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Mapping the Middle East: oil, gas and religion

Smart Cities: OSGB goes global

Move over maps for data visualisation!

BIM: joining up the dots

Foresight of a geospatial world

GeoCom Day 2: delusional Big Data and more

Adena Schutzberg: hiring for geospatial jobs

Neogeography and the gamification of GIS

News | People | Products & Services | GiSPro’s columnists

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contentsIssue No 68 February 2016

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GeoCom Day 2The delusion of Big Data, natural phenomena and more was debated onday two of AGI’s conference, report Richard Groom and Stephen Booth.

Foresight of a geospatial worldThe invitation to contributors was to challenge current thinking. GiSProreports with additional material by Stephen Booth and Richard Groom.

Our Big Map featureOil and religion in the Middle East are overlain on this intriguing mapfrom Dr Michael Izady of the Joint Special Operations University in Florida.

Neogeography and the gamification of GISGIS and mapping businesses have woken up to the opportunity thatMinecraft presents, argues Martin Gregory of 1Spatial Asia Pacific.

BIM: joining the dotsThe Survey Association’s BIM Day heard from a variety of speakers onthe theme “BIM – Here, there and everywhere”, reports Stephen Booth.

Move over maps. . . for visualisation!Step out of your GI comfort zone says Liz Scott in her presentation fromAGI GeoCom 2015, which also reveals her infectious enthusiasm for birds.

Smart cities needs a single source of dataFor governments, developing Smart Cities, a single source of accuratelocation intelligence and data is crucial says Miranda Sharp of OSI.

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BIM-GIS, here, there and everywhereGiving the annual UKGEOforum Lecture at the RICS last month, Ordnance Survey’s new director generaland CEO Nigel Clifford said that rather like the late David Bowie, Ordnance Survey has constantly had toreinvent itself. Like so many of us the mapping agency has been on an endless journey since the arrivalof the digital age and the Internet. As greater processing power and storage capacity has grown, so hasour insatiable appetite for more data, more features, more solutions. Will consumers one day expect a3D Britain of point clouds, available online, on demand? Perhaps, now that wi-fi is regarded as a humanright, said Clifford.

The last 30 or so years has seen a steady move away from OS’s business being seen as that of deliveringhard-edged products, to one of offering a flexible service. While there remains concern that OS isvulnerable to what Clifford described as being ‘hollowed out by some West Coast’ start-up, it is partof the £99bn global geospatial business, a sector which is predicted to grow to £170bn by 2020. Sothere are opportunities ahead but OS has to embrace what customers want as well as those thingswhich perhaps they never realised they needed. Mapping agencies like the rest of the business worldtoday have to be in the vanguard of evangelising to users the art of the possible.

Although there is a tendency to regard OS mapping as a single version of the truth, in reality suchmapping is better seen as just one of several versions of the truth. An interesting example of one versionis this issue’s Big Map feature. Dr Michael Izady has created an intriguing map of the Middle East (page17). It mixes oil & gas with religion through the ancient schism within Islam between Sunnis and Shias.It reveals what may be a worrying truth for some states in the region.

Since the 24th November last year when it was launched at GeoCom 2015 the Foresight 2020 reporthas had time to be read and absorbed by the GI community. Oh? You missed it? Well never mind, wehave done a condensed review specially for busy readers that will hopefully whet appetites to digdeeper in to the report. It begins on page 12.

Elsewhere in this issue we complete our reporting of GeoCom 2015 (page 10) including some particularlypithy insights into Big Data from Prof Paul Longley. While neogeography and its role through gameslike Minecraft in educating children all about the world of spatial and 3D is discussed (page 18) by1Spatial’s Martin Gregory.

One of the major themes of the Foresight 2020 report was BIM, which was at the heart of a conferencerun by The Survey Association. Amongst other aspects it revealed a blurring of the dividing linesbetween an operational BIM and GIS, like that being used at London Heathrow. BIM and GIS willincreasingly be regarded by their major users simply as information systems.

Another theme in Foresight 2020 was Smart Cities, an area where Miranda Sharp of Ordnance SurveyInternational believes the mapping agency has expertise to share with the wider world. Her article,which argues for a single source of data, begins on page 24. One such smart project is reported in ourProducts & Services column on page 28.

So there you have it dear readers, another buffet of tasty GI dishes. The next issue is April and I welcomeeditorial ideas and submissions by 14 March.

Stephen Booth, Editor

welcome. . .to the February 2016 issue of GIS Professional. . .

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joining the geography jigsaw

from the editorIssue No 68 February 2016

Did you receive a copy of our annual Year Planner with the December issueof GiSPro? We have a few spare copies in the office so please call 01438352617 if you’d like an extra one or you missed your copy.

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Mayors to drive smart cities?Elected mayors should set up anoffice of data analytics, accordingto a report from the PolicyExchange think tank, to drive thesmart cities agenda. Author ofSmart Devolution Eddie Copelandargues that: “Data will befundamental to the success of citydevolution and smarter cities. Yetmost cities lack the ability to joinup, analyse and act upon the vastquantities of data they alreadyhave. By establishing an office ofdata analytics, cities will alsoimprove the quality and reliabilityof their open data. Devolutionprovides city mayors with a greatopportunity to break down thedata silos that exist betweendifferent local authorities andpublic sector bodies”.

Standards for linked dataThe first public working draft ofbest practices for spatial dataon the web has been publishedby a W3C* and OGC workinggroup. The group say that this isa concerted attempt to bringtogether techniques used by thegeospatial industry and webtechnologists, especially thosemaking use of linked datatechniques. The document isavailable atwww.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-sdw-bp-20160119 If you wish to makecomments please send them [email protected](subscribe and archives). Allcomments are welcome. Theeditors are particularly keen forreviewers to cite examples thatillustrate best practices.

*Led by Web inventor Sir TimBerners-Lee, the World WideWeb Consortium (W3C) is aninternational community wheremembers work together todevelop web standards.

Who owns what and whereMore emerges about the likelyprivatisation of the LandRegistry. The satirical magazinePrivate Eye reports that the

chief registrar, Graham Farrant,has met with Ed Welsh fromthe Cabinet Office. A formerRothschild’s banker, Welshbears the strange title ofDirector Commercial Models,Efficiency and Reform Group.

Meanwhile Private Eye hasbeen running a campaign to findour how much property in theUK is owned by offshorecompanies and individuals. UsingFreedom of Information requeststhe Eye discovered that up to2014 some 200,000 propertiesare owned by offshore entities.An excellent interactive map ofthe UK is on the Eye’s website(http://www.private-eye.co.uk/registry) showing allthese properties, who ownsthem and where they’reregistered). However attempts toupdate the list since then havebeen thwarted by the LRrefusing to supply theinformation. The Eye is appealingto the InformationCommissioner. Watch this space.

AGI’s new Council This year’s AGI Council has fivenew members, who took uptheir roles at the beginning ofthe year. They will each servefor three years and are:Anne Campbell, NorthernIreland Assembly James Cutler, emapsite LimitedElizabeth Murphy, InformedSolutionsMatt Pennells, Harrow Council /MapAction / Be Spatial LtdIn addition, Abigail Page, CGIhad earlier been announced asthe AGI Scotland nominatedrepresentative to AGI Council.

GIS at housing exhibitionCadcorp will be demonstratingGIS and web mapping forhousing on Stand 33 at the ITand Housing Exhibition 2016.This year the event is being heldat Chelsea Football Club, 10-11February. More at:http://it.housing.org.uk/the-exhibition.

Issue No 68 February 2016

news

David Rateledge, former head of Lancashire County Council’s GIS unit,has been spending his retirement looking for evidence of Romanroads in the county and has recently discovered one which connectedRibchester and Catterall.

He investigations began several years ago, using EnvironmentAgency LiDAR in the form of JPG picture files, but then progressed togrid data. He imports the bare earth and surface LiDAR data into theopen source GIS software package QGIS and experiments to find thebest hill-shading angle. An illumination angle perpendicular to theroad alignment casts visible shadows from the road embankment(known as the agger) rendering it visible in the image as it passes ina straight line across several fields.

Rasteledge found that rather than following the route hithertoshown on the Ordnance Survey map, the road took a very sensibleand economical route via Longridge and Inglewhite to Catterall, nearGarstang, a distance of 10 miles. Here it joined another Roman Road,the main road from the south heading to Lancaster. As David says,“The alignments used are typical of Roman engineering, runningstraight for several miles but cleverly dog-legging up to Longridge toreduce the gradient. Site visits have confirmed it is real with severalstretches surviving, albeit somewhat worse for wear.” He concludes,“This was to be expected given that the Romans stopped maintainingit over 1600 years ago!”• Environment Agency LiDAR is now supplied as open data fromhttp://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey#/downloadVisit: http://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/lancspages.html

Open Data reveals Roman Roads

Careers in GIS + pizzaA free careers event is planned for 7th March atUniversity College London. Organised by UCL and AGI’sEarly Careers Network. It will be a chance to hear fromindustry speakers about the fantastic careers that areon offer when you have GIS training. You will alsolearn about the wide range of GIS-related MSc coursesat UCL and be able to chat with current students andrecent graduates over pizza! Sign up at:https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ucl-geographical-information-science-gis-careers-event-2016-tickets-16296024849


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March also sees the annualCadcorp series of housingconferences taking place inManchester, Bristol andLondon. Details of these free-to-attend events can be foundon the Cadcorp website athttp://www.cadcorp.com/news-events/learning-from-others.-using-location-intelligence-for-housing-management

GIS at homes managerStaff at 39,000-home OrbitGroup are benefiting fromgeographical data at theirfingertips following the launch ofthe GIS MyM@ps. Orbit, whichmanages homes across theMidlands, East and South East,has rolled out a web-based GISfor its 1,300 staff to access maps,housing stock profiles, customerdemographics and analysis tosupport its business. Staff havehelped shape the platform andinform the different geographicaldata to support their roles.

Orbit has been using a GISsince 2010, now developed inpartnership with Cadcorp toproduce a web-based variant.Steve Litchfield, GIS manager atOrbit said: “The business is nowutilising a much more efficientGIS platform, which supports ourdigital by default agenda andprovides staff with the tools theyneed to deal with customerqueries faster and moreeffectively” Kevin Ruane, estatesarea manager, Orbit East andSouth adds: “For Estates Services,myM@ps will allow us to worksmarter and deliver better valuefor money in negotiating newcontracts and any variations. Itwill also assist us in dealing withcustomer queries as there is easyaccess to a street view of anydesignated area.”

Martin McGarry, managingdirector, Cadcorp comments:“Orbit started reaping thebenefits of deploying geographicdata shortly after installing theirfirst desktop GIS. By moving to aweb-based deployment they have


shown it is now possible to sharethose benefits throughout theorganisation.”

Blue test for smart citiesBlue City Solutions, a global anon-profit, internationalcoalition that helps improvepeople’s lives by testing, sharing,and implementing the bestsmart city solutions, wasofficially launched at the climatechange conference COP21 inParis last November. Funding isexpected to come from privatesources, government grants andtest service fees.

