February/March 2022 – No. 117
The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information
THE YEAR OF THE CAREER
SUPPLY CHAIN PAIN Tackling the industry’s skills challenges in 2022
Locating the solution
Official publication of
inside Tree change How Victoria updated its vegetation maps
Earth observation Is Australia’s remote sensing ready for launch?
Skilled operators Michelle Blicavs on building surveying careers
WWW.MAPGEAR.COM.AU SALES@MAPGEAR.COM.AU
contents
February/March 2022 No.117
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features 11 Aerial imagery for outdoor events High-res imagery and tools are game-changers for event managers.
14 Q&A with Michelle Blicavs Assessing the challenges and opportunities in the surveying sector.
17 Boost for NSW’s Spatial Digital Twin It’s being enhanced with 4D capabilities and mobile-friendly access.
18 Innovations in GNSS New tech lets more users take advantage of accurate positioning.
20 Reshaping Victoria’s vegetation datasets Machine learning refreshes a 20-year-old tree cover dataset.
22 Faster, more accurate surveying Opening up more productivity in the field and the office.
24 Roadmap for national infrastructure
34 Ready for launch? New EO missions will help deal with environmental concerns.
36 Sovereign space A blueprint for the development of Australia’s space industry.
Geospatial, space, data and skills development are on the agenda.
26 Inclusion in geospatial and surveying More diversity and inclusion can be a win-win for your organisation.
30 Driving a response to the supply chain crisis The revolution in data visualisation, analytics and real-time tracking.
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Upfront Upcoming events From the editor News New products SSSI updates
32 The road to a national standard Development of a National Standard of Competency for surveyors.
www.spatialsource.com.au 3
upfront
Aerial images show the changing face of Melbourne
Upcoming Events 3 March: Australian Space Forum https://forum.andythomas.foundation/
4 March: Space & Geospatial Collaborative Workshop https://sssi.org.au/events-awards/ events/space-geospatial-workshop
21–23 March: APAS 2022 Conference https://www.apas.org.au/apas-pastevents/upcoming-events/9-apas2022conference.html
29–30 March: RPAS in Australian Skies https://aaus.org.au/ Aerial image from 1942 showing zig-zag air raid trenches in the grounds of Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance.
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n aerial image of Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance dating back to 1942 is just one of half a million images that have now been digitised to help the Victorian government better track changing cities, landscapes and environments. Vicmap Historic Imagery is the state’s archive of aerial photography from the 20th century. It shows towns, suburbs, rural areas and natural environments that can be mapped and viewed in detail. The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) has completed a complex project to create photo mosaics and time series of the images covering locations across the state. The imagery shows how the Shrine of Remembrance was used as a large-scale air raid shelter during World War 2, after it was built in 1931. Visible in the imagery is a series of zig-zag trenches that were dug into the grounds around the Shrine and nearby parkland to protect people from bomb blasts. Other case studies showing changes over time include the MCG and its growing crowd capacity, coastal change at Mallacoota, construction of the West Gate Bridge and the ever-changing Melbourne CBD and surrounds. The imagery can be used to see the growth of urban centres, changes to coastlines over time, and to identify past land uses including those that Melbourne’s sports precinct in 1984, could still present risks to showing the MCG before communities. the construction of the Vicmap Historic Imagery Great Southern Stand. is spatially accurate and can be accessed by state and local government users as part of a Coordinated Imagery Program subscription (https://www. land.vic.gov.au/maps-andspatial/imagery/coordinatedimagery-program). DELWP users can access it through the Image Web Server. The full library is also available to the public through The Westgate Bridge under SERV (formerly Victorian construction in 1975. Land Registry Services). n 4 position February/March 2022
24–26 May: Locate22 https://locateconference.com/
25–27 May: AIMS National Conference https://www.aimsconference.com.au/
1–2 June: Geo Connect Asia 2022 https://www.geoconnectasia.com/
6–11 June: XXIVth ISPRS Congress https://www.isprs2022-nice.com/
22–25 August: Advancing Earth Observation Forum 2022 https://www.earthobsforum.org/
22–27 August: FOSS4G 2022 https://www.osgeo.org/foundationnews/foss4g-2022/
11–15 September: FIG Congress 2022 https://www.fig.net/fig2022/
2–7 October: Ocean Optics XXV https://oceanopticsconference.org/
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Live & Virtual Show
Wednesday 1st - Thursday 2nd June Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
Geospatial & Location Intelligence Solutions for Asia - Underground, Land & Sea to Sky Geo Connect Asia (GCA) has established its position as the regional gateway for world leaders in the geospatial technology, location intelligence and remote sensing markets. The two-day event mixes thought leadership with practical and innovative solutions:
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Business Meetings - Industry Professionals, Government Agencies and Start-ups Plan your participation in Asia’s showcase and build your market position and visibility at Geo Connect Asia 2022! Key Industries Climate Resilience Construction & Infrastructure Disaster Response
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International Mr Rupert Owen rupert.owen@montgomeryasia.com
Asia Ms Mei Shyan Boo mei@montgomeryasia.com
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from the editor The Australasian magazine of surveying, mapping & geo-information
Publisher Simon Cooper Editor Jonathan Nally jnally@intermedia.com.au National Advertising Manager Anna Muldrock amuldrock@intermedia.com.au Prepress Tony Willson Production Manager Jacqui Cooper Subscribe Position is available via subscription only. A 12 month subscription (6 issues) is AUD$76.00. To subscribe visit www.intermedia.com.au, phone: 1800 651 422 or email: subscriptions@intermedia.com.au website: www.spatialsource.com.au Position is published six times a year, in February, April, June, August, October and December by Interpoint Events Pty Ltd. ABN: 9810 451 2469 Address: 41 Bridge Road, Glebe NSW 2037 Ph: +61 2 9660 2113 Fax: +61 2 9660 4419 Reprints from Position are permitted only with the permission of the publisher. In all cases, reprints must be acknowledged as follows: ‘Reprinted with permission from Position Magazine’, and must include the author’s byline. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher. Supported by
The Intermedia Group takes its Corporate and Social Responsibilities seriously and is committed to reducing its impact on the environment. We continuously strive to improve our environmental performance and to initiate additional CSR based projects and activities. As part of our company policy we ensure that the products and services used in the manufacture of this magazine are sourced from environmentally responsible suppliers. This magazine has been printed on paper produced from sustainably sourced wood and pulp fibre and is accredited under PEFC chain of custody. PEFC certified wood and paper products come from environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of forests. The wrapping used in the delivery process of this magazine is 100% biodegradable.
The road ahead in 2022
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n our last issue I declared that Position magazine would be treating 2022 as the ‘Year of the career,’ and that over the next 12 months we will turn a spotlight onto topics such as skills, education, the workforce shortage and so on. I’m delighted to report that we have received tremendous encouragement and feedback from across the industry, with lots of individuals offering their support and wanting to share their knowledge and tell their stories. So you can look forward to plenty of coverage of these important matters in the months ahead. But of course, we’re not trying to get above ourselves. The role of Position is simply to act as a conduit for information within the industry, not to be the ones leading the charge. There are many individuals and industry groups out there doing the hard work of tackling these challenges — consulting with industry members, formulating policy and lobbying government and regulators. And we’re delighted to have two of those individuals represented in this issue — Michelle Blicavs and Roshni Sharma — each of whom is heavily involved in tackling aspects of the careers challenge, and each of whom has some fantastic ideas and outlooks to share. Career pathways are not the only challenges facing Australia. Some go beyond the level of ‘pathways’ and rise to the level of ‘roadmaps’… and there are plenty of the latter to go around at the moment. In this issue alone we look at national roadmaps dealing with research infrastructure, space capabilities and Earth observation… each of them being vital aspects that underpin the surveying, spatial and space sectors. As the roadmaps show us, there is much to be done to enable Australian industry to reach its full potential in the early 21st century. But the outlook is definitely positive, if the public and private sectors can work together to focus on the opportunities that suit Australia best. All of the aforementioned topics will be on the table for discussion at Locate22, which is to be held in Canberra in May this year. The conference and exhibition will provide a long-awaited chance for industry members to see one another in person once again. Online is fine, but there’s nothing like face-to-face interactions for stimulating discussion and for networking with friends old and new. I’m really looking forward to it, as the COVID restrictions have meant that I have not yet been able to meet even a single industry member in the flesh in the almost 12 months since I became editor of Position. See you there! Jonathan Nally Editor
NEXT ISSUE
April/May 2022 – Issue 118 LOCATE22 SPECIAL ISSUE
Surveying, spatial and mapping — their role in creating safer societies Standards, education, training, careers — the future of the industry Mining, resources, geoscience, exploration — living off the landscape Technology — surveying and mapping devices, software, field services Advertising booking date: 11 March 2022 Advertising material date: 16 March 2022 Publication date: 7 April 2022 Position magazine, SpatialSource, Interpoint Events and The Intermedia Group acknowledge the traditional custodians of country across Australia, and pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to their elders, past, present and emerging.
