According to a recent survey, digital mapping services have emerged as one of the most powerful growth areas in information technology in South Africa. The survey of 111 corporate and 400 SME decision-makers was conducted by World Wide Worx with the backing of digital mapping provider MapIT. The survey revealed that... (more)

Navigation - can a GPS replace the paper map?

Progression to professional registration for mine surveyors

Sick notes from sangomas - are they valid?

A recent decision by the Labour Appeal Court has been misinterpreted by some that employers must now grant their employees sick leave on the basis of "sick notes" from traditional healers such as sangomas. It is important for both employers and employees to understand the true current position... (more)

Top ten strategic technology trends for 2013

Gartner has highlighted the top 10 strategic technologies and trends for 2013. A strategic technology has the potential for significant impact on the business in the next 3 years. Impacts include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major financial investment, or the risk of being late to adopt... (more)

GIS content in the new FET Geography CAPS curriculum

Some of the challenges involved with introducing GIS in the new Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) in the FET phase of education in SA are highlighted in this article... (more)

Developing a low cost current meter: an experiment

Understanding nearshore currents is often limited to estimates from physics based numerical models. These limitations stem from the difficulty in obtaining reliable current data in the nearshore zone... (more)

Analysis of the Lesotho cadastral system, Part 1

This article analyses the current, pre-reform, cadastral system of Lesotho. The findings suggest that the current cadastral system in Lesotho has the potential to function effectively while maintaining self-identity, even under government bureaucracy administration, and without the introduction of an entirely new structure... (more)

Monitoring oil rigs

Removing an obsolete oil rig from the North Sea is not an easy operation and high-tech solutions are required to ensure that the environment is maintained... (more)

The development of accurate digital terrain models in areas where the ground may be obscured is a distinctive capability of airborne lidar surveys and proves invaluable when attempting to map complex features such as power lines by delivering a model that clearly delineates these structures... (more)

Imagery tool identifies insect outbreaks from space

A new way of studying and visualising earth science data from a NASA and US Geological Survey satellite program is resulting in, for the first time, the ability to tease out the small events that can cause big changes in an ecosystem... (more)

This study investigated whether the existing data in South Africa is adequate for flood hazard mapping in rural areas. One-dimensional flood modelling can be carried out in some areas, but more investment is needed for the collection of data appropriate for flood hazard mapping... (more)

This article examines the possibilities of extending current GIS used by the utility industries with that of augmented reality (AR) toolkits on smart devices. Smart devices are aware of their location, the direction they are facing and the inclination in relation to the horizon... (more)

Geometric distortions introduced in satellite imagery during the image capturing process are inevitable and occur for many reasons. Much of the distortion related to sensor irregularities are automatically corrected at ground-receiving stations. Orthorectification is required to remove such irregularities... (more)

With free turn-by-turn navigation available on all major smartphone, ABI Research is finding a combination of other application segments and advertising will help to sustain a healthy location based services (LBS) market... (more)