FIG Bulletin

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No. 73, July 2001 – Part II

Commission 2 in Puerto Rico

First Symposium on the International Projection of the Puerto Rican Land Surveyors, San Juan and Mayagüez,
21–23 February 2001

Agrim. Angel Villalba Ortiz, President of Land Surveyors in CIAPR (to right) and Agrim. Israel Otero Rosario received the membership certificate of Colegio de Ingenieros y Agrimensores de Puerto Rico (CIAPR) at the FIG General Assembly. Also the University of Puerto Rico has joined FIG as academic member after the symposium in February, 2001.

The Symposium on the International Projection of the Puerto Rican Land Surveyor was organised by the Universidad Politécnica Hato Rey in San Juan, Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez and the College of Engineers and Land Surveyors of Puerto Rico (Colegio de Ingenieros y Agrimensores de Puerto Rico, CIAPR) 21–23 February 2001. The two main meetings were held at the Universities Politécnica Hato Rey in San Juan and at the public Recinto Universitario in Mayagüez in western part of the country.

The Symposium was arranged mainly for land surveying students and professionals attracting altogether about 80–100 participants.

The list of ten speakers included representatives from CIAPR and professors from both Universities, as well as Prof. Pedro J. Cavero, Vice chair of FIG Commission 2. Prof. Cavero was a special invited guest to this symposium giving two papers, "The role and history of FIG – advantages of being a member" and "The Education of Land Surveyors in Europe – Spain as an example".

The greetings sent by President Robert Foster was read at both meetings.

The Symposium was extremely useful, mainly for students, who got the opportunity to know what FIG is all about, how it works and what benefits the membership can give. These include the facilities that FIG can give in the education world and knowledge on the different fields of professional activities, which are represented in the Federation. Many questions were presented by the students and professionals, not only during the sessions, but also during the informal talks. During both meetings visits to the Departments of Land Surveying were arranged.

Our Puerto Rican colleagues will organise an International Symposium on Surveying Education and Professionalism titled "Challenge for Business Organisation in the Third Millennium" 6–8 February 2002 in San Juan. This symposium is cosponsored by FIG Commissions 1 and 2. Prior to the Symposium also a roundtable meeting for professional associations from the region has been planned. The themes of the symposium are: ethics, business practice, professional development and continuous professional development, professional management, quality assurance, consumer services and legislation affecting business practices in addition to educational themes. Registration fee is US$ 200–300 and US$ 30 for students. Call for papers ends 30 September 2001. More information about the symposium is available on the FIG web site and from CIAPR, e-mail: ciapr@ciapr@org.

One of the main purposes of this symposium is to introduce FIG to the Latin American countries, mainly those located in the Caribbean and in Central America. Nevertheless the symposium is not restricted to these countries, but open to everybody. Our Puerto Rican colleagues have big expectations to this event because it is also the first event in Puerto Rico after CIAPR joined FIG in May 2001. I would like to encourage FIG members to attend this event and promote these kinds of meetings in the region.

After the visit to Puerto Rico Prof. Cavero visited Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic where he met the President of the Land Surveyors Association and three other representatives. Also at this meeting the support given by FIG to Latin America and developing countries was discussed. In addition to closer relations to FIG the need of closer relationship to Spanish Universities was raised. The goal is to have agreements, which allow both the professors and students of the universities to visit other universities for a longer and shorter periods. The Association of Land Surveyors is a branch inside the CODIA (Colegio Dominicano de Ingenieros, Arquitectos y Agrimensores) having 654 members. Their activities cover: "mensura" (fixing the boundaries of properties) 70 per cent; public works 18%, photogrammetry, hydrography and official cadastre 5%, teaching 3% and others 4%.

The number of Universities with Departments of Land Surveying in Dominican Republic is four and the most important of them seems to be the one belonging to the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. The number of students is about 1,300. The curriculum takes 3.5 years including 6 months practising time with a licensed land surveyor. The education is Bachelor level and there are no Master or PhD courses. There are about 30 surveying companies in the country and one of the professionals is a MP.