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news Key Locate22 conference speakers announced
©stock.adobe.com/au/Feel good studio
Industry leaders from around Australia and across the globe have been confirmed as keynote and invited speakers for the Locate22 conference, to be held in Canberra in May 2022. Headlining the list are: • Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith, astrophysicist, the Australian Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador and a Professor of Practice in Science Communication at UNSW; and • Adrian Turner, Chief Executive Officer of the Minderoo Foundation Fire & Flood Resilience Initiative • Melissa Harris, Chief Executive of Land Use Victoria, and Chair of the Australia And New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC) • Thalia Baldwin, Director of the UK Geospatial Commission • Dr James Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of Geoscience Australia • Dr David Gruen, Australian Statistician and CEO of the Australian Bureau of Statistics • Rebecca De Cicco, Principal, Digital Operations at Aurecon, Director Digital Node and Global Chair of Women in BIM • Dr Monica Wachowicz, Associate Dean of Geospatial at RMIT University and Cisco Innovation Chair in Big Data • Dr Stefan Hrabar, CEO and co-founder of Emesent • Dr Fiona McKenzie, Director of Orange Compass You can learn more about the speakers and their presentations at https://locateconference.com/the-conference/speakers/.
Landgate gives grants to location tech innovators Six Western Australian innovators will share a total $150,000 in grant funding from Landgate and DevelopmentWA under the SPUR Location Grants Program, which supports local entrepreneurs, researchers and small businesses in the location information space. WA Lands Minister Tony Buti said each recipient will receive $25,000 to support their innovative idea to deliver outcomes from location data, using new and emerging technology in the land and property sector. The recipients and their projects are: • FoundAt — Assist developers using a geospatial platform combining AR and Digital Twin. • UXMachines — Human AI unmanned aerial vehicle solution for autonomous agricultural duties. • Curtin University — Combining digital twin mapping of IoT sensors and location data to understand residential energy consumption. • Baada Aboriginal Corporation — Cultural engagement model through student education, with a fish feeding, tracking and release program on the Swan River. Apply Indigenous fishery management techniques. Employ passive integrated transponders so students can track ‘their’ fish via an app on their phone. • DueTwo — Automate the due diligence search for mergers and acquisitions (M&As), create an automated workflow platform. • Koya Aboriginal Corporation — Using Traditional Owner knowledge, create a cultural map of the Swan region, specifically to spatially represent sites, assets, stories and practices. The SPUR Program is supported by DevelopmentWA, Geoscience Australia Positioning Australia, Innovation Central Perth Curtin University, and the WA Departments of Finance; Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries; and Planning, Lands and Heritage. In addition to the grant funding, Landgate and its partnering agencies will provide support and tailored information sessions. 8 position February/March 2022
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Australia’s most powerful rocket engine tested
Call for papers — S+SNZ conference Survey and Spatial NZ has announced that its 2022 conference will be held from 1 to 3 August at the Novotel Lakeside, Rotorua, and has issued a call for abstracts, speakers and papers. The conference is the biggest continuing professional development event of the year for NZ surveying and spatial professionals. It invites sharing of knowledge amongst peers, bringing together networking opportunities for all delegates and is an essential event for professional development and connectivity within the sector. The choice of Rotorua as the location is apt, given the conference theme of ‘Turning up the Heat’. The organisers aim to stimulate discussion regarding challenges in regional areas, which include climate change and developments outside of Auckland. Those hoping to present a paper should make a submission that includes a short descriptive title and a summary (around 300 words) that explains what will be learned from attending their presentation. Submission of proposals close 5:00pm NZDT on 9 March 2022, and should be emailed to Events Manager, Jenny Houdalakis at jenny@surveyspatialnz.org.
Gilmour Space Technologies has conducted a successful 110-kilonewton test firing of what it says is the most powerful rocket engine ever developed in Australia. The 75-second test was a major milestone for the development of Gilmour’s Eris rocket, which will be equipped with five of the engines, making it capable of launching 300to 4,000-kilogram satellites and payloads into low Earth and other orbits. “What you see here is the main engine that will power the first and second stages of our three-stage Eris rocket to space,” explained company CEO, Adam Gilmour. “It was a successful test. We achieved our expected full thrust of 110 kilonewtons (or 25,000 pounds-force) over the 75 seconds, and our team will be moving on to the final engine qualification campaign next month.” Gilmour pointed out the strategic implications of the development of the engine, which, he says, is an early demonstration of what he hopes will be Australia’s first sovereign launch capability. “It is no small thing to say that we’ve developed Australia’s largest rocket engine; and that it could have significant flow-on benefits for the commercial, civil and defence space sectors,” he added. Gilmour added that the company is seeking approvals from state and federal government agencies to green light a small spaceport at the Abbot Point State Development Area in Bowen, North Queensland. “With timely assessments and approvals from relevant authorities, we hope to be able to launch Australia’s first sovereign-made rocket from Queensland sometime in the latter half of 2022,” Gilmour said.
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news Airborne bushfire mapping system to undergo trial The South Australia Government is supporting the trial of an airborne, real-time, fire-mapping system during this year’s fire season to help better protect communities in bushfire prone areas. “This technology offers the possibility of improving how we respond to and control the threat posed by bushfires, better protecting people and property in bushfire prone areas,” said Minister for Innovation and Skills David Pisoni. FireFlight Technologies — a startup based at the University
DESIGN, PLAN AND EXECUTE OUTDOOR EVENTS WITH HIGH RESOLUTION AERIAL IMAGERY
of South Australia’s Innovation and Collaboration Centre — has received $100,000 in funding from the state government to trial its FireFlight system with the Country Fire Service (CFS). The FireFlight sensor system is mounted on a manned aircraft that is flown over an active bushfire. It takes less than a minute to fly over the fire front, create the map of the fire and deliver it to the firefighting agency, enabling it to accurately track the fire’s path and potentially limit its destruction. FireFlight Technologies founder and chief executive officer, Dr Paul Dare, said the system had proved valuable to firefighting agencies during trials in Queensland and Tasmania, and the SA trial will be the first full, season-long trial of the system in Australia. “The FireFlight system will deliver real-time fire intelligence to incident controllers, helping them to efficiently deploy resources such as firefighters, fire trucks and firebombers where they are really needed,” Dr Dare said. “The fire maps provided by the FireFlight system will show exactly where the fire is at that moment. “The maps can be updated on a minute-by-minute basis, enabling the CFS to monitor the progression of the fire and better understand its behaviour. “The length of the trial will enable us to make changes to the system during the season, based on feedback from the CFS, so that we can ensure we are meeting their needs.”
High-resolution aerial imagery simplifies the multitude of planning processes. The ability to see, measure, and remotely inspect locations recovers time for other essential tasks that improve events overall.
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partner feature
Bigger, better and easier – how MetroMap solves problems for outdoor events
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outh Australia’s biggest domestic cycling race, the Super Series, uses MetroMap’s aerial imagery to overcome many logistical and time challenges in putting on its nine events. MetroMap enabled Jake Thomas, Super Series Race Director and Event Coordinator for AusCycling in SA, to manage the months-long planning processes better, communicate more effectively with stakeholders and grow the event through improved time management.
REMOTE INSPECTIONS
The Super Series has a significant footprint across seven different race locations, five different local government areas and four events situated more than 50 km from the Adelaide CBD. Courses range from a couple of kilometres in length to over 100 km. MetroMap’s broad capture program ensured Thomas and his team could remotely examine and take ground-level measurements of every road and host location without leaving their office. Thomas described how MetroMap helps before an event. “MetroMap has been really useful for the Super Series this year, especially with planning, because it’s meant that we can do things like venue inspections, road inspections, and all other the things that normally take a trip out to the site,” he said. “Being based in Gepps Cross makes it difficult to get to every location while we’re trying to organise nine events at once.” In particular, MetroMap’s remote inspection and measurement capabilities
simplified the planning for a completely new Super Series course in a complex Adelaide CBD location. Thomas said that MetroMap helped streamline that parts of that intricate event. “One of the races that we developed for this year’s Super Series was the East End street race,” he said. “MetroMap allowed us to map the exact distance of the barriers needed for that venue, meaning we didn’t need to pay for a stack of barriers sitting unused. We were able to do that without taking a walking wheel and measuring open roads in the middle of the city. “We would have done a lot measuring on foot without MetroMap.”
