Between the Poles

Geoff Zeiss' Memory Lives on in Urban Infrastructure Mapping Fund | Carleton FutureFunder

For over 30 years, Geoff Zeiss devoted his life to the Geospatial industry and community all over the world.

It was a life focused on the utility and construction sectors, mapping underground utility infrastructure, BIM, CAD, Geospatial interoperability, machine learning, and substation design among other interests. Zeiss was responsible for multiple large and prosperous implementations of records management software and locator-aware enterprise designs.

Zeiss was a knowledgeable, busy, productive, and inspirational individual. He was an author, speaker, creator, leader, and so much more. Holding a Doctorate from McGill University and a Bachelor’s Degree from Cornell University, Zeiss gained experience working in various positions (President, Vice President, Director) for companies such as Tydac Technologies, VISION, DPA, and Autodesk.

Zeiss was an active advisor to National Underground Asset Registry, Minnesota Geospatial Advisory Council Emergency Preparedness Committee, and Singapore Digital Underground Initiative. He wrote articles that appeared in LIDAR Magazine, was Editor for Energy and Building with Geospatial Media (2014-2016) and was involved in founding the Open Sources Geospatial Foundation from 2005-2006.

Throughout his life, Zeiss was a man dedicated to promoting the awareness and evolution of geospatial data, underground utilities, and technology. He often spoke about the importance of mapping underground utilities and infrastructure issues. Zeiss supported open standards as a director of the Open Geospatial Consortium.

With enthusiasm, Zeiss often spoke at events and forums all over the world. He made time for participating in, as well as being a founder and Conference Chair of, SUMSF. Throughout his life, Zeiss also participated in the Geospatial World Forum, Where 2.0, Location Intelligence, MundoGeo Connect, India Geospatial Forum, Middle East Spatial Geospatial Forum, Asia Geospatial Forum, and GITA events.

Zeiss was recognized for his dedication and efforts. During the years 2007 through 2009, he received Speaker Excellence Awards at GITA. He also received one of ten global technology awards from Oracle Corporation for ‘technical innovation and leadership in the use of Oracle’ in 2004. Zeiss continued his work, and at the Geospatial World Forum in 2014, he was yet again recognized for his efforts to increase the awareness of geospatial data and utility awareness. Zeiss received the Geospatial Ambassador Award.

Besides speaking, Zeiss created Between the Poles, a thought leadership blog where he advocated on issues of importance to the community. The blog addresses infrastructure issues and updates, and continues today under the care of GoGeomatics Canada, keeping Zeiss’ life mission of awareness and information moving forward.

Sadly, Geoff Zeiss passed away Sept 14, 2022. 

The Geoff Zeiss Urban Infrastructure Mapping Fund builds on decades of innovation by Dr. Zeiss in developing effective and
sustainable urban infrastructure through research and development supporting urban information systems.  The goal will be to focus on the democratization of utility mapping, creation of infrastructure digital twins, and modernization of data workflows in global construction and infrastructure management. The potential for new technologies and methods to facilitate crowd-sourced mapping and more equitable data access will end the monopoly of publicly funded private assets and improve both efficiency and safety of the construction industry. Depending on the funds raised, several exciting possibilities exist, from graduate student scholarships to post-doctoral fellowships to longer-term and endowed research positions.

Carleton University is an ideal place to house such a research fund. The Department of Geography and Environmental Studies excels at integrative scholarship, bringing together expertise in geomatics, physical and human geography, and environmental studies, while working closely with the researchers from engineering, architecture, industrial design, public policy, law, communications, and urban planning. This multi-sector, interdisciplinary approach is necessary to innovate across the complex socio-technical domain of urban information systems.

Please consider marking Geoff’s legacy with a contribution in his honour to advance this important research.

 

Author: Jon Murphy

Jonathan Murphy is the founder and Managing Director of GoGeomatics Canada, the most popular communications hub for the Canadian geomatics sector. Jon is the founder and chair of GeoIgnite - Canada's national geospatial leadership conference.

Jon has created Canada’s largest professional geospatial network, with the goal of strengthening and empowering our geospatial ecosystem. Jon has had broad range of global experience in marketing and sales for geospatial businesses across a number of sectors and regions globally. He holds a bachelor's degree in Archaeology from the University of Calgary and advanced diplomas in GIS and geomatics from COGS. Jon is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. In 2020 he joined the ISO/TC 211 Geographic information/Geomatics Technical Committee responsible for the ISO geographic information series of standards.

