Position issue 89 June-July 2017

June/July 2017 – No. 89

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

GERMAN INNOVATION Putting customer workflows first

Official publication of

inside Climate of change Ag tech to feed a hungry world

Augmented reality Bringing real life to built environments

Earth’s population How to create the ultimate census

contents

June/July 2017 No.89

page

New segment: The Misclose

Augmented reality has entered the building.

42

Technology to feed the world

18

26

page

page

features 16 COVER STORY: German Innovation

30 Welcoming the return of an old friend

A tradition of innovation for more than 50 years.

14 Q&A with Dr Walter Scott

One of Australia’s largest geospatial events returns this August.

32 Grapes & Geofences

The founder of DigitalGlobe chats about machine learning and starting a business.

18 The next big step: AR

The smart tech protecting South Australia’s billion-dollar wine industry.

34 Locate17 and Digital Earth

Augmented reality represents a real addition for built environment professionals.

21 WynLens A deep dive into holographic technology for visualising city changes.

24 What’s the planet’s population, today?

Bringing together data from around the world to create the ultimate census.

26 A climate of change

A surveyor’s insights on the national event of the year.

Regulars 4 7 8 36 38 42

Upfront, calendar Editorial News New products SSSI The Misclose

The world is growing hungrier by the minute.

Is precision ag the solution we need? www.spatialsource.com.au 3

Upcoming Events 20-22 June 2017: Commercial UAV Expo Europe; Brussels, Belgium. www.expouav.com/europe 21 June 2017: World Hydrography Day Seminar & Dinner; Darwin, NT. bit.ly/2sGs12x 27-28 June 2017: Safe Integration of RPAS into Australian Airspace; Canberra, ACT. bit.ly/2suiFYa 29-30 June 2017: Yellowscan International User Conference; Montpellier, France. bit.ly/2sGrRrX 9-10 July 2017: Esri Business Summit; San Diego, CA, USA. bit.ly/2rVqCsl “Sediment on the move,” Visual Soundings. Data acquired by INFOMAR, Marine Institute.

upfront

11-14 July 2017: Institute of Australian Geographers Conference; Brisbane, QLD. www.iagconference.com.au

Making art from seafloor surveys

J

ust as the landscape photographers want to share the scenes they capture, marine scientists want to share the hidden terrains that make the seafloor so captivating. That is the goal of a new initiative that uses marine surveys to create visually stunning artworks.

Visual Soundings is a new website and art collection showcasing the wonders of the ocean’s depths uncovered through multibeam echosoundings (MBES).

The contributors to the site have been ‘listening’ to the seafloor for decades with increasingly sophisticated technology, and are now sharing what they have found to a wider audience. Among the collections are natural and manmade sea floor textures reminiscent of—among other things—a bird’s head, a toppling wine glass and a couple conversing.

The example depicted above, “Sediment on the move,” was found in the waters off the north coast of Ireland. The region is widely known for its dramatic rock formation such as the Giant Causeway. However, further offshore the geomorphology continues to create spectacular formations, including these undulating wave formations and steep rocky outcrops. They are testament to the extreme tides and currents of the region.

Dr Lucieer, a marine spatial analyst behind the Visual Soundings collection, said seafloor images are usually studied with a scientific eye rather than from an artistic perspective, which means the

4 position June/July 2017

10-14 July 2017: Esri User Conference; San Diego, CA, USA. bit.ly/2qWAqNH

breathtaking beauty of marine landscapes is often overlooked.

“We’re familiar with the appearance of the Moon and even the surface of Mars is well-documented thanks to NASA’s rovers, but still only five per cent of the world’s oceans have been mapped in any detail,” Dr Lucieer said.

“In recent years, however, new techniques such as multibeam echosounders have revolutionised scientists’ knowledge of the appearance, shape and structure of the seabed.

“In doing so, they sometimes reveal startlingly beautiful glimpses of the seafloor that look more like works of art than scientific data.”

Simple echosounding and other techniques have been used for many years to make maps of the seabed, primarily for navigation safety, based on the depth measurements (soundings).

More advanced acoustic techniques, most significantly multibeam echosounders have revolutionised our knowledge of the shape and structure of the seabed over the last couple of decades. MBES have now evolved to become the standard system for mapping the oceans, lakes and rivers.

Traditionally, MBES systems have been mounted to ship hulls, but more recently have been adapted to Remotely controled Underwater Vehicles (ROVS) and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs).

The Visual Soundings gallery can be viewed online at visualsoundings.org. ■

12-14 July 2017: Ecocity World Summit; Melbourne, VIC. www.ecocity2017.com 18-22 July 2017: FOSS4G Europe 2017; Paris, France. europe.foss4g.org 2 August 2017: ACS NSW 2017 State Conference; Sydney, NSW. bit.ly/2qRyI5l 11 August 2017: Spatial Information Day and APSEA-SA Dinner; Adelaide, SA. spatialinformationday.org.au 14-19 August 2017: FOSS4G Boston 2017; Boston, MA, USA. 2017.foss4g.org 22 August 2017: Ozri Melbourne 2017; Melbourne, VIC. bit.ly/2rIfxtF 25 August 2017: Ozri Sydney 2017; Sydney, NSW. bit.ly/2rrxvjC 29 August 2017: Ozri Brisbane 2017; Brisbane, QLD. bit.ly/2qS1hzt 31 August-2 September 2017: World of Drones Congress; Brisbane, QLD. www.worldofdrones.com.au 1 Septmeber 2017: Victorian Spatial Summit; Kew, Vic. bit.ly/2qWnKGN 11-15 September 2017: Photogrammetric Week; Stuttgart, Germany. www.ifp.uni-stuttgart.de/phowo 13-15 September 2017: AIMS Conference; Hunter Valley, NSW. www. aimsconference.com.au 14-15 September 2017: Construction Innovation 2017 Forum; Melbourne, VIC. bit.ly/2rrxYCl 15 September 2017: Tasmanian Surveying and Spatial Conference; Hobart, TAS. bit.ly/2rAOHSl

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The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

Publisher Simon Cooper Editor Anthony Wallace awallace@intermedia.com.au National Advertising Manager Jon Tkach jon@intermedia.com.au Graphic Designer Alyssa Coundouris Prepress Tony Willson Circulation/Subscriptions Chris Blacklock Production Jacqui Cooper Subscribe Position is available via subscription only.

A 12 month subscription (6 issues) is AUD$76.00. To subscribe visit www.intermedia.com.au, phone 1 800 651 422 or email: subscriptions@intermedia.com.au.

Website www.spatialsource.com.au Position is published six times a year, in February, April, June, August, October and December by Interpoint Events Pty Ltd. ABN: 9810 451 2469 Address: 41 Bridge Road, Glebe NSW 2037 Ph: +61 2 9660 2113 Fax: +61 2 9660 4419

from the editor A mirror to reality

I

n aesthetics, the ‘uncanny valley’ is the hypothesis that human replicas which appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings elicit feelings of revulsion among observers.

I imagine if the same hypothesis was applied to the world around us, that disturbia could be even more pronounced. Not only would you question what you are seeing, but you may get a whole new perspective for your place in the world. In 2017, mixed reality is bringing us ever closer to that state.

Disturbia doesn’t necessarily sound like a good feeling, but if we can create 3D experiences that elicit an emotional response, I believe there is significant value there. In the future, we will want to shock, amaze and dazzle with our 3D models and flexible designs. On the flip side, no response equals no value.

Anthony Wallace This issue we define and explore mixed reality, virtual Editor reality and augmented reality, and more importantly for awallace@intermedia.com.au readers of this magazine, the big value these paradigms are promising for built environment professionals.

On page 18, Position’s founding editor Jon Fairall covers off the evolution of augmented reality technology to date and where he suspects it is heading. Following this up, the team at Wyndham City Council (page 21) take you on a deep dive into the holographic technology already being used in smart city planning.

This issue also looks at agriculture and the need for more sustainable solutions in light of global climate change, water shortages and sea level rise. I never realised how important, complicated and fascinating the role of a modern day farmer is (page 26).– Not to mention that a CEO’s role is likely to be automated before a farmer’s job ever is.

I’m also excited to announce that this issue we also have a new segment, The Misclose (page 42), where you can share your experiences about when things don’t according to plan. To kick things off, I vent my frustrations (and fascination) with the Lily drone fiasco that recently left a minor misclose of some US$35 million.

I hope you enjoy Position #89!

Editorial inquiries should be sent to: awallace@intermedia.com.au Advertising inquiries should be sent to: jon@intermedia.com.au Ph: +61 2 8586 6128

August/September 2017 – Issue #90

NEXT ISSUE

Reprints from Position are permitted only with the permission of the publisher. In all cases, reprints must be acknowledged as follows: ‘Reprinted with permission from Position Magazine’, and must include the author’s byline.

Features: Digital Transformation, Big Data, Drone Delivery, Future Transport Position is the only independent magazine for spatial sciences, surveying, GIS, government and other mapping professionals to be circulated nationally across both Australia and New Zealand. It covers the acquisition, manipulation and presentation of geo-data in a wide range of industries including agriculture, disaster management, government, smart cities, environmental management and resources.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher.

Published: 8 August 2017 Advertising booking deadline: 12 July Advertising material deadline: 17 July

Supported by

On the cover: The new Z+F 5016 scanner performs a 3D laser scan of an overpass in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. Find out more about Z+F in this issue's cover story, “German Innovation: A tradition of innovation for more than 50 years” (page 16).

www.spatialsource.com.au 7

news New Zealand dominates annual spatial awards

A ‘World first’ satellite imagery service, Digital Earth Australia Australia’s latest federal budget revealed ambitious news plans for establishing a service to deliver frequently updated satellite imagery to all Australians.

Known as Digital Earth Australia (DEA), the new initiative will receive $15.3 million of federal funding over the next two years to deliver satellite imagery over the entirety of the continent. When complete, it promises to provide 10 metre resolution imagery nationwide, updated every five days. It will also provide access to advanced remote sensing data through a “publicly available, free platform.”

Digital Earth Australia will build on the award winning

Australian Geoscience Data Cube, developed between Geoscience Australia, CSIRO and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

Led by Geoscience Australia, the rebranded Digital Earth Australia will also use almost three decades of existing satellite imagery to access insights across the Australian continent.

One dataset that has already become available is the Intertidal Extents Model (ITEM) an extent map covering for the whole of the Australia’s 50,000 km coastline. It is now available openly from www.ga.gov.au/ interactive-maps.

Australia is the world leader in open data Australia and New Zealand have been named among the top nations in providing open government data.

The latest results of the Global Open Data Index (GODI) reveal that Australia is ranked equal first out of 94 countries, sharing the top spot with Taiwan. New Zealand also had a strong result, beating the Unites States and Brazil to take out number seven on the index.

GODI aims to provide the most comprehensive snapshot available of the state

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of open government data publication. Published by The Open Knowledge Institute annually, GODI ranks how well nations publish open government data against 14 key categories.

Australia scored full marks in three of the spatial categories including, “Administration Boundaries,” “National Maps,” and “Locations.” The datasets where Australia did not perform well include “Land Ownership,” “Government Spending” and “Water Quality.”

The annual Spatial Excellence Awards, held during Locate17 and the Digital Earth Symposium in April, highlighted the tremendous achievements of surveying and spatial professionals over the past twelve months in the Asia Pacific region.

The overall JK Barrie prize in the Asia Pacific Spatial Excellence (APSEA) industry awards went to New Zealand’s Wellington City Council, whose Living Lab project uses existing data sources and sensors to monitor real-time street level trends, patterns and hotspots.

Wellington’s entry won the “Award for People and Community” before going on to win the overall prize.

New Zealand showcased particular excellence this year, with the SSSI award for “Professional of the Year” going to Professor Wendy Lawson from the University of Canterbury’s Department of Geography.

The NZ Transport Agency also won the “Award for Spatial Enablement” and Mike McConcachi of the University of Otago took out the “Postgraduate Student Award.”

The full list of spatial excellence award winners for the 2016-2017 period includes: Award for Environment and Sustainability: Kennedy Surveying (NSW)

Award: Prof Wendy Lawson (NZ)

Award for Export: AAM (WA)

Young Professional of the Year Award: Phillip Nixon (NSW)

Award for Innovation and Commercialisation: NGIS Australia and CSBP (WA) Award for People and Community: Wellington City Council (NZ) Award for Technical Excellence: Geomatic Technologies (VIC) Award for Spatial Enablement: NZ Transport Agency (NZ)

Undergraduate Student Award: Todd Lyon (WA)

GITA ANZ Excellence Award: Western Power GITA ANZ Dial Before You Dig Award: Western Power The SIBA Chairman’s Award: Gary Nairn AO SSSI President’s Award: Simon Ironside ISDE President’s Award: Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse

Overall JK Barrie award for industry excellence: Wellington City Council (NZ)

ISDE Life Membership Awards: Milan Konecny, Dr Peter Woodgate, Manfred Ehlers

Education Development Award: Prof Megan Lewis (SA)

IJDE Award: Bayaer Uriyangqai

Postgraduate Student Award: Mike McConcachi (NZ) Professional of the Year

The International Society for Digital Earth’s Video Competition Award: Yoana Sandinska (Bulgaria)

Professional of the Year, Professor Wendy Lawson (left) with ISDE President’s Award winner Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse.

news Details of SBAS testbed revealed It was announced earlier in 2017 that Australia and New Zealand will be investing $14 million in precise satellite positioning research, promising a new positioning service capable of accuracies as small as 5cm. With trials of the Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) positioning program now underway, specifics of the research have finally come to light.

