Unmanned versus manned unwrapped - GIS Professional€¦ · Unmanned versus manned unwrapped. . . joining the geography jigsaw ... op ic al ty GSPr . alk i ng toV e sL w rc hf m yv

Unmanned versus manned unwrapped

. . . joining the geography jigsaw

Addressing can be an existential problem!

Is GovCo good or bad for open data?

The data or the drone?

Pipes & drains: GI can manage water assets

Open data: a coherent government strategy?

Out with Highland Flings. Angus goes for disco

Geospatial & BIM: can we bring it together?

New column: it’s GeoBalls!

plus GiSPro’s BIG MAP featureNews | People | Products & Services | GiSPro’s columnists

issue 63 : April 2015

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read on. . .

Front cover: What are theadvantages of using UAV's over

manned aircraft? Bluesky's JamesEddy weighs up the pros & cons.

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to subscribe to GiSPro, go towww.pvpubs.com/GISProfessional/Home

contentsIssue No 63 April 2015

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p. 20

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Is OS GovCo good or bad for open data?Ellen Broad examines the conversion of Ordnance Survey fromtrading fund to government-owned company (GovCo).

Addressing can be an existential problem!Around the world four billion people do not have a legal identity andcannot establish one without some form of address, says Robin Waters.

GI and water asset managementMost pipes and drains are underground and under-mapped. Theyare subject to potential damage reports Jeremy Hidderley.

UAVs vs MAVsJames Eddy explores the phenomena of UAV’s in the UK and discussesthe potential impact on the aerial mapping, surveying and GIS sectors.

The data or the drone?Lucy Hamilton from Korec argues that, as the UAV market matures,geospatial professionals should concentrate on that data.

Scottish council brings back discos!Angus Council has changed its approach to the use of spatial informationover the last five years. Roger Garbett and Ross McDonald explain.

An insider’s view on….openIan Coady from the Office for National Statistics explains how welack a coherent government strategy for ‘open’ data.

Geospatial and buildingsThe GIS interface with BIM involves many planning, utility andconstruction professionals explains Christine Easterfield.

Fire & Rescue service opts for Cadcorp cororate GISCambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire Authority has contracted withCadcorp for the supply of a corporate geographic information system.

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Opportunity knocksWell, I am back in the editor’s chair, for awhile at least. Drop me a line if you’d like to apply for theposition. It’s not full-time employment, carries no pension and has only a meagre expenses budget anda small honorarium. In return, we offer a great opportunity to get closely involved in geo issues acrossthe board, network and learn what’s happening at lots of geo events, meet and question the opinionformers, thought leaders and other shakers and disrupters. The position might suit someone who isalready working, perhaps in consultancy, but is not allied to any large supplier or user organisation.Drop me a line to [email protected]. Meanwhile, Robin Waters is reverting to his previous role asFeatures Editor and I thank him for what he has done over the last three years in raising the pace andtopicality at GiSPro.

Talking to Vanessa Lawrence a little while ago she was firmly of the view that government really hasgot the message about geodata. Most branches of government, national and local, now understandthat everything happens somewhere and recording its location is worthwhile. But does governmentunderstand that addressing is not just a database of house numbers with postcodes? I suspect not, asIan Coady of the Office for National Statistics points out in his column “An insider’s view on… open”(page 27) As our politicians have struggled to grasp and resolve the anomaly of having three differentgovernment address datasets, we now have the creation and funding of a fourth, to be free and opento all and relying on voluntary data contributions. As Ian argues, what we really need is a governmentstrategy for consolidating the datasets that haven’t been sold off and making them open.

As we reported in the last issue (GiSPro February 2015), Ordnance Survey is changing its trading entityto that of a government owned company. I am delighted to publish a detailed analysis and discussionof what this may mean for the mapping agency and its customers. Ellen Broad of the Open DataInstitute sets out the key questions to be answered and provides some of the answers (page 12 Is OSGovCo good or bad for open data?). Let’s hope that Carol Tullo’s assertive comment is fulfilled: “. . .ensuring that the data remains Crown owned is the public commitment that will be delivered.”

With predictions that spending on UAVs will double in the next ten years, two articles highlight firstlythat it’s the data where the focus needs to be (page 22 It’s the data not the drone), while James Eddyof Bluesky compares the licensing, training and legislative regimes, together with the applications, forboth fixed-wing piloted aircraft and UAVs. He also wonders whether a more realistic competitor toboth technologies may eventually be satellite imagery, if it can one day match temporal frequency,control and spatial resolution.

Christine Easterfield of Cambashie sounds a cautionary note for those too deep in the GIS woods tosee the trees (page 28 Geospatial and buildings: can we bring it all together?). Can we really bring GISand BIM together? She reminds us that the GIS companies are dwarfed by the likes of Autodesk,Bentley and Dassault Système. The latter perhaps not showing on your radar but massive inmanufacturing CAD. The key game changers and drivers could be the coming so-called smarttechnologies like energy generation and occupancy and travel patterns.

A new feature in this issue is a double-page map (pages 18 & 19). The first (and probably not the last)comes from BrilliantMaps.com. If you know of other maps that add real insight to the world anddemonstrate the power of GIS and cartography which impart information, drop me a note [email protected].

Finally, this publication is largely an election-free zone. But we do just allude to it in our new GeoBallscolumn (page 8). The author is a seasoned if somewhat jaundiced viewer of the geo scene, who caneven remember the first AGI conference in Brighton in 1989.

Stephen Booth, Editor

welcometo the April 2015 issue of GIS Professional. . .

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. . . we reallyneed. . . a

governmentstrategy for

consolidatingthe datasetsthat haven’t

been sold off. . .

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joining the geography jigsaw

from the editorIssue No 63 April 2015

data releases are best supportedby additional resources and wehave explored ways to improveand modify our licenses andprovide supporting initiatives toaid further innovation.”

OS will also set up aGeospatial Innovation Hub toprovide a space for it to meet face-to-face with developers, provideadvice and support the creation ofnew products and services,building on its experience of theGeoVation programme.

The announcement washailed by business secretaryVince Cable, who said: “Makingthis data more accessible meansmore small and mediumcompanies will be able to useOrdnance Survey’s world leadingmaps, combining geographicaldata from multiple sources andvisualising them at a high level ofdetail. I am sure this will inspire anumber of companies to createsophisticated new products.”More at www.ukauthority.com

OS has also provided detailsof other new open dataproducts: an Open WaterNetwork covering Great Britain’srivers; a new Gazetteer; and therelease of unique propertyreference numbers (UPRNs) on aroyalty free and open basis.

OGC seeks comment on 3DportrayalOpen Geospatial Consortium isseeking comment on its candidateOGC 3D Portrayal Service (3DPS)standard, which is aimed atachieving interoperability betweensoft-wares for airborne and mobilelaser scanning, photo-grammetricmethods for terrain data anddetailed 3D models of the builtenvironment. OGC has beenworking with the Web3DConsortium to address the needfor interoperability, as well as thecontent challenges of volume,access speed, and diversity ofdevices. While Web3D has focusedon open standards for real-time 3Dvisualization, including streaming,OGC has focused on developing a


Annual Exemplar AwardsGeoPlace hasopened up itsannual ExemplarAwards pro-gramme to localauthorities who

use address or street data ininnovative ways. The awardshighlight best practice in localauthorities using land andproperty and street information totie different services from across

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organisations together to give a‘property level view of services’.Outputs from the awards are usedto demonstrate best practice rightacross Great Britain. They are alsoused to underline the importanceof sharing data using existingcouncil resources.

Keynote speakers this yearinclude Cllr Jason Kitcat, leaderof Brighton and Hove CityCouncil, who will give histhoughts around ‘Local

authority data-sharing & digitaltransformation’ and Paul Badenfrom the Department ofTransport who will discuss‘Delivering the next generationof road mapping for Englandand Wales’.

This year there is a specialaward, sponsored by the LocalDigital Campaign, for the ‘bestexample of innovation in localdigital services underpinned bylocal address/street data’. TheDepartment for Communities andLocal Government campaignfosters sharing and co-creationamong local and centralgovernment around the use ofdigital tools and expertise toimprove public services. A keyfocus for the judges will be ademonstration of both savingsdelivered and collaboration acrossservices or organisations, whilstmeeting a clear user need.

Other categories this yearinclude: Exemplar Award, LocalDigital Award, Peer Award andData Quality and ImprovementAwards. The Awards will bepresented at GeoPlace’s annualconference and exhibition on19th May at Edgbaston CricketGround in Birmingham. Moreat: www.geoplace.co.uk

More open data from OSA report on the websiteUKAuthority.com states thatOrdnance Survey has launched anew set of street level data, OSOpenMap, which will beavailable for developers buildingnew products. Restrictions on there-use of so called derived data,which is used in products sold bydevelopers but originated withOS, have long been a focus ofcomplaints from the geospatialtechnology industry.

Although not explicitlymentioning derived data, OS hassaid it is committed to improvingits licensing terms to encouragere-use. Neil Ackroyd, actingdirector general and chiefexecutive, adds: “At OrdnanceSurvey we believe that open

Issue No 63 April 2014

news

Ordnance Survey has announced OS Open Map – Local in beta, the mostdetailed open data product to date. The vector dataset can provide abackdrop for integrating and visualising analytical datasets. It comes withan enhanced level of detail for buildings – including functional sites such ashospitals and schools, an extended naming of roads and an extensive set ofcartographic names optimised for digital styling and presentation. Designedto work with other OS OpenData products, it will be available in GML 3.2and ESRI Shapefile formats. OS say they have developed it followingfeedback from the OpenData User Community who asked for greaterflexibility, more building detail and more options for customising the data.

“We anticipate a wide range of uses for the dataset, across publicsector and commercial enterprise” said an OS spokesperson, citing that itcould provide a locational backdrop map to compare sites and displaythird party datasets, simply. “In retail, this could help a business to choosethe right place to locate a new site. Imagine a global café chain wantedto find the best location for a new food outlet, wanting a vacant spacewith a suitable potential customer base and knowing where theircompetition lies. Using OS Open Map – Local, they could overlaydemographics for neighbourhoods such as employment, crime andeducation rankings, as well as the location of existing food outlets. Theabsence of competitors may indicate that the area is completelyunsuitable for the type of premise they are planning, whereas thepresence of some competition tells them that their type of business couldthrive in that area if they can depose the competition. Crime rankingswould be of interest to see if insurance premiums might be too high.”

OS Open Map – Local launches

OS director Peter Ter Haar shows the latest datasetsto Business Secretary Vince Cable.

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service interface to provideinteroperable access to 3Dgeospatial data servers.

OGC has also announced theUnified Geo Data ReferenceModel for Law Enforcement andPublic Safety as best practice,providing guidance for lawenforcement, civil security andpublic safety organizationsdeveloping applications frommobile to enterprise systems thatrequire communication and datasharing between many, oftengeographically distributed, users.The move, which also triggeredan announcement from Esri andIntergraph that they are“collaborating to enhancegeospatial capabilities for publicsafety and security agencies”,defines a data model for encodingspatially enabled data so users caneasily and effectively share lawenforcement and public safetydata across jurisdictional andnational boundaries. More at:http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/130

Off-the-shelf move forHerts CouncilNorth Hertfordshire DistrictCouncil (NHDC) is migrating frombespoke web mapping to an off-the-shelf application from Britishsoftware developer, Cadcorp. The

upgrade will make interactive webmapping available to more than300 council employees whoalready use it on a daily basis ontasks as diverse as querying landownership to planning thelocation of polling stations.NHDC’s GIS manager, JohnBarnacle, explains, “The councillicensed Cadcorp’s geospatial webservices engine, GeognoSIS, in2005 and Cadcorp developersbuilt us an associated web-mapping application to our ownspecifications based on thatengine. The application has servedus well for the last ten years, bothas a public-facing website, and asa back-office application.However, we are constantlyreviewing our IT infrastructure,and we have decided now is thetime to make a step change in ourinvestment in GIS. We will bereplacing a bespoke 32-bit webmapping application with a 64-bitversion of Cadcorp’s off-the-shelfproduct – Web Map Layers 8.0. Itwill bring us new functionality, amodern and responsive userinterface, and we will have future-proofed our investment in GIS.”

