Position 109 October-November 2020

October/November 2020 – No. 109

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

RTK FOR ALL New MiRTK internet enabled correction service

Official publication of

inside Brave new world AR system to bring events back to life

Sensing from space The race for spacederived data

Bolts from the blue The past and future of lightning detection

contents

October/November 2020 No.109

14

30

26

features

26 Tracking bolts from the blue

13 Green LiDAR

30 Standing out from the pack

Managing urban tree canopies with LiDAR helps encourage range of positive economic and environmental effects.

14 Q&A with Chris Sheldon The CEO of a novel addressing system going from strength to strength sits down with Position.

16 RTK for all MiRTK: A refreshing alternative to UHF radios for RTK corrections.

18 Towards a new capability Jon Fairall examines activity in the space sector with a view to understanding their impact on Australia’s national remote sensing capability.

22 Q&A with Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse The outgoing SSSI president reflects on his time with the institute on the eve of handing on the baton.

Jon Fairall traces developments old and new in the world of lightning mapping.

Dan Hadley on the process of ISO 9001 certification – and the small Adelaide survey outfit making inroads towards it.

33 Q&A with Andy Sexton We sit down with the creative director of a marketing firm that’s just developed an AR app that may breathe life into a Covid-plagued events industry.

regulars 4 Upfront, calendar 7 Editorial 8 News 36 New products 38 SSSI

www.spatialsource.com.au 3

upfront Upcoming Events 29 October: Unlock the Value of Data with 1Data Gateway https://1spatial.com/au/event/webinarunlock-the-value-of-data-with-1datagateway/ 31 October: SSSI FireWater Map-A-Thon https://sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/sssi-firewater-map-a-thon 4 November: TERN webinar – Standardising environmental information collection: harmonising Australia’s approaches https://uqz.zoom.us/webinar/register/ WN_wlTMy81JQseU3OEtZtjx4A 4 November: SSSI-SA Young Professionals Speed Networking Night: SURVEYING, Adelaide, SA https://sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/sa-yp-networking-2020-survey

Measuring the Meg

P

aleobiologists at Chicago’s DePaul university have recently discovered a new vital statistic for that most evocative of ancient marine predators, Otodus megalodon.

Yes, the giant shark.

Their findings show that we don’t need Hollywood’s chintzy embellishments to consider the supremacy of this ultimate apex predator. The researchers have managed to confirm that the Meg grew to a maximum size of 15 metres, or 50 feet.

Let that sink in.

Beyond the thrill of a providing a revised take on your own mortality, the research shows that the gargantuan Otodus megalodon was in fact an anomaly when compared to its relatives.

O. megalodon is a lamniform, a shark group with a rich fossil record. However, the biology of lamniforms is relatively poorly understood because sharks’ bodies are cartilaginous, meaning the record is largely composed of their teeth.

The study, recently published in Historical Biology, presents an equation that allows estimations about the body length of extinct forms from their teeth.

The results show that Otodus megalodon’s mammoth dimension is a true outlier, with all other non-planktivorous sharks having a general size limit of outgoing SSSI president metres, and only a few plankton-eating sharks, such as the whale shark and basking shark, coming close to the Meg’s size.

“This is compelling evidence for the

4 position October/November 2020

truly exceptional size of megalodon,” commented co-author of the paper Michael Griffiths, a professor of environmental science at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. Coauthor Martin Becker, also a professor of environmental science at William Paterson University, added, “this work represents a critical advancement in our understanding of the evolution of this ocean giant.”

The study found that the Cenozoic Era – which came after the age of dinosaurs, and includes the present – saw more lamniform lineages attaining larger sizes than the Mesozoic (age of dinosaurs) Era. The researchers propose that a possible cause for the frequent evolution of gigantism achieved by lamniform sharks is a unique cannibalistic egg-eating behaviour with live-bearing reproductive strategy, to nourish early-hatched embryos to large sizes inside their mother.

Previous theories for the gigantism of lamniforms has attributed this to warmbloodedness.

Lead author Kenshu Shimada said that understanding O. megalodon’s body size has important ramifications in the context of ecology and evolution.

“Lamniform sharks have represented major carnivores in oceans since the age of dinosaurs, so it is reasonable to assert that they must have played an important role in shaping the marine ecosystems we know today,” he said.

Let that wash over you as you hit the beach. n

6 November: SSSI/OGC Webinar Series: Standards and Interoperability: business value and impact stories https://sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/sssi-ogc-webinar-series-part-4 12 November: World of Drones & Robotics Congress 2020 https://www.worldofdrones.com.au/ 12 November: SSSI Tasmania Surveying & Spatial eConference https://sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/tssc-2020 18 November: 2020 Victoria Spatial Showcase & eSummit https://sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/vic-summit-2020 19 November: SSSI 2020 Annual General Meeting https://sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/agm-2020 20 November: Australian Cyber Week 2020 www.cyberweek2020.austcyber.com 25 November: TASSIC Forum 2020: Spatial Information and Data Analysis Supporting Regional Development https://sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/tassic-forum 30 November: SSSI NSW & WA Online Conference: Climate Change and Disaster Management https://sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/nsw-wa-online-conference

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The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information 0 – No. 107 June/July 202

October/November 2020 – No. 109

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Sensing from space The race for spacederived data

subscribe

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Position covers the acquisition, manipulation, application and presentation of geo-data in a wide range of industries including agriculture, disaster management, environmental management, local government, utilities, and land-use planning.

It covers the increasing use of geospatial technologies and analysis in decision-making for businesses and government.

Technologies addressed include satellite and aerial remote sensing, land and hydrographic surveying, satellite positioning systems, photogrammetry, mobile mapping and GIS. Position contains news, views and applications stories, as well as coverage of the latest technologies that interest professionals working with spatial information.

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Bolts from the blue The past and future of lightning detection

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from the editor The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

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Change is the only constant

A

s 2020 careens towards a chaotic finale, it’s worth taking the time to remember to breathe.

While Covid-19 infections in Australia are trending downwards, vulnerability to a super spreader event remains unchanged. The virus rages on around the world, having infected Donald Trump and his inner circle, while a historic federal budget counts on a vaccine being developed and disseminated across Australia within a year.

Throughout it all, the locomotive of ingenuity and innovation within the regional spatial sector hauls on: setting agendas, exploring new frontiers and expanding its foundational role in underpinning so many crucial sectors of the economy.

So for issue 109 of Position, we present an omnibus that reflects these characteristics – the propensity to innovate and adapt, while looking back to celebrate the rigour and traditions that have brought us to where we are.

On page 26, Jon Fairall takes us through the past and future of the fascinating, complex and increasingly important field of lightning detection and mapping. Mr. Fairall also casts a critical, contextual eye over the government space spend, with a view to analysing the real impact on Earth observation capacity (page 20).

We sit down for an exclusive interview with Chris Sheldrick, CEO of what3words, to get under the bonnet of the disruptive, highly precise addressing system that made Australian headlines this year (page 14).

Dan Hadley of JLB walks us through the process and benefits of ISO 9001 certification, in the context of a small surveying outfit aiming high (page 30). Andy Sexton, creative director of UK-based boutique design and marketing consultancy 2LK explains to us how their new augmented reality-based wayfinding system may redefine live events in the Covid-19 era (page 33), and outgoing SSSI president and industry stalwart Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse joins us to reflect on the industry and its critical institutions (page 22).

Stay safe, stay curious and enjoy Position 109.

The Intermedia Group takes its Corporate and Social Responsibilities seriously and is committed to reducing its impact on the environment. We continuously strive to improve our environmental performance and to initiate additional CSR based projects and activities.

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December/January 2021 – ISSUE 110 Spatial data in the field – current tech to build multi-disciplinary teams

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Computer vision and machine learning – the myriad new applications for spatial work 3D capture, processing and modelling – multi-modal data acquisition and processing Augmented reality – bringing the digital twin to life Advertising booking date: 24/11/2020 Advertising material date: 27/11/2020 Publication date: 10/12/2020

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news Spatial data gap hindering smarter, greener cities: report A new study by the University of South Australia has found that evidence-based urban development needs key planning data gaps to be addressed.

Professor Stefanie Dühr, lead researcher on the study, says

that contemporary urban planning policies need compatible, current and compatible spatial datasets to allow outcomes to be measured.

“There is currently a gap between the data being collected and the data end users need, particularly for urban planners, and there are important gaps in the data available on certain topics,” she said.

“So, for example, where traffic flows are measured, datasets are strongly focused on motorised road traffic use only. If we don’t know who uses public spaces such as walkways and cycle paths, and when and how they use them, we cannot plan adequately for current or future use.”

Professor Dühr has called on governments to develop clear techniques to ensure that data collection, analysis and application of data products aligns with urban development aspirations.

Two Australian finalists in Year in Infrastructure 2020 awards Bentley Systems has announced that two Australian projects are among the finalists for its annual Year In Infrastructure awards.

As is tradition, the awards will form the keystone of Bentley’s Year In Infrastructure (YII) conference, to be held virtually this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Globally, 57 finalists were selected from a pool of over 400

8 position October/November 2020

entries, representing 330 organisations and 60 countries. The selections were made by 16 independent panels across a range of categories.

The Australian finalists are AUAV for their Warragamba Water Pipeline digital twin, and Shell QGC for the development of an engineering data warehouse.

iXblue wins charting projects astride the Tasman Hydrographic survey firm iXblue has announced the award of significant contracts with LINZ and the Australian Department of Defence.

According to the firm’s announcement, the LINZ project will see iXblue collect close to 2,000 linear nautical miles of high resolution bathymetry data in coastal waters off the Coromandel Peninsula, utilising a 32m ship and an 8m DriX USV (Uncrewed Surface Vessel).

Both vessels are equipped with sensors and software from iXblue, Kongsberg, Valeport, RBR, QPS and CARIS. The Australian project is awarded under the HydroScheme Industry Partnership Program (HIPP), under which the firm’s Queensland-based staff will collect over 5,000 linear nautical miles in the designated twoway shipping route between Abbot Point and Hydrographers Passage, near the Whitsunday Islands. It will utilise identical equipment and systems as for the New Zealand project.

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news Women in AI awards open for entries Female entrepreneurs and innovators in Artificial Intelligence from Australia and New Zealand, take note.

The WAI awards Australia 2021 are now open for entries from early stage start-ups founded or co-founded by a woman, with a product in the field.

The awards are open across 11 categories and will be overseen by an advisory group including Queensland AI Hub CEO Dr Sue Keay, Education Ambassador Australia, Women in AI and Head of Analytics & AI, Teachers Health Angela Kim, and Founder & CEO, Ethical AI Advisory and Adjunct Professor, AGSM Dr. Catriona Wallace.

“With AI due to power 80 percent of all technologies in the next five years it is imperative that this tech be built with ethics and diversity at its core,” said Dr. Wallace.

The awards will be presented at a gala to be held February 23rd, 2021 at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, hosted by NITV Science & Technology Editor, Wiradjuri woman Rae Johnston, with the $20,000 Grand Award to be presented by WAI Awards patron, the Hon Julie Bishop.

Rae Johnston, host of the 2021 WAI Awards.

SSSI FireWater Map-a-thon open for entries Registrations are now open for the Surveying & Spatial Science Institute’s FireWater Map-a-thon on Sunday, October 31.

Following on from February’s bushfire recovery map-a-thon, which saw 600 volunteers from over 25 countries participate, October’s event seeks to help Australia prepare for Summer 2020/21.

Participants will be tasked with mapping static water infrastructure — dams, water tanks, swimming pools, you name it — to assist authorities and the RFS with preparation

10 position October/November 2020

and response efforts by updating Australia’s Static Water Supply System.

The area of interest for this Map-a-thon is Kangaroo Island and regional Victoria.

The data will be used in the Growing Data Foundation’s FireWater web app, which shows how low-cost, long range radio technologies (LoRaWAN) and open GIS mapping systems can be used to provide real time water source data (such as water tanks and natural water sources) to on-the-ground fire crews.

$4m funding injection for automated rail project

Dr. Philip Commins of the Facility for Intelligent Fabrication (FIF) in UOW’s Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences.

The University of Wollongong (UOW) has secured $1.5 million in federal funds for a research rpoject to improve safety of heavy haul and high speed rail.

