GIS News

Top Stories

Ten years of land reorganization in Brandenburg

In August 2001 land reorganization in the German state of Brandenburg celebrates ten years of existence. During this initial phase Brandenburg has overcome a dual challenge: a radical administrative procedure for land reorganization was set up, consistently geared to modern information technology. This solution, based on the SICAD Geographic Information System, enables aerial photos to be processed digitally and procedures to be automated, thereby saving both time and handling costs. Brandenburg's technology now puts it at the forefront of land reorganization and rural development in Germany. Brandenburg's innovative procedure for land reorganization is based on land surveys, which in order to save time and money were undertaken on the basis of orthophotos. The five land reorganization offices use these rectified, high-resolution 1:1000 aerial photos with the SICAD solution to digitally define new boundary points and plot boundaries and to color-code corresponding areas. At the heart of the procedure is the SICAD application's ability to make a direct comparison between the old and new data inventories.

Visit: http://www.sicad.com

Swedish Armed Forces invest in Swedish-developed GIS Technology.

Swedish Defence Material Administration (FMV) has signed a general agreement with Carmenta about using Carmenta's GIS Technology SpatialAce(r) within the Swedish Armed Forces. The agreement will imply an increased use of Carmenta's GIS Technology within the Swedish Armed Forces. SpatialAce(r) has been evaluated by the Air Force, Army and Marine during a long time period and will now be used in a large extent for building Geographic Information Systems. At the same time FMV has placed an order on 500 installations of SpatialAce(r), which means that the total number of users now exceeds 600.

Visit: http://www.carmenta.se

IDELIX announces expansion to the USA

IDELIX Software Inc., makers of the visualization technology known as Pliable Display Technology (PDT), have announced the opening of an office in Olympia, WA, marking its first expansion steps into the United States. "This expansion is the next step in establishing a stronghold for our software within the Geographic Information Systems/Remote Sensing market," said Stuart Bourhill, IDELIX President and COO. "A move into the U.S. market presents great potential for us right now as we grow our customer base and look to expand into other vertical markets." Pliable Display Technology is a patents-pending virtual lens technology designed to improve the productivity and workflow efficiency of those who rely on their existing pan and zoom functions for data exploration and analysis. Users can efficiently navigate and analyse regions of interest within the focal region of the lens, while maintaining a view of the data set in its entirety. No information is hidden or moved off the display. This unique lens technology also supports scale dependent rendering, a library of configurable lenses and the real-time manipulation of raster, vector and hybrid data.

Visit : www.idelix.com

Asia News

GSI chief for setting up Ministry of Earth Sciences

KOLKATA, Aug. 7

MR RAVI Shanker, Director-General of the Geological Survey of India (GSI), has called for the creation of a Ministry of Earth-Sciences so that the nation's development activity is integrated with the efforts at long-term environment protection.

GSI, which acts as the advisor to the Union Government, currently has to deal with 16 Ministries/Departments in terms of development and resource planning.

Mr Shanker said that ``though we function under the administrative jurisdiction of the Union Ministry of Mines, users and beneficiaries of GSI data are as diverse as the Ministries of Agriculture, Power, Coal & Non-Conventional Energy Resources, Steel, Industry, Defence, Science & Technology, Railways, Surface Transport, Rural & Urban Development, Environment & Forests, Departments of Ocean Development and Space''.

However, the tragedy was that except for construction of dams, the advice of the GSI mostly remains on paper in the absence of a comprehensive legislation, he observed. ``GSI has repeatedly been requesting the Government to bring an Act of Parliament to ensure that its recommendations are compulsorily adhered to by the development agencies, industry, planners, State Governments and local bodies.''

The current thrust areas of the GSI's activity are:

Preparation of a land-capability map for 560 districts of the country;
A landslide hazard zonation map;
Geo-scientific studies and preparation of inventory of resources in the offshore Exclusive Economic Zone stretching 200 km deep from the country's 7,900 km coastline and in the continental shelves stretching another 150 km inside the sea;
Integrated natural resources survey for rural development;
Glaciological study for around 6,000 Himalayan glaciers; and
Resource studies for Antarctica.

