ISPRS SC Newsletter Vol5 No1

8/6/2019 ISPRS SC Newsletter Vol5 No1

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ISPRS SCNewsLetter

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make a difference? Want to learn new skills?SC Newsleer is at a stage where geng broader and beer demands more people to be involved in theprocess of its formaon. Thats why SC Newsleer team is looking for the following volunteers:

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SC Newsleer (ISSN Y506-5879) is published every threemonths by ISPRS Student Consorum.

Frontpage designed by Ayda Akta

To join our members area visit

www.isprs-studentconsorum.orgEditor-in-Chief:

G r e g o r S T A V B A R

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A y d a A K T A

Proof-Reading:

J o a n n e P O O N

Editorial Board:

Dr. E m m a n u e l B A L T S A V I A SDr. M o j c a K O S M A T I N F R A SDr. A n k a L I S E CK r z y s z t o f S T E R E C Z A KC e m a l z g r K I V I L C I M

Contributors:

H i r o y u k i M I Y A Z A K IU r a K A N J I R

A r t u r J o s F r e i r e G I LE l e n a L O B OT h a n a s i s M O Y S I A D I SA l e L A Z A RK a j a K A N D A R E

* Frontpage illustraon by GraphiteColours, images from Remote Sensing Leers.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/http://www.isprs-studentconsortium.org/http://graphitecolours.deviantart.com/art/Help-Japan-2011-Version-1-202550499?q=boost%3Apopular%20in%3Adesigns%2Fadvertising%20japan%20earthquake&qo=40http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a921280623&fulltext=713240928#referenceshttp://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a921280623&fulltext=713240928#referenceshttp://graphitecolours.deviantart.com/art/Help-Japan-2011-Version-1-202550499?q=boost%3Apopular%20in%3Adesigns%2Fadvertising%20japan%20earthquake&qo=40http://www.isprs-studentconsortium.org/http://www.isprs.org/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/mailto:[email protected]


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Dear Follower,

We are excited to organize two IS-PRS internaonal Summer Schoolsthis year. The summer schools willbe focusing on dierent topics indierent places; one in USA and

the other one in Taiwan.

Of course this would not be pos-sible without the enthusiasm of naonal and localorganizers, a knowledgebase of experiences of ISPRSTCVI/5 and Student Consorum and invited talentedlecturers.

The internaonal and regional societys support to theevents is promising for the future of ISPRS SC and its

acvies. It also means a beer integrated sciencworld.

You can (should) discuss your expectaons amongwith your peers and encourage naonal ISPRS memberorganizaons for possible roles in your society. Whoknows, you will become one of the organizers of thefuture summer schools.

On Behalf of Student Consorum,Cemal zgr KIVILCIM

ISPRS SC Chair

Table of Contents

2 SPOTLIGHTS Interview with Professor Dr. Tomas Blaschke

3 EAST JAPAN GREAT EARTHQUAKE Geoinformaon Services against the Disaster on 11th

March in Japan

4 CEDACH Lessons from the Disaster of East Japan Great Earth

quake and Tsunami 311

5 OBJECT-BASED IMAGE ANALYSIS

Object-Based Image Analysis, overview of basic principles

7 ERRORS and ACCURACY CONSIDERATIONSErrors and Accuracy Consideraons in the Measurement

and the Analysis Process

8 PAST EVENTS REPORTS ISRSE 34 at Sydney, Australia

9 FUTURE ISPRS RELATED EVENTS

STUDIES AND PRACTICAL WORK

10 IT NEWS

Leicas HDS Soware Family Quick Terrain Modeler Version 7.1.3.

11 INTERESTING LINKS

OTHER INFO
http://www.isprs-sc.org/


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and again and again I meetformer aendees at confer-ences or I will even recog-nize them when they areapplying for jobs. We had arecent adversement of 10fully funded PhD posionsfor our Doctoral Program in

GIScience. We got about 300applicaons and ended upknowing nearly have of the18 shortlisted invitees for the hearing.

Which domain of object based image analysis will be

in rise/progress in the coming years? Where are the

missing elds in this method?

I am reluctant to name domains or applicaon areas.But what we see is a demand of automated workows

for rapid mapping. This may include disaster man-agement applicaons, refugee camps, security applica-ons, human acvies mapping and much more. Oneof the main achievements of OBIA I believe is thehigher potenal of automang analysis processes ascompared to per-pixel approaches.

2

Interviewby Ura Kanjir

SPOTLIGHTS

Professor Dr. Tomas Blaschke

Since we dedicated this issue to Object based image analysis, we were eager to get an interview with one of its primer or main starters. And we got it - few of our

quesons were answered by prof. dr. Tomas Blaschke. He is a professor and deputy director of the Centre for Geoinformacs and head of the Research Studio iSPACE.

His academic record yields more than 200 scienc publicaons including more than 40 journal publicaons. He is author, co-author or editor of 16 books on GIS,

Remote Sensing and Landscape Ecology related topics which have been translated into several languages and he serves in many scienc editorial boards and com-miees.

Can you explain us what is your research eld (what

are you working on) at the moment?

As many experienced researchers one may kindly saymid-career sciensts I underwent a certain develop-ment through me. My research experience over thelast years can roughly be grouped in the followingphases:

Phase I (to 1995): I summarize this as personal capac-

ity building in GIS, spaal analysis and environmentalapplicaons. It included development of analysis strat-egies for nature conservaon areas, a nature conser-vaon evaluaon procedure for riparian forests, andthe development of lter algorithms for DEMs for owaccumulaon / direcon analysis. The laer were thebasis for his habitat zones modelling (e.g. for amphib-ian species).

