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Infoterra and Geomer Provide
Flood Information Online
Damage potentials and indication of dangers derived from satellite imagery
and historical maps. The major cross-border river areas already completely
captured. Key aim of FloodServer is a more efficient flood management
across Europe.
By Mareike Doepke and Stefan Jger
The FloodServer, a novel platform designedto provide extensive flood risk information for
the whole of Europe quickly, reliably and eas-
ily accessible for everybody is now availableonline at www.floodrisk.eu. The geo-informa-
tion service providers Infoterra and Geomer
present detailed maps and information about
past and potential future flood events at the
rivers Rhine, Elbe and lower Weser.
Detailed information on the extend and
impact of past flood events supports the
responsible authorities and teams, explains
Marek Tinz, responsible project manager at
Infoterra. While it can of course not prevent
an actual flood event, the FloodServer signifi-
cantly supports the efforts to reduce the
impact of future events.
Not only satellite-based maps of recent flood
events are used: For example, historical maps
of the river Rhine flood in the winter 1881/82
are available. The more information we cangather, the more precisely we can define
potential flooded areas, explains Tinz further.
A combination of this data with up-to-date
land use maps allows the identification of
areas particularly at risk, as well as the dam-
age potentials involved. Based on these
maps, authorities in charge can implement
targeted and efficient preventive measures.
Historical and potential flood areas, informa-
tion on potential damage as well as up-to-
date land use maps - all this can be acces-
sed easily through an info button onwww.floodrisk.eu. Additionally, the informa-
tion system allows the user to access partic-
ular locations through a comfortable search
function and to print high-resolution maps.
Local squad leaders, water management
agencies, civil protection forces and rescue
services, as well as European authorities in
charge of international flood management - a
great variety of users will benefit from the
FloodServer in the next years.
Future Users
We have developed this platform in close
cooperation with the future users, reports Dr.
Andr Assmann, responsible member of the
General Management at geomer GmbH, thus
we can be sure, that the FloodServer will real-
ly make a considerable contribution to an
improved anticipation of flood events, the ini-
tiation of systematic protection measures, an
efficient preparation, a targeted reaction in
case of crisis and, last but not least, to an
optimal implementation of subsequent
restoration works.
In addition to the two geo-informationproviders user organisations such as the
International Commission for the Protection
of the Rhine (ICPR) as well as the transna-
tional Interreg III B Project ELLA (ELbe and
LAbe) dealing with risk prevention in the Elbe
catchments, have supported the definition of
the information layers implemented on the
FloodServer today.
The novel approach of developing up-to-date
geo-information services in close cooperation
with the user organizations is a key aspect of
the European Global Monitoring for
Environment and Security (GMES) initiative.
Within this program, the European
Commission (EC) and the European Space
Agency (ESA) work together to establish a
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Art ic le
Application Example from the FloodServer. Flood extent at Rivers Aller and Weser (Germany), April 1994:
The system enables the user to select different information layers such as land use or road networks, and to
search for specific place names.
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long-term operational European Earth obser-
vation program. GMES is intended to provide
authorities and administrations in Europe with
environment and security related information.
The FloodServer was developed within the
GMES projects RISK-EOS and Preview, which
addresses the development and validation of
GMES applications in the field of risk
management.
Mareike Doepke
(mareike.doepke@infoterra-global.com) and
Dr. Stefan Jger (sj@geomer.de).
More information on this subject:
www.floodrisk.eu, www.infoterra.de, and
www.geomer.de .
The use of the FloodServer, which is jointly
operated by Infoterra and Geomer is free
of charge. Organisations and authorities inter-
ested in making flood risk maps and existing
additional information accessible for their
own responsibilities, can also utilize the
platform. Minor charges may apply for
individual editing and integration of data.
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Art ic le
Mapping of Flood Events. Flood extent at Rivers
Aller and Weser (Germany), April 1994:
Information on flood extent along with land use
information supports flood risk management in
this particular flood event and for the future.
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Romney Marsh Case Study and
Intermap Flood Risk AnalysisInsurers face their biggest UK flood bill in 20 years, with claims set to top
2 billion pounds after intense rain left swathes of central, northern andsouthern England under water. The bill from flooding across the central counties
of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire is likely to run into
hundreds of millions of pounds, which comes on top of an estimated bill
of 1.5 billion pounds from earlier flooding in June that hit central and
northern England and caused chaos in the cities of Sheffield and Hull.
By Kevin Thomas
This unprecedented catastrophe comes in thewake of an attack on the UK EnvironmentAgencys flood and costal defence budget by
The National Audit Office (NAO) in early June,
which slammed the EAs 176m budget as too
focused on reactive repairs and lower-priority
defence systems.
The writing was already on the wall. Seven years
earlier, the autumn floods of 2000 in Britain
marked the wettest autumn since records began
in the 1700s; river catchments were saturated,
and unable to hold water, which ran straight into
the rivers. Of the 1.8 million premises at risk of
flooding in the UK, about 9,000 were flooded:
some on several occasions. Fortunately, then,
as is not the case in 2007, there was no loss of
life directly attributable to the flooding. Sub-
sequently, that year, Intermap Technologies col-lected, processed, and archived 230,000 square
kilometres of detailed digital mapping for all of
England, Scotland, and Wales.
Intermaps NextMap Britain programme began
with a pilot project undertaken in 1999 /2000.
Willis Consulting, a flood risk consultant to the
insurance industry, hired Intermap to acquire ele-
vation data in the River Thames drainage basin
for use in a new flood risk analysis system.
The 340 kilometre long River Thames is unique
in that its regime changes from tidal (suscepti-
ble to storm surge) to non-tidal (susceptible only
to rainfall induced flooding). Flood modelling
has to consider this dual regime. There are 1.4
million residential and 100,000 commercial prop-
erties in the immediate vicinity of the river, with
a population of approximately three million
people.
Intermaps proprietary IFSAR system (Inter-
ferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) was used
to collect approximately 22,000 km of Digital
Elevation Models (DEM) and image data in sup-
port of the project.
Subsequently, every insurer with commercial or
residential property portfolios in the Thames
basin made use of the risk analysis system. The
traditional method of assessing a flood risk by
postal code has been rendered obsolete by this
new technology that actually provides an
address-specific (rooftop) flood risk assessment.Fortunately, on this occasion, the South East of
England, home to the low lands of the Thames
Estuary, was spared the travesty of relentless
rain and flood risk. In the event, home owners
and insurers would likely have been better pre-
pared than middle England. It is this prepared-
ness that is increasingly critical in the knowl-
edge that one hundred year events are proving
to be ever more frequent and with greater envi-
ronmental impact.
Marsh Attack!A good case in point lies some 50 miles southof the Capital, an area known as Romney Marsh
in the Dungeness Peninsular with a costal focus
between Folkestone and Cliff End on the English
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Channel. Here, in 2005 the local authority imple-
mented a 100 year flood risk management and
coastal defence strategy using Intermap height
data.
Most of the land behind this line of the British
south coast is barely above sea level and some
areas are well below, requiring a criss-cross of
water dykes to drain the fertile farmland. It has
provided an excellent wetland environment for
an abundance of flora and fauna, as well as to
the shingle habitats, which are arguably the
most extensive in Europe. These habitats are
recognised as protected, at an international
level.
The Marsh has never been densely populatedbut the extent of the low lying area results in
over 15,000 homes and businesses - including
two of Britains Nuclear Power Stations and the
nearby Lydd Airport all being potentially within
floodable areas.
Further, a long history of settlement has result-
ed in the presence of a surprising number of
medieval churches and numerous other valuable
features such as the unique fresh water and
shingle habitats, and tourist attractions such as
In the recent UK government commission report
Foresight Futures, the ecosystems of coastal
marshes are highlighted as driven by both sea-
level rise and flood-management policy. Coastal
grazing marsh appears to be the most threat-
ened coastal habitat as intertidal losses of salt-
marsh and mudflat are likely to be offset bycoastal realignment or abandonment of grazing
marsh.
The flood risk management project was run by
the Halcrow Group on behalf of the UK
Environment Agency, focusing on developing a
flood risk management and coastal defence
strategy which would take into account antici-
pated climate change and sea level rise. The
area is currently defended from flooding by a
combination of man-made coastal and fluvial
defences and very effective natural defences
such as the sand dunes and shingle ridges.
