its role is not well understood interests involve leveraging CORS infrastructure for practical application an initiative of the Victorian Surveying Industry in the wider community. Therefore promotion to surveying and spatial information. Task Force that combined members from the can never stop. In NSW, the careers sub- Email: [email protected] Surveyors Registration Board of Victoria, the committee of the Institution of Surveyors NSW Consulting Surveyors Victoria, the Institution has been very active in trying to reach out to a of Surveyors Victoria (ISVIC), Spatial Sciences wider audience and encourage a greater Institute (now the Surveying & Spatial Sciences uptake of students to study surveying at a Institute), the tertiary education sector, and technician or professional level. Feedback from various members from the government and the four Spectaculars already conducted has private sector in surveying and spatial been overwhelmingly positive but it is still too information, who recognised the need to early to gauge if this success translates into an promote surveying in the state. increased number of new students. The Task Force raised significant funding and Ian Iredale is a director of Iredale engaged marketing consultants to conduct a • This is an abridged version of a paper given at and Associates, a land surveying professional marketing campaign. This is the FIG 2010 Congress in April 2010. For the full business and Mapsoft, which first time in Australia that in-depth market paper and references visit: develops miniCAD survey software for the PC and PDA’s. research with target groups, questionnaires and http://www.fig.net/pub/fig2010/papers/ts01g/ Email: [email protected] psychological modelling was used to examine ts01g_iredale_roberts_3852.pdf

26 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Surveying and Mapping Iraq Gertrude Bell: surveyor, mapper and kingmaker

by Professor Michael Cooper

Inspired by an he sun casts a shadow of a Merlin Washington Hall, County Durham in 1868. military helicopter across the excavated Her family’s wealth came from the Cleveland illustration in the Tfoundations of an ancient building in iron and steel industry. A gifted child, November 2009 Iraq. The scene resonates with land surveying Gertrude eagerly took on challenges, whether activities and events in the life of Gertrude physical or mental. Her restlessness and edition of the RICS Bell. Although a bluestocking and near independent mind did not fit easily with publication, The contemporary of the Bloomsbury Set, she had education by a governess at home. Faced with great physical courage and was fascinated by outright rebellion from a wilful daughter her Arts Surveyor, the lives of the Bedouin and their desert progressive parents sent her to Queen’s Michael Cooper habitat. She can be said to have been pivotal College, a girls’ school in London, where her in the making of the modern state of Iraq. hard work and eagerness to learn made her traces the career of The first resonance in the illustration comes an outstanding pupil. At the age of 18 she a remarkable from the ancient building, which was in the went to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. After only world’s first city of Uruk in present-day Iraq: five terms of intense study she graduated from woman who Gertrude Bell set up the first national museum Oxford University with a First in Modern surveyed, mapped in Baghdad in 1926. The ancient foundations History – the first woman to do so. and was pivotal in and the helicopter are at the extremes of 5000 Gertrude Bell’s vibrant personality, witty years of land surveying practice: the earliest conversation and striking appearance – an the making of the records of the measurement of land for abundance of curly auburn hair and a modern state of valuation were found in the vicinity of Uruk; disconcertingly direct gaze from green eyes – the helicopter carries instrumentation for attracted attention wherever she went. After Iraq. navigating using earth satellites and onboard presentation at Court, she attended London positioning systems; and Gertrude Bell’s society balls and developed a life-long astronomical observations, altimeter heighting obsession for fashionable clothes and smoking Image above, courtesy of and land surveying were used for making cigarettes. During two world tours and family the National Portrait Gallery maps of Mesopotamia in the 1920s. Military holidays in Europe she widened her circle of and the Russell Trustees. helicopters were deployed during the recent acquaintances to include diplomats and wars in Iraq, a state carved out of the politicians, and added Arabic, Hebrew and defeated Ottoman empire in the aftermath of Persian to her several European languages. the first world war: Gertrude Bell had an She became the most famous female important role in creating the state of Iraq, mountaineer of her time, climbing in the recommending the appointment of its first Rockies and the Swiss Alps where she reached ruler and defining its boundaries. the summit of the Matterhorn.

