Position issue 94 April-May 2018

April/May 2018 – No. 94

The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

LOCATION ANALYTICS

Transforming the commercial property industry

Official publication of

inside Data as a service The next major industry disruption

Marree Man Restoring an outback mystery

What's on Geosmart Asia ’18 Locate ’18

Geospatial

contents

April/May 2018 No.94

22

18

28

features

30 Does Leica’s BLK360 really measure up?

13 From maintenance to management

32 Welcome to the age of big data

Users report on Leica's BLK360 scanner in the field.

Drones and photogrammetry are powering the shift from maintenance departments to smart asset management.

14 Q&A with Mary-Ellen Feeney A champion of diversity in the spatial sciences sits down with Position.

16 Game changer How location analytics are transforming the commercial property industry.

18 Australia’s new space race New space down under.

22 Worlds collide How AR will help redefine urban reality.

26 Taylors augmenting the urban reality Bringing paper plans to life with mixed reality.

28 Crafting the digital twin Radical reality capture and consolidation at NSW Spatial Services.

Jon Fairall explores the next industry disruption: Data as a Service.

36 Australian first Flood-proofing Banana Shire with a massive dataset.

38 Coordinates from on high The curious restoration of a massive outback mystery.

32 Building to withstand extreme weather We have the technology. But when will we start using it?

40 Geosmart Asia ’18 – Locate ’18 program guide Don’t miss a trick at the biggest event on the geospatial calendar.

regulars 4 7 8 44 46

Upfront, calendar Editorial News New products SSSI www.spatialsource.com.au 3

upfront

Upcoming Events 9-11 April: Locate ’18 and Geosmart Asia ’18, Adelaide, SA geosmartasia.org 17 April: 7th Digital Earth Summit (DES-2018) El Jadida, Morocco www.desummit2018.org May 1: FME World Tour 2018 Canberra, Canberra, ACT www.safe.com/worldtour May 3: FME World Tour 2018 Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic www.safe.com/worldtour May 10: FME World Tour 2018 - Perth, Perth, WA www.safe.com/worldtour

Citizen intelligence

I

t’s an interesting day and age when the ubiquity and availability of high resolution satellite imagery allows private entities and individuals to act as proxy intelligence agencies.

But that’s the era we’re in, when ‘citizen investigation’ agencies such as Bellingcat are able to shed new light on significant international incidents, as their analysis of open-source imagery to contradict the official Russian account of events surrounding the MH17’s downing has shown.

Now a new revelation has come to light — clear as day in 30-centimetre resolution. Satellite images released by European Space Imagery (ESI) show completed Chinese military installations on the contested Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The Spratly Islands are a disputed zone, with China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei and the Philippines all advancing territorial claims, and all of these except Brunei occupying at least some of the maritime features in the area.

China has repeatedly stated that it has no intention to militarise the artificial islands it has constructed around the reefs it has claimed.

But satellite images provided by DigitalGlobe and analysed by ESI show strong military construction with a deep water port, completed aerodromes, hangars, military barracks and communications infrastructure on the Subi and Mischief reefs.

ESI's analysis of the Mischief Reef images shows a deep water port which serves as a blue water naval base on the island's northwest quarter, and a 2.7 kilometre runway with no visible passenger terminals or accommodation,

4 position April/May 2018

suggesting its intended function as a joint use naval airport.

Military barracks, communication antennae, underground POL (petrol, oil and lubricant) storage tanks and control towers are all visible in the images.

The barracks boast completed athletics facilities with basketball and tennis courts, a full track and football fields.

Images of Subi reef display another deep water port and naval base, and an airfield with 14 hangars for small interceptor aircraft along with four large heavy maintenance hangars.

In early February, China announced a deployment of fighter jets for a "joint combat patrol" over the South China Sea, and these images seem to suggest that there is more than enough infrastructure to support a deployment at these facilities.

Our ever-multiplying eyes in the sky will continue to allow us to monitor what’s happening in our world in finer detail than ever — whether real life aligns with political reality or not. ■

July 29-August 2: 12D International Conference 2018, Brisbane, Qld www.12d.com/community/2018_ conference.php October 2: 6th International FIG 3D Cadastre Workshop, Delft, The Netherlands www.gdmc.nl/3DCadastre/ workshop2018/ October 8: Pix4D User Workshop, Melbourne, Vic www.eventbee.com/te/113269023/ puwmelbourneemail#/tickets October 11: Pix4D User Workshop, Sydney, NSW www.eventbee.com/ te/183168924/puwsidneyemail#/tickets

MAIN IMAGE: An image of Subi Reef in the South China Sea showing extensive construction of military facilities, captured on November 13, 2017. © DigitalGlobe, supplied by European Space Imaging.

BELOW: A completed runway and flight facilities on Subi reef. © DigitalGlobe, supplied by European Space Imaging.

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One of Position Partners most popular RPAS Surveying configurations is the DJI Inspire 2 with X4S camera and Klau PPK system. This camera has all the right features for photogrammetry and is modified and calibrated by Klau Geomatics. Precise event timing for the PPK module and X4s lens calibration creates sensational photogrammetric data and ensures that you are providing the highest levels of absolute accuracy available for your clients. * Note that the Klau PPK module can be customised for almost any RPAS system. Contact us about your product today!

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The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information

Publisher Simon Cooper

from the editor

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

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

Supported by

The art, science and business of geospatial

A

s the biggest event on the geospatial calendar for 2018 looms large, it’s worth taking a moment to contemplate the dazzling breadth of our industry.

Locate, combined with the regional might of Geosmart Asia for 2018, is poised to take over the Adelaide Convention Centre, with a jam-packed program built around the theme of ‘The art, science and business of geospatial’.

Such a multifaceted, interrelated set of disciplines, skillsets and applications — which is it? The answer, of course, is all of the above. From the creative flourish and visual flair needed to create compelling cartography and standout spatial visualisations, the scientific rigour demanded by geodesy, land surveying or the implementation of space-based infrastructure to the proliferant business applications of spatial data and analysis — it’s all here.

It’s a veritable smorgasbord that we’ve tried to reflect in this issue. On page 14, we sit down with Mary-Ellen Feeney, one of the industry leaders heralding a new era of diversity in STEM and the spatial sciences.

We examine the phenomenal ascension of new space, and how the evolving ecosystem of space-related entities is as dynamic and exciting in Australia as it is anywhere in the solar system (page 18).

New contributor Guy Weress charts the development and future of augmented reality, and what it means for urban planning (page 22).

Leanne Mills and Jeffrey Hosken of NSW Spatial Services fill us in on the radical capture and consolidation projects they are undertaking as part of Smart State NSW, and on page 32, Jon Fairall gets the lowdown from industry heavyweights on the next seismic shift for business — Data as a service.

Finally, we get down and dirty in regional South Australia as we examine a massive, baffling set of outback activities — the mystery and controversy of the second largest geoglyph in the world — Marree Man. I hope you enjoy this issue of Position, and I hope we cross paths at Locate ’18 Geosmart Asia 18.

Daniel Bishton EDITOR

June/July 2018 - Issue #95 • UAV & AUV & UGV – unmanned systems in civilian and professional applications • Hydrography – exploring what lies beneath • Agriculture to feed the world – geospatial advancements on the farm

NEXT ISSUE

Published: 08 June 2018 Advertising booking deadline: 16 May 2018 Advertising material deadline: 21 May 2018

www.spatialsource.com.au 7

news Signs of first stars detected from Australia American astronomers have detected a signal from the first stars to have emerged in the early universe, about 180 million years after the Big Bang — using a small radio telescope at a CSIRO observatory in Western Australia.

Dr. Judd Bowman of Arizona State University has been running his ‘Experiment to Detect the Global EoR (Epoch of Reionization) Signature (EDGES)’ for 12 years.

He began making the observations from CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) nine years ago, after seeking the best place on the planet for this work. He recently discovered an incredibly

SSSI appoints new CEO

SSSI’s new CEO, Peter Olah

The Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) has brought aboard Peter Olah as the group’s new chief executive officer.

Mr. Olah joins SSSI having recently spent four years as the executive director of the Council of Mayors (Southeast Queensland), Australia’s largest local government advocacy organisation.

At Council of Mayors, he presided over a concerted advocacy program to federal and state governments which helped realise their commitment of over $20 billion in funding to regional priority projects.

“The members of SSSI – and those in our

8 position April/May 2018

faint radio signal, coming from 13.6 billion years back in the universe’s history, and published the report of his discovery in Nature.

“Finding this miniscule signal has opened a new window on the early universe,” he said.

Antony Schinckel, CSIRO’s Head of Square Kilometre Array (SKA), who set up the MRO obervatory site, was less modest about the achievement. “Finding this signal is an absolute triumph, a triumph made possible by the extreme attention to detail

by Judd’s team, combined with the exceptional radio quietness of the CSIRO site,” he said.

The EDGES ground-based radio spectrometer used to detect the 13.6 billion year-old signal.

Image provided by CSIRO.

professions who should be members but are not yet – are admirable, logical and make a valuable difference to our communities. You deserve an outstanding representative organisation and I look forward to working with you in building an institute that delivers this for you at every level,” Mr. Olah told Spatial Source.

He brings extensive leadership experience in the not-for-profit sector, having held the position of chief executive of Scouts Australia (NSW) for three years. More recently he was executive director of the Rural Fire Service Association (RFSA), the representative body for the 70,000 plus volunteers and staff of the NSW Rural Fire Service.

“I join SSSI with a long background in the leadership of member associations, public policy, and advocacy. I have made a positive difference at each organisation I have worked with, and I only work for organisations and for people I genuinely believe in,” he said.

Esri acquires ClearTerra’s data extraction technology GIS giant Esri has announced the acquisition of location data extraction technology from ClearTerra, a creator of geospatial and activity-based intelligence tools.

ClearTerra’s text-mining technology, known as LocateXT, automates analysis of unstructured data, e.g. large document sets and outputs structured data, placing the results into geospatial features.

This acquisition means that ArcGIS users will soon be able to discover and extract geographic data from unstructured textual data like emails, briefings and reports, and generate geocoded data that integrates into their maps.

Search technology known as FindFZ also acquired from ClearTerra will potentially enhance search capabilities for the ArcGIS platform, with powerful techniques now standard in search engines, such as tolerance for misspelled words, wildcard and Boolean logic searches.

“We are excited to bring ClearTerra technology into the Esri stack,” said David Eastman, Esri Australia’s national security industry specialist.

“The unstructured data tools are powerful not only for those who have made use of this technology for a number of years, such as in the military, but also have useful applications for so many more Esri users.”

Women step up to push diversity in industry

SIBA | GITA CEO Deanna Hutchinson.

Heavyweights of the spatial and surveying industries are teaming up with an aim to increase diversity within the profession.

Led by SIBA|GITA CEO Deanna Hutchinson, the first part of the initiative kicked off on International Women’s Day, with 20 of the industry’s senior female leaders getting together to develop and implement an industry-wide agenda that delivers a vision for a diverse spatial and surveying industry.

The founding group of women represent a cross section of generations, geographies, cultures and professions within the Australasian spatial industry — but there’s room for the men too.

“It’s important that we do this as an industry,” Hutchinson said. “We have reached out far and wide and

I am delighted to welcome participation from the private sector, governments academia and peak bodies. This initiative starts with gender diversity, as there are some immediate priorities we must address together to improve our 80:20 male:female ratio,” she said.

Hutchinson said that the group are unanimous in the view that diversity initiatives must meet the needs of industry and not just a quota, and quickly identified that women in leadership roles would be best positioned to collectively develop a roadmap, and work alongside their male colleagues in its design and delivery.

If you are interested in joining this initiative please contact the group secretariat, Tonia Scholes on tscholes@ spatialbusiness.org.

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news SpaceX launches first broadband satellites Space exploration firm SpaceX has launched the first two satellites of its ‘Starlink’ broadband constellation into low-earth orbit.

SpaceX has indicated that its Starlink constellation could ultimately contain up to 12,000 microsatellites, and could theoretically provide constant global coverage when complete.

SpaceX’s satellite broadband initiative differs mainly from existing approaches to space-based internet infrastructure by using small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), with a mean altitude of around

2,000 kilometres above Earth, to combat the latency traditionally associated with satellite-based internet service.

Most existing internet satellites are in geostationary orbit, almost 36,000 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. The company has indicated they initially intend to launch 800 satellites into LEO to establish U.S. coverage, followed by around 7,000 in very low Earth orbit (VLEO), which refers to orbits of a mean altitude less than 450 kilometres.

The Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites dubbed ‘Tintin A’ and ‘Tintin B’ were piggy-backed on the launch

Drones seize the catwalk Fashionistas at the 2018 Milan Fashion Week were treated to an unusual catwalk parade on Sunday.

Brushless motors and whirring propellers replaced svelte limbs and stark pouts as eight quadcopter drones

Myriota to open $2.7 million IoT lab Satellite communications startup Myriota will open a ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) laboratory in Adelaide after winning a Future Funds Grant from South Australia.

Under the terms of the grant, the government will match Myriota’s $1.36 million investment to open the Adelaide facility, which they claim will create 50 new jobs in the state for software and hardware developers, and data networking and satellite communications professionals.

The announcement follows space startup Fleet’s Future Jobs Fund award and shores up an increasing concentration of investment in ‘new space’ satellite and space communications infrastructure in the South Australian capital.

Myriota is a startup based around commercialised technology developed at the University of South Australia,

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SpaceX’s PAZ mission, carrying the first satellites for the Starlink constellation, lifts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Image: SpaceX via Flickr.

mission of Spanish Earth observation satellite PAZ. The deployment of the Starlink satellites is significant in terms of what it represents

for the future of networked communications, and the rapidly expanding and increasingly bold activities of ‘new space’.

modelled a line of Dolce & Gabbana handbags as the opening act of their show.

More than one commentator mourned the latest victims of robotics and automation in the 2018 economy. Twitter user Tyler McCall (@eiffeltyler) remarked: “Dolce & Gabbana replaced millennials on the runway with drones, proving no one is safe from being made obsolete by technology.”

The fashion house allegedly ruffled feathers with a 45-minute delay for the show, and forcing a 600-strong audience to turn off their WiFiconnections and hot spots ahead of the novel parade —

with the wait and smartphone policing allegedly causing Vogue editor-in-chief Ana Wintour to storm out of the venue before the show began.

The bold and faintly ridiculous stunt may be part of a move to target millennials, an objective reflected in their current designs.

It certainly got people talking, and has made invited international coverage of their new designs from some distinctly unfashionable media outlets that would traditionally never cover such matters (nudge nudge, wink wink) — so perhaps Dolce & Gabbana's strategy wasn't such a goofy one after all.

