geospatial today inteviews mapstory founder, dr. chris tucker

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geospatial

Mapping has progressed from a hand-drawn image to one that could be moved around the world, almost at will. It is obvious that over the centuries, a revolution has occurred in cartographic design, map production, delivery and consumption (or use)

112012 www.geospatialtoday.com

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TODAY

THE

ROLE OFCHANGING

CARTOGRAPHERS

CONTENTS02 NEWS

12 ThE chaNgiNg rolE of carTographErS

Mapping has progressed from a hand-drawn image to one that could be moved around the world, almost at will. It is obvious that over the centuries, a revolution has occurred in cartographic design, map production, delivery and consumption (or use)

22 NaTioNal gi policy iN ThE offiNg

While India has five different policies pertaining to geospatial information, they still do not ensure regular and easy availability and accessibility to GI in an updated, standardised and seamless manner. Hence, the need for envisioning a set of core capabilities related to GI as a policy goal at the national level matching with the needs, aspirations and strengths of the country and filling the gaps in the current policies is evident

26 providiNg coNcluSivE laNd TiTlE iN gujaraT

Gujarat is the first state in India to implement the NLRMP programme. LIS developed using IGiS technology has been instrumental in sucessful implementation of the programme

42 griMMS WEb - coNNEcTiNg iNdia

GRIMMS software is envisaged to become an inherent and revolutionary platform for changing the very base of infrastructure management and monitoring in the country

jack dangermondFounder and President, ESRI

dr Shailesh r Nayak Secretary, Min of Earth Sciences

Maj gen (dr) r Siva KumarCEO-NSDI, Head - NRDMS

M MoniDeputy Director General, National Informatics Centre, Government of India

rajesh c MathurVice Chairman, ESRI India

dr Mukund raoConsultant (National GIS), Planning Commission

dr r NagarajaGroup Head, NDC, NRSC

dr N l SardaProf. Computer Science & Engineering Department, IIT Bombay

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VOLUME 11 ISSUE 9

Editorial advisory board

12COVER STORY

38riSK MaNagEMENT for coMMErcial SpacE vENTurES

30cradlE-To-gravE SoluTioNS for oil & gaS projEcTS

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christopher K Tucker Chairman and CEO, The MapStory Foundation

atlas on aquifer systems of india launched

Exelis visual information Solutions partners with Esri australia

Data generated by the Central Ground Water

Board on various aspects of ground water has been compiled and integrated in the form of atlas entitled “Aquifer systems of India.” Minister of Water Resources and Parliamentary Affairs, Pawan Kumar Bansal released the atlas in New Delhi for six states, viz Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.

Elaborating on the atlas, Pawan Kumar Bansal said, it depicts aquifer-wise ground

water scenario and provides a country-wide overview and summary of the most important information available for each principal

ITT Exelis subsidiary, Exelis Visual Information Solutions

has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Esri Australia to sell and distribute ENVI image analysis software and E3De LiDAR data exploitation platform.

Esri Australia, headquartered in Brisbane, is at the forefront

Lampe, president of Exelis Visual Information Solutions. “Our new partnership with Esri Australia further solidifies our commitment to the user, making premier sales and support available to GIS professionals in the entire region more promptly than ever before.”

Visual Information Solutions have developed integrated software solutions to streamline the Geographic Information System (GIS) user workflow and to make it easy for Geospatial professionals to add important information from geospatial imagery and data to a GIS,” said Jaye

management of ground water resources. To resolve these problems, a baseline data on GIS platform has been created for initiating national aquifer mapping programme and demarcating priority areas for aquifer-wise management of ground water resources on scientific and sustainable basis.

The correlations of various thematic layers such as climate, topographic settings on the occurrence, movement, and chemical quality of ground water has been depicted in the altas in the form of maps.

of Australia’s $2.1 billion domestic GIS market and is the exclusive provider of the ArcGIS software suite to the country. Exelis Visual Information Solutions is a leading worldwide developer of geospatial image and data analysis software.

“Together, Esri and Exelis

licensed mapping – vital to keep up with changing face of britain

Over the last 10 years the use of digital location-

based information has changed significantly, from being used by only a small number of organisations to becoming an essential business decision-making tool. This increased reliance on, and recognition of, digital mapping data has also resulted in customers demanding the most up-to-

The use of older, unlicensed data, not only has legal and cost implications, but also risks damaging professional reputations. Dan Hughes, Sector Manager of Land & Property at Ordnance Survey comments: “It is incredible how quickly the face of Britain

changes, with even small adjustments to buildings and boundaries able to have far-reaching consequences. Never has it been more important to ensure that you are using the very latest licensed data, allowing you to rely on the fact that it will be accurate and consistent, but more importantly that your company’s reputation is secure.”

Ordnance Survey steps up to provide licenced and

up-to-date data to users.

date information available. Ordnance Survey makes up to 10,000 changes to the master map database of Great Britain every day, reflecting the rapid developments in the nation’s environment. However, it is not only important for organisations to have the most up-to-date data, but also vital that they have the appropriate licence to effectively use it.

NEWS

and major aquifer systems. The atlas also sheds light on major issues and challenges which need immediate attention for sustainable

02 | geospatial TODAY november 2012

Garmin to offer voice guidance in 5 Indian languages

overwatch launches geocatalog Workgroup software

Garmin Corporation, a unit of Garmin Ltd, has

launched voice guidance in five new Indian languages – Punjabi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam. The service is available in all models above the nüvi 1000 series, and personal navigation devices (PNDs). Earlier, voice guidance was available only in Hindi and Indian-accented English. This facility will be available in models such as nüvi 40 LM, nüvi 50 LM, nüvi 2465 LM and

Overwatch, a strategic business of Textron

Systems Advanced Systems, an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. company, introduced its GeoCatalog Workgroup software, designed to enable users in small teams to easily share and manage geospatial data and databases on a shared local network.

email notifications to its set of users for standing queries of requested information, publishes point feature data to a shared repository, and provides metrics for images received and ingested and other performance areas.

“GeoCatalog Workgroup helps facilitate collaboration within small analyst teams,” explains

GeoCatalog Workgroup offers database and file management capabilities to add and remove cataloged data as well as associated files including images, shape files and video.

It provides automated ingesting and monitors directories for incoming data. The software also delivers

solution to direct you to the final destination,” he adds. With traditional navigation devices it is difficult to understand the street names or area because of the built-in American accent. Addressing this problem, Garmin developed the technology themselves to implement the Indian accent into devices. Garmin entered the Indian market more than 15 years ago and since then has been able to have a good share in the growing GPS market.

NEWS

oracle customers can now access Nokia mapping products

In a move to expand its location-based services

business, Nokia Oyj has agreed to give Oracle Corp’s customers access to its mapping products. After acquiring the world’s largest digital mapping firm, Navteq, in 2008, Nokia has been on the lookout for ways to boost the business. It also recently signed mapping deals with Groupon Inc and

Amazon.Com Inc. Contrary to Nokia’s mobile phone operations, sales of the company’s location business grew last quarter, though it still generates only 4 per cent of group revenue. Following the deal, Oracle has developed a link between its own software and the Nokia location platform software, enabling Oracle’s business users to access the

mapping services through its products. According to Martin Garner, analyst at CCS Insight, for the last 18 months Nokia has been on

By enabling Oracle customers use its

location based services, Nokia is trying to find new avenues to boost

business.

a mission to sign mapping and location deals with large internet players. The deal with Oracle Corporation is just a step further. In addition to being the world’s third-biggest software firm, Oracle also sells hardware to corporate clients, and in 2009 bought Sun Microsystems, the manufacturer of server computers and developer of Java and Solaris software.

Overwatch Vice President of Geospatial Solutions, Skip Maselli. “For instance, with this software an intelligence cell of 10 users can quickly access, share and manage a large number of geospatial image files. This ensures more timely and effective collaboration, and assists the team in the organisation and analysis of important data.”

nüvi 2565 LM. “It has been done keeping in mind the growing Indian market for the Garmin devices. We firmly

believe that devices should be made to assist the people and what better way than to communicate in their own language and accent,” said Tony An, Garmin Asia Marketing Director. “Users will feel more

confident being navigated in their own language. Garmin is trying to offer an easier


anti-naxal operations get a tech boost

3d-p partners with bentley Systems

Anti-naxal operations conducted by CRPF will

soon get a tech boost as the paramilitary plans to use GPS-enabled satellite trackers and mobile video conferencing system during planning and operations. Satellite imageries are already being used to plan and execute operations as part of the network-centric warfare initiatives against the ultras. At present, 51 satellite trackers have been deployed by the CRPF for real-time tracking of troops deployed in special operations in Naxal-affected areas and authorisation has been obtained by the force

SuperGeo Technologies have announced that SuperPad

3.1 is selected by Leica Geosystem S.p.A., assisting users in accomplishing efficient field mapping and data collection in applications of tourism, urban planning etc. With hundreds of experiences in measurement, Leica Geosystem S.p.A. is one of the well-known hardware

from the Union Home Ministry to procure 808 additional trackers for the purpose. In addition to the satellite

solution providers, offering professional products and services to collect, analyse, and display spatial information to shorten the decision-making cycle for GIS professionals, commercial organisations, and governmental institutes.

Due to the constant technical innovations, mobile technology nowadays has transformed the

way that surveyors complete field data collection. Using SuperPad 3.1, the full-function mobile GIS application, field researchers can measure, record, map, and update field data effectively and accurately to improve the quality of cartographic production, helping project planners perform in-depth analyses for better decisions. Serving as

system that will provide direct video and audio linkage to the command centre on the troops undertaking operations. Terra Explorer GIS workstations that contain maps and satellite imageries for planning operations and gaining better situational awareness of troops is already in use by the CRPF.

A GIS-based database is also being developed by the paramilitary using information on accidents, intelligence and operations for effective response to the emerging challenges in naxal-infested areas.

trackers, the paramilitary is also in the process of obtaining sanction for acquisition of mobile video conferencing

SuperGeo’s exclusive reseller in Italy, Helix S.r.l. is the professional GIS consulting company that is proficient in customising GIS solutions with SuperGIS software to fulfill clients’ application needs in various fields such as civil defence and security, urban and municipal administration, environmental conservation, geomorphology etc.

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, and 3D-P,

a leader in mobile software and hardware, have formed a partnership to deliver a long-awaited solution for the mining industry. The solution uses real-time data from the mobile fleet to make maintenance decisions and increase uptime. The integrated solution is designed to improve reliability and performance while

technology. Bentley Systems had acquired Ivara Corporation on September. 17, 2012. 3D-P designs and builds the most rugged and technologically-advanced onboard open-sourced computing platforms and wireless networks to keep mining operations and people connected. The Hornet Intelligent Endpoint system consolidates multiple systems on a single hardened

reducing risk and costs. Joint users will employ Bentley’s Ivara EXP to make fast and accurate maintenance decisions based on data acquired from 3D-P Hornet

3D-P and Bentley will offer solutions to the

mining industry to enhance operational and

maintenance efficiencies.

technology platform and is based on open standards. Ivara EXP will take the data from the Hornet to analyse and act on for the purpose of maintenance. Ivara EXP Remote will run on 3D-P’s new t200 Falcon Intelligent Tablet, which can host multiple third-party mining applications from a single display and has a bright, rugged, and anti-reflective screen.

november 2012 geospatial TODAY | 05

SuperPad 3.1 maximises field productivity in Italy

leica ar20 –3d gNSS choke ring antenna with superior performance

autodesk acquires Qontext social collaboration platform

Leica Geosystems has released its latest

innovation in 3D GNSS choke ring antenna. The new Leica AR20 with its revolutionary design brings new levels of performance for reference station and monitoring applications.

Outstanding tracking performance, excellent phase center symmetry and unmatched multipath suppression across all GNSS frequency bands are the hallmarks of this visionary 3D GNSS antenna. The Leica AR20

a testament to the Pramati strategy,” said Vijay Pullur, Pramati president. “This transaction is a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to incubate and build companies that address the rapidly changing needs of business through highly innovative technologies.” Autodesk intends to use the Qontext technology to add new social capabilities to Autodesk 360, a cloud-

based platform that offers users the ability to store, search, and view critical design data improving the way they design, visualise, simulate and share work with others at anytime and from anywhere. “Mobile, cloud and social computing are dramatically changing the way engineers, designers and architects work. The addition of the Qontext technology to the Autodesk portfolio

will lead to new technology innovations that help our customers embrace these disruptive technologies and leverage them for competitive advantage,” said Amar Hanspal, Autodesk senior vice president of information modeling and platform products. “It was great to work with the team at Pramati who have demonstrated a great capability in incubating disruptive businesses.”

performance by using variable choke rings. The precision design also allows for very low and stable phase center offsets and very smooth symmetry of the phase center variations versus azimuth and elevation.

With an excellent axial ratio at low elevations, the AR20 provides results with superior multipath rejection across all GNSS frequency bands including L5, thanks to the new 3D inside design. Traditional 2D choke ring designs are only optimised for a specific frequency band.

Autodesk Inc. has acquired Qontext, social

collaboration software, from India-based Pramati Technologies. The acquisition of the Qontext technology and development team will accelerate Autodesk’s ongoing move to the cloud and expansion of social capabilities in the Autodesk 360 cloud-based service. “Autodesk’s acquisition of the Qontext technology is

hexagon expands in central asia

Hexagon has acquired all shares in Geosystems

Kazakhstan, Hexagon’s distribution partner in the country. Geosystems has built a strong market position and brand reputation for Leica Geosystems over the last 15 years. The acquisition strengthens the overall distribution strategy of

Hexagon’s Geosystems division, which seeks to obtain a direct selling presence in all of its key markets, with increasing

emphasis on emerging countries. It provides the Geosystems division with the opportunity to add a full-scale selling unit to better service the needs of its growing client base in the mining, agriculture, transportation and infrastructure industries in the region. “Combining our people and resources,

the acquisition provides substantial growth potential for several of Leica Geosystems’ businesses and the ability to better serve the needs of customers who have relied on the support of Leica Geosystems and its distribution partner for over a decade,” says Ola Rollén, CEO and President of Hexagon AB.

