SURVEYING

POSI T I O N I NG A ND ME A S U R E ME NT, E L EVATED JANUARY 2020 MENTORING

LIDAR
GNSS
GIS

AI
AI

ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT
OF THE GEOSPATIAL INDUSTRY

INSIDE
16 Hidden Infrastructure in 3D
25 What Is South?
28 Scanning the Roundest Bear
The Most
Trusted Brand
in Surveying

@surveygram, USA

And the most powerful software

to bring it all together.

geospatial.trimble.com © 2019, Trimble Inc. All rights reserved.

Looking Forward By Nicholas Duggan, FRGS, CGeog (GIS)
January 2020 Volume 7 Number 1

Publisher Neil Sandler

Dealing with Data, Now & Later

neil.sandler@xyht.com

Editor in Chief Shelly Cox

shelly.cox@xyht.com

Editor Gavin Schrock, PLS

gavin.schrock@xyht.com

Director of Sales and Chuck Boteler

Business Development chuck.boteler@xyht.com
Ar construction worker walks onto the work site rial type, and the device calculates an exact volume
Creative Director Karen Peacock
having forgotten their hi-viz vest. Before getting and checks it against the expected amount. This de- karen.peacock@xyht.com
to their station, their phone rings and they’re told vice reminds the worker to check the volume of a
Accounting and Angie Duman
that they need to leave the site until they have their nearby material pile—their schedule is monitored Classifieds angie.duman@xyht.com
full PPE (personal protective equipment). As they and mapped throughout the day.
Circulation subscriptions@xyht.com
leave, geofences (GNSS boundaries) are triggered, The site engineer’s phone buzzes to notify them Phone: 1 (844) 862-9286
and stereo cameras monitor the real-world position that a delivery will be arriving in the next five
Editor, Pangaea Jeff Salmon
of that person in real-time and report it to a live minutes, so they must get the lay-down area ready. and Located jeff.salmon@xyht.com
map—facial recognition has the worker’s name The truck is 30 minutes earlier than the schedule Editor, Field Notes Scott P. Martin
tagged to the map. said; the transport’s smart system calculated that scott.martin@xyht.com
Meanwhile, another worker on the site meas- there would be a 3% reduction in fuel use and a 5% European Editor Nicholas Duggan
ures materials with a handheld device; the worker savings in carbon emissions on site by using a qui- nicholasduggan@xyht.com

T
simply walks around the pile and enters the mate- eter traffic period. Proofreader Claire Napier
claire.napier@xyht.com

Contributing Writers Marc Delgado, PhD

his isn’t a fictional
story about fanciful
The only GIS Pro or, as Marc Del- Nicholas Duggan, FRGS
CGeog (GIS)
gado shows us this month, Geoff Jacobs
Kevin Lidtka
future technology. It’s in imagery-processing soft- Joseph Kerski, PhD, GISP

a construction site for
which I’m currently
creating a proof of
concept, along with the com-
panies Skanska, Innovate
UK, and The Carto Group.
It seems that the future
is here, and it is now. I was
reminded of this when I dis-
cussed my plan of monitor-
ing equipment for this job
with a geospatial tech rep
who told me that the devices
on the site were already fit-
ted with GPS tracking and
geofencing.
For another job, I recently
met with gaming company
thing left for
the future is
finding a way
to deal with
the data.
user showed me how I could
change the lighting and
move tables or chairs, then
change the radiators to fit in
with the room better.
Artificial intelligence
ware such as Mapillary that’s
Matteo Luccio
Jeff Salmon
Anthony Whitlock, PLS
turned a Google Street
View-type system into a way
to extract objects from col- Copyright © 2020 xyHt magazine. Printed in U.S.A. No
lected images. material may be reproduced in whole or in part without
written permission from the publisher. The publisher
For actual future-gazing, assumes no responsibility
for unsolicited material, the
check out Outlook 2020,
accuracy of information supplied
by manufacturers, or opinions
mailed with this issue, with expressed by contributors.
insights from Esri’s BIM ex-
pert, Chris Andrews; Max-
Partners and Affiliates
ar’s Kumar Navulur; our own
GeoDude, Geoff Jacobs; and
more.
A few years ago I would
have said that the future is
3D GIS and AI integrat-
ing with BIM, but, with THE
IMAGING & GEOSPATIAL
TIAL
so much change and new TION SOCIETY
INFORMATION

Unity that showed me not
the latest games but, instead,
real-time, multi-user edit-
ing of Autodesk BIM mod-
els within a virtual-reality
environment. This wasn’t
just a demonstration video;
I was immersed using the
Occulus Rift while another
(AI) and machine learning
(ML) are concepts we once
would hear about only from
universities. Now they’re
both readily available to play
with for free, or, if you don’t
want to do the learning, you
can find them commercially
in software like Esri’s Arc-
technology available to us
now, the only thing left for
the future is finding a way
to differentiate quality of
data, discover its source,
and quantify its trustwor-
thiness in the flood of geo-
spatial data we are now able
to consume. ■

JANUARY 2020 xyHt 1

 CONTENTS JANUARY 2020

xyHt [ISSN 2373-7018 (print), ISSN 2373-7735 (online), CPC CPM No.
41437548] is free upon request to qualified subscribers in the United States.
The Canadian subscription rate is US $20/year. The International subscription
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DEALING WITH DATA

FEATUREs more
1 By Nicholas Duggan,
FRGS, CGeog (GIS)

16 Hidden
Infrastructure
4 CONTRIBUTORS in 3D
A visualization platform over-
lays data displays on your view
of a job site by fusing data, AR

5 LOCATED
software, and mobile-device
sensors.

2020 STAFF RESOLUTIONS

CREATING HI-DEF MAPS USING AI 22 An Interview

with George
MAPPING THE WORLD’S SEAFLOOR Zhou of
CHCNAV
ARMY REVEALS AUTOMATED 3D IMAGING

EVENTS, AND MORE

28 Scanning the
Roundest Bear
19 MENTORING
Two Nicks

25 4TH WAVE
What Is South?

32 MAPS AS ART
The Queen of the World

12 Riding High on AI
Artificial intelligence is making huge waves
in the geospatial industry, changing how lo- This high-definition
vector map was
cation information and BIMs are created generated from
from big data. Meet three startups at the geospatial imagery
forefront. by Ecopia’s AI
system.

JANUARY 2020 xyHt 3


Nick Bearman, PhD
Nick (GIS Mentoring, page 22) is a GIS
trainer and consultant at Geospatial
Training Solutions and a teaching fellow
at University College London. “Some-
times we can get preoccupied with
mentoring being a formal system with
booked-in meetings to talk to someone
senior.”
nick@geospatialtrainingsolutions.co.uk,
@NickBearmanUK
Bianka Belović
Bianka (The Queen of the World, page
40) lives in Lendava, Slovenia, where, as
a kindergartener, she created the map
that won first place in her age group in
the Barbara Petchenik Children’s World
Map Drawing Competition. The email ad-
dress below is her teacher’s.
romanalebar@gmail.com
Marc M. Delgado, PhD
Marc (Riding High on AI, page 12) is a
GIS specialist with a PhD in geogra-
phy. He crisscrosses continents teach-
ing GIS. "Expect the geospatial market
of the 2020s to be driven by artificial
intelligence."
marc.delgado@xyht.com
4 xyHt JANUARY 2020
Contributors
LEFT: Nick Bearman, Bianka Belović, Marc M. Delgado
BELOW: Nicholas Duggan, Matteo Luccio,
Claire Napier, Gavin Schrock
Nicholas Duggan, Matteo Luccio Claire Napier
FRGS, CGeog (GIS) Matteo (Hidden Infrastructure in 3D, Claire (Scanning the Roundest Bear,
page 16) has been writing about geo- page 28) is a freelance journalist, editor,
Nick (Dealing with Data, page 1; GIS and cartoonist based in the UK who con-
spatial technologies for two decades.
Mentoring, page 22) is a chartered ge- tributes to award-winning comics, in-
“From Superman’s x-ray vision to cur-
ographer and leads a team of GIS users, cluding her own magazine, BUN & TEA.
rent technologies that use radio waves
BIM users, surveyors, gaming develop- "Bears are like comics. They come out
to sense objects through walls, the abil-
ers, and web developers to create inno- only on Wednesdays, and you should
ity to ‘see’ through obstacles has long
vative geospatial solutions. “How you never get too close."
been a source of fascination.
manage and work with workflows de-
fines the way you teach or help people.” matteo@palebluedotllc.com claire.napier@xyht.com, @illusClaire
Nick.duggan@xyht.com, @dragons8mycat
Gavin Schrock, PLS
Gavin (Interview with George Zhou, page
22; What Is South? page 25) is a land sur-
veyor, technology writer, and xyHt editor.
"When I started looking into the newer
survey gear manufacturers, I had no idea
What is xyHt?
how big they were in the global market; I
knew only that we hadn't heard much of
them here—yet."
gavin.schrock@xyht.com, @schrockg
Each of the conventions humans have used to
visualize and convey representations of this
physical world can be expressed via the simple
variants of “xyHt”
x: left-right
y: fore-aft
H: up-down (orthometric height)
t: time
 Send your Located items
to located@xyht.com

Located
Snapshots of what’s new and fascinating / Compiled (and often written) by Jeff Salmon

3D View
Revit Point Cloud Tool
ANYONE WHO HAS BUILT A 3D MODEL
from a point cloud knows how long it can take.
Luckily there are tools to help with the process.
One tool, InfiPoints, can import your point cloud
and automatically model pipes and planes for
you. One stand-out feature is its ability to ex-
port the 3D model as a Revit file, which brings in
all the properties of the model for BIM or other
modeling project.
—Kevin Lidtka, kevin.lidtka@gmail.com

Army Reveals Automated 3D Imaging

THE ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS
has developed a technique that will turn
aerial video footage into 3D models in
near real-time. This method was possible
before but with lots of human intervention
in deciding which frames of the video can
be used as source material and which
frames to throw out. The process is now
automatic and done by their program.
—Kevin Lidtka, kevin.lidtka@xyht.com

Holographic Imagery: No Headset Required

LOOKING GLASS FACTORY built a hologram
technology that doesn’t require you to wear a
headset or VR glasses to see its 3D effect. The
screen shines through a layer of thick glass a
certain way so that the model can be viewed at
different angles from multiple locations at once.
There are three sizes of screens currently, with
the largest capable of 8k resolution! Demo units
are on display, and shipping will begin spring
of 2020.
—Kevin Lidtka, kevin.lidtka@xyht.com

JANUARY 2020 xyHt 5

 2020 Resolutions
January is a time for setting goals and planning for the new year,
so we polled our Located contributors to get their ideas for what’s on tap for 2020.