The High Output, Low Cost Automated Embedded Rail Track (ERT) project received the grant through the Cooperative Research Centres Projects scheme, bringing the total value of the project to $4 million, according to UOW. The project aims to develop automated means to quickly deploy ERT, a new technology which uses a continuously laid concrete bed with only four components per metre, relative to ballast track technology, which can have up to 100, according to information released by UOW. Currently, the time required to lay ERT is considerably higher than ballast track, which the new partnership aims to address with industry 4.0 processes to reduce deployment time.

Supporting Urban Vegetation Management Aerometrex’s LIDAR surveys allow large scale vegetation mapping with a level of costeffectiveness not previously available. It possesses the capability to map detailed & accurate features under dense vegetation, and with multiple surveys over time, LIDAR data can be used to monitor the growth and vitality of urban forests. www.aerometrex.com.au

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news Australia’s first commercial rocket launches successfully After a thwarted first attempt, the first commercial Australian rocket has been successfully launched into space from the community of Koonibba, South Australia.

Southern Launch successfully launched two of its 3.4 metre, 34 kilogram DART rockets on the morning of Saturday September 19, following a highly publicised unsuccessful attempt the Tuesday prior.

The sensor payload for DEWC systems was deployed to the edge of space at 65km altitude, which continued along with the DART fuselage to an altitude of 85km, carrying out its sensing mission on its way back to Earth, at a planned 95km of the launch point at Koonibba.

The launch was part of the Air Force’s Project Jericho, testing technologies for rapidly deployable, networked sensors can enhance Defence information gathering and communications networks, according to Defence Minister Lisa Reynolds.

Oldest geospatial journal promoted to SCI-E status

SmartSat CRC, CSIRO partner on waterway monitoring

The oldest academic journal on geospatial information, has been promoted to Science Index Expanded status (SCI-E).

Established in 1998, Geographical Information Science has recently been upgraded to SCI-E from ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index) by Clarivale Analytics.

The change in status reflects a considerably improved impact factor, assessed on the peer review process, regularity of publication, editorial team and other factors.

Geographical Information Science is an open access journal published on behalf of Wuhan University by Taylor and Frances in the UK, with all published articles freely available online.

The one-year scoping study to test terrestrial sensor and satellite network to monitor the health of inland waterways.

The project and partnership will form part of CSIRO's Aquawatch Australia mission, which seeks to combine terrestrial water quality monitoring via a sensor network with satellite data.

The mission aims to build a comprehensive national sensor network, combined with purpose-designed Earth observation satellites to develop an integrated water quality management system, and fill the gap in existing Earth observation coverage of Australian water bodies, which is around 60-70 percent.

The mission is one of a series of large research initiatives - aimed at solving Australia’s greatest challenges focused on outcomes that lead to positive impact, new jobs and economic growth, according to CSIRO. The project’s scoping phase will assess existing water quality monitoring regimes across the country to analyse gaps and establish requirements for the new system, including requirements for new space technology.

POSITION’S NEWS ORIGINATES FROM Australia and New Zealand’s only site for surveying and spatial news.

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partner feature

Urban Tree Canopy Management and Change Detection using LiDAR DR. SAMUEL HOLT, RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT, AEROMETREX

The urban environmental crisis Cities globally face many environmental challenges and governments at every level are placing great emphasis on developing environmentally sustainable urban areas.

Scientific studies have shown that the presence of trees in urban areas has a wide range of positive economic, social, and environmental effects. With this understanding, there has been an increase in the efforts to measure, assess and increase the number of trees and green spaces within urban regions.

LiDAR and tree canopy management LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is an active remote sensing method that is used to accurately measure the landscape in three dimensions. The unique way in which LiDAR pulses interact with vegetation make it possible to quantify vertically distributed forest and individual tree attributes and extend traditional twodimensional environmental models into the third dimension.

Compared to other remote sensing methods for mapping vegetation (e.g. statistical approximations, supervised classifications and artificial intelligence based two-dimensional classifiers), LiDAR explicitly measures the location of trees in three dimensions and therefore has the potential to generate more accurate measurements of the proportion and spatial distribution of tree canopy coverage across urban landscapes.

Since LiDAR models the entire threedimensional environment and not just vegetation, it can be used for an array of critical information sets such as vegetation analysis for environmental management, individual tree segmentation for asset management, accurate building footprints for urban planning and high accuracy digital terrain models for flood modelling.

LiDAR-derived vegetation metrics Numerous targeted vegetation metrics can be derived from LiDAR that provide management experts and policymakers actionable information that can help maintain and increase the tree assets in urban areas. Aerometrex has developed a suite of vegetation metrics that are specifically tailored towards helping state and local governments manage tree canopy within their communities as well as achieve regional environmental goals.

These include: -C anopy Height Model (CHM) or Digital Canopy Model (DCM): a discontinuous raster that describes the height above ground of the top of tree canopies - Canopy Coverage Map: a vector dataset showing the horizontal extent of tree canopy cover -C anopy Coverage by Unit Area Map: a snapshot of the tree canopy coverage (%) within 100m by 100m cells. It is a spatial distribution of tree canopy cover that is free of biases caused by calculating tree canopy coverage per council or suburb area.

-C anopy Stratification Map: a vector dataset that defines the area covered by tree canopy within defined height intervals, ranging from a lower threshold up to the maximum canopy height.

Urban development and associated canopy change detection Most cities struggle to reconcile ambitious tree canopy cover targets with urban development pressures. Compared to other land cover changes, building developments are known to have a strong correlation with urban vegetation change.

Using LiDAR, you can detect change in both urban development and vegetation – accurately, and cost-effectively. Vegetation metrics can be easily compared across repeat captures to develop an understanding of the degree of change. Observations such as these are critical to assess the effectiveness of tree canopy management policies and adapting them to the dynamic challenges that will be faced by urban communities in the coming years.

Detailed vegetation analysis across metropolitan Adelaide Recently, in collaboration with the SA state government and sixteen local councils in Greater Adelaide, Aerometrex completed a regional tree canopy assessment of metropolitan Adelaide providing a robust benchmark dataset that shall assist in the management of Adelaide’s urban forests for years to come.

Detailed vegetation analysis was carried out for 16 participating councils at a spatial resolution of 1m, providing a detailed summary of tree canopy coverage across the region, its spatial distribution and what land use and land ownership types it predominantly covers. The results of this study can be viewed online within the Department for Environment and Water’s Urban Heat and Tree Mapping viewer. n Information provided by Aerometrex.

Vegetation metrics for an area in metropolitan Adelaide (from top to bottom) 1. Canopy Height Model 2. Canopy Coverage Map 3. Canopy Stratification Map 4. Canopy Coverage by Unit Area 5. Canopy Change Detection

www.spatialsource.com.au 13

q&a

Q&A with Chris Sheldrick In May, an unusual phenomenon occurred. A location service was splashed across Australian headlines, in the story of a bushwalker on Tasmania’s remote Flinders Island who had broken her leg in two places, and was rescued within hours with the help of a three-word phrase. The novel addressing system what3words has been quietly steaming ahead in the logistics and emergency response space. We sat down with CEO and co-founder Chris Sheldrick to find out more.

DB: Chris, the what3words system needs no elaborate introduction to our audience. I think the benefits of being able to position down to a 3m x 3m square anywhere on the globe speak for themselves. I’m interested in how it works – are the three words essentially a long passphrase allowing a unique identifier, while offering some mnemonic benefits to the user?

CS: Yes that’s essentially it, we have divided the world up into 3m squares – around 57 trillion squares in total, and we used a mathematical algorithm to assign each square a unique combination of 3 words. For example, the front entrance of our London HQ is ///filled.count.soap what3words addresses are far easier to remember than street addresses and postcodes, or long alphanumeric strings or GPS coordinates, and they’re also easier to communicate accurately.

The combinations of words have been allocated in a way that enables intelligent AutoSuggest technology to suggest possible results to the user based on

14 position October/November 2020

their current location. This provides an extra layer of error detection and helps to correct input mistakes. What3words addresses are also designed for speech recognition technology, making them easy to input correctly into voice-enabled devices or vehicles.

Street addresses are often duplicated, even within one area: there are 14 Church Roads in London and 632 Juarez Streets in Mexico City! In contrast, what3words addresses are all unique, so there’s far less potential for confusion. The words are fixed, so they never have to be updated, meaning what3words can be used reliably offline, without a data connection. It also means they never need to be updated when new buildings are built, or roads change.

DB: Can you tell me a bit about the genesis of the system?

CS: I previously worked in the music industry, organising live events around the world. My team and I struggled with poor addressing a great deal as musicians and equipment often got lost trying to

find events, and I soon realised that street addresses just weren’t good enough. I tried sharing GPS coordinates instead, but they were unreliable and difficult to use.

After experiencing too many navigation nightmares, I sat down with my mathematician friend to see if we could devise a way to communicate location that would be as precise as GPS coordinates, but easier for people to use. We realised that words could offer a more human solution, did the maths and what3words was born. Developing the final form of the algorithm took around six months.

DB: what3words made national headlines in Australia earlier this year, in the rescue of an injured bushwalker in a remote location on Flinders Island. I understand emergency agencies are some of the early adopters of the service. Were they a primary user when the system was designed? What advantages can the system offer to them over other positioning techniques?

by emergency services for times when AML isn’t possible; the caller may not currently be at the location where help is needed, for example, or they may have no SIM card in their device, making AML impossible to use. Another benefit of what3words is to provide an easy way to share exact locations between different services like police, fire, ambulance and mountain rescue, who may all need to collaborate when responding to a serious incident.

CS: Within the UK, it’s definitely fair to say emergency services have been early adopters of what3words. It’s always been a use case we were keen to see from the outset, but we had to build trust in the community. They deal with life or death scenarios, and we’ve done a lot of listening and adapting of our tech to make sure it works the way they need it to – including an integration into the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems Sopra Steria and Capita which is used by many UK control rooms. We’ve seen gradual emergency services adoption in the UK over the last year and half, starting with a few pioneering services and, as word has spread, more and more services have come on board. Rescues making headlines like the Flinders Island case really help spread awareness and positive endorsement of our system, and today, what3words is used in 124 control rooms in the UK, Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa and Germany.

Having an easy way to communicate location is essential to providing an effective response in time-critical situations. what3words is more accurate than a street address, and much quicker to say over the phone to a call handler. It also covers areas where street addresses don’t exist – parks, beaches and remote hiking trails. In these places, callers will often only be able to give vague descriptive information such as ‘I passed a church 15 minutes ago’ or ‘I can see a lake in the distance’. Of course, prepared hikers may also be able to give a grid reference or GPS coordinates, but both are easy to mistake over the phone, especially in a stressful situation, and a mistake of just one number is hard to spot, and could then lead to rescuers going to the wrong location.

It’s of course worth noting that some services can now use Advanced Mobile Location (AML) to locate callers, and that’s a great solution in many circumstances. what3words supplements AML and other geolocation tools, offering another tool in the toolbox to be used

DB: What are the current trends in uptake of the service – can you describe some of the emerging use cases and the profiles of new entities who are relying on what3words?

CS: Staff and customer safety has been a key driver particularly for logistics partners, for whom accurate location information is critical to making safe and successful deliveries. Logistics operators are looking for innovative ways to increase volume of deliveries without sacrificing quality of service. what3words has seen a more than 1,000% increase in adoption of our technology into e-commerce checkout pages as businesses look to new technologies to help them to meet the increased demand for deliveries during the Covid-19 pandemic.

We’ve seen companies that already offer delivery adopting what3words as a way to increase efficiency, enabling them to better meet this high demand.

We’ve also seen many SMEs who have never done deliveries before needing to adapt; suddenly they’re having to find customers’ homes, often without previous delivery experience. They’ve come to what3words for help and it’s apparent that better addressing enhances the customer experience, delivers business efficiency and drives growth.

Whilst GPS coordinates work well in GIS platforms, they aren’t human-friendly and complex reference systems can make GIS platforms difficult to understand and prone to user error. When customers provide their what3words address in an online checkout page for example, they’re essentially geocoding their location information into a standard format that is accurate to within 3 meters and easy to use. The universal nature of a what3words address provides a practical way to interpret complex data points and output them in a way that’s both easy to understand and practical to use. They can be used by the GIS expert and member of the public alike – from providing thousands of drop-off points for global logistics firms like DPD, to identifying the front door of a customer’s home for a food delivery or reporting the location of issues

such as broken power lines or illegal fly tipping to a local council.