The acquisition adds to Hexagon’s strategy to expand presence in

growing markets.

NEWS

is designed for permanent and semi-permanent reference network installations, and meets all requirements for

a reliable and long lasting antenna. It is future proof for all satellite signals.The AR20 provides superior tracking


biometrics to identify illegal hawkers in pune

Saab and digitalglobe partner on vricoN rapid 3d mapping system

dupont selects bentley openplant software

Illegal merchandise vendors, referred to as

“hawkers” have become a perennial problem for the civic administration in Pune. To weed out illegal hawkers, the city administration is conducting a biometric survey of all the authorised hawkers in the city.

Fingerprints of hawkers will be captured, along with other data including location for easy identification, and the details will be mapped using GIS. Using these maps the city administration will be able to identify the location of any

DigitalGlobe satellite data will be used by Saab’s

growing list of imagery sources, including UAVs and manned aircraft. Defence and security company Saab, and DigitalGlobe, a leading global provider of high-resolution earth imagery solutions, have inked a partnership to deliver the next-generation of Saab’s

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, has

announced that E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (DuPont) has standardised on Bentley OpenPlant software to improve its processes for managing and updating intelligent piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID) critical for contract and regulatory compliance. DuPont made its selection after conducting a rigorous Six Sigma vendor

evaluation process, which determined that Bentley is uniquely able to support a fully integrated, open, ISO 15926-based workflow for process, instrumentation, and electrical plant operations that can be rapidly implemented. Bentley OpenPlant PowerPID

was selected as the software for its ease of use, power, and affordability. As a result, DuPont is now using OpenPlant PowerPID to support initial projects at plants in the North American and Asia-Pacific regions, and anticipates time and cost savings from enhanced information sharing.

William Ellsworth, Engineering Systems, DuPont, said, “Our evaluation determined that OpenPlant PowerPID is the

best tool on the market for producing and maintaining P&IDs. Its powerful and friendly user interface helps us build intelligent P&IDs in an accessible and open format so as to be readily used by our EPC partners and operations and maintenance personnel. We find value in a contractor’s ability to work with intelligent P&IDs to more efficiently perform design, and deliver more actionable information back to us.”

Vricon Rapid 3D Mapping System. Under the terms of the agreement, DigitalGlobe’s satellite imagery collections and extensive image archive will be integrated into the Vricon solution, enabling faster creation of highly-accurate, photo-realistic 3D maps of specific areas of interest.

“This partnership between Saab and DigitalGlobe represents a significant step forward in the geo intelligence community,” said Fredrik Rosenqvist, President of Vricon Systems at Saab. “It provides our customers with on-time access to high resolution 3D data based on satellite imagery.” The

DuPont selected Bentley software for its

efficiency, ease of use and affordability.

hawker instantly. According to government records, there are about 7,224 authorised hawkers operating in the city. But, the number of hawkers that actually operate in the streets numbers over 14,000. Thus, it has become extremely difficult for city officials to differentiate between authorised and illegal hawkers. The biometrics data will help city officials in easily identifying and verifying authorised hawkers and will be able to take prompt measures against those operating illegally.

Vricon system automatically and rapidly generates high resolution 3D data based on imagery from satellites, UAVs and manned aircraft. Vricon is built for integration in additional systems and applications, such as intelligence reporting, mission planning and rehearsal, training and simulation.


increasing rubber cultivation areas

leica geosystems releases leica rcd30 oblique camera Systemallows a trio and penta head configuration for corridor mapping and urban mapping applications. Customers have a choice of CH61 RGB only and CH62 multispectral RGBN camera heads. For highest image quality the RCD30 Oblique provides multi-directional motion compensation.

The Rubber Research Institute of India (RRII), in

association with the National Remote Sensing Centre has established the unique spectral signature of rubber. This will be used to increase the area under rubber cultivation and to tap the potential in non-traditional rubber growing areas. Spatial technology will help estimate the extent of existing rubber plantation in the North-Eastern region in India and locate cultivable wastelands where cultivation of natural rubber could be extended without leading to deforestation and conversion of crop lands. According to James Jacob,

The camera system is fully integrated into the proven Leica Geosystems workflow including Leica MissionPro, Leica FCMS, Leica IPAS and Leica FramePro. The system can be operated in the Leica PAV80 gyro-stabilized mount, thus offering full image stabilisation in pitch, roll and drift.

world’s first 60MP multi-spectral medium format camera, the Leica RCD30 Oblique provides a number of unique photogrammetric design features that not only offer superior image quality and highest accuracy, but also highest flexibility.

The Leica RCD30 Oblique

Leica Geosystems, the world’s leading manufacturer of airborne mapping solutions, released the Leica RCD30 Oblique medium format camera. The camera system is specifically designed for high accuracy 3D urban mapping and 3D corridor mapping applications. Based on the leading Leica RCD30, the

lepton software introduces eNavMaps v 4.2

Lepton Software, the leading global supplier

of digital maps, geographic database and GIS solutions, introduced the new version of its navigation maps – eNavMaps. This new version covers 664 cities in India and comes with added features like mountain peaks points (listed points of high altitude mountains in India, crucial

for tourism purpose) & pass (route information regarding two areas separated by major mountain) and ferry routes (crucial for sea navigation) & terminals (crucial for ship

markets like mapping, BI/ BA, vehicle tracking, navigation, mobile applications etc.

Lepton map products include:

Locality+ - Neighborhood boundaries map (critical for India addressing)

Landmark 3D - 3D model of major Buildings in a city

City 3D+ - 3D model of entire city buildings

The new navigation maps feature mountain peaks,

pass routes between mountains and ferry

routes.

loading and unloading) etc.

The eNavMaps data is verified through extensive ground survey and provides large number of POIs across 100 categories. Also, Lepton offers the complete gamut of map data products for meeting the growing need of location information of organisations operating in

NEWS

Director of RRII, A total area of approximately 76,000 hectares of land can be brought under rubber cultivation in Tripura, without causing deforestation or conversion of rice fields. In traditional rubber growing regions including Kerala and Tamil Nadu, only limited area is available to expand rubber cultivation.

As reported on March 2012, Tripura had 59,285 hectares of land under rubber cultivation. It has also been suggested that diverse crops with canopy underneath rubber could be integrated with rubber for planting without affecting growth of rubber.


Project finalists in the 2012 Be Inspired Awards Competition announced Knowledge

commission in Karnataka recommends adoption of giS

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, announced

the project finalists in the 2012 Be Inspired Awards competition and the seven winners of the 2012 Be Inspired Special Recognition Awards. The awards honour the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving and sustaining the world’s infrastructure. Five independent panels of jurors, comprising accomplished Bentley users and distinguished industry experts, selected the 58 finalists and the Special Recognition Awards candidates from nominations submitted by organisations in 39 countries. The winners of the Be Inspired Awards will be announced at the invitation-only Be Inspired: Innovations in Infrastructure event taking place during November 13-14, 2012, in Amsterdam, Netherlands. All

Karnataka Knowledge Commission has proposed

the use of GIS technology for spatial planning, area-based development assessment, and developing a district-wise knowledge index. Under the chairmanship of Planning Commission member, K Kasturirangan, the Karnataka Commission presented its final set of recommendations to Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar.

Use of GIS technology is also expected to help in spatial assessment of disparities and gaps and goal-based performance monitoring which would bring focus on scientific and rational developments in various sectors.

2012 Be Inspired nominees are invited and encouraged to attend. This year’s keynote speaker is Greg Williams, executive editor, Wired magazine, a three-time National Magazine Award–winning publication focused on how ideas and innovation are changing the world. Williams, who is based in London, is an award-winning journalist, public speaker, and consultant. He also is the author of five novels, including the forthcoming The Nero Decree, due to be released in the summer of 2013. “Our Be Inspired Awards program this year drew exceptionally strong project nominations of the highest caliber from the four corners of the globe,” Bentley Systems COO, Malcolm Walter said. “They represented every major category of infrastructure asset and spanned small to mega projects – from electric

substations, mining facilities, water distribution networks, and water and wastewater treatment plants to airport expansions, energy-efficient buildings, major bridges, road and rail transportation systems, renewable energy and clean power plants, offshore structures, and much more. As diverse as these projects are, they each exemplify the extraordinary intelligent infrastructure that can be realized when architects, engineers, builders, geospatial professionals, and owner-operators work smarter, together – among themselves and with the Bentley team – leveraging information modeling through integrated projects, facilitated by information mobility. I congratulate all of the finalists and look forward to their presentations in Amsterdam as we enter the final leg of the Be Inspired competition.”

geneq introduces a palm-sized gpS/gloNaSS receiver

Geneq Inc. has released the SXBlue III-L GNSS, a

palm-sized L1/L2/GLONASS GNSS receiver that is designed to use OmniSTAR’s G2 or HP service to attain 10 cm accuracy in all regions of the world including North/South America, Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, reinforcing Geneq’s “Go Real-time, All the Time” strategy. The SXBlue III-L GNSS connects wirelessly to smartphones, handhelds, tablet or notebook computer that are Bluetooth-compliant. Optionally, the SXBlue III-L GNSS receiver is fully RTK

capable (1 cm real-time accuracy) when using an RTK network or other RTK reference station. The SXBlue III-L GNSS is designed to use OmniSTAR’s G2 service, which

supports GPS and GLONASS satellites, to provide 10 cm accuracy in real-time in most parts of the world. The ability to track both GPS (31 satellites) and GLONASS

(24 satellites) significantly increases the number of satellites in view, making the SXBlue III-L GNSS more productive in areas where trees, terrain or buildings block satellite visibility.

It also outputs raw observation data that can be used for post-processing using free, online processing software services such as OPUS. The affordable price and flexibility of the SXBlue III-L GNSS makes worldwide, dual frequency, dual constellation 10 cm real-time accuracy available to a wide number of users.


Magnasoft NorthStar bags red herring asia Top 100 award

of the bus with personalised smart cards for each child to enable automatic attendance and better emergency management. The application also sends active sms alerts to parents on arrival and departure schedules and tracks driver and route efficiency to improve fleet management.NorthStar is used by hundreds of school buses and tens of thousands of children traveling on them across the country. There is tremendous scope for growth, as independent

studies conducted by the company reveal that from amongst 200,000 school buses surveyed in 8 prominent Indian states, less than 5 per cent are using any form of GPS tracking systems. Commenting on the award, Bobbie Kalra, CEO, Magnasoft NorthStar said, “An international recognition of this stature, so early in our journey, is a huge encouragement. Child safety is a passion for all of us and we want to take it to all schools in the country.”

700 participants across the telecommunications, security, software, hardware, biotech and mobile industries, after a rigorous selection process. The participants were evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative parameters, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries. NorthStar’s technology, unlike standard tracking systems, enables real-time monitoring

Magnasoft NorthStar, one of the leading

location-based child safety platforms in the Amazon cloud has been named the 2012 Red Herring 100 Asia Award winner. NorthStar offers an integrated child and school bus tracking and monitoring solution for improving safety and accountability of children as they commute from home to school. The awards were organised in Hong Kong and Magnasoft NorthStar emerged as the winner from amongst

indian army to use hi-tech boats to counter chinese aggression in ladakh

Following the aggressive positioning of the Chinese

army along the unresolved line of actual control in Ladakh, Indian soldiers have been armed with new hi-tech boats to counter any aggression by China. It has been reported that the hi-tech quick-reaction team

(QRT) boats can carry 16 to 18 soldiers to patrol the Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh. These boats have been

fledged airbases. Towards the south of Pangong Lake, new Chinese military construction and build up can also be seen.

Since January 2010, over 550 incursions of Chinese forces have been reported into the Indian territory along the line of actual control.

In an attempt to counter Chinese military build up

near Ladakh border, Indian army is procuring hi-tech

boats.

imported from the US and are equipped with radars, infra-red and GPS systems.

The procurement of QRT boats is part of India’s efforts to build military assets and infrastructure along the line of actual control to counter China, which now has five full-

gpS NEWS

Gagan to offer seamless air navigation in 2013

Gagan, India’s space-based GPS augmentation system

is expected to be ready by mid-

their schedules, saving on time and fuel. Traffic congestion across airports will decrease and planes will be able to operate better even in foggy conditions.

Gagan is a part of the modernisation plan for air traffic management and communication-navigation-surveillance system as mandated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. India’s second Gagan payload is ready for launch with the latest communications

2013. With Gagan operational, aircrafts across Indian airports will be able to arrive ahead of

satellite GSAT-10.

With Gagan, aircraft will get far more accurate figures while landing, take-off and in-flight, say within 10 metres of the spot compared to the earlier figure of 70 metres.

All aircrafts flying in and out of India will need to install a small patch to receive Gagan signals. Jointly developed by the Airport Authority of India and ISRO at a cost of `770 crore, Gagan is expected to deliver benefits worth hunderd crores of rupees.


bMc to tag garbage bins

TomTom Navigation for android released

The TomTom Navigation app for Android is available

to download from Google Play. The new app is an addition to TomTom’s existing, highly-rated navigation app for iPhone and brings TomTom’s world-class navigation to millions more smartphone users. Available at a special introductory price, the

that users don’t have to worry about losing signal in the middle of their journey or roaming charges when travelling abroad. The app includes, free quarterly map updates which ensures that drivers always have the latest map on their smartphone.