Web Map Layers will bemanaged from the council officesin Letchworth, a town of 33,000people and the world’s firstGarden City. The management of

green space continues to be acouncil priority, explains Barnacle:“Our grounds maintenancecontractors are enthusiastic usersof web mapping in Letchworthand elsewhere. When we askthem to maintain playing fields,for example, they will go to theweb. . . identify the location,measure the land area to betreated, and calculate the amountof fertiliser to be applied. Theyare able to create maps as PDFdocuments and share theseelectronically with theirworkforce. For example they willbe able to view and query mapdata online in the field usingsmartphones and tablets.”

BRIEFS

Ordnance Surveyhas a new logo.Mercifully it seemswe’ve been spared

a press release announcing it orworse describing it in a torrent ofPR psycho babble. It’s actuallyrather cute!

Registration is now open for EsriUK’s annual conference. Set for19th May at the QEII ConferenceCentre in Westminster, this year’sevent is expected to attract arecord number of delegates.

There is more news of companies and organisations on our website at www.location-source.com To get your company featured on these pages call Sharon Robson on +44 (0)1438 352617


news

More at http://www.esriuk.com/events/annual-conference-2015

A new website (www.MapMyRights.org) is soon to belaunched and will includeresearch results from the“Crowdsourced Land Rights”working group of FIGCommission 7, led by RobinMcLaren, Director of Know EdgeLtd. Robin will continue toprovide management consultingservices worldwide in the landpolicy, land administration andGIS domains through hisconsulting company.

1Spatial plc is acquiring asubstantial share in its US partnerLaser Scan Inc. The move will help1Spatial develop key sectors in theUS and throughout the Americas,strengthening it with additionalservices and products such as1SMS solutions and services.

Ministerial approval has beengiven by transport ministerRobert Goodwill, for OrdnanceSurvey to work with GeoPlace,the Department for Transportand other stakeholders todevelop a new range ofHighways products that combinethe best of data submitted bylocal authorities through the

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National Street Gazetteer (NSG)and the OS’s Integrated TransportNetwork (ITN) product. The moveis aimed at enabling betterplanning, management andmore informative routing optionsacross the road network.

Thanks to a new website called theNational Land Use Planning Portal(NLUPP), Rwandans connected tothe internet have access to land-use plans and other spatial data,reducing the time it takes to findmaps and documents. Built onEsri’s ArcGIS platform by theRwanda Natural ResourcesAuthority with the support of theUS Agency for InternationalDevelopment the portal is the firstof its kind in Africa.

Hazard modelling specialist JBARisk Management and emapsitehave broadened their partnershipto offer a wider choice of floodrisk data. Insurers, underwriters,loss adjusters and claimsmanagers are among those set tobenefit from wider availability ofJBA data through emapsite’s‘Data as a Service’ (DaaS) on-demand location contentplatform. Newly-available JBAdata includes Annual DamageRatio, the European Flood Modeland the Global Flood Map.

eSpatial has won a place on theUK government’s on-lineprocurement agreement, G-Cloud6, operated by the CrownCommercial Service (CCS). Publicsector bodies can now trial andpurchase eSpatial onlinemapping software on G-Cloud’sDigital Marketplace. eSpatial canbe found listed in the ‘Software-as-a-Service’ section.

PEOPLE

Nigel Clifford, who has ageography degree fromCambridge and is a Fellow of theRoyal Geographical Society, isthe new chief executive ofOrdnance Survey. He takes up

leadership of the £145mturnover organisation in June,succeeding Neil Ackroyd whohas been acting CEO sinceVanessa Lawrence stepped downlast year. Clifford has held similarroles with Procserve Holdings,Micro Focus International,Symbian Soft-ware, TertioTelecoms, Nokia (senior vicepresident), Glasgow Royal

I n f i r m a r yUniversity NHSTrust andvarious seniorroles in Cable &Wireless andBT.

Following an open competitionoverseen by the Civil ServiceCommission, Graham Farrant hasbeen appointed chief executiveand chief land registrar for theLand Registry. Farrant, whoreplaces Ed Lester, is currentlychief executive of ThurrockCouncil and recently took on thesame role at Brentwood Council.In the recent past, he also held thechief executive role on an interimbasis for the London Borough ofBarking and Dagenham.

thinkWhere has appointedBruce Beveridge as a non-executive director and chair. Hehas extensive senior executiveand board experience with acareer which has included theGovernment Legal Service forScotland and roles as LegalSecretary to the Lord Presidentof the Court of Session, DeputyKeeper at Registers of Scotlandand Head of Rural Communities

at the ScottishG o v e r nm e n tand untilrecently wasPresident of theLaw Society ofScotland.

Carol Agius has been appointedAdministrator for the Euro-peanregional committee of theUnited Nations Initiative on

Global Geospatial InformationManagement (UN-GGIM).Carol, who is from Malta, hasextensive experience of leadingmulti-national expert groupshaving been Chair ofEuroGeographics’ QualityKnowledge Exchange Networkfor seven years. She was a keyorganiser of the recentInternational Workshop onSpatial Data and Map Quality,has post-graduate degrees inboth GIS and Strategic QualityManagement and is also a

c h a r t e r e dg e o g r a p h e rwith more than20 years’involvement inthe geospatialcommunity.

Three recent appointments atGetmapping include CarlGreenman who joins as ageospatial specialist. PreviouslyCarl worked as a GIS surveyor fora housing association as well as astint with Bath and North EastSomerset Council. Meanwhile,Asim Malik joins as an ITinfrastructure support engineerand Fiona Kent is Getmapping’snew marketing manager. Withover 20 years B2B marketingexperience she has worked withbrands like the AA, Centrica,CORGI and Towergate.

Han Wammes has joined iSpatialas business develop-mentmanager. He joins from Oracleand Intergraph and has beenassigned to help grow thecompany’s business in theDutch market and Smart Citiesarena. Wammes brings with himover 30 years of experience inGIS and IT technology, as well asindustry knowledge andenterprise architect skills. Hisexperience lends itself toopening up geospatiali n f o r m a t i o n - l i f e c y c l e -management discussions, withenterprises dealing with qualityand interoperability issues.


news & people

GeoBallsby Geopedantio

An occasional column where wehighlight some of the weird,bizarre, quirky and downrightdumb geo stuff that comes overthe ether to us.

Did you miss “International DronesDay” on Friday 13 March? So did I.I’ve no idea who dreamt it up or why,but it encouraged a gushing pressrelease from a PR company acting onbehalf of a major developer of UAVs.What next, a thermal imaging day?

This next item is geo-related in so muchas you may recognise the companyculture. Take a read of: http://adequateman.deadspin.com/how-to-survive-your-first-tech-job-1687097002 There is good advice forthose embarking on a career in big tech.Reminds me of some of those ideas thatwere going around in the 90s on how tomake an impact at a meeting. One was,plunge a large Bowie knife into the tablewith the words, “Let’s get this suckerstarted!” Less dramatic but equallyalarming was to turn to the person nextto you and whisper “I see dead people”.

The BBC’s website has a great articleon a new island arising from avolcano near Tonga [www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-31848255]. Alasan accompanying map was rather lessinformative. It showed the chain ofislands but an inset cartouche ofAustralia and New Zealand gave noclue as to where the islands werelocated. Perhaps it was for scale, likethose huge chunks that break off theAntarctic ice shelf the size of Wales.In which case Tonga occupies much ofNew South Wales, South Australiaand Victoria.

With a general election looming youmay want to check out your favouredcandidate’s geographical knowledge.Our cousins across the Atlantic are aregular source of shaky geography.Some years ago presidential candidateSarah Palin thought Africa was acountry, while a reporter once asked apasser-by which country Americashould attack next (following Iraq andAfghanistan). The hapless individualconfidently said France and identifiedits location as Australia on a worldmap. More recently, senator TomCotton lambasted Iran with thethoughtful insight that: “They alreadycontrol Tehran”. To be fair, I suspectmany Brits are just as ignorant, but wedon’t usually push ourselves forward to be the people’s representatives.

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10th annual conference and exhibition for local government address, street information and geographic information professionals in Great Britain

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columnist adena schutzberg


. . . a partner’sdecisions can

throw a wrenchin a relationship;

having a “hotspare”. . . isbecoming anecessity.

“

“IT’S BEEN SEVERAL MONTHS since a “big”acquisition in the geospatial industry. Uber, the well-known mobile-app-based transportation company,acquired deCarta, a small independent mapping andspatial analysis software company.

The acquisition reveals several truisms about thestate of our industry. I want to highlight them herebecause we as insiders sometimes cannot see thebusiness forest due to the technology trees.

All companies are tech companies A few years agoTom Foremski and others began arguing, quite correctly,that all companies are media companies. It’s equally truethat today all companies are technology companies.

If there was a scale that measures how much abusiness’ success depended on technology, I’d estimatethat UPS (a package delivery company founded in 1907),Amazon (founded 1994), and Uber (founded 2009)come in at roughly 90%. Jack Levis of UPS memorablystated that the company evolved over time from atrucking company that used technology to a technology

company that just happens to use trucks. Amazon andUber, in contrast, were born as technology concerns. Mylocal coffee shop and hair salon are perhaps tapping just10% technology, but that percentage is growing. Bothchains recently stepped up their use of technology formarketing and customer retention and are gatheringpersonal details to use to offer incentives.

Mapping startups TechCrunch hosted the mostcited article I found on Uber’s March 2015 acquisition:“Uber is Buying Map Tech Startup deCarta In AnUndisclosed Deal.” Several tech watchers inside ourindustry questioning the use of the term “startup” todescribe 19 year old, 40 employee deCarta. I certainlydon’t consider the company that was part of theoriginal Google Maps implementation a startup!

I think TechCrunch stated what most peopleoutside of our industry believe: any organization that’snot the Ordnance Survey, National Geographic or RandMcNally is a mapping startup. Why? Mappingcompanies like TomTom, Nokia, Esri and Google didn’thit many people’s radar until a few years ago, despitetheir decades of mapping and technologyadvancement. For better or worse, mapping, especiallywith computers, is still considered something new.

Algorithm secret sauce matters, data doesnot Marc Prioleau, a former deCarta employee, and

current merger and acquisition advisor made thepoint in his coverage that what Uber acquired, theunique deCarta algorithms, are the secret sauce ofgeocoding and routing. Those bits of code are whatwill distinguish Uber from any other providerbuilding on Google Maps or Esri’s APIs or any othermass market solution available.

The flip side of Prioleau’s point, and this one ismine, is that Uber did not buy a geographic datacompany. In fact, no one is buying geographic datacompanies these days. Despite some arguments inrecent years that it might be a wise move (inparticular that Apple should buy TomTom or HERE)the data parts of TomTom and Nokia remain wherethey’ve been for some time. In contrast, datacollection companies that offer planes, drones,satellites, and sensors are in flux: Google acquiredTitan and Nest; Trimble acquired Gatewing, andMicrosoft acquired Vexcel. Even smaller players, likeChantilly, Virginia-based defence and intelligencecontractor OGSystems acquired Urban Robotics, a

developer of camera systems and software fordrones, are getting into the act.

Form relationships, but plan for a backup Thefact that every company is a technology company ismaking for some complex relationships in themarketplace. Uber, it’s reported, uses both Google’sand Apple’s mapping technology at this time. Googleis an investor in Uber. But word on the street is thatthere is friction in the relationship. It makes sense,then that Uber consider building its own mappingtechnology infrastructure, just in case the Googleand/or Apple relationships end.

Uber can, and perhaps did, learn from Apple. Thecompany had a collection of mapping companies onboard when Google and Apple went their separateways, a parting something many suggest was years inthe making. Clearly, a partner’s decisions can throw awrench in a relationship; having a “hot spare” solutionthat can be pressed into service is becoming a necessity.

Perspective One of the challenges of working in asmall, tight-knit industry is that our observations can betied to technology details rather than the larger businessperspectives. When well-known companies launchgeospatial technology products or make acquisitions inthe field, we have a unique chance to see how our all-to-familiar industry looks from the outside.

The state of geospatial: revealed asUber bags deCarta Just how old do you have to be to

remain a startup? Adena Schutzberg reveals the “secret sauce” in the deal and asks,is anyone buying geographic data companies?

Adena Schutzberg hasworked in geospatial

technologies for 25 yearsand is principal of ABS

Consulting Group,[email protected]


This is a greatstep forward,enhancing the

usability ofOrdnance

Survey opendata products.