Myriota CEO Dr. Alex Grant with one of the company’s life satellite transmitters. Image provided by Myriota.

offering an ‘ultra-low-cost satellite IoT service’. Myriota develops very small satellite transmitters that send low powered messages directly to a constellation of low-earth-orbit nano satellites, which relay the messages to earth, where they are decoded and sent to the end user.

news Drone navigation: no longer flying blind MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has unveiled NanoMap, new technology to fly drones autonomously through uncertain environments.

The use of ‘uncertain’ is key here. While most autonomous flight systems to date use some iteration of Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping (SLAM) technology, NanoMap takes a fundamentally different approach.

SLAM-based systems rely entirely on intricate 3D maps developed from raw, high-fidelity data, but the output of SLAM methods aren’t typically used to plan motions. That’s where researchers often use methods like “occupancy grids,” in which many measurements are incorporated into one specific representation of the 3-D world.

This new flight control system diverges from this approach by considering

the drone’s position to be uncertain — actually modelling uncertainty.

Graduate student Pete Florence, lead author on a new study related to the technology, said this approach is better

suited to applications in which drones must navigate complex and dynamic surroundings.

“Overly confident maps won’t help you if you want drones that can operate at higher speeds in human

environments,” he said.

“An approach that is better aware of uncertainty gets us a much higher level of reliability in terms of being able to fly in close quarters and avoid obstacles.”

TatukGIS releases software development kit for Java Polish software developer TatukGIS have released a fully-featured Java SDK for GIS applications, meaning that Java developers can now leverage thousands of GISspecific methods and classes in a set of libraries aimed at facilitating development of custom GIS applications.

TatukGIS claim their Java development kernel is fully

TatukGIS DK Fresnel zone radio wave propagation analysis. Mast: 100m, Frequency: 100Mhz. Image provided by TatukGIS.

executable on Java Virtual Machine and supports multiple platforms, having tested compiled applications in Windows, macOS, Linux (Ubuntu x64), and Raspbian (Raspberry Pi) environments.

The newly released Java edition of TatukGIS' developer

kernel supports the same object API as the other members of the TatukGIS family of SDK products that are for .NET, ASP.NET, ActiveX, and Delphi, containing 750 classes and 19,000 documented methods and properties, along with extensive set of vector, image and grid data formats, including database layer formats via JDBC.

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 April/May 2018

From maintenance to management: drone-mapping hits the road How drones and photogrammetry software are powering the shift from repairs & maintenance departments to smart infrastructure asset management organisations

T

he responsibility of managing highway assets is shifting from reactive maintenance and repair organisations to dynamic, strategic planning agencies.

Technology drivers such as the advent of drones and photogrammetry software in the geospatial industry are driving that change.

The combination of these technologies is commonly referred to as drone-mapping and enables organisations to tackle operational challenges—allowing them to perform frequent inspections and create an up-to-date, visual asset databases.

Need of expensive equipment and large teams. A drone pilot, with a drone can effectively perform such a survey. A photogrammetry software expert can optionally be on the field, or can process the data remotely.

Agencies need to know the current (and future) Survey time on the field. With a traditional land technical condition and performance of the asset to surveying method, a data acquisition mission for 10 balance intervention cost and impact. km of highway would typically take 10 hours. Using a From an operational point of view, keeping an drone takes under 2 hours providing full access and up-to-date database and performing periodic visibility to everything that can be viewed from above. surveys of roads, bridges and other civil engineering Limited geospatial data as output. objects has traditionally been considered costly and Photogrammetry software transforms images into time-consuming. Using drones as the data capture data and a variety of digital spatial models providing tool and photogrammetry software to transform an up-to-date database of all assets that can be this data into digital spatial models addresses these visually inspected. operational blockers.

Safety issues for surveying and road staff. Surveying sites with difficult access, dense Adopting drone-mapping for vegetation, complex topography, or unstable asset management tackles many geological formations with traditional surveying common operational issues methods can pose safety issues to surveyors and High cost of traffic disruption. Based on traffic management statistical information, the estimated cost road staff. Aerial methods such as drone-mapping reduces risk of accidents and exposure. of traffic disruption per hour is about $80,000 AUS for Human error. Drone-mapping does not rely on freeways. Drone mapping missions can be performed field notes or any type of manual data entry system. in 20% of the time, without disrupting traffic.

Photogrammetry software extracts data from images and geotags of specialized sensors.

No traffic Rich variety Drones and photogrammetry software are disruption of outputs empowering organisations to transition to smart asset management. With drone-mapping and an up-to-date, measurable, accurate, visual Small teams Reduced database of their assets, infrastructure asset less equipment safety issues managers can survey, inspect and manage assets more often, providing the basis for dynamic strategic planning.

No human Shorter time Information provided by Pix4D. Author: error in field Veronica Alonso K., Pix4D

Quantifying, inspecting, and regularly qualifying assets become essential

“The benefits of drone-mapping for highway asset management go beyond time savings -over 80% compared with traditional surveying techniques-; as it is unobtrusive; it is possible to perform the survey while the highway remains fully operational, without disrupting the normal traffic.”

- Vassilis Polychronos, CTO of GeoSense

www.spatialsource.com.au 13

q&a

Q&A with Mary-Ellen Feeney M

ary-Ellen Feeney is a spatial scientist. Having specialised in physical geography and GIS as an undergraduate, spatial data infrastructure as a postgraduate and trained in climate change modelling system SimClim. She is now Asia Pacific Technical Director of GIS at Jacobs, and a passionate advocate for STEM education, supports STEM mentoring for schools and is actively involved in promoting women in the surveying and spatial information professions. She is on the board of surveying and spatial information for the NSW government, chairs Jacobs’ diversity & inclusion committee in Sydney and is an ally champion for Jacobs’ Colours-LGBTIQ+ network. She believes spatial enablement and digital transformation offer such opportunities to undertake our global stewardship more effectively. She sits down with Position magazine ahead of her session on Women in the Spatial Frontier in the Interaction Zone at Locate ’18 - Geosmart Asia ’18.

Mary-Ellen, you have been actively involved in promoting diversity and female representation in your professional field of surveying and the spatial sciences, and in STEM more broadly. Has the experience of being a woman making her career in a technical, male-dominated discipline informed these activities?

It has, but not in a negative way — it has inspired me to fill an informal leadership role I think our industry needs.

What is important is a collective effort and recognition that balancing gender and other forms of diversity will only strengthen our workforce and teams. Men and women both have a role to play as champions of change in this space.

What do you think are the main challenges that young women entering STEM careers — particularly in spatial sciences and surveying — face currently?

Visibility of role models, career paths, mentors, sponsors and champions are

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“What is important is a collective effort and recognition that balancing gender and other forms of diversity will only strengthen our workforce and teams.”

Homeward Bound 2019 will comprise of 80 women from 23 countries around the world for an unforgettable three weeks in Antarctica.

primary challenges for many young professionals in the STEM professions.

Networks of similarly-minded people amongst whom you can share experiences, knowledge and questions are valuable places to identify, nurture and develop talent. Our formal and informal industry associations have a great deal to offer as communities of practice so long as our young professionals feel welcome there and like they have a voice – they have as much to teach us as we have to offer them in terms of cross-generational exchange.

You are involved in a range of initiatives that intend to promote inclusion, and recognition for diversity within our industry — the diversity and inclusion committee and Colours LGBTQI+ Network of your employer, Jacobs, and more recently a group of 20 female industry leaders that is developing an inclusionfocused agenda and roadmap. In your view and experience, what are the most successful approaches for helping to overcome challenges for those who are underrepresented in this field?

The motto for Homeward Bound is ‘Stronger Together’, which encapsulates an approach that recognises you can draw strength, support and build a network of influence from many different people in your immediate and extended networks. While you might be alone at work, social media and community

networks often allow us to draw strength from the knowledge and experiences of others when facing your own challenges.

Visibility, executive sponsors, business and community champions make such a difference when tackling challenges of under-representation. They provide examples of others facing similar challenges, and provide multiple voices to speak on behalf of your cause or promote support in different arenas to your own – all of these increase representation and consideration. The diversity dividends for companies and communities are tremendous.

You will be leading a panel on this topic in the Interaction Zone at the upcoming Locate ’18 - Geosmart ’18 conference in Adelaide. What can participants expect and what do you hope to achieve with this session?

Yes, I’ll be involved in a fantastic session about Women at the Spatial Frontier, being hosted by Allison Hornery, with Shelley Fitzgerald and Mary Lewitzka in the Interaction Zone. The Interaction Zone aims to bring to GeoSmart Asia '18– Locate 18 an experiential, participatory and engaging form of open interaction. It is hosted in an interactive media space in the conference exhibition hall as a rolling series of interviews and discussions with leading thinkers and practitioners on a wide range of sector issues, innovations and challenges.

You were recently selected for the Homeward Bound program, one of 80 women in STEM from 23 countries, and the only participant from a geoscience background. I understand you’ll be embarking on a trip to Antarctica in the near future. What will you be doing there?

What should our readers know about the program and how can they get involved?

Homeward Bound is a year-long leadership program aimed at developing strategy, visibility, science communication, planning and transdisciplinary science/engineering skills, set against the backdrop of Antarctica. It is open to women in STEM careers at all different stages of their leadership journey. The selection for 2019 spans from women with careers at the UN and World Bank through to primary school teachers, civil engineers, all sorts of academics and researchers, a local council employee from Britain, some doctors and an artist.

The education programme is delivered remotely prior to the voyage, on-shore in Ushuaia and on-board the ship in Antarctica. It comprises lectures, exercises, personal coaching, team and personal presentations and extensive open discussion – in forums, in thematic team, and in triads (learning teams of three).

The majority of this gets delivered faceto-face over three weeks in the midst of icebergs, penguins, whales and women!

Lastly, do you have any advice for young women and gender-diverse people who are considering a career in STEM, and the spatial sciences specifically?

A career in STEM is a path to the future, where you will be involved in the technological evolution of our society, an understanding of the impacts of human endeavours, and be engaged by the directions and opinions of our communities – their challenges, successes and needs.

I could not have chosen anything more interesting! Come join me. ■ www.spatialsource.com.au 15

partner feature

JLL Australia lead commercial property industry using location data analytics A

dvanced location-based analytics are facilitating evidencebased decision-making and enhancing business productivity for some of Australia’s largest players in the commercial real estate sector and transforming the way real estate location and investment decisions are being made.

JLL Australia JLL Australia, a leading professional services firm specialising in real estate and investment management, have turned to GIS technology to deliver advanced site-specific insights to help clients meet their business objectives.

Location Intelligence Specialist for JLL Australia, Stephen Clark articulates that the ability to present location analytics through spatial technology in real-time is a forward-thinking and accurate way to provide evidence to clients for decision making.

“In situations where we are presenting services similar to our competitors, we

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have succeeded because of the provision of GIS evidence and the ability to easily visualise data,” he said

The Business Need To undertake a variety of tasks in the valuation, management, leasing and sale of a property requires smart data analysis to identify and assess unique opportunities that exist in the market. JLL Australia wanted to have a stronger competitive advantage to provide its customers.

More specifically, JLL Australia wanted to: • Display data using a simple visual communication tool to better sell, lease, manage and value assets.

• Display available property and asset locations by size and illustrate specific qualities — for example connectivity or public transport access.

• Research properties and markets using a back catalogue of statistics, including historic levels of unit completion, transactions in the market

“Recently I was involved in a competitive situation, we had services that were very similar to a competitor but we had GIS to support the decision of where that person would go next in the market − where they were going to move their industrial business − we won and they said a key point of difference was our GIS decision support.”

Stephen Clark, Location Intelligence Specialist, JLL Australia.

TOP: An example of visualizing a CBD development pipeline on a web-based scene viewer with a city model of Melbourne by Aerometrex. Image courtesy of JLL Australia.

LEFT: 3D City model of Brisbane. The coloured theme is the industry of the tenant on each floor of a leased office space. Image courtesy of JLL Australia.

life a real picture of the situation. The solution enabled collaboration amongst the organisation as well as with JLL Australia’s clients, some of whom are adopting the platform themselves.

The Innovation

•

•

• •

and movement of occupiers, to provide clients and property professionals with well-informed market information.

Display leasing data of commercial buildings using individual floor representations by sector, for example mining or professional services.

Use thematic mapping to look at office accessibility, the age of buildings and individual land use.

Provide a comprehensive decision support tool using GIS. Guide their own rental management investments based on the most diverse market appeal.

The Solution By enabling Esri’s ArcGIS technology in conjunction with 3D city models, JLL Australia could maximise their offering with map-based capabilities not leveraged by competitors.

Through 3D scenes featuring photo-realistic city scapes fused with business data, visualisation brought to

JLL Australia’s ability to visualise and share a web-based view of a city in 3D was a game changer. Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform advanced to allow an integrated mesh city scene of a major Australian city to be hosted easily on JLL Australia’s organisational account.

This development coincided with the city model data being delivered at an attractive price, as well as high quality 3D models of the same city being made available as open data.

JLL Australia’s researchers were able to apply their own commentary around this web-based platform and deliver stunning presentations to their clients without any local GIS resourcing. ArcGIS Pro was also used to render high-end flythroughs of the same content for playback as a video.

The Outcome Spatial technology enabled JLL Australia to enhance the information provided to their clients. Using advanced locationbased analytics, they were able to: • Provide centralised content to sell, lease, manage and value assets.

Interactive story maps take a data-driven approach to identify potential locations for new sites and evaluate them against specific client considerations, such as demographics,

“3D GIS is an excellent application for office leasing. It’s inadequate to look at a 2D map — there’s too much information that isn’t shown.”

Stephen Clark, Location Intelligence Specialist, JLL Australia.

acquisition history, land use, public transport and competitor movement.

• Focused insights into commercial leasing and the likely future competition around a forthcoming commercial development. Themes of interest in a commercial building such as sector, lease expiry, and rate per square metre, were displayed in 3D using individual floor representations.

• Location based property investment and occupier advice. JLL Australia are using ArcGIS to find smart locations for occupiers, investors, and themselves, with data visualised in one map that narrows the search for potential sites instantly. The map can display current and future available sites against a map view of the important metrics for the decision.

Information provided by Esri Australia. For information on how location analytics are being used to drive real estate investment, visit www.esriaustralia.com.au/real-estate ■ www.spatialsource.com.au 17

Australia’s new space race DANIEL BISHTON

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n these strange days, the term ‘space race’ is likely to dredge up a curious tapestry of associations — chillingly resonant Cold War paranoia, retro spacesuits, titanic rockets, celebrity astronauts and the crowning triumph of a human walking on the moon.

It should now conjure a slicker, even more incongruous cache of images — an electric sportscar in orbit, rockets landing themselves like a launch sequence in rewind, satellites that fit in the palm of your hand, an autonomous tractor.

Not following? These are all hallmarks of ‘new space’ — the agile, contemporary entrepreneur-led surge for the conquest of legacy territory previously held by ponderous interstellar giants like NASA, and other bureaucratic space-focused state juggernauts. New space is the newest game in town, and Australia isn’t being left behind.

