INTERGEO 2011: The World’s Largest Geospatial Conference

INTERGEO, held in Germany every year, is the best all-around geospatial conference that allows vendors to showcase their technologies. With ~17,500 attendees, it’s certainly the largest geospatial conference in the world. From my experience, it’s also the best.

Simply, INTERGEO attracts vendors who offer a collection of technologies from GPS/GNSS to remote sensing, 3D scanners, and mapping software that would satisfy the curiosity and needs of any geospatial professional. As I wrote last year, don’t expect to be tied up in sessions, this is a trade show where people come to visit the vendor booths, and the foot traffic is non-stop.The display booths are fantastic. Check out Topcon’s booth below. The seating looks like the airliner I flew in to Germany on.

Topcon introducing Magnet, their Cloud-Based Precise Positioning Solution

Lidar data processing and management software, such as Terrasolid’s solution, was common at INTERGEO. As the cost of high-precision data becomes much cheaper to collect, the bottle-neck becomes data processing and management.

Lidar data management

3D mobile mapping was a hot topic. This 3D Laser Mapping vehicle was used to help assess damage in Japan after the March 11, 2011 earthquake.

3D scanning autos were abound on the trade show floor

The world’s leading GNSS receiver manufacturers attend in full force. You’ll see every major vendor.

Javad GNSS displaying their receivers as well as their new iPad app

As expected and reported over the past few years, the market for machine control products is developing and expanding. There were a number of interesting displays, including this one from Moba AG.

Demonstration of Moba’s excavator machine control system

UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) also continue to be a hot topic. The benefits of UAV for remote sensing geospatial activities are clear. What’s not clear is the commercial adoption of UAVs for mapping. Europe and other countries have been much more progressive than the U.S., which still severely limits the use of UAVs for non-government and non-university activities.

UAV Mapping Vehicle Supplier Gatewing

Of course, BIM (Building Information Modeling) is another significant trend and there were no lack of vendors at INTERGEO on that topic. The GIS world has just started to get a handle on mapping outdoors while indoor mapping is vastly untouched. OrthoGraph displays their indoor mapping app for the iPad.

OrthoGraph Architect for iPad

I heard some good things about OpenStreetMap. I’ve written about OSM before. Take a look at their website when you have a chance. Also exhibiting was OpenSeaMap.

Open Street Map stand

At the Nuremberg Messe, there was plenty of space to accommodate the ~17,500 attendees as well as an outdoor demonstration area.

INTERGEO 2011 outdoor demonstration area

On the second day of the INTERGEO conference, the Forum for Satellite Navigation (SatNav-Forum) held its one-day meeting. This was the first time it was co-located with INTERGEO. You can view the agenda here, though it’s in German so you’ll need to use an online translator. Note that yours truly gave a short presentation in the afternoon. Some Galileo literature I read tried to make the point that Galileo is superior to GPS and GLONASS. I tried to make the point that GPS and Galileo (Europe’s GPS) are complimentary systems, not competitive systems. By using both GPS and Galileo, high-precision horizontal and vertical data will be very easy and inexpensive to collect in the future. I hope I made my point.

SatNav-Forum display at INTERGEO

Back to the INTERGEO conference. If your company manufacturers something related to geospatial hardware or software, you’re making a big mistake if you are not attending INTERGEO. This is, by far, the single best conference in the world to attend in order to understand the latest trends and developments in GIS, surveying, engineering, and all other geospatial-related disciplines.