 

 

Canadian Underground Forum begins tomorrow

You can see the program for April 29 and 30 and register here.

Speaker lineup

One of the early innovators in applying LiDAR to mapping underground pipelines, Joseph Hlady, President at Lux Modus in Calgary, Alberta will explain n his keynote the benefits that his technology has brought to the oil and gas pipeline industry. Another early innovator is Otto Ballintijn, CEO of Reduct who has developed inertial or gyro technology for mapping underground pipe networks. In his keynote he will explain the evolution of the technology including the concept, operational method, and data output of gyro mapping technology. A number of jurisdictions around the world are developing digital twins at the urban, regional and even national level. Alex Shalash of UEVO will discuss creating a city subsurface infrastructure map which unifies fragmented information and produces an intelligent digital twin. Danny Petrecca of Locusview, an early leader in capturing and managing underground data in the gas industry, will review why as-builting still remains paper-based and discuss a digital construction solution that stitches together existing technologies to create the reliable digital twin that utilities need in the age of the smart grid.

Our chief guest speaker is Jim Anspach, Chair of the ASCE 38 standards group, who will bring us up to date on the imminent 38-21 utility as-built standard. Carsten Roensdorf and Neil Brammall will introduce the Open Geospatial Consortium's work in progress, the MUDDI standard for exchanging location data about underground infrastructure. Lawrence Arcand, who has led Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) investigations on a national level since 2003, will provide an overview of the Canadian standard CSA S250:20 Mapping of underground utility infrastructure.

Rob Martindale, Program Manager - Utilities/Railroads at the Colorado Department of Transportation, will present an overview on how a mix of legislation and regulation has enabled Colorado to revolutionize the capture and sharing of accurate underground utility location data. Page Tucker, President & CEO at ProStar which implemented the mobile and cloud solution adopted by the Colorado DoT will speak about how the partnership between Colorado DoT and Prostar made this successful. One of the remarkable new technologies applied to mapping underground infrastructure was developed by 4M-Analytics. Harel Dan, Head of GIS and Remote Sensing, and Ophir Wainer, Director of North America Business Development, will explain how 4M-Analytics uses satellite and aerial imagery to map underground infrastructure. Leica Geosystems' IDS Georadar was one of the early innovators in ground penetrating radar. Simon Pedley, Detection Ambassador at Leica Geosystems will talk about some of the innovations in hardware and software that Leica Geosystems has developed in the last couple of years.

Government has a crucial role to play in locating and mapping underground infrastructure. Gord Reynolds and Alon Gat will discuss how Infrastructure Ontario partnered with Metrolinx and the Ministry of Transportation to establish the Utility Coordination Program (UCP), a new initiative which oversees the development of utility relocation standards and the supporting process to improve the location, treatment and relocation of utility infrastructure. Gordon McElravy, of buildingSMART Canada, will discuss buildingSMART's efforts in implementing the Municipal Infrastructure Council Program to encourage building information model (BIM) initiatives at the municipal level. Capping the first day of CUF Prashant Shukle, who was responsible for mapping and earth observation in the Canadian government for many years, will moderate a panel discussion on the role of government in underground infrastructure with panelists from the State of Colorado, the U.K. Government's Geospatial Commission, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and Infrastructure Ontario.

GeoIgnite: Evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial approach to construction

I thought it would be worth while to include here the plenary talk I gave at GeoIgnite 2019 in Ottawa about the growing evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM + geospatial approach to full-lifecycle construction. 

The UK government and others have stated clearly that they expect the largest benefits of BIM to flow from a full-lifecycle approach to construction.  As construction companies who have taken on design, build, operate and/or maintain projects have found, for full life-cycle construction projects an approach that combines BIM + geospatial significantly improves outcomes. Until the last year or two evidence of the benefits of BIM + geospatial from real world projects has not been available. Now we are beginning to see substantive data that offer evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects.

Some owners have begun procuring using a design, build, maintain, and or operate model.   Engineering and construction companies who have undertaken these projects have reported significant business benefits from adopting an integrated BIM+geospatial approach to construction. Further evidence of the benefits of this approach is provided recently by the owner of a major $1.3 billion PPP construction project.  Nagpur Metro has estimated that it expects total savings in excess of US$225 million over the 25 year lifetime of a design-build-operate-maintain project.