“TomTom has a history of making great navigation

To make solid waste management more

efficient in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be geo-tagging waste collection bins. On pilot bases the project is being implemented in Dadar and Goregaon, and will help the civic body to keep a close watch on the garbage collection process. Under the proejct citizens will be allowed to click pictures of uncollected garbage and upload them online. The tracking system uses GPS devices that are fitted at all the garbage collection points. Geo-fencing will be done around all the

TomTom navigation application offers

free quarterly map updates and offline

map access.

bins so that civic officials, who monitor the website, can check whether a collection vehicle has reached the point and the timings of its entry and exit will be noted.

Currently, an obsolete system is in use by the civic body to track solid waste management in the city, whereby officials of the solid waste management department maintain a logbook. The logbook contains details like the number of rounds made by a particular collection truck and its timings. Because of its nature, the system is susceptible to manipulation.

applications. Our existing iPhone app gets fantastic customer feedback and regularly wins awards,” said Corinne Vigreux, Managing Director TomTom Consumer. “Today, we are bringing this world-class navigation experience to millions of Android smartphone users for the first time.”

TomTom Navigation app for Android has been designed especially for drivers. The latest TomTom maps are stored offline, which means

bMc to use lidar technology for accurate land survey

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation

(BMC) is modernising its land surveying methods and is planning to use the Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology for a more accurate mapping of the land surface area. With the help of this GPS-enabled technology, civic officials will be able to determine where road repairs and constructions are necessary, and identify the nature of structures,

such as encroachments, that may be causing bottlenecks. According to G Aggarwal, chief engineer of roads department, use of LiDAR technology will help in gauging the width of the roads and structures on it. Road conditions can be easily surveyed to identify damages and repairs required. It will also help in road-widening and streamlining road development works. So far, all these operations were done manually but now the

using the technology. The BMC has 1,900 km of roads to manage and the pilot project will be launched on 300 km of roads. According to an engineer working on the project, BMC is still in the process of finalising the area where this will be introduced. At present, the civic body — through a Total Station Survey System — uses information from site visit reports to determine the urgency for work to be carried out.

data will be more scientific.BMC will not procure the technology but will outsource it to companies that already have access to the application. Tenders will be floated after finalising the project details. Administrative approval has already been obtained for this process. Contracts will be awarded to companies that are already using this technology. On a pilot basis, the department will float tenders to survey 300 km of city roads


COVER STORY

Mapping has progressed from a hand-drawn image to one that could be moved around the world, almost at will. It is obvious that over the

centuries, a revolution has occurred in cartographic design, map production, delivery and consumption (or use). Georg Gartner and

William Cartwright walk you through the journey

The changing role of

cartographers


Cartography has always sought to apply the latest in communication technology to make

available its products in a more efficient manner. It applied Gutenburg’s press to make maps more widely available and to be reproduced more efficiently, photography was utilised to make data collection more efficient and photogrammetry utilised to measure information about topography shown on aerial photographs and to convert it into mappable data, computers were adopted, first assisting in computations and later as a production tool using deskTop publishing applications. This was done to both speed-up production and to make more accurate depictions. Later, with the advent of videodisc, and later CD-ROM optical storage was embraced as a mode that facilitated the storage of the voluminous amounts of data and to provide mapping products what included interactive components. More recently, the Internet, the Web and mobile devices have been used as methods for the rapid communication of mapping media. The world of mapping has rapidly moved from provisioning users with static two-dimensional hard copy displays to maps that are on-line, immediate and dynamic. Cartography is being challenged by an increased demand for more advanced and sophisticated presentations, stimulated by developments in scientific visualisation, integrated media, virtual reality and geospatial analytics.

Paper maps

Prior to the early 1400s manuscripts, books and maps were laboriously transferred from one artistically illustrated

The world of mapping has rapidly moved from provisioning users with static two-dimensional hard copy displays to maps that are on-line, immediate and dynamic

piece of parchment or vellum to another. Hand-drawn maps were expensive to produce, they were few in numbers and those produced for military purposes were guarded as secret documents (It is said that during the ancient days, one of the reasons that the English defeated the Spanish Amada was that the English charts (and their navigator’s skills) were superior to those of the Spanish and that more Spanish ships were lost through running onto rocks and shoals than were shot out of the water).

The application of science to cartography changed the methodology of gathering map information. For example, Phillip II who reigned at the height of Spanish power (late sixteenth Century) deemed the production of accurate charts and topographic maps to be important to the proper running of his domain and to support his war machine. In 1566 he sponsored the mathematician Pedro de Esquivel to make the first detailed map of Spain and

he established an academy to develop cartography as a scientific discipline.

With scientific advancements, in cartography maps became more accurate, but mistakes and omissions resulting from copying by hand made confidence in duplicates somewhat low. A method for making exact copies and making them more quickly and as precise as the original was needed. This method was the application of Gutenburg’s printing press. With the application of printing to cartography map publishing houses flourished, especially the Flemish houses that were to become famous and synonymous with names like Mercator and Hondius. The application of technology allowed maps to be produced more quickly, less expensively and, importantly, accurate replications were possible. This method of producing maps is still used today, albeit enhanced by the application of computers to mapping.

Orthophotomaps and remotely sensed imagery

Orthophotomaps were promoted on the assumption that map-using public would accept them as a substitute for paper maps. Professional topographic map users saw the benefit of this relatively quick and inexpensive method of mapping. They proved to be a technological success, but a marketing failure. Contemporary digital orthophotomaps appear to not be suffering the same fate, and their use as underlays for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has become widespread. Remote sensing images have also been produced as topographic mapping alternatives, but ones that require the user to interpret topographical information from the image.

Computers and cartography

With the ‘invention’ of the computer everything changed in the scientific world, including cartography. The mapping industry first used computers as ‘number crunchers’, then to guide drawing instruments as CAD systems or as DeskTop Publishing (DTP). Digital mapping and access to large databases first made innovative products available to the general public. Before the arrival of inexpensive storage capacity and powerful computers such packages were limited to fairly modest presentations of vector-based displays of geographical information. However, the application of computer power to what could be seen as consumer mapping products changed the way in which information could be provided forever. Once bitten (and smitten) by the ability to interrogate databases that covered cities, regions, and

Cartography is being challenged by an increased demand for more advanced and sophisticated presentations, stimulated by developments in scientific visualisation, integrated media, virtual reality and geospatial analytics.

COVER STORY


even countries, users embraced geographical information packages as a means to get access to current comprehensive information and data.

Mapping with computers ranges from large electronic purpose-built systems housed in a map production company to individual desktop map producers. Individual cartographers are able to produce maps as sophisticated as their corporate counterparts. Equipped with a powerful microcomputer plus a scanner, plotter/printer and modem the individual becomes part of the distributed digital electronic mapping community. Maps are still produced using a printing press, electronic printer or plotter, regardless of their actual method of production.

Multimedia and cartography

Multimedia mapping changed the genre of the communication of geographical information. What has been called the first multimedia mapping project was the Aspen Movie Map Project, devised and undertaken by the MIT Architecture Machine Group in 1978. This groundbreaking package used videodiscs, controlled by computers, to allow the user to ‘drive’ down corridors or streets of Aspen, Colorado. Video laserdiscs became a standardised product through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The first widely popular mapping application on videodisc was the Domesday project, the innovative multimedia ‘picture’ of Britain in the 1980s, jointly produced by the British Broadcasting Commission, Acorn Computers and Philips to commemorate the 900th anniversary of William the Conqueror’s tally book.

Quickly following the introduction of the CD-ROM it replaced simple digital mapping and videodisc mapping (which suffered greatly from the need for users to have what was then expensive hardware required to ‘play’ multimedia videodisc packages). The advantages of large storage and the ability to include elaborate renderings, complex imagery, digital video and databases assured its success in many application areas, including mapping and education. Early products like encyclopedias and atlases used scanned images to provide ‘collections’ of maps and information resources, but it was not until the medium ‘matured’ that real interactivity was added to products.

Mapping and the Web

The Internet again changed how maps were distributed and used and its potential to improve the quality of maps as a form of communication. Mapping applications using the Internet and, more particularly, the World Wide Web could be built around multimedia/hypermedia maps or interactive/clickable maps. Just as cartographers changed the way in which maps were produced and distributed when

the printing press was used for the reproduction of their products, so as to ensure that the maps ‘worked’ in the new communication environment, albeit one that then had to include the printer and the restrictions of paper sizes, platemaking processes and paper/ink design guidelines, they now have, quite rapidly, metamorphosed established (digital mapping) practices to utilise what the Web offers – efficient delivery to users that now expect ‘maps-on-demand’.

Maps being made available via the Web range from simple collections of images made through scanning existing paper maps, data files that can be downloaded to a client’s computer and then re-drawn locally, information services that include maps, Web atlases, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) on-line that enables users to log into databases maintained by spatial information resource providers, and multimedia mapping packages that work as well on-line as similar products. Many mapping and GIS sites have been and continue to be developed by both public authority and private agency alike. GIS vendors have

It is a great challenge to researchers, LBS providers and mobile device manufacturers to develop new services, suitable algorithms and methodologies which meet the needs of a wide spectrum of LBS users


Orthophoto map of Mais Gate Airport, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Georg Gartner President, International Cartographic Association [email protected]

Georg Gartner is a Professor for Cartography and Geo-Mediatechniques at the Research Group of Cartography at the Vienna University of Technology. He holds graduate qualifications in geography and cartography from the University of Vienna and the Vienna University of Technology.

He is the president of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and serves as a member of the Executive Board of the Austrian Geographic Society. At Vienna University of Technology he is dean for study affairs in geodesy and geoinformation.

William Cartwright Immediate Past-President, International Cartographic Association [email protected]

William Cartwright is Chair of the Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies and Immediate Past-President of the International Cartographic Association. He is Professor of Cartography and Geographical Visualization in the School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences at RMIT University, Australia. He joined the University after spending a number of years in both the government and private sectors of the mapping industry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the British Cartographic Society, an Honorary Fellow of the Mapping Sciences Institute Australia and an Honorary Fellow of the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute. His major research interest is the application of integrated media to cartography and the exploration of different metaphorical approaches to the depiction of geographical information.

developed server software for their once discrete products.

Location Based Services

Integrating wireless communication and positioning technologies with geographic information and mapping systems have created new services which are known as Location-based services (LBS). The demand of such services is growing internationally. It is therefore a great challenge to researchers, LBS providers and mobile device manufacturers to develop new services, suitable algorithms and methodologies which meet the needs of a wide spectrum of LBS users. Cartographic research contributions include issues like visualisation techniques, efficient communication concepts, usage of a variety of presentation forms. If LBS is combined with routing algorithms it can be used as navigation system, also for pedestrians, or even further as “ubiquitious cartographic information system.”

Citizen cartography

Recently there has been another paradigm shift, this time leveraging on the powerful possibilities of Web 2.0, social software and relatively inexpensive consumer electronics-delivered tools that can be geo-enabled, mobile and incorporating media capture and generating tools. Web 2.0 is the use of the Web by individuals and groups of individuals to provide and share information, including geographical information. It provides a new model for collaborating and publishing. This has meant that the consumer can now be the data collector and map producer as well.

Maps can now be published

on the Web by user/producers using a process called ‘mash-ups’ with Web 2.0 and social software. Users are able to develop their own ‘marked-up’ maps by appending their overlay information as an additional layer of information, usually using the default symbology provided (and usually map pins are employed), to self-publish their maps via the Web. This has been given many names, including ‘Neocartography.’

Conclusion – Contemporary cartographic publishing

There has been a digital convergence of communications equipment, office machines, domestic equipment and personal entertainment items. This has been brought about by all of the elements talking the same electronic language and the digitising of pictures, sounds and video. Ideas take some time to develop, but once proven it may only be the progression of time and the development of techniques and technologies that convert strokes of genius to ‘matter of fact’ realities.

Mapping has progressed from a hand-drawn image to one that could be moved around the world, almost at will. When we now consider the Web and what it means to cartographers and consumers of their products it is obvious that a revolution has occurred in cartographic design, map production, map ‘delivery’ and map consumption (or use). For cartographers it means that almost (within reason) any idea for a mapping product can be realised and delivered as a digital product. The plethora of cartographic tools for graphics production, image manipulation and product authoring enables design to be transformed into interactive maps, enabled to

If LBS is combined with routing algorithms it can be used as navigation system, also for pedestrians, or even further as “ubiquitious cartographic information system.”

COVER STORY

be delivered on discrete media, through intranets, the Internet and the Web. Maps can be delivered ‘on-demand’ and composed dynamically. Maps can almost be built and delivered in tandem to the data being collected. And, for users not just one map is available, but many, from worldwide resources, in many cases for free or at minimal cost. We can design, produce and use maps freely and liberally, globally.


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QA

InTERVIEw

How was the MapStory Foundation conceptualised?

MapStory is basically a labour of love. Long ago, when the World Wide Web was created (in 1993), I was a young academic social scientist at Columbia University. In 1994 the Mellon Foundation created this digital scholarly resource named JStor (www.jstor.org) where they took all of the major social science journals from the 1880s onwards and made them word searchable and downloadable in PDF format. It was a revolution in how social scientists went about accessing knowledge from their profession. That was great, but I always wanted to be able to discover what we knew about particular places in the world, at certain moments in time. In my own head, I called this MapStor, and wanted to use it to find information to tell MapStories. Many years later, the technology had evolved to enable such a thing, and crowdsourcing successes such as Wikipedia demonstrated the feasibility of a business model that

Chairman and CEO, The MapStory Foundation

tales of theMapping

world


Christopher K Tucker

“One of our goals for MapStory is simply to provide that place where everyone’s all knowledge about the world can pool naturally into a spatial and temporal framework, and that this data can be easily used by everyone to tell their own MapStories about the world’s rich past, complex present and uncertain future,” says Christopher K Tucker, Chairman and CEO, the MapStory Foundation

effectively – or not. And, who knows how the video was encoded, and which video viewer you needed to make it work.