Jeff Salmon:
Remote Pilot’s License
LAST OCTOBER, xyHt publisher Neil Sandler
and I were chatting up an attendee at the Com-
mercial UAV Expo about the FAA’s Remote Pilot
license. After our new friend left, Neil asked me
if I had obtained my Part 107 license. “Not yet,” I
replied. So, that’s my goal for 2020. I’ve been col-
lecting educational resources and looking at op-
tions for some time now. Stay tuned and watch
Pangaea this year as I take on this task.

Marc Delgado: DIY Drone & AI Mapping

I’M ALL FOR LEARNING NEW THINGS, so imagery. These are going to be quite a chal-
this year I’d like to teach myself how to build lenge, but heck, 2020 is a leap year so I’m
and fly my own drone. Then maybe I’ll have a jumping a little higher this time to reach my
crack on AI coding to create cool maps and goals.

Kevin Lidtka: Data Fusion

MY 2020 MAIN GOAL is to be more efficient data. I just started merging the two together and
in incorporating drone data into my laser scan would love to get much better at it.

GeoBuiz Summit MAPPS Winter Conf. ConEXPO GeoWeek*

EVENTS

1/13-1/14 1/19-1/22 CON/AGG* ILMF, ASPRS, MAPPS

Monterrey Bay, CA Honolulu, HI 3/10-3/14 3/23-3/25
Las Vegas, NV Washington, DC
Las Vegas, NV

AAG Annual Meeting AUVSI Exponential* GeoBusiness UESI Surveying and Geomatics*
4/6-4/10 5/4-5/7 5/20-5/21 5/31-6/2
Denver, CO Boston, MA London, UK Lawrenceburg, INgas, NV
*Look for us here

6 xyHt JANUARY 2020

 Mapping Your World
British Rails Look to
Automated Detection
NETWORK RAIL has released a bid that clos-
es this month (January 22nd) along with the
UK Government utilizing the innovation fund to
tackle “railway platform and edge technolo-
gy.” Although this doesn’t scream “geospatial,”
some of the scenarios for which this needs to
work are staff-less stations and for automated
detection—this could be an interesting tender to
watch. How would you tackle it?
—Nicholas.Duggan@xyht.com, @dragons8mycat

UK Floods:
Lidar to the Rescue
NOVEMBER 2019 saw some of the worst
flooding in the UK in for years, and many of my Creating Hi-def Maps Using AI
friends worked tirelessly to monitor and keep in-
formation up to date. Unlike a few years ago, da- EXPECT BETTER GPS MAPS next safe maps by automating the recogni-
ta-capture has changed quite a bit; rather than time you hit the road. TomTom is collab- tion of traffic signs, allowing the 3D-
having men in waders in the middle of rivers, orating with the Univ. of Amsterdam to localization of vehicles, and integrating
daily flights captured lidar data, and GIS analy- develop high-def maps for self-driving the use of lidar and other sensors in
sis teams processed and mapped the data as it vehicles in its Atlas Lab in the Nether- vehicles.
came in. Although we couldn’t stop the flooding, lands. The joint research will use AI to bit.ly/AI-Maps
an awareness of where problems were appear- create advanced, highly accurate, and —Marc M. Delgado, Marc.Delgado@xyht.com
ing and potentially moving to was far in advance
of anything we had in the past and potentially
saved many lives—hooray for lidar!
bit.ly/UK-Flooding
—Nicholas.Duggan@xyht.com, @dragons8mycat

GIS Day in Georgia

THE COUNTY GIS DEPARTMENT of Forsyth,
GA, had fun teaching folks about GIS and sup-
porting the county and our citizens on Nov. 13.
From the back: Al Luthringer, Daniel Wade, Pat-
rick Perkins; Mary Jo Black, Michael Hoff, John
M. Kilgore; Jessica Scott, Dawn Hamby, Bran-
don Kenney; Michael Bellino, April Haygood.
—John M. Kilgore, GISP, GIS Director, Forsyth County GIS Department

Mapping the World’s Seafloor

THE DEPTH AND SHAPE OF THE SEAFLOOR
is important for large-scale industries such as
telecommunications, oil and gas extraction, and
infrastructure construction. Yet less than 20% of
the world ocean’s seafloor has been mapped.
Seabed 2030 project, spearheaded by the Nippon
Foundation, aims to produce a complete, freely
available map of the seafloor in 10 years using
autonomous underwater vehicles equipped with
advanced deep-sea technologies for fast and
high-resolution ocean exploration. See Seabed
2030’s article in xyHt’s Outlook 2020 issue.
bit.ly/SeafloorMapping
—Marc M. Delgado, Marc.Delgado@xyht.com

JANUARY 2020 xyHt 7

Seamlessly Connecting the Office and the Field.

Complete Solutions – All From One Source

Hardware, software, workflow training, repair services, and ongoing
support all from your local Topcon Solutions Store.
Let us show you how our complete solutions can work for you.

SOLUTIONS IS OUR MIDDLE NAME

(855) 289-1772
topconsolutions.com
Unmanned News Space 2.0
Drones Fight to Control
Malaria
A TEAM OF RESEARCHERS IN TANZA-
NIA are using drones to reduce the population
of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes; they pack
the drones with payloads of a biological control
agent, then fly them over stagnant sunlit water
where mosquitoes breed and spray the non-
toxic liquid on the water surface, usually in the
middle of rice fields. People can’t usually reach
these places, so using drones is the perfect so-
lution. You, too, can help stop malaria by sup-
porting their work.
antimalariadrones.com
—Marc M. Delgado, Marc.Delgado@xyht.com

Spot-on Site Construction

Scans with Mobile Robots
DYNAMICS WILL EQUIP SPOT, their dog-
like four-legged autonomous machine, with Terraforming Mars—the Board Game
reality-capture devices from Trimble and Hilti
to improve on-site construction management. PER THE GAME’S DESCRIPTION: “You play one of the corporations undertaking the
Spot’s sturdy robotic legs and built-in ste- terraforming effort and work together in the process, but compete in doing the best work,
reo cams are built to bypass obstacles on the with victory points awarded not only for your contribution to the terraforming, but also for
ground. By maintaining its defined path, the ro- advancing human infrastructure throughout the solar systems and other commendable
bot can conduct site scans, progress monitor- achievements.” If Elon Musk has turned down your application to be a Martian colonist,
ing, asset management, and remote support this may be the next best thing.
using a cloud-based construction management
application. Woof.
bit.ly/SpotOnTheJob
—Marc M. Delgado, Marc.Delgado@xyht.com
Mapping Titan
DID YOU KNOW that Saturn’s moon Titan is
the only moon in the solar system known to have
an atmosphere? That many experts think it’s a
better place to colonize than Mars? That it has
lakes of liquid methane? That if you pronounce
the word “methane” as “me thane” you’ll sound
British? It’s all true and the impetus behind a re- Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
cent massive mapping effort by astronomers
from NASA, JPL, and Arizona State University light, and infrared sensors, Titan is revealed to
who’ve used years of Cassini data to construct be Earth-like with lakes, oceans, rivers, and rain.
the first global map of Titan. “Pack your bags honey, we’re moving to Titan!”
Thanks to Cassini’s advanced radar, visible bit.ly/MappingTitan

JANUARY 2020 xyHt 9

 New Products/News
Insights into 19th-c Mining Town
AN ARCHAEOLOGIST made a surprising dis-
covery about daily life in an 1800s gold mining
town by mapping artifacts in the Surfer scientific
modeling package from Golden Software. Artifact
distribution maps indicate Highland City, Mon-
tana, may have been a well-integrated town for
Assetino Cloud-based Cemetery Mapping & Management
T-MAPY’S international ver-
sion of its Cemetery Management
Module allows operators and visi-
tors to identify and locate the fi-
nal resting place of an individual,
receive aid with ancestry studies,
and manage capacity and main-
tenance of a facility. From sim-
ple searches of burial records to
automated management of con-
tracts and fees, Assetino Cem-
etery is an online solution with
integrated smart mapping.
—Shelly Cox, ShellyCox@xyht.com
10 xyHt JANUARY 2020
its time. “Overseas Chinese immigrants worked
in the mines of the American West just as non-
Chinese miners did; […] artifacts in Highland City
show them living right next to each other in one
residential area.”
Riegl’s VQ-1560 ii
THE NEW RIEGL VQ-1560 II
dual-channel waveform process-
ing airborne lidar scanning sys-
tem offers increased performance
with a laser pulse repetition rate
of up to 4mhz, resulting in more
than 2.66 million measurements
per second on the ground. Typical
operating flight altitudes vary from
less than 1,500 ft up to 12,100 ft (at
target reflectance of >20%). La-
ser pulse repetition rates can be
tuned in steps of less than 12 kHz.
MicroSurvey
CAD 2020
MICROSURVEY SOFTWARE
INC., part of Hexagon, released
MicroSurvey CAD 2020 with inte-
grated support for AutoCAD 2018-
2020 dwg files, Revit, and IFC BIM
models, Artisan Rendering, and
a full suite of pro-grade survey
tools. MicroSurvey CAD is pow-
ered by the IntelliCAD 9.2 engine,
providing survey drafting and
calculation workflows, including
COGO, point tools for gridline-
based projects, traverse input and
adjustment, misclosure reporting,
common data-collector support,
3D surface representation and
computation, corridor design, and
point cloud management.