Such a large low-lying area is potentially under
threat from inundation from any part of the
coast, or indeed from fluvial sources such as the
River Rother, which outfalls at Rye.
the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch miniature
railway.
The extensive coastline and sparse development
creates an environment attractive for holidaying,
resulting in the many holiday parks situated
around the peninsulas coast. There is also theRoyal Military Canal, which stretches for 28 miles
hugging the old cliff line that borders Romney
Marsh from Hythe in the north east to Cliff End.
The canal was built as a third line of defence
against Napoleon, after the British Royal Navy
patrolling the English Channel, and a line of 74
Martello Towers were also built along the south
coast. Today, it is used to manage water levels
across much of the Marsh, and is integral to the
areas flood protection.
Flood Depth
1.4 million residential and 100,000 commercial properties in the
immediate vicinity of the river Thames, with a population of
approximately three million people.
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Halcrow used Intermaps NEXTMap Britain Digital
Terrain Model (DTM) supplied through the
Environment Agency to identify what would hap-
pen if a defence were to fail in a particular place
to better identify the risks.
Using Tuflow modelling software, it can be seen
where and how far flood waters would flow in
the event of a defence being overtopped or
breached. Particular assets can then be identi-fied in a particular area, such as houses, and
business premises and in the case of the
Dungeness Peninsular, the power stations and
Lydd airport, and thereby estimate the likely
damages of such a flood.
This estimate can then be used in a cost bene-
fit analysis to appraise the economic justifica-
tion for providing or improving flood defences.
There are many complicated socio-economic fac-
tors to be considered and there is always a del-
icate balance between the cost of building more
elaborate defences against the potential dam-age caused by a flood. The flood modelling also
allows us to consider the potential impacts of
inundation upon the valuable natural environ-
ment of the area.
The Halcrow Group used a NEXTMap DTM to cal-
culate many different scenarios; for example
flooding associated with extreme surge and
storm events, both for present day and in the
future including consideration of climate change.
The implications of possible defence failure can
also be calculated, by creating a hole in the
defence line imposed onto the Digital Terrain
Model.
The group looked at the areas with underlying
OS mapping, and existing environmental
datasets, but for a strategic study of this nature,
they did not need to gather more detailed data
correctly represented in the DTM as their crest
is narrower than 5 meters. The same was done
for the banks and ditches around the Marsh
areas. After this, a time series of water level data
was run (to represent a tidal curve) against the
edge of the defences and then run the model
over different periods of time. When the height
of the water exceeds the height of the defences,
Tuflow calculates the volume of water that goesover that defence and uses hydraulic calcula-
tions to spread it across the DTM.
The model calculates water inputs and move-
ments for every minute of the simulated period
and creates outputs every thirty minutes, so it
is possible to see how the flood waters propa-
gate as the tide ebbs and flows. These can be
run as animations over time which can be very
useful when illustrating the potential flooding
risks to stakeholders.
The review and understanding of potential
flooding risks is then used to identify the poten-tial social and environmental impacts of the var-
ious potential flood management options. The
strategy then goes on to use the outputs from
these appraisals to identify the preferred man-
agement approach for the next 100 years or
sooner.
Official Warning
One of the most important warnings to local
and central governments in the UK to develop
effective flood risk management strategies came
from a group of experts commissioned to look
at the risks by the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir
David King, under the Government's Foresight
Programme, in 2004. Their report, Future
Flooding, said that unless precautions were
taken, more severe floods brought about by
climate change could massively increase the
number of people and the amount of property
at risk.
Amidst all the news of communities being over-
whelmed by water in June and July, one very
significant announcement, from the Prime
Minister, Gordon Brown and the Secretary ofState for the Environment, Hilary Benn, was that
the Government is setting up an independent
inquiry to look at the flood events of June and
July. Its report will be immensely important and
may prove a milestone in terms of the British
public's appreciation of the reality of climate
change. It will doubtless focus on the key prob-
lem in terms of flood response - but it may also
take a view of the disaster in terms of global
warming, and may well come to the conclusion
that we are already witnessing the future.
Kevin Thomas is Vice President, Marketing at
Intermap Technologies. For more information on
Intermap: www.intermap.com.
such as ortho photos. Some LiDAR data was
used to perform some QA of the NEXTMap DTM
to establish that the data is suitable for use on
this study.For the purposes of this project The Halcrow
Group took the NEXTMap 5 meter data and grid-
ded it up to 50 meters. This was done as the
computational time involved running the Tuflow
model for the full flood risk area using the
denser 5m data would have been huge. Over
the centuries, many smaller defences and dykes
have been put in place which affect the way the
water would flow in particular areas. The 5 meter
data picks up many of these, but these are par-
tially lost in gridding to 50 meters. At the back
of the Dungeness peninsular for example is the
Royal Military Canal, which is raised above the
surrounding land.
The first step was to load the DTM and then
overlay the height of the existing flood defences
along the coast, many of which are not
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Romney Marsh
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Significant Input from Our Users
Interest Shown by Utilities Compan
Alligned Assets is a small company compared to the large solutionproviders in the Local Government market. Still NLPG / NSG solutions
led to success. Addressing the Issues with Andy Hird, Professional
Services Manager at Aligned Assets
By Job van Haaften
Aligned Assets is a relatively small
organization but has emerged as a
major supplier of gazetteer software,
what do you think has been the reason
for this success?
Youre right we are small compared to the large
solution providers in the Local Government mar-
ket. However, NLPG \ NSG (National Land &
Property Gazetteer \ National Street Gazetteer)
solutions are at the core of what we do. Weve
found that our competition is focused on other
business areas and that the Gazetteer is almosta secondary consideration. Our focus is on pro-
viding high quality open gazetteer solutions
and this has led to our success and rapidly
expanding user base.
The other factor is that the Symphony suite
was developed with significant input from our
users. We have listened to the needs of more
than 70 clients to develop the Symphony
GMS, which is why the system is so popular.
Any problems with getting Symphonyaccredited to the new British Standard?
We experienced a few minor problems at the
start, but nothing that set us back. In fact,
the Symphony Suite of applications was the
first to achieve accreditation to the new
British Standard BS7666:2006. Currently,
Aligned Assets is one of only two suppliers
to achieve accreditation to this new standard.
Also, one of our clients, Cardiff City Council,
was the first authority in the UK to success-
fully provide updates to the NLPG in the new
dtf 7.3 format. The new version of the NLPG
will be in place from October 2007. This con-
forms to the latest addressing standard
BS7666:2006. Authorities should upgrade by
this date or face fines.
Is it just Local Government who are
using your solutions?
Initially, interest in our solutions was almost
entirely from Local Government as they had
been charged with the creation of the LLPGs(Local Land & Property Gazetteers), which
together form the NLPG. More recently, with
changes in the MSA, we have seen significant
interest from other organisations with major
addressing requirements. Recent clients
include Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks,
British Transport Police and Cumbria Fire and
Rescue Service. Interest is also being shown
by the utilities companies.
What about integration with other
systems used in Local Government?
From day one we realised that the only way
to utilise the benefits of a central address
October/November 200714
Interv iew
Cardiff City Council, was the
first authority in the UK to
successfully provide updates
to the NLPG in the new dtf
7.3 format.
Andy Hird: Our focus is on providing high quality open gazetteer solutions.
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gazetteer is if back office systems are integrated to thecore addresses. The Symphony Gazetteer is part of a
comprehensive suite of applications the Symphony
Enterprise Suite. These modules combine to create the
strongest solution for Gazetteer Management in the
marketplace. Indeed, the iExchange module has been
providing these integration opportunities for almost 5
years.
Not only does the Symphony Enterprise Suite comply
with the latest version of BS7666 but it also allows
you to integrate it with any other database system to
ensure high quality output and delivery by cross refer-
ence. This provides the complete solution to maintainand manage LLPG data and disseminate and use the
data throughout an organisation.
Job van Haaften (jvanhaaften@geoinformatics.com) is editor of
GeoInformatics. For more information: www.aligned-assets.co.uk.
October/November 2007Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com 15
Interv iew
es
Recent clients include Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks.