Well, spatio-temporal data about complex events is the same way. Just search Google for “animated map” and whatever additional search term suits you. There are literally thousands of these all over the Web. Some are animated GIFs. Some are interactive Flash. Others are on YouTube, or videos in different formats. Virtually none are published into a medium that actually maintains the underlying spatial temporal data as data that you might use in spatial analysis.

One of our goals for MapStory is simply to provide that place where everyone’s all knowledge about the world can pool naturally into a spatial and temporal framework, and that this data can be easily used by everyone to tell their own MapStories about the world’s rich past, complex present and uncertain future.

Tell us about your

QA Q

A

to cultivate a community of sponsors that want to underwrite the engineering development of this community so that it can impact how students, teachers, professionals of all kinds, and public sector decisionmakers see our world. This leads us to non-technical priorities, which focus heavily on engaging passionate information communities to help them organise what they know about the world spatially and temporally, and to share their stories with the world in the form of MapStories.

As a new dimension to organising and sharing knowledge what difference or impact does MapStory Foundation create?

Well, you may remember video on the WorldWideWeb prior to YouTube. There was a lot of it. It was hanging off of thousands of sites. Difficult to find. When/if you did find it a link to the video you wanted, it might work, or the link might be dead. The server and its internet connection might be strong enough to serve the video

could make the MapStory vision come true. So, the MapStory Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit foundation, established much like the Wikimedia Foundation, dedicated to the care and feeding of a global data commons that lets people organise their knowledge about the world spatially and temporally, rather than encyclopedically like Wikipedia does.

As the CEO of the MapStory Foundation what are your current priorities?

Well, MapStory is a big task, and there is much to pay attention to. Certainly, a top priority is the continued engineering of the MapStory platform to ensure that we lower the barriers to use, so that everyone is able to participate – not just the 0.0001 per cent of the world that understands GIS. Rather than bore you with our vast engineering agenda, and the great work that the OpenGeo (www.opengeo.org) team is doing to MapStory-enable their GeoNode technology, I will just say that it is a priority

QA

strategy to popularise this initiative. How does it appeal to the common man or the non-geospatial professionals?

We have three initiatives that we are ramping up right now. First is what we call “MapStory Local” which will provide a cookbook for everyone around the world to help organise knowledge about their local communities. The first MapStory Local effort is being led by MapStory community member Nitin Gadia who lives in Ames, Iowa, in the United States. In collaboration with the Ames Iowa Historical Society, Nitin has assembled all of the data of every building, road, points of interest, and even the evolving city limits over more than 100 years. It is astonishing to see. And, to think that such data is hidden in plain sight in every city in the world. Efforts such as his will expose the history of our local communities to every generation, and those generations still to come.

Second, we are ramping up our efforts to ensure that K-12 primary and secondary


QA

QA

QA

school teachers, students and parents have access to MapStory resources that help in the teaching and learning of their curriculum. And, we even believe that this highly visual medium for communicating not only geography and history but important dimensions of other disciplines such as literature, math, and science, will be a major contribution to the digital learning revolution that is currently going on.

Third, we are beginning outreach to the Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Response (HADR) community which has

already shown the value of mapping to affected populations in their embrace of the Crisis Mapping community. Humanitarian crisis are complex, and change rapidly. We hope that MapStory can help this community further deepen the value they receive from Crisis Mapping, with this new dimension to the global data commons. In particular, we hope that MapStory offers this community the ability to convey its own narratives about how such complex events are evolving over a given geography over time.

The Foundation was established for enabling

research on socio-cultural dynamics worldwide. Could you please share details on the progress made so far?Well, we are just getting started, but the response from professors and students in the social sciences has been really great, as well as from international organisations such as the World Bank and government agencies such as the US State Department. We hope that MapStory will become a convening place for these disparate communities where they can more effectively share data, and even improve each others’ data over time. And, in the end, we understand humanity not just through the accumulation of well ordered fact, but through the process of storytelling. It is one of our goals to make sure that MapStory becomes a platform for communal and interactive storytelling – MapStorytelling – that all people around the globe can engage in.

How is the response of academic institutions to this initiative?

It is great! Arizona State University was the first academic institution to help

InTERVIEw

MapStory come into being. The ASU team has really done amazing things to help demonstrate the power of the MapStory platform. The Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis, within the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, has been very supportive and long term collaborations are in the works. Many academics from many different institutions of higher education have been contacting us, looking to have their students publish MapStories as their class projects. This is something that we are very excited about and are actively encouraging. One of the more interesting developments is that students have asked how they can establish MapStory clubs at their schools. We are working through the details, and hope to have an approach before the Spring semester.

How do you see The MapStory Foundation evolve in the next five years?

We are looking to steadily grow participation in MapStory from a wide variety of passionate information communities over the next five years. There are so many different information communities that have completely different kinds of data to contribute, and we are doing our best to reach out to all of them. If we do it right, there will be are very large number of data contributors from all over the globe. Also, five years from now, we hope that MapStorytelling will become a pedestrian form of communication that people all over the world engage in every day.


Policy

India is on a path of progress and growth, requiring a vastly different information regime to arm itself for meeting the

future developmental challenges. To effectively confront these, India needs to be powered by very efficient national information systems that will have to be the foundation for the governing as well as the governed – bringing assessment of development needs, bridging disparity and gaps, promoting equity, transparency, inclusivity and citizen participation. Geographical Information Systems have emerged as effective tools towards such objectives.

It is observed that in spite of fairly wide usage of GIS as a technology, the full potential of GIS has not been exploited in the country for decision-support by planners, decision-makers, citizens and many others who are stakeholders for governance. Although many initiatives have

been successful in proving GIS application potentials in a “project mode,” GIS is yet to get a “service orientation” and get assimilated to become a part of the process of governance, planning and nation-building in a significant manner. The main reasons for this situation are (i) lack of easily available and regularly updated GIS-ready data for the nation, (ii) lack of comprehensive, easy-to-use GIS decision support system, and (iii) absence of an integrated and overarching system to foster high-level of national capability in this field.

India is passing through a crucial stage as far as geospatial technologies and applications are concerned. There is a paradox in the national geographic information (GI) eco-system – one side, demand for GI and GIS applications has never been so high and is pervading almost all sectors of society; on the other

hand, India is “yet to arrive” at the GIS scene – government users recognise the immense use of GI but still “clamour” for GI applications, private enterprise’s struggle for providing GI services and solutions and academia mostly makedo with old/obsolete GI capability. Another paradox is that India still makes considerable annual financial investment in GIS – in terms of license purchase of GI software (mostly foreign sources) and systems, undertaking specific projects and applications and thereby having considerable experts in this field – which is a good foundation. On the other hand, these are all dissipated and are largely “chunky” and “piecemeal” capability that has not made any collective and big impact on the national scene.

Some of the critical reasons for this paradoxical scenario are attributed to (i) nonavailability of regularly updated GI

it is observed that in spite of fairly wide usage of GiS as a technology, the full potential of GiS has not been exploited in the country for decision-support by planners, decision-makers, citizens


National GI POLICY

IN THE OFFING

While India has five different policies pertaining to geospatial information, they still do not ensure regular and easy availability and accessibility to GI in an updated, standardised and seamless manner. Hence, the need for envisioning a set of core capabilities related to GI as a policy goal at the national level matching with the needs, aspirations and strengths of the country and filling the gaps in the current policies is evident

content for the nation, (ii) lack of a coordinated, aligned and professional effort at furthering the national goals of GI generation and usage – government agencies have “pulled” in different directions and have not set/defined a national GI goal to which all of them worked and the most important (iii) lack of a holistic national GI policy – which aims to look ahead and make a road-map for all elements of GI. helps to make GI usage all-pervasive and easily possible.

Gi policies – A worldviewAt the international level, many countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia have geographic information (GI) policies in place that promote public investments in GI assets and applications, development of institutional infrastructure and regulations for national security, albeit to varying degrees. The policies also focus on promoting the role of private sector for adding value to public investments, for delivery of services and in advancing technological frontiers. It is also evident that the policy landscape has been continuously evolving in order to meet the challenges of the changing environment of GIS. Moving beyond development of SDIs and promotion of information sharing, the GI policies now focus on development of systems that ensure readily usable and current

data which different users (in government, business enterprises and citizens) need and the systems that deliver affordable and timely services.

Gi policy in indiaIndia has five different policies in position which pertain to different aspects of GI as of date:

i) A National Map Policy (2005) defines the scope, distribution and liberalised access of digital Survey of India (SOI) topographic maps to user groups without jeopardising national security.

ii) A Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) was issued in 2012 detailing procedure for issuance of flight clearances for agencies undertaking aerial photography, geophysical surveys, cloud seeding etc.

iii) A Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP (2001 and 2011) defining the distribution process of satellite images to different category of users.

iv) The Delhi Geographical Spatial Data Infrastructure (Management, Control, Administration, Security and Safety) Act, 2011, defining the mandatory sharing, accessing and utilisation of Delhi geo-spatial data.

v) A National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy-2012 (NDSAP-2012) providing

an enabling provision and platform for proactive and open access to the data generated through public funds available with various departments / organisations of Government of India.

In present day perspectives, the National Map Policy 2005 needs improvisation in terms of committed plans for updating maps, service level guarantees to users, diversification of mapping concept (beyond topography) and appropriate participative measures for users/industries/citizens. Similarly, the Remote Sensing Data Policy -2011, though quite progressive, still lacks a few important requirements of a policy – time-line definitions and service level guarantees to users; timely and committed enhancements for national imaging capabilities, involving users/industries/citizens as part of transparent and participatory policy-making process and enabling access to data from global commercial satellites in a more rational manner. Considering the technological capability of the country, even positioning into global market in a more prominent way needs to be considered.

Similar revitalisation of policies relating to aerial survey capability and services is relevant apart from need for a holistic road-map for growth in this aerial survey sector. While the Delhi Geospatial Act,

GiS is yet to get a “service orientation” and get assimilated to become a part of the process of governance, planning and nation-building in a significant manner


2011 and National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy-2012 are progressive steps, they also need further consolidation when seen in context of the goal for realising the maximum potential of GI for national needs in diverse areas.

Analysis of the current ecosystem indicates all the above mentioned policies together do not ensure the regular and easy availability and accessibility to GI in an updated, standardised and seamless manner for the nation that can make an impact to the economy of our society. Hence, there is a need for envisioning a set of core capabilities related to GI as a policy goal at the national level matching with the needs, aspirations and strengths of the country and filling the aforementioned gaps in the current policies. It is also necessary to harmonise these GI policies from various cross cutting considerations like national security, social and legal environments.

critical issues of importance for a national Gi policy

A team constituted at NIAS for policy research in geographic information has identified and analysed all critical parameters that contribute to the constitution of “Capabilities“ in GI and their input for policy and also all relevant crosscutting issues for the policy, fitting into Indian context. This parametric-analysis clearly pointed out that, in spite of high potential and achievements in the country, when one looks at different segments that go into defining GI availability/accessibility and usage, there are systemic enhancement/improvements required in several aspects, such as generation of GI, organisation of GI, accessibility of GI, usage of GI – all of which requires a vision towards making GI availability as a service-orientation, long-term planning for generation and updation of GI, adherence to standards of GI, organisational “tweaking” to institutionalise GIS activities and an inclusive approach to driving GI for benefit and as per need of user segment. These can be best addressed by vibrant and responsive policy-

making and policy-adapting goals for National GIS and an organisational framework of aligning to the goals.

Hence, the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India (GOI) has sponsored a project initiated by National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) for policy research in geographic information. Subsequent to a thorough study by a team of experts, NIAS had organised “National GI Policy Roundtable” inviting experts from government, industries, academia and NGOs. Based on discussions and inputs emanating from the meeting, it had prepared an integrated National GI policy document.

Draft national Gi policy

Built on the foundations of existing GI capability in the country, aiming at evolution of a front ranking National GIS system and envisioning a future that can ensure India’s improved governance/development and prominent position among world nations in this field, a draft national GI policy has been proposed.

The “holistic” proposed draft of national GI policy includes a preamble, vision, definitions, policies required for National GIS, imaging, positioning, surveying and mapping, GIS DSS, GI eco-system issues and some other general aspects related to GI.

Elements of national Gi policy

• Regulationmethodsandprocedures need to be the foundation of addressing national security issues – to “identify and protect” good use/users and “isolate” wrong use/user – thereby ensuring that genuine national development use is protected. Regulation can also encourage national and indigenous GI

At the international level, many countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia have geographic information (Gi) policies in place that promote public investments in Gi assets and applications, development of institutional infrastructure and regulations for national security


Policy

technology – software, data, GIS applications, citizen benefits etc and “credit” those that contribute and enhance national GI capability.

• ThenationalGIpolicymustclearly define a single-window regulatory protocol to enable the GI policy implementation and smooth conduct of GI activities.

Aligned to the main national GI policy, one also has to consider the following sub-elements:

• imaging, whereby it would be appropriate to outline and implement a long-term National Imaging strategy. This could be an extension of RSDP, 2011

• Positioning, whereby implementing a long-term Indian positioning service strategy

• Surveying, whereby the national strategy for aerial surveying and ground based surveying is defined

• Mapping, whereby the national mapping strategy is outlined. This can be an extension of NMP, 2005.