“

“ON 22ND JANUARY 2015,THE UK GOVERNMENTannounced plans to convertOrdnance Survey from atrading fund to ag o v e r n m e n t - o w n e dcompany (GovCo). Inresponse to questions posedby Labour MP Chi Onwurah,minister of state forbusiness, enterprise andEnergy Matthew Hancock

confirmed that the transition will be completed bythe start of the new financial year, i.e. April 2015.

Views on social media and in reports since newsbroke of the transition have been mixed. Some see thisas a positive step forward, freeing up Ordnance Surveyto be more flexible in how it conducts its business.Others are concerned that this could result in valuableUK geospatial data, which has been paid for by thepublic, never being made available as open data.

With no legislation needed for the change, lotsof governance details about the transition are – andwill likely remain – unclear. However it’s important tonote that alongside the Ordnance Survey’s GovCoannouncement they’ve also made a number ofpositive announcements concerning open data.

Their OS OpenData Licence is to be replaced bythe Open Government Licence v3.0. This is a greatstep forward, enhancing the usability of OS open dataproducts. In the meantime, this article answers somebasic questions about the transition from trading fundto GovCo, and poses some questions of our own.

Why doesn’t the conversion requirelegislation? A new legal entity can be createdwithout legislation to take over the functions ofOrdnance Survey. This is a lot faster than viaunderpinning legislation: a company can be set up andregistered with Companies House “almost instantly”.

Interestingly, when the conversion of theHighways Agency to a government-owned companywas announced, the government considered bothoptions. In that case, they decided that converting toa GovCo without legislation was too risky: “The lackof legislation would not give sufficient confidencefor the reformed Highways Agency or the supplychain to deliver real changes. . .”

So why has Ordnance Survey gone down thisroute? There’ll be an impact assessment somewhere

outlining the options they’ve considered forconverting to a GovCo. They might have looked at thelegislative quagmire in which the Highways Agencyfound itself during the passage of the InfrastructureBill to effect that conversion and decided that a non-legislative route would be faster and better for staffcertainty and continuity of operations.

What’s unclear, though, is the thinking on thepotential costs associated with a non-legislativeroute, particularly when these were deemed toosignificant for the Highways Agency. It does leaveunanswered questions:

Is this an interim measure? Will a legislative•underpinning come later?How will the government’s role and powers over•the GovCo be defined?The government has confirmed Ordnance Survey•will be 100% government owned. Will it alwaysbe 100% government owned? Is there a plan tointroduce other shareholders?Can the impact assessment be made public?•

What’s the difference between a GovCo and atrading fund? A government-owned company is anentity that undertakes commercial activities on behalf ofan owner government. A government agency mightbecome a GovCo so that it can pursue commercialobjectives more freely or to improve efficiencies andvalue for money of delivery. It might also become aGovCo with a view to eventual privatisation – selling offGovCo’s is often a way to pay down government debt.

In practice, trading funds display most of the samecharacteristics as government agencies. However,their accounts are not consolidated into the accountsof the department (in Ordnance Survey’s case, TheDepartment for Business, Innovation & Skills) and theycan use their receipts to meet their outgoings.

Who will own copyright in Ordnance Surveydata? In a written statement announcing the change,Matthew Hancock stated that Ordnance Survey willremain under 100% public ownership, with the dataremaining Crown property. But what about copyrightin any future data created by Ordnance Survey?

It’s not clear if both existing OS data and anyfuture data created or updated will be Crownowned. If up-to-date/enhanced geospatial data isGovCo owned, rather than Crown owned, it couldbe vulnerable to eventual privatisation.

For example: OS MasterMap, Ordnance Survey’smost detailed mapping database (and the basis for all

Is OS GovCo good or bad for open data?Ellen Broad, Policy Lead at the Open Data Institute (ODI), examines the conversion of

Ordnance Survey from trading fund to government-owned company (GovCo). In particular,she answers some questions about OS open data but poses some more.

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ODI dashboard withtheir lifetime companystats displayed.


Open Data and Ordnance Survey


its other products), would be Crown-owned at thetime of transition to a GovCo. However, if MasterMapis maintained and updated by OS as a GovCo, will thismean that intellectual property (IP) in the data is halfCrown-owned and half GovCo owned? What willthat mean for re-users?

Questions to be answered include:Given the intention is for the data to remain•Crown copyright, through what legal mechanismwill that happen?How will ownership of IP in future data created•by Ordnance Survey be dealt with via that legalmechanism?

In response to these questions we have ablogpost from Carol Tullo, Director of InformationPolicy and Services at the National Archives (andcontroller of HM Stationery Office) – “Let's be veryclear - ensuring that the data remains Crown ownedis the public commitment that will be delivered.”

Will OS be required to comply withgovernment information policies as a GovCo?In his written statement, Matthew Hancock mentionsthat Ordnance Survey will continue to subscribe tothe Information Fair Trader Scheme (IFTS). The IFTS isan administrative best practice scheme administered

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by the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI). Ithas no legal underpinning – in other words, there areno real consequences if OS decides not to subscribeto the IFTS, or contravenes it.

Interestingly, it’s also not clear whether, as aGovCo, OS would be bound by the upcoming changesto UK Reuse of PSI Regulations, due to come into forcethis year. These changes will make decisions aboutreuse of public sector information legally binding.

In other words, if a tribunal/other panel decidedthat OS should have permitted certain use of theirdata, OS would have to do as the tribunal says. As aGovCo however, they may be outside the scope ofthese changes: the existing reuse of PSI regulationsdon’t seem to extend to GovCos.

Will OS be obliged to comply with decisionsmade under the updated PSI regulations?What about FOI laws? The conversion of OS to aGovCo may end up having no real impact on theavailability of open geospatial data. At this point intime, it’s hard to draw any conclusions. OrdnanceSurvey is expected to make more announcements in thenear future about planned open data releases, whilethey finalise their GovCo arrangements. Hopefully moredetails of the transition itself, and answers to some ofthe questions posed in this post will also be announcedbefore the transition is finalised.

About the authorEllen Broad joined theODI in September 2014

as Policy Lead to distil theknowledge and expertisefrom the ODI’s team. She

authors documents toinfluence government

policy, provide advice togovernment and the

private sector on how itcan capitalise on open

data, and engage broadlyon issues affecting access

to and re-use of data.

Open Data and Ordnance Survey

www.dynamicmaps.co.uk Call one of our DynamicMaps Licensing specialists today on 01784 422804

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nt Address


So how do weachieve an

internationallyacceptableaddress foranyone,

anywhere?

“

“

STEVE COAST (FOUNDER OF OPENSTREETMAP) saidlast year that “Address data is really the mostimportant and interesting thing to work on [rightnow]” (Techcrunch 2014). Did this event support thiscomment? Arguably, yes. But it might depend onwhere you live or work.

In the UK and most of the developed world wetake it for granted that we have an address which weuse as part of our identity – for passport, drivinglicence, delivery, emergency service access, etc, etc.We don’t give it a second thought unless it is to make

sure we have the right postcodes for our satnavs or torail at the mismatch between our administrative andpostal boundaries! And we don’t have to pay for ourindividual address – it is created by our localauthority, given a postcode by Royal Mail andgeocoded by Ordnance Survey. Its structure seems,usually, completely logical – house name/number;street name; locality; post town; postcode.

We may complain about the county no longerbeing required by Royal Mail or that we shouldn’tuse a vanity locality to give us higher status, but wedo have an address that any organisation can checkand verify for application forms or on-line orders.Providing, that is, that they pay a fee to use theaddress databases provided by Royal Mail or theOrdnance Survey. Individually we are free;institutionally we are licensed and restricted.

A roof but no address But, as Anthony Beck, fromthe University of Nottingham explained, there are fourbillion people in this world who cannot claim a uniqueaddress, much less have it codified and made available foridentity checking or delivery of goods or services. Most ofthese people actually have a roof over their heads and canshow you where it is. It will have a GPS measured latitude

and longitude, which runs to about 18 digits, that willlocate their home uniquely to anyone with a GPS or aweb map service. So how do we achieve aninternationally acceptable address for anyone, anywhere?

Two of the presenters addressed this as aninternational problem; the other two stuck to the UK.All of them were forced to discuss the issues of access,open data and costs. Jenni Tennison (Open DataInstitute) kicked off with her heartfelt plea to back theOpen Addresses initiative recently launched by theOpen Data Institute with the backing of Cabinet Officefunding. She believes that addresses are a ‘public good’that should be made available to anyone (individual ororganisation) that can make use of them – whether forprofit or not. In Denmark there has been a ten foldincrease in the use of address data since it was madeopen and the benefits exceed costs by a factor of 70.

The current UK position is that a start-up companybuilding an application needing address data facesprohibitive costs and prohibitive licensing complexity, notto mention potential competition from the monopolydata providers. Many people think that the sale of the

Postcode Address File with Royal Mail was a mistake andthat, combined with the Ordnance Survey pricing andlicensing regime, it is important to try to set up an OpenData alternative to PAF or the AddressBase products.

Infected by existing IPR could leave youbarking Jenni would much prefer that the governmenttook action to provide these ‘definitive’ datasets on anOpen Data licence so that everyone can benefit and sheis quite sanguine about the difficulties of achieving theOpen Address goals in any reasonable timescale. It willonly be achieved if substantial chunks of address datacan be sourced from individual inputs prior toverification against any of the PAF or AddressBaseproducts. Organisations (companies, charities, etc) canprovide raw data from addresses captured on theirwebsites before it is ‘infected’ by existing IPR. To startwith many addresses will be inferred from the dataavailable and her graph shows the database reaching80% of the 25 – 30 million target within 12 months.

It is clear that a considerable amount of effort isgoing into trying to gather, match, validate (in so far asthat is possible) and infer or interpolate missingaddresses. Many in the audience were rather sceptical.Even Jenni herself admitted that this is a ‘second best’

Addressing can be an existential problem!A recent joint AGI/British Computer Society Address Day provided several perspectives but

none more important than the difficulty of establishing an identity without an address.Around the world four billion people do not have a legal identity and cannot establish one

without some form of address. Lack of an address is an existential problem. The UK‘address wars’ are trivial in a global context, says Robin Waters.

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Address wars


Any system hasto compete with

ubiquitousWGS84 datumlats and longsavailable fromevery GPS

enabled deviceon the planet.

“

“solution that can never be definitive. She alsodeliberately declined to define an address andadmitted that the initial offering would not includegeocodes. How would the Open Addresses be paidfor? By so called ‘Freemium’ services such as validation,auto-completion and geocoding. One member of theaudience described the exercise as ‘barking mad’!

OS and Geoplace’s answer Chris Chambers(Ordnance Survey & Geoplace) put the case for thelatest OS products that incorporate PAF and claim tobe as good as it gets for UK addresses. He was notfazed by his products having been described asinfectious but boasted of the nearly 40 millionaddresses now available from AddressBase Premium.He insisted that licensing terms are relatively relaxedand that all public sector organisations have access‘free at the point of use’ including the facility to sharewith other organisations where required. There areno plans, at the moment, for a centralised addressservice. But there are plans for more frequent updatesthan the present six-week cycle but he made thepoint that partners and customers cannot be forcedto keep up with any particular update regime.

What are your magic words? Looking furtherafield were Anthony Beck and Tim Williams fromWhat3Words. Anthony introduced DAIS which standsfor ‘Determining Addresses which are Independent ofinfrastructure using a Spatial algorithm’ which ‘can beused as a benchmark to evaluate technologycandidates’. But this is the technical side of addressingwhich, whether it is a national or international system,should meet some basic criteria for spatial referencing,transparency and accessibility.

There are several candidate systems which claimuniversality: from the Maidenhead Locator System (areyou a radio ham?) through GeoHash, MapCode and theNatural Area Code to What3Words of which more later.Most of these translate a latitude and longitude intoalphanumeric codes which are much more difficult toremember than the average UK postcode though theydo provide a higher resolution. None of them have takenoff to any extent except in specialised applications (likeradio amateurs) – I guess a good analogy might be withEsperanto v English. Any system has to compete withubiquitous WGS84 datum lats and longs available fromevery GPS enabled device on the planet.