STAKEHOLDER COMMUNICATION
Aus Cycling SA made MetroMap imagery a crucial part of the participant and other essential stakeholder communications. MetroMap imagery included in the event manuals showed participants the course layout and site plan, helping to ensure the event would run smoothly. Assets built on quality imagery communicated more than just location and infrastructure information; they also provided benefits in how the event and AusCycling was perceived. “Having a better image than anybody has ever seen legitimises what you’re doing,” said Thomas. “Turning up with a super detailed map to meetings with council, residents, or traders groups, tells them we know what we’re doing and has given us an air of authority.”
BETTER TIME MANAGEMENT MEANS BETTER EVENTS
MetroMap better uses the event managers’ finite time, optimising the planning process to enable better planning with allotted resources. All recovered time supports event improvements and accelerates their growth. “Super Series being an annual race means we get an opportunity to take what we’ve done year-on-year and constantly make it better. We want more people to come out. We want the event experience to get better,” said Thomas. “It’s tricky when to find more time before the event day, but recovering 15 minutes back here, two hours back there, and half a day back there, frees up time to take on those extra projects that might have been on the backburner for a couple of years. You don’t save time necessarily, you just use your time better do things that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to.”
EVERYDAY TOOLS FOR EVENT MANAGERS
The Super Series has crowned its winners for 2021, but MetroMap has become an ongoing part of Thomas’ and the AusCycling SA office’s workflow. “We’re using MetroMap at least 10 times a week,” said Thomas. “It’s become my first stop when I’ve got a question about what something looks like, or where I’m going to put something at an event. It’s become second nature that I’m curious about something and I go to MetroMap and look it up.” n Learn more about how MetroMap can help your business at www.metromap.com.au.
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news Spiral Blue’s edge computers launched by SpaceX Image courtesy SpaceX
Australian company, Spiral Blue, has successfully launched its Space Edge Zero (SEZ) computers into space on board SpaceX’s Transporter-3 rideshare mission. The launch vehicle, a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 15:25 UTC on January 13 and entered into a 525-km altitude sun-synchronous orbit. The edge computer is hosted aboard Polish satellite manufacturer, SatRevolution’s SWIFT satellite, and has been deployed by Italian company, D-Orbit, on its orbital transfer vehicle, the ION Satellite Carrier. SpaceX’s Transporter-3 mission is the company’s third dedicated
rideshare mission, delivering 105 small satellites into space. The successful launch will enable Spiral Blue to continue testing its first generation SEZ prototype, which was first launched aboard SatRevolution’s STORK-4 and STORK-5 satellites on 1 July 2021. “This second orbital launch is no less exciting than our first,” said Spiral Blue CEO Taofiq Huq. “We intend to continue launching throughout 2022 and early 2023 as we bring our hardware and software to operational status, also known as TRL 7. “This continuous space qualification program enables us to rapidly iterate on and improve our technology over time.” In 2022, Spiral Blue will launch with satellite operator and manufacturer, Satellogic, as part of its Hosted Payloads Program. The launch, scheduled for no earlier than June, will see an upgraded version of the SEZ computer — called Space Edge-1 (SE-1) — launch into orbit. SE-1 will also fly aboard the Waratah Seed mission as a result of Spiral Blue winning the joint first prize in the Waratah Seed competition. Spiral Blue was recently a recipient of an Australian Space Agency Moon to Mars Supply Chain Capability Improvement Grant, which supports the Australian space industry to build capacity to deliver products and services into domestic and/or international space industry supply chains that could support Moon to Mars activities. The grant is supporting the development of Spiral Blue’s Space Edge Services platform.
Geo Connect Asia moves to June 2022 The dates for the Geo Connect Asia regional conference and exhibition have been put back to 1 and 2 June 2022, due to ongoing disruption caused by the COVID pandemic. The event had originally been scheduled for 23 and 24 March. The venue remains the same — the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre in Singapore. “Challenging cross border travel conditions and event restrictions in Singapore present considerable challenges,
especially for incoming visitors and exhibitors,” said Montgomery Asia’s Rupert Owen, co-founder of Geo Connect Asia. “The date change will allow time for local event restrictions and international travel rules to gradually relax and facilitate expanded business and networking opportunities across core Asian markets.” Geo Connect Asia brings together the region’s geospatial, location intelligence, digital construction and UAV communities.
Singapore boosts geospatial property collaboration The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) has signed memoranda innovation in geospatial technology and related applications,” said of understanding with the island nation’s five largest property SLA Chief Executive, Colin Low. agencies, with the aim of collaborating on geospatial innovation “The real estate sector is one area which has latent potential to and improvement of hyperlocal and granular data. leverage geospatial technology to enhance its service delivery. Under the MOUs, the property agencies will collect relevant “We look forward to having the property agencies as well as details to enhance SLA’s OneMap and OneMap3D, such as the more partners on board to co-innovate and unlock more value for location of entrances, lifts, and certain features of selected properties. the benefit of the community.” The property agencies’ selected suite of websites and mobile The OneMap mobile app is available for free download on Apple applications will also be enhanced with the granular and and Android app store. hyperlocal data available on OneMap (www.onemap.gov.sg). With this collaboration, property agents could benefit from seamless integration of a wide array of detailed and accurate location information from OneMap directly on the agencies’ platforms. This includes useful data on buildings, locations of schools in proximity to a property as well as 3D models from SLA’s OneMap3D (www.onemap3d.gov.sg), which would enable users to view shadow castings and north-southeast-west views from a property. “As the geospatial agency in Singapore, SLA is always looking for opportunities to partner both the private and public sectors as well as Visualisation of shadow castings on a selected building at specified time of the day. the community to co-create and spur further 12 position February/March 2022
news Location data for cleaning up the UK’s coastline Geovation, the UK Ordnance Survey’s open innovation network hub, has launched a challenge with the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) to find a sustainable solution to tackle diffuse coastal pollution, with a prize of up to £5,000 for the winners. Diffuse coastal pollution causes significant damage to the coastal and has a negative impact on human health and the food chain along Great Britain’s 32,000 kilometres of coastline. The challenge will aim to address sustainable solutions for improving water quality, boost efficiencies and profitability, and improve sustainability — from agriculture to the water and sewage infrastructure — as well as improving beach cleanliness and wildlife conservation. For this challenge, successful applicants will have access to data from Ordnance Survey including terrain, buildings, water networks, addressing and the OS Data Hub, the most comprehensive and accurate view of Great Britain’s landscape. This will be complimented by data from the UKHO, the Met Office and the British Geological Survey. To date, Geovation has supported over 130 location-data and PropTech start-ups which have raised more than £116m of funding and created over 1,700 jobs. “The coastal challenge is a great way to inspire and drive collaboration using geospatial, maritime and meteorological data so that innovators, with the support from our Geovation community, can devise sustainable solutions in order to tackle critical environmental issues,” said Carly Morris, Head of Geovation.
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$1.2m in grants for more space projects A new toolkit that will make space missions quicker, cheaper, more accurate and safer is among a series of projects being backed by the federal government to grow the local sector and create new jobs. Industrial Sciences Group will receive $442,320 to further develop its Space Mission Analytics Toolkit, which is already earmarked for use by contractors on upcoming NASA lunar missions. The toolkit includes software that helps space companies simulate missions so they can fine-tune their designs before investing in costly space hardware. Once a mission launches, the toolkit can also monitor and analyse tracking data to support orbit determination. It’s one of three projects that will share in more than $1.2 million under round four of the Moon to Mars Supply Chain Capability Improvement Grants Program. Minister for Science and Technology, Melissa Price, said the government is backing small and medium sized businesses as part of the mission to triple the space sector’s size to $12 billion and create up to 20,000 new jobs by 2030. “This is another example of the incredible space capability that exists in Australia,” Minister Price said. “Space is critical to our everyday lives and is also a growing economic powerhouse, so by investing in these projects we’re investing in the future of Australia.” The other two projects receiving a Supply Chain Capability Improvement Grant are: Infinity Avionics (ACT), which has received $456,323 to develop a modular imaging unit for space applications. Blueprint Lab (NSW), which has received $317,844 to transfer its advanced robotic manipulator technology into the space domain.