“Blue assists cities in definingtheir technology needs whilespeeding the adoption ofeconomically, environmentallyand socially sustainablesolutions,” explains Blue CitySolutions’ co-founder MichielFrackers.

Re-appointed for cloudservicesGetmapping Plc has been re-appointed as a supplier ofcloud-based GIS data andsoftware services to the UKPublic Sector under the G-Cloud 7 Framework. Managedby the Crown CommercialService (CCS), the G-Cloud isan online catalogue available toall government organisations. Itfeatures carefully selectedsuppliers and the cloud-basedcommodity services they offerenabling them to sidesteplengthy and expensive standardprocurement procedures.

Pete Bonham, Getmapping’ssales and marketing manager,notes that they’re “managing

several major central and localgovernment cloud servicescontracts, the most recentlyawarded being the All WalesMapping Services Frameworkto which 32 Welsh governmentbodies can subscribe.

Meanwhile Carrenza andEnvitia, have announced apartnership that will see latter’sSoftware-as-a-Service (SaaS)solution GeoINT available on theGovernment’s G-Cloud 7framework under Lot 3 via theCarrenza Cloud. The move is

likely to benefit a large numberof Envitia’s public sector partners.

“Legacy” coordinatesResponding to the massivegrowth in the volume of spatialdata and processing resources,the Open Geospatial Consortiumis requesting public comment onthe OGC candidate DiscreteGlobal Grid Systems (DGGS) CoreStandard. The standard is a set ofrules for defining highly efficientarchitectures for spatial datastorage and analytics. The goal of

There is more news of companies and organisations on our website at www.location-source.com To get your company featured on these pages call Sharon Robson on +44 (0)1438 352617


news

Bluesky is working with FATMAP to create ultra-high resolution 3Dmobile maps of the world’s major ski resorts and other popular outdoorpursuit destinations. A recent pilot project captured aerial photographyand generated detailed height models to create a highly detailed 3Dmap of the Big Sky Ski Resort in Montana, USA. FATMAP is nowplanning to roll out its smart maps to all major European and Americanski resorts. Working with Bluesky, FATMAP also plans to launch a newrange of ‘summer’ products for hikers, trail runners and bikers.

James Eddy of Bluesky adds, “By bringing together cutting-edgegaming technology with high end and detailed data, such as remotesensed imagery, geographic data, GPS and mobile information, in oneexciting app, we can open up our mountains, enhancing the outdoorsexperience for skiers, hikers and bikers.”

Hi-res 3D maps for skiers

Are Discrete Global Grid Systems the answer to supercede coordinate systems?

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DGGS is to enable rapidintegration of spatial datawithout the difficulties ofworking with legacy coordinatesystems so content can beaccessed directly from diversecontributors and used with othercontent without reliance on time-consuming and costly geographictransformation processes.

DGGSs represent the Earthas sequences of cell tessellationseach with global coverage andwith progressively finer spatialresolution. Individualobservations can be assigned toa cell corresponding to both theposition and size of thephenomenon being observed.DGGS come with a standard setof functional algorithms thatenable rapid data analysis of avery large numbers of cells.James Kavanagh, director of theland group at RICS, describes itas “a potential game changerand very much in line withUnited Nations thoughts onunified geodetic systems”.Documents for the candidatestandard are available for reviewand comment at(www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/143).

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GML encoding, feedbackand standardsOGC has approved the OGCCF-netCDF 3.0 encoding usingGML Coverage ApplicationSchema, an extension to theOGC CF-netCDF 3.0 encodingstandard, which is a widelyused and well supported datamodel for encoding in domainssuch as atmospheric science,oceanography, climatology,meteorology, and hydrology. Itsupports multi-dimensionaldata representing space andtime-varying phenomena.

OGC is also seekingcomment on two candidatestandards: OGC GeospatialUser Feedback ConceptualModel (“GUF Model”) and theOGC Geospatial User FeedbackXML encoding Standard. Thefirst specifies the structure of aconceptual Geospatial UserFeedback data model. The GUFModel standard specifies a userquality model that includes aset of mechanisms forrecording feedback.

The GUF data model reusessome elements of the ISO19115-1 and an attempt hasbeen made to optimize future

interoperability with developingISO metadata models. An efforthas also been made to enableimplementations of the GUFmodel that are as simple aspossible, so that the standardcan be implemented in simpleuser interfaces for different levelsof expertise. More at(www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/144). Commentsare due by 17 February 2016.

Arctic interoperabilityOGC has also announced a newInteroperability project called the“Arctic Spatial DataInfrastructure Standards andCommunication Pilot”. The pilotis sponsored by the USGeological Survey and NaturalResources Canada with a goal todemonstrate to Arcticstakeholders the diversity,richness and value of a SpatialData Infrastructure (SDI) basedon web services andstandardized exchange formatsin helping address critical issuesimpacting the region.Stakeholders include nationaland pan-Arctic science andmonitoring organizations anddecision makers engaged in

research, social and economicpolicy, and environmentalmanagement.

PEOPLE

Liz Scott, Emapsite’s contentmanager, beat off a field ofmore than 30 entries to scoopthe award for best paper atAGI’s Geocom 2015. The focusof Liz’s talk was to offerpractical help for GIprofessionals keen to tacklemore data visualisation outsidethe traditional map context, forexample through learningdatabase skills and coding. Youcan read an article based onLiz’s presentation on page 22.

Chris Taylor has joined GeoSmartas product development director.A founder of GroundSure,technical director at ArgyllEnvironmental and productdevelopment director atLandmark Information Group,Chris will take charge ofGeoSmart’s product roadmap asit continues to deliver reports anddata for land owners, architects,developers, local authorities andinfrastructure providers.


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columnist adena schutzberg


OVER THE LAST 20 YEARS I’ve probably read severalhundred requests from students, career changers and thosealready involved in geospatial technology asking for helpgetting a job. In contrast, I’ve read very little about how tohire the best people from those groups. Luckily HenryWard, CEO at eShares, detailed his four hiring principlesand six hiring heuristics in a post on Medium. In this columnI want to share how his heuristics (“hiring rules”) mightinform the way geospatial jobseekers present themselves.

Strength vs Lack of Weakness The vast majorityof geospatial employers want their recruitment adsto include a laundry list of required or preferred skillssuch as the use of software packages, programmingin a variety of languages and administering a handfulof databases. Employers feel it’s very efficient andcost effective to hire these “jacks of all trades.”

Ward sees it differently. He believes the interviewprocess is about finding the employee’s few keystrengths. With that short list in hand, he argues, thecompany can be confident the individual can begreat at other things. If a candidate is a great C++

programmer there’s no reason that, with training,she can’t also be a great Python programmer.

Takeaway: The jobseeker might focus on one or twostrengths rather than presenting herself as a generalist.

Trajectory vs Experience Trajectory is the path anemployee will take, while experience is what he’s alreadydone. Interviews focus on experience because it’s easy toexplore. Further, a hiring manager can feel confident anew employee can immediately use QGIS to manage anelectrical network if he did it for a previous employer.

The real investment, says Ward, is in the future ofthe hiree rather than his current value. How can thehiring manager identify an individual with a greattrajectory? The “tell” is that the individual gets more

excited when talking about what he will do ratherthan discussing past accomplishments.

Takeaway: The jobseeker should have thought aboutan exciting future project and be prepared to describe it.

Doers vs Tellers The interview process typically includesone or more conversations. These may indicate thecandidate is a good communicator, but not actually a goodworker. That’s why Ward and other hiring managers haveinterviewees “do something.” It might be a puzzle or acode challenge or a GIS data edit such as splitting a parcel.

Takeaway: Job seekers should come prepared to“do something” during the interview. Bring a laptopwith familiar GIS software to show what you can do.

Learners vs Experts It’s easy to describe oneself as an“ArcGIS Desktop Expert” or cite an Esri certification ona résumé. But what may be even more important is theability to roll with the punches when the next iterationof the software or a new package comes along. Hiringmanagers want to find those who are curious, anxiousto learn and actually know how to learn.

Takeaway: Job seekers should come prepared toidentify a skill (GIS related or otherwise) they neededto learn and how they learned it.

Different vs Similar Most managers are comfortablehiring individuals like themselves. This, says Ward, is abad idea. Hiring the same people over and over createscultural stagnation and the company cannot grow.Hiring staff with different opinions and outlookschallenges, stretches, and freshens the culture.

Takeaway: Job seekers should seek opportunitiesto show that they are not exactly like theinterviewers by highlighting different perspectives,experiences and knowledge areas.

Always pass on ego Ward gets right to it: “The trulyconfident don’t need people to know they are great. Theyare happy to know it themselves.” The less confident, heexplains, will continually talk about their greatness andprompt competitive arms races within the company.Candidates with big egos should be turned away.

Takeaway: Job seekers should include awardsand experiences on their résumés but tread carefullywhen discussing them during the interview.

Prepare with Care I believe these six heuristics arevaluable to consider when interviewing anywhere. Usethem to explore whether you are a fit for a position andif so, how to prepare to be impressive at the interview.

Hiring Geospatial Employees in 2016Are you looking to change your job during the year? Or maybe you’re looking to recruit and will be part of the hiring process. Adena Schutzberg provides some timely advice

drawn from a master of successful appointments who uses heuristics.

Adena Schutzberg hasworked in geospatial

technologies for 25 yearsand is principal of ABS

Consulting Group,www.abs-cg.com.

[email protected]

© Antoniodiaz

Dreamstime.com

Below: The realinvestment is in thefuture of the employeerather than his currentvalue.



. . . just 7.2 milesacross the city

of Glasgowseparates a lifeexpectancy of54 (similar to

India) from oneof 82. . .

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THE SECOND DAY BEGAN WITH NO MORE havingopted to take the geo run. Perhaps the combinationof a late bar and a chocolate & wine matchingsession the night before had taken its toll. Nevermind, a sparkling presentation from Paul Longley,Professor of Geographic Science at UCL, kick-startedthe day.

He talked about “Geo-temporal Demographics”and the Consumer Data Research Centre of which heis director. Big Data he thought was at worsedelusional and at best misleading. It can be describedas the “exhaust” from millions of daily transactions,

including social media, from which it is possible togain some insight but to what populations?

Longley talked about Twitter Demographics andshowed us Tweet Maps, but why, what sense can weget? he asked. There is a kaleidoscope, a mosaic ofidentities shaped by temporal pattern changes suchas night-time residence (diurnal dynamics) anddeprived intermediates. Extracting data like firstnames can contribute to creating an age pyramid orinferred ethnicity from surnames.

Data can throw up some hideous anomalies forpublic policy makers. For instance, just 7.2 milesacross the city of Glasgow separates a lifeexpectancy of 54 (similar to India) from one of 82 ina more prosperous suburb.

The spread of surnames around the UK hadinterested Longley. By comparing the 1881 censuswith more recent ones it was found that the nameRiddick had remained resolutely static with fewholders venturing beyond its Scottish heartland. Itprompted The Sun newspaper, which had taken aninterest in his research, to splash it on the front page(a slow news day perhaps) with the headline, “Is thisthe shabbiest name in Britain?”