Early estimates suggest that SBAS will provide a cost-effective way to improve GPS signals from around 5 metres in accuracy to less than 1 metre. A Precise Point Positioning (PPP) signal is also expected to be able to achieve an accuracy of 5-10cm

As the name suggests, a Satellite-Based Augmentation System relies on a satellite to transmit additional signals to improve the accuracy and reliability of positioning by established GNSS constellations. However, until now which satellite (or satellites) will be used had not been announced.

Dr John Dawson from Geoscience Australia revealed that for the SBAS Testbed, signals will be transmitted from the Inmarsat-4F1 satellite. This satellite is located in geosynchronous orbit above Australasia and has two currently unused SBAS navigation antennas.

The signals will be provided

The SBAS Testbed will use the Inmarsat-4F1 (Alphasat) satellite. Image: ESA–J. Huart

at GPS L1 and GPS L5/ Galileo E5a frequencies. The signals will be generated at a facility at Uralla, New South Wales, using data observed by Australian and New Zealand national GNSS CORS networks together with regional GNSS data.

First transmissions of a single frequency SBAS signal are expected in June 2017.

The PPP signals is expected to become available from August and the next generation dualfrequency, multi-constellation SBAS signal is set for launch around October.

New service to ‘LINK’ foundation spatial data For the first time, spatial datasets across all Australian government agencies, states and territories can now be found in one place. A new service known as the Location Information Knowledge Platform (LINK) is providing open access to a wealth of fundamental spatial datasets.

LINK creates simplified

access to datasets from no less than 73 agencies: 26 federal agencies; 40 state and territory-based agencies; 4 commercial agencies; and 3 non-jurisdictional agencies.

The extensive range of datasets are already available across ten broad themes: Geocoded Addressing; Administrative Boundaries;

Positioning; Place Names; Land Parcel and Property; Imagery; Transport; Water; Elevation and Depth; and Land Cover.

LINK was developed

by Geoscience Australia, Australia and New Zealand’s Spatial Information Council, ANZLIC, and the Department of Prime Minister and

Cabinet, together with Australia’s states and territories.

As datasets are updated by source agencies, LINK’s datasets will be automatically updated and store all supply chain information and related metadata.

To access link, visit link. fsdf.org.au.

Federal Budget’s mixed bag for surveying and spatial industries The 2017-2018 Australian federal budget announced by treasurer Scott Morrison in May presents a mixed bag for spatial and surveying professionals.

The budget includes new funding for major infrastructure projects to the tune of $75 billion in total— including $8.4 billion for a Melbourne-Brisbane inland rail link and $5.3 billion for Sydney’s second airport.

General Manager of the SSSI, Chris Malouf, said that the Federal Budget presents a mixed bag for its membership of spatial and surveying professionals.

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“These major infrastructure spends will all have significant components of work requiring the professional services of surveyors and spatial scientists,” said Malouf.

“With regard to tertiary

education, it is disappointing to see that the university fees will increase by 1.8 per cent next year, and 7.5 per cent by 2022. The universities are also facing 2.5 per cent efficiency dividend.

“In a climate where there has been a gradual decline over the last decade in the number of universities offering surveying and spatial science related courses, this budget outcome will only further exacerbate the problem.”

Small and medium-sized businesses, however, are set to benefit from a lower tax rate and more incentives to invest.

Deanna Hutchinson, the newly appointed CEO of SIBA|GITA said that, “businesses are winners in the Federal Budget, and for spatial businesses the budget offers a smorgasbord of opportunities.”

NSW land titles privatised for $2.6 billion Following months of speculation, it has been confirmed that a 35-year lease to run the profitable New South Wales land titles registry has been sold to consortium Australian Registry Investments (ARI) for $2.6 billion. The move

was heralded by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian as a “massive infrastructure boost,” but heavily criticised by surveyors, lawyers and real estate agents alike.

Operations of the only profitable part of the state government’s Land and

Property Information (LPI), the land titles registry, was officially bought by ARI in April. The consortium is led by First State Super and Hastings Fund Management, and made up of 80 per cent Australian institutional investors.

While the government

argues that selling the lease to operate the land titles registry would spur ICT investment and speed up the system, scores of real estate agents, surveyors, lawyers, unions and community groups have spoken out, labelling the privitisation a ‘disaster.’

The spatial sector growth plan is now in action The 2026 Spatial Industry Transformation and Growth Agenda (2026 Agenda) has begun implementing an action plan to maximise the innovation, productivity and competitiveness of the spatial industry across Australia.

Following some nine months of consultation with over 500 individuals,

the plan is now ready for implementation following its formal launch at Locate17.

The 10-year Action Plan consists of six key pillars of transformation: Public Infrastructure and Analytics; Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Outreach; Research and Development; Education, Training and

Capacity Building; and Representation.

The plan is supported

by Australia’s Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, Angus Taylor MP who has issued a direct challenge, “I encourage the spatial sector, and the broader community, to take this 2026Agenda forward and

become a leading example of innovation and leadership for the nation,” he said.

Over the coming months, the 2026 Agenda Team will begin implementation by working with interested individual and organisations.

The full version of the 2026 Agenda can be downloaded www.2026agenda.com.

Mitsubishi Electric’s Mobile Mapping System

Integrated, easily mountable and detachable for creation of accurate 3D maps

M

itsubishi Electric have recently released the MMS-G220 Mobile Mapping System, a highly accurate measuring system for acquiring 3D positioning data of road surfaces and roadside features to an absolute accuracy of 10 cm.

The system uses car-mounted GPS antennas, laser scanners and cameras to gather data, for the creation of comprehensive 3D maps to a high level of accuracy.

3D space positional point cloud is acquired at a rate of 27,100 points/sec (per scanner) to a range of 65 m with a 180° field of view. An optional long-range/ high density laser can increase the acquisition rate to 1,000,000 points/sec to a range of 119m with a 360° field of view.

The integrated, easily mountable, and detachable solution, allows use with numerous vehicle types and applications. Software developed by Mitsubishi

Electric reduces the amount of on-roof equipment required, simplifying operation.

The system has been authorized as the standard tool for public surveying in Japan, with sales of more than 100 units with a market share of over 70%. Furthermore, the system is put into practical use for gathering 3D spatial information to create common base maps for autonomous driving undertaken by “Dynamic Map Planning Co., Ltd.“ (http://www.dynamic-maps. co.jp/en/index.html).

The system is compatible with Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) developed by Mitsubishi Electric, which will commence full service first in Japan from 2018, then to the AsiaOceania region. The satellite system will significantly improve the accuracy of positioning in areas where signals from GPS satellites cannot be clearly received due to skyscrapers or natural terrain.

For more information or to arrange a detailed review with Mitsubishi Electric design engineers please contact Mitsubishi Electric Australia at mms@meaust.meap.com or visit www.mitsubishielectric.com.au

www.spatialsource.com.au 11

news The risk of drone collision accelerates as senate inquiry grows momentum Heat map of reported location of RPAS near encounters and occurrence category around Australia (2012– 2016) Source: ATSB.

A new report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has quantified the growing risk posed by remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS).

ATSB found that while there have been no reported collisions between RPAS and manned aircraft in Australia, the number of ‘encounters’ is increasing and that the

potential consequences of collisions are not yet fully understood.

About half of the 180 occurrences from 2012 to 2016 listed in the report involved proximity encounters with manned aircraft.

Encounters are also on the rise, with over 60 per cent of reported RPAS encounters occurring in 2016.

“We expect there could be a doubling in the number of RPAS in Australia by the end of 2017,” ATSB Chief Commissioner Greg Hood said. “Based on our knowledge of bird strikes, RPAS collisions

with high capacity air transport aircraft could lead to an engine ingestion in about eight per cent of strikes.”

In 2016, a set of new regulations from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) allowed untrained operators to fly RPAS weighing less than 2 kg for a range of purposes, effectively opening up the skies and a new industry.

In response, a senate inquiry led by the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee is claiming that “immediate action” is needed to make the development of RPAS industry safer in Australia.

The inquiry is currently investigating regulation and safety measures for the use of RPAS to present to the Senate on December 6, 2017.

Veris CEO stands down from surveying conglomerate The CEO of arguably the largest surveying firm in Australia, Veris (formerly OTOC) has resigned. Simon Thomas unexpectedly stood down from the role of CEO from the publicly listed company in April.

In his stead, Adam Lamond has assumed the lead under the new role of managing director.

Under Thomas, an aggressive spate of

acquisitions over the past few years saw Veris grow rapidly into a national presence. As these businesses are spread across Australia, Veris now operates in all states and territories of Australia to provide cadastral and spatial solutions to some of Australia’s largest infrastructure, property and resource companies.

New Veris MD Adam Lamond

In assuming the lead, Lamond will be responsible for continuing a group-wide strategic and operational review of Veris. An official ASX announcement explained that the review’s purpose is to oversee the “national integration of the surveying business” and “develop a strong and dominant brand in the surveying and spatial sector in Australia.”

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

Subscribe now for your FREE weekly newsletter at www.spatialsource.com.au 12 position June/July 2017

Access the planet today at geoplex.com.au/planet-explorer

geoplex.com.au planet.com

q&a PSMA Australia’s Geoscape uses high resolution DigitalGlobe satellite imagery to accurately map features—building dimensions, rooftop materials, land cover, solar panels and swimming pools—at every urban address in Australia.

MACHINE LEARNING & STARTUPS:

Q&A WITH DR WALTER SCOTT Founder and chief technology officer of DigitalGlobe ANTHONY WALLACE

In 1992, Dr Walter Scott was nursing his broken foot at home when he decided to write a business plan. A quarter of a century later, DigitalGlobe is an international brand synonymous with high resolution satellite imagery and its derived datasets.

One such dataset is Geoscape, a continent wide register of every building in Australia and one that Scott describes as an international “benchmark” project. Geoscape, led by PSMA Australia, takes DigitalGlobe satellite imagery, applies machine learning algorithms and derives building dimensions at a broad scale.

In line with the launch of the Sydney Geoscape dataset at Locate17 in April, Dr Walter Scott visited Australia and chatted with Position magazine about machine learning, cubesats and how to launch a tech start-up in 2017.

Position: Have things panned out like you expected when launching DigitalGlobe back 25 years ago?

Walter Scott: The answer is yes, and no. Where the answer is yes, I certainly anticipated that we would be focussing on global transparency; that we’d be a global company, because the need for information is not limited to any specific locality. I anticipated that we would be using the internet a lot.

There were two things that were challenging when I was raising funding for DigitalGlobe: we’d go out to investors and they would say, “There are two problems.

There is push-button risk: you push the button and either the satellite goes up, or it blows up.” We managed to get them over that—there’s insurance. The other one was

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“This internet thing, we think it’s a fad.” So we managed to get past that one as well.

Things that I don’t think I anticipated were the degree to which AI and machine learning would advance to the point where it was possible—instead of requiring legions of humans to interpret the data—to actually use machines to dramatically reduce the amount of work required by humans for finishing the data.

What was DigitalGlobe’s first undertaking into machine learning?

In some sense it probably goes back to 2003, but only in the very early stages.

The seeds really go back about six years for DigitalGlobe. It was some early explorations in algorithms that would extract information from imagery. When

people think about deep learning, neural networks and artificial intelligence, it’s only really been the last three years. And there’s been such a tremendous amount of progress that combined the ability of graphic processing units and elastic cloud computing, which means that we didn’t have to build a data centre the size of Australia to be able to process data at the scale that we’re operating. Those were all critical unlocks for us.

Do you see Geoscape as a benchmark project for cracking open machine learning for large scale benefit?

It’s a benchmark project for us in a variety of ways: it is a continent scale dataset that is accurate down to the individual building

level and, frankly, to the individual tree canopy level. So it’s what we consider to be a ‘show-me-there’ dataset, which means if I want to be able to zoom in on any particular location, I know that there’s accuracy for that location. Or, I want to be able to deal with data in massive aggregates and be able to do data analytics at a continental scale. There are other applications for machine learning that are great at the aggregate level, but they don’t give the level of accuracy or consistency down to what Geoscape is able to provide, so in that sense Geoscape is really ploughing some new ground for us and we are very excited about that.

Where else has machine learning proven useful?

Car counting. You’ve probably read about a company in Silicon Valley called Orbital Insight that does retail analytics. That involves leveraging car counts from satellite imagery as a way of estimating the amount of traffic that is going through a store.

They don’t need to be sure that it is ‘plus or minus one car,’ but for a project like Geoscape you want to make sure that if you

“You’ve got to have the right tool for the job.

Not everything needs a hammer.”

have an address and there’s a building, that there’s a building stored in the database at that address. So it drives a higher level of accuracy than the data aggregation.

Do you see cubesats and drones as competing technologies, or complementary?

They’re highly complementary, so let’s take drones as an example. Drones are going to be able to get much higher resolution than you’ll ever be able to get from space.

But a drone is in one place, at one time; a satellite is moving at 18,000 miles an hour. One minute it’s over Northern Queensland and a few minutes later it’s

over Tasmania. So one satellite is actually able to cover the entire planet. The other thing about satellites is that they are truly global and that you don’t have to deal with the logistical problem of moving them from one location to another. So drones turn out to be quite complimentary in that they’re able to get higher resolution; they’re able to loiter over a particular area, but to be able to fill in all of the white space, satellites are the way to go.