What3Words started two years ago because ChrisSheldrake, the founder, couldn’t communicate the exactvenues (often in out of town fields) to the rock bandsthat he managed! Tim Williams explained that the ‘threeword’ format enables anyone to communicate – by anymedia – a location that is accurate to a 3 × 3 metresquare anywhere in the world with three English words.These three words will always be more easily memorisedthan 18 digit coordinates or 7 or 8 digit meaninglessstrings of characters. To find your location words just goto the What3Words website and find your location on

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the Google Map window.Anyone can then find it forthemselves if you have sharedthe three words by email, inprint or by word of mouth.

Thus the PV Publicationsoffice in Stevenage can beaddressed as ‘paint.goal.meant’while our proprietor lives at‘debit.agreed.stones’ while acar in his drive might be at‘scales.tube.chemistry’. The squares are also labelled in22 other languages including Arabic and Chinese.There is no cost to the casual user and only a nominalcharge for a ‘one word’ solution that you can buy (Idid!) but which is now being ‘de-emphasised’.

The core algorithms and data are proprietaryalthough use of the system by individuals is free andwill remain so. The company is committed to puttingthese in the public domain if ever they are unable tomaintain them or unable to hand over to a third partythat can make the same commitment. The companyprices its technology to match the need and theresources available – it is less expensive in ‘low incomecountries’ and for aid agencies. If you think this idea iswhacky then think again. It was presented at the EsriFederal GIS Conference in Washington earlier this yearand Steve Ramage – previously of Navteq, 1Spatial andOrdnance Survey – is now their director of strategy.

Enthused or confused? I came away from thismeeting enthused and confused. Enthused by theimportance of addressing and the evident innovationfrom some. Confused by our government’s totalschizophrenia. Are individuals’ addresses vital totheir very existence? Clearly they are. Are lists ofdefinitive addresses a ‘public good’? There is nodoubt in my mind that they are. Should we thereforeprivatise and/or monetise them in monopolyorganisations? Well we have done! Will we everscrap our street address for three arbitrary words? Idoubt it. Could the rest of the world do better withmanaging their address infrastructures than the UK?They ought to, but with politicians’ dogma andentrenched profitable monopolies, don’t bet on it.

At the final panel session Tim Williams suggestedthat What3Words might not succeed as a companybut that they would at least leave a ‘good lookingcorpse’! I don’t think we can be so sure about OpenAddresses Ltd which really does seem to have setitself a very steep mountain to climb. And lest Isound too cynical I should report that a show ofhands at the end of the meeting overwhelminglysupported a statement that the addressing scene inthe UK had improved over the last five years.

See more at: http://www.agi.org.uk/news/agi/674-bcs-agi-one-day-meeting-on-addressing-5-march-2015#sthash.g5AOwj5y.dpuf



Address wars


This newapproach to

data collectionfor SWW,required

significantinvestment inhardware and

training.

“

“

THE AGI’S ASSET MANAGEMENT Special InterestGroup (SIG) was highly active throughout 2014 with aseries of half-day seminars centred around three keythemes: transport, energy and water. Most recently theSIG brought together four speakers from the waterindustry to provide an insight into how asset data iscollected, visualised and analysed. Two of the speakersfrom water companies (South West Water and WessexWater), the third speaker was from Arup but wasrepresenting Welsh Water and finally the academic

world was represented by Cranfield University.All UK water companies are required to submit a

business plan for AMP6 (Asset Management Period 62015 – 2020). Through the business planningprocess, each water company has set performancetargets in relation to outcomes. Each target comeswith a measure and of course an incentive. Many ofthose targets have pain/gain financial incentives; butsome are simply about maintaining a reputation.Many of the outcomes reflect the increasing servicedemands from customers and pressures on theenvironment, so the emphasis is on deliveringeffective operational and asset management.Decisions made by operational and investmentmanagers must deliver outcomes that reflectcustomer and stakeholder values in the short,medium and long term.

Water companies were given a broad brief forthe seminar: “Talk about something related to geo-spatial that helps the business manage their assets.Speakers get the best feedback when they just sharetheir approach to solving a problem”.

Mobile comes of age What became immediatelyapparent from the talks given by South West Water,Wessex Water and Arup was that mobile solutionsare coming of age. Mobile data collection has beenused for some years, but methods for data collectionare becoming smarter. The process from field to

office not only makes the person collecting the datamuch more accountable, but the systems are in placeto help reduce errors at the data input stage.

Andrew Pennington from South West Water(SWW) introduced their approach to “black lining”using Intergraph’s G-Mobile data collectionenvironment. The user is able to view property levelmapping and the existing digitised sewer network,so that the precise route of a previously unmappedsewer can be added directly into the network. This iscomplemented by mandated attribute fields toensure that the understanding of the asset stock at abase level (e.g. material, diameter) is complete.

This new approach to data collection for SWW,required significant investment in hardware andtraining. The key benefits of this approach are morecomplete and consistent asset attribution that, oncereturned to the central server, with simple qualityassurance procedures, is of a standard permiting thenetwork to be updated immediately. No re-keying is

required in the office. If a return fails the quality checks,any queries can be made quickly and effectively.

The black lining system is running in parallel withthe old paper based red lining system. Businessbenefits are already being realised with a highernumber of asset surveys being returned via the blacklining system but with fewer office staff required andsubstantially fewer surveys being rejected.

Testing ArcGIS Online Wessex Water is testing thecapabilities of ArcGIS Online for collecting locationand attribute information about un-mapped sewers.Andy Nicholson and James Barnes gave ademonstration including the use of graphic featuresin ArcGIS. The proposed methodology uses ArcGISOnline capabilities to digitise the network, andcapture attributes into specified fields. Whilst anupdate in terms of the technology used (the userconnects via the web rather than needing an ArcGISinstallation), the two methods are similar enough tooffer some familiarity to users.

Luke Cooper of Arup discussed their use of tablettechnologies in delivering data to field-based staff atWelsh Water and the various options for returningthat data (e.g. scanning paper maps, geo-referencedphotos with some attribute information and the useof online portals for live data collection/delivery).

All three talks emphasised the need forinfrastructure companies to collect good quality and

GI and water asset managementMost pipes and drains are underground and under-mapped. They are subject to potential

damage from human activity as well as from natural hazards such as soil movement and chemicalcorrosion. Jeremy Hidderley reports on a seminar organised by AGI's Asset Management SIG

that brought together water companies, a consultant and a soil science expert.

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South WestWater results offield datacapture trials.


Pipes and drains


Climateprojectionsindicate achanging

scenario. . .likely to havefurther impact

upon waterinfrastructure

assets.

“

“current asset data. When an existing sewer or waterpipe is excavated, or a new one installed, theopportunity should be taken to collect data aboutthese assets. This requires that operational staff use theappropriate technology. Coupled with a wealth ofperformance data that already exists (e.g. orders toundertake work to repair or replace assets within thenetwork) assets can be grouped by physical attributes(e.g. age, material, size, soil structure). It is thenpossible to understand the performance of these assetswith similar physical attributes (e.g. is failure randomor do they all fail at a certain age)? It may then bepossible to predict the future likelihood of failure.

With accurate and precise location information,consequences of failure can be predicted and can beassigned to the asset. Examples include knowingwhich assets serve the most customers – partly afunction of location and topology and partly thediameter of the sewer (physical attribute). Morecomplex consequences might be the adjacency ofpotentially leaky sewers to a watercourse or a largewater main in a trunk road where traffic disruptionfrom a burst main would cause many consequentialproblems for other agencies. Consequences are animportant factor in asset management whenprioritising proactive and reactive investment.

Environmental impact on waterinfrastructure Oliver Pritchard from CranfieldUniversity offered insights into his doctoral researchon how soils and changing environmental conditionsimpact upon buried water infrastructure. Previousresearch indicates a causal link between thesusceptibility of a soil to shrink and swell underdiffering moisture contents with the failure of buriedwater assets.

The University is currently developing a newnational dataset, in addition to its existing soilgeohazard datasets, which incorporates the impactof climate change on future subsidence potential.Climate projections indicate a changing scenario forthe UK in future decades, likely to increase potentialsubsidence risk in future. This is likely to have afurther impact upon water infrastructure assets.

It should be a simple ‘spatial join’ to understandsome of the risks associated to specific pipes. Soilsclearly have an impact upon undergroundinfrastructure; certain pipe materials react indifferent ways to different soil types. Therefore, if adefinitive answer can be given to the physicalattribute questions, the risk models will inspire moreconfidence.

Improving the prediction of failure The aimmust be to improve the prediction of failure, and tounderstand and thereby minimise, the consequencesof asset failure so that they may be minimised. Thisis already happening, albeit using incompleteattribute data and time lagged performance data.

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There are also morepractical benefits to thewell-attributed assetdata. When a reactiverepair is required,operational staff willattend the incident withthe correct knowledgeand parts for the repair.

In addition to theincreasing completenessand accuracy of physicalasset data, the volume and speed of performancedata is also growing. Networks of sensors acrosswater company assets already provide informationabout the performance of a system. The way inwhich the industry analyses these large datasets – socalled “big data” – to inform operational managersand investment decisions is fundamental to futureasset management. Operational and financialmanagers can now view the performance of acatchment at the click of a button. Furtherinvestment is needed to achieve up to datevisualisation of incidents within an operational area;the knowledge to position operational staff in theoptimum locations; and creation of self-learningnetworks to understand normal operationalconditions - and thereby to initiate changes whennormal operational conditions are not met.

For AMP6, the water industry will need to adopt atechnical environment that effectively supportsdecision-making in good time. This move is beingdriven by the need to deliver “totex” (totalexpenditure) solutions. This requires fullunderstanding of the economic consequences ofdecision making but without splitting operations fromcapital expenditure. By reducing “totex”, customersreceive better value for money and lower bills.

Pressures on the water industry will not just comefrom customers. Collaboration and sharing of datawith other organisations (e.g. the EnvironmentAgency and local authorities) will be necessary.Infrastructure schemes will need to consider all ofthe benefits in delivering outcomes for the customer.An important example will be centred on themanagement of surface water flooding - howsurface water can be prevented from enteringhighway drains and the combined sewer network. Ifless water enters a sewer network, less water istreated, so helping to meet environmentalcompliance targets.

The water industry will undoubtedly facechallenges in delivering these outcomes. Butultimately, a good quality base of evidence is neededto facilitate effective decision-making. Whilstwholesale surveys of all underground assets are nearimpossible, making the best use of technology toenhance that evidence base is critical during thisevolution of asset management.


Clay subsidence riskmap for Great Britain.


Pipes and drains


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GiSPro’sbig map feature


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19joining the geography jigsaw


GiSPro’sbig map feature

These fabulous cartograms come from the websitehttp://brilliantmaps.com There are many other splendidexamples of cartography there so it’s well worth signing upfor their weekly e-newsletter.

Reddit user Teadranks (http://www.reddit.com) isthe creator of this map which shows the world’spopulation in 1900 when the US had a population ofonly 76 million compared to 320 million today (note:each square represents 500,000 people). Canadagrew by a factor of over six and Australia by nearlyfour. The UK however has grown only from 38m to64m. Other idiosyncracies include Belgium which hada population bigger than neighbour Holland. Perhapsmore significant are the empires which have fallen.

Austria Hungary, Germany, the Ottoman empire areall now in the dustbin of history, as indeed is theBritish Empire, then straggling the globe and muchthe envy of its rival empires.

Other maps currently on brilliantmaps.com includeone for the petrolheads, World Speed Limits. Sadly forJeremy Clarkson the only places with no speed limit atall seem to be those with dubious roads quality like themiddle of Africa and Papua New Guinea. Other worldmaps you may find intriguing include “Which City HasThe World’s Worst Air Pollution?” Hint, It’s In China;“Punny Maps of The Foodnited States of America”;and The Many Disgusting Dishes & Culinary Horrors ofEurope (it just says Nestlé for Switzerland!).

• These maps are reproducedwith the permission ofBrilliantMaps.com

This is a new feature for readers. Let us know what you think of it andif you have a copyright free or creative commons copyright map you’d

like us to publish drop a line to the Editor, [email protected]


. . . we need toconsider the

accuracy of thedata and that iscompromised bythe very small,

lightweightsensors on

UAVs. . .

