Esri International User Conference Kicks off in San Diego

The Esri International User Conference kicked off today in San Diego, CA. President Jack Dangermond's keynote talks are always enlightening and inspiring. Take a look at Part 1 and Part 2 of his Plenary talks.

Jack Dangermond Esri UC Plenary presentation Part 1 - Understanding Our World (1:33:29)

Jack Dangermond Esri UC Plenary presentation Part II - What's Next In ArcGIS (1:4:16)

~15,000 attendees and Esri reports 5,000 are first-timers. Pretty impressive.

Stay tuned. Lots of interesting and disturbing discussion on LightSquared. I'll post my presentation as well as a video of the discussion panel I participated in. 

GEOINT 2010 - Day One in New Orleans

From GEOINT 2010 in New Olreans:

Initial reports point to higher attendance this year than last.

New Orleans is better than before, cleaner, friendlier with more to see.

Much discussion about Human Terrain Geography and Temporal Geography. Fusion, interoperability constant topics. Cloud computing.

General Clapper keynote hinted a coming budget cuts perhaps in the 20% range. I'm sending a cell phone photo of the opening session with General Clapper.  Not very good quality, I'll take and send more tomorrow.

GEOINTO 2010 Keynote Speaker Hon. James R. Clapper, Jr., the fourth Director of National Intelligence (DNI)

More to come.

Art Kalinski

Tradeshow's the Appeal at INTERGEO 2010 Conference in Cologne

This week, I’ve been attending the INTERGEO 2010 conference in Cologne, Germany. It’s a gathering of ~16,500 people interested in geodesy, geoinformation, and land management. It’s the largest event of its kind in the world.

Although there’s a lot of GIS activity, it’s just as much a surveying/geodesy trade show. I borrowed a little of the following from my Geospatial Weekly newsletter because I think it’s relevant in this newsletter, too. Let me just say that if you’re a land surveyor/engineer/construction contractor/GIS’r, you won’t find a trade show anywhere in the world like this one. To me, two things differentiate it from all other conferences I’ve attended that are related to surveying, engineering, construction, or GIS.

• The sheer size. 16,500 people buzzing around attracting 504 exhibitors. You can find a solution to any sort of challenge you have regarding surveying, geodesy, construction or GIS. The major GNSS manufacturers (such as Trimble/Spectra, Topcon/Sokkia, Leica, Javad) have enormous exhibit booths that rival the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held every year in Las Vegas. You don’t see these companies spending this much money to exhibit at conferences in North America.

• Unlike many of the conferences I attend, the focus at INTERGEO is on the trade show exhibit area. The technical sessions are few and most are in German, so that leaves the vast majority of the attendees to flock to the exhibit area. We’re currently in Day Two of the three-day conference, and the exhibit area attendance seems just as strong as the first day, which is not typical. On top of focusing on the trade show area, INTERGEO makes it inexpensive to attend. A one-day pass to the exhibit area is only EUR 20 (~US$26) and a three-day pass to the same is EUR 48.50 (~US$63). It’s even cheaper if you buy it online in advance.

The few technical sessions held were presented by University Professors and various Ph.D.s, so although I submitted an abstract to present a paper, I knew there was no chance I’d be presenting in the formal technical sessions. The closest I am to a Ph.D. is my father’s, which he earned 40+ years ago. Anyway, INTERGEO has a stage in the exhibit area called the Trend and Media Forum. It’s sort of an infomercial stage for companies to show their products and services. They scheduled me to present on that stage, which I did earlier today (Wednesday). The title of my presentation was “GNSS is Changing a Lot — the Future of GNSS Mapping and Surveying.” The audience was sparse, but the good thing is that INTERGEO records the presentations and later posts them on their www.intergeo-tv.de site. My presentation is not on the TV site yet, but should be by Thursday. Please don’t laugh when I nearly fall down after stepping off the stage while I’m talking :-). Click on the following image to view my presentation.

Following are some pictures I took of the conference exhibit area, with captions:

Altus Positioning                                     Ashtech                                    Javad GNSS

Carlson Software                    CHC Navigation (China)                                   FOIF (China)

GeoMax GNSS (Leica)                           Leica Geosystems                                   Geneq   

NavCom (John Deere)                  Pacific Crest (Trimble)                                  Sokkia (Topcon)

Spectra Precision (Trimble)                                    Topcon                                         Trimble

I'll post some more photos on our live coverage website tomorrow.