An educated woman of private means A daughter of the desert Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was born at During a stay in Tehran, Bell translated and published in English a book of poems by the sensual Persian poet Hafiz in 1897. This was the first of her many writings on the cultures and lands of the near east. A series of desert travels gave her an active interest in archaeology. She filled her notebooks with very detailed measurements and sketches of churches, and published the first chronology of Byzantine churches in Anatolia. On her visits home she was prominent in speaking out in favour of imperialism and in support of the anti-suffrage cause – she seems to have taken pleasure in the bewilderment caused by some of her idiosyncratic views. Between 1905 and 1915 she travelled by horse and camel across thousands of miles of desert, the only European among Arab guides and drivers. She

Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum Courtesy of the Trustees took a great interest in tribal customs and

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 27 Surveying and Mapping Iraq

measurements improved the accuracy of maps of the former Ottoman Empire made by the Survey of India.

Lady of the Court In the early days of the first world war, Gertrude Bell worked in France as an officer of the Red Cross, but in 1916 she was recruited by the Arab Bureau in Cairo. She was the first female officer to serve in military intelligence. Her knowledge of Mesopotamian terrain and familiarity with the local sheikhs and tribes in the area were invaluable to the British government in its Above: Gertrude Bell and Arabs measuring walls plan to form alliances with the Arabs, first to at Ukheidir, Iraq, 1909. remove the Ottoman Turks and then to secure a British presence in the region. Bell Left: Gertrude Bell outside her tent, Babylon, was equally at ease sitting cross-legged on a Iraq, 1909 carpet in a sheikh’s desert tent as she was on an upright chair at an ambassador’s dinner- Below: Three before the Pyramids. Bell can be table. On both occasions she would wear found just below the Sphinx’s chin. On her right long diaphanous muslin gowns from Harvey is Churchill and her left, T. E. Lawrence. The photo Nicholls, talk as freely in Arabic as in English, was taken during the 1921 Cairo conference. and smoke cigarettes in a silver holder. Few were better qualified to bring the British and • All images courtesy of Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. the Arabs together. In Baghdad she was known among the Arabs as ‘Khatun’, meaning ‘Lady of the Court’. T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), another member of the Arab Bureau, shared with Bell a vision of Arab independence after the war. Bell had believed that Arab self- government was unlikely to succeed, but changed her mind at the 1919 peace conference in Paris. Lawrence led Arab tribes into unofficial battles against the Turkish forces, capturing Aqaba in the south and Damascus in the north. Meanwhile, Bell continued her role as ‘Khatun’ and was awarded the CBE. She even found time in Baghdad, after it was captured from the Turks in 1917, to introduce methods of making maps from aerial photographs, which she had seen being used in Cairo. British authority in Mesopotamia after the dialects of the Bedouin. A lifelong atheist, she defeat of Turkey fell into disarray when the found the desert spiritually and aesthetically League of Nations declared Mesopotamia to beguiling. She recorded with pride that she be a ‘mandate’ under British trusteeship. The was known as ‘Mashallah! bint arab’ – ‘As news caused riots in which a Shia/Sunni God has willed, a daughter of the desert’. alliance lasted long enough to inflict Gertrude Bell went to the Royal thousands of casualties on the British Geographical Society to learn how to use occupying forces. The prospect of Arab surveying instruments for field astronomy. On independence receded. The following year a her later desert journeys she made conference was held in Cairo when the astronomical observations with a vernier colonial secretary Winston Churchill favoured theodolite. She used tables of six-figure a British withdrawal from Mesopotamia to logarithms and formulae from spherical save money. Bell had by now published trigonometry to calculate latitudes, memoranda arguing for the idea of Arab longitudes and azimuths of the places she self-determination and was the author of a visited. The azimuths enabled her to find the government white paper describing the social magnetic variation so that she could correct conditions in Mesopotamia – still a useful her tape and compass traverses. Using an account. She convinced Churchill that the aneroid barometer calibrated at the National way forward would be to set up an Arab Physical Laboratory, she took atmospheric regime with British advisors until an pressure readings to calculate the heights of independent state could replace the the ground along her routes. Her mandate. Such an arrangement would reduce