“

“FOR MANY YEARSUNMANNED AIRCRAFT wereflown by model aircraftenthusiasts. Basic models costless than a hundred poundswith more upmarket systemsfor a thousand or more. Nowunmanned aircraft (UAs),unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs), unmanned aerialsystems (UASs), remotelypiloted aircraft (RPAs), drones– whatever term is in favourthis week, are increasinglyused for professionalapplications for datagathering. With around 500registered commercial UAVoperators in the UK alonethese aircrafts are being

promoted as an alternative to traditional MannedAerial Vehicles (MAV – i.e. dedicated aerial surveyplanes, with pilot and sensor operators) with claims ofcost savings and operational efficiencies. Are UAV’s thenext revolution to hit the remote sensing industry?

Arguing the case for. . . and against As an aerialsurvey company we are often asked which UAV weuse for capturing and maintaining our nationwide,high resolution aerial photography dataset. Thesimple answer is we don’t! We have invested asignificant amount of money and time researchingthe latest developments in aerial survey equipmentand practices, in purchasing state-of-the-art sensorsand navigation systems, and maintaining andoperating aircraft, pilots and crew.

And there is a reason for this. We maintain anational dataset updated every three years, whichmeans capturing between 40-50,000 squarekilometres of data annually. We use an UltraCamEagle 262 Mpx camera with an image footprint of atleast 20,000 pixels, an image capture rate of 3.7gigabits per second and an integrated storagecapacity of four thousand images. It captures up to1,000 square kilometres of 8 cm resolution imageryper day. UAVs currently offered for aerial survey workcapture a maximum of 5 to 10 square kilometres atthe same resolution. That’s less than 10 percent ofthe aeroplane’s output.

For aerial survey work, as distinct from just

taking pictures, we need to consider the accuracy ofthe data and that is compromised by the very small,lightweight sensors on UAVs – especially if flown inless than perfect conditions. One system is marketedat the ‘advanced’ user requiring high grade data andaccuracy. The sixteen page brochure highlightedpotential cost savings through speed of data captureacross a range of applications including agriculturalland survey, archaeological site investigation andstock pile volume estimations. The brochuredescribes the benefits of a modular design; a rangeof safety features; and an automated workflowenabling a non-specialist to process thousands ofaerial images on a desktop computer to producehigh grade photogrammetric data. There was not asingle mention of GPS or inertial positions.

Such a system may not produce very high qualityoutput – but what are the benefits? The ready-to-flysystem cost, is from around £13,000 complete withtraining. This means that, with few operational

overheads, UAV operators can significantly undercuttraditional MAV providers which have equipmentcosts in hundreds of thousands of pounds withadditional, and significant, operating andmaintenance costs.

Speed of deployment is much faster. A typicalUAV can be carried in a car and can easily betransported and launched from just about anywhere.The UAV perfectly suited for time sensitive missionsas well those applications where speed is of theessence - such as emergency service applications.UAV operators are also less restricted by the goodold British weather! So UAV operators can be veryquick to react – responding to a given event orrequest in literally a few hours depending on theproximity of the mission.

Regulation plays a role According to the CivilAviation Authority’s (CAA) website; ‘unlike mannedaircraft or model aircraft used for recreational purposes,there are no established guidelines for professional UAVoperations and therefore operators may not be awareof the potential dangers or indeed the responsibilitythey have towards not endangering the public’.

In 2010 the CAA introduced new regulationsrequiring operators of small unmanned aircraft usedfor ‘aerial work’ purposes and craft equipped fordata acquisition and/or surveillance to obtainpermission from the CAA before ‘commencing aflight in a congested area or in proximity to people or

UAVs vs MAVs James Eddy, technical director of Bluesky International and Industrial Associate at the University of Leicester explores the growing phenomena of

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the UK and discusses the potential impact on the aerialmapping, surveying and GIS sectors.

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aerial survey UAVs v. MAVs


The CAAguidelines alsodraw operators’attention to theData Protection

Act.

“

“property’. These include an overriding / allencompassing article which states ‘A person mustnot recklessly or negligently cause or permit anaircraft to endanger any person or property’.

Article 166 addresses the issue of visual contactwith the UAV, the dropping of articles and theoperation of the craft in specific airspace. Anadditional clause covers the operation of UAV’s forthe purpose of aerial work and that they may only beflown in accordance with permission granted. CAAdoes address the use of ‘small unmanned surveillanceaircraft’ when equipped to undertake any form ofsurveillance or data acquisition. Additional operatingregulations include minimum distance from people orproperties. The CAA guidelines also draw operators’attention to the Data Protection Act.

In the USA, the Department of Transportation(DOT) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) arecurrently proposing new rules for small unmannedaircraft systems. The proposal offers a range ofsafety rules for operators conducting non-recreational operations including limiting of flights todaylight and visual line of sight operations. The FAAproposals would also address height restrictions,operator certification, optional use of a visualobserver, aircraft registration and marking andoperational limits.

If passed these proposals could dramaticallycurtail the research by Amazon, Google and DHL into‘parcelcopters’ or ‘delivery drones’ and for aerialsurvey operations this would reduce the potential forlarge scale operations and certainly prevent their usefor night time thermal surveys.

A flash in the pan or here to stay? Last year theUK’s first show dedicated to the commercial UAVmarket attracted more than 1,500 visitors, 59exhibitors with a programme of case studies,commercial presentations and industry seminars. In2015 these figures are expected to double. A quicklook at the show’s agenda reveals a mix of subjectsincluding platform, power and payloads, data captureand analysis, regulation, working with othertechnologies and emerging applications. The speakersare really diverse including the UAV suppliers, fire andrescue services, police forces, academic institutions aswell as the BBC, Met Office, Thames Water, EnglishHeritage and British Antarctic Survey.

In addition, a range of reports predict significantgrowth in this sector of the world aerospace industry. Areport by the Teal Group, who describe themselves as‘the source for aerospace and defence industry marketanalysis’ predicts that UAV spending will nearly doubleover the next decade. In the eleventh edition of thissector study the report estimates current expenditure of$6.4 billion annually will rise to $11.5 per annumtotalling almost $91 billion in the next ten years.

All of this would suggest that there are someserious supporters of UAVs with serious budgets!

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So in conclusion. . . in my humble opinion AreUAV’s here to stay. . . YES. There has been so muchinvestment to date and so many successfulapplications to simply dismiss this emergingtechnology as a fad.

Do they have a place in the aerial survey andmapping sector. . . DEFINITELY; where small areasurveys are required and speed or timing ofdeployment is of greater consideration than dataaccuracy then UAV’s will win every time. Throw in thecost consideration for commissioned surveys ratherthan off-the-shelf data purchase and its win win.

Will they replace MAV’s. . . NO. Not until we havelarge, solar powered UAV’s flying at 60,000 feet ableto continuously download fully orthorectified aerialimages over a large area. Then it might be time toretire – or make sure we have already bought in tothe technology!

Is there an alternative threat to MAV’s. . . I THINKSO. Perhaps a more realistic competitor is satelliteimagery. When temporal frequency, control andspatial resolution match that of traditional aerialsurveys then I may have to consider trading in mytrusted plane and trading up!

Do I still want a UAV. . . OF COURSE. I have recentlyseen some stunning 2cm resolution images capturedby a UAV and a half decent DSM and for once I mightbe allowed to take to the skies as the pilot!


About the authorJames Eddy has beentechnical director of

Bluesky International Ltdfor the past 11 years. Hehas been involved withairborne remote sensingsince 1995 and has beeninvolved with the creation

of some of the UKslargest aerial photo

datasets.


aerial survey UAVs v. MAVs

Above: Blueskyplane mappingfrom the skies

with greataccuracy and

detail.

Right: UAVmapping theground with

speed and lowcosts.


. . . UAS cancollect large

amounts of datain a short timeand at a low

cost.

“

“

THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT UAS TECHNOLOGY is adisruptive innovation with the potential to shake upthe geospatial industry in the same way that GNSSand robotic total stations have done in the past; atheory supported by the launch of the firstCommercial UAV show in London last year and theabundance of conference papers and press articlesavailable for research. There is good reason for this.Put simply, UAS can collect large amounts of data ina short time and at a low cost. However, as themarket matures, the signs are emerging that

geospatial professionals are looking beyond thehardware and instead, starting to consider theenormous potential of the collected imagery.

The technology is now in place to turn UASimagery into processed, analysed information – abenefit that can drive greater efficiency and assist usin providing our clients with intelligent informationrather than just maps to look at.

Fly, analyse, act The evolution of UAS technologyhas enabled us to produce aerial imagery with which tocreate high-resolution orthomosaics and our industryhas enjoyed enormous benefit from this. For example,in construction aerial imagery can be used in manydifferent ways, topographic survey, progressmonitoring, structure inspections, volumes, cut and fillcalculations, to name just a few. However most ofthese benefits come from observing the collectedimages, drawing on them, or if the data is taken a stepfurther, used to create Digital Surface Models (DSMs),coloured 3D point clouds or detailed feature andcontour maps. This information is a valuable resourcebut a maturing market indicates that it is those whohave higher expectations of how aerial data can beused who will drive the next phase of development.

Burial ground management: Tim Viney, ManagingDirector of Atlantic Geomatics, agrees. One of hiscompany’s current projects involves a burial groundmanagement system that has been developed inassociation with the Diocese of Carlisle and cemetery

managers across Cumbria. The system is due to berolled out across the county and will link burialregisters to a clear, accurate and up-to-date map. Theend result is a hosted web based application whichwill facilitate complete burial ground management,protect the heritage that this information containsand maximise the potential it has to offer.

At the heart of the system lies high quality aerialphotography collected at 1-2cm resolution with ahexacopter. A vector map has been extracted fromthis imagery, cleaned up in processing software andthen integrated with other information such asheadstone photography and digitised burial recordsto create a structured model with a clearly definedintelligent database behind it.

“Our aim is to maximise the use of theorthorectified imagery generated for this project tocreate an intelligent map suitably for answering manydifferent questions. How many burials were therebetween 2005 and 2010? Show me where Mr Smith is

buried. Show me graves by age at death. You can’t dothat just by looking at an aerial image. Our solution isnot only to provide maps, but answers,” explains Tim.

With the project taking in over 1.5 milliongraves, Tim is keen to streamline the data analysisprocess. Software now exists for the easy extractionof actionable information and Tim has been lookingat Trimble’s eCognition Essentials software forprecisely this purpose. Where once object-basedimage analysis was a highly complex task with asteep learning curve, software development meansthat it is now possible to easily transform image datainto usable intelligence thanks to the hard coding ofall the standard rules of land use and identification.This software can now create polygons, identifyshapes, map them and link them ready to export asa GIS layer – rules no longer have to be created, theyexist already. For Tim this software, which can extractinformation from aerial imagery captured by anydrone, means an automated process for the handlingof the 1.5 million graves covered by the project.

Camera development is key The market is clearlyin a transitional phase and nowhere is this more evidentthan in “green space’ applications such as forestry andagriculture. Two years ago we were talking of marketdevelopment in terms of hardware and in particular, thearrival of near infrared cameras (NIR), red edge andmulti-spectral cameras. Today we see these camerasenabling users to analyse their aerial imagery and

The data or the drone? Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) technology includes the vehicle itself, the cameras/scanners and the controlling software.

But its product is data – lots of data. Lucy Hamilton from Korec argues that, as the marketmatures, geospatial professionals should concentrate on that data.

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SenseFly eBee Ag flyingthe skies.


UAV data


This approachcan help us toopen up new

enterprise areasand newrevenuestreams.

“

“

produce not just maps, but meaningful information,something that Irish based Signpost Surveys hascapitalised on for the precision farming market.

Identifying problematic crop areas: Under theguidance of company owner James O’Neill, SignpostSurveys became one of the first companies in Europeto invest in a SenseFly eBee Ag. This UAS offers arange of camera options including a 12 MP NIRcamera which enables James to collect multispectraldata across a variety of crops. By analysing the spectralreflectance values of the NIR, Red and Green bands,Signpost Surveys can identify problematic areas withina crop, for example those which are underperforming,and establish why. What sets this approach apart fromtraditional ground based testing methods is that themultispectral imagery reveals information that thenaked eye cannot detect. Signpost Surveys cantherefore identify, from analysing the industry,problematic areas, or management zones within acrop, far earlier than if just a visual assessment wasmade. These management zones are then used toapply fertiliser, herbicides or pesticides with far moreprecision than ever before allowing farmers toconcentrate on affected areas and reduce inputswhilst increasing outputs.