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Fast Mapping Results Provide Deeper Insights
Wildfires & Remote SensingIn the beginning of the summer this year, a large fire in the area of the Mount Parnitha National Park near Athens in
Greece resulted in the loss of approximately 5,000 ha of forest area, shrublands and agricultural land. Considering
the extent and the consequences of the damage caused by the large fire, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
began to collaborate with national authorities to provide all the necessary information to develop forest
protection and restoration plans.
By Ioannis Gitas, Anastasia Polychronaki,
Thomas Katagis, Giorgos Mallinis and Chara Minakou
Photo:D
anielDanjeagerVendruscolo
Art ic le
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17
When a forested area is damaged by fire,detailed and current information concerning
the location and extent of the burned areas
is required by forest managers to assess
economic losses and ecological impacts, and
to monitor land use and land cover changes.
Detailed mapping is also important for mod-
elling the atmospheric and climatic impacts
of biomass burning. Moreover, accurate
assessment assists in evaluating the
effectiveness of measures taken to rehabili-
tate the fire-damaged area, and in allowing
forest managers to identify and target areas
for intensive or special restoration, thus
avoiding long-term site degradation. In order
to estimate the ecological impact of fires onMediterranean ecosystems, reliable monitor-
ing and effective analysis techniques need to
be implemented.
Mapping the Large Fire of ParnithaThe area constitutes the nucleus of the
Parnitha National Park and is a wooded area,
noted primarily for its spreads of the endem-
ic Cephallonia fir (Abies cephalonica) on rel-
atively poor and dry soil, its temperate conif-
erous-tree forests (chiefly consisting of Pinus
halepensis), maquis, mountainous grass-
lands, rocky hills, springs and streams.
The Parnitha National Park commands partic-
ular ecological interest, and constitutes a
reserve for the protection and preservation
of Southern Greeces flora and fauna.
Parnithas proximity to the urban sprawl of
Athens,
coupled with its great aesthetic and ecologi-
cal value, accentuate its importance in the
area. To accurately map the burned areas of
Mt Parnitha, the Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki chose an object-based classifica-
tion approach and an Ikonos high resolution
image that was captured nine days after the
fire. The estimation of the ecological impact
on the environment was made using an in-
house developed software called Burned Area
Statistics (BAS).
Use of technologySatellite data have been used extensively for
many years for the detection and mapping of
fire-affected areas. Image analysis techniques
such as object-based classification have been
developed in the recent past. For instance,
the Definiens Enterprise Image Analysis Suite
utilizes object-based classification to identify
burned areas and helps to automate
processes and incorporate expert knowledge
to deliver consistent and accurate results.
A further benefit of automating the process
is that once a model for the evaluation
has been created, it can be distributed to
and used by end-users, such as agencies,
with only slight calibrations necessary
to achieve comparable, consistent results.
Object-oriented vs.Pixel-based Analysis of
Images
The concept on which the Definienstechnology is based is that informa-
tion necessary to interpret an image is
not represented in single pixels, but in
meaningful image objects. Segmentation,
the first step in the object-oriented approach,
involves merging the pixels in the image into
image groups called objects or segments.
In comparison with pixels, image objects
carry much more useful information, and
therefore can be characterised by far more
attributes, such as form, texture, neighbour-
hood or context, than pure spectral or spec-
tral-derivative information. The advantages of
object-oriented analysis are meaningful
statistic and texture calculation, an increased
uncorrelated feature space using shape (e.g.
length, number of edges, etc.) and topologi-
cal features (neighbour, super-object, etc),
and close relation between real-world objects
and image objects. This relation improves the
value of the final classification and cannot be
fulfilled by common, pixel-based approaches.
The use of traditional classification tech-
niques have been often reported to create
confusion that can affect the accuracy of map-ping, the most troublesome of which can be
summarized as follows:
- spectral overlapping between slightly
burned areas and other non-vegetated
categories, especially water bodies, urban
areas and bare soil;
- spectral overlapping between burned
areas and shaded unburned areas;
- spectral overlapping between burned
areas and unburned forest.
The ProcessFollowing the pre-processing of the data withErdas Imagine, various levels of segmenta-
tion were formed in order to extract informa-
tion on different scales of the image.
3D view of the Mount Parnitha forest
fire damage. The dark area surrounded
by a yellow outline represents the burned
area
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A generalized perimeter of the burned area
was delineated using a large scale during the
segmentation procedure. This showed the
overall area affected by the fires. To identify
the actual burned surface, a second segmen-
tation level was added which allowed the
exclusion of islands of unburned forest with-
in the generalized perimeter. The generated
object levels where then classified using a rule
based approach combining spectral as well
as texture and relational object attributes. All
segmentation and analysis steps were formu-
lated in a Definiens rule sets. The latter sets
up a standard sequence of processes which
can be applied repeatedly to large volumes
of data varying over time or space.
The rule set used to generate the maps of Mt.
Parnitha was developed within two days by
the university.The Definiens software as well
as the image interpretation knowledge and
the experience gained from previous work
using the same kind of image data (Ikonos)
accelerated this process.
Altogether, the maps and statistics were pro-
duced within only three days. They were pro-
vided to the local forest fire service for use
in post-fire management. The university is
providing their support to the people effect-
ed by the multiple fires in Greece as a cost-
free service and is sharing the models pro-
duced to analyse the burned areas with other
authorities, for instance in the Peloponnese.
Forest managers typically use this information to:
- assess economic losses and ecological
impacts;
- monitor land use and land cover changes
including development of illegal settle-
ments;
- model the atmospheric and climatic
impacts of biomass burning;
- evaluate the effectiveness of measures
taken to rehabilitate the fire-damaged
area;
- identify and target areas for intensive or
special restoration.
The results are utilized by the local forest ser-vice to declare the burned areas under spe-
cial protection regime and to develop the
restoration plans. The national forest service
uses the results to produce annual fire statis-
tics. Local authorities can make better deci-
sions, for example for improved pre-fire plan-
ning by assessing the effectiveness of fire
suppression by the fire brigade.
Future outlookLooking ahead, the operational use of satel-
lite imagery in forest management will include
the calculation of fire risks and the creation of
hot spot mapping in order to predict where
existing fires may spread. For example, the
International Charter Space and Major
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Art ic le
Ikonos satellite image of the burned area with the burned area highlighted in red
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Disasters monitors fires, providing rapid
assessment and thereby helping to mitigate
the effects of disasters on human life and
property.
The next steps will be to generate a standard
library of Definiens rule sets which will then
be distributed to the local authorities.
Wrapped into an easy to use graphical user
interface (GUI), these rule sets will be applied
by local experts to generate maps addressing
all aspects of forest fires even faster. This will
enable the image analysis experts to transfer
needed know-how to local agencies so that
they can create maps on demand.
On a global scale, the ultimate goal is to pro-
vide decision makers with information services
Dr. Ioannis Gitas (igitas@for.auth.gr), Anastasia
Polychronaki, Thomas Katagis, Giorgos Mallinis,
Chara Minakou.at the Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki. More information on the Parnitha
National Park can be found at
www.gnto.gr/pages.php?pageID=323&langID=2.
Result images courtesy of Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki. Ikonos satellite data provided by
Geoinformation S.A.
that help reduce wildfires. Not only do the fires
destroy vegetation, life and habitat, they also
contribute to atmospheric CO2 concentration,
intensifying the effects of global warming. The
estimated total burned biomass in Europe by
the end of August was 7.3 million tons lead-
ing to the emission of more than 12.3 million
tons of CO2. Image analysis solutions extract
relevant information from increasingly high
quality imagery provided by airborne and
spaceborne systems and support end-to-end
intelligence processes, maximizing the com-
bined value of multi-source intelligence. Today,
highly-automated standardized mapping pro-
vides accurate and up-to-date geospatial infor-
mation which assists environmental efforts in
populated as well as remote areas worldwide.
October/November 2007Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com 19
Art ic le
Ikonos satellite image of the burned area
Fires this summer in I taly, Greece and Balkan.
Credits: ESA
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Report on the Latest GIS Trends at Intergeo 2007
Intergeo 2007 Conference and Trade
Intergeo 2007, once again the top industry gathering, took place in Saxony in one of the oldest and most famous fair sites,
the Leipzig Fair Leipziger Messe. There is no doubt that the Leipzig Fairs famous Glass House an extraordinary steel
and glass architectural masterpiece was a significant attraction at Intergeo 2007. This event, which integrates
international conference with trade fair, had more than 16,500 visitors and delegates from over 50 countries.