Value of NGS Gravity Program
A NEW STUDY ESTIMATES the
value of the NGS Gravity Program
to be between $4.2 and $13.3 bil-
lion over 10 years, with a middle
scenario of $8.7 billion. The socio-
economic study was conducted for
NGS by ARCBridge Consulting of
Herndon, Virginia. The NGS Grav-
Velodyne Lidar’s Alpha Prime
DESIGNED FOR AUTONO-
MOUS VEHICLE MAPPING,
robotics, and industrial appli-
cations, the Alpha Prime lidar
device generates high-quality
perception in a variety of light
conditions, with sensor-to-sensor
interference mitigation, power
NSPS Forum for Women in Surveying
WHILE THE RECENT
WOMEN SURVEYOR’S
SUMMIT (see xyHt’s Nov.
2019 issue - bit.ly/2R8IImw,)
is the first of a new series
of meetings, it is not the
first of such events histori-
cally or globally—there is a
long and distinguished his-
tory of groups and gather-
ings. Re: surveying in North
America, primary is the NSPS Forum for Women in Surveying, which began
in 1983. The work of early groups can help inform, guide, and inspire new
initiatives like the new Women Surveyor’s Summit.
Read more at xyHt.com: bit.ly/2R6UFci
Septentrio PPK Gets a Boost
SEPTENTRIO UPGRADED
THEIR GPS POST-PROCESS-
ING SOFTWARE: both GeoTagZ
and PP-SDK now feature Base-
Finder, a tool that speeds up sur-
vey workflow by automatically
finding reference data needed
for augmenting GNSS logs with
RIEGL VZ-400i
Ultra High Performance
3D Laser Scanner
ity Program uses information about
the gravity field to provide more
accurate elevation data for the
U.S., which will result from a new
vertical height reference system
created from the Gravity Program’s
GRAV-D Project.
—Shelly Cox, ShellyCox@xyht.com
efficiency, and thermal perfor-
mance. The unit features 360-de-
gree surround-view perception
and a 40-degree vertical field-
of-view, detection of dark or low
reflectance objects at long dis-
tances, and improved operating
efficiency.
Proven in the Field:
Extremely Fast Data Acquisition,
Automatic On-Board Registration, User Friendly!
» Automatic registration during data acquisition –
Tremendous time savings!
» Up to 1.2 million measurements/sec –
Extremely fast data acquisition!
» RIEGL Waveform-LiDAR technology –
Highly informative and precise data!
» Cloud connectivity via LAN, Wi-Fi and LTE 4G/3G –
Worldwide access for smart remote scanner
control and data upload!
sub-centimeter accuracy. Base-
Finder accesses an online data- » Customizable workflows – High field efficiency!
base of reference networks and » User-friendly touch screen – Easy to operate!
extracts the most suitable cor-
rections available, and it’s avail-
able via an app or an API and can
be incorporated into any existing RIEGL VZ-i On-board
Registration Video on
software. our YouTube Channel
online!
www.rieglusa.com
RIEGL LMS GmbH, Austria | RIEGL USA Inc. | RIEGL Japan Ltd. | RIEGL China Ltd. | RIEGL Australia Pty Ltd.
JANUARY 2020 xyHt 11
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS MAKING HUGE WAVES IN THE GEOSPATIAL
INDUSTRY, CHANGING HOW LOCATION INFORMATION AND BIMS ARE
CREATED FROM BIG DATA. MEET THREE STARTUPS AT THE FOREFRONT.

Clockwise from top left: Ecopia’s AI system can rapidly generate accurate and high-definition vector maps like this one from any geospatial imagery.
This 3D point cloud of a large residential complex in Nuremberg was created using VOXELGRID technology.
By applying computer vision to street imagery, Mapillary detects map data at scale.

12 xyHt JANUARY 2020


Riding High on AI
STARTUPS IN THE AEC REALM
have skyrocketed over the last
decade. The availability of in-
novative technologies—GPS,
satellites, UAVs, lidar, and pho-
togrammetry—has driven their
success and, as a result, has made
more tools and data available
to geospatial professionals. So
if the 2010s was the decade of
startups, the 2020s will be driv-
en by artificial intelligence (AI).
Think of big data, and this
makes sense. The unprecedent-
ed deluge of data churned out
by new geospatial devices can be
efficiently organized and pro-
cessed only using AI algorithms.
Companies are now exploiting
AI to extract real-world objects,
from point clouds to satellite
imagery. With AI technolo-
gy, houses can be easily distin-
guished from forests, windows
from walls, pipes from conduits,
all with exceptional speed and
precision.
However, AI must first train
its algorithms to search for sig-
nificant data patterns, and to do
so requires terabytes of accurate
data.
Even this is no longer a
problem. As location and imag-
ing technologies have become
more accurate, the storage ca-
pacity of chips has also expo-
nentially expanded, and cloud
storage solutions have become
so ubiquitous that geospatial
professionals can easily capture
and store high volumes of preci-
sion data with ease.
These days, the amount of
information that you can collect
with compact-sized gadgets is
mind-blowing. Think of nano-
satellites, palm-sized UAVs, and
handheld 3D scanners, all feed-
ing to AI’s hunger for data.
Thus, in the next decade’s
era of big data, the new revolu-
tion in the geospatial industry
will come from successfully us-
ing AI to unearth useful prod-
ucts from massive datasets.
These geospatial startups are
leading the way.
IMPROVING STREET-LEVEL
MAPPING WITH
COMPUTER VISION
What do you do when you re-
alize that the map you need is
not updated fast enough by big
mapping companies? You cre-
ate your own company to do
just that.
In 2013, Jan Erik Solem and
three others co-founded Mapil-
lary, a startup from Sweden that
uses computer vision technol-
ogy to extract valuable data
found in street-level imagery.
Their novel mapping approach
has received the nod of top-
notch investors and companies;
they now collaborate with glob-
al companies such as HERE,
Volkswagen, and Amazon.
Computers are able to de-
tect and position objects from
images at a much faster pace
and a more detailed level than
any human could accomplish.
Now, Mapillary has become the
world’s largest publicly available
image database for improving
maps, all thanks to AI.
“AI technology has been
the cornerstone of Mapillary
from the very beginning,” says
By Marc M. Delgado,
PhD
Solem, CEO. “With comput-
er vision, a form of artificial in-
Left: VOXEL-
telligence, machines could see GRID’s re-
and, in the best case, understand cording
what they’re seeing.” device can
capture up
Mapillary’s computer vision to 10,000
technology has been trained to square
meters (2.5
detect objects like traffic signs, acres) of
fire hydrants, utility poles, and floor area in
a day.
many other objects in street-
level imagery and then posi-
tion this information on a global
map.
Playing on the words “map”
and “capillary,” the company
aims to reach the smallest ends
of the world (similar to the
smallest blood vessels in your
body) and bring that scalability
to mapping.
“We work mainly with three
sectors: mapping, automotive,
and players who need maps to
be able to operate but don’t nec-
essarily have their own mapping
team,” says Solem.
For example, Mapillary
helps companies to capture im-
ages as they go about their day-
to-day operations and then use
that imagery to cut the time
they spend on things like find-
ing parking and the right build-
ing entrance.
It also helps them with route
optimization. In October 2019,
Mapillary launched its own
mapping dashcam with the aim
to help logistics companies have
access to near real-time map
JANUARY 2020 xyHt 13