In Canada construction contributes $137 billion, about 7 %, to the GDP annually. Construction in advanced economies have worldwide have a serious problem. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the world will need to spend $57 trillion on infrastructure through 2030 to keep up with global GDP growth. This will require huge amounts of private investment from pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds. To attract this money will require improvements in construction productivity, but in many of the world's advanced economies, construction productivity has been flat for the past 40 years. McKinsey reports that large construction projects typically take 20 percent longer to finish than scheduled and are up to 80 percent over budget. McKinsey & Company suggests that the construction industry is ripe for disruption and two of the technologies that it believes will be key in that anticipated transformation are geospatial and BIM. 

The UK Government as part of its building information modeling (BIM) initiative has said repeatedly that it expects the big payoff of a digital model will be during operations and maintenance, which typically represents 80% of the cost of a facility.  But to date there has been little uptake of this approach in the facilities management (FM) sector. A recent survey of the FM industry found that while 92% had heard about BIM and 84% agreed that BIM has the potential to deliver value add to FM, over two thirds said that the FM is not prepared for BIM.

The early adopters of a BIM+geospatial approach are companies who take on design, build, and maintain and/or operate projects, variously referred to as DBFM in the Netherlands, BOT in Southeast Asia, and PPP in Canada and India. Among these companies are some well-known names in global construction; Major construction firms have realized that BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value for full lifecycle projects. EllisDon, Parsons Brinckerhoff , Atkins Global , Arcadis , BAM and AECOM.

For example, in Canada In Canada public–private partnership (PPP) have been remarkably successful for building and maintaining infrastructure. 15 years ago EllisDon began taking on PPP projects and quickly recognized that an integrated BIM+geospatial simplified capturing and maintaining data over the full project lifecyle of a project. As a result Integrated BIM + geospatial has become a best practice on P3 projects at EllisDon.

Owners have found that BIM+geospatial integration provides greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance. A leader in this space, Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch transportation authority, began offering design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) projects a number of years ago which has motivated private Dutch engineering and construction companies to adopt an integrated geospatial+BIM approach to construction. The firm Royal BAM Group nv/BAM Infraconsult adopted integrated BIM + geospatial because of market developments including more complex construction assignments and an increasing demand from customers for service provision throughout the entire life cycle of a project. This includes reality capture using LiDAR scanning at the beginning of the project, before design, to capture an acuurate representation of the location where construction will take place. During the design and build phases of the project everything captured is georeferenced so that it can be migrated to an integrated GIS+FM system for maintenance activities. 

The Crossrail project in London which was the largest engineering project in Europe at the time, adopted a full-lifecycle BIM+geospatial approach with targets of 20% savings on design and construction and 40% savings during operations and maintenance.

In Southeast Asia for a BOT (build-operate-transfer) substation expansion project won by Malaysian company PESTECH to design, build and operate the substation for 25 years. PESTECH adopted an integrated BIM+geospatial approach which included reality capture of the existing substation at the beginning of the project using LiDAR and georeferencing everything including engineering drawings, digital photos, point clouds, BIM models, and other construction documents. The benefits that were realized as a result of this apporach included reduced design time, fewer site visits, reduced land requirement and material waste, and most importantly for keeping the project on budgets and on schedule no change orders.

In China a geospatial+BIM approach was adopted for the Miaoshan 220kV Secondary Transformer Substation project. This was a large indoor substation in Dongxihu District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province. The project integrated digital tools for construction, site preparation, mechanical, electrical, and protection. The 3D digital modeling approach enabled collaborative design of an indoor substation with restricted space with multiple voltages in a very congested urban area with minimal impact on the existing buildings and infrastructure and all of this within a tight time frame. One of the important benefits of the approach was that minimized the impact of the substation on the existing infrastructure. Since the transformer substation is located in the downtown of Wuhan where buildings are dense, reality capture (laser scanning) was used to model the area surrounding the substation. This helped to ensure the substation site design did not conflict with surrounding buildings. To enable combining the model, the point cloud data, the digital terrain model and other external data everything was geolocated (Bentley calls this geo-coordinated). Geo-coordination, a term minted by Bentley, enables engineers and facilities managers to find things that are tagged,related, or close to a building element and it makes it possible to navigate the information environment, not only 3D design models (virtual reality), but also 3D models in a real world context (augmented reality). For this project it was fundamental not only for integrating the substation design in its real world context, but also for making it possible to reuse the BIM model and associated data during operation and maintenance.