28 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Surveying and Mapping Iraq the cost to the British government, but it A woman alone would be a heavy burden on the finances of On her visit to Persia in 1892, Bell fell in love with a new independent state. Henry Cadogan, a junior diplomat. She accepted his proposal of marriage, but her parents forbad A woman who made a state it after their enquiries revealed that Henry was in Bell had long thought that the Hashemite debt and a gambler. Gertrude was distraught. Prince Feisal was the man most likely to Her hopes that one day she would marry receive the loyalty of enough different tribal Cadogan ended with his death from pneumonia groups to maintain a stable and independent the following year. In 1907 she met a married Iraqi government. She now engineered his army officer Charles (‘Dick’) Doughty-Wylie. They election by referendum, which showed a exchanged love letters and intimacies, but their majority of 96% in favour – a likely precedent. relationship was probably unconsummated. The Feisal was crowned king in August 1921. Bell last man she loved was Kinahan (“Ken”) was behind the negotiations, which led to the Cornwallis, a married man with whom she replacement of the mandate by an Anglo-Iraqi worked on the 1923 protocol. She was treaty in 1922. She was heavily involved in devastated when, after his divorce, Cornwallis organizing elections to a constitutional remained indifferent to her affection for him. assembly and in preparing a law to allow King Bell’s health declined. Cornwallis’s rejection Nobody knew Feisal and the British high commissioner to and the end of her active engagement in Iraqi more about the administer the country. politics left her isolated. The economic depression One major step remained: although Iraq at home had eroded her family’s wealth. complexity of the had a constitutional monarch, assembly and Returning to Iraq after taking sick leave, she continuous administration, it had no constitutional took an overdose of sleeping tablets and died frontiers. Nobody knew more about the on the night of 11/12 July 1926. Friends interactions complexity of the continuous interactions believed that she had taken her own life. She between nomadic between nomadic tribes and terrain than was buried on 12 July 1926 in the British tribes and terrain... Gertrude Bell. In a protocol of 1923 she made cemetery in Baghdad. important contributions to defining the frontiers with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Further reading areas in which she had travelled on horseback Georgina Howell’s Daughter of the Desert only a few years earlier. The former Ottoman (2006) is the latest and best biography. administrative area of Mosul, with its non- Gertrude Bell’s accounts of her travels, Arab Kurdish population, was not especially The Desert and the Sown (1907) incorporated into the frontiers of Iraq until a and Amurath to Amurath (1911) are great League of Nations commission settled the travel writing. matter in 1925. The Gertrude Bell archive at the University Bell was determined to modernise society in of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne has made available the new Iraq. She pressed for more education, her letters, diaries and photographs at particularly in the rural areas, the adoption of www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/. The Royal Geographical Arabic as the official language and tea-parties Society has her notebooks and theodolite. The for women in Baghdad who could listen to article by Liora Lukitz in Oxford Dictionary of lectures on health given by female doctors. National Biography gives other sources.