For logistics in industries such as construction, transport and utilities, what3words integration into platforms like ArcGIS Marketplace lets users search for and display the what3words address for any location – both individually and in large volumes.

DB: I recently heard that a nation-state has made what3words its national addressing system. Can you tell us who it is, and how that came about? What are the arrangements with the administration of that country? Why might they be better served by your system than others?

CS: In 2016, the Mongolian postal service was the first to officially adopt what3words. With its semi-nomadic population and sparsely populated landscape, Mongolia faces unique challenges when delivering post, especially as addressing is often reliant on landmarks and descriptions. We launched the Mongolian version of our app that same year, and since then what3words has made a significant impact in this vast country. In 2019 the Trade and Development Bank (TBD) began using what3words addresses to help customers find the bank’s ATMs and branches as well as allowing customers to register for a bank account using their what3words address, granting better access to digital banking services to the many Mongolians living in remote and unaddressed areas.

We’re also helping Mongolian businesses across e-commerce, tourism and many other sectors to optimise and drive social and economic development.

DB: Is there anything else you’d like to add, any future news you can let us in on?

CS: We’ve got some exciting projects on the go, particularly in the mobility and automotive spaces. Our 3WordGo app, for example, allows you to order an Uber by speaking what3words addresses to your Apple or Android watch. We’re also seeing increasingly significant brands using our tech to reach customers – this summer in London we’ve had beer brand Brewdog and burger chain Honest Burgers delivering to customers in parks using what3words addresses.

And individuals are using what3words in their communities too: running clubs, hiking, sailing, cycling, and more niche interests like birdwatching and geocaching.

It’s been great to see people managing to get outside and meet safely using our tech, especially in recent months.

DB: Many thanks for your time today, Chris.

CS: Thank you! n www.spatialsource.com.au 15

partner feature MiRTK works with all makes of GNSS.

MiRTK: A refreshing alternative to UHF radios for RTK corrections

I

f you’ve worked on a construction site with base stations in the past 20 years, there’s a solid chance you’ve worked with UHF radios as well.

UHF radios have been a staple for site communications and GNSS corrections across Australia for years, but that hasn’t made them immune to issues. Whether it’s dropouts, configurations or radio interference, UHF radios have a history of being difficult to set up, difficult to operate and difficult to keep running for long periods of time.

Yet despite all the issues that plague UHF radios they’re consistently found on construction projects from Sydney to Port Augusta. The main reason why? Nothing was invented to replace them. Everyone in the industry simply accepted that this was the way life was going to be on-site, that the radios were an improvement and they should just be happy they’re not doing things the old fashioned way. However, when you have 20 years with little improvements in the 21st century, you have to wonder why no one’s thought of a better option.

16 position October/November 2020

MiRTK sends RTK corrections using the Internet.

1. UHF Radio Frequency Licences UHF radio frequencies are regulated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and need to be licenced before use. These licences have a range of conditions attached which need to be followed including: Frequency Band-width Power output Area of operation With the conditions and regulations needed in order to obtain a licence for a UHF radio frequency, you would think it would protect you from any potential interference but unfortunately not. Shared frequencies are often plagued with interference issues and the penalties for interfering with sited licences are significant including the potential for jail time.

Top benefits of MiRTK 1. Works with all brands of GNSS 2. Uses all satellite constellations 3. Reliable corrections via internet rather than UHF 4. Simple subscription, no repeaters or complex licences

What customers have to say:

Now imagine having a little modem that you slot onto your tripod, plug into your base station (regardless of its age or brand), power it on then leave it to run for up to 20 hours straight. No repeaters, no antenna masts, no configuration.

If just the thought of this easy and comprehensive technology hasn’t won you over, we’ve highlighted the three major issues with UHF radios, that you don’t get with the new MiRTK solution, brought to you by Position Partners.

3 Major Issues with UHF Radios When it comes to UHF radios there are many issues that surveyors, engineers and other GNSS users simply put up with because there is no alternative. However, amid the many problems with UHF radios three stand out as major deal-breakers.

UHF radio frequency licences, UHF radio interference and UHF radio hardware difficulties are all major concerns moving into this new decade and need to be eradicated from construction, mining and geospatial sectors - no time like the present!

“I’d say, in ideal conditions, UHF and MiRTK are probably the same, the only problem is, we don’t work in ideal conditions and often there’s interference on the UHF and you just don’t get any of those problems on MiRTK.” “MiRTK pretty much runs without a hitch. We haven’t had any problems or black spots that we see with UHF radios.

It’s working really well.”

“MiRTK gives us much better signal in areas where we’d previously had to setup radio repeaters. As far as setting up machines to use MiRTK it was really simple and only took a few minutes.”

2. UHF Radio Interference UHF radio interference is something that anyone who has used the technology has faced. This is predominantly due to the lack of available frequencies on the spectrum. Most surveyors operate on ‘area-wide’ radio frequency licences which do not provide exclusive use of the frequency within that area.

If there are multiple surveyors and contractors on a construction project there will need to be work done during

the planning phase and while on-site to avoid more than one contractor using a certain UHF radio frequency. Even with planning this rarely works perfectly making interference a regular occurrence.

3. UHF Radio Hardware Difficulties The transmission of radio signals isn’t new and the guiding principals still apply – higher power and higher antennas for greater distance – but this doesn’t always translate into better performance when dealing with data.

With higher power (say 25Watts), you need more batter power and the radio will generate more heat, perhaps requiring cooling that in turn needs more power. The cycle continues. If the radio is old and has drifted from its centre frequency, you can also be amplifying ‘noise,’ contributing to interference problems on site or bad packets of data.

The antenna position, type and height are all major contributors to the propagation of the radio signal and often the best place for the radio is not the best place for the GPS. Sacrifices are made for both and the overall quality of the GNSS base station is compromised.

Next Generation GNSS Base Station Technology But if there are so many issues with UHF radios, why do the construction, mining and geospatial sectors continue to use them? The lack of an alternative. Well, that’s about to change. The new MiRTK from Position Partners is a tiny addition to your base station and uses the internet to send out accurate correction data. If you’re able to get emails on your phone, your able to get accurate correction data, without all the issues you have with UHF radios.

MiRTK is an annual subscription service, but unlike the UHF radio licences, you don’t have to worry about interference or your configuration. And with pricing from $99 + GST a month, it is a simple and cost effective option that can be swapped between any GNSS system, wherever it’s working, with no additional costs or set up.

Not only this but the MiRTK hardware is brand agnostic, no matter if you have a Topcon, Trimble, Leica, Sokkia, Hemisphere, Carlson or any other brand of GNSS unit, MiRTK will work with it. This saves you having to hire or buy multiple units for the various GNSS units you have and use. Want to know more?

Get in touch with our friendly Position Partners team to get all the details on the new MiRTK technology. n Information provided by Position Partners. www.spatialsource.com.au 17

feature

Towards a new capability

18 position October/November 2020

The federal government and private sector have been pouring funds into Australia’s burgeoning space sector. What will this translate to for the local Earth observation sector?

Jon Fairall analyses recent developments.

JON FAIRALL

C

SIRO plans to launch a small Earth observation satellite, CSIROSat-1, in 2021. CSIRO made the announcement in July. The satellite will carry a short wave infrared sensor and will be constructed by Inovor Technologies in Adelaide, in a deal is worth $2 million to Inovor.

The news is the first hard evidence of a willingness by government agencies to invest in the space segment of Earth observation. Although Australian government and industry are sophisticated users of remote sensing data from spacecraft, and the government has promised a great deal of taxpayers’ money for space activities, historically there has been little appetite for a proper space-based remote sensing program. Until now.

A new era of space-based sensors?

The chief executive of Inovor Technologies, Dr. Matt Tetlow, said CSIROSat-1 would be made up of three cubes, stacked one on top of the other, with the whole satellite about the same size as a loaf of bread.

The ability to detect the reflectance of short-wave infrared (usually defined as 1.4 to 3μm) is especially useful to people who want to map soil moisture. It also has application in geology. Another characteristic of infrared is that can be useful for penetrating thin clouds that are opaque at optical wavelengths.

Other collaborators and research partners in the project include the University of New South Wales and in Canberra, the Australian National University, and Defence Science and Technology Group.

CSIRO has also purchased 10 percent of Surrey Satellite Technology’s NovaSAR-1, a small synthetic aperture radar.

SSTL is based at the University of Surrey in the UK, a leader in small satellite technology.

Backing the stalwarts It’s exciting stuff, but the government is spending orders of magnitude more money in areas where Australia has traditional strengths. Some $36.9 million was given to Geoscience Australia in the 2018 budget to enable it to improve Digital Earth Australia (DEA). Essentially, the strategy is to use GA’s archive of Earth Observation data, going back to 1972, and the strength of relationships with foreign data suppliers, to provide a suite of information products that can be used by government decision makers and indeed, by business and industrial customers, to improve their productivity.

“DEA data is open and free”, says Alla Metlenko, who looks after industry and community engagement for DEA. “It is fully accessible so it can be used for identifying new markets where consumers can use remote sensing in ways that have not done in the past.”

DEA is based on the open source Open Data Cube, a set of Python and PostgreSQL libraries for working with geospatial raster data. Importantly, the ODC is agnostic with respect to the source satellites. It has been used with a range of data sources, including those that are relevant to Australia such as MODIS, Landsat and Sentinel.

In the two years since the funds were allocated to DEA, several products have been developed, and we can get some picture of how the money has been used. Two new products have already been delivered and more are on the way.

Old tech, new applications One of the new products uses surface reflectance from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites. They deliver an www.spatialsource.com.au 19

feature

CSIROSat-1, Australia’s first Earth observation satellite, will carry infrared sensors to complement data from NovaSAR-1.

Image: Inovor Technologies.

image of the Australian land mass at 10m resolution every five days. This data will be processed in near-real-time and made available to agencies that require very timely data, such as fire authorities and other emergency management agencies.

Another product has been developed specifically for the Clean Energy Regulator. It will compare historical seasonal images of the continent against current ones, to detect changes in vegetation in the landscape. DEA will provide a way for the Clean Energy Regulator to use these comparisons to detect changes in Emission Reduction Fund project areas.

Small tranches of the money have been allocated to developers to build and operationalise new applications.

These small (less than $50,000) grants are intended to help developers bring IT products to markets that are not being reached by more traditional methods.

At a DEA workshop in May 2020, Phil Tickle, the chief executive of Cibo Labs, talked his audience through one example, the MyFarm Serverless Machine Learning Platform. Tickle noted that 60 to 70 percent of the Australian landmass is given over to livestock farming. The amount of feed available to the animals is a critical issue. His application can deliver a five-day estimate of biomass, at the paddock level, over this entire area.

Currently, he does so for 20 million ha, on a weekly basis.

The program runs so well it can produce a mosaic over all of Australia

20 position October/November 2020

in less than a minute. One unusual aspect of the program is that farmers provide ground truth data, which is then fed into a machine learning algorithm to improve the accuracy of the results. It can deliver predictions that are specific to the region around the individual paddocks.

The program relies on parallel processing over about 3,000 CPUs. This is behind a 99 percent reduction in the cost of computing. It makes the power and speed of the algorithm very scalable as demand ramps up.

“MyFarm is a game-changer for our business,” Tickle said.

CiboLab is not alone. GA publicity

Although Australian government and industry are sophisticated users of remote sensing data from spacecraft, and the government has promised a great deal of taxpayers’ money for space activities, historically there has been little appetite for a proper space-based remote sensing program. Until now.

says Australian businesses are now developing new applications based on ARD that increase efficiency and improve productivity. It also claims that ’business is developing a roadmap to transform the spatial sector over the next decade. The 2026 Spatial Industry Transformation and Growth Agenda and the Australian Earth Observation Community Plan 2026 will transform the Australian spatial sector and location-dependent industries over the next decade.’

Laying groundwork This is by no means the end of the government’s support for the sector.

Back in 2017, South Australian Senator Simon Birmingham told attendees at the 68th International Aeronautical Congress in Adelaide that the government had finally agreed to fund a space agency. It opened its doors, at Lot 17 in central Adelaide in July 2019.

