Intergeo Trade Fair and FIG Congress

The Intergeo congress and trade-fair has now been held a dozen times and the event once again this year demonstrated an exceptionally flourishing geomatics business. Geomatics is all about improving our knowledge of the Earth to enable governors and other public and private sector decision-makers to act. And Intergeo is all about the means of acquiring and processing the necessary geo-information for that knowledge and action.

‘Knowledge and Action for the Earth’ was the theme of the twelfth Intergeo, the annual geodesy and geo-information conference and trade-fair organised in association with the German Association of Surveying (DVW), which took place in Munich from 10th to 12th October. The twenty-second FIG Congress took place in parallel with the other two events. About 550 exhibitors, many from Germany but also from 27 other countries, filled three halls at the New Munich Trade Fair Centre, each with a floor space of 10,000 square metres. Nearly 25% of the 19,000 visitors counted at the entrance gates came from aboard and 15% of them came from outside Europe. Jack Dangermond of ESRI, visiting Intergeo for the first time, graded the trade-fair “the prime marketplace for the very latest happenings and developments in GIS.”

3D World
The trend in increasing 3D-data acquisition and visualisation, as spotted last year, was convincingly confirmed; many exhibitors presented products in this field. Prominent on the 3D-data acquisition side was Lidar technology (LIght Detection And Ranging, by some also called Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging). Often Lidar sensors are combined with other technology such as digital cameras, video, GNSS and Inertial Navigation Units and mounted on such diverse platforms as aeroplanes, helicopters, cars, quads, and even two-wheel vehicles, so-called ‘segways’. One resulting product is StreetMapper, a novel 3D-mapping system for scanning scenes from a vehicle moving through terrain at a speed of up to 80km/h; this system, jointly developed by IGI GMBH and 3D Laser Mapping, enables accurate recording of roads, buildings and trees. Optech presented its Gemini ALTM, an airborne Lidar with pulse generation rate of 100,000 pulses per second from altitudes up to 2km. Several firms and government organisations proudly demonstrated how they incorporated Lidar-based technology in daily work processes such as accident investigation. On the visualisation side of the 3D spectrum, Cyclo-Media, a company producing digital 360° panoramic photos, demonstrated linking of successive photos such that a viewer has the sense of moving through a tunnel. A small company from Silver Spring, US calling itself Applied Imagery presented 3D-visualisation and analysis software optimised for Lidar and SAR data.

Boots on the Ground
All major manufacturers of survey equipment now offer total stations integrated with GNSS. Integration of tachymetre with digital camera is also becoming a trend, as was demonstrated on the Pentax stand. Sokkia´s new robotic total station, SRX, was an eye-catcher. Announced as a revolutionary system, the SRX is equipped with a reflectorless phase-shift distance measuring system, and the tracking system enables the surveyor to work solely from the prism side. In the design of this good-looking instrument Sokkia has fully employed the advantages of delay. The number of Chinese manufacturers of survey equipment on the Intergeo trade-fair floor increases by the year. Some focus on specialised areas such as mining and construction, but others challenge the established firms within their main markets. The road to success for Chinese manufacturers will have to pass three signs, on each written quality, quality and once more quality. Surveying without add-ons is impossible, and Intergeo is the place to find the largest variety of nails and markers, tapes and rods, prisms and prism poles, tripods and tribrachs, paint and tape, safety-jackets, helmets and every other gadget that eases the daily work of the surveyor.

Ingenious
Polytechnics and universities of technology, not only from Germany but also from countries such as Russia, presented their educational programmes and some even demonstrated the creativity of their students by putting the material results of ingenious thinking and hard construction work on show. The governments of many European countries in 1999 harmonised higher education by adopting the bachelor’s/master’s (BaMa) structure. As a result of this, the so-called Bologna Declaration, there is increasing competition among polytechnics and universities to attract students and marketing has become an essential component of the strategy. A presence at Intergeo is a very good marketing opportunity and will probably become a future prerequisite for survival.

Glimmer and Shimmer
For the edification of the visitor, exhibiting companies, especially the major ones, threw big competing parties right there on the exhibition floor, so there was plenty of food and drinks, while live rock music pleased the ears. But they also provided glimmer and shimmer. Topcon, for example, installed a complete TV studio. And Trimble expressed its vision of the future of mobile mapping by parking a real Formula-1 racing car on the exhibition floor, so that visitors could test their driving abilities and lend reality to any dream they might have of succeeding the soon to retire Michael Schumacher. A new exhibition trend seems to be the vanishing of borders and pathways between stands, which may express the decreasing role of the surveyor as marker and measurer of boundaries. Or maybe it marks the fading boundaries between disciplines: the need for co-operation and awareness that the market is booming.

Shaping the Change
Parallel to and integrated with Intergeo, the XXII FIG Congress was this year also held in Munich, hometown of FIG president Holger Magel, under the theme ‘Shaping the Change’. Founded in Paris in 1878, FIG is the only international body that represents all surveying disciples, and it is an UN-recognised Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). The congress is held once in every four years and is a world event. This year 1,300 delegates attended the congress from about a hundred countries, many Eastern European and Africa. More than a hundred technical sessions and workshops were held and over five hundred papers presented, while FAO and the World Bank, amongst others, organised special sessions. In his keynote address Bavarian Minister President Dr Edmund Stoiber acknowledged the essential role to be played by geodesy and land development in the future of legal, economic and technical activities worldwide. During the general assembly Prof. Stig Enemark from Denmark was elected as new FIG president for the term 2007 to 2010 (see interview this issue). The prominent presence of delegates from Africa attests to FIG’s strong commitment to that continent. And the outstanding work done there was recognised by the award of the FIG Congress Prize 2006 to Mrs Nsama Nsemiwe of Zambia for two excellent papers: one on the struggles met with when upgrading informal settlements, and one on gender issues relating to land. This award is offered to a member of FIG member associations not older than 35 years for an original work not previously published, and involves free congress attendance, including in addition to the fee all other costs and a cheque for 1,500 Euro. For a full report on the congress, please see the FIG page in this issue.

The thirteenth Intergeo will take place from 25th to 27th September 2007 at Leipzig Trade Fair in conjunction with the fifty-fifth German Cartographer’s Day. The fourth Intergeo East trade-fair and conference will be held from 1st to 2nd March 2007 in Sofia, Bulgaria.