Tesla founder Elon Musk’s firm SpaceX has hogged the limelight lately with their launch experiment theatrics — launching his own cherry-red roadster into space, and landing reusable rockets in elaborately choreographed controlled burns. With their increasingly ambitious Falcon missions, culminating in the spectacle of February’s Falcon Heavy launch, the firm is now poised to undercut legacy deep space contractors by a fairly colossal margin.

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But SpaceX, a high-profile provider of launch services is merely the most-visible vanguard of an industry that has sprung up around a new set of paradigms. Reusable launch vehicles are but one — another is the headlong proliferation of tiny satellites that are redrawing requirements for launch infrastructure, vehicles and

“I think that’s a reflection of the size of the opportunity, there is actually an ecosystem of capable space companies. If there was just one, it might be isolated and an anomaly, but that’s not the case in Australia.” crucially — the capital required to reach orbit. Consider the relative effort needed to launch a satellite weighing a hundred kilograms — or ten — being managed and executed by a firm well-versed in raising venture capital, against a multi-ton behemoth requiring a towering rocket and years of preparation from interdependent government agencies.

Small satellites refer to those under 500 kilograms in mass, and the boom in demand for these is helping to power the race for commercial space. Much as the revelation of reusable launch vehicles has changed the game for large-payload mission economics, the mushrooming proliferation of the nanosatellite class in particular, popularised by the CubeSat, has revolutionised access and potential for communications provision, imagery acquisition, research and defence. So many applications that previously relied on a handful of hulking giants in orbit can be serviced more efficiently, and vastly more economically, by greater numbers of these tiny devices.

Planet, founded by three former NASA engineers in 2010, is the posterchild for the power of nanosatellites, and now operates the largest fleet of private satellites on Earth, capturing and packaging daily imagery of the surface of the globe into accessible data products that can be accessed with open-source APIs. None of this has been missed south of the equator. An entire ecosystem of businesses, engineers and space industry veterans have been busying themselves with entering this new space race — and Australia’s unique circumstances as a colossal, sparsely populated yet highly developed continent, so close to the equator presents some key advantages to those looking to reach orbit on a budget.

feature Main image: The first pair of Planet's 28 Earth Observation satellites leave the ISS. 1: An enhanced colour image of Jupiter’s moon Europa from the Galileo Orbiter. Image from NASAJPLUniversity of Arizona.

2: Combined spectral image of asteroid Vesta from the Dawn mission, indicating particular minerals. Image provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/ DLR/IDA/PSI. 3: Scott Wallis, founder of Equatorial Launch Australia.

2.

4: Dr. Alex Scott, CEO of Myriota.

5: Japanese space agency JAXA launches a two TRICOM1R nanosatellites into low Earth orbit with a sub-orbital sounding rocket SS-250-5.

Image provided by JAXA.

1.

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One such entity that has been working hard to leverage this unique conflagration of circumstances is Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA).

ELA will soon begin construction on the Arnhem Space Centre complex near Nhulunbuy in East Arnhem Land, NT, a facility which ELA intends to become Australia’s first commercial spaceport.

Founder Scott Wallis, an aerospace professional who began in the sector in 1987 and worked on the US Air Force trials of GPS, is well-attuned to the change in industry dynamics.

“In old space, what we had was that it took many years to develop a large satellite and that satellite would last 10 to 15 in orbit, so they were already obsolete by the time they went up,” he told Position.

“So that’s the game-changer — you're able to put your technology up there every three or four years and that's what a lot of communications companies are looking to do.”

Wallis cites the ASX-listed Sky and Space Global as a pertinent, Australian exemplar. Sky and Space Global aim to launch 200 CubeSats into equatorial low Earth orbit (LEO), providing commercial telecommunications services to an underserviced market — the equatorial band that covers the majority of South America, Africa and nearly all of Southeast Asia.

“So within that band, there are three billion people living in what is either an unserviced or underserviced market, so there's a significant opportunity for provision of satellite services to that region,” Wallis said.

“The other great benefit of that is that the satellites are not covering the whole globe, they’re only covering that band, plus or minus 15 degrees. That means you only need one tenth the number of satellites — which is one tenth the cost — for the same level of coverage.”

Equatorial is the operative word here. The Arnhem Space Centre’s unique advantage for capturing this market by providing niche orbit services is just the first part of ELA’s strategy. Launch sites within 15 degrees of the equator harness a unique physical advantage for deep space missions too — being able to leverage the Earth’s mass.

“One of the primary advantages in the longer term is that we can launch directly to the moon twice a day, whereas from places like Kennedy Space Center they have to use a lot of fuel to launch, and then also do a second manoeuvre to be able to go to the moon — which significantly decreases the amount of payload that they can carry,” Wallis said.

ELA is powering through their primary stage currently — beginning construction on their suborbital facilities this month, with a project plan that would ultimately see the complex fully able to service deep space missions. Much of the supporting infrastructure for operations of that scale is already in place — a deep sea port with roll-on, roll-off capability, a major regional airport capable of landing 737s, a fibre optic cable connection and the emergency amenities of a regional centre. www.spatialsource.com.au 19

feature They currently hold a project facilitation agreement with the Northern Territory government and the Gumatj Corporation, representing the traditional owners of the site. The Gumatj are the preferred provider for ELA in the construction of the facilities, and in another first, the project would provide a unique opportunity for training and employment for the Indigenous community upon whose land the site will be leased.

Pending launch approval, the Arnhem Space Centre will have the ability to launch sounding rockets once the suborbital facility is completed in July 2018, and at that stage will have the ability to launch CubeSats, as Japanese space agency JAXA has recently demonstrated by lofting a TRICOM-1R CubeSat into LEO in February. NASA’s 2017 sounding rocket annual report cites the Arnhem Space Complex as the proposed launch site for NASA missions in 2019 and 2020. Wallis is quick to point out that the launch facilities they provide will be launch-vehicle agnostic — they are developing the ground infrastructure to support a range of mission types and vehicle configurations, not working on the launch technologies themselves.

“There’s been a number of companies over the years that have put forward plans to do launch and not succeeded,” he said.

“That's a risky business whereas establishing a launch facility in an ideal location, using known and shown launch vehicles is a much lower risk.”

At the other end of the industry from the physical considerations of launches and ground infrastructure, the ‘downstream’ components — a constellation of startups working on space-reliant technology has also been making rapid headway. South Australia’s government has been pushing hard to establish Adelaide as Australia’s hub for high tech manufacturing and R&D, and the SA Defence-led pressure on the federal government for establishing independent Australian space infrastructure culminated in the announcement of a national space agency in September 2017.

These initiatives seem to have provided the necessary incentives, serving as an accelerant to a flame that has been gaining intensity in the past few years, as a raft of next-generation communications companies and space startups now call the South Australian capital home.

A prime example is Myriota, a startup founded in 2015 that recently received a state Future Jobs Fund grant, which will match their own $1.36 million investment to create what they refer to as an Internet of Things (IoT)

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A NASA launch of a Black Brant IX sub-orbital sounding rocket.

Image provided by NASA Wallops.

laboratory in Adelaide. Myriota have commercialised a suite of machineto-machine (M2M) communications technologies that draw very little power and can communicate in remote environments via low satellites in LEO. Myriota’s IP portfolio is based on technology developed at the University of Adelaide, and initially funded under the

inclination satellites, and are preparing to scale up for global service delivery in their IoT lab, as they work with OEM providers to find a broad range of applications for their technology — aiming to give manufacturers of smart devices coverage in very remote areas.

“We have four satellites we're already using today on orbit that provide 100 percent geographic coverage — for us, the evolution of orbit is to reduce revisit time. With four satellites we can provide something like two hourly revisits in terms of picking up data, but as we evolve that forward, ultimately we’d really like to bring that time down,” he said.

“There's a vast array of applications where even once-a-day communication solves a problem. But as we pursue more applications, heading towards real time is something that's very interesting and requires more satellites. Not from a geographical coverage point of view but from a temporal availability point of view.”

Dr. Grant is excited about what he sees as an ecosystem of entities developing, and sees a direct link back to the initial support they received — a process that has parallels with the state support and investment occurring currently.

“I think it’s significant that technologies and companies have come directly out of a program, have then gone on to attract private investment, and now employ people — it's not just one or two, but really an ecosystem. There's a whole generation of companies working in new space, and the fact that there was

“In old space, it took many years to develop a large satellite, and that satellite would last 10 to 15 in orbit, so they were already obsolete by the time they went up. So that’s the game-changer — you’re able to put your technology up there every three or four years and that's what a lot of communications companies are looking to do.” federal government’s Australian Space Research Program, which launched in 2010. While they were planning to move forward with partners to address a perceived market gap in the M2M space, their trajectory has been accelerated by state support for space industry development, and anticipates significant expansion of these services.

As Myriota CEO Dr. Alex Grant explained to Position, Myriota is a customer of space-based services. They are currently conducting trials with low

an emphasis and a focus there — I don't think that's coincidental,” he said.

“I think that's a reflection of the size of the opportunity, there actually is an ecosystem of capable space companies.

If there was just one, it might be isolated and an anomaly, but that's not the case in Australia. There are multiple companies pursuing communicationsrelated applications, pursuing sensors, doing avionics and componentry, pursuing launch — that's a super healthy, that's an industry.” ■

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Worlds collide: redefining urban realities with AR GUY WERESS

S

ci-fi author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke spoke for a thousand generations of superstitious tribesfolk when he articulated in 1962 the final and most succinct of his three laws on the manner in which the public inexorably comes to accept scientific developments.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” he wrote, in the year President Kennedy committed to landing humans on the Moon. This idea has had no better medium of transmission in the intervening decades than the thenemerging discipline of augmented reality, particularly in its application in the built environment.

The merging of computer vision and information to enhance understanding and manipulation of human environments is remaking the Geographic Information Systems by which we have long understood, designed and developed urban areas — and this is only just beginning. As one commentator wrote after the SPAR3D conference in 2017, ‘AR, VR and GIS have finally found each other.'

This tipping point has been provided by the maturation of hardware and software systems that can finally allow

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spatial information to be arranged in multilayered realities, as well as by the generation of unprecedented data flows from cities, government institutions and from information-technology companies harvesting consumer-generated data.

We often hear that as much data is now created daily as was in recorded history prior to the establishment of the social web, i.e. Web 2.0, circa 2007, and this rate of creation is accelerating. Our accumulated human data bank now sits at about 4.4 zettabytes (4.4 trillion gigabytes) and is expected to touch 44 zettabytes by 2020.

But first some clarifications in terms: Virtual reality enables the creation of fully immersive digital worlds – in planning, this has so far essentially amounted to a teleportation device which allows an individual to move around within a computer-animated simulation of an urban environment, swiping options in and out: for instance, in a virtual Sydney, instantly replace a photorealistic Sydney Opera House with a Budapest Opera House, an Eiffel Tower, or a giant igloo.

Augmented or mixed reality is an arguably more flexible platform that allows infinite overlaying of digital information, user interfaces and tools onto real vision of the world you know.

This merging of computer vision and spatial data was memorably foreseen in

Fight Club (1999): the protagonist surveys his living room as if through AR goggles, and with a whimsical grimness populates it with useless and expensive designer objects from an IKEA catalogue that floats around him in a real-time artificial layer. A memorable spoof of both 1990s consumerism and tech utopianism, it’s possible today to spend satisfied hours moving digital manifestations of the Swedish fast-furniture giant’s wares around your apartment in the safety of a free smartphone app, called IKEA Place.

Urban planning Planning and consultation processes for urban development projects have obviously become less convoluted, timeconsuming and physically taxing with the advent of digital tools. For a long time, successfully designing, planning and selling a project was contingent on laborious manual design processes, personal consultation and repeated presentations to client, government and contractor stakeholders. Architects, engineers and planners had to navigate crosstown from meeting to meeting with elaborate and delicate paddle-pop models of bridges and buildings, paper maps and blueprints, and artists’ multimedia representations to attempt to convey to stakeholders the scale and potential of their projects.

Nicholas de Monchaux's Local Code brings extraordinarily complex modelling potential to urban planning.

city-making are becoming ones that communicate with and assist people – particularly members of the public – to visualise the effects of a development on their streets and neighbourhoods.

It’s helpful to view the potential of AR in the urban planning space in the context of its main components: software, hardware, and data.

“The tools at the heart of hightech 21st-century city-making are becoming ones that communicate with and assist people – particularly members of the public – to visualise the effects of a development on their streets and neighbourhoods.”

Once the necessary approvals were in place, the long road of public consultation began. The top-down nature of this process not only concentrated the enormous costs in the hands of firms and clients, but greatly increased that risk of project failure as they advanced into the long tail of the public phase. The graveyard of promising and even revolutionary projects that succumbed at the final hurdle to the will of a committedly grumpy neighbour or community group is a dark one.

These processes have been streamlined and digitised in recent years, and the tools at the heart of high-tech 21st-century

Software It can’t be understated that the current state of the global technology race to create believable augmented reality is a product of the pandemonium spawned by the 2016 release of Pokémon GO – built atop Google’s Maps and Streetview applications. A phenomenon not unlike the release of Atari’s Pong game in 1972, it was both a harbinger of change and conceivably an irrelevance on broader timescales. The formations of gleeful adults chasing anime avatars down suburban streets represented a dawning public realisation of the potentials of alternate digital realities, an ‘a-ha’ moment at a time when state-of-the-art for digital escapism was still just a darkened room with joysticks, steering wheel and pedals embedded in an armchair.

The comparison thus still sits quite well in regards urban planning: inputting data into GIS software and mousing around a 2D/3D mapped world to inspect outputs on screen can’t compare with calling that data into your own field of vision and navigating it interactively.

Esri, the Zurich-based makers of leading desktop software ArcGIS, launched its AR app AuGeo through its labs in 2017; the app simply allows porting of ArcGIS data from existing point feature layers, and creation of interactive data elements in the user interface. This push towards embedding AR capabilities in enterprise mobile software is part of Esri’s overall vision for “channeling GIS into organisations” and creating an

open platform on which developers can iterate their own apps, according to Esri Australia’s Tobias Schmidt.

“AR apps will channel GIS content to professional end users using mobile devices to help them make decisions onsite using the most up-to-date and reliable information available,” he said.

“We are working on opening our technology up to developers. So with apps like AuGeo you can embed the functionality into your own applications, or even brand AuGeo for your own purposes.”

University of California Berkeley Center for New Media architect Nicholas de Monchaux demonstrated the core potential of AR a decade ago with his pioneering algorithmic augmented-reality project Local Code. The open-source Local Code software uses sunlight, rainfall, topographic and other GIS data relevant to specific, underused urban spaces to generate site-specific water, power and other interventions that engender ‘resilience’ in the context of increased load under a changed climate: i.e. reduce a site’s fiscal load on city governors by increasing its productive output.