Prof. Pedro J. Cavero
Vice-Chair of Commission 2

Commission 3 and 7 participation to the
8th National Surveying Assembly in Ankara, Turkey, March 2001

Vital Signals from the Surveyors of Turkey

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Celik (Turkey, local organising committee) and John Holmlund (Canada, Commission 7), at the Chamber of Survey and Cadastre Engineers conference.

This year the Chamber of Surveying Engineers in Turkey organised for its 9,000 members its 8th National Scientific and Technical Surveying Assembly that was held in Ankara in March 2001. FIG Commission 3 as a co-sponsor of this event and Commission 7 joined the conference with presentations. Among all the international experts a remarkable large group of 16 surveyors from Malaysia showed up.

During the conference the FIG representatives also got a good overview on the organisational structure of the Chamber of Surveyors in Turkey, the Land Register and Cadastre in Turkey.

The Chamber of Surveying and Cadastre Engineers (TMMOB-Harita ve Kadastro Mühendisleri Odasi) has about 9,000 members from the private as well as the public sector, half of them having a license. The Chamber is chaired by Mr. Hüseyin Ülkü, President of TMMOB. The Chamber has ten branch offices, which are well distributed all over Turkey, under the head office. The head office also includes a social centre, which is a famous meeting place for surveyors, their clients and guests. In this social centre there are several facilities for business meeting as well as a restaurant for lunch and dinner (visit www.hkmo.org.tr for more information).

The TMMOB has a three-pillar approach to ensure income to the Chamber. Membership fee is about 20 USD per year. In addition, each participant in a tender has to contribute to the Chamber and each surveying document must have a stamp from the Chamber. In some countries exclusive selling of boundary marks ensures income for the Chamber.

The FIG delegation met Dr. Necdet Poyraz, General Director of the Turkish Land Registry and Cadastre (TKGM-Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlügü).

At the National Surveying Assembly reports on projects and good practice were presented. The discussion on the "National Surveying Assembly Strategy" covered topics like "How to improve rulings for the Chamber?", "How to ensure income of the Chamber in future?", and "How to get the political and public awareness for a sustainable surveying profession?"

The exhibition showed trends and solutions on surveying like latest GPS and total station technologies, 3D laser scanning, low cost photogrammetry, national surveying, mapping and vehicle tracking software, etc.

One of the sessions focussed on "Organisation Models of Surveying Associations", "Surveying Markets" and "Standards in Surveying" from different points of view. The international papers were presented in this session. First the Canadian perspective of the surveying business was presented. Then the perspective of surveyors contributing to the reliable management of resources and geo-information on international level (FIG, IAG and ISPRS) were highlighted. It included an appeal for more interdisciplinary cooperation and more mobility and also focussed on surveying and geo-information institutions within the European Union (CLGE, UNECE–Working Party on Land Administration, EUROGI, EuroGeographics, and the Cooperation of European Consulting Providers). Turkish surveyors got an overview about ongoing EU-projects and external cooperation within the EU. Last but not least the Hungarian presentation illustrated the challenging tasks of institutional development in Central and Eastern Europe, with Hungary as an example for a country, which has the aim to complete the adaptation of the "Acquis Communautaire" of the EU within the next 18 months. The role and activities of the Lands and Mapping Organisations were provided, highlighting the widening spectrum of the applications using advanced technology as operational services provided by FOMI. Special emphasis was given to the capacity building and knowledge transfer programmes as OLLO, SDILA and LIME (orchestrated by Prof. Bela Markus of CSLM, Western Hungary University) and the value of cross-border as well as international networking (Panel GI and ABDS). As an example among FIG (explicitly mentioned the Land Market WG lead by AndrasOsskó, Hungary), UNECE WPLA, ECAI and EUROGI was introduced as an interdisciplinary Umbrella Organisation for Geographical Information on European level, which is open for new members, actually national GI association having interdisciplinary nature.

The famous Turkish hospitality proved once again to be so impressive that only words from a fairytale could describe it. The Turkish way of networking is like a message for surveyors all over the world: Having "tea and talk" facilitates solution making a lot.

During the social events it was realised that the Chamber as host organisation could also pave the way to build formal links with international and European (EUROGI) associations.