Phase II (1996 to 1999) Extending knowledge of RS/GISin local contexts: Focused on remote sensing and digital

image processing techniques and methodologies. Ker-nel-based techniques were developed for terrain andimage analysis. Working as a Marie Curie postdoctoral

fellow in the UK I conducted a crical comparison ofa common decision tool, namely ecological indices de-rived from remotely sensed and GIS data.

Phase III (1999 to 2004): I concentrated on theory,methodology, and integrated tools: Integrang imageprocessing, remote sensing and GIS. Beyond a basicmapping, the methodology has matured to the point

that the objects derived from the remotely-senseddata are now automacally archived in a spaal data-base, and analysis tools developed to address policy

quesons. Currently, I regard myself to be in a PhaseIV: Sharing and further developing integrated tools inan internaonal context. This implies much more ofresearch management and supervision acvies and unfortunately less own empirical work.

Why did you decide for this profession in the rst

place (maybe you can tell us something more about

your rst steps)?The extensive answer to Queson 1 makes it easy toanswer this: My career was not really planned and Ispeculate that this holds true for many colleagues.Certainly, a major step is the PhD but then there seemto be an innite number of possible ways to proceedand it may depend on coincidences along which pathto travel.

What advices would you give to students and young

professionals regarding successful careerBe paent in respect to reaping the rewards for whatyou have done. Beyond your direct working environ-ment it will take a while unl your work will be heard.

In your opinion how important is parcipaon of

young people to internaonal professional events like

Summer schools, Congresses, workshops, etc? What

do you think are the benets of such acvies to

youth and to profession?

Absolutely. Go whenever you can, parcularly to sum-mer schools. Here in Salzburg we have been runningabout 20 summer schools over the last 10 years or so


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3

EAST JAPAN GREAT EARTHQUAKE

Geoinformaon Services against the Disaster on 11th March in Japanby Hiroyuki Miyazaki

Center for Spatial Information Science, The University of Tokyo

On 11th March, the greatest earthquake, called East Japan Great Earthquake, aacked Tohoku region of Japan. Direct damages by the earthquake were enormous, but

those of tsunami occurred by the earthquake were more serious. The tsunami washed out cies on coastal area (you can watch videos taken by vicms on YouTube),and many people required urgent aid to survive. To support such aid, several informaon service, including geoinformaon-related services, had been launched in a fewhours aer the earthquake. Although situaon in Japan is geng to stage of recovery from stage of urgent rescue, such services are sll being developed and supporngrecovery of destroyed cies. In this arcle, I show quick overview on outstanding geoinformaon services to support urgent aid and recovery. Note that following reportsare based on only personal invesgaon by the author. Interviews to related persons will be described in the succeeding issues.

Credit:NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

OpenStreetMap Japan -Crisis Mapping

Project

OpenStreetMap is a project to create and provide

geographic data free from technical and legal restric-on. Their eorts have been regarded worthy in vari-ous crisis situaons where freely available map data isimportant. Their method were applied to the disasterin a few hours aer the earthquake occurred. Fortu-nately, Bing Maps had provided high-resoluon aerialphotos as a backdrop image for their mapping. Usingthe aerial photos, many persons traced roads, streetsand paths intensively in disaster-aected region.Several days later, their task were shied from map-ping base map to mapping damages and important

places (e.g. evacuaon center) using satellite photosand geographical data provided by public and privateagencies, including JAXA, DigitalGlobe, USGS, SPOTImage and UN-SPIDER. Their maps will be used for re-covery and redevelopment of the cies, as realized incase of Hai.

Visit hp://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2011_Sen-dai_earthquake_and_tsunami for detail.

sinsai.info

sinsai.info is a crowd-sourcing plaorm built with

Ushahidi (hp://www.ushahidi.com/ ) to collect andmoderate reports on disaster-aected areas sent viawebsite, emails, and twiers. It started very quickly byvolunteers only in seven hours aer the earthquake.Since the launch, it have supported communicangemergent informaon while telephone line and mobilephone were hanged up due to too much calls. Strongfeature of sinsai.info is not only lisng informaonbut also mapping and visualize informaon with geo-graphical names or coordinates. Owing to such repre-sentaon preferable to people, sinsai.info have been

presented on TV programs of NHK (Japan BroadcasngCorporaon) and BBC (hp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9429529.stm ). Even aerurgent stage had gone, sinsai.info sll collect and pro-vides useful informaon for recovery of damaged cit-ies (e.g. state of lifeline, calling for on-site volunteers).

Visit hp://www.sinsai.info/ushahidi/page/index/4#english for detail.

GEO Grid ad-hoc acvity for disaster

management

Global Earth Observaon Grid (GEO Grid) is a project

aiming at providing an E-Science infrastructure forworldwide Earth Sciences community. It has power-ful computaon infrastructure in Naonal Instute ofAdvanced Industrial and Science Technology in Tsuku-ba, Japan. Although almost all of the compung infra-structure have been stopped due to several aeconcaused by the earthquake, they are sll deriving scien-c informaon and maps regarding the disaster fromsatellite data (e.g. ASTER and PALSAR) and simulaoncalculaon (e.g. QuiQuake). Their product are open-ly available via Google Earth (kmz format) and WMS

viewer (hp://ghz201103.geogrid.org/viewer/ ).Visit hp://disaster.geogrid.org/for detail.