The images above show results from the eBee Agfitted with an NIR camera. On the left is a colourcomposite of all three bands, NIR, Green and Red.The image on the right is a processed NormalisedDifference Vegetation Index (NDVI) which, in thiscase, was used as a measure of crop health andtherefore an indicator of soil nutrient deficiencies.The image was divided into spectral reflectanceclasses with each class being assigned a differentcolour. From the image, areas of good and bad crophealth can be identified and then soil samples takenin these areas to show that soil deficiencies equatedto a poor health indication within the imagery.

360° applications – taking data back into thefield We are also starting to see the first stepstowards 360° applications that complete the full ‘fly,analyse, act’ circle. This 360° approach has beenfacilitated by a simple KOREC software developmentthat allows aerial imagery to be sufficientlycompressed for use on handheld GNSS devices suchas the Trimble Juno or Trimble GeoExplorer Series. Atouch of a button initiates a basic conversion process

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which compresses and then saves the data in avariety of scales which a handheld can thenautomatically select from, zooming in and out asrequired. This full circle method is already beingtaken up in applications as diverse as tropicalmedicine research programmes for the habitatidentification and fumigation of disease carryinginsects, landfill site monitoring with a view topinpointing where gas is escaping and capturing itfor reuse and once again, for many agriculturalprojects providing an alternative way to targetunderperforming crops at the earliest opportunity.

Boosting potato crops: This example is particularlyuseful because it illustrates what can be done withRGB imagery from a standard camera. When potatoplants emerge in March, fields are flown and the aerialimagery used to do a crop count. eCognitionEssentials is then used to identify each plant. Thefields are flown again regularly and eCognition usedto check the percentages of plant and soil as they

grow. This information can be displayed in QGIS* anda grid added to show areas of low coverage. Thepositions where there is the least crop coverage canthen be extracted and used on a Trimble GNSS tonavigate to the targeted plants and provide them withthe extra fertiliser required to boost their growth,maximising yield and reducing fertiliser costs.

Providing answers rather than maps The mostexciting advances in technology are not alwayslimited to a new ability to do something. Theexcitement comes when the technology becomessufficiently user friendly and cost-effective to beaccessible to multiple users and consequently usedfor unfamiliar applications.

As the UAS market increases in sophistication, sodo the opportunities for geospatial professionals.The tools are now in place for us to analyse, extractand model data to provide information that isspecific to a client’s needs and applications. In 2015we need to understand how and why positions areused and to be able to apply that knowledge toimprove our clients’ business. This approach can helpus to open up new enterprise areas and new revenuestreams. For those willing to go deeper into theworkflows of both new and existing applicationareas, and for those willing to turn these excitingtechnologies into practical solutions and really makethe data work for them, the potential is enormous.


Results from Signpost Survey’s eBee Ag fitted with an NIR camera. On the left is acolour composite of all three bands, NIR, green and red. The image to the right isa processed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).

Ecognition Essentialsis used to check thepercentages of plant

and soil as thepotato crop grows.


UAV data


have had to think differently to continue to addvalue to council services through the use of spatialinformation. The GIS strategy has been reworked toinclude new spatial technologies in the cloud and onmobile, changing customer needs and expectations.As always, there is a demand for high quality,accurate, up-to-date, value-added information in allareas of council business.

A switch to a remotely hosted and managed webmapping solution (Location Centre by thinkWherewww.thinkwhere.com) five years ago, was thetrigger to making key changes to internal datamanagement practises. The new system presentedthe GIS team with an opportunity to deliver a set oftraining courses to council staff. Over a period offour years more than 50 training sessions were givento over 500 staff across the council. These sessionsprovided the opportunity for staff to access morecouncil data and to increase the usage of that databy removing the organisational barriers between

different datasets. The number of staff now usingthe system has increased by 25% and there are now300 regular users every month.

There are 40 regular ArcGIS for Desktop users anda growing number of staff using QGIS (almost 50 atlast count). ArcGIS training has been deliveredthrough “silent disco” surgery sessions where usersget away from their desks for a few hours andcomplete a number of modules from the GIS247training catalogue. This has enabled users to continuepersonal development by providing the training theywant and at a pace that they determine themselves.QGIS training has been given by thinkWhere andthrough focused on internal sessions.

Scottish council brings back discos!Angus Council has radically changed its approach to the use of spatial information overthe last five years with a mixture of proprietary and open source software, an extensiveawareness campaign for all potential users and ‘silent discos’ for individualised training.

Roger Garbett and Ross McDonald explain.

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BRINGING DISCO BACK!Angus Council went to GIS247 for their training package which “is a good all-round tool and remarkably lightweight, as everything is online. Our GIS userscan use the training at their own pace and just dip into a particular section whenfaced with specific problems. The video and exercise solution works really well.”Roger Garbett devised a novel way of ensuring staff are on-board and focusedwhen it comes to committing to training – he calls them silent discos! “These arespecific training sessions where we bring together our ArcGIS users out of theiroffice environments for the GIS247 training”, he explains.

Roger had difficulties in encouraging GIS users to train at their desks, mainlybecause they’re so busy with other tasks. They are now invited to a trainingfacility where they put on headphones to do the relevant sections themselves.Each one ends up doing something different, “but that flexibility is one of thereal beauties of it”, he adds.

So successful were these ‘silent discos’ that when the council lost its trainingfacility the sessions were kept going in ‘pop-up’ training facilities, using meetingrooms and laptops, to ensure that everyone is up to date and up to speed withtheir GIS skills.


GIS training

THE LAST FIVE YEARS HAVE SEEN MAJOR CHANGESin how services are delivered in local governmentwith resources being scarcer and technologydevelopments changing traditional operationalmodels. The corporate GIS team at Angus Council


As a result ofswitching otherdesktop users toopen source we

have been. . .reducing the

overall cost oflicensing.

“

“

By providing staff with a set of functional easy-to-use tools, and helping them define workflowsthat deliver the information they need, we have beenable to improve the sharing of datasets betweenteams – now digital with no more paper transfers!This has also increased the links between differentdatasets to help add value to the large amount ofdata we hold by turning it into more usefulinformation.

Core datasets There are a number of key staff whoare responsible for creating and maintaining the corecouncil business datasets and they use a mix of Esri’sArcGIS for Desktop and open source QGIS to edittheir data. We have built a hybrid GIS infrastructure

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which gives staff the right tools to complete theirwork. There are some key business processes thatrequire ArcGIS including address and street gazetteermaintenance, route optimisation for waste collectionand roads maintenance, street light assetmanagement and core path and access maintenance.

As a result of switching other desktop users toopen source we have been able to reduce contentionfor licences as well as reducing the overall cost oflicensing. QGIS is also able to read and write directlyto a PostGIS database and the corporate Oracledatabase has now been replaced with open sourcePostgreSQL/PostGIS. This has enabled us to set upvery efficient workflows by editing and maintainingdata directly in the database and by reducing thenumber of GIS files and file shares across thenetwork. Back-up requirements have also beenreduced by several terabytes – saving both time and

money. The processes pushingthe internal data to theexternal Location Centre havebeen simplified and improved.

The use of open sourcesoftware for key componentsin the GIS infrastructure hasproven to be flexible, robustand very reliable. By storingour data in standard openformats it has made accessingand publishing it much easier.Key information is publishedon the council website and isdirectly accessible throughaddress or postcode searcheswith results displayed both ona map and in a “what’s in myarea” report. Through our


IMPROVEMENT SERVICE (IS) – aims to help Scottish councils and their partners improve the health, quality of life and opportunities ofeveryone in Scotland through community leadership, strong local governance and the delivery of high quality, efficient local services. IS doesthis by delivering a range of products and providing advisory services, including consultancy and facilitation, learning and skills, performancemanagement and improvement and research. http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/

THE ONE SCOTLAND GAZETTEER (OSG) is a database of addresses of land and property in Scotland maintained by all 32 councils through theirDevelopment Control and Building Control functions, along with Street Naming and Numbering. It currently contains around 3.2 millionproperty records and supports around 50 different applications within the Scottish public sector. These include ePlanning, both onlineapplication and appeals, providing easy to use forms for planning applications, reviews and appeals. It also supports Energy PerformanceCertificates. OSG provides the emergency services with access to accurate and up to date address data, with geocodes and is now alsoavailable within the Ordnance Survey AddressBase product range where it is matched to Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File.http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/one-scotland-gazetteer.html

THE SCOTTISH SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE encompasses many spatial datasets covering Scotland and these can be found online athttp://scotgovsdi.edina.ac.uk/geonetwork/apps/tabsearch/. The SSDI metadata catalogue is INSPIRE compliant and run by EDINA at theUniversity of Edinburgh.

THE INSPIRE DIRECTIVE aims to create a European Union (EU) spatial data infrastructure. This will enable the sharing of environmental spatialinformation among public sector organisations and better facilitate public access to spatial information across Europe.http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/


GIS training

Below: Map from Angus Council detailing themaintenance responsibility for adopted roads.

continued promotion of the importance of spatialfunctionality at internal user group meetings, GISDay celebrations (with cake!) and training sessions,we have increased the number of available datasetsfrom around 200 to almost 400.

Setting the agenda “Spatial” is very much on thedigital agenda at Angus Council both through thedelivery of services and the creation of an open dataportal. We are actively involved with a Scotland widespatial data audit led by the Improvement Servicewhich aims to deliver cost savings and efficienciesthrough the conflation of local government datasetsinto national coverages. While still in the trial stagethis project, combined with the One ScotlandGazetteer service, hopes to simplify meeting the EUINSPIRE requirements and contribute to ScottishSpatial Data Infrastructure, while delivering the

immediate benefits of joined-up data. (see box above)Angus Council is looking for more opportunities

to share resources and services, adopt cloudplatforms and use web services to share and linkinformation. The foundation of spatial informationthat we are laying down becomes ever moreimportant in helping us realise these goals.

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About the authors

Roger Garbett is a GI Engineer forAngus Council and has been sinceJanuary 2011. Before that, heworked in Senior Software Supportfor Telford & Wrekin Council. Healso holds a BSC (Hons) BusinessInformation Systems degree fromthe University of Wolverhampton.

Ross McDonald is currentlyworking as a Corporate GIS DataCoordinator at Angus Council.He mainly manages the corporateside of GIS but also runs onlineGIS training sessions and exploresopen-source GIS alternativesamong many other things.

Above: LSG maintenanceresponsibility workflow.

“Spatial” is verymuch on the

digital agendaat Angus

Council. . .

“

“


GIS training

Have you thought about e-learning?It’s convenient, repeatable,

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• Over 6500 presentations• Over 550 exercises• Training available in ArcGIS,

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Visit www.gis247.com today!Call: +44 (0) 115 933 6633 Email:



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Open data


We don’t needmore productsor more open

data initiatives.What we need is

a cleargovernmentstrategy. . .

“

“THE OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS is, by nature, an‘open’ organisation. Statistics are designed to informdebate and support policy makers and, thankfully,nobody in their right mind would consider limiting accessto published government statistics. ONS has thereforepublished ‘open’ data before the Guardian’s Free OurData Campaign, before Sir Tim Berners-Lee was makingthe case for ‘open’, and long before prime ministerscommitted themselves to the open data agenda. ONSwas doing open data before open data was cool.

Everything happens somewhere We knowstatistics and location are linked because everythinghappens somewhere. So ONS has also sought to make itsgeographic data ‘open’ because this is needed to analyseand interpret the statistics. Before open data becamecool, ONS fought several battles just to try and make datafreely available. A number of our statistical geographyproducts were ‘derived’ from other organisations’ data onwhich intellectual property rights (IPR) are claimed andthis often meant that we unwillingly had to imposelicensing and cost restrictions on our data products.

Then, on the 17th November 2009, the primeminister intervened. Gordon Brown announced toeveryone’s surprise (including apparently OrdnanceSurvey’s) that a large amount of Ordnance Survey datawas going to be open and set them a deadline withinwhich it should happen. This was the birth of the gloriousopen data agenda. It was to be a golden age in which alldata would become open and interoperable, and wouldsupport SMEs to grow and large organisations to becomemore efficient. Except it hasn’t really worked out like that.