The innovative side of surveying will also be presented at the Young Surveyors’ Days in Istanbul in May 2001. Also the next ISPRS Congress will be in Istanbul in July 2004 under the theme "Geo-Imagery Bridging continents".

Commission 5 Working Group on Kinematic and Integrated
Positioning Systems

Mobile Mapping Symposium in Cairo in January 2001

Front left: Dr. Naser El-Sheimy, Dr. Ibrahim Shaker, Prof. Jean-Marie Becker, Prof Mohamed Sheriah. Back left: Mikael Lijile, Dr. Atef Fayad, Prof. Gerard Lachapelle, Prof. Adel Hagag.

The 3rd International Symposium on Mobile Mapping Technology was successfully held in Cairo, Egypt, January 3–5, 2001. It was co-organised by Ain Shams University, Egypt, the ISPRS Commission II (WG II.1 "Real time Mobile Mapping"), the FIG Commission 5 (WG 5.3 "Kinematic and Integrated Positioning Systems"), the IAG Special Commission IV (WG SC4.1 "Mobile Multi-Sensor Systems"), the University of Calgary, the Egyptian Survey Authority and the Chinese National Lab for Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing. The symposium was financially supported by Ashtech-Magellan Corp. (USA/UK), Applanix Corp. (Canada), and Premier GPS Inc. (Canada).

From Left: Prof. Hassan Ghallab, President of Ain Shams University, and Prof. Ibrahim El-Domery, the Egyptian Minster of Transportation, Prof. Mohamed Sheriah, the Dean of Faculty of Engineering of Ain Shams University, Dr. Naser El-Sheimy, Convenor of the Symposium.

The symposium provided a stimulating casual environment to promote scientific presentations, interactive discussions, and information exchange. It brought together 350 participants from 29 countries, who are specialists, engineers, users and those interested in mobile mapping technology, kinematic real-time positioning, sensor integration and calibration, feature extraction and 3-D data acquisition. 90 oral presentations in 18 sessions reported most recent R&D and application achievements of mobile mapping. The proceedings of the symposium, edited by Dr. Naser El-Sheimy, have been produced in a CD and can be ordered from the Department of Geomatics Engineering, The University of Calgary (e-mail Marguerite Anderson: marguerite@geomatics. ucalgary.ca).

The opening ceremony was chaired by Dr. Naser El-Sheimy, Convenor, and included welcome speeches by representatives of the sponsoring organisations, followed by welcome speeches by Prof. Mohamed Sheriah, the Dean of Faculty of Engineering of Ain Shams University, Prof. Hassan Ghallab, President of Ain Shams University, and Prof. Ibrahim El-Domery, the Egyptian Minister of Transportation. Prof. Gerard Lachapelle gave a very informative keynote address on "Location: A 21st Century Utility" where he described how location and navigation technology, user requirements and new applications drive each other, with the users as the major beneficiaries. He predicted that personal location and navigation applications will capture a large share of the location and navigation markets in the decade ahead.

The exciting technical program was complemented by a most interesting and educational social program that included a night cruise on the river Nile, a Sound and Light show at the Pyramids and individual visits to the countless historical sites of Cairo. Cairo is the oldest lived-in city in the world and is a historical treasure trove and the Egyptians are keenly aware of their own and other cultures and were most gracious hosts which promises good for the FIG Working Week to be held in Cairo in May 2005.

The symposium was structured in such a way that features common to all Mobile Mapping Systems (MMS) were treated first before specific application, new applications and trends in MMS were considered. Common features included the mathematical framework of direct georeferencing for land and airborne imaging sensors, kinematic positioning, object extraction and recognition, and estimation techniques common to all MMS. Only after these common features had been treated, specific sessions were dedicated to cover the full spectrum of Mobile Mapping Technology. The following highlights the major features of papers presented at the symposium; they can be categorised as follows:

It was very clear from the number of papers presented at the symposium that building a mobile mapping system by integrating off-the-shelf hardware and software components is getting easier, but it requires significant courage, investment and effort. The symposium witnessed development activities by many universities and companies on almost all continents. Land-based systems continue to demonstrate the power promised at the early time of the development, for example in road and railway survey, utility survey and others. The takeover of part of such traditional surveying markets is believed to be only a start. Meanwhile, the very same concept has been transferred to airborne and backpack systems where positional and orientational sensors are integrated with imaging sensors to approach real-time mapping that is not restricted to where only land vehicles can reach. The "dream" is to achieve the same level of ground position accuracy as traditional aerial triangulation. The following table summarises some of the characteristics of the systems presented during the symposium.