See more on next page
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunamihttp://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunamihttp://www.sinsai.info/ushahidi/page/index/4#englishhttp://www.sinsai.info/ushahidi/page/index/4#englishhttp://disaster.geogrid.org/http://disaster.geogrid.org/http://www.sinsai.info/ushahidi/page/index/4#englishhttp://www.sinsai.info/ushahidi/page/index/4#englishhttp://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunamihttp://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunamihttp://visibleearth.nasa.gov/


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4

EAST JAPAN GREAT EARTHQUAKE

Emergency Mapping Team

Emergency Mapping Team have been organized by peo-ple among government, industry and academia withinterests and aspiraons on supporng disaster man-agement by mapping disaster damages and peoplesacvies. They are operang mashup system, which

creates new informaon by combining exisng infor-maon services. They collect informaon from Internetand local public sector of disaster-aected region, andpublish the informaon as maps through ArcGIS online.The maps are available to be overlaid with the othermaps on ArcGIS, the most popular commercial GIS so-ware.

Visit hp://www.drs.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/emt/en/ for

detail.

ALL311

Against the disaster, Internet is working as a pow-erful communicaon tools by informaon serviceslike those menoned above. But so many informa-on services have launched that users would be con-fused which one they should refer. For necessary in-formaon to be accessed easily, Naonal ResearchInstute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevenonhave launched ALL311, a website for organizing reli-able informaon and website regarding the disasterpublished by public oce, private company and indi-

viduals. It organizes especially geographically associc-ated informaon and website, which are consider-ably required for disaster-aected region. Some ofthe informaon are represented as maps using theirweb mapping plaorm, called e-community plaorm.

Visit hp://all311.ecom-plat.jp for detail.

As shown above, people in Japan are tackling to the di-saster using geographic informaon tools. I believe sucheorts will be a froner contribuon to disaster manage-

ment based on geographic informaon technologies.

Organizing diverse and dispersed informaon on the endangered cultural properes

by a voluntary iniave: consorum for the earthquake-damaged cultural heritage

(CEDACH)Yu Fujimoto1, Yasuhisa Kondo2, Akihiro Kaneda3, Yoichi Seino4, Hiroshi Yamaguchi5,

and Tomokatsu Uozu6

1 Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan2 JSPS*/Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan3Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Japan4 Kyoto University, Japan5 JSPS*/International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan6 Otemae University, Hyogo, Japan* Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Research Fellow)

The earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 caused immense damage to the residents, social infra-structure, and cultural heritage in East Japan. It should be noted that cultural properes might be de-

stroyed when debris is removed.In order to document and protect the endangered cultural properes, movated archaeologists, histori-ans, and CRM ocers voluntarily established a Consorum for Earthquake-Damaged Cultural Heritage(CEDACH). The consorum organized a task force for Cultural Properes Damaged by the Earthquakeand Tsunami (CUPDET). This task force comprises a data management team to create a web-based geo-spaal database system for the compilaon, management, and analysis of informaon on CUPDET, andan on-site technical support team to provide local cultural resource management (CRM) ocers with aguideline for the documentaon and conservaon of CUPDET. The acon plan of the data managementteam has mostly been designed, and it is presented in this leer.

To read the whole arcle follow: hp://www.isprs-sc.org/newsleer_les/vol5no1/cedach_jp.pdf

Lessons from the Disaster of East Japan Great Earthquake and Tsunami 311by Shunji Murai

Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo, Japan

The report summarizes what we have learnt from the disaster of the East Japan Great Earthquake andTsunami which occurred on March 11, 2011 over a wide area of East Japan. It includes descripons ofthe losses due to the disaster, lessons from the past and present disasters with focus on what was donecorrectly and what went wrong, the accident at Fukushima Nuclear Power Staon (NPS) and my views.

To read the whole arcle by ISPRS Hononary Member Prof. Emer. Shunji Murai follow the links:

Arcle

Figures
http://www.drs.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/emt/en/http://all311.ecom-plat.jp/http://www.isprs-sc.org/newsletter_files/vol5no1/cedach_jp.pdfhttp://www.isprs-sc.org/material/Lessons_from_the_Disaster_of_East_Japan_Great_Earthquake_and_Tsunami_Text.pdfhttp://www.isprs-sc.org/material/Lessons_from_the_Disaster_of_East_Japan_Great_Earthquake_and_Tsunami_Figures.pdfhttp://www.isprs-sc.org/material/Lessons_from_the_Disaster_of_East_Japan_Great_Earthquake_and_Tsunami_Figures.pdfhttp://www.isprs-sc.org/material/Lessons_from_the_Disaster_of_East_Japan_Great_Earthquake_and_Tsunami_Text.pdfhttp://www.isprs-sc.org/newsletter_files/vol5no1/cedach_jp.pdfhttp://www.isprs-sc.org/newsletter_files/vol5no1/cedach_jp.pdfhttp://all311.ecom-plat.jp/http://www.drs.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/emt/en/


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OBJECT-BASED IMAGE ANALYSIS

Introducon

The demand to automate image analysis in operaonalenvironments is constantly

growing. Object based imageanalysis (OBIA), which became an area of increasing re-search interest inthe late 1990s oers an eecve method for a goodunderstandingof the Earths surface, especially on the highresoluon (HR) images. With increasingspaal resoluon, pixel-based classicaon methods become less eecve, sincethe relaonship between the size of observed unit and the dimension of observedobjects on the Earths surface has signicantly changed.Due to the occurrence of alargenumber of small objects all creang high contrast on HRimagery pixel basedchange metrics fail to operate successfully(taken from Wulder et. al, 2008, Im andJensen 2005,Niemeyer and Canty, 2003).Aslong as pixel sizes remained typicallycoarser than, or at the best, similar in size to the objects of interest,emphasis wasplaced on per-pixel analysis, or even sub-pixel analysis for this conversion, but with-

increasing spaal resoluons alternave paths have been followed, aimed at deriv-ing objects that are made up of several pixels (Blaschke, 2010). Using image-objectsas basic units reduces computaonal classier loads by orders of magnitude, andat the same me enables the user totake advantage of more complex techniques.