Now as far as cubesats versus big satellites, it’s really about physics. So if you want a sharp picture you need two things: a lens that’s big enough and you need to be at the right distance. So if you’re flying at a satellite and have a small lens, the only solution is to go low. Well you do that and you burn up. So there’s a fundamental limit on how low a satellite can go and get decent resolution. So that’s one of the things that drives us to have moderately big telescopes, just like if you’re a sports photographer photographing a football game. You’re not going to do it with your iPhone you’re going to do it with a decent lens so you can get a decent close-up shot of the action. ■

cover story

A tradition of innovation for more than 50 years A

s a company that prides itself on innovation, Zoller + Fröhlich (Z+F) puts a strong emphasis on close contact to customers, business partners and users to develop solutions that extend possible applications, improve quality and streamline workflows.

“Maintaining a leading position as a medium-sized company internationally is quite a challenging task. But our company offers excellent conditions to meet customer requirements by nurturing innovative developments,” said Christoph Fröhlich, CEO of Z+F. Feedback and demands from users are often the basis for new developments and are closely linked to the research and development of all products. One such example, for the company’s 3D laser scanning portfolio, is the rollout of Z+F’s unique ‘Blue Workflow’ solution, which was realised through close collaboration with users and real world applications.

Acknowledging that time in the field capturing data could be better utilised, Z+F set about designing a system that would enable users to complete the scan registration process during the scan rather than back in the office afterwards.

This approach solved two problems often encountered with laser scanning technology: firstly, it makes use of the time waiting for the instrument to complete

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scans; and secondly, it reduces the risk of incomplete datasets by analysing the results as the scanner works.

Z+F’s Blue Workflow enables the scanner operator to verify data and target quality, find and fill any gaps with more scans and automatically register each scan before they pack up the laser and head back to the office. With full confidence of returning to his or her desk with a complete dataset, time in the office is also more productive and can be spent on other tasks.

Aside from the software and workflow innovations, Z+F puts a high emphasis on rigorous quality control and instrument testing to offer customers reliable products. Z+F’s state-of-the-art calibration facility for 3D laser scanners ensures high accuracy and precise measurements as a result. Zoller + Fröhlich has also developed innovations for customers further afield such as the setup of an Australian ‘calibration check’ facility with local distributor Position Partners. These innovations ensure exceptional after sales service and a reduction in service turnaround times.

Position Partners employees have completed training in Germany with Z+F engineers. In fact, all customers that purchase either a 5010X or 5016 laser scanner will be offered flights

and accommodation to attend product training at Z+F’s German headquarters.

This level of commitment to customer training is believed to be an industry first for the Australasian market.

“A company’s success is not defined by the effort of a single person or department. It is rather the collaboration of the entire team with external partners and users, which make innovative solutions possible. We are indeed very fortunate to have a skilled staff along with reliable partners – basically an unbeatable connection,” Mr Fröhlich added.

The latest addition to Z+F’s laser scanning portfolio is the 5016: a scanner with a smaller form factor, longer range and exceptional data clarity. Viewed for the first time in the Southern Hemisphere at the recent Locate17 conference, the new model offers an extended 360-metre range and 360 x 320 degree field of view to enable precision scanning over large areas, whilst minimising the number of required scan positions.

Capturing more than one million points per second, the 5016 offers the same high quality scans and the unique in-field registration capability first introduced with the 5010X model. This ‘Blue Workflow’ involves an optimised surveying and data processing solution that enables users to register, check,

edit and evaluate point cloud data in the field, whilst scanning. With automatic registration, this workflow ensures better data and target quality, more comprehensive data sets and more efficient use of field and office time.

Position Partners’ newly appointed Product Manager – Scanning Systems, Paul Malatzky, commented on the new model’s performance. “Z+F enjoys a great reputation for high quality 3D laser scanners for good reason, and the new 5016 model won’t disappoint. It’s small form factor and user-friendly workflow make it enjoyable to use, whilst also delivering tangible benefits in terms of time saving and data set clarity.”

“As you would expect from an industry-leading instrument, it also comes with all the bells and whistles such as built-in GNSS, IMU and HDR camera so that it can handle a wide range of tasks and applications,” he added. “Handy features such as integrated LED spots and rapid picture capturing also save time in the field by eliminating the need for external light sources and reducing a full panoramic image set capture to three and a half minutes – an industry best.”

A history of innovation In 1963, schoolmates Hans Zoller and Hans Fröhlich started working together and their first project was the conception and successful realisation of individual control systems in a former coal cellar.

From the outset, the electrical engineering company has put a strong emphasis on promoting innovation, developing new ideas and pioneering creative solutions. It has always had a straight forward-looking philosophy which is based on a solid educational foundation.

In 1966, the company moved to new offices in Wangen/Allgäu in Germany’s South East, close to the Swiss and Austrian borders. To this day, the building

Z+F headquarters in Wangen/Allgäu

All customers that purchase a 5010X or 5016 laser scanner get a free trip to Z+F’s headquarters in Germany for product training

The team of Zoller + Fröhlich

remains Zoller + Fröhlich’s headquarters.

In 1969, building switch cabinets led to the company’s invention of insulated wire end ferrules, a technology that is used all over the world for solderless connections in wire housing. The company continues to manufacture and service these products from its Wangen headquarters.

When Mr Christoph Fröhlich joined the company in the 1990s, Z+F’s entry into industrial measurement solutions was born. His PhD thesis was the foundation for developing the company’s first rail and tunnel measurement system and in 1996 the first optical 3D laser measurement system to document asbuilt conditions was ready for market.

In 1998, this laser radar was awarded the innovation prize of the state of Baden-Württemberg, the “Dr.-RudolfEberle-Prize”. Today Zoller + Fröhlich is amongst the leading enterprises in the field of non-contact laser measurement technology. Due to years of research, development and numerous successful projects in a wide variety of applications, Z+F is the forerunner in this field with a high degree of knowledge, experience and success.

Z+F operates globally and cooperates with distributors in more than 40 countries, with all products developed and manufactured exclusively in Germany.

There are also permanent subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and the United States. Recently, Z+F announced a distribution agreement with geospatial solutions provider Position Partners for Australia and New Zealand.

“Z+F has a reputation for delivering industry-leading solutions that are innovative, reliable and highly accurate,” said Martin Nix, Position Partners CEO. “We are delighted to partner with a company that shares our passion for pioneering a better way, and we look forward to offering customers the very best when it comes to 3D laser scanning technology that is backed by our extensive technical expertise and local support,” he added.

Information provided by Position Partners. ■ www.spatialsource.com.au 17

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JON FAIRALL

The next big step: AR Augmented reality represents a real addition for built environment professionals.

T

he Australian economy is an astounding beast. From March 2017, one needs to go back 103 quarters before finding negative growth.

For more than 25 years, our economy has grown year on year. Typical middle-aged Australians have never experienced even one quarter of recession during their working lives. They probably think that this growth is the natural order of things.

But it’s not. If we want our good fortune to continue, we will need to be much more clever than we have been.

The problem that must exercise the minds of all thoughtful Australians is that there is no currently no reason why this state of affairs will continue. If we want to make it so, we need to concentrate on improvements to productivity. Economists are in agreement that the single biggest predictor of productivity growth is new or innovative use of information and communications technology.

That raises the question: what new information or communications technologies are on the horizon that have the ability to materially affect the way we work? The answer would seem to be that next generation computing will redefine the relationship between the real world and the description of the real world held in a computer.

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Better synthetic speech systems, the ability to understand natural spoken language, the ability to detect objects in images, and even to identify those objects and predict how they move, will all redefine computing and what computing means for economic structures. Possibly the leading edge of this new wave of computing is represented by the mixed reality systems now reaching market.

From Sci-fi to reality The concept of mixed reality was introduced in a 1994 paper by Paul Milgram. He imagined it as a continuum.

At one end lies the real environment. At the other lies a virtual reality created inside a computer. In between these two extremes lies augmented reality, in which the two are mixed (depicted above right).

The term ‘Virtual Reality’ goes back to 1938, when the Frenchman Antonin Artaud used it to describe a type of theatrical experience. Arguably, it was first used in its modern sense by the computer artist Myron Kruger, or in Damien Broderick’s science fiction story, The Judas Mandala.

It was a trend that reached its apex with the publication of William Gibson’s Neuromancer trilogy. It was Gibson who

coined the term ‘cyberspace’, which he imagined as a virtual reality dataspace called the matrix. Gibson is especially interesting to readers of this magazine because, in a later book, Spook Country, he was one of the first to see how electronic positioning via satellites could mediate between real and virtual worlds.

Gibson imagined a technology in which an artist could “paint” or “draw” an image and place it in geographic context. Viewers, wearing special glasses, would need to go to the right place to see the artwork. So, for instance, rather than go to the art gallery, you would need to go down to Kurnell in Botany Bay to see a rendition of Captain Cook sending young Isaac ashore in 1770. If you looked in the other direction you would see the Aboriginal warriors gesticulating as they bid him be gone.

While Gibson was right about the power of geospatial and augmented reality technology, he was dead wrong about the type of applications that would make the technology fly. Google entered a vale of tears when it tried to introduce an augmented reality headset a la Gibson. Its Glass product was released in 2013 with all Google’s marketing nous behind it and an aura of coolness that would have frozen an Eskimo. It didn’t save it.

The problem wasn’t that the device did not work. It worked well. It consisted of a camera, screen, internet connection and microphone, all miniaturised to such an extent they could be mounted on spectacle frames. Users could use Glass to record location and time-stamped imagery or to make internet based queries.

Rather, the problem was that Google positioned the product as a consumer device. Predictably enough, developers began developing a host of innovative ways to use it. Among the most popular were dating apps with voice and face recognition that could be used to record people or places covertly. As a result, it generated a storm of controversy over its implications for privacy. It did not provide a better method of playing games, accessing the internet, of reading the news or watching a video. Glass was withdrawn from sale in 2015.

Some companies—particularly Facebook and its Oculus Rift technology—still see a market among consumers. However, Facebook sees Rift exclusively at the virtual reality end of the Mixed Reality spectrum. It will compete for the consumer dollar against the likes of Huawei's VR and Google’s new Daydream platform announced in May 2017.

However, most entrepreneurs in the field now seem to believe the main game will be where 3D computer models collide with reality. The market will be in asset and facilities management, BELOW: William Gibson envisioned a future where stories and artworks could be told in situ.

An example is viewing Captain James Cook’s landing in Sydney by actually visiting the site in Kurnell. How this event actually unfolded, however, is another story entirely.

in urban planning, in architecture, engineering and construction. In all these industries, the ability to visualise plans in context, or to easily detect the attributes of existing artefacts, will change the nature of business.

The next reality It's an idea that will be worth around $162 billion in 2020, says the technology research company IDC. This makes mixed reality technology a prize worth competing for. All the major equipment manufacturers, plus a number of startups are entering the space. They all have different takes on the problem. The major geospatial equipment manufacturers, such as Hexagon (Leica) and Trimble have also all made significant investments.

The first augmented reality systems were hardly revolutionary. They were direct descendants of the mobile equipment on which people have been taking GIS data into the field since the early 1990s. The revolution started when the idea of mobile GIS was wedded to 3D models in the computer. When objects are placed in their correct geographic position and then viewed from an arbitrary viewpoint, the technology gets really powerful. “To see errors, eyes are best”, says Ric Piper a senior technical consultant at Building Point Australia,

ABOVE: Mixed reality can be imagined as a continuum: at one end lies the real environment, at the other lies a virtual reality created inside a computer. In between these two extremes lies augmented reality, in which the two are mixed.

suppliers of AR software solutions.

Writing in an in-house journal, Mansour Raad, a senior software architect at Esri, says such augmented reality apps will channel GIS content to end-users: "Imagine that you could point the camera on your phone at the ground and see the orientation of water pipes or electric cables buried under you because your augmented reality app is cross-referencing the GIS system with your location. Not only would you be able to see hidden objects, you'd have access to their attributes. You could pull up engineering diagrams, and even tap into real-time sensor networks."

Practical augmented reality systems rode in on the back of the extraordinary increases in processing power of portable devices such as tablets and smartphones.

In 2012 Mike Bundock, who had been an executive with a number of GIS companies, started an Auckland-based company called Augview. Its focus is melding GIS and augmented reality in just this fashion. Augview is in the process of bringing to market an application in which you see a map on a tablet or smart phone superimposed over an image of the real world derived from the device's camera.

Asset information, such as underground pipework, can then be seen in context.

Augview has teamed with Leica to put its software on Leica's Zeno 20 tablet.

It is equipped with a high-accuracy GNSS receiver that can accept RTK corrections, reducing positioning errors to a few centimetres.

Indeed, New Zealand is establishing itself as a hub of professional AR applications. At the University of Canterbury, researcher Mark Broadbent has built another application inspired by the earthquake that destroyed much of the centre of Christchurch in 2011. He put 3D models of all the buildings in the old city together with their coordinates onto an Android phone to create a product called CityViewAR. The 3D models were created by architect Jason Mills. The result is a system wherein users can stand www.spatialsource.com.au 19

feature Trimble prototype of an AR solution Microsoft Hololens headset

AUGMENTED A REALITY PLATFORMS OF 2017

Augiew mobile GIS software for mobile

Hit Lab NZ’s CityViewAR application

Google’s Tango computing platform Augview aboard a Leica DX Manager

Continued from page 19

in any location around the city centre, and see all the destroyed buildings in context.