The interventions – stormwater catchment, vegetative filtration, native gardens, streetside trees and furniture, solar or wind power infrastructure – can then be overlayed across live-action video of the site in question to demonstrate to the user exactly how it will alter the site aesthetically and functionally.

This sort of application remains at the core of AR’s potential in urban planning – to select and visualise data that allows for the most effective and least disruptive interventions. As de Monchaux’s evolutionary thinking around urban space and augmented reality puts it: “Adaptation and change do not take place through anything resembling optimisation. Rather, they take place along what the biologist Stuart Kauffman has described as a 'landscape of adjacent possibility.'” www.spatialsource.com.au 23

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Only by better data parsing and communication can we fully understand the options, and thus make better decisions and progress towards an optimal urbanism. “The explosion of data about the physical environment does not actually mean it’s any easier to understand a place,” he said in 2016. “It means that instead of not being able to get enough information on a site, we tend to be swamped with too much information and never exactly what we’re looking for. How to choose and value all the different kinds of data the world will try to give you is probably the most essential skill in designing [for] cities and landscapes today.”

Hardware Local Code was a pioneering project, and a multitude of technology companies big and small have thrown hats in the ring in the past decade to create a current fever pitch around the creation of mixed-reality hardware. There is certainly hype present, but cynics would be advised to consider the undoubtedly enormous public dividends. It’s certainly a sign both of the times and the public anticipation of seeing real magic in the AR goggles that the world’s leading AR technology company is a heavily venture-funded startup Unicorn — currently valued at around US$6.5 billion — that has been in stealth mode since 2010. Only in December 2017 did Miami-based Magic Leap finally release an image of a product that will debut in 2018.

It was only a handful of years ago that the computer processing unit required to cope with just the incoming visual and spatial data for one set of AR goggles was more

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“Mousing around a 2D/3D mapped world to inspect outputs on screen can’t compare with calling that data into your own field of vision and navigating it interactively.” akin to a World War II windup radioman’s backpack. The Magic Leap One will consist of several connected units: hightech-looking wraparound goggles, a handheld navigator not unlike a Nintendo Wii controller, and it will do all its local processing in a Discman-sized unit that clips onto your belt.

Esri's AuGeo AR app populates mixed reality environments with ArcGIS data structures.

It’s worth noting that tiny Magic Leap is considered a leader because of its light wavelength innovations that ‘magically’ merge objects displayed in the three lightfields at different distances from the eye – nearfield, midfield, and far field.

“We want to talk to your visual cortex in a really biologically-friendly way,” said CEO Rony Abovitz recently, “and that was this whole effort to make something new so that you can put something on and have experiences that really feel kind of magical."

But Richard Cirillo, managing director of Melbourne-based planning, architecture and surveying services firm Taylors, sees the ubiquity of technology that can be used to create an augmented reality implementation as the key to its successful uptake.

“Contrary to what you may think, the best way to experience Augmented Reality is to simply download a smartphone app.

No expensive goggles required,” he said.

“Augmented Reality is easy for almost anyone to use these days. Being able to place virtual content in the real world opens up whole new markets for innovative software products – but the real challenge is placing complex objects like entire houses into the real world effectively.”

As if taking this to heart, the major players making dedicated, AR-specific hardware platform have already been collaborating with software developers to make tools that are assisting urban planners. Microsoft has partnered with enterprise construction software companies like Trimble and infrastructure builders like thyssenkrupp to allow its HoloLens AR headset to enable real-time inspection of designs.

Microsoft’s project with Autodesk for instance, allows users of the 3D CAD/ CAM software Fusion 360 to design objects projected as holograms onto their desks or boardroom tables. So far, so futuristic. Google is doing identical things with its now-stealthy Glass project.

Data A data startup founded by four architects and also based in Zurich, Archilogic is looking at AR solutions to mitigating risk in planning. Initially taking up in the spatial mapping space where Google Maps left off: ie. at the front door, Archilogic’s browser-based cloud software takes what are essentially redundant data sources – historical and current architectural floor plans and drawings – and automatically generates fully immersive 3D augmented reality fields through which a customer can wander. In creating AR tours simply by scanning a draftsperson’s sketches and inputting a ceiling height, Archilogic maps any conceivable space and then put a customer in that very room. Their push for 2018 is to leverage their massive 2D data troves into a consumer-facing app called Homestory that allows curation of interior spaces in AR environments.

Although trust needs to develop between users and AR beyond the ability of gaming environments like Pokemon GO, these are humble but promising beginnings for a technology

that seems likely to permanently disrupt two-dimensional planning software.

And the leading edge of AR is coming from an unlikely place: the passive data collection aboard semi-autonomous vehicles. Current trials in urban areas are providing an unparalleled data resource on human behaviour in cities.

Electric carmaker Tesla alone has cloud neural nets monitoring its 300,000 operable vehicles and digesting several million miles of spatial and driver data every day, and billions of vehiclepassenger interactions. These are the real effects of applying GIS data to

virtual and augmented environments; not just swiping various buildings in and out of frame in a semi-real VR environment to muse over their impact on the eye, but integrating extensive GIS datasets from a multitude of sources with emerging technologies like gesture control, haptic feedback and voice recognition to merged real environments with all possible.

Guy Weress is an editor and writer working in design, architecture and transportation. He has contributed to The Futurist, Grey Room, Journal of Architecture and Numéro. ■

www.spatialsource.com.au 25

partner feature

Taylors: Augmenting the urban reality Augmented Reality – Bourke Street Mall

Taylors are at the forefront of ground breaking technology using Mixed Reality solutions to bring paper plans to life!

A

ugmented Reality is easy for almost anyone to use these days.

Being able to place virtual content in the real world has opened whole new markets for innovative software products across a range of industries. Taylors, the urban design and geospatial specialists, are developing software and leveraging this new technology to address the complexities of design and planning in the built environment.

Although there are many applications and devices that are AR capable, Taylors Managing Director Richard Cirillo notes that the real challenge is placing complex design objects like entire houses into the real world effectively.

“The apps that will matter for AR will be those that combine location, AR and big data to deliver unique, captivating and above all, useful experiences, he says. “At Taylors, we are answering the WHY of AR. The HOW has already been answered.”

One of the main challenges in urban design is the ability for users to visualise the overall development. Whilst plans are accurate, the ways in which they are interpreted are open to variation. The benefit of Taylors’ mixed reality solutions is that they allow stakeholders to effectively step into building plans, walk around and see exactly what a project will look like once it’s completed.

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Augmented and Virtual Reality technologies are free from the limitations of existing design techniques and provide an immersive and surreal experience for clients. Current representations of the built environment utilise either two dimensional plans, sections and elevations or three dimensional perspectives and models. The limitation of these types of representations is that viewers are always positioned outside the representation, remaining spectators rather than participants.

Taylors’ Geospatial 3D & Technology Manager Alastair MacColl says Taylors realised early on that addressing these challenges would require a solutionsfocused approach incorporating the latest in survey and geospatial technology.

“We knew that this type of reality modelling would be the next frontier in spatial data,” he says. “We identified that a number of years ago and made an effort to be earlier adopters of it.”

Taylors is committed to paving the way for this technology to become widespread, with Richard Cirillo adding a new stream to the business which will focus on producing its own technology and software.

“Richard is envisioning what the industry will look like in 10 years and pushing the company to grow in that direction and stay ahead of the trends,” says Anthony Emmerson, General Manager for the Infrastructure Team at Taylors.

“Taylors’ new technology will allow clients to effectively step into building The Taylors Hologram Room

TOP LEFT: Mixed Reality Visualisation of Subdivision Plan

“We’re developing software that will allow designs to be altered in real time.

If a client wants to see what the neighbourhood looks like with more trees or a wider road we’ll be able to push a few buttons and change the plans instantly.”

– Taylors' Anthony Emmerson

plans, walk around and see exactly what a project will look like once it’s completed,” Mr Emmerson says. “Not only that, but we’re developing software that will allow designs to be altered in real time. If a client wants to see what the neighbourhood looks like with more trees or a wider road we’ll be able to push a few buttons and change the plans instantly.”

Making changes during the design phase is relatively efficient to do, but if you need to make changes once construction has begun, there are huge time and cost implications. “However, with augmented reality, you can see it before it’s made and identify any problems, says Mr MacColl.

“You can’t do this with a plan or a video.”

Mr MacColl says the ability to visualise a project from different angles is a huge asset for clients and can provide assurances to all stakeholders involved in a development.

“It really gives stakeholders a lot more control and flexibility in the way that they can understand and interpret a proposal.

The power of this technology is giving the user the ability to go anywhere they like, and see a development from any angle.

TOP RIGHT: Experience designs in a real world context LEFT: Draftsperson working with a design model in Augmented Reality

“This will revolutionise the way projects are completed, as it will no longer take weeks of going back and forth with the client to finalise designs,” says Mr MacColl.

Mr Emmerson says the key differences between the software at Taylors and other virtual and augmented reality techologies are tools they call the 'hologram room' and the 'hologram table'.

“Clients will walk into the hologram room and put on a pair of glasses, which allows them to interact with the scene,” he says. “You can look under tables, around corners, see the view from an upstairs window and even bump into things. This is what it means to reproduce reality, and it has the potential to change the way the industry works.

“There are a number of virtual reality companies and many urban design firms, however Taylors are trying to create the full package, where clients can not only visualise the project but also interact and alter designs in real time.”

With the Taylors suite of visualisation technologies up and running, the next step for Taylors will be the development of its own software to alter designs in real time. Ultimately, Mr Emmerson says, Taylors want clients to go into the hologram room with a designer and be

able to change elements of their designs instantly. If clients are able to virtually walk around a development they can be assured that it will turn out the way they want, giving a powerful advantage to the modern developer.

Mr Emmerson believes once clients begin using the hologram room and see the technology used in urban design, everyone will start using it.

“In 10 years, the use of Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies in urban design will be the norm. Once people see how effective it is in urban design, it will become standard across the industry, they won’t want to go back to the way it is done now,” Mr Emmerson says.

Imagine customising a neighbourhood right in front of you. Not only will it save our clients time, it will also make the process more dynamic and interesting.

The concept might sound radical, but if you look past the flash of AR and VR you see that benefits to clients around cost, time and risk reduction are just too big to ignore. The way we design, plan and build is about to change.

Information provided by Taylors Development Strategists. For further information contact Taylors at enquiries@taylorsds.com.au. ■ www.spatialsource.com.au 27

feature A 3D model of Young, captured as part of the Smart State Hilltops Reality Model project.

Crafting the digital twin: Smart State NSW LEANNE MILLS AND JEFFREY HOSKEN

S

mart State NSW is a project being run by NSW Spatial Services, which is part of the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation. It has evolved rapidly in the past two years, from a simple software trial, to a project, and now a soon-to-be program of work.

The focus of the project is to transform Spatial Services’ traditional imagery and elevation data products from 2D, to 3D — and eventually 4D. The end result will be the creation of a ‘digital twin’ for the state of New South Wales, which links physical world features with the digital world.

Smart State is opening up avenues for collaboration across industry, education and government partners.

The project team has been working with industry partners and other government agencies to develop products for a broad range of applications including regional development, environmental management

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and asset management. The work has involved trialling different imagery capture sources including aerial photography from fixed wing aircraft, drones and handheld cameras, 3D modelling software, augmented reality, and indoor modelling of building internals. To meet the needs of the project, Spatial Services is building its drone capability with the purchase of a new fleet of UAVs and the roll-out of staff training for RPAS certification. This has provided a great opportunity for the development of new skills and knowledge sharing with other government agencies.

Images captured with single framebased cameras to create 3D models often appear stretched in the final model. Using new techniques to overcome this problem, the Smart State team has incorporated imagery from various sensor platforms and resolutions into one single model to provide additional detail.

The town of Blayney in regional NSW was the location for the initial trial, which progressed to the development of Smart State Hilltops, a project aimed at creating a prototype 3D reality model at the local government level. The Smart State Hilltops project is growing to include agricultural applications and community involvement through a planned series of crowd-led imagery collection activities.

Capturing the imagery for these multi-resolution models is a huge task for one agency. A number of government agencies across NSW also have their own drone capabilities, and Spatial Services is now working with them to utilise, where appropriate, the imagery collected by their drone programs to incorporate them into 3D models.

The project team is also working closely with industry partners to develop an imagery crowd-sourcing app to enable

A 3D model of a building at Level of Display 3.

“The future of these large footprint 3D models is to be ‘intelligent’ by incorporating attribution from other foundation datasets, along with other real-world spatial information. People can use this dataset to examine property and infrastructure information, or view realtime IoT sensor data.”

Smart State Case Study: Hilltops 3D Reality Model

Leica’s BLK360 is among the hardware used for creating the most detailed models for Smart State NSW. Image provided by CR Kennedy.

the crowdsourcing of data by everyday people taking photos using their phones or tablets, which can then be incorporated into a 3D model.

The future direction of these large footprint 3D models is for not only viewing imagery in a different way, but for the models to be ‘intelligent’ by incorporating attribution from other foundation datasets such as road names or addresses, along with other real-world spatial information. The user will be able to use the dataset to examine property and infrastructure information, or view IoT sensor data in real-time.

Some of the challenges encountered during the project so far include data storage, standardisation of formats for 3D models, delivery mechanisms for 3D models, and coordination across the government and private sectors. The project team is exploring solutions to these challenges through consultation with industry.

A project like Smart State NSW often creates more questions than answers. It is through finding innovative solutions to these issues that improved spatial data products and services become available to support current and future government and business needs.

Leanne Mills is the manager for Environmental Spatial Programs, and Jeffrey Hosken is the GIS specialist for the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation’s Spatial Services unit. ■

The Department of Finance, Services and Innovation’s Spatial Services (DFSISS) team is developing the Smart State Hilltops 3D Reality Model under the Smart State program. The new model will be a prototype multi-resolution 3D spatial data platform with linkages to other datasets, such as roads and addresses.

When completed it will be used by Hilltops Council, industry stakeholders and other government agencies for planning and analytical purposes.

DFSI-SS began capturing the imagery and LiDAR data for the entire ~7500km2 of the Hilltops Local Government Area using a fixed-wing aircraft in 2017.

The imagery was captured at a lower resolution of 30 centimetres, for the purpose of creating a base layer for the 3D reality model. The three main towns within the Hilltops Local Government Area (Young, Harden and Boorowa) were captured at a higher resolution to provide enhanced detail. The LiDAR point cloud was captured simultaneously with the imagery. A classified LiDAR point-cloud and a bare-earth Digital Elevation Model for the area will also be produced. The elevation data will be used to aid in the

development of the 3D reality model, as well as providing another base-layer of data for analysis.