Image 1: Dierent approaches of the classicaon. Visual interpretaon (a), pixel-based classica-

on (b) and object-based classicaon (c). (Blaschke et al., 2008).

Segmentaon

Object based image analysisconsist of two stages: contextual segmentaon, wheresegments(image-objects) that have informaon related to shape, size and spaalre-

laon (context) of the objects of the scene are created, andclassicaon, where allcreated objects are analyzed andclassied to the most representave class of landuse/cover.This means that, the created objects inuence the classicaon result to

alarge extent although they might not represent the nal objects of interest(i.e. sin-gle buildings, trees, etc.) already.Image segmentaon is the most complicated andfundamental step in the OBIA procedure and is, from an algorithmic perspecve,generally divided into four categories: (a) point-based, (b) edge-based, (c) region-based and (d) combined (Schiewe, 2001).Paroning an image into objects is akinto the way humansconceptually organize the landscape to comprehend it.

Segments are homogeneous and semancally signicant regions with addionalspectral informaon compared to single pixels (e.g. mean values per band,and alsomedian values, minimum and maximum values, mean raos, variance etc.) but ofeven greater advantage is the addional spaal informaon for objects (Blaschkeand Strobl, 2001; Darwish et al., 2003; Flanders et al., 2003; Benz et al., 2004; vander Wer and van der Meer, 2008; Hay and Caslla, 2008).The size of the objectsare set with the segmentaon parameters dened by the analyst. It isimportant to

explain here that with object oriented classicaonwe are dealing with two con-cepts of objects: an image-objechat is a discrete region of a digital image that isinternallycoherent and dierent from their surroundings, and thatpotenally rep-resents alone or in assemblage with otherneighbours a geo-object (Caslla andHay, 2008).

OBIA deals with two-side problem; over- and under-segmentaon. Over-segmen-taon produces large number and smaller size of image objects (or segments) thanthose of manually interpreted geographical objects. Under-segmentaon gener-ates the smaller number of image objects with larger average size compared withmanual interpretaon. Opmal segmentaon can praccaly never be reached,

since each of the required objects will be dened correctly at some scale. However,best segmentaon is the one in between of both possibilies and is dependentfrom the analysts experiences.

When image objects are once created they are classied using dierent classi-caon techniques into most resembling classes that are object of interest. In theprocess of semancal classicaon a number of spectral and textural features areconsidered while classifying segments into classes as well as shape and connec-on between the segments itself.Obtained objects can be later exported in vectorformat and manipulated using dierent GIS tools. Later on also accuracy assese-ment using error matrices and specic assessment values is used for evaluangtheprobability of correct class assignments and the overall quality or reliabilityof aclassicaon result.

Object-Based Image Analysis, overview of basic principlesby Ura Kanjir, Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies, SRC SASA, Slovenia

5



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OBJECT-BASED IMAGE ANALYSIS

Image 2: Original image (a), classied image (b) and classied image with segments (c). Study area

over slum Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya.

OBIA weaknesses

Although object based approach oers good nal results with its fast, consistentand less subjecve monitoring it sll presentssome disadvantages, especially in the

stage of segmentaon where creang correct shape of the image-object is desir-able.One problem with object based classicaon is that there are noreal objectsrecognised, but image objects, which can bespectrally confused. It is important tonote that the accuracy andthe signicance of the nal measurements, numbersandstascs directly and actually crically depend on the quality ofsegmentaon(Baatz et al., 2008). Considering the large numberof exisng segmentaon algo-rithms and their versality (e.g.Guigues et al. 2006; Baatz and Schpe 2000; Jung2007; Hay etal. 2003; Pal and Pal 1993, Zhang 1997), the choice of anappropri-ate segmentaon algorithm must rely on objecvemethods to assess segmenta-on quality (Radoux and Defourny,2008).When segmenng and thus creang ob-

ject shapes it is importano consider two aspects: 1) the appropriateness of anobjectsdelineaon (match of extend and shape with real situaon) and2) the preci-sion of boundary delineaon (match with scaleapplied) (Lang, 2008).

Segmentaon can be especially problemac in areas with lowcontrast or where dif-ferent appearance does not imply dierentmeaning. In this case the outcomes arerepresented as wronglydelineated image objects. Therefore, legend may includeclasseswhose instances can barely be dierenated from each other inthe image.The possibility exists that the boundaries of theclassied image objects do not leadto an agreeablerepresentaon of real objects. This implies that there will besomeclassied image objects that need to be split or reshapedin part of their perimeter the less clear the relaon betweentwo similaries, the more likely the possibility(Caslla andHay, 2008).

Conclusion

Unl today OBIA has been successfully applied for the results of dierent approach-es such as landcover/landuse mapping, change detecon, forestry, urban studies,vegetaon structures, landscape management, disaster assessements, etc. The lat-est phase of OBIA research (since 2005) is directed more towards the automaon ofimage processing. As a consequenceof the rapidly increasing proliferaon of high-resoluon imagery and improved access to this imagery, more and more arclesarediscussing automac object delineaon. Automated object recognion is certainlyan end goal, but realiscally it is atpresent mainly achieved in a stepwise manner,either with strongly interlinked procedures building workows or with clear breaksinthese workows (Blaschke, 2010).