Leipzigs Intergeo 2007 was the largest assembly of the various industry sectors this year.
By zgr Ertac
An important fact is that the event set aworld record with 240 trade fair innovations.
And Intergeo again clearly represents the inter-
disciplinary approach by incorporating the
industrys three primary pillars: geodesy, geoin-
formation and land management.
Unique Meeting PointResults of the official visitors survey show one
third of visitors attending for the first time,and in answer to the question of how they
heard about the congress trade fair, virtually
half of the trade visitors said it was known
throughout the industry, a reflection of
Intergeos fame. In this sense another key indi-
cator, and probably the key indicator, was the
exhibitors satisfaction rate. Both the survey and
the stand bookings for next year show that they
were quite happy with the high profile of visi-
tors, with 85.7% of companies saying they had
achieved their aims in showcasing themselves
at Intergeo. This event deserves to be called
the Mecca for an entire sector. In this article I
will discuss the latest trends and share my gen-
eral observations. I hope this will give a good
idea of industry developments to those who
were not able to attend or who missed some
parts of the fair.
The Intergeo Exhibition Hall was the centre not
only of knowledge and technology but also of
entertainment. For instance, you could enjoy
the thrill of a racing simulation, or be amazed
by the laser show at the Topcon booth, or try
to identify the cup with the coin under it at the
Trimble booth where magicians and poker-play-ers plied their trade. No matter that we are seri-
ous business people: we handed over our busi-
ness cards for a shot at the wheel of fortune
to win an iPod or to play for toys at some of
the booths. My personal wish was to win a
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator, a 3D computer
mouse which can be called a toy for GIS spe-
cialists. And the Intergeo tradition of party
time was on show in the booths on Wednesday
night. Were still talking about the fantastic
band, GeoKosmos, (supported by Datum) and
the delicious food at the ESRI booth.
An attractive spot out in Hall 3 was the Fokus
Forum, a platform for bringing together indus-
try specialists and exhibition visitors. It was a
great opportunity for following enhancements
in both industry and academia. During the mod-
erated presentations the audience could ask
questions about developments in the market.
And it was not just for German speaking visi-
tors. Again this year Intergeo proved itself to
be an international event by giving the after-
noon Fokus Forum sessions in English.
55th German Cartographers Day
The 55th German Cartographers Day was orga-nized by the German Society for Cartography
(DGfK) as part of Intergeo. This was the third
time this specialist field has been represented
independently and comprehensively at the
Congress. In this context Dr. Abschenberner,
DGfK President, emphasized the importance of
cartography when he said people only really
can understand the benefits of geodata prop-
erly if the data are represented in their geo-spa-
tial context and geographic complexity. This is
what cartography does with its wide range of
methods. Modern-day cartography above all
means operating and communicating with digi-
tal maps, either on screen or on mobile dis-
plays. Two trends regarding cartography could
be observed: first, the integration of carto-
October/November 200720
Event
The Glass House in the Leipzig Fair Leipziger Messe. Copyright HINTE GmbH.
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graphic presentation tools and functions intoGIS software, illustrated by a project of the
Swiss national mapping agency, Swisstopo;
second, automatic map generation is reaching
maturity.
Disaster management and riskassessmentIt would not be wrong to state that
FloodServer online at www.floodrisk.eu
was one of the most striking projects in the
area of disaster management at Intergeo this
year. Geoinformation service providers Infoterraand Geomer present detailed flood information
for the whole of Europe. Users can call up maps
and information on past floods as well as
examine the effects of future flooding in areas
along the Rhine, Elbe and Unterweser. The key
issue in such projects, as Mr. Tinz, project lead-
er at Infoterra, stated, is that although
FloodServer cannot prevent the threat of floods,
it provides critical assistance for minimizing the
impact of floods in future
Closely related to flood-based disaster man-
agement systems, a number of companies were
interested in hydraulic and hydrologic model-
ing. At Intergeo 2007, water resources and relat-
ed visualization techniques seemed to have
improved. The main areas of interest were soft-
ware development and consulting services
using several modeling technologies such as
groundwater modeling, surface water modeling
October/November 2007Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com 21
Event
Fair in Leipzig
and multi-dimensional hydraulic visualization.The primary capabilities of the software
involved 2D or 3D hydrodynamic modeling and
visualization, groundwater simulations, model
development, calibration, automated basin
delineation, and overlay computations by rain-
fall depth, precipitation, roughness coefficients,
run-off, etc.
3D Terrain and City ModelsA noticeable trend at the trade fair was 3D, in
terms of both 3D terrain models and 3D city
models. A number of booths concentrated onairborne laser scanning and the processing of
LIDAR data. The number of 3D city models
available has grown rapidly, with City GML
becoming the transfer format that allows appli-
cations to go beyond visual representation.
National Geo-data and EuropeanSpatial Data InfrastructuresThe geo-data infrastructures (GDI) have been
developed as a network for spatial data dis-
covery and access which makes the spatial
data readily accessible and shareable. As a nat-
ural result of this rapidly growing segment of
the geo-information market, complete GDI&SDI-
ready packages are increasing again this year.
Those who were at Intergeo last year remem-
ber the ambitions for GDI technology and the
future of data accessibility. This year it seems
GDI and SDI are becoming clearer in peoples
minds since applications and know-how keptcropping up in the exhibition area. On the other
hand, the most important concern of SDI-
focused specialists this year is impact assess-
ment. With new projects, applications and
implementations arising every day, the impact
on industry and on daily life is very important.
The questions are: how successful have they
the SDI implementations been? What will be
the impact of the European INSPIRE directive,
and what will the implementing rules for
INSPIRE that are currently being developed look
like? Increasing competition among publicagencies everybody wants to be the owner
and the only authority. Efficiency and effective-
ness issues pending feedback from the user
perspective. Interoperability and the enhance-
ments in GI-industry such as Geobrowsers,
Geotagging, Mash-ups, GeoCommons, crowd
sourcing, social networks and Geo-Gaming (sec-
ond-life, myspaceetc). We are looking forward
to seeing answers.
Internet GIS and Geo-Web ServicesAs is commonly believed, and I agree, server-
based GIS is used in most major cities around
the world. Key priorities are that it be reliable
and recoverable, interoperable and scalable,
highly secure and deployable to the non-GIS
specialist. Intergeo was the place to see state-
of-the-art technology and solutions in the field
of web-based GIS. Industry focus was not only
on big-scale enterprise solutions but also small
workgroup solutions to reduce the overall
costs. Experience shows that in any case a well-
planned solution always turns a profit in a web-
based GIS infrastructure.
Interoperability between GI systems from dif-ferent vendors is still an issue. Accordingly, for
customers mainly from the public sector the
support of OGC interfaces like WMS and WFS
is a crucial factor.
The service-oriented architecture (SOA)
paradigm coming from general IT has been
adopted by the leading GIS software vendors
but customer projects using this technology, for
example for coupling GI and ERP systems, are
still to come.
The Second Open Source ParkThe Open Source Park, established in Munichlast year, took place again this year, and again,
the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
(OSGeo) established and designed the overallThe Open Source Park at Intergeo.
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the specialists and developers busy. And each
area of interest comes up with another approach
to understanding. In this regard, what visitors
commonly noticed at Intergeo this year was that
Earth Viewers are to become more geospatially
oriented through the increasing involvement of
geo-processing tools (GoogleEarth is not an
exception anymore); GDI and SDI technologies
are more than ever becoming part of our daily
lives; location-based services are going further by
adding 3D enhancements; 3D representation of
the built environment is increasingly becoming
part of GIS applicationsand the rest youve
reviewed through this article. Im looking forward
to seeing the impact of this outstanding event in
industry this year. And now its time to start thecountdown for Intergeo 2008 in Bremen.
zgr Ertac (oezguer.ertac@bv.tu-muenchen.de) is a
Research Assistant at the Technical University of
Mnchen, Germany. For additional information on
Intergeo please visit www.intergeo.de and Runder
Tisch GIS e.V web site: www.rundertischgis.de.
establish remarkable connections among uni-
versities and other industry stakeholders. In this
regard more than 30 national and international
academic institutions were represented in the
exhibition hall this year. Probably the most
impressive improvement in universities was that
GIS has become more of a major subject while
before it was primarily a minor area of study in
various faculties. My personal observation on
the conditions in GIS labs in universities is that
GIS facilities are about to become more mod-
ern and better equipped with the help of gen-
erous GIS and IT vendors. And the content of
GIS-related courses is more professional and is
better designed by the faculty. For your records,
the GIS Youngsters a Runder Tisch GIS initia-tive were also there with the young student
and researcher team at Intergeo to catch the
trends in industry. The annual Intergeo trend
analysis is about to be published, again by
Runder Tisch GIS (www.rundertischgis.de).