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 29 Overcurrents

Locks, lunatics and engineers

By Nick Day

lease don’t tell me it’s already 2011! Included were: Brixton Windmill (who’d have Whatever happened to 2010? Was I thought you’d find an early 19th cent Psleeping through much of it? Jack London windmill there?); tours of Parliament and opens his book The Sea Wolf with “I scarcely Mansion House; The Gherkin; London Olympic know where to begin…” I know just how he Park; and Lloyd’s of London. felt. I had little intention of travelling overseas For my Open House outing, I hopped on a last year, content to have spent 12 days on the red double-decker bus and found myself at Looking back on a road visiting the southern deserts of California The Fox in Hanwell. A nice pub lunch in a busy year, our trying out my fancy new camera on spring wild delightful garden, washed down with a flowers, cacti, and strange land forms; and a suitable beverage, put me in good stead for a Californian week in the Sierras. Then, early September, guided tour of the Hanwell Flight of Six Locks correspondent after waiting patiently for summer to arrive in – a scheduled ancient monument – on the the San Francisco Bay Area (it never did, coldest Grand Union Canal. seems to have for 40 years), and realising that I might be The canal and locks are testament to the spent most of it in running out of material for Overcurrents, I ingenuity of British engineering in the late decided to head to the UK and other points 18th century. William Jessop was the canal’s Britain! east. Ten days later I was in London, and by chief engineer, and his masterpiece cut 60 early October, mysteriously found myself miles off the journey to the Midlands, wandering the deserts and ancient monuments revolutionising trade, industry, and people’s of Egypt and Jordan (more of this next issue, lives. So busy did canals become that when I’ll cover the Nilometer). inevitable bottlenecks ensued. However, It never ceases to amaze me how much Jessop had the foresight to make the locks there is to see and do in Britain. As American wide enough – 14 feet – to take two narrow author and Anglophile, Bill Bryson put it, “And boats at the same time or a 70-tonne barge. this isn’t even famous, it’s just another magical It’s actually possible to walk all the way along corner of Britain” and “Suddenly in the space the canal between London and Birmingham. of a moment, I realized what it is that I loved The first stretch that passes through the about Britain – which is to say, all of it.” I was Hanwell Locks (originally called the Grand about to immerse myself once again. Junction Canal) was opened in 1794, and ran from the River Thames, at Brentford, to Hanwell Flight of Six Locks Uxbridge. It takes about 1½ hours to pass Open House London occurs every third through the six locks. The very pleasant walk weekend in September, and has done so since along the old towpath starts near the junction 1992. The French started the idea in 1983 as with the un-navigable River Brent. There is Journées Portes ouvertes des monuments much to see, including some of the old lock- Below left: the newly historiques. In 2010, over 700 buildings, keeper’s cottages, many now in private hands, restored roof of Chiswick neighbourhood walks, architects’ talks, cycle and which our Waterways Trust guide told us House Conservatory (a tours, and more were featured. Viewing sold for the staggering sum of £950,000 each. Grade I listed hothouse), an private residences, historic government Our small group was lucky enough to see a Open House destination. buildings, modern offices, art spaces, City brightly coloured barge, with a typical salt-of-the- Right: locks and lock- banks and schools, gives the public a chance earth type bargee, manoeuvre a couple of locks. keeper’s cottage. Yours for to explore their history in a unique and Half way along the flight, adjacent to the canal, £900,000! interactive way. What’s more, it’s free! is the high-walled enclosure of St Bernard’s Hospital, originally the County Lunatic Asylum. Four holes near the bottom of the walls allow firemen to put hoses through and suck water from the canal. The hospital grew all its own fruit, vegetables and animal produce; any surplus being transported by boat to be sold. Boats also delivered coal for the hospital boilers. How’s that for sustainability? They seemed to think of everything in those days. Can we learn something here? The walk ended at Windmill