Haphazard policies What followed over the nextfive years was a haphazard approach to open datathat often involved organisations taking a siloapproach to publishing data and trying to make theirproduct the ‘definitive’ one.

Take just one glorious example – addressing. RoyalMail was sold off to the private sector in 2013 along withthe Postcode Address File (PAF). The open dataannouncement was also the catalyst for OS and the LocalGovernment Association to buy out IntelligentAddressing and set up GeoPlace with a remit to integrateOS and IA products into a definitive national addressgazetteer. But the resulting AddressBase products are notonly proprietary to Ordnance Survey; they also includeRoyal Mail IPR because they use PAF as a primary source.

Now we have the Open Data Institute’s (ODI’s)Open Address project which has the aim of creating an

‘open’ address gazetteer. The Open Address projecthas set out to capture the same addresses that arealready captured in PAF and the National AddressGazetteer from which AddressBase products arederived. But it cannot use either for fear of beingcontaminated with Royal Mail and/or Ordnance SurveyIPR. This is being funded by the same government thatsold off PAF and that is also paying Ordnance Survey tomake some of its geographic data open! And becausethe UK government hadn’t been clear enough aroundits own geographic open data policy there are clearlysome organisations that have seized on this as anopportunity to defend their own data monopolies.

Devolve the problem? Stormont didn’t receiveany funding from the government’s agreement onopen data so Northern Ireland has fairly taken theissue of open data as a devolved matter and hasn’treleased any geographic data in an open format. Wealso have separate mapping agreements for Englandand Wales; Scotland; and Northern Ireland, eventhough many customers have a UK-wide remit.

The geographic community have always knownthat there is more value in a single, complete andauthoritative dataset than multiple, partially open,partially duplicating ones. We don’t need moreproducts or more open data initiatives. What weneed is a clear government strategy for consolidatingthe existing datasets and making them open. Somerevenue may be lost, but the efficiency saving acrossgovernment will more than compensate for that lossat the national level, if not at the organisational one.Surely the ability to provide a single authoritativedataset to inform debate and support policy makinghas greater value to the economy than eachorganisation trying to stake its claim in an ever morecrowded geospatial marketplace?

Choices, choices Where does all of this leave ONSand its geographic products? Where IPR still exists inthe data from which we intend to derive our productswe have a choice. We can adopt a pragmaticapproach and pay the licensing fees so that the publichave access to the data but often with ONS absorbingthe cost by paying other government departments –and still without being able to give the user carteblanche for their own products. Or we simply stripthe derived data from our products and releasewhat’s left as open data. Whichever approach wetake, it’s hard to see who benefits!

An insider’s view on….openCensus data and other national statistics are ‘open’. But they relate to various geographies

that are not. Ian Coady from the Office for National Statistics explains how this hashappened because we lack a coherent government strategy for ‘open’ data.

About the authorIan Coady has worked forthe Office for NationalStatistics in the role ofGeography Policy andResearch Manager for thelast six years and has aparticular interest ininternational policy suchas INSPIRE and UN-GGIM.



Autodesk andDassault

Système alonehave revenues

in excess of theentire market

for GISsoftware. . .

“

“MANY SMART CITY INITIATIVES are underway in the UKand worldwide; and GIS practitioners in the cityplanning community are well aware of the groundworkbeing laid to accommodate an ever-growing population.Geospatial tools are commonplace now; they are usedto plan and police city zones and planning restrictions.Where that planning activity meets the builtenvironment is where we see our geospatial toolsinterfacing with Building Information Models (BIM).

These models provide a repository for datathrough all the stages of site development andfacilitate cooperation between designers, engineersand construction teams, resulting in a typical 3Dmodel of all the structural data needed to build andrun a modern building efficiently.

During the design and construction phase, buildinginformation models can provide the basis forsimulation exercises that ensure that last-minutealterations to plans cause minimum disruption to theschedules. Sharing this data as construction progressesprovides early detection of (potential) snags and helps

reduce rework. Running costs can be calculated basedon the planned work, ensuring exact combinations ofheating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems areoptimal for the building’s planned use. The goal is toprove as much as possible of the design to reduce theneed for corrective work on site.

BIM and GIS are crucial When developed alongsidethe geospatial data that sets the real world context forthe building or site, data that can support analysis of theservices provided, combined BIM and GIS datasetsbecome crucial to the successful running of the site. Anyproject involving the built environment benefits from thevisualisation and operational simulation which is offeredby BIM tools, whether for an office block or a motorwaybridge. As the development goes operational, the BIMlives on to provide a starting point for managing the siteand a repository for on-going maintenance data.

This collaboration and integration between designand construction phases is a relatively recentdevelopment for those disciplines. But the GISpractitioner is long used to integrating with otheragencies. Highways authorities are continuallyexchanging data with water companies, energysuppliers and telecom operators so that their buried

assets can be avoided by the next team to dig up theroad. Utility providers in many territories are underregulatory obligation to provide data on the locationof their wires and pipes. Building information modelsprovide access to information at a similar level ofdetail at the scale of the building itself. Initially thissupports collaboration between different constructionteams but as the building moves into operation itbecomes a tool to hand off information about thebuilding to maintenance teams and other contractorswith responsibility for the running of the site.

Optimising with city models The advantages ofsuch a level of integration with the built environmentare many and city models are being developed thatcould be used to optimise the operation of a wholecommunity. Building on agreed protocols that enablesoftware tools from widely differing backgrounds tointeract, as with the CityGML specification maintainedby the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), we arebeginning to see how these city models can be used.

In Salzburg, for example, their city model drawstogether workflows for geospatial features, plannedbuilding construction, and utility assets into a singlebase for urban planning. Many cities worldwide havesimilar models that support planning, environmentalmonitoring, traffic flows and more. Integrating thesewith BIM data that adds structural information, energyusage and access capabilities extends the range ofuseful analysis open to both the urban planner andthe city maintenance department.

One example of combining BIM (specificallyconstruction-phase BIM) data with on-going geospatialdata shows how construction activities can be plottedinto the traffic plan for the day. So now a city can showplanned changes to road closures, for example becauseof the arrival of an oversized crane onsite, and not justreport on road blockages or increased density in trafficthat has already happened. While it is useful to knowwhy you are stuck in traffic, much better to knowwhere delays may occur and avoid the area.

Does size matter? Interoperability between GIS andBIM is still largely an exercise for the reader and theadvantage must surely be with providers that offer bothsides of the equation. As well as the likes of Autodesk

Geospatial and buildings: can we bringit all together? The GIS interface with BIM involves many planning,utility and construction professionals. Christine Easterfield from Cambashi, Cambridgebased independent industry analysts, looks at this interface from a business perspectiveand concludes that GIS providers are dwarfed by CAD companies, which may affect how

those professionals can work together.

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Geospatial and BIM


Christine Easterfield is aprincipal consultant withanalyst and research firm,Cambashi. She has over20 years’ experience inthe software business,with roles inprogramming, training,consultancy and productmarketing management.


. . . the GISpractitioner islong used to

integrating withother agencies.

“

“

and Bentley who are established as geospatial as well asarchitectural and construction software providers, thereis a growing range of BIM options from the establishedCAD houses – Nemetschek has long championed BIM,being an early adopter of support for industryfoundation classes (IFC), even Dassault Système - bestknown for manufacturing design - has a BIM capability.It is worth bearing in mind the relative size of theseplayers compared to the GIS providers. Autodesk andDassault Système alone have revenues in excess of theentire market for GIS software suggesting there are anumber of powerful players out there that could out-invest most GIS providers.

In practice the geospatial side and the design andconstruction sides are still operating in isolation. Onereason for this may be the lack of a long-termeconomic driver for creating and maintainingbuilding information models or city informationmodels. Government initiatives and regulations areimportant in this area, driven in turn by the need tobe more efficient in the use of resources by reducingwaste and conserving energy. The UK government,for example, requires all publicly fundedinfrastructure projects to use building informationmodels – that is to say producing an electronicversion of all project and asset information - by2016, which is getting uncomfortably close. The goal

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is to introduce savings and will provide a source ofdata for integration with equivalent (geospatial) datafrom highways, transportation and energy projects.

Government can benefit but what about theprivate sector? The benefits are most closely seenin the running of the building and in these projectswhere the government body is the building owner oroperator. The same benefits could be available to theprivate building owner/operator but for the privateoperator, it is not so simple to prescribe the use ofBIM. The architects and developers may have little orno relationship with the eventual building owner oroperator, so incurring the cost of capturing full BIMdata may be harder to justify. Until it becomesaccepted good practice, the appearance of BIMs willbe patchy. But with governments providing theexample of savings that can be achieved, delivering acompleted BIM may well become an asset of thedevelopment as delivered. When that happens, thegeospatial operators need to be ready to accept thatdata into their view of the world. And by getting readyfor BIM, they’ll be more prepared for the onslaught ofsmart building data streams: energy generation andconsumption; communications; footfall; occupancyand travel patterns. All plenty of sources for whichgeospatial integration can add-value.

Geospatial and BIM

Web Map Layers from CadcorpSharing Local Knowledge™

Available on desktop, tablet and mobile devices Discover more at cadcorp.com



. . . removal ofthe standalonesatnav device

only eight yearsafter theiraddition. . .

“

“AS A STRONG ADVOCATE of the culinary merits of thesweet potato, your Chair was particularly pleased to seethe recent addition of this humble root vegetable to thebasket of goods and services that underpin the Office ofNational Statistics (ONS) calculation of the consumer priceindex. However, more striking for readers of this magazineis no doubt the widely reported removal of the standalonesatnav device only eight years after their addition - usersnow tending to use their smartphones or rely upon thoseservices increasingly built into new vehicles. Perhaps ofmore significant interest were the additions of subscriptionservices for both music streaming and online gaming, aclear sign of the trend towards online serving of content towhich most publishers and consumers of geographic datawill immediately relate.

Of course, the ONS basket is one of many indicators ofchange. During the last month I have participated in severalevents across both the public and private sectors where thesignificance of open data ecosystems have been exploredas a platform for innovation. It has been particularlyencouraging to discover an increasingly new audience ofdevelopers building geographically aware applications andservices. In these times of rapid change it is essential thatthe traditional geographic information industry (sic)continues to innovate fast and take opportunities in

response to both market and technological trends. Forthose who haven’t yet taken part, The AGI’s Geo: Big 5event series is a great place to start. Following a verysuccessful review of the trend towards smart energy at ourfirst event in Edinburgh, the next events get under the skinof BIM (Cambridge, April) and the latest developments ingeographically aware sensors and sensing (Belfast, May).Both promise to be highly relevant to developments in ourmarket and will provide a fantastic opportunity to networkwith new colleagues. More information can be found onthe AGI website.

Starting early AGI provides a collective voice for thegeospatial industry and supports members throughouttheir careers and as their businesses grow. However, thisyear we particularly want to do more to help our youngermembers, early in their careers. With this in mind, I’mdelighted to promote the launch of AGI’s Early CareerNetwork. By establishing a brand new volunteer supportnetwork and a programme of events targeted at theneeds of Early Career Professionals we hope to providegreater encouragement to develop careers in thegeographic information industry. Members can expectopportunities to raise their profile within the industrythrough AGI events; targeted training and workshops in

communication and networking skills; training in theCGeog application process; and importantly, anopportunity to access mentoring from industry leaders.

We are working closely with our colleagues in TheRoyal Geographical Society and The Royal ScottishGeographical Society in order to align our collectiveactivities and events and to ensure that our combinedefforts help younger professionals build their careers andtheir case for chartered geographer accreditation. If youhave less than ten years work experience and are interestedin becoming part of this network, please send an emailstating your interest to [email protected] and we will addyou to our mailing list of future events and activities. We arealso looking for more experienced GIS professionals (10years+) to support the Early Career Network by sharingtheir skills and experience with network members and byproviding presentations, mentoring and advice at ourevents. If that sounds like something you would be keen tosupport then please get in touch!

Looking towards 2020, the AGI will publish aforesight report later this year. Articles and insightfulcontent are being developed at present and our editorialteam would welcome discussion with any parties whowould like to be involved. There will be more on this asthe year progresses, but in the meantime please speak to

the AGI team to find out more if you are interested.