Valuable ReflectionIntergeo has always been a valuable reflection of
the industry. The success and the record numbers
of exhibitors and visitors at the event support
Hagen Graeffs comment: Growth should be in
average between five and ten percent. He antic-
ipates a positive future for the geo-industry by
assessing the commercial sales volume within
one year. It means that day by day we are facing
new challenges. Its clear that new issues keep
concept. The Park was split into three sections.
In the first section, service providers offered
solutions with open software. In this section
some open source implementers were ready to
share solutions, namely 52North, Autodesk,
Camptocamp, Geolock etc. The second section
provided the opportunity for personal contact
among the developers and visitors. The third
section was the presentation area where users,
manufacturers and service providers showcased
their projects. In all three sections plenty of pro-
jects were on hand: Desktop GIS: GRASS,
gvSIG, QGIS; WepMapping: Mapbender,
MapServer, GeoServer; geo libraries: GDAL/OGR,
GeoTools; metadata catalogue: GeoNetwork
open source; database: PostGIS; organizations:OSGeo, GAV, Humboldt Project.
In this context interoperability was an impor-
tant topic indeed. Almost all key GIS vendors
such as ESRI, Intergraph, Bentley and Autodesk,
as members of the Open Geospatial
Consortium, offered GIS products with appro-
priate open application programming interfaces.
They also supported key data interchange for-
mats and Web services standards to ensure rel-
evant GIS and IT interoperability between sys-
tems over wired and/or wireless networks.
Universities and educational institutionsIntergeo is not only a platform for bringing GIS
professionals together but also an event to
October/November 2007Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com 23
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Exhibition Hall at Intergeo 2007 in Leipzig. Copyright HINTE GmbH.
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Data Lending Service
A Novel Solution of the Finnish NSDI
The INSPIRE directive puts forward a variety of GI infrastructure services at the
national level. Most countries are currently at the planning phase of their own
metadata and viewing services. Issues related to describing spatial data quality,
defining data prices and enhancing the discovery of data sets are topical from
country to country. In Finland, the challenges have been solved in part through
a concept of spatial data lending.
By Tuuli Toivonen and Risto Kalliola
The spatial data lending service called
Paikkatietolainaamo in the Finnish languagehas been operational since 2003. The basic idea
is to improve access to geographical informa-
tion among scientists, teachers and product
developers. It also aims to enhance the use of
spatial data in society and bring metadata alive
during the process of data selection or pre-eval-
uation. The service constitutes part of the
Finnish NSDI in National Geographic Information
Strategy 2005-2010 (National Council for
Geographic Information 2004).
ImplementationPaikkatietolainaamo is a non-profit internet ser-vice that delivers GI data sets from nearly 20
national government data producers and pri-
vate vendors. The service operates as a joint
venture of the departments of geography at the
universities of Turku and Helsinki. ThePaikkatietolainaamo secretariat is responsible
for making contracts with all data providers and
data users. The service interface contains an
openly-available viewing and metadata service
with a download option for registered users.
Available data sets provide either full coverage
of the country or a sample piece from pre-
defined test areas.
Usage conditions for data sets are relatively flex-
ible: data sets are available for research, edu-
cation, product development and evaluation.
They may be used for a limited period of time;
after one year users are requested to delete the
files or renew them. Failure to do this would
lead to closure of usage rights. With this
arrangement, data vendors are confident
enough to deliver their data for distribution viathe Paikkatietolainaamo facility. Data producers
may also get information on the amount of
interest in their products, as each download
and renewal is registered together with respec-
tive user information. Data vendors have access
to the download statistics of their own data
sets and they may monitor the level of use.
Hand in Hand
One of Paikkatietolainaamos basic aims is to
make technical metadata descriptions more
understandable. This aim is achieved by mak-ing it possible to view the data sets and their
attributes in an interactive map service. Data
sets on a certain theme may be easily overlaid
and compared in the map view. This allows
comparisons between different scales or
between data produced by different data
providers. As well, the compatibility of data sets
may be visually evaluated in the map service
by simple comparisons between data layers.
The user can, for example, open building data
and water coverage by different vendors and
quickly evaluate how many buildings along the
shoreline fall into the water due to the level
of generalization or inaccuracies in spatial ref-
erencing.
The download option allows users to make
even more profound analyses of the data sets.
Users are able to download either the full data
set or at least sample data from a given area
to their own GIS workstation. Data sets are
available in their native formats defined by data
vendors.
The value of extending metadata descriptions
from tabular information to interactive map ser-
vices and sample data sets is clear.Paikkatietolainaamo usage statistics show that
the forms-based metadata search is used by
only 25% of the users, while 52% utilize the
map service to access the metadata descrip-
tions and to evaluate and inspect the data sets.
These inspections together fulfil the needs of
most users. Download statistics show that the
number of actual data downloads is much
smaller and seems to be limited to individual
data sets that have already been determined
to be useful with other tools. No opportunistic
over-loading has been discovered.
Attracting Users
During the last four years, use of
Paikkatietolainaamo has grown steadily and the
October/November 200724
Art ic le
Data selection and follow-up tools built into the spatial data lending service Paikkatietolainaamo.
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service is currently attracting some 500 differ-
ent user IPs monthly. Thus far, 850 profession-
al GI users have registered with the service and
the number of data downloads exceeds 5,500.
This can be considered substantial in a country
with 5.2 million inhabitants and thus a limited
number of GI professionals with data needs.
Most users (55%) come from educational and
research sectors. Use of the service has clearly
broadened the awareness and use of different
data sets. Furthermore, training and education
can now be based on high quality, real-life data
sets instead of street maps of some American
city.
Professionals from the private sector form
another, yet smaller (21%) user group. They rep-
resent more than 130 private companies andNGOs from various branches of the economy.
ucts via the service. As well, the internationalcompany Experian has shared pieces of its
MOSAIC data set with users. For a private com-
pany, motivation for participation comes from
the opportunity to promote products for new
user groups. The facilitys advanced data trans-
fer log allows data producers to identify each
download of their data, which helps them get
an idea of who is interested in their products.
This option may contribute to further product
development and help them establish new col-
laboration networks. As the data sets are used
extensively in teaching at universities and poly-technics, new student generations become
familiar with the data sets and their providers.
Clear Benefits
The concept and implementation of the
Paikkatietolainaamo download facility is rooted
in national collaboration and support from the
EUs Life Environment funds. The impetus for
its further development is the fact that data
lending is one step towards a freer data-shar-
ing culture. Research and education are also
clear beneficiaries of the improved variety and
quality of data sets available in the society.
While the INSPIRE directive talks mostly about
users in the administration, lending is free for
everyone. This fact increases the number of
potential data users, which may also lead to a
variety of consumer-oriented applications using
spatial data, thus enhancing the role of GI in
modern societies. Therefore, the lending con-
cept may also be worth implementing in future
download services that will be established
along the lines of the INSPIRE directive.
Tuuli Toivonen (tuuli.k.toivonen@helsinki.fi) is a
university lecturer and currently acting professor of
geoinformatics at the department of geography of the
University of Helsinki, Finland. She has been in
charge of the establishment of the Spatial Data
Lending Facility as a novel data download service.
Risto Kalliola (risto.kalliola@utu.fi) is a professor in
the department of geography of the University of
Turku. He is director of the Spatial Data Lending
Facility and contributed to its strategic planning.
(www.paikkatietolainaamo.fi)
These users benefit from the openness of the
service and its data delivery policy. Software
developers may select the best basis for prod-
uct development without worrying about data
costs in the early phases. The results of this sit-
uation appear in the form of new innovative GI-
based services and even increased markets for
GI data sets.