Source: Business Line, 9 August, 2001

Government nod mandatory for buying satellite images

NEW DELHI, Aug. 9. – India will do what it can. It cannot stop Pakistan from buying satellite images of strategically-sensitive locations in India from commercial spy satellites. But a new policy to be unveiled shortly intends to make it mandatory for anyone in India buying high-resolution satellite imagery to seek the government’s permission.

This, apparently, is to ensure that India’s national security interests are protected by screening out images of sensitive areas. Not that it will make much of a difference. Satellite images of a resolution as high as one metre taken by commercial satellites are already up for sale for US $2,000 upwards. Images which can capture details of even “sensitive areas” so as to recognise the types of fighter aircraft, tanks or even the details of nuclear missile sites.

As when Mr John Pike of the Federation of the American Scientists got down to examining new satellite photos purchased of Pakistan’s nuclear missile site, he expected to find “two warehouses inside a fence”. Instead, he discovered a whole well-developed military base. The group, an arms-control organisation, buys photographs of chemical, biological and nuclear facilities across the world and has already had a look at the facilities in some countries. India too has made it to this list.

In May last year, the group also released satellite images depicting the Hyderabad Defence Research Complex in India, which the group said, houses primary institutions for development and testing of Agni intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The images show India had expanded the storage area which, he said, is almost certainly devoted to rocket propellant and fuel assemblies for these missile systems.

It is, however, the realisation of the futility of preventing organisations in the country from accessing the high resolution imagery available elsewhere in the world which has prompted the government to allow acquisition of the satellite images. Additionally, the government believes that India too could benefit from the market for high resolution satellite imagery and plans to get into the business. The global market for satellite imagery is expected to be worth anywhere between US $ 420 million and US $ 2.5 billion by 2005, depending in large measure to whether it will be just governments who cannot afford their own spy satellites, who will make a beeline to organisations like Space Imaging; the first to have a commercial satellite capable of high resolution images into the orbit.

The US Defence department will be one of them. It plans to increase spending on commercial services including satellite imagery by US $ 1 billion over the next five years.

Source: The Statesman, 10 August 2001

Pune co unveils Web-based water management tool

PUNE, Aug. 9, THE Pune-based Washington Softwares Ltd has launched WATERMANtech, a completely Web-based water and sewage control and management software that claims to control and manage day-to-day water distribution and purification systems.

Targeted at civic bodies, industrial development corporations and irrigatioon departments, the product is designed to provide engineering assistance, help control process parameters, monitor daily management, accounting and budgeting and generate analytical reports, among other things.

According to the company, the product can also be used in the gas and petroleum supply managements with a little customisation.

The product is also designed to handle customer complaints, grievances and disaster managment and offers systems design which includes pipe design, centrifugal pump design and ESR/GSR design.

The company claims that it is the only Web-based product that not only generates MIS but with mathematical support, assists in tracking critical paths, controlling and directing the accurate requirements for various geographical areas of the city, estimates losses and assesses future needs.

According to the company, with over 500 civic bodies and 3,000 nagar parishads across the country, the total market for the product could be around Rs 4,000 crore.

The company expects 10 installations in the first year of the launch, with an installation costing Rs 3 crore, which could go up to Rs 5 crore, depending on the number of reservoirs, GIS and population.

Source: Business Line, 10 August 2001

Mapping the craft trail

An amused Samata Party leader Jaya Jaitley came in for some backhanded compliments recently. At the unveiling of the Dastkari Haat Samiti's craft maps of India, she was congratulated for their effort by party leader George Fernandes along with former Manipur Chief Minister Radhabinod Koijam, Union Minister for Railways Nitish Kumar and Union Minister for Rural Development Venkaiah Naidu who unveiled the craft maps of Northeast, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh respectively.

Venkaiah Naidu and Nitish Kumar congratulated the leader on doing some good work. "Politicians generally go to political meetings and say whatever comes to mind, so it is a privilege to be here," said Venkaiah Naidu, promising support for further endeavours.

The craft maps of the three states, made to scale, mark out areas according to the craft prevalent there. The colourful maps, costing Rs 100 each, took about a year of research before finally being drawn up. Niranjan, who drew the map of Andhra Pradesh, took 40 days to draw out the map to exact detail. We had to spend a lot of time before that, travelling to the areas depicted and finding out the special crafts practiced there."