Once the imagery and LiDAR data is processed and the base model is created, Spatial Services will work with the Hilltops Council and other stakeholders to determine sites that will be captured at a higher level of detail for incorporation into the base model. This may include significant buildings, infrastructure and historical monuments. The data will be captured using a combination of dronemounted sensors, terrestrial LiDAR and hand-held cameras, and will be of a very high resolution.

A crowdsourcing event is also planned to allow local citizens to capture other areas around the Hilltops Local Government Area using their own devices, with the imagery being used to form higher level of detail models that will also be integrated into the base model.

While DFSI-SS is producing the 3D Reality Model for the Hilltops Local Government Area, other project stakeholders will be developing data and analytic tools to be incorporated into the model to produce a truly smart reality model.

A 3D model of the town of Blayney.

www.spatialsource.com.au 29

partner feature

Does Leica’s BLK360 really measure up?

The Leica Geosystems BLK360 Imaging Laser Scanner caused a sensation when announced in November 2016.

It’s now being widely used across several industries. Is it living up to expectations?

We ask some users.

T

he pairing of Leica’s BLK360 scanner with Autodesk’s ReCap Pro software resulted from the two companies pooling their resources to address a demand for a reality capture solution that was precise, accessible, portable and low-cost.

The BLK360 is strikingly small, light, inexpensive and user-friendly. Packed into its black aluminum casing is a class 1 laser scanner scanning 360,000 points per second and capturing 15MP imagery.

The unit uses its own Wi-Fi hotspot to stream both full-colour panoramic images and point cloud information to an iPad Pro using Recap Mobile. Point cloud information is registered on a desktop using the Recap Pro software suite.

While the BLK360 seems to tick all the boxes that Leica and Autodesk intended, it’s only the end-users who can really judge whether the pairing lives up to the hype.

In September of 2017, survey firm Realserve Pty Ltd purchased its first BLK360 from CR Kennedy, the national distributor for Leica Geosystems products across Australia. Realserve’s recent purchase of a third BLK360 shows there is certainly a demand for such a product.

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Realserve has offices across Australia and New Zealand, and its survey work is diverse. Much of it relates to retail, commercial and industrial property supplying surveys of existing building conditions to architects for upcoming refurbishments and to real estate agents for sales and leasing campaigns.

We spoke to Realserve’s James Sawell, the company’s Business Development Manager (Aust/NZ). He explained why they were excited by the BLK360.

“At Realserve we have a tagline ‘Start Confident’”, Sawell said. “That’s how we want our clients to feel about their projects from the very beginning.

“Often clients only learn the full extent of their spatial data requirements as their project develops, and we could see that clients could get on and make decisions earlier and with confidence if they had all

the information they might need right at startup”, he said.

Point cloud data acquisition looked to offer the solution. And it does.

Sawell sees the BLK360 as a “companion” to his company’s other surveying instruments and scanners.

On a recent project, a client could see the potential to reuse some of the existing structural steel and reduce wastage. Realserve put the BLK360 to work in conjunction with one of their professional series scanners. With the BLK360 set up at 5m intervals they were able to collect fine detail around repetitive structural framework. The steelwork was scanned on a medium setting and produced ‘fit for purpose’ accuracy so the 3D model could include the sizes and types of steel beams. This level of detail was critical to the consultant team in making informed decisions.

Another early adopter of the BLK360 scanner is Floth Sustainable Building Consultants, who have nationally adopted the scanning technology in the Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Melbourne offices.

Most of their clients are architects or developers involved in the retrofit of older commercial and industrial buildings including shopping centres, offices, hospitals and factories.

Floth’s National Manager for Building Information Modelling, Andrew Reynolds, came to many of the same conclusions as Realserve’s James Sawell and for the same reasons.

Reynolds said their clients often find that 30- or 40-year-old building plans don’t represent what’s there now.

MAIN IMAGE: BLK360 in the field. Image courtesy of Realserve OPPOSITE PAGE: The BLK360 fills a niche.

Image courtesy of Autodesk.

TOP LEFT: Processing the point cloud data.

Image courtesy of Autodesk.

TOP RIGHT: Facade scanning. Image courtesy of Realserve.

BELOW: Isolating plant equipment. Image courtesy of Floth Consulting.

“Walls might not have been built as designed, doors and windows have been moved and building services have been renewed or removed without plans being updated”, he said.

Floth’s job is to capture the as-built geometry and all the building’s features the mechanical, electrical and plumbing services, the heating, ventilation, air-con – everything.

Until recently a typical job for Floth would require two engineers onsite with a tape measure for one or two weeks recording information onto hard copy plans. Inevitably, the engineers would sometimes return to a site several times to pick up missed detail. That was before Floth invested in their BLK360.

“With the BLK360 the same job takes one or two days,” Reynolds said. “We capture absolutely everything up front, so there’s no need for return visits to check anything”.

Both Realserve and Floth highlighted the benefits the BLK360 and ReCap Pro pairing offers for validating data onsite - scans can be aligned and then viewed,

“With the BLK360 the same job takes one or two days. We capture absolutely everything up front, so there’s no need for return visits to check anything.”

– Floth’s Andrew Reynolds

and data can be visualised in real time to confirm it isn’t corrupted and that coverage is adequate.

While the two companies have different client bases, their onsite work practices, data management and client deliverables are quite similar. After acquisition, the point cloud data is registered and cleaned up in ReCap Pro, then exported in a format suitable for Autodesk’s Revit software (their clients’ 3D building information modelling software).

When asked whether the BLK360 ticks the box for portability, the two companies agreed that it does. At just 165mm tall and a weight of 1.1kg, it’s fine as carry-on luggage

on flights. And that’s of huge benefit to both Realserve and Floth – with staff regularly flying to clients’ regional locations.

In relation to its size in particular, Andrew Reynolds said quite a few of Floth’s clients have heard about the BLK360. “But when they see it - so small and unassuming - they say, ‘Is that it?’”

“They think it looks like a mini R2D2”, he said.

Beyond the obvious benefits offered by the Leica + Autodesk solution, Realserve’s James Sawell mentioned another benefit that potential BLK360 customers might not have fully considered - the relatively small size of digital files. Sawell pointed out that files from traditional point cloud surveys can be quite cumbersome, but with the pairing of the BLK360 with ReCap Pro, files can be exported into CAD/BIM programs much more easily.

Floth’s Andrew Reynolds could also see potential in the scanner’s capacity for thermal imaging. Floth is looking into where they can use it to analyse light and heat coming into a room, to build heat maps in plant rooms and to record what services or equipment are operating and where.

While both Realserve and Floth commented favourably on the service and support offered by CR Kennedy, both found the BLK360 setup so straightforward they didn’t need assistance.

So, does the BLK360 meet customers’ expectations? In both these cases, it most certainly does, and does so inexpensively.

For surveyors, the BLK360 will not replace their high definition products, but it may be a useful addition to their fleet. Beyond surveyors, the BLK360 and Autodesk ReCap are making the benefits of 3D data capture accessible for the entire AEC industry.

Information provided by CR Kennedy.

For more information about the Leica BLK360, visit building.crkennedy.com.au or call your CR Kennedy specialist on (03) 9823 1533. ■ www.spatialsource.com.au 31

feature

Welcome to a world of

BIG DATA JON FAIRALL

D

ata as a service (DaaS) will be the next major disruption to hit the Australian industry in 2018. At least, that seems to be one conclusion from an informal survey of senior executive in the industry earlier this year.

I asked them the question: ‘What is the most significant trend in the industry at the moment; what threats does it pose and what opportunities does it offer?’

While people were happy to talk about new and improved data sources and more refined instrumentation and work flows, it seems they are united in a belief that data holds the key to the future, although there is debate about what it means for the industry.

The general consensus seems to be that the industry has a data problem.

“The challenge lies in designing and managing data collection and delivery mechanisms.” said Michael Dixon, head of data operations at spatial data supplier PSMA Australia.

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On the one hand, the supply of data is increasing exponentially. It’s not just increasing; the rate at which it is increasing is also rising. According to an IBM study, 90 percent of the data on the internet has been created since 2016.

Much of this is rubbish (there are 656 million tweets a day, for instance) but still, the Internet of Things produced 2.5 exabytes (2.5 X 1018 bytes) in 2016. If that seems impossibly large, just consider that a single modern turbofan engine on a passenger jet is fitted with 5,000 sensors and generates 10 gigabytes of data every second it is in the air.

DaaS comes into its own when companies need to consume really big datasets, or when the complexity of curating them requires specialist expertise.

That’s why DaaS will provide an enormous advantage to purveyors of massive databases of aerial and satellite imagery.

The spatial industry is as much to blame as any other. New sensing technologies generate orders of magnitude more data than they did a decade ago. New space and aerial platforms offer high spatial and temporal resolution, but it comes at a cost in terms of bandwidth. New types of sensors enable geographically distributed sensing of just about anything – trace gases in the atmosphere; motor vehicle traffic volumes; soil moisture – as often as required. The implication is that a trickle of data is turning into a flood.

It’s a flood that makes modern, interconnected, society possible. It’s an indispensible part of the infrastructure that keeps our economy on track. But making sense of it all is distinctly non-trivial.

The bottom line is that users need their data where they want it, when they want it. More precisely, they want solutions to their problems, when and where they are, displayed on whatever

device they happen to be using. So, they don’t want a map, they want to know the way from point A to point B. It’s a subtle distinction, perhaps, but an important one.

At least part of the solution to this conundrum is the use of Data as a Service (DaaS) techniques. DaaS can best be seen as a logical conclusion of the movement towards spatial data infrastructures.

Under that model, data is collected and curated by organisations or groups. It is then made available to users who are spared the trouble and expense of collecting and curating their own data.

Traditionally, this data has been consumed directly by the consumer.

Users pay for access and then manipulate the data as they require for their own purposes. However, as datasets have grown ever larger this decade, it has stressed the computing and communications infrastructure. Not only are users constricted by the size of the pipe between them and their data suppliers, but also by the costs of providing processing hardware and software expertise to do something with it.

DaaS provides a solution to this problem. The data is bundled with appropriate software so that a developer can use simple Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)to return, not the data, but a result based on the data.

The key issue, according to Fabrice Triffau, head of sales at Airbus Defence and Space Intelligence in Canberra, is that “Solutions from analytics will become the norm. The source imagery will be less and less a deliverable.”

Multiple companies are now developing new products based on these principles. PSMA has redeveloped its Geocoded National Address File (GNAF) Live product as a DaaS service, in which a simple call to PSMA’s Predictive Address Verification service finds the most appropriate Australian addresses based on user input. Its system returns fully parsed address data. Potential user errors such as misspellings and neighbouring localities are corrected to the official address.

Airbus plans to use DaaS methods to give users access to its OneAtlas archive of satellite imagery. On their model, all the imagery will be kept in a raw state with on-the-fly orthorectification, band combination and projection. Airbus says that by combining this with SaaS, the entire operation can be moved to the cloud — and all that is delivered to the customer is the solution. Airbus says the implication is lower costs for all, more potential applications tailored specifically to different industries and ultimately, more users.

Nigel Lester, managing director of software solutions at Pitney Bowes.

Bringing another take on the same theme is a Perth startup called Pointerra.

The company has recently introduced its Cloud2.0 Engine, which is designed to ease access and usage of point clouds.

In October 2017, the company signed an agreement with the aerial survey company AAM. AAM has a large archive of 3D aerial imagery that covers all the major Australian cities. It uses the Pointerra technology to drive its GeoCIRRUS

product. The technology allows users to see, use and share 3D datasets. Point clouds are rendered on the server and then viewed on a conventional browser.

Pointerra has also started integration of its platform into Autodesk’s Forge product. Autodesk Forge is a relatively new cloud-based developer platform where Autodesk customers can gain access to third-party tools such as the Pointerra Platform. www.spatialsource.com.au 33

feature “I see a future where there will be no concept of spatial data as a unique data type.

It will continue to play an important role, as people inherently understand spatial as a way to categorise information, to represent data, to index data, but it won’t be something we consider in isolation.

Spatial data will be a dimension of all data, a core component – because everything happens somewhere.”

Dan Paull, CEOof PSMA Australia, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California for DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-4 satellite launch in November 2016.

In general, all these products have a number of characteristics in common.

The most significant is that the user does not interact with the data. Rather, the user requests certain manipulations of the data online, the data is processed, and the user is then presented with this refined product.

A number of advantages are claimed.

Top of the list is cost-effectiveness. The end user is separated from the process of acquiring, maintaining and processing the data, so the cost can be shared among all the users.

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A second advantage is response times.

The user has control of the way in which the data is presented, so the user interface can be re-designed quickly and on the run, without requiring in-house developers to know anything about the dataset itself.

A third advantage concerns data quality.

The creation and maintenance of the data is controlled by specialists, whose only concern is the quality of the data. This is likely to lead to better outcomes than in organisations that are concerned both with the creation and the use of the data.

So far, so good. The question is: what does it mean for the industry. According to Dan Paull, the chief executive of PSMA, it will make a profound difference to the way the industry does business, and provide as many threats as opportunities.

“Every data business must rethink its role,” he said. “It’s no longer just about supplying data.”

“The spatial industry has siloed itself in curating spatial data, but our skillset can no longer stand on its own. We’re isolated from the mainstream. To remain relevant we must focus on the needs of users and fully integrate into the data economy.

“I see a future where there will be no concept of spatial data as a unique data type. It will continue to play an important role, as people inherently understand spatial as a way to categorise information, to represent data, to index data, but it won’t be something we consider in isolation. Spatial data will be a dimension of all data, a core component – because everything happens somewhere.”

There are signs that industry players are taking heed of this advice. In late 2016, Esri and Microsoft announced a collaboration that would see Esri’s spatial analytic capability built into Microsoft’s Power BI and Azure platforms. This development ‘enables users to create dashboards, reports or data visualisations through a cloud based service,’ according to ESRI publicity.

Some of the data driving the service might be spatial, but some not.

Nigel Lester, the managing director of software solutions at Pitney Bowes,

agrees that DaaS will come into its own when companies need to consume really big datasets, or when the complexity of curating them requires specialist expertise. That’s why DaaS will provide an enormous advantage to purveyors of massive databases of aerial and satellite imagery. All the difficult, time-consuming problems in imagery, such as rectification, feature extraction and other analysis can be done on the server.

It’s an open question, however, whether it will dominate the market.

Lester says much data will continue to be consumed in conventional ways. His company holds a repository of over 5000 data products — and there is no sign that demand is throttled by hardware or communications expenses. Indeed, as the communications infrastructure around

SPECIALISTS IN PORTABLE MAPPING SYSTEMS

the world improves, consuming services will become easier and for many users will replace the need to hold the data themselves. Moreover, there will always be a significant market sector that will want to own and control its own data sources for tactical or strategic reasons.

“You currently couldn’t sell DaaS services to mission critical users such as the ambulance service,” Lester said.