Some of the new developments presented during the symposium are:

Helicopter Based Portable Handheld MMS for Avalanche Mapping: The system is developed by the Photogrammetric lab of the Institute of Geomatics at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. It integrates light aerial camera and GPS/INS components to a platform that is free of the helicopter in 6 degrees of freedom. Experimental studies performed in the avalanche test site of Vallée de la Sionne allow determining the correct ratio between the system accuracy versus its flexibility. Experiments performed during the last two years in Vallée de la Sionne avalanche test site showed that helicopter-based photogrammetry is able to provide snow volume measurements with an accuracy of 20–30 cm when good conditions for accurate exterior orientation and contrast are fulfilled.

A Portable MMS for the Survey Community: The system is developed by the Department of Geomatics Engineering at the University of Calgary. The goal of the system development is to overcome the drawbacks of current mobile mapping systems – namely their high cost, large size, and complexity – which have restricted their widespread adoption in the survey industry. The development of such a system satisfies the demand for a mobile mapping system that can compete both cost-wise and in user friendliness with current backpack GPS systems and conventional terrestrial survey systems, while realising the significant gains in efficiency typical for MMS. The system integrates a digital magnetic compass, dual-frequency GPS receiver and consumer digital camera into a multi-sensor mapping system. First system testing indicates that with three images at a 20 m object-to-camera distance, absolute accuracies of fewer than 25 cm are achieved. This is comparable to current single-frequency GPS data acquisition systems. The internal agreement of points surveyed using the system is under 10 cm.

Airborne Laser-ranging and Multi-spectral Imaging Mapping System (ALMIMS): The system is a multi-sensor mapping system developed by the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications of Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is integrated with multi-spectral imaging scanner, laser ranging scanner, Global Positioning System (GPS), and Inertia Navigating System (INS), all of which are tightly coupled and synchronised, insuring the pixel-level correspondence of image and laser ranging points. The result is a high-resolution multi-spectral image overlapped with laser ranging grids at certain intervals. It can produce ortho-rectified images, digital surface models, contour maps, and perspective maps at near real-time without ground control points. It can be used for automatic buildings/tree extraction, and semi-automatic road tracing.

DORIS (Differential Ortho-Rectification Imagery System): DORIS is an airborne multi-sensor mapping system, which has been under development for years at Alberta Research Council. DORIS combines a laser-scanning technology with digital imaging technology to produce high-resolution and highly accurate ortho-rectified planimetric image maps. The focus of DORIS is on acquiring data for fundamental biophysical entities of sustainable forest eco-systems and reducing the cost of the planning and conduct of forest operations.

Automatic Bald Digital Terrain Model Reconstruction from Digital Surface Data Acquired from an Airborne SAR System: Two approaches for automatic reconstruction of bald DTMs from Digital Surface Models (DSMs) are presented in this paper; namely hierarchical and non-hierarchical approaches. The non-hierarchical approach is mainly used for urban areas while the hierarchical approach is suitable to different terrain types and data with different spatial resolutions. Test results show that for the hierarchical approach the accuracy of the reconstructed bald DTM, when referenced against bald terrain surface models generated from a Lidar mapping system, is typically less than 1.25 meters RMSE in urban and low mountain areas. This is obviously an acceptable result as the accuracy of the original SAR DSM is at 1–2 meter (RMSE) level.