30 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Overcurrents

Lane, where we saw the pièce de résistance – panoramic views from the Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Three Bridges. high-level walkways and Designed in 1859, the structure is actually two the original Victorian steam bridges, with road, canal, and railway machinery. The first thing intersecting at different angles and on three one notices, both outside levels. A bridge already carried Windmill Lane and inside, is the beautiful over the canal before Brunel planned to take ornate ironwork, even the the Great Western Railway line through a staircases and roof trusses. cutting under both the canal and the road. His The current exhibit in the last major project, Brunel designed massive walkways contain large brick arches at the lower level and a “trough” colour photos of some of supported by huge metal beams to carry the the world’s renowned road above the canal. Quite remarkable! bridges along with their fascinating history, plus More Bridges and Strange Old Buildings diagrams and photos of the design and Above: Watch your step! I have not visited the West Country since my construction of Tower Bridge. Down below I One of Dartmoor’s Clapper early 20s, when I carried out many miles of was treated to the sight of two (originally eight) and Post bridges. 400kV transmission line surveys. Driving some magnificent steam-driven pumping engines that of the country lanes today, I’d forgotten how raised and lowered the bascules, and two of six very narrow they were. My farthest point west accumulators that stored water under pressure. was Plymouth, where I met Drake for a quick It took only a minute for the bascules to be game of bowls on the Hoe, but left before the raised to their full 86° (today they are activated Armada turned up. Visiting the lovely town of electronically). One can also see two of the four Totnes, Devon, and picturesque village of coal-fired boilers, and an old skip that brought Dunster, Somerset, plus criss-crossing coal in by rail from river barges. Dartmoor and Exmoor, turned up a very After a late lunch at the delightful About the author interesting bevy of medieval Clapper and Post “Bubble”café on the South Bank side of the Nick Day, FRICS, FRGS, PLS, bridges, and Tithe and Yarn barns – all still in bridge, the day was completed by a short walk is retired from the California great shape, albeit with some remedial to the Guildhall to see the Roman amphitheatre Department of renovation, after about 800 years. remains, discovered only in 1988 while Transportation (Caltrans). excavating the basement. A truly exhilarating He can be reached at Tower Bridge tour day, perhaps the highlight of my entire trip. [email protected] When travelling extensively one should have some vague plan of where and when you’re going, yet remain flexible. Scheduling too London’s tightly rarely allows serendipity. During my last week in London, after returning from a iconic bridge blisteringly hot Egypt and Jordan, I planned to visit the Tower Bridge exhibit. This was abruptly The Romans first arrived in Britain moved forward a day by the sun’s sudden in 55 BC. There was no London emergence in an almost cloudless sky. My then, nor crossing of the River motto Carpe Diem (seize the day) worked well, Thames. Many bridges were built, as the next day was miserable rain. mostly of timber, but all failed over And so it was that the Tower Bridge tour the centuries for one reason or turned into a series of tangential happenings. another. Finally, a stone bridge was On leaving Tower Hill tube station, one’s eye is built around the end of the twelfth met by the fascinating 12 feet high sundial on century, and remained the city’s a mound overlooking the Tower of London. only crossing for six hundred years. Even after successive London Bridges, including John Unveiled in 1992, it is circumscribed by a Rennie’s, opened in 1831, no bridge existed east of the Pool of London – the busiest and bronze band with low relief sculptures wealthiest port in the world during the Industrial Revolution. Even before the middle of beautifully illustrating 2000 years of London’s the 19th century, as many as 168,000 people and over 20,000 vehicles were crossing history, from the Roman conquest in 43 AD to London Bridge every day. A later foot tunnel and ferries, still couldn’t cope with a 1982. Included in the relief are: Great Fire of burgeoning population trying to get from one side to the other. So, after several fits and 1666, River Thames frozen over in 1739, and starts, and inviting a new bridge design to the public, an Act of Parliament decreed that first street gas lighting in 1807. Tower Bridge be built with certain criteria: A few minutes later, I’m beside the best- preserved section of the Roman Wall, built Central opening span of 200 feet clear width, with a height of 135 feet above Trinity around 200-220 AD, with a replica statue of high water when open, and 29 feet when closed against vessels with high masts. the Emperor Trajan in front. Walking past the Size of piers to be 185 feet in length and 70 feet in width. Tower of London, I was soon on Tower Bridge. Length of each of the two side spans to be 270 feet in the clear. How many times had I driven over it back in The rest was up to City Architect, Sir Horace Jones, who brought in famous engineer the 70s, with barely a second look or thought John Wolfe Barry to help. Work finally began in 1886 on the bascule-operated bridge – for its history? This was soon to be rectified. a triumph of Victorian Gothic architecture, with cast iron parapets, decorative panelling for An exhibition was opened in 1982, and for the walkways, and gas lamps. It is not dissimilar in appearance to a medieval Scottish the first time since 1910, visitors have been castle. But the end result was truly a masterpiece of innovative technologies for its day. allowed inside to admire the magnificent