The Bazalgettes meanwhile had fared muchbetter. From his French Protestant origins, Sir JosephBazalgette was the engineer who cured London’s

Great Stink of 1858 by building the great interceptorsewer along the embankment to carry away thecapital’s waste. His descendant meanwhile, PeterBazalgette has been responsible for some pretty grimtelevision. As one wag observed, Sir Joseph got thecrap out London while Peter put it back in.

Weather A second plenary from BBC weatherforecaster Peter Gibbs (above) focused on thedifficult science of flood forecasting – ‘messy stuffnatural phenomenon’ he observed. A world map of

weather sensors revealed how the continents arecovered by a close network of sensors, while thereare very few in the big oceans where our weathertends to form. We have plenty still to learn.

Prior to the floods in July 2007, weatherforecasting and flood forecasting were unconnectedactivities. The Pitt Review, which followed theflooding recommended a national flood forecastingcentre as a joint venture between the Met Office andthe Environment Agency. This has resulted in a betterwarning service with longer warning times.Ensemble forecasting involves seeing what wouldhappen if the parameters in the forecast weretweaked by a small amount. Often a small change, ofa degree or so of temperature, can have a dramaticeffect on the weather. Of course the uncertainty ofthe ensemble forecasts increases as you look furtherand further ahead.

Standards Many of the meeting rooms theconference was held in were named afterShakespearean tragedies; the sessions meanwhilehad hints of drama and sometimes comedy butthankfully there was no grisliness. Standards was thesubject of the first session. BS7666 is the standardfor street gazetteers and addressing, which is up forreview next year. The committee is inviting input

AGI GeoCom 2015: Day 2 The delusion of Big Data, the messy stuffof natural phenomenon and much more was debated and mulled over during the second

day of AGI’s annual conference, report Richard Groom and Stephen Booth.

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AGI GeoCom 2015


Prof Paul Longley, “Big Data isdelusional”.



. . . two trainloads of people

arriving inLondon every

week . . . and notleaving!

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from those with experience of having used thestandard.

Andrew Hughes from the British GeologicalSociety spoke on the role of OGC in promotingjoined-up standards through the UK and Irelandforum. Peter Parslow, from OS, spoke about theUKGEMINI metadata standard which will be releasedas v2.3 in 2016. The intention is to improve theperformance of the standard for data discovery bymachine.

Is open data working? Dave Lovell fromEuroGeographics did his best to fill David Dimbleby’sshoes for a session of (GI) Question Time, with apanel comprising Geraldine Wildman from the BritishGeological Society (BGS), Mike Rose from theEnvironment Agency (EA), Rikesh Shah fromTransport for London (TfL) and John Kimmance fromOrdnance Survey (OS).

The speakers all represent government bodiesbut with widely differing experiences of open data.To some degree BGS and EA are similarorganisations; BGS publishes its Geology of Britain at1:50,000 as open data in its government-fundedrole. However, a large proportion of its revenuecomes from commercial services for the insuranceand property sectors and this data is therefore notopen. The EA meanwhile has just made its archive ofLiDAR data open and free and all data will be openand free by 2018, with a consequent loss of allincome from data sales.

Rikesh Shah gave us the amusing, and possiblyalarming, vision of two train loads of people arrivingin London every week . . . and not leaving! Against thisbackground of a rapidly growing city, TfL provides allits data as open data and has a group of licensed appdevelopers who have enhanced the experiences ofthose travelling in London. It has also wiped out theburden of responding to freedom of informationrequests. The OS created a number of open dataproducts in 2010 which were funded by thegovernment until 2020. OS is arguably different fromthe other organisations because their data is not a by-product of its activities but its raison d’etre. It will beinteresting to see what happens in 2020. OS sees (orpossibly hopes) that the free data is a taster whichencourages customers to buy premium datasets.

Questioners from the floor generated some livelydebate centred on cost-benefit analysis of open data.Whilst the costs are clear, the benefits appear less so.Wildman displayed a graph showing a dramaticincrease in downloading of free data. There is ofcourse reluctance to pay up front for something thatmight not justify the cost, whilst downloadingsomething free of charge requires no decision-making. So, what do people do with the data? Whatvalue is added? These are unknowns althoughKimmance claimed that 20% of OS open data is usedto produce paid-for products. OS did however see a

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need to help innovators and foster innovation, whichis where GeoVation comes in. Perhaps surprisingly,there was a strong view that ‘open’ should notnecessary mean ‘free of charge’ and a concern abouthow collection of (open) spatial data by governmentwill be financed in an era of dwindling resources.

A geological BIM Ground information modellingfor planning and construction, according to AndrewThompson, is not the same as BIM, which relies onthe certainty of data; whereas a ground informationmodel (a GRIM?) is full of uncertainty. Nevertheless,“it’s about sharing information” he says. Thompsonenvisages an information system that brings togetherdigital elevation models, boreholes, air photos, sitephotos, geological reports, risk assessments of likelyhazards all into one archive. Thompson may be on tosomething here but his slides were a mass ofindividual images, graphs, spreadsheets and otherdata which made it difficult to understand. May bewe should ask him to develop his ideas in a paper.

Can web mapping help? It is always a surprise todiscover how many engineers and scientists workingin the environmental sector seem unaware of GISand its potential to gather together geospatial data.Joshua Dickerson’s presentation was all about howweb-mapping can help access hidden informationfor the non-GIS user. He explained how his companyBWB has seven offices each with its own disparatedatasets and have only been attributing geospatialdata (northings and eastings) to it since 2011. BWBis a multi-disciplinary engineering and environmentalconsultancy and since its formation in 1990 hascompleted over 5,000 projects. Dickerson used theopen source software QGIS and PostGIS withGeoserver to create his system, which was developedall in house and in his spare time. As he observed, “itreally is amazing how much data is hidden withinorganisations and in national datasets”.

We hope to bring readers more on some of thesepresentations. From the Smart City & Infrastructuresession Andrew Thompson has promised us an articleon his presentation Ground Information Modelling.We’re also hoping Liz Scott, who won best paperprize, will work up her presentation, Move over maps:Step out of you GI comfort zone and start tacklingdata visualisation, into an article.

AGI GeoCom 2015


Always one of thestrengths of GeoComare the networkingopportunities.

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. . . it should beclear that our

currenttrajectory is

unsustainableand

unpalatable.

“

“CONTRARY TO DOROTHY PARKER’S ADVICE on anew novel, “this is a work not to be lightly thrownaside. It should be thrown with great force.”, theAGI’s Foresight Report 2020 is a work to becherished and kept close for constant reference.Yes, it’s long but it’s not War and Peace andmore importantly should be readily understoodby readers of this publication; and it does nothave to be read cover to cover. It is a source,and like a good sauce, is to be dipped into.

The aim of the report is to identify issuesthat will have a significant impact on our economy,environment and society over the next five years. Thepurpose is to both observe and challenge the currentrole of GI. A two-page summary as well as the fulldocument makes for sober reading and none more

so than Anne Kemp’s opening remarks: “There hasnever been a more urgent need for a paradigm shiftin how we inhabit our planet. . . it should be clearthat our current trajectory is unsustainable andunpalatable.”

She concludes by stating, “We intend to use thisForesight Report as a catalyst for further debate – wewelcome further paper submissions – but would liketo follow up with a number of roundtablediscussions which can inform the way ahead. Not forthe GI community on its own, but in collaborationand understanding of the much wider communitywhich can contribute to the fascinating digital worldthat is evolving so rapidly around us.”

Five key themes The AGI’s mission is to bringgeography and information together and how the GIindustry can make a difference during an era ofmassive change. The report is the culmination ofAGI’s series of Big Five events held during the lasttwo years and is collated around these five themes:Open; Big Data; BIM, Asset management and Futurecities; Innovative Technologies; Policy and Culture.There is considerable cross-over and interconnectionbetween each of them.

The body of this 300+ page report is focusedaround these five themes. It extracts the essencefrom sixty contributions, which are introduced with a

helpful road map listing the title of each paper, avery brief summary and the author(s). Each paperaddresses different areas. They are inevitablypersonal views and so some are more radical thanothers. The papers are hyperlinked from referenceswithin the text of the report.

Hindsight 2010: what we missed The reportbegins with Andy Coote’s review of the 2010Foresight report: did we get it right? On the worldeconomy he makes the point that China “has so farabsorbed their expansion, but with thousands ofGeomatics and Earth Observation professionalsgraduating every year, it is just a question of timeuntil China competes more strongly internationally.”

Turning to what Coote describes as the “400

pound gorillas”, Google and Esri are still in themarket. “However, the rise of open source whichwas predicted has been perhaps more pronouncedthan we thought. The lack of money for investmentin the public sector during the continuing period ofausterity we correctly saw, has been a huge factor inthis respect.” He adds that “GIS market leadersappear to have successfully absorbed the mobile“platform” into their product suites.”

Technologies missed five years ago were theincrease in the number of Earth Observationsatellites, driven by a dramatic reduction in costs indesigning, building and launching a constellation ofnano / micro-satellites. Also the emergence of UAVsfor terrestrial and marine applications. However,UAVs are only of value for geospatial data gatheringbecause of advances in automated photogrammetry,which depends on processing unknowns like cameracalibration for each project. This resurgence ofphotogrammetry was completely unpredicted.

Most significant of all, says Coote, is that theterm Big Data didn’t appear at all. “Whilst werecognised the issues of data management that the“fire hose” of abundant data would cause, the newinsights delivered by data mining these sources wasnot recognised.”

As predicted, laser scanning technologydominated the past five years and we were well

Foresight of a Geospatial World Last November AGIpublished its report into how the geospatial world might look in five years time – which

technologies and initiatives would mature into successful widespread use, things like theimpact of Big Data, the Internet of Things, Open Data and BIM. The invitation to

contributors was to challenge current thinking. Did they do it? GiSPro reports withadditional material by Stephen Booth and Richard Groom.

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AGI’s Foresight 2020


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The geospatialindustry has to

understand howto switch frombeing a dataprovider, tobeing a data

service.

“

“aware that the challenge would be how to processthe mass of data into information that could be usedby clients. A ‘big data’ problem, even though we didnot use the term then.

The Scene: what a phenomenal opportunity!There is much in the report’s overview (“Setting theScene”) to justify close study. We have picked someof the more salient comments and others we haveattributed to individual sections of the Big Five.

The point is well made that “there’s a mismatchbetween the rate of change of technology and theability for the world’s leaders and policy makers tokeep up and understand the implications of thetechnology.” Perhaps we’re entering an era whenpoliticians will have even less influence overhumanity’s trajectory. A recent study, for instance, hasfound that membership of political parties has sunk toan all-time low across Europe. The election footsoldiers are no longer there in the social media age.