And finally. . . Since the closing session at last year’s AGIannual conference in Warwick I’ve often found myselfpondering the impact that better story telling would havefor our industry. We’re great at producing case studiesand have become expert in conveying a sense of the veryreal return on investment that geographic informationand geographic information systems and servicesunquestionably deliver. However, I do wonder whether it’senough to rely on factual presentation of past experiencesand the resultant customer value. Stories can inspire asense of what might be rather than simply what has been.It is this sense of discovery that underpins what innovationmeans to me and I wonder whether the future value ofour industry is dependent on our ability to instil a greaterdegree of imagination in how we pursue theopportunities that current changes afford to us.

Thank you to those members who have been intouch since the start of the year and the encouragementthat you continue to provide to members of the AGITeam and your council. Thank you also to those memberswho continue to volunteer and participate in events andother AGI activities. It’s been great to meet so many ofyou and I look forward to meeting more of you soon.

Sweet spot in ONS and help for earlycareers A new initiative will see help for younger AGI members during the early years of their career, reports AGI Chair David Henderson. But first he expresses

his delight in a humble vegetable’s debut in that basket of national goods.

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AGI column


David Henderson is ageospatial professionalwith a geographer’s heart.He is the Head of ProductManagement &Development at OrdnanceSurvey and is serving asAGI’s Chair in 2015.

AGI exists to “maximise theuse of geographicinformation (GI) for thebenefit of the citizen, goodgovernance and commerce”.Membership details areavailable [email protected] or by calling:+44 (0)207 591 3190



Accurate andtimely analysisof geographicinformationassists us inidentifyingtrends and

understandingrisk. . .

“

“

CAMBRIDGESHIRE AND PETERBOROUGH FireAuthority has contracted with Computer AidedDevelopment Corporation Ltd (Cadcorp) for thesupply of a corporate geographic informationsystem, bringing the number of UK fire and rescueservices using Cadcorp GIS software to forty one.

The British software development company wonthe multi-year contract in open competition.Cadcorp will supply and implement a GIS solutioncomprising a number of licences of Map Modellerdesktop software, and Web Map Layers, Cadcorp’sweb mapping application. Training and consultancyservices are also included, and support andmaintenance will be provided for the lifetime of thecontract.

Nicola Smith, Business and intelligenceperformance manager at Cambridgeshire Fire &Rescue Service (CFRS) explained the business driversbehind the procurement: “CFRS has threeresponsibilities as a fire and rescue service:protection, prevention, and response. Accurate andtimely analysis of geographic information assists usin identifying trends and understanding risk in thecommunities we serve. The new system will greatlyexpand the reach of geographic information in theservice, taking it outside of the Business Intelligenceand Performance group. We are establishing a web-mapping service which will enable anyone to accessmaps along with a range of geographic informationvia our intranet. The end result will be that users willexperience a more efficient and more effective

service which will free up business and intelligencepersonnel to focus on more complex analytical tasksusing desktop licences.”

Mike O’Neil, CEO Cadcorp commented: “Fire andrescue services are under incredible pressure to domore with less, and to do so without compromisingthe safety of either the public or fire and rescueservice personnel. We believe that by sharinggeographic information through an easy-to-use andweb-based self-service model, CFRS will be able toachieve this goal.”

About Cambridgeshire and Peterborough FireAuthority Cambridgeshire and Peterborough FireAuthority is the governing body responsible fordelivering a fire and rescue service to the 820,000people of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. It wasestablished in 1998 when Peterborough City becamea unitary authority. The service operates from 27 firestations which vary in status from being staffed 24/7,

365 days a year, to being completely on-call. Thecounty has a number of major trunk roads runningthrough it, including the A1 and A14, and a largenetwork of rural roads, so as well as responding toaround 2,000 fires a year, the Service also attendsaround 500 road traffic collisions.

About Cadcorp Cadcorp is a British softwaredevelopment company focused on geographicinformation system (GIS) and web mapping software.It offers a complete suite of products - the CadcorpSpatial Information System® (Cadcorp SIS®) -addressing all phases of spatial informationmanagement. Cadcorp SIS is available worldwidethrough a network of Cadcorp partners and througha direct sales team in the UK and Ireland. To find outmore, please visit www.cadcorp.com

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire &Rescue opts for Cadcorp corporate GIS

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casestudy GI and fire&rescue



Offline maps for mobilemulti platformMobile geospatial technologycompany Nutiteq from Estoniahas launched an offline mapsservice with a new mobile multi-platform SDK (softwaredevelopment kit) for GIS andgeospatial application devel-opers. Nutiteq Maps 3.0 has aunique feature set, includingcustomization flexibility, usesopen standards and enablesbuilding professional GIS andGEO applications for Android,iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone,wearables and other deviceplatforms.

A global offline mapsservice is provided as a cloudservice, powered by worldwideOpenStreetMap map data. Forprofessional users, Nutiteqoffers freedom from particularmap data, GIS or cloud serviceproviders. “We enable quick

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and cost-effective transition ofGIS solutions to mobileplatforms – now there is aglobal offline maps service incombination with our provencross-platform maps SDK forAndroid and iOS platforms”,explains Jaak Laineste, founderand technical manager ofNutiteq (www.nutiteq.com).

Web mapping helps NMCA partnership with the NationalMap Centre (NMC) sees FIND’sweb mapping technologypowering NMC’s refreshedmapping and data system. TheNMC’s website - www.mapsnmc.co.uk – has been refreshedand features an online mappingsystem where customers canregister and download OS mapdata and create plot prints forplanning purposes, as well asannotate maps with easy-to-usetools. Julie Cleary, manager of

NMC, commented: “FIND’ssystem has significantlystreamlined the process ofordering data for our clients.We are able to offer a wholenew range of products likeaerial imagery.”

Handheld upgradesHandheld has announced amajor upgrade to its Algiz 10Xrugged computer (IP65 rated)featuring the Windows 8.1 Prooperating system (which isdowngradeable to Windows 7for maximum flexibility).Windows 8.1 Pro offersenhanced features to help userseasily connect to companynetworks, access one PC fromanother, encrypt data, betterwireless communication supportincluding LTE, which providessubstantially faster data speeds,both up- and downstream, andincreased overall networkcoverage.

Marketers tool for 2015A new version of GfK’s geo-marketing software RegioGraphfor 2015 offers many newfeatures, including a webviewer, IP geocoder andsimplified data import.RegioGraph is a software forlocation intelligence appli-cations ranging from marketand target group analyses tosales territory optimization andexpansion planning, whichallows users to visualize theircustomers, target groups andpotential on digital maps andcarry out analyses usingdetailed integrated data onpotential.

Smallest tracker in theworldFrench company AguilaTechnologies is launching whatit claims to be the smallest GPSmini-tracker in the world. TheAguila1000 weighs only 35gand offers long energyretention that can remain on

standby for up to a year; ahighly sensitive mini-GPSaccurate to 3m; movement andimpact sensors; Bluetooth 4(low-consumption) communi-cations; GPRS data transmissionand various power-management scenarios offeringlong-lasting and completeenergy autonomy.

The mini tracker is aimed atreducing the current surge inthefts of shipments, jewellery,works of art, equipment,machinery and variouscommodities, together with theincreased requirement fortracking in the logistics andsupply chain such as thoserequiring powerful and discreettracking. It can be configuredremotely using a smartphone,tablet or PC.

GNSS receiver pairs withmobilesTrimble’s latest GNSS receiver,the R1 is a pocket-sized,rugged, standalone unit thatworks with iOS, Android orWindows mobile handhelds,smart phones and tabletsusing Bluetooth. When pairedwith a smart device, thereceiver adds professional-grade GNSS geolocationcapabilities to transformconsumer devices into high-accuracy mobile datacollection systems.

The Trimble R1 receiver iscompact and portable weighingonly 6.5 ounces (187 grams)with an all-day battery life. Thereceiver integrates withTrimble’s TerraFlex, TrimbleTerraSync and other mappingand GIS field software.

Thermographic surveys byUAVThermographic Consultancy, adistributor of FLIR Systems’thermal imaging equipment, isoffering a service to fly thermalimaging mounted on itscustom-built 1015mm diameter

There is more news of products and services on our website at www.pvpubs.com To get your company featured on this page call Sharon Robson on +44 (0)1438 352617


products & services

SCCS is currently offering the Topcon GRS-1 handheld GISdata collector for £2495. The device comes with a 72-channel dual frequency L1/L2 GPS receiver, an integratedcellular modem, internal 2 megapixel autofocus digitalcamera, Bluetooth, 256Mb of SDRAM, an 806MHzprocessor and Windows Mobile OS v. 6.1. An externalL1/L2 antenna is also available for GIS-RTK (<5cm) work.The GRS-1 is designed for any GIS application includinghigh accuracy projects such as utility infrastructure,underground electric and gas, water/wastewater, assetmanagement, and land records management. More athttp://www.sccssurvey.co.uk

GNSSenabledGIS datacollector

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octocopter so that clients canget accurate surveys of complexor hazardous areas, such asindustrial sites and rigs, safelyand quickly.

Applanix GNSS/INS forUAVsApplanix has announced theAPX-15 UAV GNSS-Inertialsystem for small unmannedaerial vehicles which can reduce- or even eliminate - groundcontrol points. Sidelap issignificantly reduced and thepackage, which weighs just60g, includes POSPac UAV post-mission software.

Geo Calculator 2015Blue Marble Geographics hasannounced the release of theGeographic Calculator 2015.This major release featuresseveral new administrative

tools, support for geoid creationin conjunction with GlobalMapper v16, and support formagnetic declination.

Esri tighten integrationwith LandWorksTighter integration with Esri GISsolutions and software "rebuiltfrom the ground up" areintroduced with LandWorksRelease 5.20 for its threeprimary software suites:Property Management, GIS andWebMaps Enterprise GIS.Deployed extensively for landasset management andmapping in the oil & gas, utility,mining, pipeline, renewableenergy and government sectors,LandWorks appeals to a wideaudience. Details on Release5.20 may be found athttp://www.landworks.com/products/.

There is more news of products and services on our website at www.pvpubs.com To get your company featured on this page call Sharon Robson on +44 (0)1438 352617


products & services

KCS TraceME expands Internet of Things

KCS BV, based in Dordrecht (NL) has extended their successfulTraceME product line with an advanced module, targeted forworldwide mobility in the “Internet of Things” era. The latestdevelopment in the TraceME GPS/GPRS Track and Tracemodule combines RF location-based positioning with theLoRa™ technology. This combination of technologies meansthat ‘smart objects’ can become even smarter, as LoRa enableslong range, battery-friendly communication in a wide varietyof (M2M) applications.

Supporting GPRS/SMS and optional 3G, Wi-Fi, BluetoothLE, ANT/ANT+ and iBeacon provides easy integration withexisting wireless networks and mobile apps. The module willbe available in Q2/2015 and other variants in the high/mid-range and budget-line will follow shortly after. For more goto, www.trace.me.

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calendarIssue No 63 April 2015

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| seminars | conferences | exhibitions | courses | events | workshops | symposiums |We welcome advance details of conferences, seminars, exhibitions and other events which are likely to be of interest to the GIS community. Please mention the name of the event, venue, date and point of contact for further information and send to Jason PooleGISPro, 2B North Road, Stevenage, Herts SG1 4AT or e-mail: [email protected].

World Cadastre Summit20-25th April 2015, Istanbul, Turkeyhttp://wcadastre.org

Geo:Big 5 - BIM: The Next Level23rd April 2015, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge,UKwww.agi.org.uk/events/calendar

RIEGL LIDAR 20155-8th May 2015, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, Chinawww.riegl.com/media-events/events

FIG Working Week17-21st May 2015, Sophia, Bulgariawww.fig.net/fig2015

GeoPlace: Everything Happens Somewhere 201519th May 2015, Birmingham, UKwww.geoplace.co.uk

Esri UK Annual Conference19th May 2015, London, UKhttp://www.esriuk.com/events/annual-conference-2015/registration

GEO Business 201527-28th May 2015, Business Design Centre, London, UKhttp://geobusinessshow.com/

HxGN Live 20151-4th June 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada, USAhttp://hxgnlive.com

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To reserve space in the next issue callSharon Robson on +44 (0)1438 352617

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Documents

Unmanned versus manned unwrapped - GIS Professional€¦ · Unmanned versus manned unwrapped. . . joining the geography jigsaw ... op ic al ty GSPr . alk i ng toV e sL w rc hf m yv