UNSCRAMBLING
THE BUZZWORDS
JOHN MCCARTHY, computer scientist at
Stanford University, first coined the term
“artificial intelligence” in 1955, defining
it as, “the science and engineering of
making intelligent machines, especially
intelligent computer programs.”
Machines are intelligent when they
can replicate human cognitive skills
such as forming categories, recognizing
patterns, and solving problems.
For machines to achieve artificial in-
telligence, computer programmers must
create algorithms that can scan and or-
ganize input data to train and teach the
machines to perform tasks. This method
is called machine learning, the most ba-
sic of all AI techniques.
Several other AI methods have since
been developed, including neural net-
work, a process that mimics how the
human brain learns by using intercon-
nected nodes to process data. Its more
sophisticated version is called deep
learning, which uses multiple layers of
neural networks so that computers can
analyze bigger datasets. With the ad-
vent of big geospatial data, there are far
more inputs for AI machines to train on
and improve their accuracy.
And due to AI’s ability to handle big
datasets such as imagery, computer
vision is currently one of the hottest
geospatial applications. With computer
vision technology, machines can be
taught to “see” real-world objects from
images, thus allowing companies like
Mapillary to identify roads from street
photos, Ecopia to extract built-up areas
from satellite imagery, and VOXELGRID
to recognize construction materials from
a point cloud.
14 xyHt JANUARY 2020
and location data through the
Mapillary platform.
Although AI technology
may seem out of reach for the
average map user, just about
anyone can go on the Mapil-
lary website and view the im-
agery and data at no cost. All
imagery is available under the
CC-BY-SA license, meaning
they can be shared, used, and
built upon, and the derived
map data are freely available
for editing in OpenStreetMap.
Mapillary believes that map
users can benefit from its com-
puter vision technology not just
by being open, but also because
of the speed and scalability that
their technology brings.
“The need for map data is
booming as map companies
scramble to access up-to-date
data in a growing number of
markets. At the same time, the
combination of increasing pres-
sure on delivery firms and the
rise of last-mile and micro-mo-
bility solutions means that more
players than ever before need
access to map data,” says Solem.
“Mapillary addresses this grow-
ing need of keeping maps up-
dated by allowing everyone to
map what is important to them
just by capturing images.”
Allowing just about anyone
to contribute images may have
its drawbacks, including issues
on data accuracy and privacy. So
how does Mapillary deal with
these issues?
“Accuracy is something we
will always strive to improve,
and as our dataset grows, our
computer vision algorithms
improve along with it,” says
Solem. “We also use a tech-
nique known as ‘human in the
loop’ or HOOP, where commu-
nity members help us improve
the accuracy of our detections by
verifying whether the detections
are correct or not.”
According to Solem, pro-
tecting privacy is a top prior-
ity for the company. “From the
beginning, it was clear that we
needed a way to anonymize
sensitive information like faces
and license plates in the imag-
es on our platform. Today priva-
cy blurring is something we do
with 99% accuracy, an industry
best,” he says.
With the expected growth
of businesses that rely on loca-
tion technology in the next dec-
ade, expect to see the use of AI
technology in the mapping in-
dustry to go mainstream.
“These days it’s not just hu-
mans that need maps; it’s cars,
delivery robots, last-mile so-
lutions, and much more,” says
Solem. “The market for maps
for autonomous vehicles alone is
set to grow from $2.2bn in 2020
to $24.5bn by 2050, so it’s safe
to say that we’re just at the be-
ginning of a big shift in how the
world thinks about maps.”
For now, sustaining the
success of the company will
depend on the collaborative
mapping platform that Mapil-
lary has built.
“As more images are contrib-
uted by users, the more training
data we can use to improve our
AI algorithms, eventually result-
ing to the best mapping data
available for everyone,” adds
Solem. “As we say at Mapillary,
collaboration wins.”
CREATING COST-EFFECTIVE
2D PLANS & BIMS WITH DEEP
LEARNING
“It’s our magic sauce,” says
Christian Wetzel, the man be-
hind German start-up VOX-
ELGRID, referring to how he
believes his company can cre-
ate cost-effective 2D plans and
BIMs of existing buildings bet-
ter than other companies.
This reduction in cost is im-
portant to customers, especial-
ly among government agencies
and city planners. VOXEL-
GRID’s economical approach
has already been tested with
the German government agen-
cy that manages the country’s
properties (the Institute for
Federal Real Estate), as well as
with several municipalities in
the country, to deliver building
floorplans and floor-material
information at lower costs.
“As an example, we did the
whole façade of a large residen-
tial unit in Nuremberg, proving
that with our methodology we
can go from the quick estima-
tion of the building’s area us-
ing deep learning up to its very
detailed 3D reconstruction,”
says Wetzel. “And we did it at a
cheap price.”
Founded in 2016, VOXEL-
GRID’s technology uses novel
AI techniques, including auto-
matic area recognition and deep
learning, to accomplish point-
cloud processing and hyper-
spectral analysis. The startup’s
algorithms are so robust that it
can automatically detect win-
dow areas from facades with less
than 1% area deviation in 1 sec-
ond, a very high level of preci-
sion by industry standards.
“Existing buildings without
reliable planning documents ac-
count for around 95% of the en-
tire global real estate portfolio,”
says Wetzel. “The company’s fo-
cus is to supply combined hard-
ware and software as a service
(H&SaaS) in order to create
layouts and material informa-
tion for existing buildings which
are way cheaper than traditional
approaches.”
VOXELGRID has also in-
troduced to the market its own
recording device, allowing pro-
fessionals to capture up to
10,000 square meters (2.5 acres)
of an existing building’s floor
area in a day. With little post-
processing effort, 2D plans or a
3D building model with infor-
mation on its materials can be
generated automatically.
“Compatible and accurate
building data is a prerequisite
for creating BIMs. Our goal is
to provide building information,
including room number, height,
and its materials, inside and out,”
says Wetzel.
 At the heart of VOXEL- Wetzel. “But we have to be re-
GRID’s process is AI tech- ally aware that proper AI only
nology. “Using hundreds of works with proper training, and
annotated building images this means really an awful lot of
as training datasets, we teach suitable information for training
computers to do what comes the machine.”
naturally to humans: learn by
example and experience. The DIGITIZING THE WORLD WITH
outcome is a remarkable pro- MACHINE-LEARNING PROCESSES
gress in image recognition of The Canadian company Ecopia.
building geometries, especially AI (Ecopia) created a buzz in
in identifying different materials the geospatial industry in 2018
and components,” says Wetzel. when they released the first developed through the PhD re- model, and our product,” shares This point
But isn’t this type technolo- high-precision and complete cloud of a
search of Yuanming Shu at the Jackson. staircase is
gy used by others, as well? building footprint dataset of the University of Waterloo, a leader Telecommunication firms, from a large
“I think that there is current- United States. Many people be- residential
in computer engineering. Dur- governments, NGOs, insurance
ly no other company offering to lieved it could not be done at complex in
ing his research, Shu noted that companies, and logistics use Nuremberg
create 2D plans and 3D models that scale, speed, and precision. created us-
millions of geospatial images are their maps to determine where
using this set of imaging tech- To achieve this, the com- ing VOX-
captured every day by satellites, building footprints, roadways, ELGRID
nologies,” says Wetzel. pany’s AI algorithms combed technology.
airplanes, drones, and other ve- greenspace and other features
And he might be right. through Maxar’s DigitalGlobe
When most companies are satellite imagery database, ex- hicles. This presented him with are located.
featuring either the creation tracting 169 million building an opportunity to do something “There is an inadequate
of point clouds or meaningful with the available amount of accurate, up-to-date
footprints across
the virtual tour of “WE TEACH pixels and data. information of the Earth,” says
the United States
a building, VOX- COMPUTERS TO DO and updating it In 2015, Shu co-founded Jackson. “Current sources do
ELGRID differ- WHAT COMES and launched Ecopia with Jon not provide adequate solutions
annually.
entiates itself by NATURALLY TO Lipinski and Shuo Tan, now for enterprise analysis and deci-
The company
using its proprietary HUMANS: LEARN has taken on a big- the company’s president and sion making.”
AI algorithms to BY EXPERIENCE.” ger challenge this CTO, respectively. A grant from The company’s artificial in-
quickly generate in- the University of Waterloo and telligence technique is currently
year: to create the
dustry-compatible BIM data for first comprehensive digital map Federal Government of Cana- an industry leader, specializing
existing buildings. Their combi- of all of Sub-Saharan Africa. da allowed the founding team to in extracting information from
nation of innovation and speed This digital map will include an begin exploring business oppor- big geospatial data.
is more cost-effective in the long estimated 342 million buildings, tunities. Within a year, they had “We are leading the charge
run, allowing them to offer more double the size of what they cre- their initial prototype and first in how AI can be used to cre-
affordable products compared to ated in the U.S. customer. ate high-definition vector maps
their nearest competitors. “Ecopia leverages AI to Asked whether the com- at scale,” says Jackson.
In addition to receiv- mine geospatial big data. This pany’s initial location was also Their advancements in ma-
ing awards, the company has data is used to create up-to-date, a catalyst for Ecopia’s growth, chine learning can convert high-
been invested in by the Cal- highly accurate digital repre- Jackson’s response was posi- resolution Earth imagery into
Con Group, one of the largest sentations of the Earth that are tive. “The Accelerator Centre vector maps with a production
IT companies in the German being used by decision-makers in Waterloo allowed us to grow capacity of more than 40 million
and Austrian real estate market. around the world,” says Emily as a business with access to oth- building footprints per month,
VOXELGRID now has a staff Jackson, company vice president, er startups to talk about growth an unmatched capability that
of 16 from the original three communications. “We produce and best practices. We also had maintains 95% accuracy.
and continues to operate from millions of kilometers worth of strong mentorship from in- In addition to their prod-
Munich, the country’s startup commercial-grade high-defi- dustry experts, and as a grow- ucts, Emily tells us what else
hub in the south. nition maps of the Earth every ing startup, that expertise was makes them proud to be start-
So with pilot projects and month.” invaluable.” up. “We have doubled in size
rounds of financing under- To support their Sub-Sa- Like many other startups, and revenue year over year
way, what’s the next step for the haran Africa initiative, Ecopia Ecopia has faced growth chal- since incorporating as a busi-
company? received $6.7 million funding lenges, including access to tal- ness, all while being primary
“The long-term goal is to from the Sustainable Devel- ent, sustainable revenue, and bootstrapped and not taking
develop realistic 3D building opment Technology Canada customers. “These are the three on any outside funding,” she
models that contain all the in- (SDTC), a foundation created biggest challenges for any new says. “We have big plans for
formation about the geometries by the Canadian government. startup company, but we be- international expansion and
and structural elements,” shares Ecopia’s core technology was lieved in our team, our business product-line growth.” ■

JANUARY 2020 xyHt 15

 SURVEYING
MENTORING
LIDAR
GNSS
GIS
AI

HIDDEN
A visualization platform overlays
data displays on your view of a job
site by fusing data, AR software,
and mobile-device sensors.