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Head of the Australian Space Agency, Enrico Palermo, said he’s confident these projects had the potential to leave a mark on the industry. “I’m consistently impressed by the space technologies being developed here in Australia and know that our businesses and researchers have what it takes to make a real impression on the global stage,” Mr Palermo said. “We are continuing to build momentum in the local space sector and enhancing our credentials as a serious space nation.” The $150 million Moon to Mars initiative is part of more than $800 million invested by the federal government into the civil space sector since 2018. The Moon to Mars Supply Chain Capability Improvement program offers grants of between $250,000 and $1 million, with applications open until 1 May 2023. www.spatialsource.com.au 13
q&a “Unfortunately, TAFE programs are shutting down in a number of places - so, for instance, there are no TAFE courses in the ACT, NT, Queensland and Tasmania.”
Q&A with Michelle Blicavs The surveying sector faces a number of challenges but equally it has a lot of inherent strengths and opportunities.
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ichelle Blicavs is Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Consulting Surveyors National, an industry body that represents businesses that are in surveying, such as consulting surveying firms. She’s also the CEO of the state body for NSW, Consulting Surveyors NSW. Now four years into the roles, she came with a background as a local government councillor, having spent six years from 2011 with Wollongong City Council. “I understood about the DA process, I understood about property development, land development, green-field subdivision, building apartments and strata,” she says. “That was where my knowledge and experience came from.” Tell us about CSN and its roles and goals
The Association of Consulting Surveyors National was formed in 2011 to promote the profession of surveying, representing and supporting the interest of surveying consultancies through relevant training and connection to build business acumen. Surveying is historically where it all started. As technology has bounded ahead, the role of the surveyor has changed and the business of surveying has expanded to embrace planning and engineering and other allied professions. But we’ve always had surveyors, we’ve always measured boundaries, and created places for people to live. Surveying remains a huge part of any civilisation. All of our first explorers in Australia were surveyors. We’re very proud of 14 position February/March 2022
saying that Thomas Mitchell and George Washington were surveyors. Countries around the globe were founded by surveyors because surveyors were the first explorers. So what does that mean for us in 2022? It means that surveyors are still doing that exploration. A surveyor is the first person on any job site and they’re often the last person to leave. So when the government gets an idea that we need to build a bridge or we need to build a tunnel or we need to build a road, the first person they have to engage is a surveyor. ACS has always been strong on advocacy and communication, and our partnerships with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Construction Industry Forum and the Property Council of Australia provide significant value to our members. With a seat on the employment and skills committee in ACCI, we were able to advocate on the skills shortage that saw surveyors returned to the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List (PMSOL). Anything that’s impacting surveying companies and the broader industry, that’s what CSN will take on. The skills shortage has been confirmed by our research and delivery of the demand for skills in geospatial profession study. We use that document regularly and we’re having requests now to have it updated, because of COVID. Our connections with government at a federal level, but also at various state levels, ensure the government knows who surveyors are and the value they add to the Australian economy.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the sector?
The biggest challenge continues to be the skills shortage. The skills shortage has been a challenge for more than 10 years in surveying and spatial. Now, most professions and most employers are facing skill shortages. But we are fortunate in surveying that we have been tackling this issue for 10 years, through the Surveying Taskforce. We’re the distributor in Australia for Get Kids into Survey and have strong connections with schools to help promote the profession. The Surveying Taskforce operates in a majority of Australian states. There’s also a national alliance where we come together and share information and reduce duplication. We’ve just launched a new website, www.surveyingcareers. com.au. It’s been developed to promote and encourage kids to choose a career in surveying. We offer work experience, and we regularly have surveyors go into schools to talk about surveying and promote surveying and spatial information as a career path. We’ve been doing that for 10 years. That means that we have a steady stream of kids coming through the profession. It is working — very slowly, but it is working. In NSW, we have a partnership with the NSW Department of Education, and in 2022 a new iSTEM subject, ‘Surveying your World’ will be piloted. We expect potentially some 10,000 year 9 and 10 students will have the opportunity to undertake that course. Whether they choose to go into surveying as a
career, at least they’ll have knowledge of what surveying is and how it works in the real world. Once someone has chosen to go into surveying, what hurdles do they face?
The biggest hurdle is the length of time it takes to become a surveyor. It’s a four to five years at university, and if you start in vocational education there may be an additional one or two years. After you receive your degree most states require two years practical experience before you enter the registration process which is often a further two years. So it can be six to eight years to become a registered or licensed surveyor. Every state is slightly different in the registration process, but the time that it takes to get through that process is a challenge for the industry and something that the surveyor’s boards are currently reviewing alongside industry. Consulting Surveyors National will certainly make strong submissions towards any consultation around changes to these processes on behalf of our member firms. What are the job prospects for graduates?
The majority of students are snapped up by the end of their first year at university, and they work in the holidays and study during term. The majority of surveying students in the country are currently being trained through the University of Southern Queensland, and that’s remote learning. But it’s part time, so it can take them eight years while they’re working fulltime and studying part time.
How about TAFE and its role?
We are seeing a challenge in the training of technical or engineering surveyors, and that’s because that training path has always been mainly only through TAFE. Unfortunately, TAFE programs are shutting down in a number of places. There are currently no TAFE courses in the Northern Territory or Tasmania, and haven’t been for some time. The course in the ACT shut down in 2019 and the course in Queensland shut down in 2020. There’s nothing in NSW north of Newcastle, and if you want to study in Victoria you can only go through RMIT in Melbourne. This is a significant issue for the industry. Consulting Surveyors National has taken the initiative to launch the Surveyors Academy, which will be teaching the Certificate IV in Surveying and Spatial Information and the Diploma in Surveying in 2022. We’ve partnered with the University of Southern Queensland and the Surveyors Trust, and partnered with a Registered Training Organisation for the delivery. We have employed a qualified educator who is renowned across industry. Peta Cox has been employed fulltime to develop the course content, connect with teachers and engage with potential students and their employers. In February we have almost 100 expressions of interest to take part in this course, which will be offered nationally. The courses will offered through employers and it will be teacher-led, on-the-job learning. The delivery is designed to ensure that students are available for work, but given time to study.
CSN is happy to take the lead on this, but this is an industry need and an industry challenge, and we look forward to working with SSSI and other partners around the country to deliver this course and ensure we have the trained, skilled professionals that we need. What about diversity? Does the sector have work to do in this regard?
We do have a diversity issue, and it’s not just a lack of women — it’s diversity of race as well as gender. But I am seeing more diverse students coming through the registration process; certainly in NSW. So that’s encouraging to see. But we may need to consider streamlining the process, without lowering the standard, to support international surveyors through the process. We look forward to the current process being discussed around competency standards. We have a number of partnerships internationally and we would love to see where we could potentially share skills across countries. Automatic mutual recognition presents some challenges but also opportunities for our industry to diversify and review our processes. The other challenge is having surveying recognised in its professional standing amongst other growing professions. Particularly when it comes to the prices and fees that we charge. I get calls in my office saying, “Oh, I’ve just realised that I need a surveyor on my site — can you get somebody here today?” Now, you don’t call your lawyer and ask, “Can I get in to see you today?” You don’t call your oncologist or your heart surgeon and expect that you
“The biggest hurdle is the length of time it takes to become a surveyor.”
©stock.adobe.com/au/Gorodenkoff
www.spatialsource.com.au 15
q&a will get an appointment today. You make an appointment six weeks out. Yet in surveying there’s this expectation that you can just call them up, they’re not doing anything, they can just drop tools and come and service you. You can’t get a plumber of builder to come right away. Surveying’s no different. Are surveyors not seen as being in the same league as other professions?
Surveyors, in my view, are salt of the earth. They are on site when needed, they do their job, they do what’s needed — they’re absolutely the best problem-solvers on the planet. The nature of a surveyor means they’re not outspoken, they don’t speak up and they don’t push their agenda and they don’t push their own barrow. As a result, other professions have pushed forward. There are some changes happening in NSW in planning legislation, but again it’s potentially knocking surveyors out. The government needs to be aware of who surveyors are and what they do and the value they add. Surveyors tell stories of firms charging the same rates as they were 10 years ago. I can’t buy milk for the same prices as 10 years ago. Why can I buy a surveyor’s time for the same rate as 10 years ago? What can be done to solve that problem?