These systems are predicated on using the GNSS positioning found on ordinary mobile devices to deliver augmented reality.

A sophisticated version of this idea is to use the phone's camera. Much less cool than Google Glass, but far more useful, Google's Tango algirthms only needs an Android phone to detect its position using photogrammetry via its on-board camera.

In May 2017, Trimble unveiled images of an integrated tablet and miniature RTK GNSS receiver called Catalyst that is capable of millimetre-level positioning and augmented reality display of designs and 3D models. It consists of the USBenabled Catalyst antenna, a smart phone, and some clever software using Google’s Tango algorithms and Trimble’s VRS RTK corrections. Supposedly, ubiquitous high-accuracy positioning will then be integrated with the camera and the display of 3D models held on the device.

However it is Microsoft's Hololens that appears to be the first to market in Australia to mix real imagery and objects held in a database. Since Microsoft released Hololens in December 2016, a number of organisations have taken on the platform and it seems to have caught their imagination.

One local council has delved headlong into the technology. Wyndham City, to the west of Melbourne, is pioneering the use of augmented reality in city planning (See

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page 21) and has changed almost every aspect of the workflow in the planning department. Flaws in existing data are easy to see and correct; it is much easier to detect unintended consequences of planning decisions; and citizens are given a comprehensible view of the future of their city.

Speaking at a sales conference in Sydney in May 2017, Ben Yu from Watkins Steel, a Brisbane-based metal fabricator, described what he called an end-to-end digital workflow to guide the construction of large metal structures. 3D scanners create point clouds that can be used to create models of existing structures.

This can be imported into 3D modelling software where a 3D model can be created. Visualised in Trimble SketchUp, it can be downloaded to Hololens and then viewed on site. The design can be checked against the real world and any errors in the dimensioning, or any unintended consequences of the design are immediately apparent before steel is cut.

Hololens’ restricted field of view and price point has meant its current form is unlikely to go mainstream. However its ability to find flaws in designs before they are built and to contextualise the data already makes it worthwhile for many people in built environment professionals.

Hololens will certainly not be alone in this race for long. Competing manufacturers are rushing to market with headsets featuring enhanced comfort, brightness and field of view.

Finding real value It is easy to underestimate the significance of thall this. GIS gave a diagrammatic representation of columns of numbers.

It was a huge advance, but still required skilled individuals to read the diagrams.

AR and VR technology replaces the diagrams with real objects.

For asset managers, the technology is valuable in so far as it improves the productivity of staff working in the field. It also gives workers in the field unparalleled fault-finding ability.

Representations of reality, whether it be a CAD drawing of a new structure, or a map in a GIS, can now be seen in situ.

One serious yet simple question remains, where will the most value in AR be derived: in headsets or on a handheld mobile devices.

Most of the current generation of headsets struggle to match the brightness of the video display with the brightness of the ambient light. It works well indoors, but it is harder to use on a bright sunny work site. It also aligns more closely to existing clipboard workflows. Or perhaps holographs or contact lenses are not too far off either.

The important point is to recognise that while the latest technology is miraculous, it is not perfect. It still pays to consider the applications carefully before deciding on the best solution. The point is to make it as useful as possible.

Jon Fairall was the foundation editor of Position Magazine, and now works as a freelance journalist and author. ■

Holographic computing is here A deep dive into holographic technology for visualising and communicating proposed city changes DR ADAM MOWLAM, NATALIE WALKER AND BEN SINNOTT

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overnments, urban planners, researchers and professionals are adopting new ways of thinking and working to create smart city solutions that exploit the benefits of new technologies.

For local governments tackling citywide problems the presentation of data that assists citizen collaboration and engagement is of paramount importance.

The traditional approach of presenting two-dimensional data through tables, spreadsheets and charts provides limited information to decision makers and citizens is fraught with misinterpretation.

Research has shown that visualisation of the three-dimensional form taps human cognitive processes that are significantly more capable of understanding and identifying hidden trends and meanings both quickly and precisely.

Smart City Wyndham The City of Wyndham, located on the western edge of Melbourne has a growing and diverse population and has long been regarded as one of the fastest growing municipalities in Australia.

Projections estimate that Wyndham’s population will explode from 220,000 in 2017 to over 330,000 by 2031.

Melbourne’s entire western region will also grow to the size of Greater Adelaide, with over 1.1 million people.

Wyndham faces challenges in the development and management of rapid growth, ageing infrastructure and community engagement and recognises the importance of improving liveability through smart technology.

A smart city not only manages infrastructure and resource consumption better but engages more effectively with its people. Wyndham City is transforming how it communicates city data and activities to help different stakeholders

understand changes, patterns and trends that are proposed and underway across the urban environment. The first project was the presentation of the thirty development proposals ranging between three and twenty storeys across the Werribee CBD. After exploring multiple options, holographic computing was deemed a suitable platform.

Start of a new era In October 2016, Microsoft announced the global expansion of a new mixed reality product called Hololens.

Microsoft Hololens is an untethered, fully self-contained head mounted display that allows the user to freely interact with digital holograms. The projected holograms are viewed through the glasses in the real world allowing the user to view objects such as new buildings from all angles. The user can control and interact with the display through gaze, gesture and even voice recognition commands.

Mixed reality is a form of augmented reality that merges places, people and objects across both the virtual world and the physical environment. The list of augmented reality devices is still growing, and it is expected that the Hololens will soon be joined by products from a range of companies including Meta and Magic Leap.

The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, recently said that mixed reality will evolve to the point where we will wonder “how we lived

without it, just like we wonder how we lived without our smartphone.”

World Tech Futurist Robert Scoble sees the use of immersive mixed reality as being the fourth user interface after the three previous key offerings namely character mode (MS-DOS), graphical user interfaces (Windows/Macintosh) and touch (smartphone).

The key difference is that mixed reality glasses use spatial computing which allows the two-dimensional smartphone and desktop screens to be projected in three-dimensional space, enabling new experiences and a plethora of new applications. Scoble also expects Apple to release augmented reality glasses in 2017, which he believes will define when the technology will become mainstream.

Meanwhile, Facebook, Snapchat and Google are all heavily investing in mixed reality platforms.

The potential of participatory approaches using mixed reality to provide stakeholders with opportunities to play and explore urban smart cities is incredibly novel. The vastly altered urban visualisation experience can help stakeholders make important decisions and understand different city scenarios.

Currently, Wyndham is exploring the presentation of many different scenarios including new building proposals, Wi-Fi coverage, pedestrian traffic, visibility of art, tree canopy studies and many other applications.

The WynLens Project WynLens is the name of Wyndham’s HoloLens application for visualising three-dimensional city data. Stage 1 of the application was aimed at providing the following functionality through Hololens: 1. Both Aerial and Google Map style base maps; 2. Display of three-dimensional city model that can be zoomed in/out; 3. Display of three-dimensional proposed buildings that can be toggled on/off with the information window; 4. Data layer of proposed developments as point layer that can be toggled on/off.

Wyndham City partnered with US-based indie game studio Dangling Concepts to provide both Unity3D and HoloLens developer support.

www.spatialsource.com.au 21

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The proposed building, Riverbend, can be viewed both in context (left) and out of context (above).

WynLens uses two different map backdrops, a 10cm resolution aerial image and a vector-based Google map style. These can be quickly and easily changed through voice or menu driven commands. To change the backdrop the user simply air taps the “Show Aerial” or “Show Vector” items in the menu or use the corresponding voice commands.

The early plan for the city model was to use drone captured imagery and construct a three-dimensional model using either cloud-hosted services such as DroneDeploy or specialist software like Pix4D. Whilst the resultant model was of reasonable standard, the huge number of triangles (over 3 million) from drone scans was too cumbersome for HoloLens 32-bit architecture. Initially, this was resolved by modelling the building footprints before re-projecting textures from the drone photoscans.

Whilst workable, when tested with users through HoloLens, there was universal agreement that the city model was better left untextured. The combination of triangle limitations (60,000), texture size restrictions (1K/2K) and colour variances all contributed to this result. In the near future, many of these hurdles could be resolved through improved software and/or hardware.

For example, software like Umbra and Simplygon can be used to reduce triangles from 3D models making them more suitable to HoloLens. Figure 5 shows the untextured model on desktop display.

The WynLens application has a couple of key features for displaying the model.

Once WynLens is loaded, the user can either say ‘Place Map’ or tap the icon on the menu system. Using gesture commands, the preferred location is chosen by a simple airtap to lock in place. The size of the map

Wyndham City's new WynLens application combines Microsoft Hololens with 3D city modelling, allowing users of all skill levels to easily comprehend complex urban developments.

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can be altered by air tapping the 'Scale Up' or ‘Scale Down’ commands in the menu or simply saying ‘Scale Up’ or ‘Scale Down’.

Holograph meets cadastre The ability to educate and engage with stakeholders the changes occuring in the Werribee CBD was the goal of the WynLens prototype. Using known parameters including cadastral boundaries, planning zone height controls and proposed building designs, threedimensional models of the proposed buildings were constructed. Working within the constraints of the Hololens processing power and the existing triangle/vertice count, it was necessary to generate the best possible models. This involved subjecting the proposed building models to polygon reduction (also known as mesh decimation). For this project MeshLab was used but any number of programs could perform similar tasks.

The proposed buildings can be shown or hidden by air tapping the menu item 'Show/Hide Buildings' or voice prompt. Alternatively through the menu, individual buildings can be toggled on and off. The last feature of the individual building models was the ability to airtap to display a small info window detailing the site name, geographic coordinates and a short description.

While WynLens is used for the presentation of material and communicating in contexts impossible or difficult to experience, the project is more than visualisation and reification.

The overarching goal is to vastly improve decision making through the integration of both point and vector-based datasets.

WynLens is being expanded to display and understand traffic patterns, WiFi coverage, tree canopy coverage and include other Internet of Things (IoT) sensors such as smart bins and GPSenabled vehicle movements.

For Stage 1, the application was aimed at the display of a static dataset containing point locations of all the proposed developments within the Werribee CBD. The small data layer illustrates the potential of overlaying data for holographic mapping.

Lessons for other cities & projects For government agencies like Wyndham City, the next stage of computing for future cities is to simulate future scenarios and mapping of IoT sensors across different city systems through holographic representations.

While new technologies such as mixed reality allow cities to approach large city-wide problems innovatively, the approach requires an open mindset and an environment supportive of calculated risk taking.

Approaching a project with such a small body of supportive research meant that many hurdles were encountered.

There were limitations of triangle counts and spatial mapping issues caused when moving the HoloLens device between users. Other projects such as displaying

three-dimensional models of stormwater networks needed to be manipulated due to the large number of vertices. Other mixed reality issues like presenting typography and form design in 3D mixed reality space also has its challenges.

A key learning for Wyndham City was that very few staff, residents and other stakeholders had used Microsoft HoloLens.

While the learning curve is really short, it can feel unnatural for a complete novice.

When running engagement exercises whereby the application is used by a number of people, the use of screen mirroring is recommended, or better yet, shared experiences.

There has been much written about the limitations of the Microsoft HoloLens field of view (FOV). Whilst this is certainly noticeable when using gesture commands such, the FOV was been reported as a concern for users of WynLens.

Next stages of WynLens With the successful delivery of the first stage of WynLens completed, the Wyndham Smart Cities Office is now working through future plans to integrate

different type so council datasets cloudhosted its 3D city models.

The inclusion of these proposals will require the development of a web front-end to manage the data layers and 3D models. There is some potential to integrate with data portals such as data. gov.au, but the validation and suitability of datasets will need to be assessed against the capabilities of HoloLens.

It is clear the Microsoft intends to lead the mixed reality space. For local governments, digital technologies such as Microsoft Hololens will be a key tool for both managing resources and communicating with citizens.

The work in holographic space has only just begun – and is set to become a platform from which all levels of government can greatly benefit.

Dr Adam Mowlam is the Digital Research Lead at Wyndham City Council.

Ms Natalie Walker is a public policy and planning specialist. Mr Ben Sinnott has spent the last decade in the spatial industry taking an active interest in emerging technologies. â–

www.spatialsource.com.au  23

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What’s the Planet’s Population, Today?

ALISTAIR TOWERS

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ike many geographers, I am excited about the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ impending release of the 2016 census data. The small area census data will bring certainty in numbers to our demographers, civic planners and social policymakers when it’s released on 27 June this year.

But the census is an expensive exercise, costing the Australian taxpayer around $470 million, or roughly $20 per head. Are we getting value for our money? And are there alternative ways to enumerate our population?

In Australia, we are lucky enough to be able to afford the luxury of a census every five years. Other countries count every ten years, or worse, sporadically when they can get funding to do so. Given the incredible rate of growth in the number of people alive on this planet, we can’t even seem to get close to an accurate population number.

The latest numbers from the United Nations puts the current world population at 7.3 billion, with a forecast reaching

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10.9 billion by 2100. But other predictions differ markedly, such as Deutsche Bank, which believes the figure will only reach eight billion. Given that these numbers vary wildly by 2.9 billion (or a whopping 26.6 per cent), it goes to show how experts struggle with current methods of counting the planet’s population.

Now, imagine if we could count how many people lived on the planet every week or even every day? Well, soon technology will be able to make this possible. The coming together of machine learning algorithms and daily captured satellite imagery make this a very real possibility.

Let’s look at each of these developments.

Machine learning Machine learning – sounds fancy, and it is. As a “type of artificial intelligence (AI) that provides computers with the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed”, machine learning focuses on the development of computer programs that can change when exposed to new data. You can throw lots of

pictures at it and it understands how to better process these each time it ‘sees’ a new image.