The Australia Space Agency administers a $41 million budget that included $19.5 million to run a Space Infrastructure Fund and $15 million for international space investments. On top of that, it has earmarked a $150 million for projects led by NASA. Some of the money in the Space Infrastructure Fund has already been allocated. Saber Astronautics of Boulder Colorado has received $6.0 million for a mission control system; survey equipment supplier Fugro has received $4.5 million for a command and control centre; the Tasmanian government

and the University of Tasmania have received $1.2 million for an upgrade to its satellite tracking facilities and the Pawsley Supercomputing Centre has received $1.5 million for a data analytics centre. The Pawsley Centre is a major processing hub for the Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder and the Murchison Wide Field Array, both very advanced radio telescopes.

According to a statement from the agency, Earth observation is one of seven national civil space priority areas, the others are positioning, communications, debris monitoring, robotics, R&D and ‘access to space’.

Australia’s first commercial rocket launch from home soil took place in September. There is little in the way of support for Earth observation in the distribution of the agency’s funds, but that is not to say that there is no activity in the field. The agency has established an Earth Observation working group and recently signed a Statement of Strategic Intent with Maxar, an operator of high resolution Earth observation satellites in the US.

Space Agency Moon to Mars: Australia’s Space Agency has been busy establishing international industry partnership, the most high profile being NASA’s Moon to Mars initiative one year ago.

Image: NASA/Joel Kowsky.

Pint-sized power The government is also pushing money at space through the Smartsat Cooperative Research Centre. The CRC was established in July 2019 with 100 international and national partners who have invested over $190 million.

Together with $55 million of Australian Government support through the Cooperative Research Centres Program,

this represents a $245 million research effort over seven years.

Peter Woodgate is the foundation chair of the board. He was previously chief executive of the CRC for Spatial Information. Like CRC-SI, the new CRC has a special focus on small enterprises, called Aurora. Aurora will be an incorporated entity with its own board of directors. Interested parties can join for free this year.

Earth Observation is one of three research areas established by the CRC. Currently, Phil Delaney from Frontier SI is undertaking a 15-month project to develop an assessment of users’ needs that can be used to define future research activity.

Without doubt, all these investments signal that the government accepts the significance of Earth observation for improving productivity in Australia.

The $64 million question is whether it also signals that Australia’s time of freeloading on other nation’s investments in the space segment is over. n Jon Fairall is the founding editor of Position.

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Read the product review from industry specialist Bruce Douglas on Spatial Source and our web site: www.konect.today www.spatialsource.com.au 21

q&a

Q&A with Dr. Zaffar Sadiq MohamedGhouse Zaffar should need no introduction to many of our readers, having held a plethora of public roles that have helped chart the course of the local geospatial industry. He sits down with us to give his take on a dynamic set of disciplines, an evolving sector in a rapidly changing world – his last interview as SSSI president.

DB: Zaffar, this is a significant moment – you’re a well-recognised icon of the regional geospatial industry, with your finger on the pulse from the local level to the global stage. What does the SSSI represent to you?

ZSM-G: First, I wish to express my heartfelt

For the past two years, the current board under my presidency had worked hard to develop international collaboration in addition to national collaborative efforts, to provide an opportunity for our professionals

thanks and gratitude to all SSSI members, sustaining partners, the board of directors, operations, SSSI chairs of the regions and commission for giving me the opportunity to serve you as president for two years. I also wish to thank the Australian spatial industry, its professional bodies, Locate Conferences Australia and international partners for your valuable collaboration with SSSI. SSSI represents diversity in unity. Diversity with our commissions: Land Surveying; Engineering & Mining Surveying; Hydrography Surveying; Spatial Information and Cartography; and Remote Sensing-Photogrammetry. This diversity includes membership from students to senior professionals. The diversity includes recognition of our spatial community through APSEA Awards. Diversity is represented through national and international collaboration with diverse professional bodies and interest in the profession and community.

Diversity is seen in our range of events from CPD-based events to nation-building events such as the Bush Fire Recovery Map-a-thon.

Still, we have to a lot to strive for in achieving gender balance in our profession. However, SSSI is central to the national initiative of gender equality and diversity.

22 position October/November 2020

DB: Can you describe how your relationship with the institute has changed, from the beginning of your geospatial career in Australia?

ZSM-G: Our SSSI former presidents and

boards have significantly contributed to the National Building effort in the last eight Years. The previous SSSI leaders have built strong relationship with URISA, ISPRS, FIG, IHO and ICA, the global organisations of our professions. For the past two years, the current board under my presidency had worked hard to develop international collaboration in addition to national collaborative efforts, to provide an opportunity for our professionals, Young Professional and students to develop networks, learn from each other experience through overseas collaboration. The SSSI MoUs with Pacific Geospatial and Surveying Council (PGSC), ASEAN Federation of Land Surveying and Geomatics (The ASEAN FLAG) , Malaysia, Australasian Hydrographic Society (AHS), Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), USA, The Association for Geographic Information (AGI), UK, Surveying and Spatial New Zealand (S+SNZ) are remarkable initiatives which will provide a platform for regional dialogue, mutual recognition of skills and collaboration for SSSI members. We have received excellent feedback that the webinars brought through these MoUs are bringing a lot of attendance of members and also reasonable knowledge exchange is witnessed in the panel discussions.

DB: What do you see as the most significant moments and developments for the institute in your tenure as president?

ZSM-G: A few significant moments I wish

to share: developing MoUs with our international partners, reorienting the SSSI around a strong financial model; the appointment of Tony Wheeler as CEO, a major staff restructure to address national service delivery, running free webinars for SSSI members, instituting an agile membership application process, and there’s more! We’ve restructured our board governance and accountability procedures to adapt our decision making in the Covid-19 era, initiated a constitutional review, supported Locate Conference Australia for new approaches to conference delivery, set up of two new special interest groups: Disaster Management and Mitigation and Digital Twins, led the bid for FIG 2025 to Australia. Phew!

DB: Has your role with the SSSI shaped your personal goals and ambitions? How, if so?

ZSM-G: The president’s role has given me

an opportunity to contribute through a consultation workshop for to the ANZLIC Strategic Plan 2020-24, particularly around capacity building of spatial professionals, representing SSSI at the steering committee of the 2030 Road Map for Spatial and Space to explore capacity building opportunities for our members.

I have gained personal experience in managing and delivering outcomes that represent a diversity of thoughts and ideas from my fellow board of directors, who bring significant management experience. My negotiation skills have exponentially grown during my two-year tenure managing the internal and external stakeholders of SSSI.

programme for all commissions will bring a new way of engagement with professional bodies such as Engineers Australia and the Australian Computer Society, major professional organisations that undertake migration skills assessments as well as issuing certification and maintaining a national register of practice of their professionals.

The operations under the leadership of Tony Wheeler will continue to deliver the board’s strategy in achieving the Institute’s vision and mission.

DB: Is a focus on the region important at this stage, or do we need to concentrate on local needs? Is that a dichotomy that should be considered or not?

ZSM-G: Think global and act local would

be my advice. Covid-19 has brought a higher than expected degree of international collaboration through use of virtual platforms. More international dialogue is happening during Covid-19 when compared to the pre-Covid era.

The UN General Assembly is now virtual, G20 meetings are held virtually, FIG International events are virtual. SSSI should take advantage of this shift to use of virtual platforms and engage with

international partners to deliver the plans outlined in the MoUs. DB: What’s next for you personally?

ZSM-G: When I look back on my past 11

years of service to the SSSI: beginning as a member of Victoria’s SSSI committee, then chair of Victoria’s SSSI, chair of the NSW SSSI, chair for the ACT, Locate 17 Convenor, Locate Conferences Australia Chair, President-Elect SSSI to this role as president – I have developed new friends and relationships, and I’ve enjoyed delivering strong outcomes and new services to our members. I will continue to offer my support wherever required to the new leadership of SSSI. I will continue my international roles as vice president, International Society of Digital Earth, vice chair of the United Nations’ Global Geospatial Information Management (GGIM), board member of the Private Sector Network – Asia Pacific and chair of the Industry Academia Committee of the World Geospatial Industry Council (WGIC).

DB: Thanks for your time and dedication, Zaffar – and best of luck with the next stage of your journey. n

DB: What do you see as the next steps for the institute’s expansion and strengthening, given regional and local priorities in the time of Covid-19?

I think that the SSSI under the leadership of president-elect Paul Digney and the new board installed after the November 2020 AGM will reach remarkable heights in continuously delivering the mission of the SSSI through virtual events, partnership collaboration, sustaining partners and young professional development. Under Paul’s new leadership and with his surveying background, our surveyors will be accelerated and the certification programme for all SSSI commission streams will attain a new momentum.

Establishment of a renewed certification www.spatialsource.com.au 23

partner feature

New Leica Geosystems GS18 I: a sneak peek at visual positioning Surveyors see unlimited uses for the new Leica GS18 I RTK rover with visual positioning technology

R

ock seawalls are certainly a regular fixture up and down the southeast Queensland coast, and the team at Orion Spatial Solutions know them especially well. They have climbed – and at times crawled – across a good number of them using traditional GNSS rovers.

But those days of getting uncomfortably close and personal with the surf and sharp rocks may be a thing of the past after they got the chance to try out the new Leica GS18 I, a GNSS RTK rover with new visual positioning technology that allows users to reach previously inaccessible or obstructed points safely and efficiently.

“It’s been a game-changer for us – it is almost like a mini mobile mapper,” says John Philipp, Spatial Solutions Manager with Brisbane-based Orion Spatial Solutions.

“The Leica GS18 I helped us greatly from a safety point of view. It means our staff can avoid climbing over rocks in order to get the waterline shots, and in general it will help keep our staff safer by avoiding similar risks,” Philipp says.

In their latest rover, Leica Geosystems has combined the lightening quick GNSS and tilt compensation of the well-received GS18 T unit with a camera so that users

24 position October/November 2020

no longer must measure every single point with the pole tip.

Due to the integration of GNSS, IMU and a camera, points with obstructed view to the sky and other inaccessible points can be measured from images using the Visual Positioning technology within GS18 I. This new technology allows points of interest captured from a distance to be measured with survey-grade accuracy.

“It's revolutionary,” says Rob Van Manen, Qld Survey Sales Manager for Leica Geosystems distributor CR Kennedy.

“Leica already changed the game with the tilt compensation in the T version of the GS18, but obviously even more so now with the camera there,” he says.

“That’s why we’ve been so committed to putting it in the hands of customers, so we get some feedback from them, and the more we’ve done that, the more uses I’ve seen for it.”

In just the short time that the team at Orion Spatial Solutions have had their hands all over the GS18 I, they have found dozens of uses – many of which have surprised Spatial Solutions Manager John Philipp.

“Because it's so new, we still haven’t even scratched the surface when it comes to where and when we’re going to use it,” he says.

“But if you've got it on you all the time, all of a sudden you think, ‘Oh, that's an easy way to do it, I'll be out of here quick because of the added capability of the camera on the GS18 I.” Philipp says he was happy his team had the unit on them recently during some key work on one of their bigger projects, an industrial subdivision requiring earthworks verification.

He says with all the work happening at the site, stockpiles and material might have moved by the time they could get a drone in the air and their controls down.

Point cloud data captured with the Leica GS18 I

“It’s been a game-changer for us – it is almost like a mini mobile mapper” – Orion’s John Philipp.

With the new visual positioning technology in the Leica GS18 I, marine and seawall surveys can be completed from dry land

“Within 20 minutes the controls are gone, and the scrapers are ripping it out, but now we have the ability to just pull up and grab that GS18 I out and walk around the stockpile or down a strip if they’ve got scrapers running,” he says.

“We can check what depth they’re at without even getting in - that sort of thing has been good in the construction side of it,” he adds.

Philipp says his team has also found the GS18 I to be a big help when doing road surveys, allowing them to pay attention to traffic and other hazards, while still getting the job done quickly and accurately.

“The camera just takes it to the next level because you can say I’d rather just do that with a camera and grab it when I get back to the office,” he says.

“Also, it certainly helps with overhead power lines, traffic lights, and objects or features which you can't always easily get with an instrument because your angle might require another couple of setups.

“With the GS18 I you can just quickly capture that and get it back in the office,” he says.

If you or your team would like to see what you can do with the new Leica GS18 I with visual positioning technology, get in touch with CR Kennedy on +61 3 9823 1533. n Information provided by CR Kennedy.