There can be no doubt that the process ofcollecting data is becoming less demanding. There ishowever skill involved in collecting quality-assureddata. But it is one thing to collect quality-assureddata to a given specification and quite another tointerpret a client’s requirements and explain theoptions in terms of costs and benefits. The next 5-10years will see changes in the way we work. Thereport therefore urges geo professionals to movetheir focus away from just being data collectors,noting that within the wider business of GI, there isan over emphasis on technology at the expense ofknowledge. Other key points include:

“It is very clear from the papers that, with theproliferation of mobile devices, the idea of“location” is more widely used than ever, but theterm “geospatial” remains fairly niche.”

“With both mobile and mapping functionality,everyone with a mobile phone or tablet is a surveyornow, or probably is being surveyed. . .”

“The geospatial industry has reached an existentialmoment, with the past belief in our central role andimportance is eroded by the realisation that geo-technology and its use is now so ubiquitous as to bealmost invisible, or is so integrated as to be taken forgranted. Many of the key skill-sets we had previouslytaken for granted as exclusively ours, are now sharedby other professionals, users and even hobbyists suchas gamers, geo-cachers, travellers/ramblers andmany more.”

“There is far more to location intelligence thanmaps. It’s all about the data, what you do with it andwhat outcomes you can provide that counts.”

“The art and science of communicating informationis central to the world of geographers, sovisualisation analytics will be likely to form a source

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of competitive advantage for astute practitioners ofGI and GIS over the next 5 years” and “theGeospatial Industry has the opportunity to morphinto a new role in this information rich world, but itmust take charge of technology and not be its slave,raising its head to view the wider geospatial picturein context.”

“The geospatial industry has to understand how toswitch from being a data provider, to being a dataservice.”

On whole lifecycle information management andimproved asset performance management: “This hasto be one of the biggest latent and untappedopportunities for the geospatial industry. Not maps,not 3D – but recognising the latent possibilities ofthe data and the value-add services that can andshould be delivered. What a phenomenalopportunity.”

Open Everything Open Data has been one of theoutstanding success stories of the last five years. Theopening up of data has seen huge returns to theeconomy in both straight economic returns throughnew business and wider societal benefits throughother efficiencies. Some estimate this at £1.2 billionof direct savings. Nevertheless, there remain issues ofprivacy and the risks of reliability and provenance.

Open data is the making available for generaluse, data that was collected for a specific primarypurpose. The current expectation is that it should befree of charge. There should be a business benefit,but government open data providers are notpermitted to require those who download their datato identify themselves or state what they are goingto do with it, because the mere act of asking suchquestions is deemed a barrier to access, negating theopen concept. From the perspective of innovation,the major benefit is that there is no need for adecision to buy, no need for a business case or forconcern that open data may not actually provide itsintended benefit.

Open is a concept that extends beyond data, andopen software is now more widely used than waspredicted five years ago. ‘Open’ is also a conceptthat is central to BIM in the sense that there shouldbe open collaboration between all the partiesinvolved in a project. Key quotes:

“Within government, increasing financial pressuresmean that open source is seen as a cost effective wayforward, and formally, the government IT strategysays that open source should be procured whereappropriate.” But “Whilst it may be perceived asfree, there is a cost somewhere, even [that of] time.”

“Five years ago it was reasonable to set standardswithin the Geospatial community – in future we willincreasingly need to work with other domains.”“Open standards will however enable the many new



A



Big Data canhelp us identifygaps in serviceprovision and

targetinfrastructureinvestments tothose people

and areas thatneed it most. . .

“

“areas of BIM, Big Data, Smart Cities and the Internetof Things to integrate with the Geo world.”

“The GI Community needs to embrace openness inthe widest sense; open standards; open data, opensystems; open architectures and open andcollaborative business models to meet the challengesand unleash the potential opportunities that thisnew world order brings.”

Big Data According to the report growth in thevolume of data available from devices within the‘Internet of Things’ is claimed as the next big gamechanger. Location is the DNA that runs through all dataand if geographically tagged, will present significantopportunities to the GI community. Key points:

“Risk assessment, risk modelling, impact modellingand cost-benefit assessments may well become anintegral part of big data analysis within the GIcommunity.”

“The opportunity exists to use Big Data to improvecities and make infrastructure more resilient andresponsive. . . Big Data can help us identify gaps inservice provision and target infrastructureinvestments to those people and areas that need itmost. . .”

In the retail sector the use of predictive analytics “isexpected to grow rapidly over the next five years –and should become a showcase for the power of GIwith measurable outcomes and clear commercialbenefits”

The section concludes with a controversial point thatsome may quibble with: “In the end, harnessing thepower of Predictive Analytics and Big Data is likely torevolve around how we, as GI practitioners, promotethe benefits and adapt our skill sets to move beyondworrying about data quality, standards and theperformance of the technology and focus on how wecan improve our ability to drive transformationalchange.” Such change could prove a false dawn ifthe standards and quality are not there.

Innovative technologies and light bulbs Oneof the biggest coming changes in technology will bethe sheer volume and variety of data-collectingmethods. It could be one of the largest businessgrowth opportunities for geospatial. Driven by theInternet of Things (IoT) it will bring a huge increasein data sources. But there will be an increase in theamount of noise which will need to be sifted throughto find the real nuggets. As Andy Hudson-Smithobserves, “Are we heading towards the Geographyof Everything?” Key quotes:

“There is great synergy coming in public andcommercial IoT initiatives, but they could take up to20 years to develop.”“Many of the sensor systems will become smaller,

lighter, cheaper and more powerful. . .”

For UAVs, “‘Sense and Avoid’ capabilities plus makingthem more crash robust are the big challenges.” While“. . . large unmanned vehicles. . . will fly at very highaltitude to bring internet access to areas such as ruralSub-Saharan Africa and Asia. . .”

“. . . security controls will be basic and it is possiblefor example, to hack your bank account via aconnected light bulb. Developing suitable securitybarriers will be one of the real challenges to ensuringthe IoT really does become a safe and viable reality.”

On indoor navigation: “Key technologies includeWiFi, Bluetooth and RFID50, inertial measurementsand magnetometers.”

While the report anticipates “openly available indoorplans for public buildings allowing the varioussensors to interact with plans” one can’t helpthinking that public safety and security may imposeserious restrictions on this type of data, gold dust toterrorists and criminals. As the Challenges andOpportunities section observes, “One of the keydifferentiators, not much referred to by thecontributors, will be around security – both at apersonal and at a societal level. Critical infrastructureis increasingly vulnerable as digital connectednessbecomes de facto. How this is dealt with isanticipated to become one of the most hotlydebated issues in the next few months and years.”

Autonomous technology Autonomous technologyis maturing rapidly. In this context we should stress thedifference between manned, unmanned andautonomous vehicles. An ‘unmanned’ vehicle is underthe real-time control of a pilot, whilst autonomousvehicles are given a route to follow and then have tofind their way to their destination.

Much effort is going into developingautonomous land vehicles. One can see the point ofautonomous freight delivery or public transport,because there is a direct saving by eliminating thedriver. But eliminating the driver would of coursedefeat the object of private transport, so the naturalconclusion could be a world of driver-less taxis,which could transform our streets, carmanufacturing and land use.

Will we see autonomous vehicles on the roadwithin five years? Probably not, but if we do, they willbe using positioning and sense-and-avoid systems tofind their way and avoid collisions. They will needdetailed mapping augmented by onboard sensorscapturing their geospatial data, which could potentiallybe stored and analysed for a myriad of purposes.

New ways of accessing data through devicessuch as Google glasses and the Oculus “willincreasingly streamline the viewing of 3D and 4Ddata (with) organisations such as the AugmentedReality for Enterprise Alliance helping to ensure that

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Data handovershould be

considered as alifecycle

component likeany asset. . .

“

“activity focuses on the value-add rather than thetechnology for its own sake.”

As this section of the report concludes, “. . . IoTand Autonomous Vehicles. . . are currently at the‘peak of inflated expectations’” on the Gartner curve.

The Internet of Things This is another of the Big 5themes. A “‘bottom up’ technology, more and moresensors will be used for monitoring and their resultscommunicated via the web. Making the data availableon the net in open formats will enable interoperability,but will also raise concerns. BSI are setting up a technicalcommittee. Whilst some development has occurred,there is as yet no standard way to find the physicallocation of the sensor. The benefits however could behuge: monitoring of machines, structures, theenvironment and people. One can easily imaginecarrying physical monitoring sensors that could senddata to a computer for analysis. The system couldconceivably trigger emergency response, detect longerterm issues and contribute to general health data aboutthe population. It could dramatically reduce costs andpressure on the NHS. ‘Place’ is always a component ofthe sensor, whether it is stationary or moving.

Gartner predict that 50% of the IoT market willbe created by start-ups less than 3 years old,representing a very high level of growth in invention,innovation and private investment.

BIM: a better management system The UK isrecognised as an international leader in BIM and BIMtakes up a sizeable chunk of the report. BIM may bedefined as ‘the purposeful management ofinformation through the whole life cycle of aninfrastructure asset’. A “common thread through thepapers is the sense that the next big challengeleading to 2020 will be to Geo Enable BIM. . .”

So, have we really got a handle on the need forinteroperability and open data standards for 3Dgeospatial data? The point seems to be missed thatreal world objects can be defined using the same set ofgeometrical primitives plus attributes. It often seemsthat others perceive the work we do as way morecomplex than it really is. Is there a reason why thegeometry of geospatial objects in a field, a town, an oilrig or inside a building should be described differently?

Just how open should BIM be? The truth is thatwhilst communication between partners in a project isdesirable, it is also likely to be tightly controlled forfear of bad news getting circulated. Greater genuineopenness would actually drive up standards by forcingemployers from client to third tier suppliers to employbetter qualified people. Key quotes:

For GIS there is the potential to converge with BIM.Just as there is a conception that GIS is just aboutmapping, so there is a misconception that BIM is justabout 3D modelling. Wrong on both counts.” Thinkof it as “a Better Management System”.

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“By 2020 we should see rich asset managementinformation available in open specifications aboutsignificant structures.”

There is an “on-going perception of an innersanctum of GIS”.

“. . . accurate asset information for large infrastructuremanagers (e.g. utility companies, Highways England,Network Rail, Environment Agency) is an essentialenabler for the safe and efficient operation andmaintenance of those assets and for decision support.”

Perhaps the best way to conclude this section is toquote the closing paragraph of Setting the Scene:

“Now is the time to take careful consideration of howwe take our next steps, and realise the importance ofcollaborating across industries. Our recommendationsinclude identifying and exploiting the linking of multipletechnologies and policies – based strictly on an outcomebased approach. This will include BIM, indoornavigation, asset management, internet of things, smartcities, artificial intelligence and big data, integration ofdata science and analytics, creative visualisation andanalytics. Location Intelligence can and should becomecritical (“the geography of everything”) and provide thefoundation on which business decisions are made. But ifthis is to happen, we need to open up the industry andmake it more accessible, better understood and lessexclusive. Part of that may lie in drawing on our genericroots as geographers, which will allow us to understand,enable and embrace a multi-disciplinary mindset.”