References

Example

6

France, River Loire: intensity data is thebasis for classicaon

France, River Loire: the image is segment-ed into spectrally homogenous objects

France, River Loire: classicaon result(water, vegetaon and buildings)
http://www.isprs-sc.org/newsletter_files/vol5no1/references.pdfhttp://www.isprs-sc.org/newsletter_files/vol5no1/references.pdf


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ERRORS and ACCURACY CONSIDERATIONS

Errors and Accuracy Consideraons in the Measurement and the Analysis Processby Thanasis Moysiadis (University of Thessaly)

Measurements, either taken from a theodolite insurveying or from images in photogrammetric pro-cessing, rarely are correct and their true value is un-

known. This is unavoidable and gives rise to errorswhich are small deviaons of measurements fromtheir true value. These deviaons arise due to instru-ment imperfecons, wrong observaons, environ-mental condions such as atmospheric refracon orobserver deciencies. The aim is to keep errors assmall as possible or implement ways of reducing themin order to have the best esmates of the true val-ues. There are dierent types of errors divided into:

a. Mistakes (gross errors or blunders)

b. Systemac errorsc. Random errors

a. Mistakes, also called gross errors or blunders,are caused by some failure while measuring. Theyare easily detected and avoided, since it is in theusers ability to check them, provided that more at-tenon is needed during the measurements. Twoexamples are bad use of the hardware or so-ware and non-repeatability of the measurements.

b. Systemac errors follow a denite paern caused

by some parcular physical eect, the observer, theinstruments implemented or the natural environ-ment. For example, an electronic distance meter maygive readings consistently too low or high, when theincorrect frequency has been applied. The tempera-ture, humidity, and atmospheric pressure cause sys-temac errors when electromagnec measurementsare made. Even though systemac errors are not di-rectly related to human cause, they are idened bymaking measurements using a dierent instrumentand are largely eliminated with appropriate math-

emacal modelling. The mathemacal model itselfmay be another source of systemac errors, when

for example, a plane is used to simulate several kilo-metres of the earth surface rather than the ellipsoid.

c. Even though measurements are free from mis-

takes or systemac errors, some variaons sll ex-ist, called random errors. These are small posive ornegave variaons in the value of a measurementrepeated many mes. This is a natural physical ef-fect, beyond the control of the user, which cannotbe completely eliminated by using a dierent mea-suring system. This is due to the non-systemac pat-tern of random errors; therefore they are not de-scribed using mathemacal modelling. A commonpracce to eliminate these errors is to have a largernumber of measurements than actually needed.

A qualitave analysis of a series of measurements isdescribed by the internal and the external accuracy.Internal accuracy or precision is the closeness of mea-surements to each other, dependent on the amount ofrandom errors. Measurements with low spread of val-ues show high precision whereas measurements withhigh spread of values show low precision. Precision isesmated by the standard deviaon (), the measure ofdispersion of the probability distribuon. The smallestthe standard deviaon is, the narrower from the mean

is the measurements distribuon. High precision mea-surements are made using appropriate checked instru-ments and the aenon of the observer. Repeatabilityis another term for precision which refers to a completemeasuring process under the same condions usingthe same instrument within a short period of me.

External accuracy or simply accuracy is the closenessof measurements to the true value, so accuracy notonly reects the eect of random errors during mea-surements but also the systemac errors eect. The

presence of a systemac error (b) shows a dierencefrom the mean to the true value. The mean square

error (m2= 2+b2) shows that high precision (small )does not necessarily mean high accuracy (m). If () issmall and (b) is large, the measurements have high

precision but low accuracy. If (b) equals to 0, the meansquare error equals to the standard deviaon (),therefore the measure of accuracy is the measure ofprecision. Consequently, the reducon or the elimina-on of systemac errors plays a very important role inthe accurate result esmaon of the measurements.

Credit: Moysiadis, 2010

Resoluon is a term to describe the neness towhich an instrument or an observer can operate.In surveying, resoluon refers to the smallest dis-tance dened between two objects, while in photo-grammetry it is the ability to disnguish two pointsources of light on a black background. Resoluon isrelated to the accuracy and precision and should behigher than the expected measurement accuracy.

A disncon of the dierent errors which are unavoid-able during the measuring process is fairly importantand inuences the accuracy and precision of the nal re-sults from a simple praccal to a scienc research work.

References

1. Kraus, K. 1997. Photogrammetry Vol1. 4th ed.Bonn: Dummler

2. Uren J. and Price W. F., 1994. Surveying for Engi-neers. Palgrave Macmillan.

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PAST EVENTS REPORTS

Sydney Convenon Center

The 34th ISRSE Symposium took place from April 5th to 10th at Sydney, Australia.This event was marked by an outstanding scienc program, with topics rangingfrom the latest advances in remote sensing technologies and data processing to

applicaon for a variety of environmental issues such as carbon forest mapping ordisaster monitoring and prevenon. The sessions included oral sessions and elec-tronic presentaons, which replaced the tradional poster format. The electron-ic presentaons were certainly an interesng innovaon and they were availablethroughout the conference for any parcipant to look at. The exhibion area hadbooths with representaves from internaonal and local organizaons and compa-nies, which provided a very appropriate seng for idenfying job opportunies andinteracng with other parcipants.

The symposium was remarkably well organized, and Id like to acknowledge here theeorts of Dr. John Trinder, and the organizing commiee, which allowed for such aphenomenal event. The days ew by from the opening ceremony to the closing one,thanks to the variety of scienc and technical sessions the social acvies and thebeauful locaon of the symposium, Harbour Bay, which allowed the parcipants touse our lunch breaks to walk around and marvel at the beauty of Sydney.

ISRSE 34 at Sydney, Australiaby Elena Lobo

Also noteworthy was the presence of the ISPRS Student Consorumat the event. This was only possible thanks to the support providedby the ISPRS Foundaon, which allowed one of our regional repre-sentaves to aend. The symposium was great opportunity to in-teract with local and internaonal students and young professionalsand encourage them to join the Consorum. Addionally, the words

on the Student Consorum from Mr. Chen Hu, IPSRS Secretary Gen-eral, at the closing ceremony did hopefully get the aenon of pro-fessors and other professionals that can pass on this informaon totheir students.