There were many new product announcements in the past day. I saw one that caught my particular interest. I've written before that for years I relied on stand-alone satellite mission planning software. The problem that most folks have is maintaining the software as they change computers or update operating systems. There's also the pain of having to update the almanac every month or so.

I've become a fan of online satellite mission planning. I've mentioned the NavCom Technology website a few times in this column. However, it has a few shortfalls, namely no control over the elevation mask used and no support for GLONASS or SBAS.

I'm happy to report that today at INTERGEO, Ashtech released an online satellite mission planning tool, and it seems to fit the bill. Among other things, it allows you to adjust the elevation mask, and choose to include GLONASS and SBAS satellites. Of course, since it's an online tool, you don't have to worry about updating the almanac.

Following are a couple of screenshots from the program.

Select GPS and/or GLONASS and/or SBAS satellite

Give it a try for yourself by clicking here. There's a really cool plot that's generated as a 3D visualization in Google Earth, showing each satellite (green = GPS, red= GLONASS and blue = SBAS).

Follow the rest of my show blogs at INTERGEO at http://www.gpsworld.com/gis/live-event

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/GPSGIS_Eric

INTERGEO Conference: Initial Thoughts

As a first-time attendee at the INTERGEO conference, one of the largest geospatial conferences in the world, all I can say is “wow.” It's a much different type of conference than the similarly-sized Esri International User Conference.

I've been eager to attend INTERGEO for a few years as I've heard of its dynamic, but it has conflicted with the ION-GNSS conference held around the same time. I'm glad I was able to attend both this year. Today (Tuesday) was my first day at the INTERGEO conference, and it was sweet. Held in Cologne, Germany this year, it hosts ~15,000 people who are focused on geospatial technology.

INTERGEO is the only geospatial conference that rivals the vendor-specific Esri International User Conference held in San Diego every summer. In comparing the two conferences, their cultures are vastly different. As a fairly long-time attendee of the Esri conference, it’s natural that I would have the same sort of preconceived notions about INTERGEO. Naturally, my assumptions were incorrect. At the Esri UC, it’s all about technology (Esri-based) and networking. At INTERGEO, it’s all about business and networking. Today, the trade show floor, consisting of several hundred booths, was crowded with people eager to learn no matter what technical session was occurring at the time. This is quite different from the Esri experience where there are hundreds, if not more than a thousand, technical sessions to choose from and generally well attended. At INTERGEO, there are a limited number of technical sessions typically presented by a university professor (or similar Ph.D. level) or otherwise highly educated scientists.

I didn’t view this as negative, but I’ll certainly spend less time in technical sessions than I would at the Esri UC or the ION-GNSS conference I attended a couple of weeks ago. In addition to the limited number of technical presentations, they are presented in German, and although I’ve got a German last name, I do not speak the language. A few weeks ago, I inquired about a device I could use to interpret (a la United Nations meetings), but to no avail.

In addition to the two core technical tracks, INTERGEO does offer other technical tracks; the EnviroInfo 2010 and Geodetic Week tracks, also  a presented by professors and Ph.D.-educated scientists.

Quite a few months ago, I offered to present a technical paper at INTERGEO. Well, not really a technical paper per se, but a paper about status and trends in GNSS as I see it. Of course, the closest thing I’ll ever have to a Ph.D. is my father's, who earned his more than 40 years ago, so although they accepted my offer, I didn’t fit in with all the Ph.D.s and scientists in the technical program, so they have me presenting at the Trend and Media Forum. This is a stage on the main exhibition floor, almost like an infomercial stage, and my presentation is in the midst of commercial presentations. My presentation is tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11 a.m. For the topic, I decided on “GNSS is Changing a Lot — the Future of GNSS Mapping and Surveying.” The seating is pretty limited, as you can see in the photo below, but I believe the conference tapes and broadcasts the presentations on INTERGEO TV (www.intergeo-tv.de). After I polish my presentation up, I’ll post it later this week in my INTERGEO blog.

My Presentation                                                                                        The Trend and Media Forum Stage
 

More Conference Observations

The trade show booths are much more dynamic and visually appealing (glamor, if I may use that word) than at any other geospatial conference I’ve attended. In fact, it smacks a little of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and CTIA Wireless trade shows in Las Vegas…cool little gimmicks in the booth, huge video screens, and some very high-tech 3D visualization displays, complete with 3D goggles.

Geovision 9.0 - 3D Goggles

Some manufacturers who have low-profile exhibits at the Esri User Conference have absolutely massive display exhibits at INTERGEO, with Leica Geosystems and Sokkia to name two. JAVAD GNSS also had a very large exhibit area.