In the U.S. AECOM, which is a US$18.2 billion a year firm in the construction sector and has been ranked for eight years running #1 in Engineering News Record‘s “Top 500 Design Firms”, uses BIM + GIS on design, build, finance and operate (DBFO) projects around the world. AECOM has applied this approach to the external campus of Denver International Airport, and to lease management at Orlando, Hong Kong, and South West Florida international airports. AECOM has found that the advantage of an integrated BIM+GIS approach based on a centralized integration of information is that it allows the client to make strategic decisions during the design, build and operate phases of the construction life-cycle.

The first project I have come across that has attempted estimate total savings attributable to an integrated BIM+geospatial full life-cycle approach to construction is the Napgur Metro project. This is a US$1.3 billion project underway in Nagpur, and appears to be the first project in Asia to integrate a digital twin with an asset management system to eliminate information loss about assets during design and construction. Since the Nagpur system implements a full-lifecycle approach to project management, the location of each of the 500,000 assets comprising the systems is recorded making it possible to click on an asset in SAP and be shown the location of the asset in a 3D map. Final deliverables are digital models rather than paper drawings providing a basis for digitalizing operations and maintenance. The benefits of a 3D BIM+geospatial approach have been projected based on a 25 year lifetime for the project. It is estimated that this will result in US$400,000 savings during plan, design and build. But the big benefit of an integrated BIM+geospatial approach is expected during the 25 year maintain and operate phase of the project. It is expected that operating manpower requirements will be reduced by 20%. The really big payoff is an estimated savings of US$222 million over the lifetime of the project.

Reflecting this trend toward integrated BIM+geospatial there has been a massive consolidation over the past decade of the major hardware and software vendors providing geospatial, BIM and reality capture equipment and software. Hexagon AB, founded in in 1975, began major acquistions in the 1990s which included Leica Geosystems and Intergraph. It has now reached $3.49 billion annual revenue. Trimble founded in 1978 also embarked on major acquisitions including Sketchup and Tekla and is now a $2.7 billion construction equipment and software company. More recently Topcon (Japan) acquired Sokkia and Clearedge and has achieved $1.2 billion in annual revenue. Perhaps most significantly as an indicator for this trend in the industry, Autodesk ($2.46 billlion) and ESRI ($1.1 billion), the 800 pound gorillas in BIM and GIS, respectively, have announced a partnership to improve interoperability between the AEC and geospatial worlds. Finally, Bentley ($700 million) + Siemens ($105 billion) are working closely on a number of construction projects.

As a growing number of owners see the advantages of a full life-cycle approach in construction projects and begin to change their procurement practices, construction companies are changing their business processes to optimize facility maintenance and operation.  The leading edge of this trend is AEC companies that have taken on the challenge of design, build, operate and/or maintain projects. They have reported that they have realized significant benefits from an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach to construction. Now it appears that the word is getting out. Standards organizations in both the AEC and geospatial worlds are making progress on BIM+geospatial interoperability. Major software vendors Autodesk and ESRI have announced an agreement to partner for greater interoperability between their products. The open source community is also addressing the issue of BIM+geospatial interoperability. In the past the quantified advantages of an integrated BIM+geospatial approach have remained for the most part company internal, but we are now beginning to see data from real world projects that offer quantitative evidence for the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects.

Migrating to open source from a commercial geospatial platform is easier than you think

Samuel Song is responsible for the National Cemetery GIS implementation within Veterans Affairs and like many in government increased use of GIS means a greater sensitivity to cost. Samuel decided to investigate migrating to an open source geospatial from a commercial stack and found it surprisingly easy though there were some challenges.  Samuel outlined his experience at this year's GIS in the Rockies conference in Denver.

Currently he is using ArcGIS Desktop as his desktop GIS, SQL Server as a database, ArcGIS Enterprise as a web server, and ArcGIS API for Javascript for his web GIS. Samuel's main costs are ArcGIS Desktop which costs him $7200/annum. To look at ways to lower his costs Samuel decided to experiment with open source geospatial software; QGIS for his desktop GIS, PostgreSQL/PostGIS for his database, GeoServer for his web server, and Leaflet or OpenLayers for his web GIS (all part of the OSGEO open source geospatial stack). Some of the things he found in his proof of concept are surprising, others perhaps not so to folks who have been working with open source geospatial software for years. His most important findings from his perspective is that QGIS is a very stable, very powerful alternative to ArcMap. He also found that PostgreSQL/PostGIS is a stable alternative to SQL Server. He found that migrating data from an ESRI Geodatabase is much easier than he expected. He had some problems with Leaflet and WMS attributes, and preferred the greater functionality of OpenLayers.  