Even Commercial Data
Currently, 19 national and regional data produc-
ers have placed their data for downloading via
Paikkatietolainaamo and the total number of
available data sets in the service is around 300.
These include a good representation of all core
spatial data sets mentioned in the INSPIRE
directive proposal or in the Finnish National GIStrategy. In addition to public data producers,
private companies have
seen the potential in giving
their demo data for down-
loading. The largest private
GI producer in Finland,
Affecto Oy, presents a full
selection of its data prod-
October/November 2007Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com 25
Art ic le
The operation of the lending service is based on agreements between the data providers, the secretariat and the
data users. Technical mechanisms have been developed to allow both users and data providers to see the lending
status of different data sets.
The registered users come from
different sectors of society.
In all, 55% of the 850 userscome from educational and
research sectors, whereas
private enterprises and NGOs
represent some 21% of the
users. Photo: Hanna Pohjonen.
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Satellites All over the Place
GNSS updateIn the last few months progress has been made in the development of satellites for all major GNSS. Planning, however,
is still the major problem. With Galileo, the problems are still financial; with GPS and Glonass the problem lies with the
built quality of the satellites. With GPS the satellites last too long, whereas with Glonass they dont last long enough.
By: Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk
Galileo
FundingAfter some discussion the EC (European
Commission) has decided that the remaining
2.4 billion euros for Galileo has to come from
public funds. There is an agreement for 300 mil-
lion euros to come out of the EU research bud-
get. For the remaining amount the EC wants to
use unspent farm subsidies. The member states
are divided over this, although all have stated
in a joint resolution that development of Galileo
should continue.
Giove AThe test campaign using the first test satellite,
Giove-A, has been completed. Analyses of the
transmitted signals have resulted in adjust-ments to the spacecrafts signal generation unit.
As a result Giove-A will transmit optimized sig-
nals until its expected end of service life in
March 2008.
Giove BGiove-B, the second test satellite, was
shipped to Noordwijk for extensive testing in
early September 2007. After completion of the
tests it will be transported to Baikonur,
Kazakhstan for launch on a Soyuz-Fregat rock-
et. The launch was scheduled for the end of
2007 but has been postponed to March 2008
due to problems with the rocket. If it is not
launched before Giove-A shuts down, Galileo
runs the risk of losing its claim on the Galileo
signal frequencies with the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Operational satellitesIn 2009, the first two satellites of the opera-
tional Galileo constellation should be
launched, followed in 2010 by the next two
operational satellites. They will be used for in-
orbit verification of the Galileo system before
being joined by the 26 additional spacecraft
required for full operations by the end of 2013.
GPS Galileo Common Civil SignalEurope and the USA have reached an
agreement to use an interoperable signal on
the L1C (GPS) and L1F (Galileo) frequency
band. The signal will use the MBOC modu-
lation technique. Introduction for GPS
is expected to be on the GPS III blocks
of satellites, while Galileo will employ the
signal in the Galileo Open Service on all
operational satellites.
October/November 200726
Art ic le
esa - 2004 - P. Carril
Extension of the WAAS network to Mexico and Canada (source: www.nstb.tc.faa.gov)
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GPSIIF almost readyThe first of 12 GPS Block IIF satellites, which
will offer an extended design life of 12 years
and a new civil signal on the L5 frequency
(1176.45MHz), is expected to be launched
sometime in 2008. The L1-L2-L5 signal combi-
nation enables high accuracy tri-lane phase
navigation.
IIR M test bedThe first of the Block II-R satellites, built by
Lockheed Martin, has surpassed its design life
of 10 years. Of the 21 Block II-R satellites built,
the final 8 were designated as Block IIR-M.
There are currently three IIR-M spacecraft on-
orbit with the fourth scheduled for launch in
late 2007. The remaining four IIR-M satellites
are available for launch to replace broken-down
satellites in the current constellation.
The IIR-M satellite to be launched is currentlybeing reconfigured to transmit the L5 signal,
the signal that will be included in the Block IIF
satellites. It is possible that this test bed will
be launched for signal testing or that the USA
will want to claim the L5 frequency with the ITU
as Galileo did with its frequencies using Giove-
A. If the latter is the case then the launch of
Block IIF may be delayed.
Selective AvailabilityThe next generation of GPS satellites, GPS III,
will no longer have SA (Selective Availability).
In May 2000 the use of SA was stopped on the
current satellites although the option to switch
it on is still available. By eliminating this possi-
bility in the next generation of satellites, the US
has removed one uncertainty over GPS perfor-
mance that has been a major concern to all civil
GPS users.
October/November 2007Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com 27
Art ic le
IRNSSIndia plans to build its own GNSS called IRNSS
(Indian Region Navigation Satellite System)
using a constellation of three geostationary and
four geosynchronous satellites at a cost of 290
million euros. The first launch should take place
around 2010 with a complete constellation
being available in 2012. The satellites are
expected to be launched by home-built PSLV(Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle).
EGNOSPseudolitesIn June a test with pseudolites (earthbound
satellite-like navigation transmitters) was per-
formed in Finlands Helsinki Harbor. Regular cov-
erage for both GPS and Egnos is poor in north-
ern latitudes. With the use of pseudolites, the
navigation solution reportedly had a precision
compatible to that of GPS and Egnos.
Helicopter TrialsTrials using Egnos for helicopter landings in
Lausanne, Switzerland have been successful.
Using a steeper descent than usual, helicopters
made various Egnos-assisted landings. The use
of vertical guidance allows the pilot to remain
longer at a higher altitude, thus circumventing
adverse weather conditions.
AfricaESA has signed an agreement with the African
and Madagascan air authorities for the use of
Egnos over the African continent. The extension
of Egnos to Africa involves the installation of
reference stations on African soil. Egnos trans-
missions already cover both Africa and Europe.
WAAS
Mexico and CanadaThe WAAS network has been extended to
Canada and Mexico with the integration of nine
new reference stations into the network. The
expansion also benefits US users with more
accurate corrections around the former fringes
of the WAAS coverage.
SatellitesWAAS has stopped using the AOR-W (PRN 122)
and POR (PRN 134) satellite as of July 2007. In
the same month the Telesat geostationary
satellite (PRN 138) became active, giving bet-
ter coverage over the US and northeastern
Canada.
Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk
(hlekkerkerk@geoinformatics.com) is project
manager at IDsW and editor-in-chief of
GeoInformatics. This article represents his own
opinions.
Block IIIAThe launch of the first of eight IIIA satellites is
to take place in 2013. In total a further eight
GPS IIIB and sixteen GPS IIIC satellites are
planned. One of the reasons for the delay of
the Block III satellites is that all current satel-
lites are lasting significantly longer than expect-
ed. Another reason may be the slowdown of
the Galileo program, creating less political pres-sure on the development of GPS III. GPS III will
have the capability of transmitting M-code, the
enhanced military code.
GLONASSSatellites and fundingGlonass has been allocated a total of 134 mil-
lion euros for 2006 and 280 million euros for
2007. The system is scheduled to become oper-
ational in 2008. However, the system continues
to be plagued by failing satellites. In early
October only nine satellites were operational,with an additional one to become operational
later this year and three temporarily switched off.
Change of geodetic systemGlonass has made the change to ITRS
(International Terrestrial Reference System).
Earlier the system used a geodetic system
designed for the former USSR. This new ver-
sion of the PZ-90 reference system is interop-
erable with the WGS84 system used by GPS
and the ETRS89 system to be used by Galileo.
BeidouChina has reportedly started using Beidou for
monitoring the transportation of dangerous
chemicals. The system, in contrast to other
GNSS, transmits data from the ground back to
a control station via a satellite link. Current
planning shows that the system, known as
CNSS (Compass Navigation Satellite System) or
"Beidou", its Chinese name, will provide navi-
gation and positioning services before 2010.
Four satellites have been launched so far, of
which three are geostationary and one has a
medium earth orbit.