Automatic Generation of a Hierarchical DEM for Mars Rover Navigation: This paper presents techniques for the generation of a hierarchical DEM using descent and rover imagery for Mars mapping and rover localisation. During a descending process of a Mars spacecraft, ten descent images may be taken at approximately every half of the altitude. The images can be used to generate an initial DEM of the landing site. The paper proposed a further refinement technique for the DEM both in accuracy and resolution to form a five-layer hierarchical DEM, with the resolution ranging from one centimeter in the immediate area of the landing center to one meter in the boundary region about 1 km away from the center. The DEM is generated by using the hierarchical descent images with an increasing sequence of resolutions. The produced hierarchical DEM can be used for an interactive system to assist rover traverse design and for landmark extraction for automatic Mars rover localisation. The authors mentioned that in future research, the rover images will also be used to expand the hierarchical DEM as the rover traverses farther from the landing center. The DEM will be refined and expanded as more new rover images become available.

Integrating Data From Terrestrial Mobile Mapping Systems and Aerial Imagery for Change Detection Purposes: Data fusion from different sources is one of the key problems facing the photogrammetric and computer vision research communities. In this paper, a new approach for combining data from terrestrial Mobile Mapping Systems (MMS) and aerial imagery was introduced. Road network data, captured by a MMS, is used to determine the Exterior Orientation Parameters (EOP) of an aerial image – Single Photo Resection (SPR).

Integrating photogrammetric data from mobile ship-borne and airborne systems for support conservation process, and environmental analysis of cost heritage along the "CinqueTerre" coast in the Gulf of Liguria region, Italy: The project is directed to emphasize the environmental heritage, on which Levanto and Bonassola base their own tourist economy, focussing the guide lines and the analysis required for the landscape insertion of the recovering project of the old railway tunnel facet to the seacoast, work over land and work over sea, through 3D virtual navigation on the gulf of Levanto and on urban centre.

Automatic Building extraction from airborne laser systems: This paper introduces a series of building extraction techniques compatible with Airborne Laser-ranging and Multiple-spectral Imaging Mapping System (ALMIMS), including shadow-based method for large buildings in urban area with sparse laser ranging points, and direct laser-point segmentation method for buildings in rural areas. These techniques perform well in semi-real-time, thus providing a fast data source for GIS system.

Integration of Mobile Phone Location Services into Intelligent GPS Vehicle Navigation Systems: GPS for position determination in vehicle navigation systems in stand alone mode works quite well only for open areas. It is obvious that in the case of obstruction of satellite-receiver visibility either position accuracy is bad or position determination is not possible. In cities with high-rise buildings, satellite visibility is a very critical issue for intelligent vehicle navigation systems. Therefore GPS positioning has to be combined with other methods, e.g. dead reckoning (DR) and map matching. Apart from this, other new technologies are available nowadays, which can also be employed in navigation systems. In particular, mobile phones of the next generation, the so-called 3G (Third Generation) phones, will provide the ability to determine the location of any mobile phone subscriber anywhere, anytime, with a precision required for navigation systems. Thereby different strategies for position determination can be employed. It is claimed that the position fix can be obtained with an accuracy in the order of ±125 m using current technologies in the widespread second generation GSM network. For the use of 3G mobile phones in the UTMS network, however, an increase in accuracy for the position determination by a factor up to 10 is expected. In this paper, preliminary results on the integration of mobile phone location services for temporary position determination into the system design is investigated.

The continual development of Mobile Multi-Sensor Systems (MMS) is stimulating the development of intelligent processing techniques and new areas of application. Advanced techniques such as neural networks and snake models are currently under development to automate the measuring procedures and automatic object recognition from mobile mapping data. The two unique advantages of MMS-generated data: Images have unknown exterior orientation parameters; and the image sequences are along a known path

These two advantages make the automation of object recognition and measuring procedures more efficient and robust. The science of multiple image based matching has found its application in mobile mapping processing. Bayesian networks have been actively researched and promise great potential for feature extraction. Real-time automation, in our opinion, remains to be the future of processing techniques for MMS. Some of the emerging processing techniques presented during the symposium are:

• Motion estimation by Vision for Mobile Mapping with a Motorcycle

• Motion Tracking Framework for Mobile Appliances

• Online GIS Module for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

• Innovative Active-Vision-Based Approach for Traffic Surveillance and Control.

