Standards: utopia versus the reality
by Clare van Zwieten, editor
 The work of the ISO/TC 211 is viewed by some members of the SA geospatial community as being utopian and oblivious to the realities on the ground. GIS community members explained that some local GIS departments are struggling to get the basics right and are unable to deal with the fancy footwork required of some ISO standards... (more)
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Promotion of data sharing within the SAEON domainby Johan Pauw, SAEON
 Long-term data is irreplaceable and if monitoring continues uninterrupted and the data is accessible, the value of the data is compounded. Long-term data is becoming increasingly invaluable to society, which is facing mounting environmental challenges. This holds true everywhere on planet Earth... ( more) |
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The regional and continental maritime agenda
by Vice-Admiral J Mudimu, SANDF
 We have seen a concerning escalation in the use of the sea for a range of illegal activities that endanger the age-old custom of innocent passage, and the international principle of freedom of the seas. This is of importance to our approach to capacitation of the region, because it forms much of the context in which we operate... ( more) |
The SA Coordinate Reference System (Part 1)
by Aslam Parker, Chief Directorate: National Geo-spatial Information
This article will define the various elements of the South African Coordinate Reference System (SACRS) in detail and, in particular, distinguish between a coordinate system (projected) and a geodetic datum... (more) |
Road rehabilitation and scanning technology
by Altus Strydom, Global Geomatics
Over the years there has been, and still is, much debate regarding survey methodologies, the accuracies that can be achieved and the equipment to be used. Every time a new survey instrument or methodology is introduced, the argument starts from scratch... (more) |
Drakenstein GIS heritage management system
by Janine Penfold, Drakenstein Municipality
The Heritage Resources Act 25 of 1999 states: "On request, need or revision of a zoning scheme or SDF the planning authority shall produce an inventory and submit to the authority to be listed in the register." In 2004 a heritage officer was appointed and a tender advertised for a heritage survey for Drakenstein... (more) |
Initiatives and challenges of SDI in SA
by Derek Clarke, National Geo-spatial Information
South Africa has a strong history in the collection and management of geospatial information, from the early years of cadastral surveying and mapping the country for military purposes, then for irrigation of agricultural crops and topographic mapping, through to the use of modern digital technologies... (more) |
Road extraction using object oriented classification
by Paidamwoyo Mhangara, Linda Kleyn and Hardly Remas, SANSA Space Operations, and John Odindi, University of Fort Hare
Rapid mapping of roads has become an important requirement for most urban planners. To match the dynamic nature of urban developments, high resolution multispectral aerial photography and object-oriented classification have become the most viable options for mapping roads and updating urban maps... (more) |
Remote sensing metadata for global confidenceby Christoph Frank Stallmann, University of Pretoria
Satellite and aerial photography data is mostly known to the public through services such as Google Earth or Microsoft's Bing Maps. Fewer people know that these remotely sensed images taken by satellites or airplanes are used by many professional people to complete their day-to-day jobs... (more) |
Resilience of GNSS services (Part 3)Information from the Royal Academy of Engineering
Some systems which rely on position, navigation and timing signals from GNSS are robust and procedures are in place to deal with any GNSS based system faults that occur. However, disruptive interference can occur unintentionally and deliberate interference is a real and growing possibility... (more) |
Precise mine location, documentation and clearanceInformation from Trimble
Top mine clearance company Damasec is using Trimble Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to execute the safe removal of nearly 500 unexploded mines in Denmark... ( more) |