But for increasing numbers of users, whose business depends on extracting straightforward business answers from massive amounts of data, DaaS has something to offer. To take advantage of this new trend, the industry may need to rethink the way it does business.

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

CONTACT Erron 0447 440 234 Max 0428 501 887

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in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Tasmania & Ballina ➤ Over 20 Years experience

aerialacquisitions.com.au www.spatialsource.com.au 35

feature

Australian first: Banana Shire Council leads the way with better disaster management

BANANA SHIRE COUNCIL

Y

ou won’t find any bananas in central Queensland’s Banana Shire.

What you will find is plenty of coal and gold exploration and extraction, power generation, large scale dryland and irrigation cropping, and beef production — which is the source of the Shire’s unusual name.

Banana Shire was named after a bullock called Banana, and while the original Banana is long gone, the shire named after him continues to thrive as a tourist destination, as well as a farming and mining community.

The Shire boasts prime agricultural land as much of it is located on floodplains, and the waters have spread valuable nutrients throughout the soil over time. But these same waters that have helped create the area’s unique fertility cause havoc for the 16,000-strong population that inhabits the Shire’s 28,577 square kilometres.

Regular flooding with no way to report accurately Banana Shire experiences regular flooding from the Dawson, Dee and Don Rivers, and overflow from the Callide and Kroombit Dams. In 2010, the Shire experienced a flood so large that the entire town of Theodore had to be evacuated by helicopter.

Peter Lefel, principal GIS coordinator at Banana Shire Council, said that this and other significant flood events, such as ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald in 2013 and Cyclone Marcia in 2015, caused the council to upgrade its disaster

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management plan and the adopt their floodplain management plan. “We wanted to find a way to provide earlier warnings to people who may be affected by floods so they could evacuate sooner,” he said.

“This required council to develop a clear understanding of where people were likely to be when a flood event was imminent, as well as how that flood event was likely to affect them. For example, the Shire attracts so-called grey nomads in high numbers because it offers many free and short-term camping areas. If those areas were to be affected by a flood, it would be crucial to notify the tourists as early as possible to keep them safe.”

During a flood event, the prime group within council that is tasked

Banana Shire Council’s LDCC consists of: • Liaison Officers from all of the first responders – QLD Police Service, QLD Ambulance Service, QLD Fire and Emergency Services and State Emergency Services (SES) • Council staff responsible for receiving and logging calls for assistance from affected members of the public • Council staff responsible for coordinating logistic support • Council staff coordinating and notifying the public about road closures • A Media Unit for the dissemination of accurate and timely updates and warnings to the public • A post-event recovery team.

with controlling and coordinating all emergency response activities is the Local Disaster Coordination Centre (LDCC).

A GIS support role within the LDCC provides location intelligence for any queries from within the LDCC, and can create spatial data sets on an as-needed basis for the current event.

An example of this function is to create a new Emergency Alert Polygon (EAP), which is used by the State Disaster Coordination Centre to send to Telstra, and phone numbers of residents within this polygon can be extracted to send text message event warnings pertaining to their location.

Previously, the LDCC GIS support comprised of paper maps stored in a metal trunk. This did not facilitate an efficient process and aspiring to be a progressive, technology-driven organisation, the council looked for ways to make disaster response planning and support activities more accurate, reliable, and easily updated.

“My review of the LDCC spatial capabilities identified a need for a dedicated GIS workstation to be located in the LDCC and the creation of a range of spatial data sets that would provide the ability to answer complex spatial queries around the impacts of an event on the people and infrastructure of the Shire,” Lefel said.

“There was also a need to be able to show spatial information related to the event to the entire LDCC at the same time, so a large screen TV was installed on the wall of the LDCC for displaying maps and spatial information.”

Better data for a comprehensive disaster management plan Peter Lefel created a large number of data sets for the LDCC using Council’s corporate GIS, and MapInfo Pro (see sidebar).

One glaring hole in these datasets was the lack of building data, especially attributes indicating building type, function or elevation.

“As a component of the post-event recovery process after a flood event occurs, the State Government wants to know how many buildings have been affected. In the past, we couldn’t answer that question accurately,” Lefel said.

“We needed a way to determine which buildings would be affected and, depending on the height of the flood waters, to what extent they would be affected. For example, if the buildings are on stilts and the floor level is up high, they may not be affected by the flood even though they’re right in the middle of it.”

To fill this data hole, Council chose to use GeoVision® from Pitney Bowes, an enhanced version of PSMA Australia’s Geoscape product. Banana Shire Council is the first council in Australia to utilise the Geoscape data for the important purpose of disaster management.

“We chose GeoVision because its foundational dataset Geoscape is the only data available today that shows all the building outlines within the Shire. No other product has captured the same level of accuracy. This type of data hasn’t been available in the past for Australia, so we’re very excited,” Lefel said.

“This level of detail allows Banana Shire Council to query the building data against a modelled flood event and determine the anticipated scale of the impact on residents and the built environment. And post-event, provide a more accurate answer to the State Government on impact of the flood.”

The building heights in this data can be used in Council’s waterRIDE

flood modelling tool, the basis of its floodplain management plan capabilities. Banana Shire aims to add value to this building dataset so that it fulfils more spatial and modelling roles, such as adding a floor elevations to anticipate flood height and visualise the impact on individual buildings.

Saving lives with instant, accurate information Banana Shire Council can now provide instant, accurate reports to state government regarding the number and type of buildings that have been affected by a flood event.

“This solution is ideal to help the Council respond to a flood event effectively. Once buildings at risk and therefore residents, have been identified, we can initiate warnings and deploy first responders to where they’re needed most, so they can help those who are most adversely affected by the event. This will ultimately save lives,” Lefel said.

“I’d highly recommend this spatial data to other councils. It can also help with things like bushfire risk, swimming pool compliance, and building development, just to name a few. Thankfully Council has not yet had to use this data for a flood event, but we are ready for when it does happen.” ■

The LDCC’s current datasets include: • Council Facilities (evacuation centres, works depots, rain and flood gauges, etc) • Medical Facilities (hospitals, aged care facilities, etc) • Educational Facilities • Industrial and Mine Sites • Transport (helicopter landing sites, road transport routes, etc) • Terrain (elevation data)

• Hydrographic Features • Logistics Emergency Support (food and potable water locations and quantities, etc) • Camping and Tourist Sites (free short and long term locations and commercial sites, etc) • Risks (Flood extent models and bushfire hazard)

www.spatialsource.com.au 37

feature An aerial shot of the restored Marree Man in August 2016, taken at a height of 3,500ft, facing northwest with Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre to the horizon.

DANIEL BISHTON

Coordinates from on high The restoration of an outback mystery

O

n June 26, 1998, Trec Smith, a charter pilot flying over a remote tract of South Australia made a startling discovery.

Carved into a remote desert plateau in the outback was an enormous figure.

Measuring over four kilometres head to toe and 28 kilometres in circumference, a colossal geoglyph soon to be known as 'Marree Man' had seemingly appeared overnight.

His sudden appearance sparked an intense furor of speculation and debate, orientated around the tiny town of Marree, which sits at the junction of the Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks, around 685 kilometres north of Adelaide. Especially curious was its proximity to major military infrastructure in the enormous Woomera Prohibited Zone, site of the 1950s Maralinga nuclear tests and much currently active military infrastructure.

The geoglyph is thought to have been plowed by a bulldozer, and may have taken weeks to complete, yet no unauthorised activities in the area were officially

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reported, and a police investigation following Marree Man's discovery found no actionable evidence on the lone track that gave access to the site.

Meticulously surveyed and scoured into the earth with incredible detail for its scale, Marree Man spurred anthropological debates as to his origin, with at least one voice arguing that the precise detail with which Marree Man's features were rendered suggested a creator with intimate knowledge of fine detail of the Indigenous hunters of Central Australia — it did not specifically reflect the characteristics of the local language groups.

Cryptic clues Theories as to Marree Man's origins bloomed and mutated. The most plausible attributed the geoglyph's creation to Northern Territory artist Bardius Goldberg, who had aspired to create a work visible from space, and had allegedly come into some money around the time it was discovered. Goldberg neither confirmed nor denied the claim.

In January 1999, a plaque was discovered, buried in the earth close to the giant figure's head. Embossed with an American flag and Olympic rings, it contained a passage from natural history photographer H.H Finlayson's 1946 book The Red Centre, account of his time documenting the indigenous tribes and native animals of the Outback.

'In honour of the land they once knew. His attainments in these pursuits are extraordinary; a constant source of wonderment and admiration.'

But a dispute over the very land into which Marree Man was carved may hold a more telling clue. In 1998, a native title battle over lands that contained the Marree Man site was raging between Indigenous language groups. The intensity of this dispute was so acute that it had triggered a violent physical confrontation between the Arabana and Dieri groups. Dieri representatives initially denounced the giant figure, and in accordance with their wishes, the South Australia government closed public access to the site.

LEFT: Phil Turner and "Bundy" on the Marree Man site in November 2016. Photo courtesy of The Adelaide Advertiser.

BELOW: A Theodolite post discovered during the restoration, one of two such sites. Questions abound: Was this the surveyors choice for the initial creation of the Marree Man? Can this technique determine the surveyor's state of origin?

A mystery reborn Following the flurry of reactions around Marree man's discovery, the enormous geoglyph became a source of local mythology in the north of the state — and a major tourist attraction for the remote region. Phil Turner, publican of the Marree hotel and unofficial custodian of Marree Man, said that South Australian Tourism had valued its impact at up to 17 million "very much needed dollars."

As the shifting sands and desert winds took their toll, the 28-kilometre long of Marree Man began to fade back into the earth. Seeing an opportunity to prevent a local landmark and source of modern folklore from disappearing from view, Turner sprung into action.

"This was a bit of a no-brainer for those of us living and working, running tourism businesses in the far north. So, Trevor Wright [of local flight operator Wright Air] and myself teamed up, and had extensive consultation with the new native titleholders as to what they'd like to do with the Marree Man — and they said: 'We'd like it restored'," he said.

Turner took his proposal to the South Australian government, who sought a quote on the restoration — receiving one for the cool sum of $350,000, which precipitated a morass of indecision and debate within the government. Turner thought that something could be done to restore the desert attraction for a considerably lower fee.

"When we met again with the Arabana, they said they'd like to go ahead anyway.

I thought: 'The biggest problem we've got is — what do we use for a reference?'

There's an image out there — we can see the photographs, but we had no GPS coordinates. We had no map, we had

absolutely nothing apart from going out there to stand on the ground — and it's 28 kilometres around the circumference, 70 odd metres wide each line," he said.

"This was a massive undertaking for an accurate restoration if you're going to be true to the original work of art."

Employing a surveyor under condition of strict anonymity, an 18-month process to source coordinates began.

Putting boots on the ground to test the measurements, they found that these coordinates were out by up to six metres.

"We'd pull up in the buggy and he'd say 'this is where it should be,' and I'd say 'Well, it ain't here.' Then we'd walk around in ever increasing circles until eventually we'd found remnants of it. We needed to get some accurate coordinates," Turner said.

Coordinates from on high

“I remember the date of it, like when President Kennedy was shot. These things stay in your mind — you know where you were and exactly what you were doing that day, because this turned up and I thought: 'Holy Toledo.' It was about half a dozen grid coordinates, with a sort of cryptic comment that said: 'This may be what you're looking for'."

Turner and his collaborator returned to the site and tested the mystery coordinates, finding them accurate to 150mm — paving the way for a restoration that Turner and his team completed for $6,400.

To this day, the work's creators and motivations are officially unknown, but Turner knows more about Marree Man than most.

Without giving the game away, he has a hint for those still nutting out the mystery of Marree Man. "The truth to its origins can be found in the actual image itself," Turner said.

"The Aboriginal hunter is not Arabana, he's not a Dieri — he's not from the Marree area. He's actually from Central Australia. Others have been on the record to say that the bun at the back of the head is not Arabana, it's not Dieri. I've been told that's related to the Musgrave Ranges central Aboriginals of Australia," he said.

"I mean, if it was done locally by an Arabana man or Dieri — do you really think they'd be drawing a Central Australian Aboriginal?"

Phil Turner will present in more detail on some of the other mysteries surrounding Marree Man at the upcoming Locate '18 - Geosmart Asia '18 conference in Adelaide on 9-11 April. ■

Whilst Turner's surveyor consulted with colleagues and collaborators on how best to work up a more accurate set of points, Turner received a remarkable communiqué. It was the 15th of May, 2006. www.spatialsource.com.au 39

9-11 April 2018

AdelAide, AustrAliA Theme: The ArT Science And BuSineSS of GeoSpATiAl

A

pril 2018 is going to be an exciting month for the geospatial industry as Asia-Pacific’s most premier conferences; GeoSmart asia and locate are collaborating to come together in adelaide, australia, from 9-11 april, 2018. What can you expect in the 2018 edition GeoSmart asia - locate? With the theme ‘the art, Science and Business of Geospatial’, the conference is going to give a lowdown on the latest technology advancements in the geospatial industry, thrilling industry trends, and discussions on the solution-centric applications that would result in new business models.

The event will also host an ‘Interaction Zone’, that will take place at an interactive media space located inside the conference exhibition, where series of interviews and discussions will explore answers to the following questions: • What are the big challenges facing the spatial sector?

• What are the challenges facing the world that the spatial sector can help address?

• How do we talk about the real-world application of geospatial research, capabilities and technologies?