The process of training an algorithm to detect dwellings has already been proven by the guys working in the connectivity lab at Facebook. They took a massive amount of satellite imagery and trained the algorithm to identify dwellings. They then took their results and calibrated them against existing census counts and created a population data set with fivemetre resolution for 20 countries.

The stats from their work begin to speak for themselves: "We analysed 20 countries, which amounts to 21.6 million square kilometres and 350 terabytes of imagery. For one pass of our analysis, we processed 14.6 billion images with our convolutional neural nets, typically running on thousands of servers simultaneously.

Our final data set has a spatial resolution of five metres and thereby improves over previous countrywide data sets by multiple orders of magnitude.”

Processing this tsunami of data is going to need a bit of grunt, surely? Quantum

The results of Australia’s 2016 census will finally be revealed on 27 June 2017. But is it really the best method of enumerating our population?



computing technology, using quantum bits (qubits), offers one solution to this challenge. Instead of binary bits (ones and zeros), qubits are particles “where the information is stored by manipulating the particles’ quantum properties, such as spin or polarisation states." Current computers rely on a linear process of calculations to get to the answer. The quantum computer can run the problem in parallel, making it much faster.

This isn't science fiction any more, the Facebook connectivity lab work reported findings in late 2016 and the research agenda is moving quickly.

Real time satellite imagery Planet Labs have a defined mission: to image all of Earth’s landmass every day.

The California-based company launched 88 shoebox-sized satellites on a single Indian rocket at the end of 2016. They joined dozens already in orbit, bringing their constellation satellites to a total of 144.

Six months from now, once they have settled into their orbits, the company says it will have reached its primary goal: being able to image every point on Earth's landmass at intervals of 24 hours or less, at resolutions as high as 3.7 metres, enough detail to identify a house.

Just stop and consider that for a second - a picture of the whole planet surface every single day.

About a year ago, Google paid a cool $500 billion for a company called Skybox and renamed it Terra Bella. The company was a pioneer in the development of small cube satellites (cubesats) and had already begun building its SkySat constellation.

However, just this year another cubesat company, Planet Labs, announced that it has entered an agreement with Google to acquire the Terra Bella business including the SkySat constellation, and Google will enter a multi-year contract to purchase the imagery generated.

Heating up the competition in the small satellite market, a California-based company, Hera Systems also announced plans to launch nine cubesat-class space crafts in late 2016 to provide commercial imagery of the Earth and mark its entry in the orbital remote-sensing field. These cubesats will provide images as well as video in near real-time at an on-ground resolution of around one metre. That initial constellation could lead in time to up to 48 satellites, allowing the company to take images of the same location multiple times per day.

So, if the algorithms for identifying residential properties from satellite imagery have been proven to work, and there will be multiple satellite imagery vendors playing in the mass volume imagery market; coupled with the fact that quantum computing could soon process this imagery efficiently, reality is a few steps closer.

However, does that mean we need to keep running a census? In the short term, yes. The results from this science mashup don’t tell us the real detail: the geographical diversity of income distribution; the age; ethnicity; or gender information; all the demography that describes the rich social tapestry of our cities and country. The current method used by the Facebook connectivity lab even uses census data to calibrate their model.

The ultimate census In the future, I can see a role for multiple data sources augmenting demographic data. Knowing weekly population data would allow thinking and planning to take place on a truly global scale. For example, climate science doesn’t stop at country boundaries. Nationalistic arguments would no longer be as relevant, though still important. Remote communities would be more frequently enumerated, for a significantly lower cost than physically sending people out to do the counting.

Sure, the census is expensive, but it is important. The custodians of the data (our government) should be held accountable to us the people to take appropriate care of our digital records.

Last year’s census collection exercise was not a public success and likely dented the absolute trust that citizens put in government. It will be critical next time to ensure a smooth data collection process takes place. Would we have the same level of trust in a commercial business that

turns a profit based on its ability to profile users and target advertise? Probably not.

Other sources of data such as social media, telecommunications and banking institutions also have empirical knowledge about our activities. These describe our everyday actions and can be used to describe our intentions, such as whether we are aspirational, frugal or have other interests we would not disclose as part of the census taking process. These so called psychographic indicators augment the demographic data to enrich the data at the level of the individual. More and more, our electronic transactions describe our personalities, which in turn allow us to be segmented and profiled to an even greater degree than ever before.

Bringing all this data together could produce an amazing wealth of knowledge about our citizens – an ultimate census.

Whether we would be comfortable accepting this will largely depend on citizen trust in data custodians. High profile breaches of data, such as those that took place recently at Yahoo and Ashley Maddison reduce that trust. Yet the next generation entering the workforce are true digital natives. They have less inhibition with the storage of their digital footprint.

Bring on census release on 27 June – there will be many interesting stories that will emerge out of the census data about the ever-changing multicultural society that we are fortunate enough to live in.

Alistair Towers is the National GIS Manager at Urbis, a firm with the goal of shaping the cities and communities of Australia for a better future. The team at Urbis connects their clients in the public and private sectors across the areas of planning, design, policy, heritage, valuations, transactions, economics and research. ■ www.spatialsource.com.au 25

feature

a CLIMATE of

CHANGE ANTHONY WALLACE

The world is growing hungrier by the minute. Does technology really hold the answer?

F

armers used to talk about their crop’s performance by quoting their yield in tonnes per acre. “How was your yield this season?” you might have asked. But in light of growing populations, water shortages, and climate change, things are scarce so simple anymore.

Instead, the vernacular has shifted to discussung how little nitrogen their farm is leaching; how they have optimised their variable-rate irrigation program; or how they can achieve the board of directors’ new set of sustainability objectives. The farmer we thought we knew is no longer.

At least, that’s where we are heading.

What’s driving this is not just a chase for bigger yields, but also a commitment to food security, environmental health and sustainability. In fact, these concerns are looking to outweigh the economic pressures. And as far as wider society is concerned, it has to.

“The existing model of agriculture is just fundamentally broken,” said Dr Charles Merfield, head of New Zealand’s Future Farming Centre. “We really are facing a number of incredibly substantial challenges, all at the same time.”

“International scientists and a number of high level people within the United Nations all agree—we’ve got a problem and we’ve got to fix it. Business as usual can’t continue.”

Before entering academica, Merfield worked as a horticulturist for seven years managing organic vegetable farms. In 2011, he launched the Future Farming Centre and heads up a team dedicated to getting practical agricultural science into the hands of farmers. The team’s focus is

26 position June/July 2017

sustainable horticultural practices driven by ‘permanent’ and ‘whole-system’ practices.

“Farming has become an insanely large business,” said Merfield. “It’s not uncommon for farmers to be running 10 or 20 million dollar business, with just a few personnel below them.”

Yet just about any business found in a city worth 20 million dollars will have a board of directors, a large shareholder base, and a CEO on about $300,000 a year. These days farmers don’t need to just understand their products, they need to understand physics, chemistry, biology,

Robert Quirk on his cane crop where sea level rise is already having an impact.

ecology and meteorology just to run their farm effectively.

You almost need an electronics degree just to manage the gadgets: the RTK GNSS for precise machine guidance; the yield monitors for accurately measuring output; and the drones used for spectral analysis.

In fact, Merfield knows more than a few farmers who have completed a PhD before returning to agriculture. Even then, that doesn’t mean they will be a leader in their field. Farmers are increasingly acting like CEOs with a team of advisers to aid them, and technologies to augment their eyes and ears.

“The huge challenge we’ve got is trying to deal with climate change; supplying enough food for everybody; pollution of waterways. These are all difficult challenges, and often trying to solve one can have a negative impact on another,” said Merfield.

“To me we really are entering into another paradigm shift in agriculture.

It’s just starting, but in terms of the stuff we need to address it’s really quite jawdropping.”

A perfect storm According to the World Food Program, changes in climatic conditions have already affected the production of staple crops. Future climate change threatens to exacerbate this with changing temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, water shortages, sea level rise and damaging natural disasters. In the long term, it predicted that unchecked climate change could create “a vicious cycle of disease and hunger.”

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) believes that to satisfy the demands of some 9.6 billion people on Earth by 2050, global food production will have to increase by a staggering 70 percent compared to 2005 levels. While this figure includes the growing demand for meat and animal products, it’s the plant side of things—in horticulture— where technology appears to be leading a green revolution.

Robert Quirk (pictured p28) has been a sugar cane farmer for over 50 years. In recent years his passion for sustainability has pushed him into the forefront of research and consulting. As the 2014 winner of the carbon farmer of the year award and an MCV Climate Champion in 2016, sustainability and efficiency informs everything he does. Speaking from his cane crop in Condong on the northern

coast of New South Wales, he sees sea level rise as his biggest threat, and one that is already impacting him directly.

"The climate’s definitely changing,” Quirk said. “We can deal with little bits of rain, but if you put another 300 mm on top of it, it’s massive. And every centimetre the ocean rises, we have to pump another 10 Olympic swimming pools of water off the farm, so natural drainage is disappearing for us.”

“If the ocean continues to rise at about 1 centimetre per year, we probably have 30 years to farm in this area."

Quirk has been able to apply his decades of fine-tuned knowledge to establish practices that are informing horticulturists in other parts of the world, and across a number of crops. He now uses about 90 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare to fertilise his cane crop, which is about 25% more efficient than the norm. He is also planning weed spraying and harvesting using forecasting models, but he does wish he had access to better data for decision making.

“The more we know about the climate and what’s coming, the better,” he said. “There’s a lot more I can do, and

we’ll continue to grow cane as cheaply as we can.”

“The longer we can continue to deal with the rising sea level, the bigger weather events, and the drier periods, the more viable this industry will be in the future.”

Technology to the rescue The impetus for precision agriculture in cropping systems emerged in the late 1980’s. By matching grid-based soil samples, new variable-rate equipment could apply fertilisers where they were needed most.

While precision agriculture has expanded to include all types of data to support farming decisions, opinion is divided as to where this approach derives the best value.

Dr Charles Merfield sees that many attempts at precision agriculture amount to nothing little than ‘agricultural porn’.

“A lot of these things— yield maps, camera images, spectral analysis, soil conductivity maps—are a lot of colour images that in theory tell you a lot of stuff, but often it’s impossible to actually make sense of it,” he said.

“We can make massive amounts of data but at the end of the day what a farmer wants to know is ‘Do I have a problem, and do I need to act on it? If so, what do I need to do?’

“It should be as a simple as the farmer’s phone saying either ‘everything is okay’ or ‘something is wrong, go and take a look at this…’.”

Merfield believes that even mainstream farmers have got the message that they can improve their sustainability and, in turn, their productivity. He has observed that mainstream farmers are now improving their sustainability through better nutrient management, better soil health, and finding alternatives to agro-chemicals for pests and weeds and disease control.

Rather than using the old maxim, “your crop yield may go up or down by 20% for any given reason,” Merfield sees that for the first time we are beginning to say “this particular cultivar performs at its best at this time of year in these kind of soils with this kind of planting depth.”

“This is a level of accuracy that was just inconceivable five or ten years ago,” Merfield said.

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feature

False Colour, Farm in Victoria, captured with WorldView-2 from DigitalGlobe. Captured Date Unknown. Satellite Imagery © DigitalGlobe

Professor Ian Yule at Massey University is another New Zealand researcher that has taken precision agriculture a step ahead. He used a high-end hyperspectral camera aboard a UAV (or drone) to intricately measure multiple parts of the spectrum. In doing so, he essentially pioneered a way to replace a soil test, but at an unprecedented one metre resolution.

While that was done with a highexpense camers, the same technology could be shrunk down to include just the spectra needed for this application.

By placing that sensor on an affordable UAV, it would then be possible to fly that over a farm on a regular basis. This could then determine which plants need addressing, and inform targeted fertiliser and irrigation applications.

UAV and the relaxed legislation supporting their use is seeing a huge uptake in their use in agriculture.

Customised agriculture software products from companies like DroneDeploy, senseFly and MicaSense are being used to accurately map crops and produce vegetation indicies.

By using multispectral or hyperspectral cameras, farmers can also regularly monitor their crop health via a normalised differential vegetation index (NVDI).

DroneDeploy’s new Fieldscanner module even allows this in real-time- allowing users to view crop scouting and crop health maps while the drone is still in the air.

Other services bypass the need for you to fly anything at all. With satellites constantly capturing imagery and hyperspectral data, services like Landgate’s Pastures from Space Plus, and NGIS Australia’s GreenPrecision make it incredibly easy to access advanced insights with a computer or mobile device.

Not all solutions need to be mindblowing data hacks, however. Over the past decades, RTK GNSS technology has enabled machine guidance technologies

28 position June/July 2017

and unmanned tractors to become commonplace. Likewise, farmers are commonly using laser levelling and RTK GNSS rovers to accurately place crops, so irrigation can be applied across accurately uniform grids.

One of the most simple and practical solutions is using UAV imagery and smart software to count crops. By calculating how many fruit are in a field and when they are going to be ripe, it can better inform logistics, including how many boxes will be needed and even marketing.

70%

— the agricultural productivity improvements needed by 2050 to ensure enough food is produced for the world

If you have this information weeks or months ahead, it ensures demand matches supply.

The supply chain approach is the core focus of Agtrix, an Australian company that has taken the Australian cane industry by storm. Since the 1990s, most major Australian cane crops have been using Agtrix’s software solutions for either mapping, GNSS tracking of harvesters, logistics planning for trucks and transport management to and from the mills.