INFRASTRUCTURE IN 3D
By Matteo Luccio trical line, or a fiberoptic cable—this ability mentally transposing the visualization on the

F
rom Superman’s x-ray vision to
current technologies that use
radio waves to sense objects
through walls, the ability, fictional
or actual, to “see” through obstacles has long
been a source of fascination.
When the obstacle is several feet of as-
phalt, concrete, dirt, and/or rock and the
object of interest is an underground utility—
such as a water or sewer pipe, a gas or elec-
is of great practical value to surveyors, engi-
neers, and construction crews. Safely and ef-
ficiently designing and building underground
utility networks, especially in crowded urban
areas, requires a clear understanding of the
exact location and relative position of pre-
existing conduits, their diameters, the clear-
ances between them, and so on.
Traditional GIS provides only a 2D repre-
sentation of underground utilities. Even 3D GIS
is of limited use in the field because it requires
screen to the reality on the ground. vGIS, a vis-
ualization platform, fuses GIS, CAD, and BIM
data; augmented-reality software; and location
and attitude sensors on mobile devices, trans-
forming traditional “flat” GIS data into aug-
mented reality displays and holograms overlain
on the user’s view of a physical job site.
Walls, pillars, beams, pipes, and foundations
can all be layered, distinguishing those currently
present from those still in design. This enables
field crews to visualize underground infrastruc-

16 xyHt JANUARY 2020

ture in 3D in real-time, using mobile devices they
already have—such as Android phones, iP-
hones, tablets, or even Microsoft HoloLens
headsets—without additional equipment.
Preventing Errors
and Accidents
By simplifying and expediting the task of lo-
cating hidden infrastructure and showing de-
signs from all angles, this new platform helps
prevent costly design errors, such as “clash-
es” that occur when project designs show
objects to be built in spaces that are, in fact,
already occupied by other ones.
The platform also: helps to identify gaps in
GIS data; increases safety by minimizing the
chance of accidental line strikes and by reduc-
ing the amount of time workers need to spend in
traffic to locate underground utilities; and ena-
bles stakeholders to view existing and planned
underground infrastructures by remote.
vGIS can be connected to external GNSS
devices to provide accuracy of up to 1cm and
can be used without GNSS with up to sub-
10cm accuracy, according to internal vGIS
test results. It is compatible with high-preci-
sion GNSS devices from EOS, Leica Geosys-
tems, Trimble, SXBlue, and others; integrates
with Esri ArcGIS, Bentley iModelHub, and
other BIM and GIS platforms; and supports
KML, WMS/WFS, shapefile, and other for-
mats. A built-in reporting feature enables us-
ers to flag line location data for correction.
Origins
vGIS started with a knowledge-management
solution, says Alec Pestov, the company’s
founder and CEO.
“In 2016,” he recalls, “we decided to use our
knowledge in spatial visualization to start visual-
izing GIS data and, later, BIM data for utilities.”
Building on Microsoft’s Hololens and the
Unity gaming engine, the company developed a
product that can now run on different platforms.
“We keep adding functionality to make it richer.”
From the beginning, Pestov explains, vGIS
addressed a challenge faced by every public
utility: the ability to see its underground net-
work. “In the United States there are so many
infrastructure projects that every year com-
panies collect about 300 million locates, and
there are approximately 250,000 accidental line
strikes, causing $2 billion in damages. So, the
issue that we are trying to address is huge.”
Municipalities, which were vGIS’s origi-
nal core market, still comprise about a third
of its user base, with another third consisting
of architecture, engineering, and construc-
tion (AEC) companies and the last third of
GIS consultancies and similar groups, says
Pestov. While the most evident use case is in
the field, he points out, the engineering mar-
ket is also planning to use vGIS to avert clash-
es early in the process and enable people to
view complex infrastructure remotely.
Use in AEC
The Geospatial Solutions practice at KCI, a
1,500-person engineering, consulting, and
construction firm, began as the company’s
GIS shop, explains Dustin Henry, a program
manager in that unit.
“In the last 10 to 12 years, we found that
we could be profitable ourselves if we started
going after our own contracts, working as
program managers,” he says. “We support
utilities or transportation engineering, envi-
ronmental engineering, oil and gas down in
Texas, and construction management.”
Pestov brought vGIS to KCI’s attention
Above: This view of a main street shows
subsurface infrastructure displayed in AR
using vGIS. (The tops of subsurface assets
show as if they were above ground—a
result of the 3D perspective.)
Left: Most vGIS users employ traditional
phones and tablets to view the AR.
Opposite: Another AR view of
above-ground and subsurface assets.
when he presented it to some senior leaders,
Henry recalls. “Given my role with geospatial
solutions technology, I was tasked with helping
to support and potentially use this product with
clients. It really tied into a job we were doing in
the city of Baltimore where there was a sinkhole
and they wanted to be able to visualize in 3D, in
augmented reality, what was underground.”
Previously, KCI used to probe surfaces
with invasive procedures to find out whether
there were pipes below them.
“We had 2D GIS field tools to give us an
idea of where things were, but not in 3D to
understand relative depths in the field,” says
Henry. Now, with vGIS, “we can walk onto
a construction site and show them where
things are going to be.”
KCI now employs AM gradiometry, a tech-
nology that locates pipes in the ground by
means of radio waves, then puts that data
into a GIS and exports it (as well as CAD and
BIM data) to vGIS. The company has a couple
of Hololenses that it uses for presentations
but has not yet used them in the field.
Henry says, “While a traditional GIS col-
lection service allows you to capture data
and take some photos, you are not getting
a true representation and seeing the pipes’
depths and diameters and how they relate to
one another. vGIS helps with that.
“We are also seeing some value in the abil-
ity to show what a construction site might look
like, both above and below ground. When they
see it, people’s eyes light up. They love it.” ■
JANUARY 2020 xyHt 17
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18 xyHt JANUARY 2020

 SURVEYING
MENTORING
LIDAR
GNSS
GIS
AI

Two Nicks on GIS Mentoring in

the Age of Automation

New
Mentoring
Settings
By Nick Bearman, PhD

M
entoring is a key aspect in any
career; otherwise how do we
learn what we need to do and
how we need to work in a particular envi-
ronment? It is even more important for an
SME (small- to medium-sized enterprise) or
freelancer.
Working on your own is increasingly
common in the geospatial field, with the rap-
id increase of freelancers. As a freelancer or
Duggan mentors lead developer Shaun Landy in PostGIS.
SME, you might interact with very few peo-

What Is Automation for GIS?

ple on a daily basis, as Nick Duggan men-
tions at right. Therefore, it is easy to miss out
on those happenstance conversations in the
corridor or kitchen as well as the planned,
strategic medium- and long-term career By Nick Duggan, FRGS, CGeog(GIS) tion as being a new thing, though in reality
planning discussions. in the GIS world it has always been there;

Sometimes we can get preoccupied
with mentoring being a formal system with
booked-in meetings to talk to someone sen-
ior concerning our careers and career pro-
gression. This is a key bit of mentoring, but
there is a whole other side to it, formed of
informal meetings and discussions, either in
See Bearman, Page 20
B
eing asked to write about mentoring,
I find myself reflecting on my years in
GIS: the multiple teams I’ve managed
and the challenges along the way, plus how I
lead or mentor people now and how they go
about getting advice when no help is present.
First though, what do we mean by automation?
And in what kind of business environment?
Commonly, many people think of automa-
we were simply smart enough not to tell the
boss or get caught using it.
I remember a project for a national map-
ping agency where I set targets related to
the amount of work, with a little Windows
batch file and some simple models in Esri
ModelBuilder. I would set a process going
See Duggan, Page 20