CSN does a national hourly rates survey to evaluate what the rates are around the country, and we also do a national salary survey to evaluate the current salaries paid around the country. The variation can be
quite dramatic. This is a real challenge for the industry because part of the problem is that surveyors don’t appreciate their own value. I’ve heard stories of people who say, “I have a device now that makes it faster and easier to do the job, therefore I’ll charge less”. That device can cost upwards of $100,000! Surveyors go to university and they learn how to be fabulous surveyors – the best surveyors in the world come out of Australia. But what they don’t learn is how to run the business. There is an expectation that once you get your registration or licence, that you should then run the business. But nobody’s taught them how to run the business. So one of the things we’re doing to take the lead and combat this problem is via education through the ACS Business Academy. We’ve graduated about 40 surveyors from our Business Academy in the last two years. They get the post-nominals GACS, Graduate of ACS. And we are teaching them key business skills — profitability, managing people, risk, marketing, strategy, financial management — taught across a six-month period. They’re taught by highly qualified professional people including surveyors who are recognised for operating the most successful surveying firms. It’s a course that’s been developed by the industry for the industry. The problem when you do a management degree or any sort of management training, they teach you stories from Apple and Kodak and Microsoft and Google, which is just not
very relevant for surveyors. So we teach surveying company examples and we provide them with a number of resources that really help them grow and expand from current management and business thinking. And we see some fabulous results as our surveying firms grow and expand and get better policies in place, better procedures, and ultimately become more profitable. How do you see 2022 lining up for CSN?
It’s a fabulous industry. Our tagline at CSN is ‘Vital to Australia’s development,’ and we absolutely believe that. And we’re encouraging surveyors everywhere to stand up, to be proud of the profession that they are a part of, to speak out boldly about who they are and what they do. If they’re not sure how to do that, come and talk to us — we’d love to help them. The other thing that we’re very strong on is bringing our members together and trying to ensure that they can gather and share and discuss across state borders. We like to gather people together nationally, and we’ll be doing that in June 2022 at our conference in Port Douglas. We’re very pleased that we often manage to have most of the Surveyors-General together each year to discuss what’s happening more broadly across the sector. And that’s a very important thing — that we don’t just get together in our regions or our states, but that we do actually come together across state borders to have the discussion about how we can uplift the profession to ensure that we have a strong surveying industry into the future. n ©stock.adobe.com/au/Steve
“The government needs to be aware of who surveyors are, what they do and the value they add.”
16 position February/March 2022
smart data ©stock.adobe.com/au/Painterstock
$40m boost for NSW’s Spatial Digital Twin The Spatial Digital Twin is being enhanced with 4D capabilities and mobile-friendly access.
N National DEM 5m LiDAR overlaid across a map of NSW. Screenshot taken from the NSW Spatial Digital Twin website.
Survey mark locations overlaid across the suburbs surrounding Sydney Airport. Screenshot taken from the NSW Spatial Digital Twin website.
Over the last 12 months the Spatial Digital Twin has received 18 million requests for access to 3D datasets.
SW’s Spatial Digital Twin is being given a $40 million boost from the state government’s Digital Restart Fund (DRF) to enable it to provide a 4D model for the entire state. The award-winning Spatial Digital Twin collates data sources from across government including spatial, natural resources and planning, and mixes it with real time feeds from sensors to provide insights for planners, designers and decision makers. “This investment will cement NSW’s position as the world leader when it comes to Spatial Digital Twin technology,” said Minister for Digital and Customer Service, Victor Dominello. “This digital architecture makes it possible to visualise a development digitally before it is physically built, making it easier to plan and predict outcomes of infrastructure projects, right down to viewing how shadows fall, or how much traffic is in an area.” Over the last 12 months the Spatial Digital Twin has received 18 million requests for access to 3D datasets. To be progressively rolled out across the whole state over the next two years, it currently hosts virtual representations of eight highgrowth council areas: • Blue Mountains • Camden • Campbelltown • Fairfield
• • • •
Hawkesbury Liverpool Penrith Wollondilly The Spatial Digital Twin is also now accessible on mobile devices, “making it easier for customers to collaborate and gain planning information about their streets, neighbourhoods and communities,” Minister Dominello said. The mobile-friendly version was developed by the Department of Customer Service’s Spatial Services team in partnership with Data61. The Spatial Digital Twin forms part of the recently launched Live.NSW program. DRF investment in the program will include development of the Live.NSW customer platform, which is intended to simplify user experience and enable members of the community to search for information based on their needs and places of interest. “The Live.NSW customer platform can be used to inform life decisions like where to move based on school catchments, as well as improving engagement with government planning and delivery,” Mr Dominello said. The Live.NSW customer platform will launch in early 2022, and is just one element of a wider NSW Government plan that has been allocated $2.1 billion across four years for investment in digital transformation projects. n www.spatialsource.com.au 17
positioning
Innovations in GNSS
Figure 1. GPS equipment used to be large. Here, the author is sitting on the antenna box.
PETER TERRETT
Rapid innovation has made it possible for more users to take advantage of accurate positioning technology.
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he last time I had an article on GPS/ GNSS published in Position was way back in the Dec/Jan 2014 issue. A lot of significant developments have taken place since then. I love innovation. In fact, after 17 years working in surveying (more than 14 years in geodetic and topographic) I started a business to sell, support, train and innovate in GPS. That was more than 30 years ago. I went to Swinburne uni for many years and (amongst other things) gained a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MEI). When you consider what the technology was when I first started using GPS in 1986, it was amazing then, but dinosaur-like compared to today’s technology. The receivers were large, heavy, 4-channel L1 only and expensive at around $90,000 for a single receiver (see Figure 1). You needed at least two receivers. And the satellite availability was only a few hours per day. These days, we take multi-frequency RTK for granted. In the mid to late 1980s it was post-processed only and required more than an hour of observations simultaneously at both stations. There have been many innovations since my 2014 article… many of them brought about by manufacturers of receivers, others by government (infrastructure) and still others whose technology will be used for many things including satellite positioning.
Receiver design
We have gone from suitcase-sized receivers requiring a car battery to run and a laptop to program and record the data, to ‘palm of the hand’-sized receivers that can link to software on your iOS and Android phone or tablet with incredible specifications. For instance, the Eos Arrow GOLD+ RTK GNSS (see Figure 2) has an integrated battery (145 grams) with 11 hours of life; 800+ channels; DGNSS, SBAS, DFMC, RTK & Post Processed; L1, L2, L5; GPS, Glonass, Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS, and is device agnostic (iOS, Android, Windows). 18 position February/March 2022
Growth of GNSS
In April 1992 there were times when no solution was possible (see Figure 3), as a minimum of three satellites is required for a 2D fix and four satellites for a 3D fix. GPS traditionally refers to the North American Global Positioning System. GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) is a term that refers to the International MultiConstellation Satellite Systems. To be called a GNSS receiver, a device need only use two of the constellations. However, in Australia we have five different constellations that can all work together to provide high performance and high accuracy (see Figure 4): GPS (USA), Glonass (Russian), Galileo (European), BeiDou (Chinese) and QZSS (Japanese). Now we have a minimum of 43 satellites and a maximum of 59 satellites in view above a 10-degree elevation mask. In the future the number of satellites available will increase even further. With a good receiver and antenna and in a GNSS-friendly environment, it is possible to get sub-metre accuracy without any correction service. This level of autonomous accuracy is largely the reason why the Australian Maritime Safety Authority marine GPS base stations were shut down in mid-2020.
Operating system platforms
With the deprecation of Windows Mobile (also Windows CE), which has been an unsupported operating system for two years, there has been a lot of application development for the iOS and Android platforms. Software developers such as Esri (GIS) and Micro Survey (surveying) have invested heavily in developing on Android, and ESRI also on iOS. Many manufacturers still support Windows 10 on a tablet platform as well. Some users will continue with Windows Mobile for a while as it continues to work, but as developers discontinue development it will eventually disappear.
SBAS
The Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) has been around since 2002. North America (WAAS), Europe (EGNOS), India (GAGAN) as well as Japan (MSAS) have fully certified systems in use. There are plans for almost-worldwide coverage (see Figure 5). After running a highly successful SBAS testbed in Australia and New Zealand for around two years, the Australian and New Zealand governments have committed $200 million to build out an SBAS system covering all of the two countries. This has resulted in the unexpected suspension of the testbed during the tender evaluation phase for probity reasons. Annoying, but necessary. Using SBAS, it was not uncommon with a good quality L1 sub metre receiver to get accuracies of 250 to 400 mm anywhere across the coverage region. The plan for the Aus/NZ SBAS is to provide the following services. • Initially sub-metre across the entire region for free • Dual Frequency, Multi Constellation (DFMC) to provide around 100mm accuracy across the entire region for free. Note that an L1, L5 receiver will be required and there will be a significant convergence time for best accuracy. • Precise Point Positioning (PPP). GPS precise orbits and clocks transmitted over L1 and L5.