Pseudolite station in Helsinki Harbor (source: www.esa.int)
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A Report on the Bulgaria 2007 Conference
From Imagery to Map: Digital Photo
The 7th International Scientific & Technical Conference with
the title From Imagery to Map: DigitalPhotogrammetric Technologies was held in Nessebar,
Bulgaria between 17th and 20th September 2007. The
Conference was organised jointly by the Racurs and GIS-Sofia
companies from Russia and Bulgaria respectively. The previ-
ous six conferences in the series had been held as
International PHOTOMOD Users Conferences - PHOTOMOD
being the principal software product from the Racurs compa-
ny. The change in the Conference title reflected the desire of
the organisers to widen the scope of the meeting with speak-
ers and participants from Western Europe and from Racurs'
partners in Russia and elsewhere.
By Gordon Petrie
Conference Facilities & ProgrammeThe Conference was held in the Nessebar Bay Hotel - one of three
large IFA hotels linked together and located on a single site on
Bulgaria's Black Sea coast just south of the town of Nessebar. The
facilities were excellent, both in terms of the hotel accommodation
and food and the actual Conference venue - which was the hotel's
Neptune Hall [Fig. 1]. The Conference was well organised, had good
audio and projection facilities and featured a really excellent
Russian/English translation service. Furthermore a booklet containing
the abstracts and summaries of almost all the presentations was
issued to all the participants on their arrival at the Conference regis-
tration desk. There were 110 participants, 60 of whom were from
Russia and Belarus - who all arrived together as a group on a char-
October/November 200728
Art ic le
Fig. 1 - a)- The Conference participants assembled on the staircase to theHotel pool and garden.b)- The audience listening to a presentation in the Neptune Hall.(Source: Racurs)
[a]
[b]
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ter flight from Moscow. The lecture programmewas divided into three roughly equal parts. The
first day was devoted to airborne imaging and
mapping; the second day to spaceborne imag-
ing and mapping; and the third day to recent
developments in Racurs' software products. On
the fourth day, most of the Conference partici-
pants went on a sightseeing tour along the
coast northwards to the city of Varna. Besides
which, a comprehensive series of dinners and
social events took place in the evenings.
I - Airborne Imaging & Mapping
After the formal opening speeches of welcome
from the Conference organisers and sponsors [Fig.
2] and from Mr. T. Boev, Head of the Bulgarian
Cadastral Agency, the first lecture was delivered
by Prof. Katzarsky from Sofia, who is an honorary
member of ISPRS. He first outlined briefly the
development of photogrammetry in Bulgaria and
then covered the mapping and cadastral activi-
ties of the municipally-owned GIS Sofia companyfor which he acts as a consultant. The PHOTO-
MOD software is used by GIS-Sofia to process air-
borne, spaceborne and terrestrial imagery for its
mapping applications [Fig. 3]. The next speaker
on the programme was Prof. Konecny from the
University of Hannover and a former president of
ISPRS [Fig. 4]. He was in his usual excellent form,
discussing all the various current issues of digital
mapping, and providing some very interesting
data on the pricing and relative costs of orthopho-
to production and line mapping. He also high-
lighted the increasing tendency for photogram-
metric mapping operations to be oriented
towards the generation of data that has been
laser scanning systems. The growth in multiple
lens frame camera systems having many differ-
ent geometric configurations is a noticeable
trend at the moment. After this, came a series
of presentations devoted to the Leica ADS40pushbroom line scanner - apparently designed
to provide a balance to the various presenta-
tions on the processing of Vexcel UltraCam dig-
ital frame camera data using PHOTOMOD that
had been given in the previous (6th) confer-
ence held in Montenegro last year (2006). This
structured specifically for inclusion in GIS
databases instead of the CAD (MicroStation
and AutoCAD) data that has been produced
in the past. He was followed by G. Goldberg
from the Metrum company who gave an
account of the development of digital pho-
togrammetry and the automated processes that
it allows - as seen from his own personal per-
spective within Latvia.
Airborne Digital ImagingThe second part of the airborne section
commenced with present writer (G. Petrie)
giving an overview of airborne digital data cap-
ture systems, including both frame and line
imaging technologies together with radar and
October/November 2007Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com29
Art ic le
grammetric Technologies
Fig. 2 - The Conference organisers - a)Dr.Adrov, managing director of Racurs; and
b)Prof. Katzarsky of GIS-Sofia - together withc)Dr. Gershenzon, managing director of theScanEx company - which acted as sponsor of
the Conference. (Source: Racurs)
Fig. 3 - a)- A photogrammetrist operates a digital photogrammetricworkstation (DPW) carrying out orthophoto production in the
GIS-Sofia office using the PHOTOMOD software.
b)- The resulting digital orthophoto of a part of Sofia.(Source: GIS-Sofia)
[a] [c]
[b]
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series of presentations started with one by V.
Zaitev from Leica Geosystem's Moscow office
who reviewed the company's latest airborne
products. Besides the second-generation ADS40scanner, these included the new Leica RCD105
medium-format digital frame camera and the
ALS-CM Corridor Mapper (an airborne laser
scanner) [Fig. 5]. It also contained the interest-
ing news that his company has now supplied
five ALS50 airborne laser scanners to various
Russian companies. He was followed by Dr.
Titarov from Racurs who outlined in a very clear
manner the overall approach and the detailed
procedures used to process ADS40 line scan-
ner data within PHOTOMOD after the prelimi-
nary processing had been carried out using
Leica's GPro and ORIMA software. This presen-
tation was reinforced by another contribution
by Dr. Sinkova of the research division of the
Goszemcadastrsyomka (VISHKHAGI) cadastral
organisation which operates two ADS40 scan-
ners. She dealt with the processing of ADS40
image data for the production of
orthophotomaps for an area near
Moscow from imagery flown at altitudes
of 1,500 m and 2,500 m respectively.
Aerial Film Photography
After which, the remaining presentationsin this section were concerned with more
traditional methods using photos
acquired by metric film cameras - which
still constitute the vast majority of air-
II - Spaceborne Imaging & Mapping
This part of the programme held on the second
day comprised a number of overview presenta-
tions followed by several application papers.
SovzondThe first of the overview presentations - given
by M. Bolsunovsky of Sovzond - provided a sys-tematic review (i) of the non-military remote
sensing satellites that are currently in operation
world-wide; and (ii) of the coverage of Russia
that is available from these satellites. The
Sovzond company acts as a distributor of
spaceborne imagery of all types. What was of
particular interest to western participants was
the news it gave about the current status of
Russian remote sensing satellites. The Monitor-E satellite that was launched in August 2005has provided pan and three-band multi-spec-
tral images with 8 m and 20 m GSD (GroundSampled Distance) values respectively. However
apparently the satellite is not working too well
at the moment and only a limited amount of
Monitor-E imagery is available. The RESURS-DKsatellite was launched in June 2006 and is deliv-
ering high-resolution pan images with 1 m GSD
and three-band multi-spectral images with 3 m
GSD.
ScanExThe interesting introductory paper by M. Bolsu-
novsky was supplemented by another overview
of Geo-Portals. This was presented by Dr.
Gershenzon, managing director of the ScanEx
company - which was acting as the sponsor of
the Conference. Again this presentation was of
very considerable interest. The ScanEx compa-
ny is well known both as a supplier of its large
UniScan ground receiving stations and of a large
number of smaller and less powerful stations.
Indeed it has supplied a comprehensive net-
work of these stations to national agencies and
regional authorities right across Russia [Fig. 6].
Besides which, ScanEx operates three powerful
stations on its own account, located in Moscow,Irkutsk (Baikal) and Magadan (in the Far East).
The resulting image data - especially
that received from the French SPOT and Indian
IRS satellites - has allowed a number of portals
to be established to help disseminate the space
imagery of Russia to a wider audience.
These include the portals set up by
Yandex (www.yandex.ru/) and ScanEx
borne imagers being
used for mapping pur-
poses in Russia. They
included a paper given
by Prof. Bykov of the
West Siberian branch of
Goszemcadastrsyomka
(VISHKHAGI) on the field
calibration of a LeicaRC30 metric film camera
(and a Hasselblad digital
camera) using a test field
established near the city
of Omsk. This was fol-
lowed by (i) a detailed
paper by V. Petrova and
Prof. Katzarsky of GIS-
Sofia on the accuracies of aerial triangulation
achieved using PHOTOMOD with a block of pho-
tographs acquired over a test field using a Z/I
Imaging RMK 30/23 film camera; and (ii) anamusing account of the trials, tribulations and
success encountered in setting up a new pho-
togrammetric production office in the city of Tula
that was given with great enthusiasm by L.