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 31 BOOK REVIEW

Map of a Nation the trials and challenges of those early surveyors are well captured – a biography of the Ordnance Survey Unusually, the book is the and inventor Charles Babbage clear and loud warnings over the author’s doctoral thesis and could (revered for his mechanical dangers of scaling up digital have done with some editing and computer) and the controversial mapping, the problem is not new. reduction of the bibliographical Astronomer Royal, Nevil Upon completion of the six-inch notes, cited works and credits. It Maskelyne, survey of Ireland many cannot be necessary for this to The author captures well the landowners enlarged the maps for account for over 25% of the trials and challenges those early their estates, highlighting errors. printed pages. surveyors had to surmount in One wonders if any builder relied That criticism apart, readers creating the primary triangulation, on them for site plans. will find the early chapters especially in linking Ireland to the The author has written a especially rewarding if like me mainland but also in Colby’s ill- scholarly but very approachable your history is a bit shaky on the faited venture with the French to study of the early years of the OS events surrounding the ’45 measure a meridian arc as far as although perhaps does not draw Rebellion (the last battle on the Shetlands, which he had enough critical conclusions. There is British soil). The pivotal but fatal hoped to build on Roy’s work with also little on the so-called “Interior role of Lord Lovatt in supporting Cassini two decades earlier. Survey” – the secondary and the Pretender Charles Edward A striking aspect of the history tertiary triangulation and detailed By Rachel Hewitt Stuart is especially well drawn. of the OS is that it has too often in mapping. This must have required Published by Granta, h/back £25, Hewitt also focuses on the many the past been distracted from its enormous resources. Hardnosed ISBN978 1 84708 098 1 characters who played key roles in primary task. With much of England surveyors and technofans may also the emerging mapping agency, and Scotland still to complete want to skip the odd paragraph or This highly readable and drawing widely on her sources to resources were switched to Ireland, two of poetry (the author is clearly informative account of the early give them virisimilitude. Watson, which Colby enthusiastically a lover of Wordsworth whose years of the Ordnance Survey Roy, Watson, Mudge, Dalby, Colby, embraced. Meanwhile, the works mentioned the progress of deals mainly with the events that Ramsden even the landscape mainland was enjoying a the OS and its surveyors Mudge triggered its foundation in the artist and expert hachurist Sandby burgeoning economy with factories, and Colby). Her description of early mid 18th century and the early (recently celebrated with an new estates and railways changing instruments and their use seem surveys in Britain and Ireland. exhibition at the Royal Academy) the landscape forever; and left sound enough but she is on Amongst many things you will are all given fair study. unrecorded for decades. Yet another shakier ground when it comes to learn of the lack of clarity over The narrative gives an distraction occurred in 1864 when the modern age with mention of exactly when the OS came into interesting account of how these it was decided to map Palestine mapping by “laser-driven being (1791, 1801, 1810 or characters had contact with and and Sinai (1870). Useful work for theodolites”. even, for pedants, 1855), the were influenced by contemporary both sides in the 1914-18 war but I commend this book for your influence of the French society figures like the painter again there was still plenty to do at holiday reading list but we await Revolution, the early political Joshua Reynolds, the novelist home. a similar lively account of the battles and the state of mapping Matthew Arnold, the poet For surveyors who have long OS’s emergence into the then and in the preceding years. Wordsworth, the mathematician complained of the OS’s lack of Edwardian era and beyond.

TOWARDS the end of last year Ordnance Survey centre, a particularly successful aspect of the Welcome to GB took GW on tour of Adanac Park, their new old building, is 'landside' of the security gates, hq. The building is close to Junction 1 of the with the offices 'airside'. Rather than having a SU373155, the M271 on the outskirts of Southampton. single security station, there are gates in several Built by Kier Construction under a design locations, which would seem to make security new home of and build contract involving Kier taking over complicated. However, everything will be and redeveloping the old site, it is constructed monitored using CCTV including, high-tech Ordnance Survey to BREEAM 2006 standards and will generate sensors in the grounds that will reveal intruders. 74% of its energy needs from ground source The move is a response to technological heat pumps. With energy efficiency in mind, change and the falling OS headcount. Adanac there are few windows facing south and large Park is designed to accommodate 1000 expanses of glass facing north. Planning for the employees but OS has considered the building started in 2001. OS has had plenty of possibility that their numbers may reduce time to research the needs of the organisation further by building flexibility into their design. and of their staff and have come up The main office area of the building is housed with a spacious, bright and airy in three open plan 'fingers' off a communal building with a science park atrium area where the canteen is located. atmosphere. IT has a dedicated Should less space be needed, they will rent room for 630 servers in addition to a out one of the 'fingers'. Gloucestershire site shared with The move from Maybush will take place Land Registry. gradually to the end of February 2011 and the It feels rather like an airport, in business centre will host its first major event, the sense that the new business the 'Cambridge Conference', in the summer.