Future Cities The UK Digital Built Britain (DBB)strategy was launched in February 2015 of whichSmart Cities can be said to be part and defined asthose that have developed an integrated andintelligent framework for data on city administration,education, healthcare, public safety, real estate,transportation and utilities. Key quotes:

“There is a connection between Smart City data andBIM data, both providing data about our builtenvironment for further use in operations,maintenance and performance management.”

“By 2020, it will not be unusual to have geo-locatedsensors feeding live information for live decisionmaking in a variety of urban situations.”

“Data handover should be considered as a lifecyclecomponent like any asset. . .”

“. . . the Integrated Digitally-Enabled Environment(IDEE). . . affords us a comprehensive way of holdinginformation about the natural and builtenvironments. . .”

Policy & Cultural The report urges the geospatialindustry to act as one to tackle the challenges ahead.



A


. . . the outlookfor geographygraduates dueto their broad

skill set islookingpositive.

“

“

The last couple of years have seen greater co-operation between professional and trade bodiesthrough a process of diplomacy designed to avoidruffling the feathers of those with vested interests inmaintaining the status quo.

“The UK is having a leading international role inknowledge and digital economy and belongs to anexclusive club of world leading nations (known as theD5).”

On global initiatives the report highlights thework of the UN Committee of Experts in GlobalGeospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM).One of their reports recognises that the mostsignificant changes would come, not from a singletechnology or organisation, but from the linking ofmultiple technologies and policies. Like the AGI’s BigFive it focuses on four emerging trends:

- Smart cities and Internet of Things;- Artificial Intelligence and Big Data;- Indoor Positioning and mapping;- Integrated statistical and geospatial information.

Conclusions Anne Kemp and her editing team –Simon Wheeler, Graham Wallace, Emma Bee andGesche Schmid – have done an outstanding job ofsynthesizing 60 reports and distilling from them muchwisdom. It provides a window in which to view the big

picture from several different aspects. It is also strikingthat sometimes those problems which we think are oursalone are in fact being faced elsewhere too. As StevenRamage notes, “Across many sectors, there is atechnology translation gap where technologists(including geospatial practitioners) are unable tosuccinctly explain the usefulness or value of their data,tools or services. Some of the reasons for the existenceof the gap include the use of jargon or industry specificterminology, the lack of a clearly articulated businesscase or return on investment (which may not necessarilybe limited to a financial return) and a lack of educationor knowledge on the part of the governing body.” Onecannot but agree with Ramage’s comment aboutjargon. If geospatial is to become more inclusiveorganisations like OGC need to promote commonunderstanding of the terminology and communicate itin an accessible way to non specialist users.

We’ll end with two quotes: “Geography continuesto attract more people and the outlook for geographygraduates due to their broad skill set is lookingpositive.”

“So, will there be good opportunities in the yearsahead for geospatial professionals? You betcha!”

• The Foresight Report 2020 can be downloadedfrom: http://www.agi.org.uk/news/foresight-report

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Web Map Layers from CadcorpSharing Local Knowledge™

Available on desktop, tablet and mobile devices Discover more at cadcorp.com



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GiSPro’sbig map feature


. . . a writer onethnic and

cultural topics,particularly theGreater Middle

East. . .

“

“

Over the last decade people in Europe and the UShave become aware of the ancient schism withinIslam, between Sunni and Shia. This map shows howthe demographic spread of these two branches ofIslam compare against known oil & gas reserves.

The conflict can be explained by this fascinatingmap created by Dr Michael Izady, a cartographerand adjunct master professor at the U.S. Air ForceSpecial Operations School/Joint Special OperationsUniversity in Florida. The map can also be viewed at:http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/maps.shtml• Dr Michael Mehrdad R.S.C. Izady is a writer on ethnicand cultural topics, particularly the Greater Middle East

and the Kurds. He received his BA degree in History,Political Science and Geography from the University ofKansas, and then attended Syracuse University wherehe received two master's degrees in Remote Sensing-Cartography and in International Relations. He receivedhis PhD at the department of Middle Eastern Languagesand Civilizations of Columbia University. He taught forsix years in the Department of Near Eastern Languagesand Civilizations at Harvard University and in theDepartment of Middle Eastern Studies and History atthe Joint Special Operations University in Florida. He hasauthored many books and articles on Middle East andSoutheast European subjects.

Oil and Religion– distribution of ancient schism in Islam against oil & gas deposits

B



HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN THE TIME TO LOOK at whatyour kids are doing on Minecraft? We worry that ourchildren should be outside, enjoying the sunshine,communicating in real life with their friends, notstaring at a screen. But maybe they’re learningsomething and sharing exciting ideas? Are theybecoming neogeographers?

It used to fill me with horror to see my kidssitting intensely in front of a screen when they

should be out on their bikes, fishing, swimming,doing things that I used to do and enjoy. However, Ispent time recently actually looking at what’s goingon when they are engaged so intently for hours onend. I was quite surprised when I took a proper lookat Minecraft; surprised that the kids were so involvedin more of the ‘sand box’ games and getting totallyengaged with this 3D virtual world.

Minecraft, for the uninitiated, is like digital Lego.It’s fast to build worlds where kids can hook up withtheir friends, explore each other’s worlds, go onadventures and acquire and look after animals alongthe way. There are even nasty characters called EndoMen who like to do battle, plus the ability to teleportfrom one place to another. All this sounds like pretty

fun stuff, however it can get quite sophisticated too.

A new generation of neogeographers So howdoes this relate to the GIS sector? What is itspotential? We assume it’s got one, because Microsoftacquired Mojang, the maker of Minecraft, forUS$2.5 billion last September. So can we learn fromMinecraft about how to bring game-like attributes tothe user experience of other GIS tools? Should theworld of spatial take advantage of the lessons of thegaming world? Is spatial being gamified?

I think from my perspective I think it certainly seemsto indicate that the worlds of spatial, and what weknow of traditionally as gaming, are converging.Although this may seem like an odd connection, therehave already been some exciting projects. It also meansthat we have a new generation of neogeographers,who are already engaged and confident with locationinformation. Perhaps this could help the moretraditional geography, cartography and GIS sector to

get involved and develop new applications.Minecraft is leading in this area. It’s enabling

people, from children to senior citizens, to developcomplex structures; everything from individualproperties to all of the outside world. We can evenstart to go inside and get into the realms of BuildingInformation Modelling (BIM), designing andmanaging internal spaces.

So yes, we’re already seeing some interestingdevelopments happening in Minecraft, involving game-like attributes and developing new apps or services.Everything happens somewhere. It also happens IRL (inreal life). So it makes sense to harness people’s naturaldesire for socialising, learning, self-expression andachievement, and getting them involved in thedevelopment of their local areas. The gamification ofGIS can help to bring people in to the sector.

A Minecraft GB Some of the most interestingdevelopments along these lines are happening rightacross Europe and in Australia too. Ordnance SurveyGreat Britain has completed a project to re-engineerits OpenData products to create a Minecraft world ofthe whole country. It’s 86,000 square miles and uses22 billion Minecraft blocks. The key objective here isfor OS to engage with a new type of user and at thesame time drive the objectives for OpenData tofoster new innovations.

Denmark has a very similar project which seeks to

Neogeography & the gamification of GIS In GiSProAugust 2014 we reported on how children in Denmark were using open geodata from

their mapping agency to add to Minecraft. Since then the GIS and mapping business havewoken up to the opportunity that Minecraft presents in educating children in developing

spatial skills. Martin Gregory, general manager, 1Spatial Asia Pacific explains.

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GIS and gaming


Below: a grand view of the Alps by Joseph Braybrook.

Left: Martin Gregory, ‘. . . can welearn from Minecraft?’

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Minecraft hasan estimated125 million

players, some ofwhom are

young gamersdeveloping

advanced 3Dskills.

““

engage people in education. They have recreated thecountry in terms of roads, buildings and elevationmodels to create a virtual Denmark where gamerscan explore their own residential areas and teardown and build new structures.

The Swedes have taken their national datasets,kept all the infrastructure and the physical features,but removed all the buildings. People are invited toregister a building plot in a virtual world and createnew structures according to what they want to seethere. These things get a lot of interest: 45,000people were involved in the Swedish project.

Volunteers chart change Citizen science is alsorepresented in the spatial sector through services likeTomnod (a website for volunteers to work togetherto identify important objects and interesting placesin satellite images.). Recently 16,500 people helpedwith the Nepal earthquake relief effort by capturingchange data from satellite imagery. Not surprisinglythe UN are taking this initiative very seriously. Theyhave an ambitious project to improve 300 publicspaces in developing nations. It involves promotingsustainable towns and cities by involving youngpeople in the planning of urban public spaces.

It turns out that Minecraft is the perfect tool forfacilitating this. One example is that of a rubbish tipsurrounding buildings. It was quickly modelled inMinecraft, allowing local people to propose newfeatures for the space and engage in theircommunities’ development. Often, through theinvolvement of schools, the ideas and designs comefrom children, unfettered by what has traditionallybeen possible; and pushing at the boundaries of GIS.

Here at 1Spatial, we can see Minecraft’s potential asa collaborative tool for capturing community input.We’ve played with a new feature in Safe Software’sFME which allows you to take spatial data – potentiallyeven national datasets such as OSGB, Denmark andSweden have done – and populate a Minecraft world.This opens up data to people who would otherwise nothave the technical skills to work with it in the sameway; FME could insert collected data and ideas fromneogeographers and convert it back into a GIS or assetmanagement system or a set of digital design drawings.

Spatial concepts and education Finally, inBrisbane the Spatial Industry trade body, SIBA, isdiscussing how gamification could be a neweducational method to introduce spatial concepts to ayounger generation and encourage them to thinkabout careers in master planning, logistics, transport,design or construction. The process allows peoplewithout a traditional grounding in the industry to testtheir ideas and dreams without the classicpreconditions of what’s possible and what isn’tpossible. Of course, many of these ideas won’t make it.But as we all know from brainstorming, sometimes anoff-the-wall idea can take off. Whether the ideas work

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ultimately or not, at the end of the day we now havea new way to have conversations, not only with eachother but also the legislators as well.

So does that mean spatial is no longer special? Ordoes it mean that people of all walks of life andbackgrounds can now be directly or indirectly involvedin mapping in some shape or form? Minecraft has anestimated 125 million players, some of whom areyoung gamers developing advanced 3D skills. They aregetting involved in location information, even if theydon’t see it in the same way as we do. We could evenstart to get data into the Minecraft environment,whether it’s OpenStreetMap, Google Earth, BIM ornational mapping, and begin that modelling process.Through Minecraft, we can see how FME could be usedto engage with this generation; they can sift and playwith the data, try things out, knock it all down and startagain. We can engage with local communities and testout even the most outlandish ideas.

This new modelling technology, with thegamification of GIS, could be creating the workforceof tomorrow. If even just 1% join our industry, what aboon that would be. Perhaps we should beencouraging our kids in their screen time? Or perhapseven get involved ourselves? As technology makes iteasier to play with the data, the location informationsector could be about to step into a new world.