He is recommending as a first step migrating off ArcGIS Desktop to QGIS. That alone will save him $7200/annum.  In the future he is looking at PostgreSQL/PostGIS replacing SQL Server, using OpenLayers for his Web GIS and testing QField mobile data collector to replace Collector for ArcGIS.

His overall conclusion is that although some GIS professionals fear a transition to an open source stack due to its perceived complexity and many moving parts, he found that it is possible to move to a fully open source platform from an existing ArcGIS implementation and that some parts of the migration are much simpler than he expected.

GIS or data science ?

I always look forward to Joe Francica's talks at various events.  At this year's GIS in the Rockies he offered words for the wise in the geospatial world that will be considered by some revolutionary and by others evolutionary.

 

Don't call yourself a GIS analyst, call yourself a data scientist

 

The reasoning behind this is that geospatial technology which used to be an isolated technology, often with its own group within the organization, has become integrated with the broader IT technology.   This translates into IT professionals increasingly knowing how to used geospatial technology along with other IT tools, and GIS professionals including general IT technologies in their quiver.  For example, data science professionals who use SQL databases, Hadoop and Spark, and JSON to manage data are also using spatial extensions such as Oracle Spatial, SQLServer Spatial, PostGIS, GeoMesa and GeoJSON as well as Google Maps.  GIS professionals have broadened their use of general IT tools from SQL databases to non-SQL databases, Python, Java, and Javascript APIs, and HTML5.   Another dimension to this is that whereas geospatial professionals used to focus their attention on data acquisition, their focus nowadays is on data quality, visualization, and analytics - converting data into information.

 

Don't major in GIS, get a degree in forestry, engineering or data science first.

 

The corollary to this is that folks responsible for setting curricula for non-GIS major and professional undergraduate programs should ensure that geospatial technology is included.  For example, nowadays it is essential that architects and engineers be familiar with geospatial technology.  A number of years ago Anne Kemp, then head of GIS at Atkins Global, the design and engineering firm, asked the question ‘BIM isn’t geospatial — or is it?’ and argued that integration of geospatial and BIM was essential to address the challenges of the 21st century.  The need to integrate geospatial and BIM has since rapidly gained traction in the construction industry as evidenced by the partnership developing between GIS and AEC market leaders ESRI and Autodesk.

 

Joe's advice reflects the integration of geospatial technology into general IT that dramatically broadened in scale in 2006 with the release of Google Maps and which since has accelerated driven by modern web applications' ability to integrate data and tools from multiple APIs and data sources.

New 2022 state plane coordinate system will change locations by up to 1.5 meters

I blogged previously about a new datum or geospatial reference system which will become the official U.S. datum in 2022.  The new reference system will result in elevations changing by up to a meter and horizontal locations by up to 1.5 meters. As part of the transition from the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83) to the 2022 Terrestrial Reference Frames, an update of the State Plane Coordinate System is required . The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has created a draft policy and procedures for SPCS 2022 and is asking for public feedback.

The State Plane Coordinate System (SPCS) is a system of conformal map projections created by the National Geodetic Survey (NGS). SPCS was established to support surveying, engineering, and mapping activities in the United States and its territories. The current version, SPCS 83, is referenced to the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83) and consists of 125 zones based on the Lambert Conformal Conic, Transverse Mercator, and Oblique Mercator projections. The State Plane Coordinate System of 2022 (SPCS2022) will replace SPCS 83.

Most people in the geospatial sector in the U.S. are aware of the datums NAD27 and NAD83 which have been the reference points for all surveys performed in the U.S.  NAD83 was defined primarily using terrestrial surveying techniques.  NAD83 has been updated several times since being introduced in 1983, but is based on an elipsoid that is non-geocentric and is tilted slightly. The new datum or North American Terrestrial Reference Frame of 2022 (NATRF2022) is based on gravity which means that "sea level" is now represented by an equipotential gravity surface rather than the Earth's elipsoid. The new reference frames will rely primarily on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) as well as an updated and time-tracked geoid model.  Importantly, the new datum means that Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. will share a common datum.  The gravity-based vertical datum will be accurate at the 2 cm level for much of the U.S. Gravity data is being captured across the U.S. and its territories as part of the Grav-D project.

Practically, this means that elevations may change by up to a meter and horizontal location by up to 1.5 meters. The actual corrections to elevations and horizontal locations will depend on where you are in North America. The greatest changes are in the Pacific Northwest and the least in the southeastern U.S.  All federal civilian agencies with geographic data will be required to use the new reference frames. Some states may require a change in law to utilize the new reference frames.

The NGS is asking for public feedback on the draft SPCS2022 by August 31, 2018.