The Leica GS18 I allows users to collect large amounts of data and imagery onsite and decide later about which points to measure in survey-grade accuracy.

www.spatialsource.com.au 25

feature

Tracking bolts from the blue JON FAIRALL

26 position October/November 2020

A

t 32 seconds past 10:55am on October 26 2019, lightning struck a stringybark eucalypt on the side of Gospers Mountain in the Wollemi National Park. The strike physically shattered the tree, setting it ablaze. The resulting fire initially burnt out 496,976 ha of bushland, threatening homes in the Hawkesbury and Lithgow areas. Given the topography and prevailing wind, firefighters expected the fire to spread towards densely populated centres. To protect them, they began a large backburn on December 14. They lost control of it later that day. On December 19, the two fires joined in the Grose Valley. The fire raged through the area northwest of Sydney until it was contained on 12 January. On 12 February – that’s 78 days after the fire started – the Rural Fire Service announced torrential rain during the previous week had finally extinguished the blaze.

While the bald facts of the Gospers Mountains fire, the most destructive in living memory, are seared into the memory of many Australians – the level of detail in this account may seem surprising. How did they localise the initial event to a single bolt of lightning, striking a single tree? The story was pieced together after the fact by a digital producer at the ABC, Kevin Nguyen, from publicly available remote sensing data.

To localise the event to an individual tree, the ABC and Rural Fire Service sent in a team that was able to find the shattered remains of a stringybark among all the blackened stumps.

Searching for a spark To understand how this works, we need to go back to 1753, when Benjamin Franklin demonstrated that lightning was a type of electrical activity.

Later it was understood that a lightning bolt generates prodigious amounts of energy, of which the vivid flash is but a small part. The energy delivered at radio frequencies (RF energy) can travel from one side of the globe to the other.

In 1983, an English radio engineer called Roger Bent started work on a network of radio receivers that were tuned to record the radio emissions of lightning strikes, called atmospherics, or ‘sferics’. By timing when the sferic reached each station, he could use triangulation to find the locality of the strike.

Bent’s ideas still form the basis of most of the world’s lighting detection systems. The

A sensor for counting lightning strikes.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

company he formed, TOA Systems, remains a major player of this discipline, operating a global network of stations. In 1996, he started a company called GPATS in Australia.

Currently, this service is run by MetraWeather, a subsidiary of MetService, a New Zealand state-owned enterprise.

Nguyen said that he initially used data from another network, the Blitzortung weather service. Blitzortung is a community of weather station operators that produce an open-source world map showing lightning strikes in near real time (see blitzortung.org or lighningmaps.org).

Working back from the first terrestrial visual confirmation of the Gospers Mountain fire, on 26 October, he isolated an electrical storm that brewed near the Victorian border the previous night and moved through central NSW. “At the fading edge of this 24-hour storm, a pair of cloud-to-ground strikes were registered near the decommissioned Gospers airstrip, deep in the gullies of Wollemi National Park,” he said.

“The location data I used has an uncertainty of 1,500 metres, which includes a lot of trees. I cross-referenced the metadata of the Blitzortung strikes against a spreadsheet provided to us

by MetraWeather, which showed one of those bolts — strike number 19,068 — occurred 32 seconds past 10:55am. Pulling up images taken on 27 October by the Sentinel-2 satellite over those coordinates, we found the first columns of smoke from the ignition site.” To localise the event to an individual tree, the ABC and Rural www.spatialsource.com.au 27

feature Fire Service sent in a team that was able to find the shattered remains of a stringybark among all the blackened stumps.

Modern techniques allow professional meteorologist to localise strikes to much better than 1,500m. Dean Narramore, a senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology says that at the best, modern networks of receivers can localise a strike to within 250. However, he cautions that this only occurs in the optimum situation. “It requires a fair bit of processing to get this accurate,” he said. To do better, you need to visually inspect the area.

An algorithmic exercise Rick Rootsey, the director of engineering at TOA Systems, says that the processing algorithm is the key element that makes the difference. It is fundamentally different to processing GNSS data from satellites. In the GPS world, timing is everything and it is true that, as he says “the basic principle of the TimeDifference-Of-Arrival location algorithm involves detecting the same event at three stations and being able to assign a precise time of arrival for that event at those stations.” But he goes on: “The waveform of the RF signal, and particularly any distortion of that waveform captured at each sensor typically has a much greater effect on the accuracy than timing.” In the real world, this usually translates to timing errors larger than the sub-10 nanosecond hardware accuracy.

“On top of that, the geometry of the sensors that are used for the location calculations will further affect the accuracy,” Mr. Rootsey said. “Many lightning strikes are detected by more than three sensors. In fact, for higher energy strikes, it is possible for more than fifty, or even a hundred, sensors to detect that single stroke.”

Rootsey says TOA operates more than 500 sensors globally.

In Australia, the company has about 100 sensors, although the company can use additional sensors outside the Australian mainland to improve network performance.

MetraWeather’s main competition in Australia is Weatherzone, which also runs a lightning detection network called the Weatherzone Total Lightning Detection Network. Output from the WTLDN drives the lightning layer on the Bureau of Meteorology’s website. The sensors of both systems are often co-located with the bureau’s weather stations.

All up, there is a considerable investment in lightning detection in Australia. Apart from the public safety issues, Alex Zadnik, MetraWeather’s business development manager, says there are significant markets in providing relevant information to insurance companies, electricity networks, open cut mine sites, forestry and wind farms. Not only can it provide post-fact evidence about the ignition of a fire, it can also provide short term prediction.

In fact, ‘nowcasting’ seems to be the next frontier in lightning detection. This is generally understood to mean the ability, not only to sense lightning in real time, but also to deliver a forecast for the immediate future. Mr. Zadnik says: “When real time data is tied to atmospheric models it can be used to make a short term – say the next 60 minutes – prediction. In some industries, this can be valuable information.”

Speaking at a BoM conference in November 2019, Rashmi Mittal from Weatherzone’s Forecasts Systems Development Group described an atmospheric model, driven by near real-time lightning data which will generate severe weather warnings two to 12 hours ahead. The model has a resolution of 1.5 square km.

Bringing it all together Nowcasting also seems to be a fundamental design driver for the latest generation of weather satellites. In principle, satellites ought to be an excellent way to track lightning. A lightning bolt broadcasts a powerful light pulse. Indeed, some more advanced terrestrial lightning sensors use both light and radio to increase

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A band of showers and storms swept across NSW and delivered 120,000 lightning strikes over just 10 hours on September 21, 2020.

Image: NSW Incidents/EWN lightning tracker.

the precision of time and positional information. However, unlike sferics, which can propagate globally, even the best terrestrial detectors struggle to detect lightning flashes that are more than 20-30 km away.

Lightning can be seen from space, but most weather satellites have long exposure cameras that are designed to pick up details of the movements of clouds in the atmosphere. By definition, a lightning flash only lasts a moment, so most cameras carried by normal imaging satellites are not very useful. In the Australasian region, the relevant weather sat is Himawari-8, which has been operated by the Japan Meterological Agency since 2015. It sits in geostationary orbit at about 141 East. The JMA also maintains another identical satellite, Himawari-9 in orbit. H-9 is scheduled to succeed H-8 in 2022.

Its primary instrument is the Advanced Himawari Imager.

The AHI has a resolution of between 0.5 and 2 km, but it takes ten minutes to scan a single image of the full terrestrial disk, so although it is useful for tracking thunderstorms, it cannot routinely map individual strikes. However, Dean Narramore says the AHI does have a rapid scan mode that can be pressed into service to provide useful information.

A step in the right direction is the Geostationary Lightning Mapper, carried on the latest US weather satellites. The spatial resolution is only 8 km, but the camera takes 500 images a second, which means that the progress of flashes can be well defined. The National Severe Storms Laboratory in the US says: “some very large storm systems like squall lines have been seen to make lightning flashes that traverse 100s of kilometers across the storm.”

Europe’s next generation of meteorological satellites (Meteosat Third Generation or MTG) will carry a dedicated lightning detector called the Lightning Imager (LI). MTG will be operated

by Eumetsat. LI will be carried on four satellites to be launched from 2022 onwards.

Eumetsat’s publicity for the new satellites says it is aiming at a latency of 30 seconds, i.e: data will appear on Eumetsat’s web site within 30 seconds of the flash being recorded, enabling real-time thunderstorm warnings for air traffic control as well as severe weather warnings for the general population.

It is also of interest that the MTG satellites will carry the Flexible Combined Imager. This has a channel at 3.8 um that can be used for fire detection, something that will be of interest to fire fighters in Australia, given the losses the nation incurred during the Black Summer of 2019/2020. Such systems will have enormous significance for how we manage the fire environment in Australia over the next decade. They will hopefully underpin early warning systems that will make horrific bush fires such as those of the last summer less likely. ■ Jon Fairall is the founding editor of Position.

The Flexible Combined Imager, main instrument on Europe’s forthcoming Meteosat Third Generation weather satellite.

Image: ESA–G. Porter, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

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feature

Standing out from the pack The South Australian survey firm using quality certification to go next level DAN HADLEY

T

he surveying and mapping industry is not a big one when compared to others. It is not considered a cornerstone of the Australian economy and it does not attract the press attention ‘big ticket’ sectors such as mining, retail or defence – but it is an industry that provides a vital service to many large commercial sectors and a diverse variety of projects. It is a small pond with just over 15,000 employees across 3,600 companies, according to IBIS industry reporting.

Most are smaller businesses ranging from one to ten employees providing local surveying services to clients of varying descriptions. With an estimated industry value of $3bn AUD a year, this pond is part of a complex ocean of works affecting many sectors. Quality, consistency and accuracy are paramount and ensuring success of the business and the management system requires diligence and good management.

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With this in mind, a local survey firm in the well-known wine region McLaren Vale, South Australia is preparing to be certified to the highest International Standard of Quality; ISO 9001:2015.

Weber Frankiw Surveyors specialises in land divisions ranging from small scale (1 into 2 divisions) up to large scale subdivisions as well as all types of engineering surveys. The company has worked on some impressive projects including major developments at Port Vincent, Kangaroo Island, Hindmarsh Island, Hackham, Willunga and McLaren Vale. The company also provides major inputs into the Mannum Waters project.

In June of 2020, the company’s directors made the firm decision that the company strive for higher levels of quality and subsequent output by undergoing the certification process. Founded in 1980, the company has always had a strong reputation for providing high quality outcomes to its clients.

The company has become well known in South Australia for a range of services including land divisions such as Torrens title, community division, metro, regional as well as rural divisions and realignments. The company is also proficient at identifying boundaries for building, fence construction and legal requirements, as well as engineering and construction surveys for building and road set outs, contour surveys and detail surveys. Furthermore, the company has an impressive track record in primary industry for vineyard and other agricultural set outs as well as construction consultation, easement plans and road opening and closing consultation.

The international standard for quality – ISO 9001 The newest version of the international standard for quality was released globally in 2015. Prior versions have evolved

towards implementing a robust and strategic quality management system that would not only be compliant with the quality standard but also effective in providing commercial oversight and control.

As a senior management consultant for JLB, I have been working with Weber Frankiws’ management team to build further efficiencies and practices alongside a specialised quality management software system that would mean Weber Frankiw could reach its quality objectives.

What is required to attain certification to international standards? over the years with the first iteration released back in 1987. Not limited to any one industry, these standards bring all businesses of varying sizes and sectors onto the same playing field in terms of consistency and reliability. It represents a greater emphasis on risk-based thinking in business, higher levels of planning, as well as affective management of people and resources.

Independent, third party certification is an outward demonstration of quality. Clients, governments, and other organisations use the standard to demonstrate their ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer and regulatory requirements.

It lets the public, tender panels and other organisations know that a company is serious about these elements within its business. Weber Frankiw Surveyors partnered with local Adelaide based professional services firm JLB Management Consultancy to work

There are a number of steps towards meeting the standard(s) which may include a number of steps such as conducting a strategic business review or gap analysis of some kind to determine shortfalls. The company should strongly consider developing a practical and useable management manual for the business. Implementing job descriptions in addition to work instructions, policies and SOPs (Safe Operating Procedures) to help guide staff is often necessary.