JANUARY 2020 xyHt 19

Students at the University of Glasgow learn
about R in Bearman’s short GIS training
course.
Bearman from Page 19
person or remotely, often through social
media.
A number of approaches can replace for-
mal settings, and different techniques work
for different people. I am able to do a signifi-
cant chunk of mentoring remotely, primarily
through Twitter but also through LinkedIn and
my blog. Twitter also has groups based on
hashtags that meet at certain times, for exam-
ple #GISchat is a group of GIS professionals
who meet (via Twitter threads) on Wednes-
days at 8 pm (GMT). #ECRchat is a group of
early-career researchers who meet (also via
Twitter threads) on Wednesdays at 11 am, or
sometimes 5 pm (GMT) to share experiences
of working in academia.
In an SME situation, conferences are also
key ways of meeting potential clients and net-
working, but also meeting your remote col-
leagues and collaborators in person. For me,
the FOSS4G UK conferences are key to this; I
helped organize the one in London in March,
2018, and will be attending and running a
workshop at the one coming up in Edinburgh
in September, 2019. Geomob is another regu-
20 xyHt JANUARY 2020
lar conference I have been to—and would at- Duggan from Page 19
tend more frequently if I could!
every morning and drink lots of tea, all while
Co-working spaces is another informal
achieving targets and accuracy well above
approach. These are where freelancers can
some of the others who were doing all this by
rent a desk for days or a week to have some-
hand.
where to work from and meet likeminded col-
When we consider what a GIS is, we
leagues. This can work really well for people
should consider if it’s an automation process
who don’t have a suitable home environment
in itself. Take a look at the script behind your
to work in or just want a change of scene
point-to-raster tool and you’ll find an automa-
from looking at the same four walls each day!
tion there that considers the points, gets the
In an SME environment, formal mentoring
spacing, interpolates, and then generates the
is something you proactively have to organ-
cells related to it.
ize, and in some situations there is funding
We then string many of these processes
from the government to support this. But
together to create workflows that simplify our
more often than not, mentoring is either fund-
work. This isn’t anything new; it was popular
ed through people’s good will or your own
back when we were using ArcView 3.x almost
finances.
20 years ago and used avenue scripts to auto-
While the progression of automation has
mate the software. Esri, QGIS, and other GIS
changed the way we work, new technology
providers are big on workflows: the method
has also allowed us to collaborate in new and
you use to string your processes together to
different ways. I can be a part of the GIS com-
get your result.
munity wherever I am in the world just through
When we talk about automation now,
the power of an internet connection. ■
we think of AI and how it can consider deci-
sions to “automate” the process, but in real-
In an SME ity it is we, the user, who has to go back into
environment, the software to tell it that it made the correct
decision.
formal mentoring In either case, over my years in GIS I have
is something you worked on more and more automation, but it
have to proactively
organize.
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I am currently working on particularly in-
novative work, and that is extremely lonely
as there is no one to talk to, mostly because
I’m working for a small business. If I were in
a larger team or had any similar-minded ex-
perts at hand, that would be a blessing!
As a mentor, I’ve found that as new ideas,
processes, and workflows are formed, the
most mentoring I do is around core GIS val-
ues. Also, how you manage and work with
workflows defines the way you teach or help
people.
I have mentored people inside and outside
of my work (through the Royal Geographical
Society), and automation is never a question;
it is always what you try to achieve through
GIS, whether you’re in a small company or a
large one (though more QA is required in the
latter).
I prefer one-to-one discussion and train-
ing, but if you were to ask my colleagues or
staff, they would tell you that they could learn
to fly a helicopter through a 30-minute video
on YouTube; in fact much of our external train-
ing is given in this format and some awesome
resources are on YouTube.
Is this the right way to learn? Is it safe?
That is another discussion. ■

JANUARY 2020 xyHt 21

 SURVEYING
MENTORING
LIDAR
GNSS
GIS
AI

An Interview with CHCNAV’s

George Zhou
By Gavin Schrock, PLS vember 2019 recap of our recent gineering. I was graduated from instrument manufacturer in Bei-
visit to CHC Navigation’s HQ (bit. the College of Optical Science jing. Shortly after, I decided to go

G
eorge Zhou has long
been a figure in GNSS
integration and prod-
uct development, but he’s best
known for founding and growing
CHC Navigation from a startup
in 2003 to a major global devel-
oper and producer of GNSS and
geospatial hardware and soft-
ware. As a follow-up to our No-
ly/35ONSrM), we interview Zhou.
xyHt: We’d like to know more
about you. What is your back-
ground in the geospatial pro-
fession? Are you a surveyor by
training? If not, what is your
area of expertise?
George Zhou: My main back-
ground is opto-electronics en-
and Engineering, Zhejiang Uni-
versity, with a major in laser
technology. In addition, I have
been following geospatial-relat-
ed training at Wuhan University.
xyHt: What did you do prior to
starting CHC?
George Zhou: I had my first job in
1991 as an engineer at an optical
to the U.S. and stayed there for a
year and a half. This period really
impacted my business life and
broadened my horizons. I was
amazed by the way advanced
technologies were developed
and the excellence of business
management.
Meanwhile, I started to make
the link between foreign manu-

22 xyHt JANUARY 2020

facturers such as Sony, NovAtel,
etc. and Chinese companies. In
1999, many new infrastructure
projects triggered a growing de-
mand for surveying equipment
to complete engineering works.
The GPS technology was an
obvious answer, and I set up a
company to distribute the Trim-
ble brand as offering premium
surveying and engineering solu-
tions in China.
xyHt: What inspired you to start
CHC?
George Zhou: With the increas-
ing requirement for accurate
geospatial data, I found out that
even though there is a huge de-
mand for GPS in China, a large
portion of users do not have the
financial capacity to access this
technology due to the high cost
involved. There was an untapped
market to capture, and after a
period of market research and
technology assessment, CHC
Navigation was founded.
xyHt: What was it like during the
first year of starting CHC? What
products did you sell?
George Zhou: From the early
stage of CHC Navigation, we de-
cided not only to focus on GNSS
system integration but also to
invest significant resources in
software, algorithms, and GNSS
core technology. New technolo-
gies and products took a couple
of years for us to gain a real foot-
hold in the market and expand
our sales to a sizable level.
During this foundation period
we kept improving our R&D and
manufacturing capability. The
first tangible result was the in-
troduction in March, 2004, of the
first extremely compact L1 GPS
receiver especially targeting our
surveyors and engineering cus-
tomers searching for an afford-
able way to set up control points
in complement to their optical
equipment.
xyHt: What expectations did
you have when you started the
company?
George Zhou: When I first visited
Intergeo in 2004, very few Chi-
nese visitors were present. At
that time, only a handful of man-
ufacturers of surveying acces-
sories or optical manufacturers
showcased their products. Inter-
geo was an excellent platform
for us to gradually understand
that the demand for high-quality
and cost-effective GNSS solu-
tions was global and not limited
to developing countries; [this de-
mand is also in] a large number
of developed economies. We,
therefore, integrated our inter-
national development as a key
growth factor in 2006 and lever-
aged our GNSS experience on
the engineering and surveying
market.
xyHt: What are the market ar-
eas where you currently see the
most growth, by segment and
geographic region?
George Zhou: Our growth started
from the traditional engineering
and surveying markets. This mar-
ket segment still represents ap-
proximately half of our activities
where we have captured signifi-
cant market shares in China and
Asia. We are rapidly expanding
in new regions in India, Europe,
and Africa through distributors
Sales engineer Liao Kai and as-
sembly captain Liu Chuan Gang
work on the CHCNAV inspection
line for GNSS rovers.
and our CHC Navigation subsidi-
aries. Our priority remains to pro-
vide high-quality GNSS solutions
and customer service through a
strong market proximity.
CHC Navigation maintains
its focus on engineering and
surveying but now extends in-
ternationally to mobile mapping
and marine survey. Indeed, we
are confident that our CHCNAV
mobile mapping solutions will
be able to reach a sizable mar-
ket share in the near future. Our
precision agriculture and ma-
chine control are also deemed
to achieve a good business level
in both domestic and overseas
markets.
xyHt: Which developments in
navigation satellites do you
think have the greatest potential
to impact, for instance, the work
surveyors do? Simply more sat-
ellites, or are new signals (such
as B3) providing measurable
gains?
George Zhou: The undergoing
developments of the GNSS con-
stellations, signals structure, and
corrections services are expand-
ing the availability and reliability
of survey-grade positioning and
navigation. We already see the
JANUARY 2020
benefit of such development in
markets such as unmanned vehi-
cles and IoT applications in urban
and sub-urban areas.
xyHt: CHC is developing its own
boards. Do you expect this to ex-
pand? What are the advantages
of doing your own?
George Zhou: The main purpose
of developing our GNSS boards
is to increase the competitive-
ness of CHCNAV integrated so-
lutions and enable us to provide
enhanced technologies fitting
our customers’ exact needs.
In addition to a high degree of
customization of our GNSS core
technology, it will also allow us
to further control our value chain
to provide customers with com-
petitive products and services to
further enable the use of GNS-
based solutions. A few years
ago, I was mentioning the neces-
sary democratization process of
GNSS technology; we have now
fully entered that stage.
Finally, apart from core GNSS
technology, we continue to al-
locate further engineering re-
sources towards innovation and
fundamental research: PVT (po-
sition, velocity, time) algorithms,
PPP RTK, deformation monitor-
ing, AI implementation, tightly
coupled technologies, etc.
xyHt: We know you are a hard-
working businessman. What do
you like to do for fun?
George Zhou: With the growth
of the company, I have unfor-
tunately much less free time.
But whenever possible I sim-
ply spend time with my fam-
ily and play with my children. I
also like basketball very much.
The Los Angeles Lakers were
my favorite team when I stayed
in the U.S. At CHC Navigation,
we often organize basketball
games and other team-building
group activities that are valued
by our employees. ■
xyHt 23
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24 xyHt JANUARY 2020