There also a good number of companies that you don’t even see at the Esri UC that have a significant presence here. Specifically, Chinese manufacturers such as CHC Nav, and FOIC are exhibiting in an area of the trade-show floor seemingly dedicated to the Chinese contingent.

CHC Navigation                                            FOIF                                 South Surveying Instruments

The exhibition area isn’t limited to indoor space. There is a fairly significant outdoor demonstration area that looked like a bunch of aliens with 10-15 people walking around with GNSS RTK rovers mounted on rangepoles.

RTK Rovers Galore in the Outside Demo area

Also in the outdoor arena, the impressive Topcon road show semi-truck trailer illustrated the value of GNSS for machine control, among other things.

   Topcon Road Show Trailer                                                      Inside the Topcon Road Show Trailer

Since INTERGEO is vendor-independent, most of the major manufacturers of geospatial software have a presence, such as Esri, Autodesk, Intergraph, MapInfo (Pitney Bowes Business Insight), Bentley Systems, Smallworld (General Electric), and Carlson.

Yes, this is arguably the most significant geospatial event, with the only competition being the Esri UC, so of course, Esri President Jack Dangermond is making an appearance. He’s presenting at tomorrow’s (Wednesday) plenary along with Prof. Dr.-Ing Hansjorg Kutterer and Dr.-Ing. Hartmut Streuff of the Federal Ministry of the Environment (Germany). Of course, I should be attending that one as I’m fairly certain that Mr. Dangermond will be presenting in English.  :-)

Some other photos I shot today:

     
Nice to see a variety of GIS software manufacturers

Even the EGNOS folks had a booth. The rumor mill says that European surveying and mapping users don't believe that EGNOS can be used reliably for sub-meter mapping. I think I'll stop by their booth tomorrow and tell them about the success that North America has enjoyed from WAAS. Yes, my European brethren, EGNOS can be used reliably for sub-meter mapping.

Follow the rest of my show blogs at INTERGEO at http://www.gpsworld.com/gis/live-event

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/GPSGIS_Eric

Video Blogs: Three GPS Products Introduced at ESRI UC

Three new GPS/GNSS products introduced at the 2010 ESRI International User Conference. Following is a short description and short video taken of each.

Known for their creative and dynamic product development, JAVAD GNSS unveiled its Triumph V.S., a GNSS receiver for surveying and GIS data collection.

• GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, SBAS support.
• Internal UHF, GSM, WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth transceivers (all antennae built-in)
• 3 megapixel camera.
• 4.3" wide touchscreen display.
• Built-in inclinometer for automatical leveling adjustment.
• Staking, data collection, data management, system management software features.

Ashtech showed off its new MobileMapper 100 handheld unit that supports GPS, GLONASS, and SBAS. Ashtech needed to bring out something to follow the MobileMapper CX and this fits the bill. The company says it's a GPS L1-only system, but it didn't take me long to find a menu for GPS L1 and GPS L2. Look for that announcement down the road. Joe Sass said they are going to have the handheld's internal antenna calibrated by the NGS so you won't need an external antenna for cm-level work.

SBAS mapping receiver pioneer Geneq introduced its SXBlue II-B GPS receiver that sports an internal DGPS 300 khz beacon receiver and the world's smallest combined GPS/beacon antenna. The U.S. NDGPS infrastructure is still kicking.

2010 ESRI Survey and Engineering GIS Summit Happenings

I attended the 2010 ESRI Surveying and Engineering GIS Summit (SEGS) last weekend in San Diego. Actually, I'm still in San Diego because the ESRI International User Conference follows as it does every year.

Brent Jones, ESRI Global Marketing Manager for Survey/Cadastre/Engineering, kicked off the event. In attendance were about 250 land surveyors, engineers and GIS professionals. Next year, as announced on Sunday, ACSM announced it will combine its annual conference with the SEGS to be held the first week on July. ACSM and ESRI signed a three-year agreement to combined the two conferences. As I've written before, conference consolidation is a great idea. The drawback is that ESRI competitors such as Autodesk, Intergraph, and others aren't welcome. The combined ACSM/ESRI SEGS conference is expected to attract 1,200 attendees.

According to Brent, this years attendance breaks out as follow:

• 49% are from land surveying
• 30% are from GIS
• 12% are from engineering
• 9% are others
• More than 20 countries are represented.
• There are 20 geodesists in attendance.

Brent presented some other thought-provoking numbers.