In terms of higher-level leadership, the standard(s) also call for the formal assessment of risks in a risk register and/ or the development of safe work method statements (SWMS) where needed. The company must set measurable goals for continuous improvement in the business at all levels as well as implement some kind of effective reporting structure for instances of nonconformance and changes in the business. Top management also need to setup a robust management review program.

Becoming certified to ISO 9001:2015

There are a number of reasons to become certified to the ISO standard of quality management, including: • Cost savings often arise from efficiencies and better practices. By developing greater efficiencies in quality, companies can save money, achieving their output for less time and stress • Controlling and mitigating costly risks.

By managing risks through good quality management, companies may prevent scenarios of costly loss that their less organised competitors may have to work through as a result of not holding the same high level of best practice • Developing greater efficiencies for the business that ultimately increase productivity and output. Good quality management isn’t just concerned with the end product or service but how the Company gets there • Efficient, high quality practices can lead to streamlined internal operations that produce more of what an organisation seeks to provide at a faster rate • Greater public perceptions. Clients and customers continue to seek better service that is price competitive and reliable. In many instances, clients will even pay more if they are assured that vital works will be completed correctly and on time • More business as a result of winning tenders and contracts or other new opportunities. Businesses that want to set themselves out from their crowd can do so through third party verified certification. Clients will know that an organization has held itself to a high standard • A more cohesive and dynamic workforce. An organised workforce that works together to produce outputs that are quality in nature will likely be more loyal, proud of their work and committed to their organisation.

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feature

The company must set measurable goals for continuous improvement in the business at all levels as well as implement some kind of effective reporting structure for nonconformance’s and changes in the business.

The audit process A certification audit is the process for any organisation to achieve certification, once a stage of readiness and compliance has been reached. Choosing a certification body that is accredited is important to ensure the audit is conducted properly and adds value to an organisation. It is the certification body’s duty to determine if your management system complies with the requirements of ISO 9001:2015.

This audit is completed in two parts: stage 1 and stage 2. These stages differ in a number of ways including their focus, duration of audit and even the kind of information reviewed.

The purpose of the stage 1 audit is to determine if the organisation is ready for their stage 2 audit. During the stage 1, the auditor will review an organisation’s management system documentation, inspect any site-specific factors, and have discussions with key personnel.

The auditor in stage 1 will be seeking confirmation that business objectives and

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key performance indicators as well as significant aspects are in place throughout the organisation.

The auditor will also review the scope of the management system and obtain information on an organisation’s processes and operational inputs, the equipment being used, the levels of control that have been implemented, as well as any applicable statutory or legislative requirements. In short, the auditor is learning how you run the organisation so that confirmation of actual inputs can be reviewed in stage 2.

The certification body will use stage 1 to complete stage 2 planning, including a review of the management of resources and details for the audit.

A stage 1 audit report with key findings is then given to an organisation that may identify any areas of concern (commonly referred to as discrepancies or nonconformances) in order that they may prepare for stage 2. A stage 1 audit is usually carried out over one

or two days and typically occurs at the organisation’s office. Stage 2 evaluates the implementation and effectiveness of an organisation’s management system.

Throughout the stage 2 audit, the auditor will determine the degree of compliance with the standard’s requirements and report any non-conformances or potential non-conformances that an organisation will have to correct before certification can be formally issued. If the stage 2 audit is successful, the organisation’s management system will be formally certified.

What happens at stage 2 audit?

The stage 2 audit builds upon the previous audit. The auditor delves into the actions, records, and outputs of the business. In the simplest terms, the auditor has seen how a company talks the talk – and now wants to see that they walk the walk. Typically, this will involve the review of key performance indicators and objectives, examining performance monitoring, measuring

as well as associated reporting.

Beyond this, an auditor will review all relevant documented information that provides evidence that an organisation’s management system conforms with the standard as well as all relevant processes examining operational control and the ability to achieve outputs as planned.

Vital to the success of the audit and certification is the review and assessment of internal audit programs, management review processes and management oversight for the organisation’s policies and procedures.

If an organisation’s management system meets the requirements of the standard, formal certification is issued, and the organisation can celebrate. Follow-up audits occur every 12 months to ensure the management system remains in effect.

Weber Frankiw headed to the finish line At the time of publishing this article, Weber Frankiw has passed the stage

1 audit with BSI (British Standards Institution). BSI is a JAS-ANZ accredited certification body providing ISO certification and training globally. The BSI Auditor was pleased with the review of the quality management system in place at stage 1, commenting: “Weber Frankiw Surveyors has established quality management system documentation and processes as per ISO 9001, with focus on continual improvement by conducting audits, management review and corrective/preventative actions. The system is almost ready for the certification audit which will be conducted in the near future.”

Weber Frankiw has received its stage 1 audit report with minimal findings to work on in preparation for the Stage 2 Audit in late October. Weber Frankiw’s director, Mr. Ashley North, was also pleased with the outcome.

“The team have worked very hard and we have been supported by Dan Hadley from JLB throughout the process.

We have deliberately taken a steady, six-month period to review all of our practices, procedures and processes as we want to ensure we stay at the forefront of the industry,” he said.

“Our client’s satisfaction is of paramount importance to us and our Quality Management System will ensure this remains high.”

More to come Weber Frankiw has scheduled its stage 2 audit and the final test is just around the corner. Confident in their consistency and management structure, the business now prepares to join an elite group of businesses on the international stage. n Dan Hadley is a senior management consultant and economist for JLB based in Adelaide, South Australia. www.spatialsource.com.au 33

q&a

Q&A with Andy Sexton The Covid-19 pandemic has decimated the events industry almost overnight, triggering an ungraceful, knee-jerk shift to virtual programs and online seminars. UK-based experiential design consultancy have created and launched a system to bring back the live event experience in the era of a pandemic.

We sat down with creative director Andy Sexton to find out what it is, how it works – and how a marketing firm came to develop a sophisticated Augmented Reality app.

DB: Andy, we’re glad you can be with us today. Many of our audience will be uninitiated with your new app, Navigat/ AR. Can you describe the app and its intended capabilities for us?

AS: In essence, Navigat/AR is an intelligent wayfinding tool. It’s a software application that provides spatial and situational awareness, making it possible to monitor, then influence, the way people walk through busy interior spaces.

This isn’t an ‘app’ for mobile devices.

It’s a custom application that takes constant data inputs from different sensors (optical, depth, lidar etc) to generate a perpetual awareness of the density and movement of human traffic in a space. This information is processed on a centralised computer system, which triggers a projected interface to be mapped directly onto the floor/walls of the space itself.

It surrounds people with real-time guidance, highlighting individuals and following their movement. Projections of ‘safe zones’ around people bring visual clarity to their proximity to each other, and allow any overlaps to be clearly acknowledged (and avoided). Dynamic wayfinding encourages movement in a

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single direction and can be re-routed as necessary to avoid risk. Speed, direction and velocity can also be tracked and understood to enable more targeted cleaning.

This real-time navigator allows spaces to function differently depending on capacity, activity and ever-changing local guidance. Spaces become alive, responsive and intelligent, reducing risk and building confidence.

DB: Let’s talk for a minute about your objectives as an organisation when conceiving of and developing this app.

You’re a design and marketing firm – how was the decision made to develop an augmented reality app driven by spatial data?

AS: It’s a good question, and to be honest this is the first time we’ve self-funded and developed a solution like this. As an experiential studio, influencing behavioural change has always been at the heart of all our work. This is because knowing how people move through spaces, how they interact and respond to different stimuli, is critical to driving brand engagement. We form a strategic understanding of needs, then apply creativity and innovation to

shape outcomes through experiences.

We’ve worked hard over more than 25 years to build a strong culture of innovation at 2LK. We’re all heavily interested and invested in emerging technology. We work for a number of high-profile tech brands like Intel and Canon. Pioneering businesses like these inherently require strong levels of innovation from us, but they also enable that by keeping us constantly at the edge of what’s possible. They’re literally designing and building the future, so engaging with them has a subtle but profound impact on the way we approach problems and challenges.

As for why we developed Navigat/AR, we saw that safe social distancing would be a huge issue for people in indoor spaces as the world adapts to life with Covid-19. From that need, it evolved really quickly and organically from a ‘how might we’ to a proof of concept.

Covid-19 has really torn through the experiential sector. The impact has been devastating for so many. After much of 2LK’s project work was inevitably cancelled, we found ourselves in a truly unique position of having both time and talent in abundance. Pair this with all the nascent behaviours related to tech adoption and the many new needs as a result of Covid-19 and we had the perfect conditions for innovation to thrive. Being able to combine our creative capabilities with a real need has been a liberating and an eye-opening process for sure.

DB: Can you describe the profile of the intended audience – who should be downloading and deploying Navigat/AR?

AS: As I mentioned earlier, Navigat/AR isn’t a device-based app, so the end user and the customer are very different.

The potential end user is literally anybody who goes into an indoor space, anywhere. Broad I know, but the system could feasibly be deployed in all manner of different places and spaces to cater for a range of different situations.

The customer is anyone that manages an indoor space where people circulate. This could be event/exhibition venues, office/ hotel lobbies, shopping centres, retailers, museums, leisure destinations and transport hubs like airports and train stations.

DB: Looking under the hood of the app now, how does it run from a software perspective? Are any of its modules open sourced, or based on open source modules?

AS: We’ve always been keen supporters of the open source community.

With a subject that requires such urgency, it’s been the perfect source of

In response to this, we’re looking into mobile device integration, haptic feedback and even potentially physical responses. Beyond that, there’s discussion about building a more robust contextual management dashboard and integrating advanced data analytics systems.

DB: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

reference, documentation and tools.

Navigat/AR has had to quickly develop, and along with our initial prototyping, we’ve investigated a few modules available through open sourcing such as TensorFlow and OpenCV. As the tool continues to develop, we’re developing more bespoke modules and characteristics to address specific tasks.

DB: How is the reception to the app – has its mettle been tested in a live environment, at any major events?

AS: Lots of the code and workflows are adaptations from previously realised projects, we’ve worked with all the sensors a number of times before, and parts of the real-time rendering system were developed and optimised over several years, but we’re yet to pull all this together and deploy Navigat/AR in a realworld setting.

That said, the reception and feedback has been amazing from those we’ve shared this with. Be they brands, technologists, industry peers, media or just family and friends, it’s incredible how many people say they could benefit from a system like this.

Just imagine the difference it could make to commercial and cultural destinations. Human behaviour cannot be governed by simply categorising spaces based on what function they perform. Regardless of where we find ourselves, risk rises and falls depending on many dynamic variables. If we can influence actions and movements more effectively, with intelligent real-time data and dynamic visual guidance, we not only add a layer of perceptual confidence but we can genuinely improve safety standards.

Some interesting conversations about bringing this to life are happening as we speak, so watch this space!

DB: What’s on the horizon – are there any new features waiting in the wings, or future plans that build on the app’s proliferation?

AS: One thing’s for sure, the need for this doesn’t seem to be fading. Covid-19 is still changing our individual and collective patterns of movement, and it looks like there’s a long way to go before we settle into anything that represents the ‘old ways’. This serves to add more justification and context to continue development.

Navigat/AR is also becoming more of a brand than a product, a sort of umbrella under which will sit all sorts of iterations, extensions and other ‘product’ ideas. All of these are centred around the singular vision that bringing situational awareness to wayfinding and signage systems will help boost confidence and lift safety standards.

In the short term, we’re looking hard at other ‘outputs’ to replace projection.

Projected interfaces are a good idea in principle, but with limitations. They require lots of hardware and infrastructure, and can become prohibitively costly to scale over large areas.

AS: I guess the final thought from me is that in times of change, innovation prospers through collaboration.

Whilst it’s difficult to pick through the horrors of Covid-19 and find anything good, some shining lights of positivity have emerged. Old (bad) habits are breaking and new (constructive) ones forming. In particular, I’m seeing new ways of working that were previously unimaginable.

New hyper-collaborations are increasing cognitive diversity and driving innovation forward at pace. Witness Apple and Google working on contact tracing apps, Dyson and McLaren making ventilators, or the global collaboration around clinical trial data.

And as people’s priorities, motives and relationships change, so too must future experiences. Designers, technologists and brands need to work together to develop solutions that address new needs, reward new motives and satisfy new concerns.

Co-creation and experimentation can be risky, but it can also bring positive outcomes, as in 2LK’s case with Navigat/ AR. We look forward to developing new partnerships and receiving positive industry contributions as we develop more product ideas related to the key vision for the Navigat/AR umbrella.