What Is South?
South Surveying and Mapping
Instrument Co., LTD. holds
a substantial share in the
largest single market for such
products. Until recently,
it was not well known in the
Americas; a sleeping giant
may be awakening.
By Gavin Schrock, PLS
Y
ears ago, I start-
ed seeing South’s
booths at trade
shows like Intergeo
and Conexpo, but in recent years
I’ve begun to see more of their
GNSS rovers and total stations
in the field—in Europe, Australa-
sia, Asia, Canada, and even now
some in the U.S.
When I had the opportunity
to finally visit their HQ, my jaw
dropped when I heard about
how big their operations and
reach are domestically—and
growing internationally. A safe
assumption is that an outfit does
not get that big by selling sub-
standard equipment; they must
be doing something right. My
visit revealed that this appears to
be the case.
According to the numbers
South provided, they appear to
be doing well. One factory pro-
duces more than 35,000 total sta-
JANUARY 2020
THE 4TH WAVE
Product manager Marco Chan
demonstrates new features
on South’s latest model total
stations. Their new style of dual
laser implementation may be the
first in any TS.
tions per year and another more
than 20,000. GNSS units are pro-
duced at the HQ, around 45,000
per year. One factory makes
more than 100,000 tripods annu-
ally and as many rods and range
poles.
Marco Chan, product man-
ager, said, “In terms of quantity,
China owns the largest market
worldwide. About 50%-60% de-
mand in China is for low-end
equipment and 30% for mid-end.
For high-end, like robotic total
stations for monitoring, 10%-
20%, and that is from [overseas]
manufacturers. There are some
secondary brands from other
overseas companies, but most
of the rest is from other Chinese
companies.”
xyHt 25
A Student Seeking
to Master
South Surveying and Mapping
Technology Co., LTD. (South for
short) was founded in 1989 in
Guangzhou and has developed
along with the modernization of
engineering and geomatics in
China. Although South rapidly
grew into an innovator, essen-
tially it began as an imitator; it
is no secret in its early period it
“mimicked” designs from others
(yes, people might not be wrong
in calling some early products
“knock-offs”).
Chan, who served as HQ tour
guide and interpreter, said that
within South is a strong desire,
even from the start, to develop
their own instruments com-
pletely, but that it made sense
to follow certain form factors
in existing designs. He did note
that, even in the “mimic” stage,
the source code and much of the
internal component design and
configurations were their own.
Now, says Chan, all products
are conceived, developed, and
produced in-house, except for
certain OEM components and
partnering.
Early on, their founder ac-
quired two large instrument-
26 xyHt JANUARY 2020
manufacturing factories: one in
Beijing and another in Chang-
zhou, Jiangsu province nearer
to Shanghai. In the beginning,
no one knew which team might
succeed in developing their own
total station. Fortunately, both
teams did. Instead of trying to
shoehorn the two operations into
one, South developed a clever
strategy of internal competition.
Chan said, “Each factory
produces different products,
like total stations. For the past
15 years they try to improve on
each other, and this must be on
quality, not price, so each fac-
tory must innovate and continu-
ally introduce new and improved
products.”
Sheer volume has allowed
South to keep their price point
down and to keep a large engi-
neering team working on new
products and improvements.
Chan says that they feel that
South is usually a few years
ahead of the other Chinese com-
panies. I asked for examples.
Total Stations
Chan said that South has not of-
fered robotic total stations, yet,
and one reason is that there is lit-
tle demand for robotics in domes-
Now, nearly
all products
are conceived,
developed,
and produced
in-house.
tic markets. Most domestic users
prefer to operate their TS via the
faceplate, something we’ve also
seen in Europe. South also pro-
vides data controllers/mobile de-
vices and field software.
To meet a strong demand for
TS both domestically and over-
seas, South has created a large
line of instruments in 1”, 2”, and
5” with ranges up to 2000m and
focuses on features of mechani-
cal TS that their users desire.
For instance, they have one that
runs with on-board Android and
are releasing an auto-height fea-
ture in 2020.
To demonstrate a new fea-
ture, Chan fired up an older
model as well as their latest (N6
series); the former made the
familiar “ticking” sound when
measuring, the latter did not.
Legacy TS have typically made
lots of clicks and ticks, often
from mechanical attenuation,
which has limited the number of
returns per second.
Chan said, “This one is our
best seller; it is the first one us-
ing a dual laser. Measurement
speeds are faster, with more sig-
nal and increased accuracy. This
is coaxial: the same beam puls-
ing in the same axis. It is not the
old EDM with one laser pushing
out and a motor blocking, so the
signal comes back.” Chan said
that as far as they can tell, this is
the first of this style of dual laser
implementation on any TS.
In terms of optical and GNSS,
South is firmly in the fourth wave
of surveying and geospatial
hardware and software. South is
quite “wired”; they offer multiple
data connectivity options and
OSs, they shuck legacy designs
(e.g. recently standardizing TS
batteries and interfaces), and
they have rapidly developed new
products and features. While
this is happening to some extent
across the full range of geospa-
tial manufacturers, South seems
to be doing so with great gusto.
From OEM to Own
Hyman Huang is a product engi-
neer in the GNSS team. He said
that out of about 3,000 employ-
ees working in factories and
branches, South has as many as
400 engineers in R&D and prod-
uct engineering. Many, like him,
are from GIS backgrounds, some
from electronics, but almost as
many are from geomatics, geod-
esy, and surveying backgrounds
and education.
While South is known as an
OEM integrator, Huang confirmed
that they have developed their
own GNSS boards and RTK en-
gines that, for instance, have been
integrated into their Galaxy 1C.
A large support group provides
direct spatial data processing
to help customers integrate new
technologies.
 Some of their top-end models
have either Trimble or NovAtel
OEM components inside, with
South niceties added. Recently,
while visiting MicroSurvey’s HQ in
Kelowna, Canada, to try out their
new Android version of FieldGe-
nius, I used a South Galaxy rover,
and it performed as well as nearly
any newer high-end rover.
South models with OEM as
well as their own boards track and
use GPS+GLN+GAL+BDS. Some
have legacy tilt compensation, but
they are about to launch their first
model with an IMU that will sup-
port no-calibration tilt. Depending
on what type of OEM board is in-
side, some models can also sup-
port real-time L-Band PPP (e.g.
Veripos, TerraStar, OmniStar, Star-
fire, RTX, et al.).
I asked Huang why they don’t
put their own board in their top-
end models; the specs and ca-
pabilities certainly seem to be
top-end. Huang said that it will
take time for users to become
more comfortable with new
products; they are used to the
OEM models. It might not be long
before more models are running
their own boards.
Huang made another ob-
servation about the adoption of
GNSS technology: “[Perhaps in
the urban canyon] of Shanghai,
GNSS might not work so well,
but in most places, you can do
many types of work with it. With
[multi-constellation and multi-
signals], now more. When you
can’t use GNSS, you have your
total station.” Pairing an afford-
able GNSS rover with a good
(under $4K) mechanical total sta-
tion sounds pretty good for even
small/medium firms.
South’s line of GNSS rovers
looks to have many options, from
low-cost, simple, static gear to
asset mapping, top-end survey
rovers. And most have the famil-
iar bucket-on-a-pole form factor,
in solid alloy housings and with
IP67 ratings.
Above: South’s international business department assistant Ava gave
a tour of their rotor UAS. Below: A team test drives MicroSurvey’s
FieldGenius for Android paired with a South rover in Canada.
One interesting rover add-on
for the G6 is the Insight V1 offset
measurement solution. I remem-
ber all manner of built-in and
peripheral lasers and cameras
to do offset measurements, but
South seems to have done a re-
ally good job of it, especially the
workflow. It is a little IP67-rated
streamlined camera on the pole;
you operate it from their EGStar
field software on a mobile device
or phone. You take three photos,
and they go to South’s cloud pro-
cessing service and pick points
to determine the offset on your
mobile.
Solutions and
Services
South has expanded beyond TS
and GNSS; they have begun to
produce their own (static) scan-
ners, robot boats for single-beam
hydro work, a rail measurement/
monitoring platform, fixed wing/
VTOL and rotor UAS, and mobile
mapping systems. For the cur-
rent mobile mapping systems,
they are, for now, integrating
Velodyne, Riegl, and other OEM
components, but they continue
their own R&D.
Jackie Cheung, product man-
ager of the solutions group, talked
about their approach to support-
ing customers with large and/or
difficult projects. Customers, he
explained, want to be productive
immediately and cannot afford to
lose time in integration.
Cheung said, “We do not
want to take any work from cus-
tomers, but if asked we can help
complete projects, and we have
so many examples and users’ ex-
periences we can [apply].”
They also offer an option for
JANUARY 2020
direct help in processing and man-
aging data. I saw a room full of
young engineering techs process-
ing 3D data for customers, building
mesh and solid models, process-
ing and classifying cloud data, etc.
South has their own field and
office software (like EGStar, for
Android and Windows Mobile)
that looks complete and can be
run in English. Their office soft-
ware is called South Geomatics
Office. But, users in say, North
America, might prefer to run the
gear with MicroSurvey’s Field-
Genius, Carlson SurvCE, or others
that support applicable drivers.
Never Tired of
Being Wired
The team at South seems to be
young, eager, and happy. I asked
Huang, who has been with South
since 2014, what he likes about
working there, and he said it is
interesting work, and the com-
pany provides time and space to
learn more.
The HQ building is on a
placid, tree-lined road in an at-
tractive office park north of
Guangzhou. I saw a surveyor in a
straw hat down the road. Oppo-
site, across a river, is a hill with
what looks to be structures from
a past dynasty. But inside the HQ
is all high-tech dazzle.
That is Guangzhou in a nut-
shell. In the heart of the historic
Canton region, the seeming-
ly endless vista of skyscrapers
runs along a grid of clean and
modern streets. The city seems
more wired than even Shanghai
or Beijing, and in some respects
even more than San Francisco.
South’s operations have pros-
pered in that environment.
From a past of imitation
to rapid R&D and innovation,
South’s gear seems top-end in
some areas, a bit rough around
the edges in others, but definitely
meeting the needs of a grow-
ing and increasingly tech-driven
AEC market. ■
xyHt 27
 SURVEYING
MENTORING
LIDAR
GNSS
GIS
AI

Scanning the
Roundest Bear
By Claire Napier sight with the application of a How do you Service GIS team became more
scan a bear?