ParticiPation at a Glance

750+

300+

Delegates

Organisations

35+

15+

Exhibitors

Countries

partnerS & SponSorS Gold SponSorS

Bronze SponSorS

www.geosmartasia.org

defence proGramme SponSor

pop-Up cafe SponSor

principal partnerS

media partner

Silver SponSorS

StakeholderS

www.locateconference.com

ProGraMMe

9 aPril 10:00 hrs

Market Day

Exhibition Hall Open

13:45 hrs

Field Trips

Penfolds Winery (Agriculture)

15:00 hrs 16:00 hrs 16:00-17:30 hrs 17:30 hrs 18:00 hrs

Interaction Zone Launch Market Day Closes GeoRabble Welcome Reception Day Closes

SAHMRI (Health & Communities)

DigitalGlobe User Interaction Workshop

Tonsley Innovation (Energy & Innovation)

SSSI URISA Workshop

10 aPril Opening plenary 8:30 hrs

Formal Opening

8:40 hrs

Welcome to Country

8:45 hrs

Opening by Convenor

8:50 hrs

SSSI President

8:55 hrs

SIBA Chair

9:00 hrs

CEO Geospatial Media and Communications

9:05 hrs 9:15 hrs 9:25 hrs 9:30 hrs 11:00 hrs 11:45 hrs 11:50 hrs 13:20 hrs

Opening by Minister Welcome to South Australia KeynOte intrOductiOn Keynotes MOrning tea BreaK FrontierSI the new CRCSI Keynotes lunch BreaKOut SeSSiOnS

14:15 hrs 15:30 hrs

StreaM 2

StreaM 3

StreaM 4

StreaM 5

StreaM 6

expO hall

Smart Cities

Disaster Management

Geo-science for Energy Sector

Location Intelligence I

Artificial Intelligence

Surveying I

Interaction Zone

The Science of Geospatial

The Art of Communication

afternOOn tea BreaK Title

15:30 hrs 17:15 hrs 18:15 hrs 19:00 hrs 23:00 hrs

StreaM 1

afternOOn tea BreaK day clOSe at pre dinner drinKS apSea gala dinner clOSed

seminar 1 - TBA Smart Cities

GDA2020 into The Right Location Integrating Business as Usual

Interaction Zone Theatre seminar 2 - TBA

Gallery Dining Room

11 aPril BreaKOut SeSSiOnS 08:45 hrs 10:30 hrs

StreaM 1

StreaM 2

StreaM 3

StreaM 4

StreaM 5

StreaM 6

Remote Sensing

Big Data

Health & Community

UAV for Business

Surveying II

OGC Workshop

Location Intelligence II

Agri-Business

Science of Smart Cites

GIS in Government & Policy

Surveying II

Defence

Solutions for Business

Future Thinkers

Location Intelligence III

Innovation in Geospatial

Surveying II

Defence

MOrning tea BreaK Title

12:15 hrs

Lunch Title

expO hall Interaction Zone Theatre seminar 3 - TBA Interaction Zone Theatre seminar 4 - TBA Interaction Zone Theatre

clOSing plenary 14:10 hrs

Welcome by MC

14:15 hrs

Agenda 2026 Report

14:25 hrs

Keynote Introduction

14:20 hrs

Keynotes

15:20 hrs

Afternoon Tea Break

15:50 hrs

Keynotes

17:20 hrs

Formal Closing

17:30 hrs

Closed

Interaction Zone Closed Chair, Locate Conference Australia

Please refer to the website for speakers details

our exhiBitorS

#locate18 www.geosmartasia.org

www.locateconference.com

feature

Australia must construct to withstand extreme weather BRETT CASSON

D

ebbie, Marcia, Yasi, George.

These are some of the visitors that Australians expect, but are never prepared for. Insurance companies consistently struggle to forecast the intensity of natural disasters and the total cost of damages. In fact, Suncorp Insurance exceeded its natural hazard claims allowance 10 times over the last 11 years, while IAG exceeded it nine times. Why do we keep spending millions on insurance claims after disasters, rather than invest in more sustainable construction that minimises damage to buildings in the first place? Australians need to rethink how to build cities and towns to better withstand extreme weather.

Australian summers regularly feature severe thunderstorms and flash-flooding, especially in the north. When weather phenomena such as La Niña arrive on our doorstep, Australians become even more at risk of catastrophic weather events that have the potential to devastate communities lacking sustainablyconstructed buildings.

Since Cyclone Tracy demolished 70 percent of Darwin homes in 1974, the Australian Building Codes Board made changes to ensure that buildings’ design, construction and performance meet minimum standards to withstand extreme

42 position April/May 2018

climate related natural disasters. That said, the code doesn’t meet best practice standards and the minimum standards don’t take some hazards into account — such as wind-driven rain, hail, storm surges and heatwaves.

Considering the frequency of extreme weather on our continent, it is clear that Australians must become more proactive about finding more sustainable ways to construct, using all the available technology and tools. Preparation will not only save in costs, but heartache during unpredictable weather circumstances.

The availability of new and improved materials and technology Today, we have the tools to build to withstand extreme weather. New materials and technologies are available that help fortify buildings against a cyclone’s suite of hazards such as winds, flying debris, and flooding from rain or storm surges. These are often inexpensive and available in a wide range of experimental and off-the-shelf options.

For traditional wood-frame homes in particular, off-the-shelf items can significantly boost resistance to cyclones.

New roof attachment methods can add strength, and spray-foam adhesives —

which are applied on the inside of the house’s roof and double as insulation — are used for higher wind speeds. To deal with flooding, hydrostatic vents allow water into the home but stop floodwaters from accumulating and potentially degrading its walls and foundation. In wood-frame houses, all of the components are tied together by mechanical connectors. A wood-frame home can be as strong as anything else, as long as all the walls are tied together properly, tied to the roof properly, and the roof and walls are tied to the foundation properly.

Specialty metal connectors for this task are relatively inexpensive — around one percent of the cost to construct an entire house.

Experimental materials can also aid in building sturdiness in the event of extreme weather. Typically, when glass windows burst from high winds, a house will pressurise as wind rushes in, popping off the roof and freeing dangerous debris.

Several research efforts are focused on finding glass prototypes that increase the resilience of impact glass. For example, researchers at the Australian National University are studying shatter-proof glass, which relies on engraved ‘microfissures’ to allow it to bend without breaking or fracturing. Currently used in cars, impact

glass doesn’t shatter like standard glass.

Another promising new material on the market is ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC). UHPC can bend and give, yet is six times stronger than regular concrete.

It is made of very fine aggregate, often from recycled materials, such as fly ash and silica fume. The addition of carbon metallic or polyvinyl alcohol fibres allows the material to bend and carry loads even after some cracking has occurred. It is so strong that in 2014, Dr. Chengqing Wu and researchers at the University of Adelaide produced ultra-high performance concrete with high blast resistance against the impact of bombs.

Unfortunately, UHPC is not cost effective for the majority of normal construction projects, given its high development cost as well as the requirement of a license for use. However, the strength of the material means that less is needed for construction compared to standard concrete, making it more efficient by weight and more effective during extreme weather conditions.

UHPC’s durability can be seen at one high-profile project in Miami. The Perez Art Museum withstood Hurricane Irma — a Category 5 hurricane which hit the United States in 2017 and became the fifth-costliest tropical cyclone on record — with no damage.

operating costs. That said, it’s a lot harder to convince Australians about the costeffectiveness of construction when it comes to future proofing against hazardrelated damages. Asking consumers to bank on the worst-case scenario to justify extra expenses is a recipe for underpreparation in almost any context.

In the United States, the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub has developed a framework that uses data to determine cost-effectiveness in more detail. The Break-Even Mitigation Percentage (BEMP), looks at extreme weather damage likelihood over 50 years in a given location, calculating the amount of damage predicted, as well as the building type and the way it was constructed.

It uses this data to determine whether making these structures hurricaneresistant (in the case of the US) is an efficient use of money, and to calculate how soon the anticipated cost savings in an avoidance of hurricane damage will

pay back the initial expense.

In the future, the BEMP will expand to include building materials’ carbon footprint and other environmental impacts. It might seem like accounting for a natural disaster is a discrete and singular cost-benefit analysis, but in this way, it’s really an overall measure of sustainability. With this level of analysis, town planners and construction companies will know which areas climate change may make dangerously uninhabitable, and which areas can withstand extreme weather through the aforementioned materials and technologies.

Locally, researchers at the University of Melbourne are looking at how urban planning and natural hazard mitigation can integrate, as well as the implications of emerging risks on infrastructure, and the differences of construction service capacity across cities and regions.

But, generally speaking, disaster management still has a long way to go in Australia. Challenges faced include a lack of consideration of multiple hazards, no streamlined measurement tools and a disconnect between operations run by the public and private sectors. Neither sector has overtly expressed the realisation that the cost of sustainable construction outweighs the cost of insurance claims that are taken out after extreme weather strikes.

What Australia needs is to implement a framework of its own. Similar to BEMP, it would become a go-to field guide for construction companies to apply weatherresistant materials and methods across a wide range of vulnerable coastlines, matching careful economics with the deep-seated desire to construct to last.

Brett Casson is Digital Infrastructure Leader at Autodesk. ■

The cost of resilience With the premiums attached to some sustainable building materials, does it make economic sense for Australians to invest in resilience and construct to last? If we want to achieve best practice standards for construction, rather than minimum requirements, then the answer is a resounding ‘yes.’

An analogy is the cost-effectiveness of a more energy-efficient fridge: there will be a higher initial cost, but lower www.spatialsource.com.au 43

new products DJI’s Inspire consumer drone.

WingtraOne PPK takes off With the launch of WingtraOne PPK (Post-Processed Kinematics) drone, Swiss UAV manufacturer Wingtra is looking to set a new benchmark in large scale surveying and mapping applications.

With the help of partners photogrammetry software provider Pix4D, and the GNSS board and PPK provider Septentrio – WingtraOne PPK can now deliver orthomosaic maps and 3D models with an absolute accuracy down to 1 centimetre.

“With the latest upgrade, our drone WingtraOne PPK can offer something that has never been seen before in drone photogrammetry – broad coverage and high resolution at ultra precise accuracy, Wingtra CTO Armin Ambühl said.

DJI launches Aussie drone rules quiz UAV giant DJI has rolled out a new initiative designed to help Australian drone pilots fly safely and legally.

This project is the latest safety initiative from the firm that controls 85 perent of the consumer drones market worldwide, and the first to target Australian customers specifically.

The quiz will require pilots to answer

a series of basic questions correctly about safe drone use before their next flight, based on the Civil Aviation Safety Authority’s (CASA) rules and regulations.

All Australian pilots firing up their DJI GO or DJI GO 4 app after February 14 will be presented with nine questions and must correctly answer all of them in order to be able to fly.

Mapbox launches global reality-grade AR platform Mapbox has launched Mapbox AR, a comprehensive toolkit combining AR rendering software with global location data built on the location platform used by over 1 million registered developers.

From projecting navigation routes on an automotive heads-up display, to mobile multiplayer gaming, interacting with real-world buildings and points of interest, the company says Mapbox AR enables a new level of AR applications and gameplay.

Reality-grade location data includes a global navigable map that evolves with use, custom 3D building footprints optimised for dynamic interaction, international land use and terrain coverage — all available at scale through SDKs and APIs.

44 position April/May 2018

The newest version of Live Map.

DroneDeploy's Live Map released in Australia Sydney-based UAV services provider Southern Cross Drones have unveiled DroneDeploy's Live Map application for Australian audiences.

San Francisco-based DroneDeploy are a cloud solutions provider for UAV-sourced imagery analysis, and Southern Cross Drones are their certified reseller and distributor for New Zealand and Australia.

DroneDeploy's Live Map app for iOS

will allow Australian drone operators to create in the field without a data or internet connection, plan a flight, take off, and see maps render on-screen during flight.

Live Map's workflow aims to circumvent the image upload and processing times traditionally associated with most mapping and photogrammetry software solutions.

Interactive Aussie property values app launched Property data and analytics firm CoreLogic has turned to GIS to present the results of their latest report on the Australian property market.

The report, titled Mapping the Market, compares median property prices in December 2017 to December 2012, and is built around Esri's ArcGIS platform.

Users are walked through a spatial presentation of key trends and findings for each state and territory's capital city and invited to drill down to suburbs of interest.

The data presented in the app represents over 98 percent of the Australian property market.

Image courtesy of CoreLogic.

Meet David, Tersus' new GNSS receiver A new player has entered the Australian GNSS and RTK market, with Tersus introducing their product line at the IGNSS 2018 symposium.

Positioning themselves as a provider that can deliver centimetrelevel precision at a price point most competitors cannot, the Tersus line balances features and accessibility.

A case in point is their entry-level GNSS receiver, 'David'. Tersus say the pint-sized, IP67-compliant unit can achieve centimetre-level accuracy in a miniscule form factor, supports GPS L1/L2, GLONASS G1/G2 and Beidou B1/2, and is upgradeable with a range of accessories.

Prices for David are not yet known, but Tersus say it will be well below comparable units.

Caterpillar to leverage Aussie indoor positioning tech Mining technology company Minetec will integrate its leading proprietary products into an expanded Caterpillar MineStar suite for underground and surface mining operations.

Minetec, a wholly owned subsidiary of South Australian company Codan Limited, has entered into a global licensing and technology development

agreement with Caterpillar– manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives.

The technology is based on WASP (wireless ad-hoc system for positioning), developed and licensed by scientists at Australia’s CSIRO for mining globally.

Leica Geosystems rolls out new laser distance metres Leica Geosystems has announced the new Leica DISTO X3 and X4, their latest distance metres for construction sites.

The company says the X3 and X4 withstand drop tests from a height of 2 metres, are dust- and waterprotected, suitable for rugged job site conditions. Paired with the Leica DST 360 adapter for Point-to-Point measurements and the new DISTO Plan app, the X3 and X4 offer both flexibility and functionality.

The DISTO X4 is equipped with a Pointfinder camera, allowing users to easily target distant objects in bright sunlight. If the laser cannot be seen by the naked eye, the target appears clearly on the large colour display with a high-resolution screen.

www.spatialsource.com.au 45

sssi

News and views from the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute

SSSI welcomes Peter Olah as new CEO SSSI Board – 2018 President – Gaby van Wyk President-Elect – Zaffar Mohamed Ghouse NSW Director – Zaffar Mohamed Ghouse NT Director – Rob Sarib QLD Director – Lee Hellen SA Director – Franco Rea TAS Director – Paul Digney VIC Director – Richard Syme WA Director – Kerry Smyth ACT Director – Vacant Hydrography Commission Director – Richard Cullen YP representative (Observer) – Roshini Sharma Company Secretary – Jonathan Saxon

46 position April/May 2018

T

he Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) would like to extend a warm welcome to Peter Olah, who joins the institute as chief executive officer.

Mr. Olah joins SSSI having recently spent four years as the executive director of the Council of Mayors (Southeast Queensland), Australia’s largest local government advocacy organisation. At Council of Mayors, he presided over a concerted advocacy program to federal and state governments which helped realise their commitment of over $20 billion in funding to regional priority projects.

“The members of SSSI – and those in our professions who should be members but are not yet – are admirable, logical and make a valuable difference to our communities. You deserve an outstanding representative organisation and I look forward to working with you in building an institute that delivers this for you at every level,” Mr. Olah said.

He brings extensive leadership experience in the not-for-profit sector, having held the position of chief executive of Scouts Australia (NSW), the state’s largest youth organisation, for three years.

More recently he was executive director of the Rural Fire Service Association (RFSA), the representative body for the 70,000 plus volunteers and staff of the NSW Rural Fire Service.

Prior to these roles, Mr. Olah spent three years as the national affairs manager of the Hotel, Motel and Accommodation Association (HMAA), a national industry association within the

tourism and hospitality sector, leading that association’s policy development, media relations, industry relations, and government relations functions.

Mr. Olah also served on the private staff of the NSW Premier and as Policy Advisor to Ministers for Justice and Police. In seven years at State Transit, the NSW Government’s bus and ferry business, he fulfilled a number of change management functions for the organisation’s board and CEO, including projects in government and customer relations, public affairs, industrial advocacy and human resources, internal communications, and cost efficiency.