“What we’re trying to do is cover the whole supply chain, because if you optimise one, you’ll generally do it at the

expense of another,” said Robert Crossley, Agtrix’s managing director. “There’s this incredible balancing act.”

In some of Agtrix’s case studies from Africa, a truck might typically pull up to a processing plant to face a three or four hour queue into the mill. After Agtrix’s software was implemented, such waits were reduced to less than 20 minutes.

It’s possible that agriculture even has the solution for renewable energy. For the past 18 months, Agtrix have been helping the Phillipines to implement a world first renewable energy project. In what is the biggest logistical challenge Agtrix have faced, the Bronze Oak project aims to use cane waste material to create baseload energy supply. Where Agtrix comes in is managing the three day window from harvest and capture, to optimise the material collected and streamline delivery to the power station—adding to the viability of cane trash as an energy source.

The next wave Like most industries, technology has always influenced how a farm operates.

Agriculture itself is an invention, not to mention the historical advents of domestication, hand-tools, machinery, tractors, genetically modified foods, RTK machine guidance, big data and UAV. But who’s to say it will stop there?

By way of machine learning, artificial intelligence promises to be the next productivity step change across most industries and roles. When it comes to agriculture, though, it doesn’t appear to be the case.

“It will be decades upon decades before the farmer is out of the loop entirely,” said Merfield. “We’ll have a lot of other things automated first: the CEOs of big companies will be automated before they automate farmers.”

“Artificial intelligence is still lightyears away from being able to make practical farming decisions. There’s so many variables farmers juggle that often you couldn’t compute them... only a farmer’s years’ of experience can only solve them.

“We have extra eyes and ears for farmers, but they still need to understand the system.”

Similarly, Associate Professor Dr John Hornbuckle from Deakin University’s Centre for Regional and Rural Futures, doesn’t see the farmer going anywhere just yet.

“Machine learning has great potential but I think replacing someone on the ground is still a very long way off,” he said.

“What things like machine learning and big data offer are ways for farmers to make better decisions.”

While it may not have the same fanfare, what might come first are labmade meat; swarm technologies for drones; robotics for crop management; and high density sensor networks.

Making intelligent agriculture a reality All of this technology seems mighty exciting, but getting the agricultural industry to implement these strategies enmasse is another matter entirely.

“There is a number of technologies with great potential for revolutionising Agriculture,” said Bernardo de Castro, the President of Hexagon’s Agriculture division. Hexagon is offera software and hardware solutions to connect field, equipment and people.

“We find very different stages of technology adoption worldwide, according to region, crop and farmer profile,” Castro said. “Adoption usually starts with basic precision agriculture products and then evolves to more complex solutions.”

Dr Hornbuckle believes in that in improving sustainability on a farm, you

generally in turn improve economic viability for the long term.

“I think most farmers realise that, so they’re looking for technologies or ways to farm that make sure they are more sustainable,” he said. “There’s a lot of technologies out there so sorting the wheat from the chaff can be quite challenging. However there is this new breed of farmer coming through that is no stranger to technology.”

For Merfield and the Future Farming Centre team, one of the key things is interoperability and open standards— using standardised data formats and communication protocols for devices.

It may be economical and legislative pressures, though, that actually spur the revolution the world needs.

In New Zealand, regional councils are starting to address the issue of nutrients in water supplies by putting restrictions on farms. To get an idea of where that’s heading, we can look to Europe. In EU countries, farmers are beginning to be subsidised for their sustainable practices, which is now contributing to about 20% of incomes. In making ‘business as usual’

a disincentive, technologically enabled smart farming becomes the logical choice.

You are part of the problem Sustainable agriculture is a problem for all of us to consider. If you really think about it, you can survive without Netflix, a smartphone and your car. But can you survive without farming? Unless you plan on dedicating your life to it as a farmer, I would say the answer is no.

It turns out our own personal decisions may be just as important as the fantastic work being done by farmers, scientists and technologists. But rather than waiting for someone else to come up with a solution, perhaps we could all ease the load by making wiser consumer choices— choosing sustainable sources, eating less animal products and avoiding food waste.

Anthony Wallace is the editor of Position magazine and SpatialSource. com.au. He has a tiny, thriving backyard he refers to as his farm.

After writing this article he wonders whose job will be automated first, a journalist’s or a farmer’s. ■

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ne of Australia’s largest geospatial events returns in August 2017 with Ozri, the Australian Esri User Conference, relaunching under a new format.

Aiming to make the iconic event more accessible to the nation’s loyal ArcGIS user community, organisers have transformed Ozri into a one-day, feature-packed celebration of GIS – that will travel to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Organisers have also slashed a thousand dollars off ticket prices making the event arguably the best value show on the Australian spatial calendar.

Audiences today are looking for a new type of conference experience, said Esri Australia’s Events Manager Josie Sinni.

“Pressures on budgets, travel embargoes and lost productivity have contributed to a downward trend in conference attendance over the past few years,” said Mrs Sinni.

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Full event details – including Ozri’s new format and program are available from: esriaustralia.com.au/ozri Melbourne: Tuesday 22 August Sydney: Friday 25 August Brisbane: Tuesday 29 August

“While Ozri has always been able to hold and even grow its attendee numbers, it’s clear event organisers need to deliver a low-cost, highvalue experience that is both educational and entertaining if they want to connect with today’s GIS professional,” Mrs Sinni said.

Ozri 2017 will be first-time Technical Director Laura Berman’s maiden program.

A veteran of the spatial industry, Ms Berman says her goal this year is to leave conference goers with a real sense of purpose.

“There are so many exciting stories to be told and some really remarkable advancement in the ArcGIS platform to explore,” said Ms Berman.

“We’ve got a lot to work with, so I’m excited to be at the helm of this year’s program.”

Ozri is the ideal opportunity for Australia’s Esri user community to connect with GIS decisionmakers and specialists from around the globe.

For managers, developers, entrepreneurs, technical teams and analysts, Ozri offers unprecedented access to a core group of passionate ArcGIS specialists.

The electrifying atmosphere of Ozri guarantees you will discover the latest GIS developments and trends through immersive technical and networking sessions.

Information provided by Esri Australia. ■

D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N

The top 10 trends in the (local) world of GIS

By David Floreani

uring last year’s South Australian SSSI GIS Day event, I was invited to take the stage and discuss the top ten GIS trends currently shaping the industry here in Australia.

What I have observed is that underlying all the trends is one phrase that keeps being repeated by senior management in all sectors: ‘return on investment’. Put simply – organisations are demanding a very strong business case to invest in any sort of technology, and GIS is no different.

Executives say that spending is prioritised towards core business functions (i.e. the ‘must-have’ rather than the ‘nice-to-have’). The challenge for GIS professionals is to continually demonstrate and document the efficiencies, savings, revenue generation, social benefits, risk mitigation and unique analytics performed, to ensure GIS technology is seen as a must-have business function.

A great opportunity to ensure GIS is a must-have relates to the trend of self-service mapping. Staff can use web mapping at home and anywhere on their mobile devices, so expect to be able to do the same at work.

This means GIS professionals must transition from being map makers to organisation enablers, by providing intuitive, user-friendly applications.

For the full story subscribe to the Esri Australia blog

esriaustralia.com.au/blog www.spatialsource.com.au 31

feature

Vinehealth CEO Inca Pearce with a Boundary Rider vineyard sign at a pilot vineyard in the Barossa.

Grapes & Geofences Protecting South Australia’s billion-dollar wine industry

VINEHEALTH AUSTRALIA

Forewarning an outbreak

A

The geofence concept has been successfully implemented in industries such as fleet management, human resource management, asset management (such as marine parks), marketing and law enforcement.

Its adoption in agriculture has been relatively limited to date, but usage

by Canadian Pork Producers assisted in containing the spread of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) in 2014.

When searching for commercially available geofencing offerings, Vinehealth Australia discovered Canadian company Be Seen Be Safe.

“The poultry industry of Canada is successfully using Be Seen Be Safe’s geofencing technology to track movements of people in and out of poultry farms and then using these visitor records to conduct trace-backs in the event of a disease outbreak,” said Brendan Tully, Vinehealth Australia’s spatial information services administrator.

“We decided to partner with Be Seen Be Safe for our vineyard biosecurity pilot program because of their system capabilities,” he said. “The results to date are promising.”

cutting-edge vineyard cyber monitoring system, designed to keep South Australia’s $1.78 billion wine industry free of devastating pests and diseases such as phylloxera, is currently being trialled in vineyards.

Project Boundary Rider creates a virtual boundary – or geofence – around vineyards and uses smartphone app technology to monitor the movement of people entering properties. Vineyard owners are alerted when anyone crosses their boundary line.

The Boundary Rider pilot project, initiated by Vinehealth Australia, is being trialled by 30 winegrowers in McLaren Vale and Barossa. The system is a first in biosecurity for the wine industry nationally.

“It’s an exciting project,” says Vinehealth CEO Inca Pearce. “Initiating biosecurity practices is often a responsive action to a threat, but this technology allows us to proactively track the movement of people in and out of vineyards, and potentially stop the spread of a harmful pest or disease between vineyards or regions.”

32 position June/July 2017

Vinehealth Australia’s geofencing pilot – Project Boundary Rider – uses the Be Seen Be Safe system modified for plant-based requirements, and utilises the ESRI ArcGIS platform, incorporating ArcGIS GeoEvent Processor for Server, an extension to ArcGIS for Server.

A customised phone app by Be Seen Be Safe, which Vinehealth Australia has named ‘BRider’, integrates with the platform and acts as a passport, recording crossings of the vineyard’s geofences (in and out) as all visitors move from vineyard to vineyard. The vineyard owner receives instant notification of the visitor’s arrival, and all records are GPS time-stamped to give temporal and spatial data which is recorded in a database.

Visitors who have the BRider App also receive a notification on their device when they cross the geofence. Notifications to visitors can be customised, for example, ‘Welcome to Winery Estate. Please respect the health of our vines and report to the vineyard office. Do not enter our vine rows without permission.’

In the event of a pest or disease outbreak, officials can quickly communicate updates and alerts, and put in measures to contain the disease spread.

“The ability to analyse and process real time data makes this a powerful tool in biosecurity management, in the event of an incursion,” says Tully.

“When looking at a disease outbreak and why often the devastation is so immense, the answer lies in our inability to predict where it is likely to ‘break’ next.

Current trace forward and trace back methods take weeks, even months.

During a disease outbreak we need answers quickly so we can forewarn those in the path of a disease, or those already affected so they can take action to mitigate impact.”

Protecting a most valuable resource The benefits for the wine industry of utilising geofencing for a biosecurity purpose are potentially far-reaching.

“In the case of an outbreak, the system would erect and monitor exclusionary zone boundaries,” said Inca Pearce, Vinehealth’s CEO. “When paired with the stopping of all movement, such rapid response would mean far more effective containment, resulting in less impact for the industry,” “The improved trace back through the use of real-time information technology applications will result in direct savings in time and resources. And it will mean improved management of quarantine zones, resulting in improved risk mitigation and reduced concern to the industry and the general public.”

For vineyard owners, the technology means peace of mind in their efforts to cresource – their grapevines.

PHYLLOXERA IN FOCUS Grape phylloxera (Daktulsphaira vitifoliae) is a devastating pest of grapevines worldwide. Phylloxera is a tiny yellow insect that destroys grapevines by killing their roots.

When a vineyard is infested, the only way to remove phylloxera is to remove all vines.

Phylloxera is native to eastern and southern USA, and is in every wine producing country in the world except Chile. In Australia, phylloxera is only found in small areas of central, eastern and north eastern Victoria and the south east of New South Wales.

Through quarantine measures, implementation of farm-gate hygiene practices and continued vigilance, the states of South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania have not become infested with phylloxera; alongside large parts of Victoria and New South Wales. Queensland is thought to be free of Phylloxera.

Vine pests such as phylloxera can be accidentally spread on clothing, footwear and vineyard machinery.

Ben Zander, a pilot program participant from Wroxton Partners in Eden Valley, is a strong advocate of the initiative.

“I believe the wine industry needs to be constantly evaluating and embracing new technologies for the potential benefit of the industry as a whole,” Ben says.

“I would hope the pilot allows me a more streamlined and easy manner to electronically record visitor movements both on and off property. I think this is a good initiative by Vinehealth Australia – we need our peak industry bodies to be aware of current, next year and five year technologies to determine where they might fit within the viticultural industry.

“As individuals we don’t always have access to this information or what technology can truly do for us, and it’s encouraging that Vinehealth Australia is looking to the future and protecting our valuable assets.”

Vinehealth Australia (formerly the Phylloxera and Grape Industry Board of SA) is committed to minimising the risk of pests and diseases (in particular phylloxera) in South Australian vineyards and providing effective pest and disease management policies, information on best practice biosecurity measures and current research. ■

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comment

Locate17 and Digital Earth A great success for the surveying profession TONY PROUST

Insights on the national event of the year.

O

ver 1,000 surveyors, spatial practitioners and allied professionals from around the world gathered at Sydney’s Darling Harbour early last April under the banner of Locate17, which was held for the first time in conjunction with the 10th International Symposium on Digital Earth.

Opening session Transforming from a paper based system to a digital system is very difficult but with the increasing availability of raw digital data we are now in a position to transform our world. This will allow us to be definitive on a wide range of challenges from climate change, to community development, education and health, just for starters. We can use the digital data to move from the global perspective to the local, to the site specific, depending on the particular challenge at hand.