• 40%-60% of engineering time is spent locating and validating information.
• 90% of each DOT's (Department of Transportation) activities is geospatial-related.
• 30% of a person's time is spent looking for relevant information.
• Effective data management can save O&M costs up to 14%.

Brent's numbers agree with what I've been writing about for quite awhile. There great opportunities in data management and data analysis.

A welcoming video from Jack Dangermond, Founder and President of ESRI, was played. In it, he apologized to Ronnie Taylor, NGS, about his comments a decade+ ago about how accuracy wasn't important for GIS. It was sort of tongue-in-cheek, but nevertheless, it says something that he would address the 250-person attended conference when he's got a 13,000+ User Conference to attend to.

Jack Dangermond, ESRI President

Keynote speaker Nancy von Meyer discussed crowd-sourced or third-party sourced data relative to a national land parcel database, but it applies in general as crowd-sourced and third-party-sourced data proliferates. Among other issues, introduced (at least to me) a term called "shadow data." Nancy's definition of shadow data, and I hope I get this right, is data that is published from a trusted source that was derived from a non-authoritative source. In other words, Joe Surveyor finds parcel data from the Internet, incorporates it into his plat, and publishes it with no notation about its original source. It's assumed to be original/authentic data.

With regards to the surveying profession, Nancy admits "we are in a minority position."

Recognize it, own it, solve it is her mantra.

Keynote Dr. Nancy von Meyer, PE, RLS, GISP

Lawrie Jordan, founder of ERDAS of which he sold to Leica and now Director of Imagery at ESRI, spoke about this being the most exciting time of his 40 year career in imagery.

He stated that in less than five years, every square inch of the Earth will be imaged (by satellites) constantly. He said we are already half-way there.

Jordan stated that the problem with imagery has shifted from availability to accessibility and management.

On the horizon, he said, is the transformation from using imagery as a backdrop to extracting information from it.

Stuart Rich, Chief Technology Officer of Penobscot Bay Media, LLC, presented on understanding, documenting, and building systems to support spatial data infrastructure’s security requirements as well as initiatives to move GIS inside the building footprint. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by his presentation.

He is involved in using terrestrial LiDAR inside buildings to collect massive amounts of data. So much, in fact, that "the value of measurement is trending very close to zero" using very high-volume data collection at 250,000 points/second.

Stuart's Factoid: Only 16% of cities are mapped with a big vacuum being building interior maps in urban areas.

He discussed the lack of attention on underground infrastructure mapping.

On Sunday, I made a keynote presentation during lunch with the title of Get It Surveyed (GIS). I presented three concepts (theses):

1. A GIS isn't driven by spatial accuracy.
2. GNSS technology in the next 10 years is going to advance significantly faster than the past 10 years.
3. The land surveyor’s role in the next 10 years is going to change significantly more than the past 10 years.

If you're interested in viewing my  powerpoint presentation, you can download it here.

In the Q&A after the presentation, I was asked what I thought about licensure for GIS professionals. I sort of fell on my face answering that one. I'm preparing a better answer with some input from other folks.

After lunch, there was a lightly-attended but good panel discussion called the Land Surveying and GIS Panel Discussion moderated by the California Land Surveyors Association. Jerry Miller, PLS, agreed my answer about licensure for GIS professional wasn't valid. He agreed that there shouldn't be a licensure requirement. I like his argument and will probably solicit his opinion when I write about it.

I had a short discussion with Bill Henning, NGS RTK Network specialist, about the continuing debate of whether single baseline (base/rover config) RTK vertical is better than vertical accuracy obtained by network RTK. I still haven't seen any empirical data on this. The Survey Association in the UK wrote me. Remember them? They published an extensive report on Network RTK I've referred to a few times. They told me they are updating the report. It will be interesting to see if they do a single base comparison to Network RTK.

The tradeshow booth area was light. A couple of notables:

Javad premiered their new Triumph V.S. GNSS surveying system. You can always count on Javad for innovation and creativity.

         Dr. Ashjaee Presenting the Triumph V.S. Product                                                                                     Triumph V.S.

Carlson showed off their  new Carlson Surveyor+ handheld GNSS unit.

The Surveyor+ has Novatel GNSS board built inside the module. Priced at about US$12,000.

Stay tuned for coverage on the ESRI User Conference.

APEC GIT Meeting Seattle - Day 1

June 21, 2010 - First Day of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation GNSS Implementation Team (APEC GIT) meeting in Seattle, WA USA.

Here are some bits of information from the conference so far. I will provide better updates to Compass (China), QZSS (Japan), Galileo (Europe) and GLONASS (Russia) later in the week.