Last, but not least important, this is also the perfect ming to en-courage aendance to the XXII ISPRS Congress in Melbourne, 2012and to the ISPRS Summer School, which will accompany the Con-gress. There is great interest from the organizing commiee in en-couraging and aiding students and young professionals parcipa-on and we are certain this will be an event not to miss, so mark

your calendars!

Sdyney Opera House


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FUTURE ISPRS RELATED EVENTS

9

7th Internaonal Symposium on Mobile Mapping Technology State of the

Art & Trends in Airborne & Land Mobile Mapping Technology

Cracow, Poland, 13-16 June 2011For more info visit: hp://www.mmtcracow2011.pl

WG IV/2 Workshop High Resoluon Earth Imaging for Geospaal Infor-

maon

Hannover, Germany, 14-17 June 2011For more info visit: hp://www.commission4.isprs.org/wg2/

Joint ISPRS Workshop on 3D City Modeling & Applicaons and the 6th 3D

GeoInfo

Wuhan, China, 26-27 June 2011For more info visit: hp://www.lmars.whu.edu.cn/3DCMA2011/

6th ISPRS Student Consorum and WG VI/5 Summer School. ADVANCED

LIDAR DATA PROCESSING AND APPLICATIONS

North Carolina, USA, 30 July - 6 August 2011For more info visit: hp://usa2011.isprs-sc.org/index.html

WG II/3 Internaonal Symposium of Spao-Temporal Analysis & Data

Mining

London, UK, 18-20 July 2011

For more info visit: hp://standard.cege.ucl.ac.uk/workshops/STDM2011/

WG VII/6 Internaonal Symposium on Image & Data Fusion

Yunnan Province, China, 9-11 August 2011For more info visit: hp://isidf2011.casm.ac.cn/

WG IV/5 2nd

Internaonal Workshop on Pervasive Web Mapping, Geopro-cessing & Services, in conjuncon with 4th ICA Workshop on Geospaal

Analysis & Modeling (ICA GAM 2011)

Burnaby, Canada, 10-12 August 2011For more info visit: www.sfu.ca/dragicevic/workshops2011/

ISPRS Workshop Laser Scanning 2011

Calgary, Canada, 29-31 August 2011For more info visit: hp://www.ucalgary.ca/laserscanning2011/

53rd Photogrammetric Week 2011

Stugart, Germany, 5-9 SeptemberFor more info visit: www.ifp.uni-stugart.de/phowo/index.en.html


This column serves as a guide for the students who are thinking or are willing to gostudying or doing praccal work abroad. We have searched for new opportuniesin dierent facules, schools and other learning programs all over the world inorder to encourage as many students as possible to take new steps towards newhorizons.

1) The Centre de Recherche Public Gabriel Lippmann in Luxembourg is seeking a re-searcher in remote sensing and environmental modelling. The researcher will develop amethodology to evaluate the state of energy crops using a combinaon of ground basedand airborne hyperspectral measurements and a crop growth modelling approach. Atthe end a mul-scale approach for the assessment of energy crops in Luxembourg will beestablished, which includes a synthesis of in-situ, remote sensing and modelling data andapproaches. Applicaons should be received by June 30th, 2011. Read full announce-ment at: hp://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDetails/33662861

2) ESAs postdoctoral research fellowship programme aim to oer young sciensts andengineers the possibility of carrying out research in a variety of disciplines related to

space science, space applicaons or space technology. The Agency has an internal and anexternal fellowship programme, both for two years, with no possibility of an extension.Applicants must have recently aained their doctorate or be close to successfully com-pleng studies in space science, space applicaons or techniques, or other elds closelyconnected to space acvies. ESA fellowships are open to naonals of its Member Statesand Cooperang States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France,Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain,Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Canada, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Estonia andSlovenia. There is no specic closing date and applicaons may be submied at any meduring the year. More info about ESAs postdoctoral research fellowship programme at:hp://www.esa.int/esaMI/Careers_at_ESA/SEM19DXO4HD_0.html

3) The Erasmus Mundus joint European Master of Science (MSc) Course in Geo-infor-maon Science and Earth Observaon for Environmental Modelling and Management(GEM) has a duraon of 22 months and is taught by world class facules in ve countries:Iceland, UK, Sweden, Poland and The Netherlands.Self funded candidates who wish to apply for 2011 edion can submit their applicaonsunl 1 July 2011. More info about this Master at: hp://www.gem-msc.org/

http://www.mmtcracow2011.pl/http://www.commission4.isprs.org/wg2/http://www.lmars.whu.edu.cn/3DCMA2011/http://usa2011.isprs-sc.org/index.htmlhttp://standard.cege.ucl.ac.uk/workshops/STDM2011/http://isidf2011.casm.ac.cn/http://www.sfu.ca/dragicevic/workshops2011/http://www.ucalgary.ca/laserscanning2011/http://www.ifp.uni-stuttgart.de/phowo/index.en.htmlhttp://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDetails/33662861http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Careers_at_ESA/SEM19DXO4HD_0.htmlhttp://www.gem-msc.org/http://www.gem-msc.org/http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Careers_at_ESA/SEM19DXO4HD_0.htmlhttp://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/jobDetails/33662861http://www.ifp.uni-stuttgart.de/phowo/index.en.htmlhttp://www.ucalgary.ca/laserscanning2011/http://www.sfu.ca/dragicevic/workshops2011/http://isidf2011.casm.ac.cn/http://standard.cege.ucl.ac.uk/workshops/STDM2011/http://usa2011.isprs-sc.org/index.htmlhttp://www.lmars.whu.edu.cn/3DCMA2011/http://www.commission4.isprs.org/wg2/http://www.mmtcracow2011.pl/


12/13

Leicas HDS Soware Family

The HDS (High Denion Surveying) Soware Family,comprised of Cyclone, CloudWorx, and TruView so-ware, cover the applicaon-specic tasks in handlingand viewing high-denion point clouds eecvelyand aiding in the speedy extracon of deliverables.