I blogged previously about a new datum or geospatial reference system which will become the official U.S. datum in 2022.  The new reference system will result in elevations changing by up to a meter and horizontal locations by up to 1.5 meters. As part of the transition from the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83) to the 2022 Terrestrial Reference Frames, an update of the State Plane Coordinate System is required . The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has created a draft policy and procedures for SPCS 2022 and is asking for public feedback.

The State Plane Coordinate System (SPCS) is a system of conformal map projections created by the National Geodetic Survey (NGS). SPCS was established to support surveying, engineering, and mapping activities in the United States and its territories. The current version, SPCS 83, is referenced to the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83) and consists of 125 zones based on the Lambert Conformal Conic, Transverse Mercator, and Oblique Mercator projections. The State Plane Coordinate System of 2022 (SPCS2022) will replace SPCS 83.

Most people in the geospatial sector in the U.S. are aware of the datums NAD27 and NAD83 which have been the reference points for all surveys performed in the U.S.  NAD83 was defined primarily using terrestrial surveying techniques.  NAD83 has been updated several times since being introduced in 1983, but is based on an elipsoid that is non-geocentric and is tilted slightly. The new datum or North American Terrestrial Reference Frame of 2022 (NATRF2022) is based on gravity which means that "sea level" is now represented by an equipotential gravity surface rather than the Earth's elipsoid. The new reference frames will rely primarily on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) as well as an updated and time-tracked geoid model.  Importantly, the new datum means that Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. will share a common datum.  The gravity-based vertical datum will be accurate at the 2 cm level for much of the U.S. Gravity data is being captured across the U.S. and its territories as part of the Grav-D project.

Practically, this means that elevations may change by up to a meter and horizontal location by up to 1.5 meters. The actual corrections to elevations and horizontal locations will depend on where you are in North America. The greatest changes are in the Pacific Northwest and the least in the southeastern U.S.  All federal civilian agencies with geographic data will be required to use the new reference frames. Some states may require a change in law to utilize the new reference frames.

The NGS is asking for public feedback on the draft SPCS2022 by August 31, 2018.

Virtual reference networks workshop

Speaker lineup Virtual Reference Networks

Canadian Geodetic Survey Tools and Services for Accurate Positioning
Brian Donahue, Geodetic Survey Division, Natural Resources Canada

TopNET Live – GNSS Survey Grade Corrections Where and When You Want
Jonathon Ball, Infrastructure Businesses, Topcon Positioning Systems
Dilip Lal, Director Sales and Operations - Canada, Sokkia Corporation

CAN-NET - A GNSS Real Time VRS Corrections Service
Otto Jurgenson, M.Sc., Technical Support Specialist, Cansel

The RTK+ Network, by New-Net (TeraPro Group)
Paul-André Hénault, Coordinator, Precision Agriculture, New-Net
Aaron Appelblom, Territory Sales Manager, CNH Industrial

How Emerging Markets Are Refining Traditional GNSS Networks
Tyler Collier, SmartNet North America

The Current and Future Status of Precise Point Positioning (PPP)
Omid Kamali, Geodetic Survey Division, Natural Resources Canada

Virtual Reference Stations (VRS) and Coordinate Systems
James Ferguson, OLS, General Manager, Tulloch Mapping Solutions

Update on the Geospatial Act of 2017 presented at GITA Phoenix 2018

The Geospatial Data Act (GDA) of 2017, which was introduced in the Senate (S. 2128) and a companion bill in the House (H.R.4395), has some history. It was originally proposed in 2015 by Orrin Hatch, a Republican Senator from Utah, and sponsored by five Republicans and five Democrats. The 2015 bill consisted of ten sections and basically codified and strengthened federal government practices relating to geospatial data. The 2015 bill enjoyed wide support in the geospatial community throughout the U.S. and was generally viewed as a positive step forward.  In the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, two additional sections were added to the bill that broadly extended the definition of survey data and mandated rules (Brooks Act) for procurement of geospatial services by the federal government.  Virtually the entire GIS and geospatial community reacted strongly and urged that the bill not be passed in its revised form because it would effectively exclude the entire geo community from recording the location of anything.  Since then the bill appears to have been revised back to its original form.  The texts of the latest Senate bill (S. 2128) and House bill (H.R.4395) no longer include Section 11 and 12 which were intended to apply the Brooks Act to a broad range of geospatial data and services.