GIS and gaming


A valley in the Himalayas by Joseph Braybrook.

London from above.

G



Much vauntedBig Data,

meanwhile, ismoving into the

‘Trough ofDisillusion’.

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“

BUILT ENVIRONMENT PROFESSIONALS have becomeused to BIM over the last half decade or so andclients increasingly ask for projects in “BIM format”without necessarily understanding the implications.It’s a reminder that not everyone knows what we’retalking about. There is much evangelising to do.

Referring to the day’s theme, keynote speakerJames Kavanagh told us, ‘it wasn’t everywhere yet’.Kavanagh is RICS Land Group director and is in a

good position to give us the broad view from RICS’sresearch. He reviewed the BIM basics telling us whatit isn’t: ‘It’s not CAD on steroids’.

Magpies connecting the dots Geospatialpractitioners are an important part of the BIM process.Some 70% of total global wealth is in real estate andrelies on us to help ‘de-risk’ projects by connecting thedots, says Kavangh. Already it is possible todemonstrate that Level 2 BIM has secured 20% savingsin capital costs against a 2009/10 benchmark. If BIMreally is successful then the opportunities arestaggering. Global construction is expected to grow by70% over the next ten years and there is high regardinternationally, says Kavanagh, for UK’s ‘gold-plated’approach towards BIM through legally mandating itsapplication (all public sector contracts over £10m mustuse BIM from April this year).

Many of us, according to Kavanagh, are likemagpies: ‘we take and use these shiny newtechnologies’. Laser scanners, for instance, havebeen through the Gartner curves where excitementrises before hitting the ‘Trough of Despair’. They arenow cruising into Gartner’s ‘Plateau of Productivity’.For geospatial data capture they are now ubiquitous.Much vaunted Big Data, meanwhile, is moving intothe ‘Trough of Disillusion’.

Kavanagh concluded his keynote with a review ofthe growing moves towards the dream of a “Digital BuiltBritain” driven by ‘GIS on steroids’ and wide-scale assetmanagement, which somehow manages to overcome

the difficulties of private interests versus the publicgood. There are great opportunities ahead aroundgeospatial models like BIM, but we should not forgetthat we are only ‘a small but critical cog’. To succeed, weneed to develop a service industry mentality – ‘it’s wherethe money is’, concluded Kavanagh.

Where’s Bob on St Crispin’s Day? I have longthought that one of the principal benefits of BIM is notjust as a tool for managing a project but as a record ofwhat was built so that future owners and operatorshave a single source of information for maintenance,changes and redevelopment. This seems to be exactlyhow Heathrow and Network Rail use their BIMs.

Survey4BIM is part of the BIM task Group backed bythe Cabinet Office. This is all about geo-enabling BIM.Martin Penney began with an anecdote. A colleaguehad visited a client about using BIM on an extension toan existing building. The client had expected flowcharts but instead was asked, what information have

you got? Bob came back with an armful of paper plans.He’d known just where to look for them. But the plansraised more questions than answers including, whathappens if Bob’s not around?

Penney believes therefore that BIM is aboutasking the right questions: where is the data, whatcan it be used for and are we sharing it? In otherwords, making sure you’ve got the right data.Surveyors, however, remain slow on the uptake ofBIM. RICS has found that 49% of its members arestill not using it. However, ‘it’s not going away’ saidPenney, ‘there’s a mandate for it.’

For him, the five big issues for BIM aregeneralisation, accuracy, metadata, interoperability andthe level of detail. The benefits are reduction of risk andthe avoidance of clashes, re-work and delays. He endedwith the quote from Henry V Act IV and the King’sclarion call to join him at Agincourt on St Crispin’s Day:

But we in it shall be remembered-We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;For he to-day that sheds his blood with meShall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,This day shall gentle his condition;And gentlemen in England now a-bedShall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Penney summarised the Bard’s words, ‘We need your help!’.

Best practice on the rail network Chris Preston isa senior engineer HQ safety, technical engineering

BIM helps connect the dots Held in the magnificent andinspirational surroundings of the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon, The Survey

Association’s BIM Day heard from a variety of speakers on the theme “BIM – Here, thereand everywhere”, reports editor Stephen Booth.

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BIM: joining the dots


B



. . . the centralarea collapsedbringing the

airport to a neartotal halt. ‘Outof chaos comes

investment’.

““

directorate at Network Rail (nothing simple like chiefsurveyor!). NR has changed its corporate entity inrecent years in moving from a not-for-profit companyto now being entirely in the public sector andtherefore, alas, under the close eyes of the Treasury.

BIM can deliver savings and its development in NRhas been informed by “best practice” on a number ofhigh profile infrastructure projects like Heathrow’s T5,the M25 widening and the Millennium Dome. Amongstthe hurdles, Preston argues, are the many softwareversions and the cloud. ‘We want to use BIM forvisualisation – good quality survey de-risks a project’. Todo that consistent and accurate data and the rightmetadata is fundamental. For NR’s processes ofinformation flow, the information requirements mustbe right. ‘We need to get BIM up to Gartner’s Plateau’.

Preston argues that BIM needs data-rich assets, acommon set of processes, collaborative management, acommon data environment, open and honestleadership and agreed rules supported by standards. ForNR, BIM ultimately becomes their asset informationsystem, reducing risk and cost. For surveyors, saysPreston, ‘it’s survey once, use many times.’

Historic split BIM and Heritage, are they a goodmatch? was the question posed by Historic England’sPaul Bryan. HE, if your were not aware emerged lastyear from splitting English Heritage into anindependent advisory service (HE) and a charity.Bryan is geospatial imaging manager within theremote sensing team, which also includes aerialsurvey and geophysics. His team, he wryly observed,was just two-and-a-half people including himself, sothere’s quite a lot of external procurement.

Notwithstanding the size of his team, Bryan hasbeen responsible for drafting some weightyspecifications on metric and 3D surveys within theheritage sphere. HE use many techniques includinglow-cost photogrammetry through structure frommotion, a method of creating 3D imagery from asuccession of 2D images.

BIM has some way to go within heritage butBryan is pushing BIM for conservation to raiseawareness and understanding of its potential. BIMsoftware however like Revit and AutoCAD, isdesigned for geometric buildings, not 15th centurybarns like Harmonsworth, which currently stands inthe way of a third runway to Heathrow. Bryanbelieves irregular structures and BIM are worthy offurther research, a problem raised by others in theaudience including Chris Preston who argued thatyou must specify a minimum distance off of astraight line.

Heathrow’s journey Andy Rhoades is head ofservice protection for Heathrow. He presides over amassive information modelling and assetmanagement system. His talk was all aboutHeathrow’s BIM journey – the importance of

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confidence in information. Although his department isonly ten people they are the ones who decide, amongother things, in which order incoming aircraft will landand discharge their passengers. It’s about balancingthe load for the baggage handlers as they are able tocalculate the likely number of bags from a flight –business incomers from the US have fewer thanholidaymakers back from the Far East, explainedRhoades.

He works from a complex circular chart that showsall the inputs to the system. He gave us somestatistics. Heathrow’s footprint is roughly the size ofcentral London and is currently operating at 99.1%capacity, 75 million passengers pass through everyyear and there are 45,000 manholes on 62,000services. The journey on creating a reliable digitalinformation system began in 1994 when a tunnelunder construction beneath the central area collapsedbringing the airport to a near total halt. ‘Out of chaoscomes investment’ observed Rhoades dryly.‘Heathrow’s BIM is very much location centric ratherthan project centric and joining up the data deliversreal business value.’ Today services, cannot go liveuntil they have been mapped and recorded in thesystem’s two databases, one for documents, the otherfor asset management.

A sweet spot? Relief from Rhoades’ rapid deliveryof stats and slides came from Autodesk’s Simon Gilliswho talked about the future of making things and theevolution of BIM. He thought the ‘innovationcontinuum is at the sweet spot’, whatever that means.He talked much about the Internet of Things, thecloud and the crowd and how we are on the verge ofa new industrial revolution that will bring microfactories making design and fabrication much easier. Itwill also herald the “third age of BIM” allowingarchitects to design in context through computationaldesign and 3D printing and subtractive manufacturing(short-run prototyping) driven by sensor networks.

MDC helps feed the model Topcon’s Mat Kelletttalked about the growing demand for Mass DataCollection (MDC) technologies for BIM. ‘Keepfeeding the data model’ was his message, andTopcon has just the technologies: laser scanners,both static and mobile, plus two airborne platformsin the Sirius Pro fixed-wing UAV and the Falcon 8Octocoptor. Topcon’s vehicle-based mobile scanningsystem has a six-axis inertial measurement system(INS), wheel odometry, GNSS, panoramic camerasand can deliver an accuracy of <5cm.

In questioning, Graham Mills wondered if thecost of technology was a barrier to adopting BIM.While James Kavanagh argued that building tenantsare not interested in details like BIM but on abusiness-to-business basis it is strong enough toaffect share prices. We are in the infancy of BIM andwhere it will lead.

BIM: joining the dots


• This is an abridgedversion of a report fromGeomatics World, Jan/Feb2016 edition.

B



IT WASN’T VERY LONG AGO that when it came tohandling data, many GI professionals had it relativelyeasy. What was actually available to us was pre-packaged by data suppliers and publishers into‘products’, provided on a regular basis, and mostimportantly, presented in a consistent form.

Now that there is so much data available fromopen data sources like data.gov.uk, it’s understandableto want to take advantage of the potential insightsthese sources can give us. And it’s not only public

sector data that’s become more easily available – datafrom projects using volunteer ‘citizen scientists’ isbeing collected at an ever increasing rate by charitiesand NGOs encouraging public engagement, some ofwhich is then made available via sources such as theNational Biodiversity Network (nbn.org.uk).

Different skills Much of this new data requiresdifferent skills to handle - for a start the data can behard to find and access, and keeping up to date canbe a headache. But once you start examining the data,you may find the consistency is somewhat lacking –often there is patchy coverage and differing levels ofdetail across the country. Meanwhile, the quality ofthe data collected from citizen science projects willoften depend on the design of the survey and its datainput methods, but the likelihood is that the data will

suffer from incomplete recordings, and bothgeographic and temporal gaps in coverage.

My own foray into exploratory data analysis of‘messy’ citizen science data came due to volunteerinvolvement in bird ringing – a survey techniqueadministered by the British Trust for Ornithology(bto.org) which involves trained and licensedvolunteers capturing wild birds, fitting them with anindividually numbered metal leg ring, and releasingthem after taking various biometric measurements.

Get the bird, get data Data collected from birdringing has contributed immensely to the study ofmigration and population dynamics. Movement datacan come from various sources: recoveries from ringedbirds recaptured alive or found dead, re-sightings bybirdwatchers of birds which have been ringed withcolour rings, and now data from GPS tracking; they allgive different levels of detail per bird. Each method inits own way provides a great excuse for a GIS pro to

present maps to fellow bird surveyors – and onlinemap hosting platforms such as CartoDB andMangoMap offer great opportunities to go beyondthe public’s familiar use of Google maps.