Cyclone is standalone point cloud process-ing soware. It is extremely powerful in han-dling large scan data sets and extremely com-prehensive in its tool set for managing andprocessing point clouds into nal deliverables.

CloudWorx is CAD plug-in soware. Thereare specic variants of Cloud Worx foreach major CAD applicaon, e.g. CloudWorx for Auto-CAD, CloudWorx for Mi cro Sta-on, etc. It lets users work easily with large data sets inside their favourite CAD applicaon.

TruView is breakthrough soware for the surveying profession and their clients. It lets anyoneview, measure and mark-up point clouds. TruView is free and it can even be used over the internet.

Source: hp://www.leica-geosystems.com/en/HDS-Soware_3490.htm


10

IT NEWS

4) The graduate research school GEOSIM (Explorave Simula-on in Earth-Sciences) is a collaborave eort of researchersin departments of Earth and Mathemacal Sciences at theGerman Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ Potsdam),Potsdam University and Freie Universitt Berlin. GEOSIM isinving applicaons for 10 PhD fellowships in the eld of

simulaon of Earth System processes (solid earth dynamicsand earthquakes, atmosphere-hydrosphere dynamics andclimate, and hydrological ow and transport processes).These subjects will be studied by integrang techniques suchas data exploraon, assimilaon, and model selecon andvalidaon; analysis of scaling properes of geo-processes;explorave simulaon and computer-aided modelling of in-completely known systems. Applicaons should be receivedby May 25th, 2011. Read full announcement at: hp://www.earthworks-jobs.com/geoscience/gfz11032.html

5) The Erasmus Mundus Programme in Flood Risk Manage-ment: Global Change, Hydroinformacs and Planning (FLO-ODRisk) focuses on integrated ood risk management. It isa two-year world-class integrated course aimed at qualifyinggraduates to deal with the enormous challenges in Flood RiskManagement. Regarding 2011 edion, applicaons dead-lines from prospecve self funded candidates are May 31st2011 for all applicants who need a visa to come to Germanyand July 15th 2011 for everyone else. More info about thisMaster at: hp://www.unesco-ihe.org/Erasmus-Mundus-

Programme-in-Flood-Risk-Management

Quick Terrain Modeler Version 7.1.3.

Applied Imagery realized 3D point cloud and terrain visualizaon soware package named Quick ter-rain Modeler Version 7.1.3.Quick Terrain Modeler is an intuive soware tool that allows the user theability to see, edit, understand, exploit, and share 3D data.It is designed for use with LiDAR, enough

to accommodate other 3D data sources. Quick terrain Modeler has many advantages that allow us-ers to work with signicantly more data, render larger models, analyze data faster, and export a va-riety of products. These benets enable very powerful, yet simple and intuive, terrain exploitaon.

Source: hp://www.appliedimagery.com/qtmmain.htm
http://www.leica-geosystems.com/en/HDS-Software_3490.htmhttp://www.earthworks-jobs.com/geoscience/gfz11032.htmlhttp://www.earthworks-jobs.com/geoscience/gfz11032.htmlhttp://www.unesco-ihe.org/Erasmus-Mundus-Programme-in-Flood-Risk-Managementhttp://www.unesco-ihe.org/Erasmus-Mundus-Programme-in-Flood-Risk-Managementhttp://www.appliedimagery.com/qtmmain.htmhttp://www.appliedimagery.com/qtmmain.htmhttp://www.unesco-ihe.org/Erasmus-Mundus-Programme-in-Flood-Risk-Managementhttp://www.unesco-ihe.org/Erasmus-Mundus-Programme-in-Flood-Risk-Managementhttp://www.earthworks-jobs.com/geoscience/gfz11032.htmlhttp://www.earthworks-jobs.com/geoscience/gfz11032.htmlhttp://www.leica-geosystems.com/en/HDS-Software_3490.htm


13/13

OTHER INFO

11

German Space Agency Records Spectrum of New

GLONASS L3 Signal

The German Aerospace Centres Institute of Communi-

cations and Navigation has recorded the spectrum of the

new GLONASS L3 code-division-multiple-access signal

transmitted by the GLONASS-K1 satellite launched on

February 26, 2011. The spectrum was captured using a25-meter dish antenna at the Raisting Satellite Earth Sta-

tion near Munich. (Read more)

DigitalGlobe and Extreme Ice Survey Partner to Moni-

tor Worlds Glaciers

DigitalGlobe, a global provider of high-resoluon earthimagery soluons, has partnered with Extreme Ice Sur-vey (EIS) to combine on-the-ground photography withsatellite imagery to monitor the state of the worlds gla-

ciers. The organizaons have also issued a rst report,Worldwide Glacier Monitoring Report, which includesblack and white and natural color satellite images fromthe last three years to show how three glaciers havechanged over me: Khumbu Glacier at Mt. Everest, theIlulissat Glacier in Greenland and the Breidamerkurjkull

Glacier in Iceland. (Read more)

LiDAR News

hp://www.lidarnews.com/

RPLS.COM

hp://www.rpls.com/

RESOURCESGISCafe Resources

hp://www10.giscafe.com/resource/

EDUCATION

ELO-Geo (An e-Learning Framework for usingGeospaal Open Data, Open Source and OpenStandards)hp://cgs.nongham.ac.uk/~elogeo/