32 Geomatics World January / February 2011 Down undercurrents In the steps and statues of the pioneers

ack to the “normality” of DUC after the A Flinders feast reflections of the 50th special edition last Attended by our fantastic Governor Professor Bissue. Topp Tours took us on a Seven Marie Bashir, the Australian National Maritime Islands cruise of the Hawkesbury River: five days Museum half-day seminar on our legendary in the northern NSW country towns of Armidale mariner Matthew Flinders was a full house. The and Tamworth, “Richlands” homestead at three eminent speakers were Prof. Robert Clancy Taralga and The Hills area near Parramatta. On on the many chart-making explorations of 30 October my eldest daughter got married to Flinders; Mitchell Library curator Paul Brunton A foot in the past Michael McFadden at Mater Dei Chapel in elaborating on the vast collection of Flinders’ Camden with photos taken on the adjacent private letters, upon which he has published a and one in the house “Wivenhoe” built in 1837 for NSW book; followed by author Miriam Estensen, future as our Premier Sir Charles Cowper on the land granted providing a closer insight into Flinders’ family by Governor Lachlan Macquarie to his father the activities after his return to England from the correspondent tracks Reverend William in 1812. seven-year house arrest on Mauritius. Only a Australia’s pioneer Retracing the 1813-14 route of surveyor week later I was in attendance at State surveyors and George Evans over the Blue Mountains took Parliament House to hear a presentation on our Topp Tour to each of the survey pillars that how Flinders was the principal protagonist of attends the final were placed in close proximity to 14 of the the naming of our country as Australia. I have a year presentations surveyor’s field stations along his traverse. slide show that casts a spurious shadow on Each marker has plaques on the four faces “Who Really Named Australia?” but I do admit at the University of highlighting the history of the surveyor that Matthew had more than just a passing New South Wales together with excerpts from his travel journal contribution to this act of nomenclature. entered on the night of the occupation of that School of Surveying point. The “Footsteps In Time” project was Star surveyors of the future and Spatial the creation of council engineer John Yeoman At the University of NSW final year thesis as a commemoration to the unsung presentations for the School of Surveying and Information. achievement of George Evans in opening up Spatial Information there was a most impressive the western pasture lands for future extension array of future surveyors providing those of the Colony of New South Wales. After a present with great optimism for the brilliant steak lunch at the Jemby Rinjah Eco advancement of the profession over many areas • John Brock is a Lodge plus hand-feeding the Crimson Rosella including cadastral court cases, 3D laser Registered Surveyor in Parakeets, we were treated to a viewing of the scanning, water conservation and supply and Australia and is a stalwart extensive collection of historic surveying other areas of concern for the future of of FIG and its Permanent equipment and charts at the Bathurst Central surveying. One author, Neil McDaid, spoke on Institution for the Art and Mapping Authority through the generous the Sydney Harbour Bridge survey, using mostly History of Surveying. input of Lands Surveyor George Baitch. information supplied to him by me, as well as re-measuring the distance between the hinge bolts, which correlated to within a couple of Right: the statue of Irish convict millimeters from the distance determined by James Meehan who became deputy the original surveyor, E.A. Amphlett! surveyor general. The Irish surveyor finally unveiled At the invitation only event outside the Old Lands Department Building in Sydney, a strong wind was in the air on the Saturday afternoon when we would finally see the sandstone sculpture of the emancipated Irish political prisoner mounted in a niche of distinction fronting the Loftus Street corner of this historic construction. Once again our proud Governor Marie Bashir was on hand to unveil the statue of Deputy Surveyor-General James Meehan Left: at the unveiling from (1774-1826) in the presence of the early colony left to right, surveyor surveyor’s great great great grandson, Phillip general Warwick Watkins, Bradley, and his son Robert along with their Meehan’s great great families. Our Minister for Lands, the Honourable grandson Phillip Bradley, Tony Kelly and our eminent Surveyor-General governor Marie Bashir, Warwick Watkins presided over the dedication Meehan’s great great great ceremony, which was overseen by the two grandson Robert Bradley, accomplished sculptors Ruben Varfi and Paul lands minister Tony Kelly. Thurloe from NSW Heritage Stone Masonry.

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 33 PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Processing point clouds GstarCAD’s new ribbon interface.