At the GITA 2018 conference in Phoenix, Mark E. Limbruner, President of Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA), gave an update on the Geospatial Data Act of 2017.  As of 11/15/2017 the Senate bill had been read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The House bill has been referred to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

To summarize briefly, the bill formalizes the role that the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) shall have in leading the development, implementation, and review of policies, practices, and standards relating to geospatial data. It also establishes the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) to provide advice and recommendations to the committee. The FGDC would exercise Federal oversight over federal geospatial expenditure and be responsible for ensuring a coordinated interoperable strategy for geospatial data in the Federal arena.  Each Federal agency would be expected to fit its plan for geospatial data into the FGDC's strategic plan. Four years after enactment of the bill, federal funding would be withheld for the collection, production, acquisition, maintenance, or dissemination of geospatial data that does not comply with the standards established by the committee. The bill also mandates that the FGDC would operate GeoPlatform, an electronic service that would provids access to geospatial data and metadata.

Mark pointed out that if sections 11 and 12 had been retained in the bill, the law could be interpreted so say that only a registered professional (engineer or surveyor) would be legally permitted to capture or manipulate any information tied to a point on the Earth including

• Most GIS, mapping, cartography, and imagery products and data;
• Data that may represented by points, lines, and polygons;
• Data depicting the distribution of natural or cultural resources, features, or phenomena;
• Data utilized by a Federal agencies;
• Data used to create general maps or prepared for atlases, educational materials, etc.
• Geospatial data used by law enforcement
• Geospatial data used by the military;
• Data that may be developed from; GPS units, aerial photography, unmanned aerial vehicles, etc.

Mark said that GITA has opposed the bill the appended procurement language because

• The bill creates an exclusionary  environment
• Has a negative impact on small firms.
• Stifles competition within the dynamic and innovative geospatial sector.
• Ignores the fact that the geospatial industry has implemented several certification programs to insure the ethical and  responsible performance of geospatial services
• Makes no allowance for GISPs to be considered certified professionals.
• Creates an atmosphere where GIS services are merely considered a function of the A&E industry.

Mark said that GITA is supportive of the original Geospatial Data Act because the benefits to federal, state and regional geospatial data users and technology are immeasurable. The combined efforts will elevate the profile of the relevant federal committees and councils, as well as the entire geospatial industry. Mark emphasized that should the  “procurement” language reappear in the bill during further debates, GITA will actively work to defeat the bill.

(Thanks to Glenn O'Grady of URISA for pointing me to the latest version of the Senate Bill.)

Studies find geospatial proliferating across the world economy

The latest estimate of the annual contribution of the geospatial industry to the world economy of US$400 billion represents a substantial increase over a previous estimate of US$150-270 billion released in 2013.  Both reports agree that the total contribution of geospatial data and technology annually to the world's economy is to be calculated in trillions of US dollars.  There is evidence that geospatial's contribution is increasing.

 AlphaBeta used consumer surveys from 22 countries, big data analysis of online job postings and other analytics to determine the impact of geospatial data, technology and services on the world economy. The study (The Economic Impact of Geospatial Services, AlphaBeta, September 2017) estimates that geospatial services generated annual revenue of US$400 billion per year in 2016 - this directly contributed to increasing the world's GDP. In addition geospatial data, technology and services save time and fuel for the travelling public - this contributes to increasing labour productivity. The study estimates that these efficiency benefits save the public over US$550 billion per year. Together the contribution in efficiency gains and direct revenue are estimated to reach almost a trillion US dollars. This is viewed as a conservative estimate of the contribution of geospatial to the world economy since the study was able to quantify only a few of the ways that geospatial data, technology and services benefit the economy.  The ways that AlphaBeta was able to quantify in which geospatial contributes to the world economy include productivity gains for the travelling public, direct revenue generated by the geospatial industry, and revenue gains and cost savings in other industries from using geospatial data and technology.

Productivity - digital map data and technology shorten traveling time by 12% (estimated to be worth US$ 264 billion). It also saves US$ 20 billion in fuel. Geospatial also enables consumers to make buying decisions faster, saving more than 21 billion hours (estimated to be worth US$283 billion).

Direct revenue - the geospatial industry generates US$400 billion in revenue per year.

Indirect revenue and savings - the study suggests that the increased revenue from geospatial-enabled services is several times higher that direct revenue to the geospatial industry. For example, the study estimates that digital maps drives US$1.2 trillion of sales worldwide. Furthermore the study estimates that geospatial technology improves revenues and costs by at least 5 percent in sectors contributing more than 70 percent to global GDP, for example, retail and mining. This has an estimated value of about US$2.7 trillion.