A personal favourite is CartoDB which is a smartand easy-to-use service comprising of a front end toa PostGIS database using Leaflet for its map controls.It’s free for up to 250MB of online storage, making itideal for personal projects – and therefore a bit of slylearning at home.

Uploading your CSVs, GMLs and shapefiles willgive you an attractive map output by barely lifting afinger, but after that instant map gratification there’smore under the hood to enable you to sneak in somestealth learning. You can style the map using theeasy controls, but then examine the CartoCSS textused for the styling and tweak it to suit and

Move over maps: step out of your GI comfortzone and start tackling data visualisation!

GiSPro is delighted to bring readers Liz Scott’s award winning presentation from AGIGeoCom 2015. Liz has an infectious enthusiasm for both GIS and birds. Read on!

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MAPSor data visualisation?


Below: One bird’s story.

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. . . visualise thedata online in a

reproducibleformat rather

than as a staticreport. . . created

within aspreadsheet.

“

“

experiment – dipping your toe into learning a bit ofCSS. You can run PostGIS queries against the datayou’ve uploaded - an easy way to try out querywriting without having to set up a database and amechanism for viewing data within it. Meanwhile,CartoDB’s “Torque” function seems made for thedata that comes out of GPS tracking – uploading atable of locations against dates will produce ananimated tracking map.

This sort of functionality is not only great forplaying and learning at home– it is ideal for a bit ofquick and dirty product development too, and atemapsite we often use CartoDB for sharingvisualisations of ideas and mock-ups for data products.But it’s still confined to visualising the data we get onbirds for which we have records on movements.

No geography? Look again! So back to thoseincomplete datasets – what can you do when yourdata does not always contain a geographic element?I have access to a load of data from re-sightings ofcolour ringed Black-headed Gulls – birds which areringed as chicks and then often sighted bybirdwatchers who can read their ring numbersthrough binoculars. Rather inconveniently, only a fewof them visit places where they’ll get spotted bybirdwatchers in winter, but many more are re-sightedin the breeding season, back on the lake where theywere born. We’re therefore left with records of manyindividuals for which we have sightings during thebreeding season, but nothing on where they’ve goneover winter – we have a time element for them butno movement geography. What else could we findfrom this incomplete data?

I wanted to investigate periods of the year duringwhich each bird appeared back at the breeding lake,and decided to show this using horizontal bar chartsto depict their arrival and departure times. The idealwas to visualise the data online in a reproducibleformat rather than as a static report which could havebeen created within a spreadsheet. This called for a bitof coding – so first stop was to brush up on somebasic web skills. There are plenty of websites forlearning basic coding (my favourite is Codeacademy)which can introduce you to HTML, CSS to style thecontent on your web pages and Javascript to addcontrol to your page. With just a smattering of theseskills under your belt you can take the next step to

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creating a data visualisation online.An easy entry point into actually using JavaScript

is by experimenting with a library such as Dimple.js,which is built on top of the more functional (butrather more daunting) d3.js.Dimple.js provides youwith the code for creating a range of basic chartswhich you can then tweak using snippets of d3.jscode – dipping your toe in again from somethingmanageable without having start in at the deep end.To get going with Dimple.js and d3.js I’d recommendthe excellent online course from Udacity.

We have put it all together at emapsite to createdashboards – map visualisations created in CartoDBloaded using Leaflet, along with D3.js for visualisingcharts.

Learn new skills outside GIS From speaking withfellow GI pros it seems common that we secretlywish we could do a bit more with this new dataourselves, as we come to realise there’s only so muchyou can show by putting it on a map: we need tolearn more skills we can use outside of GIS. Some ofthe online courses available for learning about datahandling can seem a step too far away from our dailyreality – as exciting as Hive and Hadoop may sound,and as ubiquitous as R and Python have become,when faced with all these technologies we may feelwe ought to understand, knowing where to start canbe paralysing. But starting with something familiar –geographic data in an environment whichencourages tweaking and experimenting – is asmaller step many will find easier to make.

Taking a chance with ‘messy data’ could be theopportunity you need to push yourself to branch outand think about visualising data in new ways, and indoing so learn some vital new skills for betterunderstanding of today’s data. Have funexperimenting!

MAPSor data visualisation?


Liz Scott is Content Manager at the data servicesprovider emapsite. Liz manages the dataprogramme: identifying, researching and testingnew content for the UK and worldwide fromboth commercial partners and open datasources, investigating how it could be used tobenefit customers.



. . . using itsgeographic

information,opinion is that

OrdnanceSurvey hasworld class

data.

“

“

For many years Ordnance Survey’s work and theaccurate maps it produced, were viewed by much ofthe world as something of a British curiosity. Quaintand ever-so eccentric. Why would anyone gothrough urban areas noting down their every featureand measurement in such detail? More so, whywould anyone go to the most remote and barrenstretches of landscape to do the same? And just whobought these maps, these colourful, but odd, yetstrangely alluring and fascinating hand-drawn bird’s-eye views of reality? Why did British people need to

know there was nothing in the middle of nowhere? The answers to these questions gradually

revealed themselves as the teaching of local andworld geography became more common inclassrooms around the world. Out of this educationsuddenly grew, for the first time in human history, acollective desire on a world level to betterunderstand our planet, our environment and theresources contained within it, and so the globalopinion of OS, in recognition of the innovative waysit recorded and helped popularise geography,changed.

These days, with its role as Britain’s mappingagency and a list that includes government, localgovernment, education, emergency services, utilities,small and big business and financial institutionsamongst those accessing and using its geographicinformation, opinion is that Ordnance Survey hasworld class data.

With the emergence of Smart thinking, SmartCities and Smart nations, the value in Britain ofhaving a single trusted source for locationintelligence and data on which to plan, build andmaintain has increased further.

Global standard With continued innovation andthe ability to record and present geographicinformation, making over 10,000 changes each dayto its database, much of the world now viewsOrdnance Survey as the standard to emulate. This iswhy in 2012, after numerous years of being

approached by governments and countries from allover the world wanting to work with and learn fromOrdnance Survey, Ordnance Survey International(OSI) was launched.

Carsten Röensdorf, OSI’s head of advisoryservices, explains: “Britain is very special, becausethere is one single agency responsible for all its basemapping, and the ease of availability of thisconsistent true data to all those who use it has beena catalyst for greater efficiency and improvedservices. We were approached by governments inAfrica, South America and Asia experiencing rapiddevelopment; all wanting to keep costs down byimproving their planning and efficiency. OS is seen asa role model for providing national coverage andgeographic data, which is critical for effectivegovernment decision making, economic growth andsustainability. It therefore made sense for OS tocreate an international consultancy body to meetthese needs and to advocate the value of high

quality geographic information to governments andeconomies around the globe.”

Carsten was born with a passion for geographyin Germany, where he studied geodesy and surveyingat Bonn University. Twelve years ago he joinedOrdnance Survey after working for a GIS softwareconsulting house, and in 2012 he started his rolewith OSI. He began by relocating to the Middle Eastto help establish OSI’s first office outside of Britain,and to project manage one of its first projects, thedelivery of a National Spatial Data Model for theKingdom of Bahrain.

Bringing the parties together Working closelyover a nine-month period with the kingdom’s Surveyand Land Registration Bureau (SLRB) and a number oftheir government stakeholders, Carsten and a team of15 specialists created a model that would allow allparties to bring data together and use it moreeffectively and in a variety of new ways. The entiremodel is 3D enabled and allows for the integration ofexisting 2D datasets, and is modelled on the OpenGeospatial Consortium’s (OGC) CityGML standard.

Similar to Ordnance Survey, Bahrain’s SLRBprovides its government with base mapping; and their

Smart cities need a single source of geo dataOrdnance Survey’s head of smart cities, Miranda Sharp, explains why a single source of

accurate location intelligence and data is crucial for Smart, and how Ordnance SurveyInternational is helping governments around the world develop their own smart cities.

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smart cities and geospatial data


Miranda Sharp: Smart thinking,Smart Cities and Smart nations.

Carsten Röensdorf: ‘Britain isvery special’

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ability to survey and capture data isgood. It was, however, what they didwith the data where help wasneeded. The first question asked ofCarsten and his team was how couldthey modernise and improve the waydata was managed, and then toharmonise this with what otheragencies were doing in the country.What followed was an intensiveanalysis of what the SLRB and theother agencies were doing, the datathey produced and how theyproduced it, and what all partieswanted to achieve through poolingtheir data.

One of the major problems theOSI team discovered with this analysiswas that some of Bahrain’s agencieswere replicating work, which wascausing errors and inconsistencies in the data, acommon problem all over the world. The issue wassolved through consolidation of the data and byflagging up the duplications and helping the agenciesdevelop new ways to work smarter with each other.New technologies were introduced to better processand serve up the mix of data the agencies producedfor a trial area, instantly giving all parties a wider andmore coherent view of that part of their country.

Standards = share & use The Ordnance SurveyInternational team called upon the freely availableinternational standards from ISO and OGC, whosestandards are recognised as a foundation to carry outthe work, and which, according to Carsten, played animportant role in the successful delivery of this project.“Standards are really important if you want to integrateinformation and make it accessible and easy for allparties to share and use. In the case of Bahrain, one ofthe first benefits that resulted in implementing universalstandards was for the agencies to get together anduncover how they were able to better use theirresources by eliminating the duplication of work. UnlikeBritain, which is almost fully developed, Bahrain, like somany other countries around the world, is experiencingphenomenally fast development, which is why it isessential it has a National Spatial Data Model tomonitor and plan this transformation effectively.”

OSI is currently utilising its in-depth expertise inthe geospatial data lifecycle to help otherorganisations in South America, Africa, the MiddleEast and Asia to develop strategies, policies andchange programmes to optimise the production andutilisation of geospatial data. This work is aimed atincreasing the value of geospatial data andtechnologies to all aspects of government as well asstimulating economic growth by more widespreaduse of geospatial information by citizens and theprivate sector.

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Decision makers across private a public services needaccess to critical location information argues AndyWilson (left), director strategic business developmentfor Ordnance Survey International.

Many urban public services today are not delivered in the most efficient way, andmuch of this can be due to a lack of credible information and evidence beingavailable about a specific geographic location. This can lead to poor practices suchas inefficient routing of buses or waste management vehicles, wasteful energydeployment/consumption and emergency services not always reaching the rightlocation immediately. This in turn wastes large amounts of public budget, andalso contributes to environmental impacts too.

To ensure that a range of urban public/private services, such as publictransportation, waste management and energy supply achieve optimum delivery,it is essential that decision makers have access to all the different informationheld by all the different public service providers pertaining to a specific location,address or road to ensure that the best and most efficient policy decisions aremade. This also leads to a citizen’s experience of receiving such services beinggreatly enhanced too.

OSI can show how this challenge is solved by introducing a common, andconsistent way of sharing key information across city stakeholders via consistent2D/3D geographic databases, and presenting critical information for policydecisions in one place visually on a web-based map viewing system, whether thatbe for policy planning or public service response and deployment.