(Highways Agency digital features and tools, it allows database management system) designers to interact with the user surveys. Pole-mounted, the system interface more efficiently. With includes an R4 GNSS receiver, a contextual ribbon tabs, users can VRS Now real-time corrections easily choose many context- service licence and software sensitive tabs, and the tools running on a Nomad 900G whenever they need them are handheld GPS data-collection always at their fingertips. The device. Functionality includes: 2011 version also offers better option to move a manhole integration with other software position to a current GPS position products, including MS Office and automatically move all 2007, AutoCAD and SnagIt. For connecting pipes; complete an more details contact STC25 list of attributes about the [email protected] The latest version of RealityLINx Model software is designed to manhole; draw a sketch of the speed and simplify the processing of as-built laser scans into assets and take a photograph of BRIEFS intelligent models that feed into 3D plant design software, as the exposed manhole chamber well as Leica business partner INOVx’s plant asset management using a hi-resolution camera. Blue Marble Geographics has software. Powered by Leica point cloud engine (pcE), advantages announced an enhanced area of version 5.4 include: display scan points for >10× as many Ribbon GUI for CAD calculation tool which allows scanner positions; speed up display times by >25× for regions of The latest version of GstarCAD users to calculate an area point clouds that include multiple scanner positions; eliminate introduces a ribbon-style user based on user-defined time-consuming scan data format conversion and import/export interface whilst preserving the boundary definitions. By steps; directly accept modelled data from Leica Cyclone via a older interface as an option. entering points to describe a cyclone object exchange utility; and display true colour point Available in the UK from South polygon, the user can control clouds that look like the real plant object. Survey, GstarCAD V2011 has a the methods used for defining customized ribbon-style user each segment between the interface. By adding the ribbon, points and calculate the area Supports for 64-bit the Trimble Professional Services the GUI changes from a collection on a geodetic or grid model. The eCognition version 8.64 group and available from UK of menus and toolbars to a single image analysis software suite for distributor Korec, the system is ribbon mechanism, offering Radiodetection has launched a geospatial applications aims to ideal for carrying out HADDMS greater flexibility in terms of new range of precision locators set a new standard for native 64- to replace its RD7000 utility bit object-based image analysis. Plug-in for SketchUp specific locators. The RD7000+ Production workflows can benefit products incorporate "dynamic from the additional random overload protection" to improve access memory offered by 64-bit location performance in operating systems. Trimble’s electrically noisy areas. Also, a software suite enables users to compass feature determines and automatically segment and displays the orientation of the classify very large datasets, target cable or pipe, simplifying generating billions of image route determination and helping objects without being limited by to improve depth measurement operating system restrictions. accuracy. The range consists of four locators for specific System helps meet industries. new legislation A system is now available to help Optech has announced a new utility companies meet new Lidar Mapping Suite for their legislation for 2011, which Airborne Laser Terrain Mapper requires water and sewerage Pointools has announced a plug-in for Google’s SketchUp clients. Optech LMS offers an companies to adopt and survey all modelling programme that streamlines scan-to-model workflows all-new workflow previously un-adopted sewers. for users (including SketchUp Pro users) by enabling reuse of the incorporating a fully- FastMap Mobile Drainage largest point cloud models and by providing a solution to create automated batch-mode Network Surveyor system is aimed 3D city models from mobile scan data. The plug-in eliminates the capability. An all-new lidar at highways and drainage need for time-wasting translations, maintains visual quality and rectification module provides contractors working in the UK for accuracy of point cloud models in SketchUp and increases additional value by the Highways Agency or utility modelling productivity by reading the Pointools POD model file maximising and quantifying water companies. Developed by format to display billions of points on screen. project-wide accuracies.

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COURSES Geomatics RICS and CICES World Accredited Geomatics Looking for Programmes Geomatics Professionals? MSc, PGDip, PGCert or CPD (part-time or full-time) To book for the next issue call Geospatial & Mapping Sharon Robson Sciences, and Geoinformation on:+44 (0)1438 Technology & Cartography 352617. Financial support is available to appropriately qualified Scottish Booking deadline: domiciled, other suitable EU or 18 February international applicants. 2011 Commencing each September For further information contact: ADVERTISERS’ INDEX [email protected] Applications in CADD p.29 [email protected] or GEO-11 p.05 [email protected] KOREC p.09 Leica Geosystems inside front cover SPAR 2011 p.22 Trimble back cover www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_176705_en.pdf Topcon p.04

January / February 2011 Geomatics World 35