• Gi content, whereby the nation-wide, seamless

Moving beyond development of SDis and promotion of information sharing, the Gi policies now focus on development of systems that ensure readily usable and current data which different users (in government, business enterprises and citizens) need

GI content gets created, maintained and available.

• GiS, whereby wide-range of GIS data and applications services are positioned to achieve the national GIS application services

• ThenationalGIpolicymustalso address the attendant legal issues of both making GI content available and usage of GI content.

• Thepolicymustdefineclearly do’s-and-dont’s of contributing to National GIS and also of GI data sharing – in consonance with NDSAP, 2012.

• ThenationalGIpolicymustdefine a regular review/updation process.

• NationalGISorganisationcould be responsible for all activities related to national GI policy and can coordinate for individual element policies of RSDP, NMP

Goals and benefits of Gi policy

The goal of the national GI policy is to enable the establishment of national GIS and its operationalisation so that:

• BenefitsofGIisavailableasag-Governance service in the

form of customised GIS-DSS applications meeting the needs of governance, citizens and enterprises

• Real-timeavailabilityofseamless and updated GIS asset for the nation is assured

• LeadershipinGItechnologyand applications is maintained to bring knowledge and competitive edge in the national and international arena

Implementation of the national GI policy would enable 2 important policy sub-elements to be achieved:

• EnhancenationalcapabilityofGI - making GI easily available and usable for bringing value-benefit to government in governance/development, to enterprises in GI commerce activities and to citizens for availing e-services and participation in democratic governance.

• Beinthefore-frontofGItechnology in the world and maintain a level of “supremacy” that would be of great technological/economic advantage to India

The National GI Policy would be reviewed every year through an inclusive mechanism involving government, enterprises, academia, citizens and obtaining feedback and inputs. Based on these, the policy updates would be recommended for adoption. INGO will coordinate this review/change process.

The article is based on extracts from the document “Perspectives For a National GI Policy (Including a National GI Policy Draft),” prepared by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS). The document is co-authored by Dr Mukund Rao, GIS consultant and adjunct faculty in NIAS; and K R Sridhara Murthi, adjunct faculty, NIAS.


Policy Cycle and GI Policy study at NIAS

The Government of India sponsored National Land Records Modernization

Programme (NLRMP) aims to develop a modern, comprehensive and transparent land records management system in the country to implement the conclusive land titling system with title guarantee. The major components of the Programme comprise computerisation of all land records including mutations, digitisation of maps and integration of textual and spatial data, computerisation of registration, development of core Geospatial Information System (GIS) and capacity building. The intent of this paper is to provide an overview of implementation of NLRMP and the application development, drawing upon the experiences from Gujarat.

The Government of Gujarat has retained Scanpoint Geomatics Ltd. (SGL) to implement the programme by developing a software that could be functional at survey, data generation & integration, and customised GIS application for the NLRMP. Accordingly SGL has developed the application on the Integrated GIS & Image Processing Software (IGiS) technology and successfully implemented it in Patan district. As a testimony of the capability, the Gujarat government has recommended the IGiS technology based Land Information System (IGiS-LIS) application software for implementing the NLRMP in remaining districts of the state.

Software model

IGiS is indigenous software, jointly developed by Scanpoint Geomatics Ltd. (SGL) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The software is a seamless geomatics application

Gujarat is the first state in India to implement the NLRMP programme. Land information system developed using IGiS technology has been instrumental in sucessful implementation of the programme, says Dr K V Chitharanjan, President, Scanpoint Geomatics Ltd

Providing conclusive land title in Gujarat

LAnD RECORDS


being tailored as per the project specific requirement.

NLRMP operational phases

NLRMP operations can be classified in to pre-survey, survey, post-survey, and promulgation phases. These phases are dovetailed in an input – output framework. Each phase has been further analysed in terms of process, input, software functionality, and output. The Phase1 (Pre-Survey) operation updates and prepares textual and spatial records (village map) for survey/ resurvey activity. This gives the expected ground situation during resurvey. An adequate number of GCPs are fixed in the village under resurvey. The control points of SOI are taken as reference to prepare a network and the village boundary points are configured using DGPS/ ETS. The ROR data and ‘Chalta’ number are imported and marked on the map. Form ‘A’ report is generated for the survey activity, showing details of each land record with newly assigned ‘Chalta’ number.

The Phase2 (Survey) operation follows the mirror principle. It refers to the fact that cadastral records mirror the ground reality. Information is collected for land parcel in the predefined format using form ‘A’ data and DGPS/ ETS equipments. Resurvey information is updated in the database and form ‘B’ report is generated showing the record of individual land parcel with owner name and land details. GPS data is imported to generate land parcel sketch at scale with ‘Tippan’ digitised and superimposed. A notice is served to occupant along with land parcel sketch inviting objection, if any.

The Phase3 (Post-Survey) operation follows the curtain

principle. It indicates that the record of title is a true depiction of the ownership status. Objection received from land holder is adjudicated in presence of government surveyor and officials. Form ‘C’ report is generated showing the record of individual land parcel with owner name and land information and the final map is prepared. Encroachment register showing unauthorised occupation of government land and various reports/ records applicable to land parcel are generated referring to form ‘C’ data

The Phase4 (Promulgation) operation guarantees the title for its correctness and indemnifies the title holder against loss arising on account of any defect therein. It creates a single window to handle land records. The final map and report pertaining to land parcel, generated using form ‘C’ data, are submitted to DILR and deputy collector. The new survey data are uploaded on NIC Website which remains open at village level with 30-day notice for acceptance. The new 7/12 report is generated from newly created information and map

Application maintenance

The promulgated cadastre map and textual information are static, referring to the status of land parcel at the time of the survey. The end user should be able to procure current status of property at any given point in time. Therefore, the application needs maintenance for changes on continuing basis. Continued application maintenance should satisfy the following conditions:

Condition 1: A decision affecting the composition of land parcel map to be incorporated (Mutation)

Condition 2:A decision affecting

which includes GIS, image processing and its integration with the real- -time information using Global Positioning System. IGiS supports seamless data creation, handling capability and interoperability requirements akin to the analysis. It is compatible with client-server environment and Web interfacing and facilitates easy and flexible customisation. The software development life cycle follows iterative waterfall model for the principal advantage of it

As a testimony of the capability, the Gujarat government has recommended the IGiS technology based Land Information System (IGiS-LIS) application software for implementing the NLRMP in remaining districts of the state


LAnD RECORDS

process input Software functionality output

Existing Map composition part-wise for survey activity

Scanned maps/sheets Core feature : Mosaicking Digital village map

Ground control network planning, monumentation & observation

Connectivity from NRSC base station with current monument observation

Core feature : Making geographic grid for primary, secondary & tertiary ground control network, GCP wise co-ordinate to do the monumentation

Digital geographic grid of GCN plan on digital map & actual ground control after taking observation

KJP/Durasti updation on existing map

Scanned maps/sheets Core feature : Draw/edit tools Digital village map

Mark Chalta numbers on map Excel sheets containing ROR data & chalta numbers

Customise feature : Importing record of rights

Old village map with chalta no.

Form A generation Existing village data Customise feature : Report generation

Form A for survey activity

Detail ground survey using ETS/DGPS

Pre-survey maps, Form A, ROR - CSV/ASC/DXF file, DWG file from ETS/DGPS

New survey map generation CSV/ASC/DXF file, DWG file Core feature : Import GPS data, draw/edit tools

New survey digital map

Tippan generation Vector and raster formats, field measurement book(Tippan), Plot book, KJP Sheets

Core feature : Import Tippan data, digitization, superimpose Tippan on new survey village map.

New village map with Tippan

Update survey map based on Tippan & identification of encroachment

New survey map, Tippan, old village map

Core Feature : Draw/edit tools New updated village map

Village layer management & new database creation

Spatial and textual data of village Customise feature : Theme registration, report generation

Survey theme, LPM , encroachment & Tippan, adjudication theme, reconciliation report

Form- B generation Updated new village map (Land parcel map theme)

Customise feature : Generate form B data

Form B report

Notice generation & distribution Updated new village map (LPM) with different themes, form B

Customise feature : Notice generation

Notice report with sketch of land parcel, old and new information, notice distribution report

Adjudication - objection resolve New re-survey information pertaining to objection(form B data)

Core feature : Draw/edit tools (split and merge)(database/map correction as per objections and suggestions after consulting government officials)

New revised land parcel map (LPM)

New survey number assignment Pre-defined pattern from department

Customise feature : New survey number assignment

Updated village map with new survey number

Form C generation Form B data & corrected village map with new survey number

Customise feature : Generate Form C data

Form C report

Generation of registers Form C data & ROR Customise feature : Report generation

Main register, encroachment register-1,2,3,Akarband,Kayan Khardo,Khetarwar Patrak etc.

Final map & report submission New village map & form C data Core feature : Map composition tool

customise feature : Report generation

Final village map & reports

Objection at the stage of 30 day notice & resolve the objection

New re-survey information pertaining to objection (Form C Data)

Core feature : Draw/edit tools (split and merge)(database/map correction as per objections and suggestions after consulting government officials)

Final village map & reports

Generate new 7/12 report Final village database Customise feature : Report generation

Final village map & reports with new 7/12

phase

pre-

surv

ey

Surv

ey

post

-sur

vey

prom

ulga

tion


Phases in NLRMP implementation in Gujarat

Dr K V Chitharanjan President, Scanpoint Geomatics Ltd The author acknowledges with thanks the support provided by Ramesh Sojitra, CMD, SGL to write the paper


Land information as viewed in IGiS

the attributes of land parcel to be incorporated (Textual Information)

Fulfillment of the conditions is subject to the decision criteria as applicable to land parcel. A change affecting composition of land parcel map leads to simultaneous change in the attributes; however, change in the attributes need not always impact the map composition

IGiS – LIS

The IGiS-LIS provides functionalities to import Records of Rights (RoR) data from National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the DGPS/ETS survey data in to the software and facilitates preparation of cadastral maps. The module helps generate new Tippan and superimpose the map to highlight the discrepancy results, notice of land information with RoR, new survey data and map layout. The software can generate various reports of main register, encroachment register,

differential statement, tax assessment, demand statement, crop register, and forms 1 to 12. The Maintenance module includes mutation options based on digitisation, coordinates, and percentage. It provides for attribute updation, assigning property ID, merge property, property history, and User Right Management (URM)

The IGiS-LIS demonstrates ability to quickly access the data and also provide complete solution for reconciliation of land records as envisioned in the NLRMP. The software is capable of creating, storing, checking, integrating, managing and displaying geo-referenced data and attributes of the land records. The software can easily and effectively be interfaced with other utility software like payment module. This application could be graduated to a web-based system using IGiS technology. Thus, the system provides easy integration, maintenance and clearance of land records.

Conclusions

The IGiS-LIS has been instrumental to achieving the credit to Gujarat as the first state in India to implement the NLRMP and SGL as the pioneer to develop a complete GIS based software to implement the Programme. The Application realises single-window service to handle land records, brings transparency in the system, and provides interoperable data service. The record of title is true depiction of the ownership status and guarantees the title for its correctness. Thus, the IGiS-LIS fulfils all objectives of the NLRMP to realise the state spatial data infrastructure.

IGiS supports seamless data creation, handling capability and interoperability requirements akin to the analysis. It is compatible with client-server environment and web interfacing

OIL & GAS

Comprehensive solutions offered by Bentley for the entire lifecycle of oil and gas projects – from conceptual

plant design and engineering through operations – enable

significant benefits to plant owners and engineering contractors

projects

Cradle-to-grave solutions for

oil & gas


meet reduced project schedules with fewer skilled resources. To accomplish this, they must increase productivity while maintaining high engineering integrity and quality – all without compromising safety and environmental considerations.

These challenges can be addressed by employing an integrated data-managed engineering solution specifically designed to meet the demands of the global oil and gas sector. Bentley Systems’ oil and gas solution offers a data-centric environment in which evolving plant and related data are properly managed throughout the plant lifecycle, eliminating data re-entry and data misuse, and improving overall engineering data quality and integrity. By offering a new approach to managing and reviewing these data, unnecessary documents can be eliminated during the engineering phase, timelines can be shortened, the level and quantity of data during handover can be enhanced, and access to the right information for operations can be improved.

Data-centric systems – Business value and benefits

The business value and benefits offered by an engineering content management environment in which data is effectively managed and controlled are now widely accepted by all project stakeholders. A common theme in a centrally managed, data-centric environment is “input data once, use many times.” Data reuse is a cornerstone of Bentley’s oil and gas solution and provides important advantages to plant owners and engineering contractors alike, including the ability to:

• Evaluate more plant configurations and options during conceptual design even with limited resources

• Produce more accurate designs earlier in the project lifecycle

• Address plant economics alongside engineering

In addition, data reuse can reduce engineering man-hours by 20 to 30 per cent; lead to accurate, up-to-date project deliverables, reduce the cost of structural steelwork and piping due to better design optimisation and plant configuration; and improve plant quality, safety, economics, and sustainability, as well as plant maintenance and spare parts inventory control.

Bentley solution for oil and gas lifecycle

Bentley’s oil and gas solution addresses crucial business, engineering, and plant lifecycle needs for both upstream and downstream operations. Based on an intra-operable set of applications that form the backbone of Bentley’s overall digital plant solution, the solution supports key aspects of the plant lifecycle. These include mapping the geographical area, initial site preparation and site development, engineering, procurement, and construction, and new facility operations.