Galileo HAS (High Accuracy Service)
Galileo’s HAS is designed to provide 200mm (shovel width) accuracy within five minutes in Australia. Galileo HAS will provide differential corrections for GPS and Galileo satellites directly from the Galileo satellites themselves. This will dramatically improve the accuracy of appropriate L1, L5 GNSS receivers worldwide. Galileo HAS is expected to be operational around 2023–24.
Other space-delivered correction services
There are several providers of commercial SBAS, including Atlas, StarFire, RTX, VeriPos, TerraStar and OmniStar, with services that go from sub-metre to sub-100 mm. There is also a marriage between RTK and rolling over to these space-delivered services if you lose the RTK corrections. This enables the extension of near-RTK accuracy for 15 minutes during such outages. Different manufacturers have names such as SafeRTK (Eos) or RTK Extend (NavCom). Typically, if using sub-100mm SBAS services, there is a significant convergence time to get to best accuracy. This could be 30 minutes if you have a good view of the sky. However, if you can get an RTK fix for a minute, this will allow high-accuracy DFMC without the normal convergence time. Also, some manufacturers support a ‘Known Point Initialisation’ which could be the point you occupied when you last turned off the receiver or coordinates in the correct datum entered whilst occupying a survey mark.
Geoscience Australia mountpoints
Geoscience Australia has made available free access to many GNSS mountpoints (base stations) throughout Australia and beyond. There are some restrictions, being: • A single base station at a time • GDA 2020 datum in Australia • ITRF 2014 datum outside Australia • Ellipsoidal height
Figure 2. The Eos Arrow GOLD+ RTK GNSS unit.
Figure 3. In the early 1990s there were times when no GPS solution was possible.
The corrections are suitable for submetre (L1 receivers) as well as RTK (dualor multi-frequency). In many cases the base station supports all in-view constellations and multi (L1, L2, L5) frequencies. If you require GDA94 and/or AHD height, then a discussion needs to happen to ensure this can be done correctly within the available software you are using
StarLink
Elon Musk’s Starlink will provide worldwide satellite-delivered Internet services. This will extend RTK corrections into areas where there is base station infrastructure coverage but no wireless coverage. For instance, Victoria has full CORSNet coverage but not full wireless data coverage. Starlink is very much at the introductory stage but coverage will increase, and it is expected that omnidirectional antennas will become available, allowing for much more mobility.
Summary
Besides the obvious advantages of lower cost, better equipment (smaller, lighter, easier to use) and more features, one of the great benefits of all this innovation is that GNSS is no longer in the realm of just surveyors. There is now the ability for non-spatial professionals to confidently use GNSS and appropriately configured software, to record field data to provide accurate and timely information at a lower cost. With Esri field software, this data can be synchronised when in mobile data range so as to be immediately available on the desktop GIS.
The range of these professionals is vast, from pipeline maintenance engineers to cultural heritage consultants, from environmental engineers to asset managers, from farmers to biosecurity experts and so on. Augmenting GNSS with other sensors makes for safer cars; more accurate mobile mapping for assets and pavement defects in road corridors; digital twins; and safer landings for aircraft in poor weather. GNSS developments and supporting infrastructure will continue to evolve, providing even greater benefits for more users. In some cases, the equipment will be transparent such as in car navigation. In other cases, education and support will be required by spatial professionals to ensure that the field users are using the correct datums, gravity models and equipment. Location has become another utility ike electricity, smart phones or the Internet. It is easy to take high-accuracy location for granted, but it has not always been available to so many at such a low cost. I sometimes describe it as ‘phenominormal’ — it is phenomenal and yet it is so transparent that it has become normal. n Peter Terrett is a GNSS consultant with more than 35 years hands-on experience. He started 4D Global Pty Ltd in 1991 (then labelled as Global Star) and has provided hardware, software, training, and consulting services to thousands of professionals throughout Australia and beyond. 4D Global is part of the Rapid Map Global Group of companies.
Figure 4. Australians have access to GPS (USA), Glonass (Russian), Galileo (European), BeiDou (Chinese) and QZSS (Japanese).
Figure 5. Several Satellite Based Augmentation System schemes are already in use around the world.
www.spatialsource.com.au 19
machine learning
Reshaping Victoria’s foundation vegetation datasets Vicmap Vegetation Tree Density shows the presence of woody vegetation and has been divided into three distinct density classes. The density classes show the spatial separation of woody vegetation of dense, medium and sparse. It has been derived from the Vicmap Vegetation Tree Extent dataset. All images © State of Victoria (DELWP).
Victoria’s DELWP has used machine learning techniques to refresh the state’s 20-year-old tree cover dataset.
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ccurate and up-to-date vegetation mapping is critical for understanding urban heat in our cities, monitoring our environment and supporting emergency response and fire hazard assessment. In Victoria, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) recently completed a project to refresh its 20-year-old statewide tree cover dataset — Vicmap Vegetation Density. Maintaining the vegetation density dataset has historically been a challenge because of the intensive manual-labour and costs involved. For the first time, DELWP has used emerging machine learning technology to update and create a Vicmap product, meaning more up-to-date and relevant data for customers. The project applied machine learning technology to existing aerial imagery and elevation data to identify statewide tree canopy extent, statewide tree spatial density and individual tree points in urban areas. To complete the project, DELWP’s Vicmap Spatial Services partnered with FrontierSI to update the vegetation datasets 20 position February/March 2022
and used DELWP’s extensive collection of aerial imagery as the basis of the machine learning process. They also implemented an automated and repeatable process for refreshing the products regularly. The Vicmap Tree Extent is now available at 20cm resolution, a 2,500-fold improvement in resolution compared to the previous 10m resolution and made possible only by combining high-resolution remote sensing data with emerging machine learning techniques. This improved resolution will enable users to conduct detailed, site-level analysis as well landscape-scale studies. The datasets will also be available for 3D visualisation and analysis through the new Digital Twin Victoria Platform (https:// www.land.vic.gov.au/maps-and-spatial/ projects-and-programs/digital-twinvictoria) when it launches later this year.
Technique
The project leveraged two AI techniques belonging to the field of computer vision: semantic segmentation and object detection. In the digital image processing field,
CAT GILBERT, JOHN WHITE AND CAITLIN ADAMS
semantic segmentation enables the pixellevel classification in an image, meaning that it classifies the pixels into their corresponding classes. Object detection is a branch of machine learning focused on extracting meaningful patterns and objects from images. It classifies the patches of an image into different object classes and creates a bounding box around that object. FrontierSI and a team from Orbica Ltd created training datasets that would enable the machine learning algorithm to learn how to identify the visual characteristics of tree canopies. Computer vision models were trained to classify pixels in DELWP’s 20cm imagery as trees/non-trees by showing the models many examples of how people identify areas of tree cover across Victoria. The trained model was then used to classify images across 43 of DELWP’s imagery projects, producing a statewide raster tree cover product. The result was then generalised into a statewide density polygon vector layer, which categorised the spatial density of tree cover into Dense, Medium and Sparse categories. The project also included identifying
individual tree points in urban areas. Using the machine learning feature extraction (MLFE) proof of concept that DELWP conducted in 2018–19, an additional computer vision model was trained to identify individual trees in urban areas across metro Melbourne and four regional councils: Ballarat, Sale, Shepparton and Wangaratta. The tree points represent tree centres, along with their radial extent, and an estimated height from a digital surface model or canopy height model derived from associated LiDAR captures. The statewide tree canopy extent was then evaluated by comparing it to human delineated extents or tree points and comparing the intersection over union values — a measurement of how well the model identified trees correctly. This was done for 12 regions across Victoria with different woody vegetation characteristics. The statewide product has an overall accuracy of 80%, but six of the test regions have accuracies above 95%, indicating that some regions performed better than others. The project would not have been possible without the imagery archive held by DELWP’s Coordinated Imagery Program, which includes aerial imagery dating all the way back to the 1940s. The imagery archive is added to annually through proactive, coordinated data acquisition across Victorian program partners and represents the most comprehensive high-resolution imagery dataset for Victoria. The team processed more than 35 terabytes of aerial imagery on Amazon Web Services’ cloud-computing services for the statewide products. Without this level of automation and scalability, the creation of the new products would have been impractical using traditional manual digitisation methods.
the process. There are a small number of robust and open-source machine learning algorithms that can be successfully applied to similar sets of machine learning problems, but their success depends on the quality of the training datasets that they are given. These training datasets also need to be localised to the attribute that they are being used to detect. For example, houses look different in many parts of India, America and Australia. A machine learning process to detect residential buildings that has been trained on one region and then applied to another will be full of errors. The same applies to vegetation. In Victoria’s western Mallee, scrubland trees are short and sparse, adapted to the low rainfall conditions. But Victoria also hosts wet temperate rainforests. The model and the training datasets need to accommodate regional variation across the area of interest.