And Australia is playing a significant role in this process. In truth the raw data is often available but we have yet to work out how to best access and use it. To do this, we need effective collaboration between the private sector, public sector and academia.

These days we are mapping Australia to a detail never done before, locating structures, measuring building heights, vegetation, tree canopy, swimming pools, roof materials and solar panels, which will allow the creation of 3D models. This is all part of the digital transformation

34 position June/July 2017

which will assist governments, businesses and the community to better manage our economy and society generally and surveyors are a vital part of this process.

95% of the leaders in the surveying and spatial sector are not achieving their potential, according to the new 2026Agenda. That means that there are huge opportunities we are yet to exploit to create better and more sustainable communities. Location based services will grow by 50% or more in the future and we need to be prepared.

Digital transformation in practice As I write this the US has dropped 59 missiles on a Syrian airbase. They had to make sure they didn’t accidently take out any Russians or their planes who use part of the target airbase. To do this the US needed reliable, real-time spatial data on the location of the Russians and their planes. This is an example of the digital transformation in the military sphere and is the future of warfare and a sign of what we can expect in other spatial environments.

Just recently, a cyclist, Mike Hall, participating in an endurance race from Perth to Sydney died on the Monaro Highway. Many avid cycling fans–‘dot watchers’–were following the race online with each participant having a personal geo-tracker. When Mike’s geo-tracker inexplicably stopped on the highway near Canberra fans thought he may have stopped for a break. When they then noticed that his geo-tracker was suddenly moving at the speed of a car they became

concerned. It was then revealed that he had died in an accident. It was an extremely sad and unusual way to witness a death.

Welcome to the new world of digital transformation.

Land surveying stream For the first time Locate had a Land Surveying and Administration stream, which included a Surveyors General Panel including SGs from India, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, NT and the ACT. News South Wales Surveyor General Narelle Underwood kicked off with a presentation about the Preservation of Survey marks and a new app designed to find survey marks and notify the SG when they are gone.

Craig Sandy, the Northern Territory SG, outlined developments in the NT starting in 1993 when Certificates of Title went online. Now building and development assessments and valuations are on line with lodgement of survey plans to follow soon.

In this age of disruption it is important to acknowledge that soon almost anyone can measure accurately, but compared to what? Surveyors are the measurement experts. We know about accuracy and whether a measurement is ‘fit for purpose’. The average person might be able to collect measurement data, but will they understand the limitations to the data they collect? We surveyors have to make sure that the land development industry and the wider community continue to recognise us as the measurement experts.

and the large trade display. Given that nearly half the attendees came from overseas is testament to the high standing and relevance of Australian surveyors and spatial practitioners, worldwide and this is best demonstrated at a truly national conference like Locate17.

One criticism of Locate17 was the expense. At over $600/day it was too expensive for many surveyors. Compared to the Australia Day Seminar in Sydney in early 2017 ($480/day), the recent Association of Public Authority Surveyors NSW conference ($270/day) and the SSSI regional conference in Canberra in

LEFT: The Surveyor Generals panel (L-R): Jeff Brown (ACT), John Tulloch (VIC), Michael Giudici (TAS), Swarna Subba Rao (India), Narelle Underwood (NSW), Craig Sandy (NT).

Jeff Brown, the ACT SG, talked about the use of new and emerging technologies in the new Northbourne Ave light rail redevelopment corridor in Canberra. He hopes to create a 3D cadastre so all the new apartments can be easily identified, including car spaces, the lifts and common areas.

Disunity is Death One session I was unable to attend, as it clashed with the Surveyors General Panel, was surveyor and ex-Federal MP Gary Nairn’s presentation, Disunity is Death - Surveying and Spatial leadership in the 21st Century.

Later Gary sent me a copy of his talk, which essentially addressed the elephant in the room: the extraordinary level of disunity in the surveying and spatial profession.

Gary thought it regrettable that a “national” surveying conference was held in Victoria, which would impact on Locate 17. He went on to say: SSI was formed… and subsequently became SSSI when ISA joined in. But as with the industry associations, while the national bodies merged, a number of their state based groups didn’t.

Queensland enthusiastically became part of SSSI, as did WA, SA, Tasmania, ACT & NT although yet another group calling itself the Queensland Spatial and Surveying Association broke away from SSSI Queensland a couple of years ago.

And there have been moves in WA in recent times to reform an Institution of Surveyors.

And there is now a push from the UK based Royal Institution of

Chartered Surveyors (RICS) to get a foothold in Australia.

Are all these various organisations a good or bad thing for the profession and the industry?

Based on the first part of my presentation today, obviously I don’t think so. As the principles behind these professions and industries become even more embedded... in so much of our daily life, unity becomes so much more crucial. But our leadership doesn’t seem to have been able to understand that, or do something about it.

Conclusion Our profession will never be truly effective at a national level, let alone an international level, while these debilitating and costly rivalries and petty jealousies continue.

One might ask - what does Locate offer a surveyor?

In fact there was much on offer for surveyors at Locate17 including the free day on Tuesday, the land and surveying stream and SG panel on the Wednesday

late 2016 (less than $250/day). Costs for future Locates must be affordable for the average surveyor who is generally not supported by a large business.

Our profession faces a number of existential challenges ranging from the selloff of land titles systems across the nation, possible de-regulation of the surveying profession and the rise of ‘do it yourself measurement’ to the emergence of RICS in Australia. But without a unified profession our ability to respond to these challenges will be muted at best.

I am proud member of both ISNSW and SSSI and I look forward to a time when we are a unified and influential profession able to effectively respond to these disruptions. I hope that soon we can overcome these problems and I look forward to attending a truly national conference for surveyors and spatial practitioners – maybe in 2019?

Tony Proust is a registered surveyor, consulting planner and president-elect of the Institution of Surveyors New South Wales. ■ www.spatialsource.com.au 35

new products

UAV safety app plots air traffic restrictions Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is attempting to simplify the process of determining where drone operators can and can’t fly. To support this, CASA has released an official smartphone and web app titled ‘Can I fly here?’ that displays information about drone safety regulations, as well as maps showing no-fly zones and ‘fly with caution’ zones. It also integrates with satellite imagery and GNSS positioning for use in the field. The app is available from the App Store, Google Play and as a web map.

Training course on the fundamentals of UAV surveying UAV educational provider, UAVAIR, has launched a specialised set of training programs to educate professionals interested in performing aerial surveying by drone. The two-day course was developed based on industry experience from the construction, mining, mapping and inspection disciplines. In partnership

with Propeller, the course aims to encourage organisations to save time and money, reduce risk and acquire better data. The course involves UAV operations in the field, the use of Propeller’s Aeropoints and data processing with Propeller software. UAVAIR holds courses across multiple Australian cities.

Free software for UAV mapping and analytics PrecisionHawk’s new PrecisionMapper service allows UAV operators to stitch an unlimited number of photos, create maps without resolution limits and run algorithms for analysis, all for free.

By eliminating the cost barrier, operators can simply ‘bring their own drone’ to create volume calculations, 3D models, contour maps and perform NDVI crop analysis. Free users of PrecisionMapper can create up to 60 surveys a year without resolution or export limits.

36 position June/July 2017

Mobile app to better study our oceans Esri has released a new mobile app that offers a new way to measure, monitor and communicate changes to ocean environments. The Ecological Marine Units (EMU) app is now available for free on mobile devices and provides easily access to information and imagery about the ocean’s long-term physical and nutrient properties.

The primary data source for the EMU mobile app is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) authoritative World Ocean Atlas, a 3D model including temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, silicate, phosphate for 52 million locations across the world’s oceans.

Building outlines in central Sydney as featured in the latest release of Geoscape.

Dataset outlining extents of the world's oceans Airbus Defence and Space has expanded its WorldDEM portfolio with the launch of the ‘WorldDEM Ocean Shoreline’ product. Developed in cooperation with the Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing at the University of Miami in the United States, the new thematic layer provides highly detailed and accurate shoreline mapping that covers the Earth from pole-to-pole and 360° degrees around.

As with WorldDEM, ‘WorldDEM Ocean Shoreline’ is a homogeneous, gap-free and up-to-date database, with a consistent and uniform horizontal resolution of 12 meters.

Latest release of continent-wide building dataset PSMA Australia has announced the latest release of Geoscape, a continent-wide register of the built environment as an accurate spatial dataset. This extends the available datasets to include Adelaide, rural SA, Canberra, ACT, Sydney, rural NSW, Launceston and rural Queensland.

All Geoscape datasets in rural and urban

environments include building ground elevation, footprint data, and land cover.

In all urban environments, datasets also include tree heights, roof materials, swimming pools, solar panels and building heights. The remainder of the national datasets will be available over the course of 2017 and early 2018.

Enhanced open geospatial software

UAV helicopter for LiDAR surveying and mapping Aeroscout has unveiled the Scout B-330 UAV helicopter, with a high payload capacity designed for conducting LiDAR missions. The Scout B-330 is built with a 50kg payload capacity, a flight endurance of up to three hours and high altitude capabilities. The release follows Aeroscout’s strategic partnership with Riegl to develop LiDAR based UAV. As such, many of Riegl’s lightweight LiDAR platforms are compatible with the new Scout B-330 UAV helicopter.

Open geospatial software provider, Boundless, has announced the release of Boundless Suite 4.10, designed to streamline the creation of maps and applications using the Boundless open GIS ecosystem. Boundless Suite is designed for solving complex geospatial challenges, managing data, building maps and applications across web browsers, desktops and mobile devices. The company has also announced a new Boundless software development kit (SDK) and contributions to the community release of GeoServer 2.11. Boundless has also announced partnerships with global imagery supplier Planet and geo-intelligence data provider Spatial Networks to allow seamless access to high value datasets.

www.spatialsource.com.au 37

sssi

News and views from the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute

SSSI Board – 2017

Spatial Information and Cartography Commission

President – Gaby van Wyk

Maps for the Blind

President-Elect – Zaffar Mohamed Ghouse ACT Director – Mike Stapleton NSW Director – Zaffar Mohamed Ghouse NT Director – Rob Sarib QLD Director – Lee Hellen SA Director – Franco Rea TAS Director – Alex Leith VIC Director – Vacant WA Director – Kerry Smyth Hydrography Commission Director – Richard Cullen YP representative (Observer) – Richard Syme Company Secretary – Jonathan Saxon

I am really excited to share with the reader this truly innovative project (pictured above), which expands the way people experience maps. In Switzerland, ESRI was asked to create a tactile atlas to help a blind man who loves geography and maps. The atlas was printed with special ink that expands when heated to create tiny bumps and ridges on the page.

Some of the challenges included using triangles to indicate mountains so as to differentiate them from the circles for towns, finding space to show the braille letters which are larger than regular text and reducing the density of information displayed on the map, since looking at a map as a blind person is like seeing it through a soda straw. This was achieved by separating the content onto two maps and developing a two letter abbreviation system. Additional copies of the maps will be given to Switzerland’s national library for sight-impaired people. (Learn more here: http://bit.ly/2qe5ubw)

SICC Workplan 2017-18 Over the next two years, the Spatial Information and Cartography Commission (SICC) will be attempting to build up a portfolio of industry workshops that will serve as educational resources for our members. We plan to adapt workshops from URISA, the world-wide industry leading organisation for spatial science education, and tailor them for an

38 position June/July 2017

Australian audience. Later in the year I will attend the URISA Annual Conference to source material. The entire portfolio of workshops will be made available online and/or presented across Australia soon.

Please watch this space for updates.

Our second mission will be to raise the profile of the GISP-AP Certification Program. I recently sent a message to members of the SI&C Commission seeking volunteers for the GISP-AP Assessment Panel. The response was overwhelming, clearly showing how valuable this certification program is to our members.

If you would like to be involved and be part of the SICC National committee there are still two positions open for both the ACT and NT Regions and one for Tasmania Region, or if you are from those regions and interested in helping to shape the direction of the Commission I'd look forward to hearing from you as would Chris Malouf (General Manger).

Hanno Klahn Chair – SSSI Spatial Information and Cartography Commission National Committee

SSSI sustaining partners

Hydrography Commission

Expanding opportunity First, let’s kick off with available jobs.

Sorry, not paying jobs but volunteer contributions to the Commission. There are many activities required to be completed as we undertake strategic change within the industry. Some are simple, others more time consuming and policy driven. The following activities require volunteers: • Having contributed 9 years to the commission, Michael Beard has decided to withdraw from the committee and the role of vice-chair. We thank Michael for his efforts in promoting the best of the profession and wish him well in sitting in the background of the commission as the committee continues to work for him as a member. This now presents an opportunity in Queensland for another representative to be selected. We will move to an election toward the end of October 2017 for the second Queensland position and subsequently vice-chair.

• Input to GeoMessage articles.

• A person to compose an article for Shipping Australia magazine on the endeavours of Flinders as a hydrographic surveyor and the impact of his work for the benefit of Australia.

If a commission member would like to nominate for the Queensland position, you may forward your nomination to the chair.hc@sssi.org.au and generalmanager@sssi.org.au. Likewise, if you wish to volunteer for the other two activities please email the chair.

Meeting Outcomes The meeting produced yet again some very positive strategies and actions which will continue to build on the recognition of our hydrographic surveying profession, but also in the move into the newly announced Hydroscheme Industry Partnership Program (HIPP). This program was initiated by Defence to partner with industry and grow hydrographic, but more importantly geospatial, capacity and capability is a huge step forward in contributing to the expeditious nautical charting of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) for the safety of navigation under international conventions and the Navigation Act 2012.