GPS Modernization:

-Col. Robert Hessin, Deputy Director at the National Coordination Office for Space-Based PNT, presented the status of the GPS. Most of his presentation was information that I've heard and written about before. However, he gave an updated schedule that I'll use a baseline to measure from. He laid out the following schedule:

• There will be 24 satellites broadcasting L2C by 2016. This translates into seven IIR-M satellites in orbit today, all 12 GPS Block IIF satellites (first one launched last month), and five GPS Block III satellites, which are still in early development.
• There will be 24 satellites broadcasting L5 by 2018. This translates into 12 GPS Block IIF satellites and 12 GPS Block III satellites. Only one GPS Block IIF has been launched so far.

Russia:

-The Russian delegate confirmed that they are promoting GLONASS/GPS for maritime use in Russia.

-The Russian delegate clearly stated that "we want the civil market to develop" for GLONASS.

Adoption rate of RTK Networks:

-Gavin Schrock of the Washington State Reference Network (WSRN) reports that besides the historically slow economy, new subscribers to the WSRN in the past year have exceeded the number of subscribers in any of the past eight years.

RF ID technology:

-I've referenced RF ID technology in recent articles. I think you'll hear about this technology more in the future, especially when combined with GPS. I heard about a new application of RF ID tags today at the conference.

I asked a technology advisor for a major air carrier about airport asset tracking using GPS. Specifically, my question was about tracking and managing the ground vehicles and assets on an airport property.

He said it's not cost effective to outfit each piece of ground equipment with GPS receivers. In fact, they are considering outfitting these assets with RF ID tags. He said that for $25, he can attach an RF ID tag on each piece of ground equipment and track that piece as it moves around an airport facility, on the tarmac or in a hangar.

Interesting...if you've read my columns this past six month, you'll know I've had my eye on this technology. This is one more case, in my mind, that tels me this is a significant technology for geospatial applications.

Next up, Tuesday's conference coverage. Stay tuned.

First Day at GITA/ACSM Conference in Phoenix

Sunday, April 25, 2010

6:50am - Catch 15 minute Metro light rail to convention center from Holiday Inn. Note to self: I'm digging this commute and not paying $200/night at the Hyatt.

8:00am - Noon - Pam Fromhertz (NGS Advisor to Colorado) and I conduct a GITA seminar entitled "How the Evolution of GPS is Transforming Surveying and Mapping".

Agenda:

1. GNSS Mapping/Surveying Technology Update
2. Datums/Coordinate Systems
3. CORS/OPUS Update
4. RTK Networks - Surveying and High Precision GIS
5. Machine Control Using GNSS
6. Sub-meter Mapping Using GPS
7. Low-cost GPS receivers for GIS Mapping

Pam discussing Datums/Coordinate Systems

1:30p - 5:30p - GIS/Surveying Geospatial Collaboration (presentation and discussion panel)

• Eugene Trobia (Arizona State Land Department)
• Bill Coleman (Coleman & Assoc. Land Surveying)
• Jack Avis (Baker-Aicklen & Assoc)

Jack and Bill discussed their exploits as land surveyors who have added GIS to their service offering. Gene shared his wealth of experience in GIS and talked about attending ESRI User Conference #3 27 years ago.

Following are some video clips of the panel discussion. These are well worth the few minutes of your time, especially if you are a land surveyor. Check back for more videos later today...

This video is Part 1 of a discussion about a National Parcel Database.

This video is Part 2 of a discussion about a National Parcel Database.

Following is a discussion from the panel when asked how a small land surveying firm can transition to offering GIS services.

I've got a couple of more video clips from this panel discussion to upload. Be sure to check back.

6:30p - 9:30p - Stimulating conversation and dinner with Earl Burkholder, PS, PE from New Mexico State University. He made my brain hurt at times, but that's his job. There's more to come on this conversation later.

Getting Ready for a Fun Week at GITA/ACSM Next Week

I'll be flying in to Phoenix on Saturday, April 24th. I'll be there until Wednesday evening.

With Pam Fromhertz of NGS, I'll be presenting a GITA Seminar Sunday 8am-Noon on "How the Evolution of GPS is Transforming Surveying and Mapping".

On Wednesday, I'll be presenting an ACSM Technical Session entitled "GNSS Technology Update" at 9:45a-10:45a on Wednesday, April 28th in Room N 121 B.

I've got several interesting events scheduled that I'll be blogging about throughout the conference, so stay tuned.

GIS Editor's Blog

Coming Soon!