PositionIT e-News

GIS, GPS, surveying and spatial applications in Southern Africa

Issue 78, Aug 2016

Increased recognition for global geo-information management

by Clare van Zwieten, EE Publishers

A significant milestone has been reached by the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) following the adoption of a draft... (more)

Minister to open and address Geomatics Indaba 2016

Geomatics Indaba 2016, will be officially opened by the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti, who will also address the delegates. The minister heads up an illustrious line-up of keynote speakers... (more)

Can cities be "smart" if they can't think?

by Matt Coetzee, Aurecon

From 30 000 feet, you could be forgiven for thinking that a city has a pulse. On camera, time lapse photography of the morning in-rush of traffic, followed by the evening... (more)

PositionIT inbox

This month's letters focus on the late Danie Grundlingh and Jochem "Joggie" Erasmus, as well as on the implications of the Geomatics Profession Act... (more)

Satellite imagery for estimating water use by irrigation
by Caren Jarmain, University of Stellenbosch

This past year South Africa has been in the grip of a severe drought, some areas have been experiencing these conditions for more than two years. As a consequence, large areas under rain-fed agriculture have been greatly affected. Many irrigated areas... (more)

Monitoring salt stockpiles for improved service provision
Information from GeoSlam

To ensure accurate salt stockpile measurements, the Iowa State Department of Transportation acquired a hand-held laser scanning system. Accurate salt stockpile measurements help eliminate salt shortages at crucial times, and avoid unnecessary... (more)

Chirp jammers: GNSS hit and runs
Information from Septentrio

You have got your base station setup in an open environment, its position has been properly surveyed and it is tracking signals from all satellites visible overhead with good signal-to-noise levels. What could possibly go wrong? Here's what can... (more)

Visualising Mumbai's public data for multiple stakeholders
by Akshay Kore, Indian Institute of Technology

A vast quantity of data is regularly generated by governments and private institutions. This data is collected, and is released both in the public and private domains. The data is regularly accessed and used by policy and decision makers in both public and... (more)

Why urban and rural classifications matter
by Sheny Medani, Market Decisions

Different countries have different ways of defining urban or rural settlements. Some may use a population greater than 1000, others, like the US, may use a population greater than 50 000. Either way, the urban population is largely thought of more... (more)

BIM - an information process and collaboration platform
by Pierre Potgieter, EE Publishers

Building information modelling (BIM), much like geographic information systems (GIS), is not a software product so much as a way for working with data, in this case construction data. As a multi-disciplinary data platform, construction-related... (more)

A united approach to gridlocked traffic
by Leon Schnell, TomTom Africa

As cities worldwide are struggling to quantify and alleviate their traffic congestion levels, TomTom has recently doubled the scale of its new online traffic platform: TomTom City. Three of South Africa's largest cities already have free-access public dashboards on... (more)

Can geographic coordinates be replaced?
by Emmanuel Stefanakis, University of New Brunswick, Canada

Geocoding is the process of converting a street address into a physical location that can be described with a pair of geographic coordinates. It is estimated that over 40% of the world population is physically disconnected due to the lack of a street... (more)

A GNSS-based approach to demolition and deconstruction
by Andr� Kress, Jonathan Staufer and Peter Rausch, Technische Hochschule N�rnberg, and Fritz Schreiber and Michael Stumpf, Schreiber Geoinformation

The reliability of GNSS renders it useful in construction applications, and makes this technology a good option for improving the transparency of demolition and deconstruction processes as well as to optimise the supply chain. GNSS technologies... (more)

Geospatial round-up
by Clare van Zwieten, EE Publishers