He served for 12 years as an alderman and councillor of Hurstville City Council in Sydney’s south, including three years as mayor of Hurstville and three years as deputy mayor.

Mr. Olah spent several years at two major professional services firms — Hamilton, James & Bruce and Manpower Australia — heading up the Australasian government/public sector practice at each.

He also established his own consulting firm, Moebius Consulting, with clients including businesses in several industries, professional and industry associations, charities and government agencies.

“I join SSSI with a long background in the leadership of member associations, public policy, and advocacy. I have made a positive difference at each organisation I have worked with, and I only work for organisations and for people I genuinely believe in,” he said.

SSSI sustaining partners

Spatial Information & Cartography Commission: Rejuvenate Your Professional Networks

T

his is my first Position editorial as SI&C Commission Chair. I see a number of big challenges ahead and call on your ideas and participation in meeting these challenges. The first step is forming the new leadership team with our elected representatives from around the continent.

The SI&C Commission National Committee for 2017-19.

• Kerry Smyth (WA) Chair • Shaik Mohamed Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse (NSW) Vice Chair • Hanno Klahn (NSW) • Mary Lewitzka (SA) • Georgina Cassar (SA) • Andrew Bashfield (Vic) • Angus Scown (Qld) • Robert Driessen (Tas) • Nikolas Kostraby (YP) • Vacancies available are: • 1 x (Tas) • 1 x (Vic) • 2 x (NT) • 2 x (ACT) The Spatial Information & Cartography Commission is keen to be effective for our members and will run portfolios to focus team effort, including Communication, Certification, Education and Outreach. This will allow SICC to directly influence the new advisory and standing committees that SSSI has formed. If you are interested in shaping future direction, we have heaps of opportunity, make a start now.

News & Communications Communication is the biggest challenge ahead, although our membership has dropped, the potential reach of our professional networks has grown enormously. We are expanding our social media presence and want to encourage new affiliations and reconnect with lost associates. Join the Friends of SSSI mail list.

Our traditional channels of communication are Position Magazine, GeoMessage, SSSI Website News feeds and emails. Showcase your work by sending us editorial content.

Certification Focus SSSI President Gaby Van Wyk recently travelled to USA as the URISA exchange delegate. He has much to report including changes in GISP-AP certification, there will be a review of the MoU regarding

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 Petra Helmholz chair.rspc@sssi.org.au Spatial Information & Cartography Commission Chair Kerry Smyth 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

Kerry Smyth – National Chair, Spatial Information & Cartography Commission.

international certification in the coming months. SICC has initiated a subcommittee to activate more strategic thinking and action regarding the future of GISP-AP certification and an updated Body of Knowledge.

Education Focus Advocacy in education is a broad topic covering the needs of current practitioners and career pathways for future recruits. The national commission believes it should provide commentary on the courses available at a one-stopshop, we would like suggestions on how this could be achieved.

The SSSI Education & Career Development Committee is considering a “National Geospatial School Student Competition” to commence in Queensland and be rolled out in other regions. The future direction of Destination Spatial is also being discussed. The SICC sees these as vital activities for influence. Andrew Bashfield will be leading the Education portfolio.

QLD Regional Chair – Roy Somerville chair.qld@sssi.org.au SA Regional Chair – Franco Rea chair.sa@sssi.org.au TAS Regional Chair – Paul Digney 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 47

sssi Masterclass Focus SICC has a keen focus on reformulating our masterclass framework to create unique offerings in a range of formats.

We are open to ideas on content targeting identified skills and knowledge gaps. SICC is aiming to hold a Master Class Workshop at the Locate18 (Monday 9th April 2018) to coincide with the visit of URISA Exchange candidate Tripp Corbin from USA.

Advocacy Focus SICC can serve as a hub for driving advocacy opportunities and is open to requests for commentary and feedback for national policy that impact our professionals and the wider community in respect to spatial information, products and services.

The ANZLIC Elevation and Depth 2030 Strategy Consultation stage ends on 30th March.

Events The SICC committee is composed of representatives from all 8 regions in Australia, and relies on ongoing input from our members to provide the best possible services where they are needed. Whilst the commission's vision and strategy is planned at the institute level, most events occur locally and member input is always welcome.

The SICC is constantly approached to partner, support and promote events. This is beneficial for our members and the wider industry, however is a material drain on our limited volunteer resources. International and national conferences,

regional and local seminars, industry open days, career expos, webinars, awards and technical tours, flock for our endorsement.

SICC needs sustaining partners, in-kind support and sponsors to thrive. If you want our brand, we need a hand.

News Round-Up ANU gifted rare map collection by Dr Clive Kessler ANU College of Asia & the Pacific has been gifted six rare Southeast Asian maps by Dr Clive Kessler, emeritus professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of NSW. The maps are on display in Coombs Extension building and include a rare 17th century map of Southeast Asia by the Venetian cartographer, Vincenzo Coronelli.

Book Mark SICC Web Pages The Spatial Information and Cartography Commission welcomes any feedback, queries or suggestions, whether to do with applying for certification, upcoming events or the promotion and encouragement of the spatial industry.

Website: sssi.org.au/about-us/committees/ spatial-information-cartography-commission All communications to: chair.sicc@sssi.org.au Kerry Smyth – National Chair, Spatial Information & Cartography Commission

The Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute is the not-for-profit national peak body representing and supporting the largest membership of spatial science and surveying professionals in Australia and New Zealand.

SSSI represents professionals in: Land Surveying, Spatial Information & Cartography, Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry, Hydrographic Surveying, Engineering & Mining Surveying and special interest groups including Women in Spatial and Young Professionals.

JOIN

SSSI TODAY...

Being a member of SSSI will provide you with the platform and support to maximise your skills, knowledge and experience including: • Professional recognition as a member of the Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute; • Over 200+ regular regional and national workshops, seminars and webinars; • Free membership for students, concession rates available for graduates and retired professionals; • Enhance your CPD via access to the internationally recognized certification and SSSI CPD program; • Professional partnership opportunities available.

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STEP...

PO Box 307 Deakin, ACT 2600

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48 position April/May 2018

SSSI sustaining partners

SSSI National Young Professionals Committee 2018 The National Young Professionals committee have been working hard on some exciting new initiatives for 2018, which include: • developing a national framework for mentoring for young professionals, available on the SSSI website as a 12-month program and supplemented by face-to-face mentoring events in each region • a series of face-to-face and online event to offer both information on technical skills in various parts of our industry and career development insights from a range of professionals and leaders in the field

• Working with educational institutions to improve awareness of career options within the surveying and spatial sciences industry and provide greater support for students to transition from study to working in the industry We're always keen for people with passion and ideas to get involved, so if you’d like to be a part of these initiatives, please contact Roshni at chair.yp@sssi.org.au. Our committee is looking for representatives from Tasmania, ACT and the Northern Territory, so if you’d like to be involved, please do reach out!

Currently, we are: Roshni Sharma – Chair Roshni Sharma is a GIS Analyst for EMM Consulting, and has a background in spatial analysis and , environmental science and management. She undertook her Bachelor of Environmental Science and Management (Honours) from the University of Newcastle in 2010, her Master of Applied Science (Geosciences) from USYD in 2014, and has just wrapped up her Master of Science and Technology (Spatial Information) from UNSW. She is passionate about the ways in which GIS can be used to clearly and concisely understand and display information, see patterns, creatively consider solutions and plan for the future effectively. She also enjoys cooking, volunteering with a community languages and arts school and looking at photos of dogs on the internet.

Alex Pescud - Vice Chair/Secretary Alex Pescud has experience undertaking tasks ranging from interactive web map development, integration of spatial and non-spatial information systems and programmatically extending the functionality of GIS related software for specific business needs. Alex graduated from the University of Wollongong in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) majoring in Physical Geography. His Honours research project utilised various geospatial techniques to better understand coral reef ecosystems on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. He has a particular interest towards innovative spatial solutions and communicating ideas through maps.

Richard Syme - Past Chair Richard is the past chair of the SSSI National Young Professional Committee having chaired the Committee through 2016. Richard has been appointed as Director on the SSSI Board, representing Victoria. Richard has a degree in Multimedia Cartography and Geographical Visualisation from RMIT University. He has been working in the spatial industry for over 10 years. In his role at Aurecon Australia, Richard applies GIS and digital technology in the fields of transport, land use planning, surveying, land infrastructure plus many more.

Richard specialises in desktop mapping, geospatial analysis, mobile data collection and Web GIS. Richard is passionate about finding more efficient ways to deliver projects through increased digital collaboration. Richard is committed to increasing value for SSSI members by raising awareness of the spatial profession and working to provide practical development and networking opportunities for SSSI members.

Jason Heritage - VIC representative Jason Heritage has completed the Graduate Diploma through the University of South Australia. He has secured a Data Analyst position with the Victorian Office of the Surveyor General for the Digital Cadastre Modernisation Project. He brings with him 2 years of Survey Field Assistant experience with Alexander Symonds, and 2 years of Secretarial experience on the South Australian YP Committee. Jason is a keen photographer and is eager to explore Melbourne.

Dale Atkinson - QLD representative Dale was raised on a dairy farm in NW Tasmania, he graduated in 2006 with honours from the University of Tasmania.He then worked for M.H Lodewyk in Mount Isa Qld from 2006-2014 becoming a registered Cadastral and Engineering Surveyor in 2013.

Dale and his wife Hayley purchased Jack Booy’s practice in 2014 and moved to Townsville. He is the sole director/cadastral and engineering surveyor/ survey manager/accreditor/town-planner/chainman/draftsman of Atkinson and Booy Surveys. Dale maintains a good relationship many retired surveyors and the firm is greatly enhanced by their input.

He is an active in SSSI member and has held many roles, Mount Isa Town Group Convenor, Northern Group Chair, Queensland Regional Committee, Land Survey Commission, Northern Group Conference Organiser and now Young Professionals.

Tom Jeffrey - SA representative Tom Jeffrey is a Licensed Surveyor based in Adelaide and has covered the fields of Cadastral, Geodetic, Engineering and Construction surveying. He has recently started 360 Surveying, a Surveying and Development Consultancy. Tom is the current SSSI YP Chair of South Australia, involved in the SSSI-SA Regional committee as well as the Surveying and Mapping SA committee.

Tom studied a Bachelor of Surveying and Spatial Sciences (with Honours) at the University of Tasmania before following an employment opportunity to South Australia. Since graduating, Tom has developed a real passion for the industry and feels a sense of pride in the history. He is committed to the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Industry being recognised as a cornerstone of Australia's future.

Nawaraj Tiwari - WA representative Working with nature and wildlife for more than 3 years in India and Nepal, Nawaraj developed a keen interest in landscape connectivity and conservation. He did Master of Geographic Information Science from the University of Queensland to learn how GIS can be used to link fragmented habitat at large landscape. During the study, he learnt Koalas habitat mapping and modelling and developed a landscape resistance model of ecological connectivity for edge sensitive wildlife.

Currently, he is working as a GIS and Remote Sensing Analyst at Sendero Resources Environmental and Geospatial Solutions.

www.spatialsource.com.au 49

sssi Hydrography – Challenging and Diverse Pipeline inspection data.

I

believe the environment, technology and diverse nature of hydrography makes it one of the most challenging and rewarding disciplines of the spatial sciences. Historically hydrography has been focused around the creation of charts and safety of navigation for seafarers but, with the worlds need for more resources, better communication and thirst for knowledge, hydrography is undertaken for far greater pursuits than merely safety of navigation. Not to lessen the importance of safety of navigation but hydrography encompasses essential activities for environmental assessment, offshore construction, pipeline inspection, offshore renewables, coastal zone management, dredging and many more marine related projects.

The modern hydrographic surveyor faces many challenges and, while different from the likes of James Cook and Matthew Flinders, these challenges must be overcome all the same. Technology is improving out of sight and we are now capable of conducting hydrographic surveys in a way we would not have dreamed possible as little as 30 years ago.

We now have Multibeam Echo Sounders, Remotely Operated Vehicles, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, High Accuracy GPS and Bathymetric LiDAR to name a few of the technological advancements.

These new technologies have introduced the challenge of taking electronics into the marine environment, two things that do not go well together. Hydrographic surveyors must understand not only surveying but electronics, networking, serial data interfacing, underwater acoustics and many more concepts to understand the results from these systems.

Hydrography is essentially a form

50 position April/May 2018

of remote sensing and I often say, “hydrography is taking a measurement from a moving platform to something you can’t see and don’t know where it is”. With the latest technology we are now able to repeat this measurement thousands of times a second with precision, accuracy and confidence.

Hydrography is an essential activity to an island nation such as Australia, it underpins maritime trade and is also essential to support coastal infrastructure, resource exploration and export, environmental awareness and coastal zone management.

A hydrographic surveyor is someone who operates in the marine environment often under adverse and trying conditions overcoming rough seas, extreme heat / cold and ever-changing situations. They can find themselves on a small boat or large ship, positioning a drill rig, surveying the beach and littoral zone, climbing a navigation beacon or sitting in an office processing data on a computer.

They must have knowledge of geodesy, navigation, weather, tide levels, currents and datums. They will find themselves

Working on a Navigation Beacon.

deploying equipment over the side and trouble shooting complex problems under critical time pressures. The hydrographic surveyor is often conducting relatively small but important tasks as part of multimillion dollar projects where “getting it wrong” is not an option and can have major consequences, financially, environmentally and can compromise safety of personnel relying on the results.

Surveying in ports is critical in nature, not only for environmental and safety reasons but the stability of the national economy with sea trade accounting for 99% of the country’s exports (infrastructure.gov.au). Hydrographic surveying is vital to keep Australian ports open to facilitate importing of consumer goods and exporting of valuable resources to and from our trading partners.

A hydrographic survey should not be conducted by someone who does not have the experience and knowledge to conduct this type of surveying and indeed the Ports Australia Guidelines stipulate: “The hydrographic survey and other associated tasks will be carried out by, or directly supervised, by a suitably qualified and experienced or preferably an AHSCP Level 1 Certified Hydrographic Surveyor”. Certification is the recognition of education, experience and competence in the field of Hydrographic Surveying and will give the client the confidence that the surveyor conducting the work is both experienced and capable of ensuring the survey is carried out to best industry practice, guidelines and specifications.

Often hydrographic surveying is not considered early enough in a project or given due credit to the successful outcome of minor and major projects.

A career in hydrographic surveying is diverse in nature and will see you in a range of challenging environments conducting survey activities in support of projects that represent considerable value to the national economy. A project is not complete until the hydrographic surveyor has analysed their results and determined if the requirements have been achieved. It is indeed both a challenging job and very rewarding career.

Neil Hewitt Managing Director, Precision Hydrographic Services (PHS) MSc (IHO CatA) MSSSI Certified Professional Hydrographic Surveyor Level 1 (CPHS1)

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