Bentley’s digital plant solution for oil and gas consists of an engineering information system that supports the development and management of the multi-disciplinary digital representation of the physical plant. Bentley’s software applications accept, author, update, and manage data in the following lifecycle areas:

• Conceptual and front-end engineering design (FEED)

Today’s global business environment faces significant challenges following recent

downturns in major industrial economies. Fluctuations in the price of oil and gas have changed the scope of, and amount of investment in, capital projects. Consequently, owner-operators now put more emphasis on increasing operational efficiencies using existing infrastructure while maintaining operation and production margins when market demand is low. Paradoxically, worldwide demand for energy is projected to increase as much as 45 per cent by 2030.

According to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), emerging economies will account for nearly 90 per cent of the world’s energy demand over the next two decades. Two factors are driving this demand for energy consumption: population growth and mass industrialisation in emerging economies. It is estimated that the global population will increase from 6.7 billion to more than 9 billion by 2050, with millions of people moving from the countryside to urban centers. While economic conditions have weakened global demand for primary energy in the short term, the long-term outlook for the oil and gas sector remains one of substantial, sustained growth.

The scope, nature, and complexity of today’s current and planned capital oil and gas projects present additional challenges to plant owners and engineering contractors. Owner-operators’ capital project timelines continue to shorten in an effort to speed time-to-market. At the same time, engineering contractors must reduce overall project costs and

Data reuse is a cornerstone of Bentley’s oil and gas solution and provides important advantages to plant owners and engineering contractors alike


• Detailed design and engineering

• Site preparation, mapping, and planning

• Construction

• Commissioning and handover

• Plant operations

Conceptual and front-end engineering design (FEED)

Compressing project schedules without compromising engineering integrity, quality, environmental, and safety aspects is more important in the oil and gas sector than reducing overall project costs. Making good process engineering decisions up front to secure items with increasingly long lead times, such as compressors, vessels, pumps, and other major process equipment, is of critical importance.

To help owner-operators and engineering contractors meet these goals, Bentley’s oil and gas solution offers front-end engineering and design (FEED) applications that interoperate with external third-party process simulation tools to support and manage process engineering data and equipment sizing workflows. The solution allows engineers to evaluate a broader number of facility layouts for rapid and more-accurate cost estimates.

Bentley® AXSYS®.Process V8i links to leading third-party process simulators such as HYSYS, Aspen Plus, UniSim, and Pro/II. It allows process engineers to prepare and evaluate design alternatives and to interchange process simulation and conceptual engineering design data in a common environment to ensure overall data consistency. AXSYS.Process also automatically creates process flow diagrams (PFDs) and preliminary piping

and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs). These are also combined with associated data sheets, line and equipment lists, and links to a variety of third-party equipment and heat exchanger sizing applications to support conceptual design and FEED activities.

Bentley® Plantwise® V8i is a highly productive design environment used during preliminary conceptual 3D plant layout and cost estimation. Using configurable design rules for equipment and nozzle placement and line and equipment lists imported from AXSYS.Process V8i, it combines powerful automatic, rule-based pipe routing and simplified structural modeling ‒ allowing the layout designer to create alternative 3D plant layout design cases. This facilitates accurate initial cost estimates directly from 3D digital plant layouts to determine an optimised and economical plant configuration that meets the plant owner’s needs.

Detailed design and engineering

Bentley offers two industry-leading multi-disciplinary 3D plant design applications:

AutoPLANT® and PlantSpace® Design Series. Both have been proven to reduce project timescales and eliminate errors before construction. Bentley’s AutoPLANT is recognized as the No. 1 AutoCAD-based plant design system available today. It is used worldwide on both large, distributed, enterprise-based projects and smaller plant rework projects. This 2D/3D application is for P&IDs, instrumentation, datasheets, piping, structural layout and modeling, equipment modeling, electrical raceway modeling and pipe support modeling. It also combines with powerful orthographic/piping

isometric drawing production tools and material takeoff (MTO) reports.

PlantSpace® Design Series is Bentley’s MicroStation®-based multi-disciplinary 2D/3D plant design system. It is used for P&IDs, instrumentation, datasheets, piping, structural layout and modeling, equipment modeling, electrical raceway modeling and pipe support modeling. PlantSpace is supported by comprehensive orthographic/piping isometric drawing production and MTOs.

Additional complementary software products from Bentley for detailed design engineering projects include:

• ProjectWise® – Bentley’s collaboration system connects people and information, sustaining the value of information across the infrastructure lifecycle. It is useful for managing all project deliverables, including orthographic drawings, piping isometrics, 2D/3D models, and associated project documents across distributed project teams.

• ProjectWise® Navigator V8i – Bentley’s visual collaboration application supports distributed teams with graphical navigation and ‘walk-throughs’ of 3D plant models and associated documents, and can be used to visualise project schedules and construction simulation. Integrated interference detection ensures design problems can be quickly identified and eliminated before fabrication and construction.

• promis•e® V8i – This application provides intelligent electrical wiring

OIL & GAS

Data reuse can reduce engineering man-hours by 20 to 30 per cent; lead to accurate, up-to-date project deliverables


and control system design for schematics, panel layouts, bills of material, wire lists, and terminal plans.

• Bentley® AutoPIPE® V8i – This comprehensive pipe stress analysis application intra-operates with Bentley’s related structural modeling and analysis tools.

• STAAD.Pro® V8i – This application offers plant engineers finite element modeling and analysis of structures.

• ProStructures – ProStructures provides integrated 3D structural detailing and fabrication for steel and concrete based on ProSteel and ProConcrete applications.

Bentley also offers OpenPlant – the first commercially available integrated plant design environment based on the ISO 15926 open information model. The OpenPlant environment includes an intelligent, process and instrumentation (P&ID) OpenPlant PowerPID V8i schematics application integrated with OpenPlant Modeler V8i, the latest multi-disciplinary 3D plant modeling system.

Using OpenPlant PDx Manager, Intergraph PDS users, for the first time, have a viable, cost-effective data migration path to reuse existing PDS model and associated attribute data. The software accomplishes this by converting PDS models with full fidelity into an equivalent ISO 15926-based model, extending data investments. When used in combination, Bentley’s OpenPlant applications provide a highly productive, cost-effective and efficient plant design system to support today’s complex, distributed oil and gas projects.

Site preparation, mapping, and planning

The oil and gas sector faces increasing environmental pressures to reduce its plant footprint, manage water runoff, and minimise environmental impact. As a result, plant owners and engineering contractors need software applications that support rapid site/infrastructure development and analysis integrated with the overall plant layout. To serve these needs, Bentley offers:

• Bentley® PowerCivil V8i – A flexible 2D/3D design environment for land development and site

modeling. It allows flexibility with visual modeling to reflect the way in which civil engineers work.

• InRoads® Suite V8i - An integrated civil solution for pipelines, roads, and site infrastructure development.

Owned land on which production facilities reside or extraction rights have been secured is a significant asset for the oil and gas industry. Bentley offers a number of industry-leading products, including mapping and geographic information systems (GIS), to better manage these assets. This software currently includes:

• Bentley® Power Map V8i – This application provides users with a geospatial view and gives spatial context to information. Drawings, maps, models, images, vendorspecific GIS data, and business documents can be related spatially in ProjectWise.

• Bentley® Descartes – This imaging application integrates with MicroStation to create image scenes for visualization and analysis with 3D terrain modeling/draping.

Construction

Effective management and planning of all construction resources deployed on site for today’s complex oil and gas projects can have a major impact on the overall project schedule. Enabling construction planners to study and resolve potential problems before they become time-consuming delays on site means having access to accurate project data. Bentley offers applications supporting complete construction planning and sequencing combined with simulation of specific construction activities such as

Compressing project schedules without compromising engineering integrity, quality, environmental, and safety aspects is more important in the oil and gas sector than reducing overall project costs


heavy crane lifting. Bentley’s construction applications include:

• ConstructSim – Used for work-face planning and 4D visualisation of the complete plant design combined with issued plant design, construction, and piping isometric drawings

• ProjectWise® Navigator – Suitable for 3D construction schedule simulation and visualisation

• ProjectWise® – Used for managing all issued construction deliverables

• Bentley® OnSite – An electronic field book for construction site stakeout and inspection

Commissioning and handover

Bentley’s oil and gas solution also provides tools to support and improve commissioning right through to plant handover. The schematic and physical digital plant models can be used to plan commissioning as well as monitor on-site progress and status prior to testing and final handover.

In addition, the oil and gas solution significantly improves project handover. Not only does it manage all project documents, by utilising Bentley’s engineering information system, all data and approved documentation created in the early stages of the project can be incrementally stored and managed before handover in a single, fully managed project data repository based on:

• ProjectWise® Integration Server – Which creates and maintains project documentations in a managed repository

• ProjectWise® Lifecycle Server – Which manages all engineering data as part of a data warehouse

Plant operations

To support the operational phase of the plant lifecycle, Bentley’s oil and gas solution provides tools for managing and maintaining engineering data needed for the operation and maintenance of a safe plant environment as part of an integrated engineering data warehouse. This data warehouse also acts as the primary

interface to external spare parts management systems, maintenance systems, and other enterprise-based infrastructure systems.

Bentley’s comprehensive as-built 3D modeling tools support brownfield plant modification and revamp projects to ensure timely plant turnarounds. Bentley’s products used to support plant operations include:

• ProjectWise® Lifecycle Server – ProjectWise Lifecycle Server connects to engineering resource planning (ERP) systems such as SAP and related maintenance management systems such as Maximo to ensure plant operators can quickly access current engineering documents and data. Engineering management-of-change is also supported to manage data as it changes during the operational life of the oil and gas facility.

• ProjectWise® – ProjectWise manages all engineering documents and data linked to Bentley’s Lifecycle Server engineering data warehouse

• Bentley® Cloudworx – Provides as-built modeling in MicroStation from 3D point clouds created by laser scanning

‘Data for life’ – Data exchange during the plant lifecycle

Bentley’s oil and gas solution addresses data management of the complete project lifecycle. It accurately saves validated project information during the engineering phase of the plant lifecycle for handover into operations and maintenance, while significantly reducing overall handover costs.

OIL & GAS

Bentley® AXSYS®.Process V8i links to leading third-party process simulators such as HYSYS, Aspen Plus, UniSim, and Pro/II


John Sanins Solutions Executive-Oil and Gas Bentley

The Bentley oil and gas solution provides a comprehensive data repository – or data warehouse – specifically designed to capture engineering data during detailed design. It then manages it to support downstream plant operations.

According to a study conducted by Coopers & Lybrand, engineers are increasingly frustrated when looking for relevant information. Over 25 per cent of their time is spent searching for information, adjusting it to their purposes, and re-entering it. The study found that by using a managed data environment based on industry standards, engineers can expect significant savings in time and cost throughout the project lifecycle, including:

• 10 to 30 per cent reduction in time spent preparing for reviews to support project decision making

• 15 to 28 per cent reduction in engineering costs

• 1- to 2-month reduction in overall project execution time

• 30 per cent increase in productivity from improvement in work relations between contractors and suppliers

• Significant improvement in the quality of documentation

• Better reuse of components in the project, resulting in lower maintenance costs

• Reduction of 40,000 to 80,000 man-hours during commissioning for a typical project, resulting in a dramatic reduction in handover costs

• 10 to 20 per cent reduction in maintenance and operations from improved efficiency in operations, due

to more readily available and accurate information

Bentley oil and gas solution architecture

Bentley’s oil and gas solution provides a scalable data management platform that allows users to fully realize the benefits identified in the Coopers & Lybrand study. Project deliverables based on a wide range of industry-standard data and file formats are effectively managed across the entire infrastructure lifecycle.

Bentley’s oil and gas solution – ISO 15926 adoption

Bentley’s latest OpenPlant applications address the growing demands of today’s highly distributed oil and gas projects. By adopting the ISO 15926 open information model, Bentley’s oil and gas solution enables plant owners and engineering contractors to capitalise on their investments in plant data without the constraints imposed by current propriety third-party applications and associated closed data formats.

Through its work with FIATECH and its partners, Bentley is able to support and implement the ISO standard data framework for information exchange across the infrastructure lifecycle. Bentley’s digital plant framework is based on the ISO 15926 standard, which ensures open and easy access to third-party software and supports intelligent data exchange between owner-operators and contractors. As a result, the overall cost of ownership to implement, use, and maintain ISO 15926-based engineering design and data management systems is considerably reduced.

A further benefit of adopting an open information approach based on industry standards is

that it increases competition among software vendors, resulting in better technology. It forces vendors to resist locked-in proprietary formats in favor of formats that increase end-user productivity and efficiency across the plant lifecycle. An open data exchange also liberates data access and data exchange by providing more competition for services because users are not dependent on specific software expertise. By improving operation efficiencies for plant owners and design capabilities for engineering contractors, OpenPlant increases competitive advantage in today’s global market.

Distributed design and engineering

One important aspect of the Bentley oil and gas solution is support for distributed design and engineering. Through project worksharing, engineering contractors can take full advantage of distributed offices working together, simultaneously, on a single project. This allows flexibility in the way engineering activities can be shared across the extended enterprise to maximise the use of available skilled resources and capitalise on expertise in different locations.

Bentley’s proven project workshare environment allows workflows to be centrally managed, but enables documents and data to be distributed and shared globally. This environment is scalable with options based on database replication, model file transfer, or a combination to suit specific project or location needs.