DB: Many thanks for your time today, Andy – and best of luck with Navigat/AR. ■

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new products

NavigatA/R: towards Covid-safe events?

Intelligent wayfinding system combines projection mapping, AI and to help maintain personal space in crowded environments.

NavigatA/R has just been launched by UK marketing and design consultancy 2LK, which claims that the tool is a Covid-proof intelligent wayfinding system.

The product appears to be an AR-based dynamic wayfinding system that assists people to maintain social distancing measures, projecting a ‘safe zone’ around punters.

Andy Sexton, partner and executive creative director at 2LK, said that the tool is aimed at giving people confidence to return to public spaces and events.

“As commercial and cultural spaces begin to open their doors around the world, more and more rules seem to be introduced, many appearing to contradict each other.

NavigatAR aims to take confusion out of the equation, so that people can return to their favourite shops, events and leisure destinations with confidence, knowing that they will be able to keep their personal space personal,” he said.

Teledyne Optech launches LiDAR for corridors Teledyne Optech launches the CM2000, a LiDAR sensor designed specifically for corridor mapping.

The newest in Teledyne Optech’s line of airborne LiDAR scanners allows users to narrow the sensor’s field of view to the precise width of a corridor to be mapped, maximising resolution for the target area.

Malek Singer, airborne product manager at Teledyne Optech, said that the CM2000 offers the smallest laser footprint of any airborne LiDAR scanner currently on the market.

“The true advantage of the Galaxy CM2000 is its ability to improve the mapping of the infrastructures that we all rely on every day – including the electric grid we count on for power, or the roads and rail we depend on for safe travel,” he said.

“This is accomplished by providing an astounding level of detail via true 2 million points per second straight to the ground and a small laser footprint that allows for the modelling of complex targets like electric towers and distribution wires.”

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CSIRO maps grain belt paddock boundaries from space Australia’s science agency has used artificial intelligence and Earth observation data to map the boundaries of paddocks across Australia’s grain belt — all 1.7 million of them.

The CSIRO announced that the technology has been commercially released as a data product named ePaddocks, aimed at helping agriculturalists transition to digital management practices by eliminating the need to redraw their own paddock data each season, for each service they use.

CSIRO remote sensing specialist Dr. Franz Waldner said that paddock boundaries aren’t historically recorded anywhere, unlike property boundaries.

“Paddock boundaries have been highly sought after in the digital agriculture world for a little while now, but we’ve tackled it over the past year or so with new technologies and solved it,” he said.

“Our method only needs one satellite image taken at any point in the growing season to distinguish the boundaries.

It relies on data driven processes and decisions rather than assumptions about what’s on the ground. It will set the standard for similar geospatial products.”

LINZ launches high resolution NZ base maps Land Information New Zealand’s free new base maps offer resolution accurate to 5cm in urban areas.

The new base maps are released under open licenses, with authoritative data provided by the LINZ data service.

The new layers cover mainland New Zealand, Chathams and other offshore islands with 10m satellite imagery, with resolution accurate to 5cm in some urban areas.

LINZ’s acting Chief Executive Kathy Mansell saidthe development of LINZ Basemaps is one of the ways LINZ is making data more accessible.

“LINZ Basemaps can be enjoyed by anyone interested in exploring New Zealand in exquisite detail – from teachers and schoolchildren to app developers or those planning holidays in our beautiful country,” she said.

“Its full potential is unlocked in the hands of geospatial information specialists and web developers who can add

more data about our country over the basemap to create a story or message, or make decisions.”

Jonathan Ball, LINZ’s Open Data & Reuse Manager, said the new data products were developed to incorporate research and feedback from LINZ data customers.

“We designed LINZ Basemaps to meet the needs of as many customers as possible by delivering it via a range of APIs and projections including New Zealand’s own NZTM2000,” he said.

New Trimble GNSS receiver includes advanced tilt compensation

Maptek releases Vulcan 2020 Maptek has announced the launch of Vulcan 2020, with a slew of new features.

The firm says that an enhanced package of geology and mine design tools in the 2020 edition of Vulcan reflect the evolving needs of the industry.

“The new crop of geologists and mining engineers has different expectations of the tools at their disposal,” said Maptek group product manager for mine planning, Jesse Oldham.

“They want to push and extend technology to the limits, using the workflows and automations to do the manual data work so they can spend their time on high-end tasks such as interpretation and analysis.”

The new suite features a drillhole optimiser tool to assist scenario planning, and a newly enhanced automated pit designer and updated open pit compliance tool.

Mr. Oldham said that centralised data plays a fundamental role in the digitalisation process, and the Maptek team designed the new features with this in mind.

Trimble has rolled out the new R12i GNSS receiver incorporating calibration-free tilt compensation.

The inertial measurement unit (IMU) based tilt compensation capability of the Trimble R12i enables points to be measured or staked out while the survey rod is tilted, and the company says that allows land surveyors to complete work faster and more accurately.

The new Trimble TIP technology builds on the company’s ProPoint GNSS positioning engine, which it claims delivers more than 30 percent better performance in challenging environments compared to the Trimble R10-2 receiver across a variety of factors, including time to achieve survey precision levels, position accuracy and measurement reliability.

“The R12i represents Trimble’s dedication to perfecting the user experience with the industry’s best GNSS engine and now robust tilt compensation,” said Ron Bisio, senior vice president of Trimble Geospatial.

According to Trimble, the TIP technology allows users to accurately mark and measure points in areas previously inaccessible for GNSS rovers such as building corners, or in hazardous situations, for example the edge of an open excavation.

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sssi

News and views from the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute

SSSI Board – 2020 President – Dr. Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse President-Elect – Paul Digney NSW Director – Wayne Patterson NT Director – Rob Sarib QLD Director – Lee Hellen SA Director – Michael Grear TAS Director – Paul Digney VIC Director – Richard Syme WA Director – Dr. Lesley Arnold ACT Director – Nicholas Brown Hydrography Commission Director – Neil Hewitt YP representative (Observer) – Roshni Sharma Company Secretary – Jonathan Saxon

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President’s column

I

t is with great pride that I write this, my final President’s column for Position Magazine. It is an opportunity to reflect and share insight into what I see are some of the Institute’s greatest achievements over the past two years, plus an opportunity to say thank you.

From a personal perspective, the networks and partnerships formed with other Australian and international organisations and professional bodies have been the highlight of my presidency.

For SSSI to truly succeed and deliver value to our members we must work collaboratively.

SSSI has signed MoU’s with a number of organisations over the past twelve months, including Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Pacific Geospatial and Surveying Council (PGSC), ASEAN Federation of Land Surveying and Geomatics (The ASEAN FLAG), Australasian Hydrographic Society (AHS), the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) UK and Surveying and Spatial New Zealand (S+SNZ).

It is with great pleasure that I list all these bodies. To SSSI, these MOU’s are more than just a signed piece of paper filed away. We are exchanging information, we are sharing knowledge, we are engaged and actively seeking opportunities that will benefit our members and the wider profession.

One highlight of my presidency was SSSI finally gaining Government recognition. I had the opportunity to meet the Hon. Governor General of Australia, the Hon. Prime Minister at the Prime Minister’s Science Prize Ceremony twice in my capacity as President and the Premier of NSW and the CEO of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).

SSSI was invited to participate in a consultative workshop which provided input into the development of the ANZLIC Strategic Plan for 2020-24. ANZLIC is the peak government body in Australia and New Zealand responsible for spatial information. On behalf of SSSI, I was able

to advocate on behalf of our members and ensure the strategy focused on capacity building for spatial professionals.

It has also been an honour to represent SSSI on the steering committee of the 2030 Space and Spatial Industry Roadmap Road Map. As I mention in my last column, the opportunities available to these mutually dependant industry sectors are infinite and to be part of these discussions has been very rewarding.

I look forward to seeing where these discussions lead.

While being President, seeing members engaged in our activities was exceptionally rewarding. Whether it be attending a regional event, webinar or Locate, participating on a Commission or Regional Committee, or even liking a LinkedIn post – seeing a member engaged with SSSI meant we were doing something right – they wanted to be part of our conversation and activities.

Our high member engagement has a lot to do with the exceptional work of our volunteers. With the support of our dedicated team of SSSI staff and under the leadership of CEO, Tony Wheeler, our volunteers are the backbone of this organisation. Words cannot express my gratitude for the endless hours and energy our volunteers dedicate to SSSI and the profession. I like to place my heartfelt thanks to the volunteers and Young Professional committee.

I would also like to acknowledge my fellow SSSI Board Directors. A remarkable group of people, who are passionate, enthusiastic, and committed to SSSI. Over the past two years, we have experienced many lively debates, but have worked well as a team with delivering member value always being our number one priority. It has been an honour sitting at the Board table with you all.

When I became a student member of SSSI, eleven years ago, never did it occur to me that I would be president of the Institute one day. I, like many people, join the Institute to be connected to our profession and be part of a network of like-minded professionals. SSSI is in a sound financial position amidst COVID implication. Thank you for trusting me over the past two years as your President to lead this fine Institute. As I hand the baton on to our incoming President, Paul Digney I am confident he will continue the good work of our Institute and make our members proud.

Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse President, SSSi

SSSI sustaining partner

CEO’s column

T

he first of October marks the beginning of the fire season here in Australia. Sadly, the bush fires which wreaked havoc across many parts of Australia last spring and summer are all too fresh in our minds. Many communities are still in the process of recovery and rebuilding. COVID-19 has also been an unforeseen complication to the healing process. It is hard to believe that once again we are coming into another fire season.

The fires of last season impacted many within the surveying and spatial community. If not ourselves, we knew of a family member, colleague or friend who had been adversely affected by the fires.

It is hard to comprehend the statistics surrounding the bushfires - millions of hectares burned, thousands of properties damaged, wildlife killed or displaced and sadly, lives lost. It was witnessing this devastation that provided the impetus for our profession to take action.

At the time, SSSI consulted with Commonwealth and State Government agencies, the newly formed National Bushfire Recovery Agency (NBRA), industry peak bodies and NGOs, seeking advice on how our profession could assist in the recovery process. This consultation led to the SSSI National Bushfire Recovery Map-a-thon being held in early February, with the location of burnt infrastructure being the main priority for data collection.

Though I had not commenced my tenure at SSSI, I was amazed to hear that some 600+ surveying and spatial volunteers from all over the world came forward to participate in the SSSI Bushfire Recovery Map-a-thon, which is believed to be the largest single event mapa-thon held in the Australasian region. An incredible volunteering feat.

This Map-a-thon highlighted the immense volunteer capacity within the surveying and spatial profession and led to the formation of SSSI’s Special Interest Group on Disaster Management and Recovery, chaired by Dr Lesley Arnold.

It was also during this initial Map-athon, several NGO’s, community groups and government departments reached out to SSSI. One such group that came forward was the Growing Data Foundation. The Growing Data Foundation was in the process of creating a web application called FireWater which shows how low-cost, long range radio technologies and open GIS mapping systems provide real time data to direct fire crews to the nearest available water sources.

With this specific web application in mind, coupled with discussions with the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying & Mapping (ICSM) - it was confirmed ICSM and its members organisations welcomed the assistance of the surveying and spatial volunteer community to collect data on static water supply infrastructure.

Over the past few weeks, a project team has formed within SSSI’s Disaster Management and Recovery Special Interest Group and the next Map-a-thon was initiated, with a focus on collecting data on static water infrastructure such as water tanks, dams, swimming pools.

I am pleased to announce the SSSI FireWater Map-a-thon will be held on Saturday 31 October 2021.

Static water infrastructure data collected during the SSSI FireWater Mapa-thon will be used for the FireWater App and will assist in improving the accuracy and completeness of the foundation spatial data used by emergency management.

If you are reading this article after the date, you have not missed out. This will be the first of several proposed Map-a-thon’s focused on bushfire preparedness. If you would like to be kept up to date on future Map-a-thon initiatives, simply contact the SSSI team at info@sssi.org.au or visit our website www.sssi.org.au/firewater for regular updates.

Once again, we are grateful for the generous support of NGIS Australia for setting up the project sites and to Nearmap who will be supplying high resolution imagery where available. The OpenStreetMap (OSM) Platform and Hot Tasker Manager will be used to coordinate the mapping efforts.