Lessons learned
Understanding the level of post processing and human intervention and review throughout the process is critical. For example, categories were defined by updating the existing Vegetation product’s ruleset to suit the higher resolution product. This ensured that the new vegetation density dataset is like the existing Vicmap Vegetation product but has far
The project encountered several challenges that produced useful insights. Investment in the training datasets is key.
The first lesson was that the quality of the training data is more important than the quantity. Training data sets are critical inputs into
As the data is updated, continual assessment of the model’s performance is required.
The accuracy of the machine learning model will need to be consistently reassessed to determine if it needs to be re-trained when new imagery is introduced to maintain the accuracy and performance of the model. This may mean that new imagery surveys include the parallel development of new validation data sets to be used for this purpose. High resolution aerial photography must have a consistent level of quality across projects.
The machine learning models implemented performed best where the imagery was consistent in quality. In some areas the photography varied in quality, resulting in a lower accuracy. Human intervention is still required throughout the process.
greater detail. This process involved dozens of experts from across the field to provide input and discuss the pros and cons of different ways to define the ruleset. Human input into the models gives them meaning and ensures they can be used and interpreted appropriately.
Future developments
The lessons from this project have already begun to inform how DELWP quality assures our aerial imagery, which will have affects back to imagery suppliers. Systematic processing errors in imagery which may have passed visual inspection — and be suitable for the use of imagery as a context layer — can become obvious and significant when the imagery is used in downstream ML-AI processes. Internally, the Vicmap and Digital Twin Victoria programs in DELWP are investing in developing new data science capabilities and have created new dedicated data science roles. These staff are collaborating with peers across the Victorian public sector and with other jurisdictions through the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) to build up communities of practice for this rapidly evolving domain. Finally, we know through the establishment in Victoria of the Geospatial Data and Analytics Panel, which has a new category dedicated to Geospatial Analytics, that the Australian market is progressing rapidly and offering a range of new and world-leading products and services. We anticipate greater engagement between the public and private sector over the next few years as we work together to apply these emerging spatial technologies to the most pressing and complex problems in our communities. n Cat Gilbert and John White are with Vicmap Spatial Services, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and Caitlin Adams is with FrontierSI. The datasets are available on datashare. maps.vic.gov.au. To gain access to imagery and elevation datasets, contact coordinated. imagery@delwp.vic.gov.au. If you want to learn more, visit the VicMap team at the Locate Conference 2022.
Human delineated tree extents helped to train and assess the accuracy of the Vicmap Vegetation Tree Urban machine learning model.
The machine learning model identified tree extents and assigned a confidence value to the outputs.
www.spatialsource.com.au 21
partner feature
Melbourne-based Nobelius Land Surveyors is using the Leica GS18 I on a daily basis, with the company’s Survey Manager, Stuart Wilson (pictured) saying it has capabilities “unlike anything else we had seen”.
The key to faster, more accurate surveying Leica’s innovative new RTK rover, the GS18 I, is opening up new possibilities for more productivity in the field and the office.
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elbourne-based Nobelius Land Surveyors, a family-owned business, offers a wide variety of cadastral and topographical surveying services, from small urban re-developments of from 2 to 6 lots, to large-scale projects of more than 2,000 lots. And that work is now being made easier with the arrival of the Leica GS18 I. A lot of Nobelius’ work involves cadastral/feature and level surveys in and around Melbourne, with individual crews sometimes having to survey up to five sites per day across the city and eastern Victoria. With such distances between sites, the ability to quickly survey on location is crucial to the company’s success. After performing traverse work, the crew’s party leader and assistant often engage 22 position February/March 2022
in separate jobs. Using teams of two, they can split up, with the party leader using the Leica TS10 for the cadastral measurements and the survey assistant using GNSS to capture feature and level data. The data is uploaded to SharePoint from the field tablets for the company’s drafts people to start drawing plans even before the crew arrives at its next site. The data is ASCII for the measurements and Leica DBX if using the GNSS with imaging. “Our field crews constantly have trouble getting line of site for the Leica TS10 total stations through obstructions such as trees, fences and buildings within the suburban/residential allotments,” said Nobelius’ Survey Manager, Stuart Wilson. “Obtaining measurements accurately by going over fences and around trees with the
GS18 I enables us to work faster and more accurately than with our previous methods of measuring and sketching.” Wilson has been in the surveying sector for a long time, having started 18 years ago as a survey assistant to Ken Nobelius. He worked his way up to become a party leader and was appointed Survey Manager three years ago. He says the company is an early adopter of new technology. “In a competitive market, Nobelius is trying to always improve the speed and accuracy of our survey work,” he said. “We are mostly a young, up-and-coming survey team, so we are all eager to learn more and figure out how to use technology to improve our business and make our jobs easier.” “This in turn enables us to deliver fast, high-quality data to our clients.”
“The infield point extraction from images was unlike anything else we had seen.” Stuart Wilson, Nobelius Land Surveyors
This approach is what has led the company to the new Leica GS18 I, an innovative RTK rover that features visual positioning technology based around the seamless integration of GNSS, IMU and a camera. Wilson says that an initial webinar briefing showed him that the unit has an ability to measure that is “unlike anything we have done before”. So he needed to see more. “C.R. Kennedy is our main supplier of survey equipment, and they were more than happy to come to us for a demonstration. Peter Barstow came out and did a demonstration in front of the entire survey team,” he said. “The GS18 I lock was impressive under difficult conditions and the infield point extraction from images was unlike anything else we had seen.” Thus, following the demonstration, the company loaned a unit to test it for themselves before making a purchase. Wilson said the acid test was the ability to obtain measurements over a fence, “since this is the biggest issue we face on site — we have this problem constantly”. “Tilt functionality, as well as the improved performance under trees, excited us and got us thinking more about different features we can measure,” he said. “The imaging feature then adds another level of usability, and tests showed the accuracies were great.” According to Wilson, the company’s surveyors had always had difficulty accurately locating habitable and nonhabitable windows nine metres around the subject site for the working drawings to be made. “The standard height of residential fences made it virtually impossible to use a total station to measure the features required,” he said. “We needed to find a way to quickly and accurately measure features for the drawings. The previous way was to use a ladder and disto to sketch these features.” A typical survey run will see the company’s surveyors use the GS18 I (tilt measurements) for as much feature and level work as required, followed by imaging runs. The accuracy of each image group is checked as it is taken to ensure the crew is happy with the data quality. The data is
then exported and the files uploaded to SharePoint for the office work to be done. That’s followed by creation of the additional points in Leica Infinity software for the features they want to extract. These are then exported and added to the TS10 data in a CAD program so that plan drawing can commence. “Recording the images allows us to also remeasure anything we capture,” said Wilson. “If any architects or drafts people require extra information, the data is always there.” Wilson says using the GS18 I means less time spent on site (with the unit being around 20% faster than previous methods), more accurate data is produced, and there’s no need to get the ladder from the car to look over a fence or position awkwardly over a fence. And that’s not all — Nobelius hasn’t yet fully explored all the possibilities the GS18 I has to offer. “The ability of creating a point cloud from the images is something we might investigate later, knowing that we if we are asked to provide this for a client, we have the capabilities to do so,” he said. Wilson says the tilt, speed of measurement and how well the GS18 I initialises has been a surprise, as has the ease at which the company’s surveyors can now collect more data than ever before compared to using the old GNSS instruments. “It is fast and accurate, has fantastic performance under trees, and opens up a new way of thinking for collecting measurements on a site,” he said. Summarising, Wilson says the top three advantages to using the GS18 I are: • The ability to measure over fences • Having an accurate record of the feature and how it was calculated • Having images to show designers and office staff He adds that with the minimal price difference, it makes more sense to choose the imaging option over the tilt. “Over the lifespan of the equipment, it will save you more money than it costs for the upgrade,” he said. “The ability to use images to extract points in the field as well as back in the office, enables you to review images later in case of a missed measurement.” n www.spatialsource.com.au 23
research resources
A roadmap for critical national infrastructure Geospatial resources, space development, data use and skills development are on Australia’s research agenda.