Bentley’s AutoPLAnT is recognized as the No. 1 AutoCAD-based plant design system available today. It is used worldwide on both large, distributed, enterprise-based projects and smaller plant rework projects


SPACE TALK

ISRO

In the coming five years, the Indian Space Research Organisation has expressed plans

to launch 58 missions. Elaborating on the launch plans, ISRO Chairman, K Radhakrishnan said, the budget allocated to ISRO for the current year is `6,700 crore, 36 per cent of which would be allocated for launch vehicles, 55 per cent for communication, remote sensing and navigation satellites and 9 per cent for science missions like Astrosat, Mars Orbiter and Aditya. The launch vehicle PSLV C20 will be used for the space missions. One of the forthcoming launches is of the SARAL satellite which would be assembled at Sriharikota in period of 20 days, and is tentatively planned to be launched on December 12 this year. GSAT 7 – a communication satellite and INSAT 3D, a meteorology satellite were also nearing their completion and will soon be ready for launch. Another Indian masterpiece, the IRNSS satellite is also

Space missions scheduled for launch in the coming five years will boost India’s capabilities in remote sensing, communication and navigation

on a launch spree

being planned for launch in early July, 2013, on-board a PSLV C22 launch vehicle.

In an attempt to meet the growing requirements of DTH service providers, ISRO will alsao focus on increasing transponder capacity, by making available an additional 156 transponders. Other development plans include increasing capacity for emergency response and disaster management. ISRO will create a national database for emergency management and will focus on other remote sensing databases in order to assist the government in planning.

Another multi-spectral, multi-resolution advanced remote sensing satellite GISAT is currently being developed by the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad. The satellite will be positioned in a geostationary orbit to constantly focus on India from a distance of 36,000 km in the sky, and will be synchronised to the Earth’s 24-hour rotation. It will be capable of reporting on

trouble spots such as natural disasters, floods and forest fires within five minutes of the event. The satellite will also play a crucial role in keeping constant vigil on the sensitive border areas of the country. A budget of `50 crore has been allocated for commencing preliminary work on the satellite. The satellite is expected to be ready in a period of two to three years, will weigh around 1,000 kg and will be launched onboard a PSLV rocket. It will complement the advanced meteorology and remote-sensing satellite, Insat-3D, due to be launched in December this year.

According to Mr. Tapan Misra, Deputy Director at the Space Application Centre’s Microwave Remote Sensors Area, GISAT will be built on ISRO’s technologies that went into Cartosat and Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-1) — both of which were big technology leaps for the country. Commenting on the satellite capabilities, Dr V Jayaraman, former Director at Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre said that an early warning satellite capable of providing constant, complete coverage of the country will be unique and a first of its kind a the global level.


Space business is a risky proposition.

O P Rana discusses how risk is identified,

minimised and insured during

different stages of a commercial space

venture

Risk management for commercial space ventures

SPACE TALK

Risk management is a tool for controlling and minimising risks. Basic principles of

risk management are: risk identification, risk evaluation, risk control and risk transfer.

Risk identification: No appropriate measures can be taken unless identification process is gone through.

Risk evaluation: Unless quantification is done it would not be possible to determine as to how and to what extent minimisation measures have to be carried out.

Risk control/minimisation: Risks cannot be entirely eliminated since it may not be cost effective; however minimisation measures adopted reduce the risk. It will determine how much risk can be prudently retained.

Risk transfer: Since risks cannot be eliminated therefore insurance is resorted to transfer the risks which cannot be retained.

The above principles have to be kept in view whether we are looking at risks associated with launch vehicles, satellites or third party liability.

Risk commences from the stage

In case of satellite various tests like thermal test, vibration test, vacuum test, acoustic test, etc are carried out to determine flight worthiness

of manufacturing. In spite of best efforts deployed in procurement of correct raw material, selection of vendors for parts, maintaining appropriate and suitable place of work, having qualified people to work and providing necessary tools, risk of accidental damage / failure always exists. It may be due to failure of material or human error. Quite a few events have demonstrated how material failed to perform as per specifications or human error during manufacturing resulted in failure.

Identification

Various tests are carried out on launch vehicles and satellites during assembly and after the product is complete. These are carried out to identify risk of failure and acceptable limits of variation from norms. For example, in case of satellite various tests like thermal test, vibration test, vacuum test, acoustic test etc are carried out to determine flight worthiness.

Evaluation

Based on the results of various tests, corrective measures are carried out and evaluation done as to which type of failure can cause how much of a loss. For

example, reduced power during operation of a satellite can result into loss of function of few transponders. There are cases of single point failure resulting into loss of the entire mission.

Risk control/ minimisation

It may not be economically feasible to make a product 100 per cent safe. Most of the satellites have built-in redundancies as a risk control measure. There cannot be a case elimination of all the risks which can be perceived in a venture.

Risk transfer

Once risk control/minimisation process is over, decision is taken as to how far risks can be retained and remaining risks are managed by transferring the same to insurance companies. Insurance companies have devised various products/covers to accept the risks during different phases of commercial space venture.

Manufacturing phase

It is an erection type of all risk policy with few exclusions. It provides protection against accidental loss of or damage to property under manufacturing process. Risk attaches once the material is procured, till it is in the process of being worked


upon, during assembly and testing period of end product, be it launch vehicle or satellite. Introduction of new part or process will introduce an element of uncertainty. Premium rates will be determined by loss experience of markets and reputation of the manufacturer. It may be noted that performance of product is not covered, at this stage only accidental damage is covered.

Pre-launch extra expenses cover

It is insured in the marine market. Coverage is on the basis of all risks (with few exclusions) of accidental physical loss or damage to the spacecraft,

electrical mechanical ground support equipment and any ancillary equipment related to spacecraft.

Following phases of risk are covered:

• Risk attaches at loading operations of the spacecraft

• Air transit of the spacecraft to the launch site

• Storage at site, testing period and till launch

It may not be economically feasible to make a product 100 per cent safe. Most of the satellites have built-in redundancies as a risk control measure

• Extra expenses which may be incurred due to damage to the satellite or terminated ignition

Launch all risk

This cover is placed in the specialist space insurance market. Insurance coverage is procured on “All Risks” basis with few exclusions. It addresses the risk of loss of all or part of the satellite “asset” arising out of loss of or damage to or failure of the satellite from launch until a defined period in in-orbit. Risk attaches at launch and continues during launch phase, transfer orbit, deployment of solar rail, reflectors etc testing of payloads


and in-orbit for a defined period. It provides indemnity in the event of loss, damage or failure that means it cannot be used for the insured’s intended commercial purpose.

Insured is compensated for claims made under launch and in-orbit insurance. Partial loss for the degree to which the satellite cannot be used for its intended purpose or total loss or constructive total loss is covered. Sum insured is determined based on historical cost of satellite, cost of insurance and whether launch risk guarantee has been purchased.

Insureds have a choice to buy any or all of the following covers:

• Launch vehicle flight only

• Launch and in-orbit

• Post separation only

Lot of ground work is involved in securing best covers in the market. Launch vehicles with excellent track record cost less as compared to other. Reputed manufacturer of satellite again attract better terms. Detailed technical data about the spacecraft is to be submitted to underwriters. In many cases presentation has to be made to insurers and their queries have to be satisfactorily answered before underwriters can evaluate the risks involved. Insured has to submit pre-shipment review report to the underwriters in order to be satisfied about the flight worthiness of the spacecraft.

The best example of risk management is provided by a case study of one of ISRO satellites on how the risk was identified, evaluated and minimised. The satellite was at site at Kourou (French Guiana) when an advisory was received from one of the vendors about

some part in SSPA being subject to generic defect. The owner had to determine how to manage the risk of failure if particular part is not changed. Underwriters would be satisfied about repairs only if spacecraft is brought back for repairs at manufacture’s site at Bangalore, repairs done and all necessary tests are conducted. This would have resulted in time constraint and chance of losing the launch slot.

Spacecraft owners decided to carry out the repairs at site thereby ensuring availability of launch slot. The underwriters refused to accept any liability of loss or damage which can be associated directly or indirectly

to the repaired part. The owners identified the risk, evaluated it and minimised the chance of failure by repairing the spacecraft at site and retained the risk and launched the satellite which proved successful in subsequent operation as per the specifications.

It may be noted that risk transfer to insurers in space business is time consuming since each satellite is a special product as per the requirement of owners. It is therefore necessary to appoint brokers at an early stage so that comprehensive technical details/presentation is arranged and all information material to the risk is submitted for underwriters’ scrutiny. Best rates and terms can be achieved only if insurers develop favourable perception of the risk and sufficient time is available to brokers to market the risk and negotiate with different underwriters.

Third party liability

This cover provides protection against liability for damage to third party property or death/injury to persons caused by falling off of out of control launch vehicle or spacecraft. The liability of owners in such cases is absolute. Different countries have different limits of liability which are mandatory and therefore insurance cover is required. No major loss has been reported so far due to falling launch vehicle or satellite. However examples of minor losses are available. Loss/damage can occur due to launch vehicle going out of control and / or deploying the satellite in a wrong trajectory. This cover is available in a speciality market.

O P Rana Consultant J. B. Boda Reinsurance Brokers Pvt. Ltd.

SPACE TALK

Lot of ground work is involved in securing best covers in the market. Launch vehicles with excellent track record cost less as compared to other. Reputed manufacturer of satellite again attract better terms


ISRO planning for 58 space missions during the 12th Plan

arianespace to launch gSaT 7 and iNSaT 3d satellites

deployment of Europe’s galileo constellation continues

In the next five years, ISRO is planning to

launch 58 space missions, including deployment of 500 transponders, sending a spacecraft to Moon and Mars, and an exclusive satellite for keeping watch on the country round-the-clock. It also includes 33 satellite missions and 25 launch vehicle missions. The space agency also aims to position an indigineous version of the Global Positioning System by putting into orbit a constellation of seven satellites which would form the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS).

The addition of transponders will help in meeting the growing demand from DTH

Following an international call for tenders, the

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has chosen Arianespace to launch the GSAT 7 and INSAT 3D satellites. The contract also includes two more launch options for ISRO. The satellites

The third and fourth satellites of Europe’s

Galileo global navigation satellite system were lofted into orbit on October 12 from the spaceport in French Guiana. They join the first pair of satellites launched a year ago to complete the validation phase of the Galileo programme. The Soyuz ST-B launcher, operated by Arianespace, lifted off at 18:15 GMT (20:15 CEST) from the

are scheduled for launch in the second quarter of 2013. Both satellites will be launched by Ariane 5 launchers from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. GSAT 7 is a multiband telecommunications satellite designed and built by ISRO. It

Guiana Space Centre. All the stages of the Soyuz vehicle performed as planned and the Fregat-MT upper stage released the Galileo satellites into their targeted orbit at close to 23 200 km altitude, 3 hours 45 minutes after liftoff. These satellites were built by a consortium led by Astrium as prime contractor, with Thales Alenia Space in charge of assembly, integration and testing.

will weight 2,550 kg at launch. INSAT 3D is a dedicated weather satellite also built by ISRO. It will weigh 2,100 kg at launch, offering 1,100 W of power. It will carry weather forecasting payloads, along with a search and rescue function.

The operations are managed by SpaceOpal a joint company of the DLR German Aerospace Center and Italy’s Telespazio, with the early operations of the satellites controlled by a joint ESA and CNES French space agency team in Toulouse, France. After initial checks, they will be handed over to the Galileo Control Centres for testing before they are commissioned for the Galileo service validation .

uK scientists developing sys-tem to dispose junk satellites

In an attempt to clear space debris, UK

engineers are developing a system to harpoon rogue or redundant satellites and pull them out of the sky. Growing orbital junk has become a perrineal problem for operating satellites. To clear defunct satellites, the harpoon would be fired at them from a close range. A propulsion pack tethered to the projectile would then pull the junk downwards, to burn up in the atmosphere.

According to Dr Jaime Reed from Astrium UK, the designer of the harpoon, space has become a critical part of our infrastructure – from weather forecasting and Earth observation, to GPS and telecommunications. So it is very important that we keep it clean by developing capture technologies to remove debris. Studies have shown that taking out just a few large items each year can help us get on top of the problem. Dr Reed has proposed for developing a barbed spear about 30 cm in length. It would be mounted on a “chaser satellite” that would edge to within 100 m of a junk object. Pictures sent to the ground would then be used to assess the target, before the chaser was moved to within perhaps 20 m to take a shot.

NEWSSPACE TALK

operators, satellite mobile communications and new generation broadband VSAT systems. ISRO currently has 187 transponders operational in space. An indicative plan

outlay of `39,750 crore for the 12th Plan has been made for the Department of Space. A geo-imaging satellite, GISAT is also being designed, to be stationed 36,000 km above to maintain round-the-clock vigil and assist state authorities to tackle natural disasters, floods and forest fires and keep a watch over the country’s sensitive borders.

Missions initiated in the 11th Plan like Chandrayaan-II, Astrosat-1 and Aditya-1 are also expected to set forth on their respective destinations into space over the next five years.


GRIMMS Web 2: Habitation along Road Query (Odisha State)

PRODUCT SHOwCASE

Rural India, consisting of clusters of human population (habitations), faces

severe problems of poverty, lack of infrastructure etc. For the economic upliftment and overall development of such habitations, it is necessary to provide them with basic amenities. Rural roads provide them with connectivity and mobility, two important keys for reaching out and opening up new opportunities. Recognising this, the Government of India launched the PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana) – the Prime Minister’s Rural Road programme, as part of a poverty reduction plan, for providing connectivity to rural areas. PMGSY aims to connect all habitations having a predefined minimum population through National Rural Roads Development Agency (NRRDA), Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India.