On a final note, I must say what an honour it has been to work with our outgoing President, Dr Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse for the past six months.

I have known Zaffar for many years, but this has been the first opportunity I have had to work with him in this capacity. His passion, dedication, and service to SSSI and our members during his Presidency is well known and respected in the wider profession. SSSI has a strong future and is now in a very solid position due to his strategic leadership and capacity for selfless hard work. Zaffar, you are a true statesman. I look forward to working with our staff, board and members to ensure your strong legacy continues.

Tony Wheeler CEO

Commission Chairs Engineering & Mining Surveying Chair Andrew Edwards chair.emsc@sssi.org.au Hydrography Commission Chair Neil Hewitt chair.hc@sssi.org.au Land Surveying Commission Chair Lindsay Perry chair.lsc@sssi.org.au Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Commission Chair Petra Helmholz chair.rspc@sssi.org.au Spatial Information & Cartography Commission Chair Angus Scown chair.sicc@sssi.org.au

Regional Committee Chairs ACT Regional Chair Noel Ward chair.act@sssi.org.au NSW Regional Chair Mary-Ellen Feeney chair.nsw@sssi.org.au NT Regional Chair Rob Sarib chair.nt@sssi.org.au QLD Regional Chair Paul Reed chair.qld@sssi.org.au SA Regional Chair Graham Walker chair.sa@sssi.org.au TAS Regional Chair Paul Digney chair.tas@sssi.org.au VIC Regional Chair Andrej Mocicka chair.vic@sssi.org.au WA Regional Chair Darren Mottolini chair.wa@sssi.org.au SSSI National Office 27-29 Napier Cl, Deakin, ACT 2600 (PO Box 307) Phone: +61 2 6282 2282 Email: support@sssi.org.au

www.spatialsource.com.au 39

sssi

National Survey Initiative – up and running!

T

raditionally the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has maintained a dedicated flotilla of survey vessels to conduct surveys for safety of navigation in support of Australia’s national charting authority the Australian Hydrographic Office (AHO). Australian’s region of responsibility covers approximately one eighth of the Earth’s surface, and represents a huge challenge for the collection of high-resolution data to support modern navigation charting standards.

This year has seen a new approach to gathering this vital data with the implementation of the Hydroscheme Industry Partnership Program (HIPP).

This exciting new initiative has extended the challenge of surveying the waters around Australia to the Australian hydrographic survey industry, greatly expanding the area surveyed annually, while allowing the RAN to focus on providing geospatial support to the Australian Defence Force. The AHO provides oversight and management of

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the HIPP, which sees Australian based companies competitively bid for survey contracts all around the country. The successful bid is chosen via a thorough selection process, which addresses technical capability, environmental and cultural compliance, programme risk and value for money.

Once a contract is awarded, a combined team of RAN and civilian staff based at the AHO, Wollongong, work closely with the successful company to ensure that the final rendered survey data meets the high standards required for official navigational charts. The AHO team achieve this by forming an efficient and professional working relationship with the selected survey company, and work closely with them throughout the life of the project.

The HIPP survey program commenced in May 2020, and there are now five projects underway or about to commence around Australia. The areas currently underway and planned for financial year 2020/21 are described in HydroScheme

2020, which can be viewed on the AHO website as ESRI Story maps (http:// www.hydro.gov.au/NHP/). These show the survey areas in detail, and includes information regarding the use of the data and value of this survey to Australia.

One of the surveys now in progress is the Approaches to Darwin and Beagle Gulf, which was awarded to Precision Hydrographic Services, who commenced operations with an AHO Client Representative deployed on board MV Limitless, in July 2020.

The HIPP has also forged a professional partnership with AusSeabed whereby it will use the AusSeabed platform to provide a tool for stakeholders to request areas of interest for consideration under the program, and to publish the collected data for the broader Australian community to use.

REFERENCES: HIPP Storyboards: http://www.hydro.gov.au/NHP/ AuSeabed: http://www.ausseabed.gov.au/about/ initiatives/register

SSSI sustaining partner

Remote sensing 2.0 – the accelerating demand for space-derived data E arth information is a foundation for the prosperity and security that progressive societies seek. Over the past decade or so there has been significant advances in both airborne and spaceborne remote sensing, providing a range of tools and data for monitoring and managing both the built and natural environment and there is evidence, both in terms of the number of satellite systems and market size, that the demand for satellite remote sensing data is accelerating Sources of satellite derived remotely sensed data has grown from one or two government owned or controlled sensor systems collecting image data in a few bands of visible and NIR wavelengths and resolutions of tens of metres, to a vast array of sensors across the whole spectrum from visible to P-band radar, and at pixel resolutions down to 0.2m.

With launch costs coming down, in part due to the use of smaller nanosatellites and cheaper launch procedures, a much greater contribution from the private sector and launch of systems by many more countries, there has been a huge increase in quality and data availability, generally at much lower data costs (even free image data) when compared to a decade ago.

From a market viewpoint there has also been an accelerating demand. The global market for satellite remote sensing, which was estimated at US$2.1 Billion in the year 2025, based on 2018 and earlier figures (see graph), is now projected to reach a revised size of US$6 Billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 14.2% over the period 2020-2027.

There are many reasons for this greater demand for data. At the global level there has been an increased scientific effort to understand and monitor global warming, climate change, ice cover loss, forest decline and ocean and atmospheric pollution, to name a few, with much greater public awareness of these global problems in part due to easily accessible imagery such as Google Earth, and the

scientific communities greater access to data from the release of 40 + years of Landsat digital image data, relatively recent SPOT image data, other free data sources, and the free data being made available as part of the Copernicus ESA program.

The Copernicus program is the most ambitious Earth observation program to date. ESA coordinates the delivery of data from upwards of 30 satellites and is developing a new family of satellites, called Sentinels, and the data from these systems is free. Some satellites in the program fly in formation, termed the A Train, that enables the one location to be imaged minutes apart, from different sensor systems, which provides for more comprehensive and integrated data sets.

At the regional and local level greater demand has been generated, more recently in Australia, due to the impact of fires and floods, for disaster monitoring and response, automated open cut mining, the growing application of precision farming with its real time needs for thematic information, and the increased application of high resolution remotely sensed data for intelligence gathering, and as the thematic base for digital twinning, particularly in urban areas, as highlighted in Position, August/ September 2020.

The availability of higher spatial resolution data, greater and a more targeted and narrow spectral bands and hyperspectral data across the visible, near, mid, and thermal IR, and multi polarimetric radar in P,L,C and X bands, InSAR and laser profiling, and the development of country wide data cubes, has contributed to increased demand as new, unique data sources often stimulate research and commercial applications not previously considered.

Bruce Forster is a former Professor and Director of the Centre for Remote Sensing and GIS, University of New South Wales, and National Secretary of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Commission.

Source: NASA – Global Satellite Observation Systems

Source: Forster, Asian Remote Sensing Conference, Kuala Lumpur, 2018

Source: ESA - Formation Flying – A Train

Visible and Infrared Image as Input for Precision Farming

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sssi partner feature

Successful digital twins require more than just technological solutions Urban digital twins, if designed effectively, equitably, and ethically, will provide the tools and methods required for human settlements to become more liveable, inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.

U

rban areas across the globe are facing enormous challenges: population growth is increasing demand for energy, transport, housing, and other infrastructure while new technologies - from autonomous transport to IoT and indoor location - are providing solutions along with whole new challenges. Governments are looking for efficient, sustainable ways to meet the needs of residents.

‘Smart Cities’ is a catch-all term that paints a vision of a connected, digital city as a solution to these problems.

A core requirement for making a city ‘smart’ is creating a representative digital environment within which advanced visualisation, analysis, planning, modelling, simulation, monitoring, and citizen engagement can occur: the ‘urban digital twin.’

Urban digital twins include both static point-in-time 3D models of the physical objects in tandem with dynamic predictive models driven by real-time inputs from city-wide sensors. More than just a tool for city managers, well-designed urban digital twins create a diverse, interoperable, accessible, inclusive, and secure data ecosystem within which many different players can obtain insight that improves decisions.

Urban digital twins are already transforming how cities are being planned, built, and managed. In Australia, the NSW Spatial Services’ Digital Twin is showing exciting potential as it continues to grow in

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scope and scale, as does Victoria’s digital twin proof of concept.

From a technical standpoint, open standards play a critical role in urban digital twins.Two principles from ANZLIC’s Principles for Spatially Enabled Digital Twins of the Built and Natural Environment in Australia ‘Principle 5: Openness’ and ‘Principle 8: Standards’ - explicitly call for the use of open standards to not just improve accessibility and functionality, but also reduce costs and increase value. The value of open standards to government, industry, academia, and wider society is a message that OGC has firmly believed in and promoted for its 25+ years of existence.

OGC offers a suite of open standards that are applicable and beneficial to urban digital twins: including CityGML, IndoorGML, SensorThings, 3DTiles, i3S and our new OpenAPI-based ‘OGC API’ standards. These standards and more were recently applied in the ‘OGC 3D IoT Platform for Smart Cities Pilot’ sponsored by the Korea Land and Housing Corporation.

However, creating a successful urban digital twin isn’t an exclusively technical problem: successful urban digital twins require ongoing collaboration between multiple tiers of government, the private sector, public utilities, building owners, community groups, citizens, and more.

Just like standards, urban digital twins will only work if they are designed to accommodate diverse - and often unforeseen - viewpoints and use-cases.

BY GEORGE PERCIVALL, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AND CHIEF ENGINEER AT THE OPEN GEOSPATIAL CONSORTIUM (OGC)

OGC is thus organising the Location Powers: Urban Digital Twins virtual summit in January 2021 that aims to bring industry, research, and government experts together into an interactive discussion that assesses the current “state of the art” and produces recommendations for future technology research, innovation, and standards development in support of urban development.

The online summit aims to be truly global: its advisory board comprises experts from Australia, North America, UK, Japan, and Singapore; and sessions are timed for two different global zones, including Australia and New Zealand.

Attendees will learn the current state of the art, best practices, and promising research surrounding urban digital twins - including applications in transport, utilities, energy, health and more. After the presentations, ‘best of breed’ virtual meeting tools will recreate the successful Location Powers small-group workshop setting in a virtual environment.

Speakers and participants will be drawn from diverse fields of expertise, including: urban geography; planning; governance; civil engineering; BIM; geospatial; the design, modelling, and operation of physical infrastructure; data science; machine learning; cloud/edge/fog computing; and more.

Anyone from these fields involved or interested in the planning, execution, or management of urban projects or initiatives are urged to express their interest at locationpowers.net n

GET YOUR D I G I TA L E D I T I O N August/September 2020 – No. 108

June/July 2020 – No. 107

April/May 2020 – No. 106

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

Soaring through space and time with

SATELLITE IMAGERY

CLIFF’S EDGE Tech to pull construction back from the brink

THE AGE OF AUTOMATION How an innovative approach to collaboration helped a community rebuild after the bushfires

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Official publication of

inside Beyond the model Twinning of a new era

Tectonic shift Geotechnics and geopolitics intersect

Optimising the plot Pushing agriculture forward

inside Building capacity On developing robust GSOs

Next generation Developing future spatial scientists

Cadastral reform How will Covid-19 affect progress?

inside Critical utility The dataset powering Covid-19 response

Through its paces Putting AUSPOS to the test

The next generation Building a love of survey

Check out our collection of back issues online February/March 2020 – No. 105

December/January 2020 – No. 104

October/November 2019 – No. 103

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

FUELLING THE INNOVATION RACE

VISUALISING HISTORY Mining’s historical tenements open data

Interactive technology sets young minds racing

BIM + GIS Challenging the laws of infrastructure design

Augmented Reality Scan to view in app

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inside

inside OneMap BP’s approach to unifying company data

Frame games Upgrades to the AGRS

Sounding the alarm Revising spatial comms for a critical use case

Q&A with Paul Reed Locate20 Brisbane: the place to be in April

The colour of health NIR imagery in crop health analysis

Scanning the depths High-resolution maps for the ocean floor

inside Moonshot Building space capability

GDA2020 Tools to aid transition

As a subscriber, you can get exclusive access to the current edition of the magazine days before it hits your mailbox.

Simply scan the QR code, or go to https://www.spatialsource.com.au/position-magazine-digital-edition

SEASC 2019 Developing links with Asia