In summary, this approach can deliver the following benefits:

• saves large amounts of public budget per year• reduces carbon emissions• ensures the best possible decisions are made• ensures public/private sector organisations can share information effectively• implement efficient public services• provide better and engaging citizen services• ensure citizens are content and confident in public services they receive

This supports government initiatives to improve transparency, accountability,innovation and the accessibility of data across the public sector. By followingthis model the foundations fundamental to Smart or Future City aspirations areachieved.

smart cities and geospatial data


Above: Bahrain’s 3D data model is helping the kingdom’s rapid development.

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Payment via www.pvpubs.com/Books or by credit card or cheque to:PV Publications Ltd, 2B North Road, Stevenage, Herts SG1 4AT UK

tel: 01438 352617 email: [email protected]

Mapping the World is Alastair Macdonald'sinsider's account of the Directorate of OverseasSurveys (DOS) in supporting the development andtransition from colonies to Commonwealth. Hetells the story through contemporary documentssuch as field diaries and reports. With abundanthuman interest in the many anecdotes of a wayof life now gone, this is as much for the generalreader as for the surveying fraternity.Over 200 pages, illustrated £9.95 + £3.20 p&p UK

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OS TALES, subtitled ‘One man's part in there-triangulation of Great Britain' is an anthologyof gently humorous stories by Barrie Corlson fromthe “Golden Age” of Ordnance Survey in the late1940s and early 1950s.

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Evidence in Camera is a reprint of an historicaccount of the rapid development of aerial surveyduring World War 2. Lavishely illustrated, thisrecord was first published in 1945. 48 pages fullyillustrated.

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50 Years of RICS Land & Hydrographic isersonal recollections of military and colonial surveyafter WWII. This remarkable record brings togetherthe vivid recollections by leading surveyors whoserved in colonial and military survey in the yearsafter World War II. With contributions by 30individuals and numerous illustrations (many incolour), this is a wonderful record of how surveywas conducted before the arrival of GPS and thedigital age.Over 90 pages £9.95 + £2.95 p&p UK

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New dataset positions andclassifies all properties A detailed database of allproperties in Great Britain hasbeen launched by allmapdatafrom Mapmechanics,providing precise premise-level information.AddressMAX is designed tointroduce greater accuracyand efficiency for logisticsplanning, vehicle schedulingand home deliverymanagement, as well asanalytical work such as

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More than half of allproperties in Britain have noformal classification.AddressMAX corrects this,indicating residential orcommercial use anddifferentiates between typesof residential property(terraced house, detachedhouse or flat, for instance)and also defines densities inblocks of flats, e.g. high,medium and low-rise. Full

address and postcode isprovided, along with premise-level geographical coordinatesand UDPRN as defined byRoyal Mail.

Other informationincludes data on multipleoccupancy, Census area ofthe property, localgovernment area (ward,parish, district council) andhome nation (England,Scotland or Wales). ALogistics version showswhether a property falls withthe London CongestionCharging zone or theLondon Lorry Control zoneand in West Midlands and

London whether it l ies on aRed Route.

Go open sourceCadline is running a series oftraining courses with a focuson geospatial services, andopen source solutions.Subjects include introductorycourses for open source QGISand GeoServer and OpenSource GIS Integration. Allcourses are certified andaccredited by AGI and are runby an experienced opensource GIS trainer. They alsoinclude software andcomprehensive trainingmaterials, hands-on training


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New software speeds workflow

Aerial mapper Bluesky has reduced processing time for its aerialimagery by more than 75 percent, following a major researchproject. Utilising a Vexcel UltraMap system an uninterruptedprocessing workflow has been created which has also improved thequality of images, reducing “building lean” and image distortion,and the accuracy of digital height models.

Bluesky’s investment in software follows the recent purchaseof two UltraCam Eagle cameras and the introduction of newflying practices. In addition, a number of high profile contractshave been secured recently, including a multi-million pound oneawarded by DEFRA for the supply of geographic data to UKcentral government organisations and a four-year contract toOrdnance Survey.

Microsoft’s UltraMap is a state-of-the-art, end-to-endphotogrammetric workflow system that provides highly automatedprocessing capabilities, allowing rapid generation of data productsfrom UltraCam cameras. “In order to process the many terabytes ofdata produced in a flying season – for example, we are looking atover a trillion DSM points alone – the UltraMap system is just onecomponent of a complex system,” explains Bluesky technicaldirectorJames Eddy.


products & services

Interactive map browses UK postcode districts

XYZ Mapping offers a free interactive map that lets you browsethe complete UK Postcode District map to see how manyaddresses there are in each district. These are further brokendown into the number of residential, large user and businessaddresses. A zoom in/out function allows you to go from fullUK, right down to individual postcode districts.

The immediate benefit is that you can now plan a mailcampaign, franchise, etc confidently knowing how manyaddresses are included. The map uses the latest HTML5 standardcreated using Avenza MAPublisher software and the XYZPostcode Boundaries.


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There is more news of products and services on our website at www.pvpubs.com To get your company featured on this page call Sharon Robson on +44 (0)1438 352617

exercises and 30 days posttraining support. Contact theDynamic Maps sales team on01784 419922 or [email protected] forfurther information.

Pinpoint move to ArcGISGNSS receiver developerSeptentrio has announcedPinPoint-GIS software forArcGIS. Developed to enablestraightforward GIS datacollection without the need foradditional software linking thereceiver with the Esri ArcGISplatform, PinPoint-GIS turnsGNSS data collected bySeptentrio’s Altus range ofreceivers into actionable GISdata.

Height and other projectparameters are availabledirectly in the ArcGISworkflow without anyadditional steps by users,making GIS easily accessiblethrough tablets or evensmartphones, regardless ofthe operating system. A webversion makes ArcGISavailable from a standard webbrowser or from an Androidapp, downloadable fromGoogle Play.

Manchester wins £10mprize to get smartOrdnance Survey is part of apublic/private consortium tohave won a £10m competitionfor Manchester to be the UK’sInternet of Things (IoT)Demonstrator, awarded by theDepartment for Culture, Mediaand Sport.

The city will trial thecapability of the IoTas part ofthe ‘CityVerve’ devolutionproposition to deliver solutionsto local needs and moreefficient delivery of servicessuch as transport, healthcareand energy. It is also intendedthat what is learnt inManchester can be applied inother areas of the UK and

around the globe.Miranda Sharp, Head of

Smart Cities Practice, says:“The Manchester project is anexciting development for OSand we are very much lookingforward to working with thepartnership that includesManchester City Council,global technology giant CiscoUK, the University ofManchester, BT andinnovative UK SMEs includingAsset Mapping. We areinvolved in Smart Cityprogrammes across GreatBritain and it is clear theneeds and aspirations oftowns and cities can vary, butthe one constant is the needfor accurate and interoperablemapping and location data toenable robust analysis.Without mapping, geographyand GIS it would beimpossible to create a SmartCity environment powered bythe Internet of Things.”

Esri’s EarthEsri has launched ArcGISEarth, a free, desktopinteractive globe that anyonecan use to explore the worldand work with a variety of 3Dand 2D map data formatsincluding KML. The moveallows users to quickly displaydata on the globe, sketchplace marks, measuredistances and areas, and addannotations to easilyunderstand spatialinformation. “ArcGIS Earth isa revolutionary desktopapplication that offers GIS tothe world,” says JackDangermond, Esri founder andpresident. “It supports spatialdata formats and workflowsthat are familiar to yourenterprise. It is a corecomponent of Esri’s. . .ArcGIS platform, and it’sanother tool for serving allyour internal and externalusers through GIS.”


products & services

British company Earth-I, distributor of imaging and data servicesfrom the DMC3 / TripleSat constellation, has new detailed sampleimagery available for customers interested in the constellation’sunique combination of very high spatial and temporal resolutionwith imaging opportunities every day, even at any point of theequator. The company is already supplying data to earlyadopters.

Three identical 1-metre resolution optical satellites make up theDMC3 / TripleSat constellation. The unique combination of highspatial and temporal resolution, along with industry-leadingtechnical specifications, serve data users and support a wide rangeof applications in market sectors including oil and gas, security anddefence, agriculture and construction.

Commenting on the rapid commissioning of the constellation ofthree satellites, Owen Hawkins, operations director at Earth-i, said:“We are delighted with the speed and success of the satellitecommissioning carried out by our associates SSTL and 21AT. Thedefinition, quality and integrity of the data has exceeded ourexpectations.”

Earth-I has also announced the first orbital image of Major TimPeake’s launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan onTuesday 15th December. The image was taken shortly before thelaunch of the Soyuz TMA-19M rocket and was acquired from one ofthe three new very high-resolution British imaging satellites built inGuildford by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and launched into orbit,651 kms above the Earth on 10th July 2015.

Employed by the European Space Agency with financial supportfrom the UK government, Major Peake is the first Briton to join thecrew of the International Space Station. He will spend six monthson the station as part of the ‘Principia’ mission, taking part inexperiments including research for the future of manned spacetravel.


Major Tim’s launch and DMCconstellation

calendarIssue No 68 February 2016

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| seminars | conferences | exhibitions | courses | events | workshops | symposiums |We welcome advance details of conferences, seminars, exhibitions and other events which are likely to be of interest to the GIS community. Please mention the name of the event, venue, date and point of contact for further information and send to Jason PooleGISPro, 2B North Road, Stevenage, Herts SG1 4AT or e-mail: [email protected].

International LiDAR Mapping Forum 201622-24th February 2016, Hyatt Regency, Denver, USAwww.lidarmap.org/international

Internet of Things15th March 2016, Central London, UKwww.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk

SPAR International 3D for Asset & Facilities Management Conference11-14th April 2016, Texas, USAwww.sparpointgroup.com/International

International GIS-Forum 201613-15th April 2016, IMPERIAL Park Hotel, Russiawww.gisforum.ru/en

International Conference on Geographical Information Systems 201626-27th April 2016, Barceló Aran Mantegna, Italywww.gistam.org

GeoPlace Awards - Everything happens somewhere28th April 2016, Westminster, Londonwww.GeoPlace.co.uk

FIG Working Week 20162-6th May 2016, Christchurch, New Zealandwww.fig.net/fig2016/

Esri UK Annual Conference17th May 2016, QEII Conference Centre, London, UKwww.esriuk.com/events/annual-conference-2016

INSPIRE - Geospatial World Forum 201623-26th May 2016, Rotterdam, The Netherlandswww.geospatialworldforum.org/

GEO Business 201624-25th May 2016, Business Design Centre, London, UKwww.geobusinessshow.com

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As always a very well organised event.

It is impressive to see that year in and year out GeoPlace attracts such a large audience

Local Government Association

Great event, very well organised!

Great location and strong delegate attendance

Comment from an exhibitor

It just seems to get better and better year on year

Mid Devon District Council

Exhibit at the UK’s biggest GI event aimed at local authorities

London28th April 2016

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See www.GeoPlace.co.uk for more information