GRIMMS (GIS-enabled Road Information Management and Monitoring System), a unique initiative of C-DAC, provides a GIS interface to the OMMS (Online Management and Monitoring System). OMMS is the Management Information System (MIS) of PMGSY, which was operational before GRIMMS was envisaged. OMMS is developed and maintained by C-DAC, which may be accessed from http://omms.nic.in. The PMGSY GIS includes Standalone (GRIMMS-S) and Web GIS (GRIMMS Web) applications. The standalone version of the software (GRIMMS-S) was developed over ARC Editor 9.0, using ARC Objects and VB.NET. GRIMMS Web and GRIMMS-S were implemented for the two pilot states (Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh). While the Web GIS version enables anybody to visualise road

Developed to provide GIS interface for the PMGSY programme, GRIMMS software is envisaged to become an inherent and revolutionary platform for changing the very base of infrastructure management and monitoring in the country

GRIMMS Web - Connecting India

related information through the Internet; the standalone version helps to execute any user specific and data/compute intensive queries.

GRIMMS web 2

With the success of GRIMMS, many states have come forward to use the Web GIS software in their initiatives. The current and enhanced version, GRIMMS Web 2, is operational for the States of Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Mizoram, Tripura and

Manipur; which can be accessed from http://omms.nic.in/grimms. Literally, North Eastern states have taken a big lead in enthusiastically adopting this new technology on priority basis.

GRIMMS Web 2 has been developed using ASP.NET, JavaScript, objects of MapXtreme 2004 and SQL Server 2000. Microsoft Web control is used for the Tree and Tab controls.

GRIMMS Web contains a range of user-friendly menus for various

GRIMMS web has been designed for better online dissemination of selected maps, information and reports to a large number of users including various government departments and the public in general.


GRIMMS Web 2: Habitation Classification Query (Tripura State)

This will assist in improved developmental planning and public access to the progress of work under the government’s programme.

Database

All the states, except Tripura, have taken the responsibility to create the spatial data themselves, undergoing the quality control of C-DAC. The spatial data in .shp format is automatically converted to .tab (MapInfo) format by developing

a convertor. The spatial database has only graphic information along with IDs for each entity. The non-spatial data is from OMMS, which is available in SQL Server 2000 and is for the entire country. By using the dynamic composite key, intrinsic GIS databases are efficiently linked to OMMS database. To adapt to the SQL Server data that was created specifically for the OMMS project, various SQL Views are created. The states update the attribute data continuously as part of the OMMS project, thereby; current attribute data is displayed, even though the spatial layers are not updated.

Future scope

GRIMMS can become an inherent and revolutionary platform for changing the very base of infrastructure management and monitoring in the country. However, the technology and utilities, which are a decade old, require upgrades. As of now, GRIMMS Web is catering to six Indian states, with many more in the offing. In such a condition, upgrading hardware, software and incorporating the additional GIS requirements of the states deserve utmost importance. In future, many of these technologies need to be handed over to the concerned states. By decentralising the spatial data capturing and updating process, states can outsource and thereby create more jobs locally. Continuous upgradation of the software is necessary to ensure a longer and sustainable future of GRIMMS. There is immense scope for upgrading it to cater to modern needs and objectives.

queries and it highlights the query result on the map and displays the attribute tables. The queries run on various spatial layers such as Habitation, Core Network (CN) road, and District Rural Roads Plan (DRRP) road, by having a live link with the OMMS database. GRIMMS Web has been designed for better online dissemination of selected maps, information and reports to a large number of users including various government departments and the public in general.

Sajeevan G, Jitendra Mhatre, Pinak Ranade, Upasana Dutta and Sunil Londhe Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune, India

The states update the attribute data continuously as part of the OMMS project, thereby; current attribute data is displayed, even though the spatial layers are not updated


The City Form Lab at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, in collaboration

with MIT, has created a new Urban Network Analysis (UNA) toolbox that enables urban designers and planners to describe the spatial patterns of cities using mathematical network analysis methods. Network analysis is widely used in the study of social networks, such as Facebook friends or phonebook connections, but so far fairly little in the spatial analysis of cities. While the study of spatial networks goes back to Euler and his famous puzzle of Königsberg’s seven bridges in the 18th century, there were, until recently, no freely accessible tools available for city planners to calculate computation-intensive spatial centrality measures on dense networks of city streets and buildings. The new toolbox, which is distributed as free and open-source plugin-in for ArcGIS, allows urban designers and planners to compute five types of graph analysis measures on spatial networks: Reach, Gravity, Betweenness, Closeness and Straightness.

The Reach measure, for instance, can be used to estimate how many destinations of a particular type — buildings, residents, jobs, transit stations etc. — can be reached within a given walking radius from each building along the actual circulation routes in the area. It offers an intuitive metric to accurately describe how the surrounding built fabric or pattern of economic activities appear differently to an observer from one building to another. The Betweenness measure, on the other hand, estimates the number of trips between the other surrounding destination pairs in the area that

With the new UNA toolbox, studying spatial configurations of cities, and their related social, economic, and environmental processes has become easier than ever

Urban network analysis simplified

URBAn PLAnnInG

The new toolbox, which is distributed as free and open-source plugin-in for ArcGIS, allows urban designers and planners to compute five types of graph analysis measures on spatial networks

pass by a particular building. It can be used to quantify the number of potential passersby at each building. These and the other three indices – Gravity, Closeness, and Straightness – characterise spatial accessibility to each particular location in a number of different and complementary ways.

These indices have numerous practical applications. They help explain, for instance, on which

streets or buildings one is most likely to find local commerce, where foot or vehicular traffic is expected to be highest, and why city land values vary from one location to another. They offer a powerful toolkit to study spatial relationships between urban activities under the actual geometric constraints of building, parcel and street networks, which have been largely ignored in spatial


economic models in the past.

The tools incorporate three important features that make them particularly suited for spatial analysis on urban street networks. First, they can account for both geometry and

topology in the input networks, using either metric distance (e.g. Miles) or topological distance (e.g. Turns) as impedance factors in the analysis. Second, unlike previous software tools that operate with two network elements (nodes and edges), the UNA tools include a third network element–buildings–which are used as the spatial units of analysis for all measures. The spatial graph thus consists of three basic elements: edges, representing paths along which travelers can navigate; nodes, representing the intersections where two or more edges intersect; and buildings, representing the locations where traffic from streets enters into indoor environments or vice versa. Buildings are represented as points, positioned at the centroids of actual building footprints or entrances, and are assumed to connect to streets (edges) that lay closest to them along the shortest perpendicular connection. Two neighboring buildings on the same street segments can therefore obtain different accessibility results. And third, the UNA tools

optionally allow buildings to be weighted according to their particular characteristics–more voluminous, more populated, or otherwise more important buildings can be specified to have a proportionately stronger effect on the analysis outcomes, yielding more accurate and reliable results to any of the specified measures.

The tools are aimed at planners, urban designers, architects, geographers, and spatial analysts who are interested in studying the spatial configurations of cities, and their related social, economic, and environmental processes. The UNA toolbox allows researchers to accurately quantify the two- and three-dimensional network characteristics of different spatial and economic networks in neighborhoods world-wide. Though primarily designed for the study of urban building- and street-networks, the toolbox is equally suited for analyzing other types of spatial networks, such as utility networks, highway networks, or building layouts. The toolbox is built for easy scaling–it can be used for small-scale and detailed network analysis of dense urban areas, as well as sparser large-scale regional networks. It requires ArcGIS 10 software with an ArcGIS Network Analyst Extension and it can be freely downloaded from the City Form Lab website (http://cityform.mit.edu/projects/urban-network-analysis.html).

The UNA toolbox allows researchers to accurately quantify the two- and three-dimensional network characteristics of different spatial and economic networks in neighborhoods world-wide

Andres Sevtsuk Singapore University of Technology & Design


The 4th edition of report on global satellite-based Earth observation released by NSR, points to an industry

in transition that is considerably improving its value-proposition. The Earth observation industry is said to be progressively moving from growth fed by orders from governmental & military organisations to one based on a more balanced mix of end-users, laying the groundwork for a decade of growth in both data and value-added-services (VAS) segments.

According to Stephane Gounari, Analyst at NSR, “In spite of the budgetary conditions of the traditional largest end-users in Europe and North America and the proposed cuts to the ‘Enhanced View’ program potentially totaling $130 million, Earth observation satellite operators remain optimistic, with some reason. With the satellite data becoming more reliable and flexible, commercial organisations are increasingly relying on Earth observation for an increasing number of applications in every vertical (living resources, energy and natural resources, industrial and services). However, any revenue decline from defense and Intelligence and public authorities verticals should not be considered as a complete loss as they are based on solid needs. As UAV-based Earth observation data drastically improves its value proposition alongside satellite-based Earth observation, they will increasingly compete in each market. With growing choice in Earth obsrevation data sources, end-user source-agnosticism is also getting stronger.

With free turn-by-turn navigation available on all major smartphone OS’, ABI Research finds

that a combination of other application segments and advertising will help to sustain a healthy LBS market. Of the emerging areas, the GPS-enabled health and fitness market continues to grow strongly with application downloads expected to break the 100 million mark in 2012. Revenues currently remain low as companies move to a freemium model to build presence, but it is a sector that has huge potential, with fitness device partnerships expected in 2013. In the family tracking market, companies like life360 and Sprint have led the way, with total downloads in 2012 expected to reach 37 million. ABI Research also forecasts strong revenue growth in the enterprise sector, which is undergoing a second wave of growth, moving beyond fleet management.

Senior analyst Patrick Connolly said, “The advertising side of the LBS business remains a relatively small but growing part of overall revenues in 2012. The ‘search and discovery’ vertical is gathering significant interest with approximately 70 per cent of Yelp’s 2011 revenue coming from local advertising, 78 million monthly active users, and partnerships with Apple and Microsoft. However, attrition continues in this space with Poynt (previously targeting 40 million users by the end of 2012) filing for bankruptcy.”

New NSr report projects satellite-based Eo market to triple

lbS revenues on course to break $4 billion mark in 2012

MARKETS

uSaf awards 4 contracts to improve gpS performanceThe US Air Force has embarked on a project to improve the capabilities of Global Positioning System (GPS) used worldwide for military and civilian purposes. Between September 28 and October 1 this year, the Air Force announced four new GPS contracts. Value of three of the awarded contracts was in the $30 million range, including contracts to Rockwell Collins and L-3 Communications to test and engineer new GPS technology, while Raytheon was awarded just under $30 million to develop receiver cards for GPS systems. Honeywell International also received a $14 million contract for engineering services related to GPS.

Maintained by the Air Force, the swath of GPS applications is growing rapidly and it is being used in everything from civilian car navigation to targeting for military weapon systems. The only competition for the American GPS is the Russian GLONASS system, although the European Union is currently developing its own system – Galileo. The contracts were announced days before the October 4 launch for putting this year’s first new GPS satellite into orbit. The new satellite is GPS IFF, designed by Boeing to improve on navigational accuracy and provide a more secure military signal. It has a longer design life than older satellite models. It should be deployed fully in about three months.


Participants within the US defense geospatial products market have reached a point where each has established

their particular niche. The transformation to a tools and services market has begun, as companies develop applications that can enhance and integrate vast amounts of information on to geographic canvases. The advent of “big data” (geospatial data so large and complex it becomes difficult to process) is a driving force behind initiatives focused on managing new data formats, such as full motion video, high-definition and 3-D graphics.

Department of Defense (DoD) spending on geospatial products and research is estimated to reach $3.21 billion by 2017. This amount would be significantly higher if classified spending were publicly accessible for reporting. The volume of data being gathered for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) has become unmanageable. The number of sensors deployed on the ground, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and satellites continues to soar, as does the ability to keep collection assets in place for longer

EvENTS

Dec 05 - 06, 2012

13th Esri india user Conference, 2012

Noida (NCR)

http://www.esriindia.com

Nov 12 - 16

Montego Bay, Jamaica

uriSa’s caribbean giS conference

www.urisa.org

Nov 28 - 29

Paris, France

future of Nav

www.futureofnav.com

Nov 26 - 30

Pattaya, Thailand

33rd asian conference on remote Sensing

http://acrs2012.gistda.or.th/

Feb 26 - 28

Munich, Germany

Munich Satellite Navigation Summit 2013

www.munich-satellite-navigation-summit.org

The 13th Esri India User Conference is the perfect forum for GIS professionals working within the Geospatial arena in the Indian Subcontinent. Fusion of innovative conference agenda with an exhibition and numerous networking opportunities, this event will provide the GIS user community a forum with inimitable access to their knowledge sharing and understanding of the new advancements in ESRI Technology and Solutions.

uS defense geospatial tools and services–The modern warrior’s weaponry

dec 11 - 14

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

19th Session of the Asia Pacific regional Space agency forum

www.aprsaf.org

periods of time. As improvements to systems create the ability to generate even larger volumes of data, US DoD planners are struggling to create methods to ensure that the data collected is useful for warfighters.

“ISR systems supporting operations in Afghanistan are reported to gather over 53 terabytes of data daily,” said Aerospace & Defense Senior Industry Analyst John Hernandez. “This is a significant increase from the start of the war in this country, in which a single terabyte of information was considered a large volume of data.” In order to meet the challenge of processing and taking advantage of the amounts of geospatial data generated, a mechanism is required that can automatically sort data to the proper users. On the other hand, geospatial data requires exploitation by qualified intelligence analysts that are being inundated with large quantities of raw data. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing technologies that will automate and streamline some initial analysis functions to speed up the exploitation process.

feb 04 - 06

Doha, Qatar

Second high level forum on ggiM

http://ggim.un.org/

dec 10 - 14

Sportsview Hotel, Kasarani – Kenya

use of giS & rS in climate change analysis & adaptation

www.indepthresearch.org


WhENEvEr youhEar gEoSpaTial

ThiNK of uS.

Technology Demystified. For You.

w w w . g e o s p a t i a l t o d a y . c o m


RNI NO.: APENG/2002/7101 POSTAL REGISTRATION NO.: HD/1125/2010-12

geospatial today inteviews mapstory founder, dr. chris tucker

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