There are likely many hydrographic surveyors conducting their work in areas not honed to nautical charting activities.

It is now opportune for those surveyors to dust off the IHO S44 and C-13 Manual of Hydrography, and begin shifting your mindset to this sub-specialism.

Additional to this, most activities will be requiring a level of Hydrographic Surveying Certification at Level 1 or 2.

Therefore, compiling relevant evidence in preparation of an application should also place you ahead of others for future employment opportunities.

As chair of the commission and having seen many applications, I cannot stress enough that certification reflects hydrographic surveying knowledge in a holistic and comprehensive manner according to the level of understanding determined in the S5 syllabus. This is further assessed against consolidated practical application in the majority of areas studied under the syllabus (or allied discipline as per the AHSCP Certification Guidelines). There is an expectation that as many haven’t focussed on nautical charting before, the development of the skillset will need to be enhanced through mentoring or consultant activities by those sub-specialised in nautical charting.

In response to training, the committee moved that institutions providing surveying education have their courses evaluated against the S5A and S5B syllabus to determine the gap in education. From this, there could be a provided pathway of additional short courses identified for each of those institution courses, such that a potential certification applicant can easily evaluate their additional requirements post survey course. The gap analysis will provide a tier of institutional courses from most aligned to the syllabus to least.

The committee has also been progressing discussions with the Australian Industry Standards on the Water IRC Skills Forecast. With this, we are seeking an uptake of short modularised courses conducted by Recognised Training Organisations (RTOs) that fulfil S5 syllabus learning not conducted through the survey degrees as identified by the gap analysis. This should then provide the bridge of knowledge currently not taught in the southern hemisphere for hydrographic surveying. As these would be modularised, a surveyor uses these to build the required knowledge for certification at their leisure.

Commission Chairs Engineering & Mine Surveying A/g Chair Vacant Hydrography Commission Chair Richard Cullen chair.hc@sssi.org.au Land Surveying Commission Chair Lindsay Perry chair.lsc@sssi.org.au Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Commission Chair Craig Smith chair.rspc@sssi.org.au Spatial Information & Cartography Commission Chair Hanno Klahn chair.sicc@sssi.org.au Regional Committee Chairs ACT Regional Chair – Greg Ledwidge chair.act@sssi.org.au NSW Regional Chair – Zaffar Mohamed Ghouse chair.nsw@sssi.org.au NT Regional Chair – Rob Sarib chair.nt@sssi.org.au QLD Regional Chair – Roy Somerville chair.qld@sssi.org.au SA Regional Chair – Franco Rea chair.sa@sssi.org.au TAS Regional Chair – Alex Leith chair.tas@sssi.org.au VIC Regional Chair – Werner Hennecke chair.vic@sssi.org.au WA Regional Chair – Kerry Smyth 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 HCNC F2F Meeting, Wollongong, April 2017. L-R: Dylan Colson, David Field, Michael Beard, Paul Kennedy, Simon Ironside, Mathieu Bestille, Andrew Ternes, Owen Cantrill, Richard Cullen, Martin Castalanelli, Jasbir Randhawa, Peter Barr.

In recognition of our profession, we continue to liaise with the Australian Bureau of Statistics for a correct definition in ANZSIC and ANZSCO of ‘311415 Hydrographer’. This review is approaching toward the end of year. In conjunction with this, I am reviewing the possibility of creating an independent Federal Award for Hydrographic Surveyors. Some may not be aware, but as a profession we are bundled with land surveyors under the Award MA000066. What the award does not cover is our profession’s very unique working situations in both land and maritime environments. The review will maintain the current minimum National Employment Standards (NES), identify land survey aspects which should be retained, and incorporate concepts from various enterprise agreements relating

to conditions and allowances. Again, the committee reiterates that as a profession, we are already bound by the Award as a minimum requirement. While most may be receiving more pay and benefits, the setting of minimum maritime conditions and allowances is seen as a means to stop the junior members of the profession being unfairly employed compared to those mariners they sail with.

Mentoring The committee has established a working group to initiate a mentoring framework allocating level 1 mentors to graduate members of the commission. A communique will soon be distributed to all level 1 members explaining the importance of the program and the intention to enhance the professional capabilities of

our junior hydrographic surveyors. The program will assist in guiding graduates through all manner of hydrographic surveying skills such as problem solving, methodologies, report writing, analysis, quality control, and documentation.

Eventually leading to a highly-experienced surveyor who can successfully proceed through the level 2 then level 1 certification process with high confidence. More will be posted on the website in due course.

I wish to thank our current volunteers on the committee and certification panel for their selfless participation for the love of their spatial science. To our commission sustaining partners whom we rely upon to assist in facilitating our enormous advocacy roles, we thank Precision Hydrographic Services (PHS), Fugro, Bluezone Group, iXSurvey and the Australian Hydrographic Service.

And lastly, if you haven’t already done so, register now for the joint Australian Hydrographic Society and Hydrography Commission World Hydrography Day Seminar in Darwin on 21 June. Details on the current SSSI home page link to the event booking system.

Richard Cullen Chair – SSSI Hydrography Commission National Committee

Land Surveying Commission International Land Measurement Standards Coalition (ILMS) During last year a number of professional bodies gathered to develop voluntary guidelines for the responsible governance of land tenure.

Land and property transactions are ripe for abuse and rate high on the global corruption index, with 70 percent of land and property in the developing world being unregistered, and where land information systems do exist, they can vary significantly in their levels of transparency, enforcement and public recognition.

Land is central to the economic development of countries and there is a global need for a standardised land reporting framework, based on high principles which can be used as a model to create a consistent environment for land ownership, development and

40 position June/July 2017

investment, which are all key elements for economic development.

Developed countries like Australia are being looked upon to take the initiative and hence the creation of the International Land Measurements Standards Coalition.

Meetings were held at the FIG Working Week in Christchurch in May 2016 and in Rome at the Headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation at the beginning of July 2016. There are currently around twenty five ILMS Coalition members including SSSI, NZIS, FIG, RICS as well as peak national surveying bodies from USA, South Africa, Europe and Russia.

An ILMS Standards Setting Committee (SSC) has now been formed to develop a standard with strong international principles based on a “minimum requirement to secure legal rights and enable efficient/secure transfer and transaction of land and property rights.”

A presentation was made at the recent World Bank Land Conference and it is proposed to present the initial scoping document at the FIG Working Week in Helsinki in May, with the intent of publishing the draft copy for consultation

by August this year. The aim is to launch the ILMS standard at the World Bank Land conference in March 2018 and devote a special ILMS session at the FIG Conference in Istanbul in June 2018.

The ILMS is starting to gain traction with land related initiatives such as the UN Habitat Fit for Purpose. Land is being seen in a holistic and interconnected manner from mapping to security of tenure, to taxation and acquisition. Geospatial technologies, if used appropriately, can

SSSI sustaining partners

provide solutions to these problems.

Surveyors are the professionals on the ground that enable and make land markets work. Opening a dialogue with policy makers, economists and social scientists of the global land profession and understanding their dialogue will be the key to the future success of the global land surveying profession.

Comment on the sale of State Land Registries As we are fortunate to be amongst 30% of the worlds countries which have an efficient land administration system, the community takes this for granted and is unaware of the standards and expertise required to make such systems function. These land administration systems generate significant wealth for

governments. On one hand we have the need to provide proper global standards for developing countries and on the other hand well founded systems once established generate significant funds for government.

Cash strapped governments are now discovering that for short term opportunism, they can get a quick dollar and mortgage the future, if they sell off their land registries.

The process is almost complete in NSW with negligible community consultation; South Australia is in early stages of consultation and after earlier reports that privatisation of land registries was not part of Labor policy; the Victorian Treasurer in the budget just handed down, revealed that as part of the government’s Asset Recycling Policy, a scoping study would be undertaken to examining the possibility of the sale of the Victorian Land Registry.

Similar to other jurisdictions overseas, as more awareness of the important role of a jurisdictions land registry is understood, the more the opposition of the community grows to privatisation of this essential service, with concerns around the increasing risk of fraud, misuse of personal data, conflicts of interest and increasing costs of property transactions.

SSSI will be liaising with like bodies and advocating to maintain the protection of the community interest and security of tenure as being paramount in any discussions regarding the privatisation of such a government monopoly.

Lindsay Perry Chair - SSSI Land Surveying Commission National Committee

Spatial Information Day keeps getting bigger and better

A

delaide’s Spatial Information Day (SID) conference has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a small gathering of Adelaide-based spatial professionals 20 years ago. Today, SID has become Australia’s largest oneday spatial industry event.

This year SID continues to build on its well-earned reputation with international and prominent Australian keynote addresses including Faheem Khan, International Vice President of Leica Geosystems (Singapore); Sebastiaan Helsen, Product Manager of Luciad (Belgium); and Gary Johnson, Head of Esri Australia's Innovation Lab. In a slight change of program structure from previous years, the morning session will feature all keynote addresses, culminating in a Q&A style panel session before lunch. This promises to be great opportunity for the audience to interact with the international guests in an open and unscripted discussion.

Following lunch, the program will expand into three major project streams featuring accomplished presenters speaking on projects and new initiatives of significance. The final session will include five specialist quick-fire streams (15 minute presentations) where activities from all levels of government, businesses, not-for-profits, and academia will be presented and discussed.

The program concludes with happy hour from 5pm, sponsored by DigitalGlobe for the eighth-year running, before transitioning into the APSEA-SA Dinner at the picturesque Panorama Room overlooking Adelaide Oval and the Riverbank precinct at 7pm.

In addition to a vibrant program, SID offers generous breaks, giving delegates ample opportunity to converse with colleagues, friends, speakers and exhibitors in the exhibition hall where leading commercial providers display advances in technology. A tour of the exhibition booths, organised by the SSSI Young Professionals, has also become a highlight for students and those new to the spatial industry to get up close and learn from established industry professionals.

SID2017 welcomes BuildSA For the first time, BuildSA, the industry body for BIM professionals, joins SSSI and SIBA as an organising partner for this event. As an emerging spatial discipline, a BIM stream has been added to the already diverse program covering Surveying, GIS, Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry.

Complimentary to the BIM presentation stream is the addition of Saab Australia as a sponsor and exhibitor. Saab’s international centre of excellence for

mixed reality visualisation is based in Adelaide and a booth will be set up running HoloLens demonstrations all day. Delegates will need to book in quick as there will be a limited number of spots available.

SID2017 keeps getting bigger Despite many conferences struggling for attendance post-GFC, SID continues to attract around 400 registrations per year.

With the addition of BuildSA, this number is expected to reach 500, solidifying SID as the largest one-day spatial industry event in Australia.

A growing trend has been the number of interstate speakers, sponsors and delegates.

With tickets starting from just $155 for early bird SSSI members, SID also represents the best value spatial science’s conference in Australia.

SID2017 will take place 11 August at the Adelaide Convention Centre. For more information visit spatialinformationday.org.au. www.spatialsource.com.au 41

feature

The Misclose Over 61,000 people pre-ordered a Lily drone, but none actually shipped.

T

he Lily drone was the kind of gadget you always dreamed of.

When it launched its crowdfunding campaign in 2015 it had all the promise of fulfilling all your Star Wars fantasies. A promo video showed how you could simply throw it in the air and it would follow you as you went snowboarding, kayaking and trekking.

Simply keep the GPS remote on you, and Lily will follow you wherever you may go.

Never mind the ski lifts, the rapids or the pine trees. Lily had eyes of its own.

It was going to be so easy to use that even the grandma character at the end of the video was able to throw Lily in the air to launch it without a hint of fear or doubt. And all the while it would be capturing stunning 4K and looking at you with a smile worth at least ten R2-D2s.

Lily seemed too good to be true. In the end, it turned out to be.

As often happens with technology companies these days, the delay of the launch date ballooned from weeks to months. Over the course of 2015 and

42 position June/July 2017

2016, the San Franciscan company behind it all, Lily Robotics, had amassed US$34.8 million in pre-sales for its drone and received US$15 million in investment from some of Silicon Valley’s most highprofile venture capitalist firms. At its peak the company was burning through US$1 million a month.

Then in the middle of the night on 12 January 2017, the penny dropped. Lily sent an email to all their customers notifying them that the camera could not be produced and they would receive a refund.

That same day, the District Attorney of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against Lily alleging that the startup intentionally deceived customers. Lily Robotics had faked its promo videos using products from other manufacturers, including a

GoPro camera and a prototype drone.

Some days later, San Francisco police, raided Lily Robotics offices.

A few weeks later, Lily Robotics filed for bankruptcy. The company also issued a notice to customers stating: "We will try to refund all of our customers' pre-order payments during the bankruptcy. However, we need Bankruptcy Court approval of a refund process to make those payments.”

To recoup the losses, Lily sought to sell off its intellectual property. The company began refunding its customers but many complained about being left in the dark and getting no response to their repeated inquiries about a refund.

The moral of the story, don’t lie.

And never trust a robot’s smile, no matter how cute. ■

The Misclose is a new segment where things did NOT go according to plan. Remember when the excavator ran over the jigger, the assistant tore up your field notes, the boss embezzled the company into the ground, or when the server crashed because you poured your coffee on it?

That's what we are after. Send through your misclose to awallace@intermedia.com.au.

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

April/May

88 2017 – No.

June/July 2017 – No. 89

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