The technological development is still very rapid and major contributions in the area of MMS can be expected in years to come. The symposium shows a wide variety of applications including mapping, GIS, tracking, and navigation. Once different user groups better understand the potential of these techniques, a further diversification of applications areas can be expected. However, continued research and commercial development of mobile mapping systems depends on the success in implementing potential applications, creating new markets and stimulating demand for this technology.

The next International Conference on Mobile Mapping Technology will be held in Kuming, China in Mid-August 2003.

Commission 6

The 10th International Symposium on Deformation Measurements in Orange, California, USA, March 2001

Chair of FIG Working Group 6.1 Cecilia Whitaker of MWD, chair of the organising committee, Adam Chrzanowski, chair of FIG working group 6.1, and Mike Duffy of MWD, member of the organising committee.

The 10th International Symposium of the FIG Working Group 6.1 on Deformation Measurements took place in Orange, California, on March 19–22, 2001. The symposium was hosted by the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California in co-operation with the United States Geological Survey, Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Orbit and Permanent Array Centre, the Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering of the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and Leica Geosystems. Cecilia Whitaker of MWD did a splendid job as the chair of the organising committee. The organisation of the symposium was flawless. Included in the event were 11 technical sessions, a poster session, an exhibition of geodetic and geotechnical instruments, and the extremely interesting post-symposium technical tour to Diamond Valley Lake, the site of a fully automated survey scheme for deformation monitoring of three large earthen dams surrounding the largest water reservoir in Southern California.

Participants in front of one of the shelters of the robotic total stations at Diamond Valley Lake, Prof. Dr. S. Oszczak of Poland (on left), Dr. Anna Szostak-Chrzanowski of Canada, and Prof. Dr. S. Cacon of Poland.

Over 120 geodetic, structural, geophysical, and geomechanical specialists from 24 countries attended the symposium and 65 papers were presented. The symposium was opened by Jerome Ives, Vice-President of FIG (USA), and Adam Chrzanowski of Canada, chairman of the FIG WG 6.1, who reviewed the activity of the Working Group. Here one should mention that the FIG WG.6.1 is one of the most active international study groups on the subject of deformation monitoring and analysis in engineering and geoscience projects. Through an interdisciplinary approach to deformation studies, the Working Group 6.1 links FIG surveying and geodetic specialists with specialists in structural, mining, geomechanical, and geophysical disciplines.

The opening session included a very interesting keynote technical paper, "An Automated and Integrated Monitoring Program for Diamond Valley Lake", presented by authors from MWD and the University of New Brunswick.

Papers of technical sessions covered the topics of:

• New Techniques in Monitoring Surveys

• Software for Deformation Data Collection, Processing, and Analysis

• Earth Crustal Deformation, Earthquakes, and Regional Movements

• Deformation Monitoring and Modelling of Large Dams

• Deformation Effects of Mining and Deep Excavations

• Structural Deformations, and

• Theory of Deformation Analysis.

Most of the papers were of a very high standard presenting innovative approaches and new research results in deformation monitoring and analysis. The last session included the final report of the ad hoc Committee of WG 6.1 on "Models and Terminology for the Analysis of Geodetic Monitoring" prepared by Walter Welsch and Otto Heunecke of Germany. The report is published in the FIG Publication series no. 25 and is also available on FIG web site. Proceedings of the symposium on deformation measurements can be accessed on the FIG web site at www.fig.net.

The aforementioned technical tour to the Diamond Valley Lake monitoring project, about 150 km south-east of Los Angeles, was a highlight of the symposium. The project includes a fully automated system of geotechnical instrumentation and several robotic total stations (Leica TCA1800) continuously observing about 300 targets on the dam faces. There are 5 active GPS stations on the crests of the dams connected to the GPS network of Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) of Southern California. At the site, Cecilia Whitaker and Mike Duffy of MWD demonstrated the operation of the robotic monitoring system run by DIMONS software developed at the University of New Brunswick. The tour was followed by a country-style BBQ and excellent rodeo show including a pretty looking rodeo championess of USA.

The organising committee should be congratulated for the very successful symposium. The next, 11th International Symposium on Deformation Measurements, will be held in Santorini, Greece in 2003.

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