Afanasieva of the Meridian company.
Finally, within this section, there was a presen-
tation by Prof. A. Guk, head of the
Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing Dept. of
the Siberian State Academy of Geodesy (SSGA)
based in Novosibirsk. He outlined the changes
to education within his institute arising from
the adoption of a two-tier Bachelor/Master's
degree structure that is now being implement-
ed in Russian universities. Prof. Guk was some-
what sceptical about the value of these
changes.
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Art ic le
Fig. 4 - Two of the invited speakers - Professors Konecny (left) and Petrie (right) -together with Mr. Bouroumand (centre), managing director of the Nama Pardaz
Rayaneh (NPR) company, which acts as the distributor of PHOTOMOD software in
Iran (Source: Racurs)
Fig. 5 - a)- The new Leica ALS Corridor Mapper (CM) airborne laser scanner completewith its control electronics cabinet and its aircraft-certified LCD displays usedfor flight management and system control purposes.
(b)- The new Leica RCD105 medium-format airborne digital frame camerathat produces 39 Megapixel colour images. The camera is designed to be used in
conjunction with the company's ALS scanners, but it can also be used as a
stand-alone imager. (Source: Leica Geosystems)
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(http://catalog.scanex.com/ and
http://eostation.scanex.ru/). Besides which,
ScanEx appears to be the main inspiration and
driving force behind the establishment of other
Web sites such as Transparent World(www.transparentworld.ru/en/) and Kosmosnimkihttp://new.kosmosnimki.ru/eng/) that are orient-
ed towards the supply of low-cost space imagery
over the Internet for environmental monitoringand education purposes respectively.
DMCiiYet another overview paper in the same gener-
al area of spaceborne remote sensing was given
by O. Hawkins of the DMC International Imaging
(DMCii) company from the U.K. [Fig. 7]. In manyways, it provided an update to the article on
the DMC (Disaster Monitoring Constellation)
that was published in the March/April (3/2007)
issue of GeoInformatics. The new UK-DMC-2 and
Spanish Deimos-1 micro-satellites - which arescheduled to be launched and join the existing
constellation in 2008 - will provide very wide-
swath (660 km) multi-spectral imagery with a
GSD of 22 m. Furthermore, when it is launched
and joins the DMC constellation in 2009, the
new larger and heavier NigeriaSat-2 mini-satel-
lite will combine a high-resolution imager pro-
ducing 2.5 m GSD pan and 5 m GSD multi-spec-
tral images over a 20 km swath with a
medium-resolution imager generating 32 m
GSD multi-spectral images over a 300 km
swath. Besides which, the DMCii company is
now able to supply pan and three-band multi-
spectral imagery with 2.8m and 5.6 m GSD
respectively that has been acquired by the
TopSat micro-satellite which was built for the
UK Ministry of Defence and the British National
Space Centre (BNSC) and launched in October
2005. On the other hand, the Turkish Bilsat
micro-satellite has dropped out of the DMC con-
stellation - "since it has now completed its mis-
sion!"
KB Panorama
This is another Russian company with stronglinks to Racurs. N. Panteleeva presented an
account of its activities to the Conference
participants. Apparently the photogrammetric
data that is generated by PHOTOMOD is fully
compatible with the software that has been
developed by KB Panorama. The company's
software developments include a GIS Toolkitthat can be used to develop GIS applications
within a Delphi and C++ environment. The com-
pany has also developed a GIS WebServer thatallows remote access to geospatial databases
and electronic maps. This is based on ASP.NET
technology and functions under the control of
Internet Information Services (IIS) within the
.NET Framework 2.0 environment. It provides
the user with a Web interface to work both with
the use of medium-resolution and fairly high-
resolution imagery from the ALOS, Cartosat-1,
SPOT-5 and Formosat satellites for the purpose.
Another pair of papers about the revision of the
1:25,000 scale map series from spaceborne
imagery were contributed by the
Goszemcadastrsyomka VISKHAGI) cadastralorganisation. These two papers were presented
by T. Osintseva and I. Nizhegovodtsev from the
organisation's West and East Siberian offices
located in the cities of Omsk and Irkutsk respec-
tively. In each case, SPOT-5 imagery was pro-
cessed using PHOTOMOD to produce orthoim-
agemaps at 1:25,000 scale in conjunction with
DEM data derived from digitized contour lines
extracted from existing topographic maps of the
areas that were being revised.
Mapping @ Large ScalesE. Kokhava from the Belgiprozem organizationin Belarus provided an account of its use of
PHOTOMOD in processing spaceborne image
data for the generation of orthoimages, land
use maps and the data required for inclusion
in land information systems (LIS). SPOT-5 and
ALOS image data is being used to generate
maps at 1:10,000 scale for rural areas, while
QuickBird and IKONOS high-resolution data
forms the basis for mapping at 1:2,000 scale.
Next E.Kubzeva from UralGeoInform based inYekaterinburg also provided a report on the use
of PHOTOMOD to carry out the photogrammet-
ric processing required for the updating of
urban master plans at 1:2,000 scale using
digital maps and with the geospatial data that
is contained in the tables of a database.
The results are generated in the form of Web
pages.
Geo-AllianceThis Russian company is also involved in the
processing of a large variety of high-resolution
space imagery. In her presentation, O. Gromyko
from Geo-Alliance outlined the imaging charac-
teristics, including the different operational
modes, of the newly launched TerraSAR-X radar
satellite for which her company is the Russian
agent. She also discussed the various potential
applications of the resulting high-resolution SAR
imagery.
Mapping @ Medium ScalesThe Sovzond company, already mentionedabove, contributed a further two papers con-
cerned with this subject area, both of which
were presented by A. Belenov. The first of these
outlined the technical solutions and procedures
being implemented by his company to process
spaceborne image data. This involves the use
of ITT's ENVI software for thematic mapping
and spectral analysis and the Bentley
Geospatial desktop software for the incorpora-
tion of the resulting data in a GIS database. His
second paper outlined the procedures being
used to update 1:25,000 scale topographic
maps. Apparently there are 300,000 individual
sheets in this Russian series, a large percent-
age of which now need revision. He outlined
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Art ic le
Fig. 6 - a)- A map showing the locations of the network of UniScanground receiving stations. They include stations installed in Valladolid(Spain), Baku (Azerbaijan), Tehran (Iran), Dubai (U.A.E.) and Almaty
(Kazakhstan) as well as those located within the Russian Federation.
(Source: ScanEx)
b)- The receiving antenna of the ScanEx UniScan ground receivingstation installed in the city of Samara which is located on the Volga
River in the south-eastern part of European Russia.
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stereo-imagery acquired by the IKONOS satel-
lite. Finally M. Gromov of the NPF Geo compa-ny based in Omsk provided still more examples
of the monitoring of changes and the updating
of large-scale maps, both in large urban areas
such as the city of Omsk and in smaller towns
and villages in Siberia using data from the
QuickBird satellite. It was really quite unexpect-
ed, indeed surprising, to hear about all theseexamples of change detection and map revi-
sion based on spaceborne imagery from
Russian users - especially when the same tasks
are more often undertaken using airborne
imagery in Western countries.
III - Racurs & PHOTOMOD
Status & Developments ofPHOTOMODThe third day was concerned with
the overall scope and current
activities of the Racurs company
and with recent developments of
its PHOTOMOD software. Dr.Adrov, the managing director of
the company, gave the introduc-
tory overview. Racurs has now
issued 895 licences for PHOTO-
MOD, of which 219 are network
licences. In total, there are around
3,500 workplaces licensed to use
PHOTOMOD world-wide [Fig. 8].
The Russian VISKHAGI cadastral
organisation has 250 licences,
while in Belarus, the Belgiprozem
organisation has over 50 licences.Recently Racurs has been gaining
many new customers in Asia. Dr.
Adrov also outlined the new fea-
tures that have been incorporat-
ed in the latest release (4.3) of
PHOTOMOD and those that users
can expect in version 5.0 of the
software which will be released in
2008. These new features were
expanded upon by Dr. Y. Sechin,
the scientific director of Racurs. In
particular, he concentrated on the
new bundle adjustment of aerial
triangulation of frame images that
is available in PHOTOMOD 4.3 and
gave the results of extensive pro-
cessing of blocks of both synthetic photos and
real photos u