K
atmai National
Park broke new
ground in laser
scanning this Oc-
tober when a survey-grade scan-
ner was used for their annual “Fat
Bear Week.”
Traditionally, the fatness
of the park’s brown bears has
been voted on by awe-struck
online onlookers—the park
has several webcams—and
has been a matter of personal
opinion gauged by eye. Votes
are cast on Facebook, via
“Like.” None of that changed
for 2019—it was simply brought
into semi-precise, scientific
Trimble TX8 scanner. proficient at scanning while tak-
Joel Cusick is a GIS spe- ing classes from the Trimble
Cusick says, “I had made an ini-
cialist with the National Park dealer in Anchorage, Frontier
tial investigation the year before
Service. Having discovered Fat Precision.”
by scanning the bears [...] with
Bear Week during a profession- In 2019, Dan Butvidas of Trim-
an SX10 at an approximate dis-
al visit to Katmai, he realized he ble accompanied Cusick, along
tance of 380 feet. Those provided
could gather bear fatness data with Cusick’s wife, Jackie Car-
some promising results.
with volumetric equipment he’s ney, and Mike Anderson (a bi-
“I created a small polygon
accustomed to. ologist, formerly with the Alaska
using the high zoom camera to
Cusick says, “It’s [otherwise Dept. of Fish and Game) back to
delineate a small area surround-
considered] impossible to get Brooks Camp, where they em-
ing the bear, and in concert with
fall bear weights due to size. ployed a fleet of technology to
the integrated camera I was able
They simply can’t lift a fall bear accomplish the several request-
to view directly enough laser
using tripod/pulley in the field, ed surveys.
returns from the surface of the
so this is a possible way to de- “The bears at Brooks are
large bears.
rive what is otherwise impos- quite like clockwork when they
“A year passed, and [...] I
sible to measure on such large show up at the falls and other lo-
brewed up this as another job to
creatures.“ cations in the area,” says Cusick.
conduct during the next fall sea-
“They are monitored by Katmai
son. During this time, the Park
Two scans of two bears that were
in the same area of Brooks Camp,
Alaska, at different times.

28 xyHt JANUARY 2020

National Park rangers, and dur-
ing the week we were advised
that some of the larger bears
would likely be at the falls in the
early evening hours.
“This is a prime viewing area
and, as it turned out, a near-per-
fect place to scan bears from up
close. A raised platform allows
visitors to watch the bears.
“We set up a Trimble TX8
scanner at a location along the
elevated boardwalk to minimize
our impact on the human visitors.
“We assembled at the falls
platform accompanied by Tammy
Carmack, a bear monitor for the
National Park. Tammy provided a
key element in this survey—pos-
itive identification of the bear to
ensure accuracy.
“After we established two
survey points on the platform/
boardwalk (using RTK with the
Trimble R10) and used the Trim-
ble Realworks Station Setup
workflow, we tied scans from the
platform to the Katami control
network.”
Butvidas added, “Scanner
placement was on a wide sec-
A shot from the primary camera of the
scanner shows the point returns (380
feet) of Otis, a popular bear at the falls,
tion of the walking platform, be-
hind the view area. After initial
testing, this was an ideal loca-
tion. [The] bear-only area was
unobstructed for scanning bears
and not in the viewing platform
area to disturb the visitors from
their bear watching experience.”
Butvidas and Cusick used
Trimble RealWorks to calculate
surface volume on one half of
each bear (the side facing the
scanner) using a three-point
plane method. The derived vol-
ume was then simply doubled
to make an estimate of full body
volume for the bears.
For example, Bear 747, a large
male bear, was estimated to have
a full body volume of 23.4 cubic
feet from the scans. Using a rough
approximation of a fall bear's
weight, determined by 65% water
and 35% fat, the densities of water
and fat were multiplied by the vol-
ume to determine an estimate of
weight at 1408 lbs. A bear called
Walker was a good test for pre-
cision because he was scanned
twice, and estimates of his volume
between the surveyor and GIS
sitting in the “office.”
“The bears
at Brooks are
quite like
clockwork
when they
show up at the
falls and other
locations in
the area.”
specialist came within 5% of each
other.
Subsequent to the success
of scanning at Fat Bear Week,
Cusick says that volumetric
scanning for “polar bears in
Kaktovik [has] been suggested,
since those are even bigger and
are, as you might imagine, one
of those species on the fore-
front of arctic warming.”
CNN’s article on this sub-
ject notes that polar bears and
brown bears will become dining
JANUARY 2020
rivals with the decline of the lat-
ter’s sea ice hunting grounds.
Ironically it’s that dining that al-
lowed Joel and his team to grab
their moments. The platforms
they scanned on were placed
where the salmon are abundant:
a bear who is fishing is a bear
who is standing mostly still.
Despite that, Dan notes, “Wa-
ter is a limitation to scanning; what
is below the water, the scanner
cannot provide the data [for].”
Joel says, “Timing [was] key
when we were targeting the
likely ‘winners’ of the fat bear
contest.”
The team was disappointed
they were not able to scan the
bear voted by the public this year
as the fattest bear. Holly, aka Bear
435, took her crown after beating
out others (such as Walker, Divot,
Lefty, Otis, and Chunk). Holly was
estimated at a little under 800 lbs,
and other bears featured with-
in this year’s tournament were
pinned at weights of up to 1408
lbs, making “give or take fifty” a
reasonable enough guess. Would
you argue it with a brown bear?
The sexual dimorphism of
brown bears means that on
average, female bears weigh
around a third less than male
ones. That explains why winner
Holly’s estimates are all lower
than her brother bears’. Bear
fatness isn’t just about weight,
it’s about potential for survival:
during winter hibernation the
resources conserved in that fat
are vital. Holly is a smaller bear
than, for example, Walker, and
she has a different metabolism.
Her fatness is particular to her-
self and her needs.
Brown bears are not especial-
ly endangered today—they have
an estimated worldwide popula-
tion of 200,000—but climate shift
will be changing their environ-
ment as much as it changes ours,
and it’s good to know Holly is pre-
disposed to survive. ■
xyHt 29
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Las Cruces, NM 88003

to order. (Back)
(Back)
Phone: 575-646-6748
Email: kwurm@nmsu.edu or
elaksher@nmsu.edu
Website: https://et.nmsu.edu/academics/
surveying-engineering/
Fully online program and +2 option.
Instrument Repair BS Degree, ABET-EAC accredited

Troy University
Surveying and Geomatics Sciences Program
Department of Geospatial Informatics
346 Wallace Hall Building
Troy, AL 36082
Phone: (334) 670-5693
Fax: (334) 670-3796
Email: geomatics@troy.edu
Website: www.troy.edu
BS Degree, ABET-ASAC accredited

University of Florida
Geomatics Program
304 Reed Laboratory
Gainesville, FL 32611-0565
(352) 392-9492
Equipment Instrument Repair Fax: (352) 392-4957
Email: geomatics@ifas.ufl.edu
Website: http://sfrc.ufl.edu/geomatics/
Navigation Electronics, Inc.
BS Degree, ABET-ANSAC
124 Toledo Drive
MS & PhD Degrees
Lafayette, LA 70506
Online Certificates in Geomatics, Mapping
337-237-1413 with Unmanned Aerial Systems, & Geo-
Website: www.neigps.com spatial Analysis
Georgia Office: 770-729-8005 Online MS Degree
Alabama Office: 256-665-5589
Mississippi Office: 662-347-1117 University of Maine
Arkansas Office: 870-273-6333 Surveying Engineering Technology
Want to see Florida Office: 850-228-2070 Program
5711 Boardman Hall, Room 119
your ad here? Orono, ME 04469-5711
(207) 581-2340
E-mail: um.set@maine.edu
Contact: Website: http://www.umaine.edu/set/svt/
Bachelor Degree, ABETTAAC
angie.duman@xyht.com

JANUARY 2020 xyHt 31

MAPS AS ART

The
Queen
of theWorld
Petchenik Children’s World Map Drawing was persistent and precise. The design is en-

T
By Bianca Belović
his artist/cartographer, Bianca
Belović, is a five-year-old
kindergartener from the small
town of Lendava, Slovenia. Her teacher,
Romana Lebar, mentored her as she
worked on this entry for the International
Cartographic Association’s 2019 Barbara
Competition.
Lebar writes that in class, “We talked a
lot about the world and maps, read various
literature, and learned about continents and
their characteristics. We used the globe and
made posters. For this piece, Bianca decided
to draw with permanent markers and water-
colors. She created it over several days and
tirely her idea.”
188 finalists from 33 countries were ex-
hibited at the International Cartographic
Conference in Tokyo, Japan, in July, 2019.
The jury considered three criteria: message
visibility, cartographic message, and perfor-
mance quality. Bianca’s map won first place
for the age group of six and under. ■

32 xyHt JANUARY 2020

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MIDWEST AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY
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