FREE SOFTWARE

SPRING is now an Open Source GIS/RS sowarehp://www.dpi.inpe.br/spring/

gvSIG Desktop 1.11

http://www.gvsig.org/web/projects/gvsig-desktop/ocial/gvsig-1.11/downloads

JOBS, CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Dice.com

hp://www.dice.com/

GIS Jobs Clearinghouse

hp://www.gjc.org/

JOURNALS

Global Croplands

http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesens-ing/special_issues/croplands/

RELATED ORGANIZATIONS, ASSOCIATIONS

ASPRS - American Society for Photogrammetry

and Remote Sensing

hp://www.asprs.org/

INTERESTING LINKS

OGC Announces XML Encoding Standard for Observa-

ons and Measurements

The Open Geospaal Consorum (OGC) membershiphas voted to adopt the OGC Observaons and Measure-ments (O&M) XML Encoding Standard as an ocial OGCstandard. (Read more)

Satellite Data to Improve Flood ForecasngAs the residents of Queensland, Australia, turn to themammoth task of cleaning up aer the devastangoods over the last weeks, data from ESAs Earth ob-servaon satellites are showing potenal for deliver-ing more mely warnings. Through a project fundedby ESAs Data User Element, observaons from the Ad-vanced Synthec Aperture Radar (ASAR) on Envisat arenow used to increase the reliability of informaon thatis fed into models for monitoring and forecasng oods.

(Read more)

Second Edion of Google Earth and Maps for Compa-

nies Seminar

In the seminar Google Earth and Maps for Companies,that will be held during MundoGEO#Connect in SoPaulo(SP), Brazil, from June 14 to June 16, Google andlocal partners will introduce innovaons related to solu-ons for companies which have applicaons in the ar-eas of geographic analysis and Locaon Based Services(LBS). The event will also count on mini-courses, work-shops, users meengs and a fair with more than 30 ex-

hibitors that will gather about 3 thousand parcipants.(Read more)

Advanced Land Observing Satellite DAICHI (ALOS)

Power Generaon Anomaly

The Japan Aerospace Exploraon Agency (JAXA) has

been operang the Advanced Land Observing SatelliteDAICHI (ALOS), which has exceeded its design life ofthree years and its target life of ve years. However, ataround 7:30 a.m. on April 22, we found that the satellitehad shied its operaon mode to the low load mode (*1)and all the onboard observaon devices were turned odue to power generaon reducon. The anomaly wasdetected through relayed data via the Data Relay TestSatellite KODAMA. Since then, the power generaonhas been rapidly deteriorang, and we currently cannot

conrm power generaon. The DAICHI was launched onJanuary 24, 2006.*1: Low generaon mode: the mode to save power con-sumpon to maintain the minimum funcon of the sat-ellite. (Read more)
http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/news/german-space-agency-records-spectrum-new-glonass-l3-signal-11547?utm_source=GPS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GNSS-Design_04_27_2011&utm_content=german-space-agency-records-spectrum-new-glonass-l3-signal-11547http://www.geoinformatics.com/blog/latest-news/digitalglobe-and-extreme-ice-survey-partner-to-monitor-worlds-glaciershttp://www.lidarnews.com/http://www.rpls.com/http://www10.giscafe.com/resource/http://cgs.nottingham.ac.uk/~elogeo/http://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://www.dpi.inpe.br/spring/http://www.gvsig.org/web/projects/gvsig-desktop/official/gvsig-1.11/downloadshttp://www.gvsig.org/web/projects/gvsig-desktop/official/gvsig-1.11/downloadshttp://www.dice.com/http://www.gjc.org/http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/special_issues/croplands/http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/special_issues/croplands/http://www.asprs.org/http://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?section=CorpNews&articleid=949484http://%20http//www.gim-international.com/news/id5457-Satellite_Data_to_Improve_Flood_Forecasting.htmlhttp://www.geoinformatics.com/blog/latest-news/second-edition-of-google-earth-and-maps-for-companies-seminarhttp://www.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/alos/index_e.htmlhttp://www.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/alos/index_e.htmlhttp://www.geoinformatics.com/blog/latest-news/second-edition-of-google-earth-and-maps-for-companies-seminarhttp://%20http//www.gim-international.com/news/id5457-Satellite_Data_to_Improve_Flood_Forecasting.htmlhttp://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?section=CorpNews&articleid=949484http://www.asprs.org/http://www.eohandbook.com/http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/special_issues/croplands/http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/special_issues/croplands/http://www.computervisiononline.com/jobshttp://www.gjc.org/http://www.dice.com/http://www.gvsig.org/web/projects/gvsig-desktop/official/gvsig-1.11/downloadshttp://www.gvsig.org/web/projects/gvsig-desktop/official/gvsig-1.11/downloadshttp://www.dpi.inpe.br/spring/http://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://sites.google.com/site/boxshapedworld/tableofcontentshttp://cgs.nottingham.ac.uk/~elogeo/http://www.nacse.org/~keon/gis.htmlhttp://www10.giscafe.com/resource/http://www.rpls.com/http://www.lidarnews.com/http://www.geoinformatics.com/blog/latest-news/digitalglobe-and-extreme-ice-survey-partner-to-monitor-worlds-glaciershttp://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/news/german-space-agency-records-spectrum-new-glonass-l3-signal-11547?utm_source=GPS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GNSS-Design_04_27_2011&utm_content=german-space-agency-records-spectrum-new-glonass-l3-signal-11547

ISPRS SC Newsletter Vol5 No1

Documents

Transcript of ISPRS SC Newsletter Vol5 No1