Other non-quantified benefits - other benefits that are difficult to put a price tag on include creating 4 million jobs, reducing automobile emissions by 1,686 million metric tons, reducing emergency response time by up to to 20% in some countries, and improving emergency preparedness.

To put this in context, according to a report prepared by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in June 2012 the geospatial services industry in the United States generated annual revenues of $75 billion. The BCG report estimated the economic impact of the geospatial services industry on government, business, and consumers to be $1.6 trillion in revenues (greater efficacy) and $1.4 trillion (about 8.7% of the U.S. GDP) in cost savings (greater efficiency).  In 2013 Google released a report What is the economic impact of Geo services ? prepared by Oxera Consulting Ltd. Global revenues from geospatial products and services as defined by Oxera was estimated to be $150-$270 billion per year. The $270 billion estimate was computed by scaling up the BCG estimate for the United States to the world economy.  The latest report considerably increases the estimated direct revenue to the geospatial industry, but is inline with the 2013 report in estimating that the total benefits of geospatial to the economy lies in the range of several trillions of US dollars.  The improvements in revenue and costs in all industries which use geospatial data and technology is estimated to amount to roughly 3% of the world's GDP.

For comparison the most quoted estimate of geospatial data an technology to a national economy is a 2008 a report prepared for the CRCSI & ANZLIC by ACIL Tasman estimated that the spatial information sector contributed between 0.6% and 1.2% of the Australian GDP in in 2006-2007.  The recent Google results suggest that the proliferation of geospatial data and services has increased the penetration of geospatial in the world's economy.

There is other evidence that geospatial is proliferating in the world's economy.  McKinsey has estimated that by 2020 the benefits (difference between willingness to pay and the cost of applications) that customers, consumers and businesses, will enjoy from location-based applications will reach as much as US$700 billion/year. Most of this, about 70 %, will be the consumer benefit from time and fuel saved by using GNSS navigation systems including those with real-time traffic information and mobile LBS applications. The remaining 30 % of the benefits will be through location-enabled applications such as geo-targeted mobile advertising.  Smart navigation applications are estimated to provide $500 billion in value to global consumers in time and fuel saved by 2020. Geo-targeted advertising could represent more than 5 percent of total global advertising spending by 2020.

A major industry where geospatial is already having a significant impact which may accelerate is construction.  Globally construction is expected to grow by almost 70% from $7.2 trillion today to $12 trillion by 2020.   Construction productivity has been stagnant in many advanced economies for decades.  It has been slow to adopt process and technological innovations and its R&D spending has lagged other industries. In a recent report, Imagining construction’s digital future, McKinsey suggests compelling reasons why the construction industry is ripe for disruption and how digitization might contribute to its transformation.  Two of the technologies that McKinsey identifies that will be key in the anticipated transformation are geospatial and BIM. 

Geospatial data bill before Congress revised to its original intent

The Geospatial Data Act (GDA) of 2017, which was introduced earlier this year in the Senate (S.1253) and a companion bill in the House (H.R.3522), has some history. It was originally proposed in 2015 by Orrin Hatch, a Republican Senator from Utah, and sponsored by five Republicans and five Democrats. The 2015 bill consisted of 10 sections and basically codified and strengthened federal government practices relating to geospatial data. For example, it proposed that the chair of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) be the Director of the Office Management and Budget (OMB), an agency that has statutory authority and can set standards and enforce practices for all government departments.  This would provide FGDC with the authority to make other agencies follow existing common sense rules. The bill established a clear vision, assigned responsibility, provided authority and ensured oversight of Federal activities by Congress. These improvements were intended to help ensure that the U.S. is able to build a robust National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI).  The 2015 bill enjoyed wide support in the geospatial community throughout the U.S. and was generally viewed as a positive step forward.

However the 2015 bill was blocked in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. It has been suggested that MAPPS, an organization representing some engineering and surveying firms that is attempting to restrict procurement of geospatial services by extending the Brooks Act to cover the geospatial sector, was instrumental in getting the 2015 bill blocked in committee. As a result the 2015 bill was rewritten with two additional sections that broadly extended the definition of survey data and mandated rules (Brooks Act) for procurement of geospatial services by the federal government. 

The bill has now been revised back to its original intent.  The text of the revised House bill (H.R.4395) is on congress.gov and it does not include Section 11 and 12 which were intended to apply the Brooks Act to geospatial data and services and were not viewed positively by the broad gesopatial community.  The text of the revised Senate bill (S.2128) is not yet available.