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n December 2021, the federal Department of Education, Skills and Employment released an exposure draft of the 2021 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap, which is being put together by an Expert Working Group led by Dr Ziggy Switkowski. The purpose of the Roadmap is to outline the national research infrastructure (NRI) ecosystem that will be required over the coming decade in order for Australia to maintain research excellence, increase innovation and address emerging research challenges. The Roadmap touches upon many areas that of great interest to the surveying, spatial and space sectors. Among the trends it has identified are: • The digital revolution is making modern research rapid and data intensive, with AI/ML, IoT and automation accelerating research outputs. • Modern research is open, global, collaborative and increasingly mission-driven. Convergent and multidisciplinary research is necessary to address complex challenges. • Access to high quality datasets requires strong national leadership, direction and coordination to deliver systematic data management and archival mechanisms. • Researchers of the future will expect a seamless ecosystem of facilities
©iStockphoto/Trifonov_Evgeniy
24 position February/March 2022
and services. Interfaces will be easily accessible, with no separation between physical instrumentation, digital tools and the necessary supporting skills and expertise. • Researchers will design and test on computers before starting physical experimentation and laboratories will be augmented by sensors, robotics and AI/ML. • Human capital is vital, with both technical expertise and a skilled workforce becoming increasingly important. Progressively complex instrumentation and exponentially growing datasets necessitate collaboration between researchers and well-trained technical experts to best utilise research infrastructure and carefully interpret results. • Increased collaboration, within and between different research areas and with industry, will require facilities to be multipurpose and serve many disciplines and industries.
Environment and resources
The Roadmap identifies a range of areas of “increasing prominence and national importance,” such as quantum technology, advanced climate modelling and materials science, but also Earth observation from space. It notes that “such observation is used for weather prediction and climate
JONATHAN NALLY
studies, environmental monitoring, mining and decision-making in agriculture and resource management” and that “Greater capability in this area will improve policy settings and management of natural environments and generate agricultural and industrial development opportunities.” The Roadmap affirms that the resources and critical minerals processing sectors are vital to Australia’s long-term prosperity, noting that the resource sector “contributes approximately 10 per cent of Australia’s GDP and is expected to generate $349 billion in exports in 2021–22, accounting for more than 50 per cent of total national exports”. Research to support this sector should be underpinned by research infrastructure, including integrated “national geo-mapping data” that “includes high-resolution geoscience data and information about the potential mineral, energy and groundwater resources concealed beneath the surface”. It adds that a “national geo-mapping database will enable interoperability of data and support enhanced identification of sites with high prospects of containing critical minerals”. The environment and climate are also singled out as priority areas, with the draft report nothing that “Not responding to climate change could be costly with modelling predicting losses of $19 billion in reduced agricultural productivity by 2030,
Better coordination of satellite and ground-based observational infrastructures could improve interconnections, drive efficiency and allow richer datasets to be collected.
$39 billion per year in natural disaster costs by 2050 and over $225 billion in lost assets from sea level rise by 2100”. Addressing environmental and climate challenges will require a variety of research infrastructure capabilities, including: • Marine, coastal, freshwater and atmospheric monitoring and observation infrastructure, including sea-floor mapping vehicles, observation and monitoring of Australia’s coastal, estuarine and freshwater environments and atmospheric measurement. • Integrated, publicly accessible environmental datasets covering urban, biodiversity, terrestrial, ocean, freshwater, estuarine and atmospheric data from national, state and territory monitoring programs. The report calls for continental-scale observations that “produce and continually update datasets of national significance that are beyond the capacity of individual researchers to collect” to enable researchers to “identify national trends and understand terrestrial ecosystems, biodiversity, geology, oceans, coasts, climate and atmosphere, and how they are changing”. The Roadmap has identified “gaps” in Australia’s continental-scale observational capability, in sectors such as the marine domain, atmospheric and air quality monitoring and biodiversity and biosecurity monitoring. “The requirement for wide spatial coverage, in addition to working in remote and challenging locations, makes the benefits of well-integrated continental observation infrastructures significant,” the draft says.
Space and data
Space capability is another sector identified as being essential to Australia’s interests, with the exposure draft noting that “Space technologies enable activity across the economy” and that “Space capabilities underpin innovation in communications, navigation (GPS), space situational awareness, and Earth observation capabilities”. It adds that “Research to advance
©iStockphoto/ Ataur
The Roadmap has identified “gaps” in Australia’s continental-scale observational capability.
space technology… research should be underpinned by… Earth observation infrastructure” that “includes satellite imaging, sensor networks, LiDAR technologies, data storage and ground calibration sites”. It goes on to say that “Increasingly, satellite data is being used in a wide range of observational applications, complementing ground-based and autonomous (eg drone) sensor networks. Earth observation capacity requires timely high-resolution satellite images, groundbased calibration stations and the expertise and software tools to produce datasets. Better coordination of satellite and groundbased observational infrastructures could improve interconnections, drive efficiency and allow richer datasets to be collected.” The challenge of storing and maintaining those datasets has also attracted the attention of the draft’s authors. “With the rapidly increasing amounts of data generated, increasing data storage capacity is needed as a national research asset especially for long-term preservation,” they say. “Researchers may want to use data in 30 years and need certainty that they will be able to do so. Preservation standards, storage architectures and interoperability all need to be considered for any data storage solutions such as data repositories.” A National Digital Research Infrastructure (NDRI) is also on the agenda, with the Roadmap draft’s authors acknowledging that “The future involves immense amounts of data from increasingly sophisticated and precise instrumentation. To manage this, key elements of computing processing power, data storage, expertise and researcher skills will be critical and require ecosystem-wide cooperation and planning.” This will involve: • “The formulation of a clear Australian plan towards achieving exascale.
Exascale computing could constitute a game-changer for the Australian research and innovation landscape • Unified data storage solutions that allow data to remain close and accessible to computing services. This will require integration of existing disparate data repositories as well as building new repositories, able to accommodate largescale datasets • Researcher training (data analysis and synthesis, AI/ML, data standards) to ensure that any data generated and stored will be FAIR [Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable], align with the CARE [Collective benefit, Authority, Responsibility and Ethics] principles and have appropriate metadata for use and reuse.” Finally, as is well known, one of the biggest challenges facing Australia is the development of a highly skilled workforce sufficient to meet our needs. The report notes that “One of the immediate priorities for the Expert NRI Advisory Group should be the development of an NRI Workforce Strategy”. “A NRI Workforce Strategy could drive coordinated improvements in NRI career pathways and technical skills shortages,” the draft goes on to say. “The Strategy should consider how staff development is embedded in future NRI investment planning, and how to cultivate sustainable career options for a new generation of NRI staff. Apprenticeships, better recognition of technical staff, improved external and internal training programs and the development of non-pay incentives have been suggested as possible solutions…” A lot more is covered in the Roadmap exposure draft, which can be found at https://www.dese.gov.au/national-researchinfrastructure. Consultations have now closed, and a final version is expected to be released in early 2022. n www.spatialsource.com.au 25
year of the career
Inclusion for innovation in geospatial and surveying ROSHNI SHARMA
Boosting diversity and inclusion can be a win-win for your organisation and the industry as a whole. Roshni Sharma is Convenor of the Space, Spatial and Surveying Diversity Leaders Network (SSS-DLN).
T
obler’s First Law of Geography states that “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things”. As surveyors and geospatial professionals we tend to interpret this in a geographical sense; however it applies just as much to the ways in which we work. When the groups we work in or peers we surround ourselves with are similar to us, we are subconsciously more inclined to think in similar ways… but also to miss certain other perspectives, ideas or potential ways of doing things. For a small industry such as ours, we need now more than ever to be able to capitalise on diverse thought to facilitate innovation to access the business benefits this brings. With technological advances rapidly escalating, other industries are also increasing their ability to replicate our processes and methods, but without the deep understanding of data quality that we do… making it even more pressing for us to be able to retain our niche within the global context. Diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging are fundamental issues that affect the surveying and geospatial sectors across the world, in the global north and south, across country borders and at all scales — from small sole traders to multinational organisations. Diversity describes the amount of ‘sameness’ in the composition of a group — and within our global surveying industry, from a demographic basis, 26 position February/March 2022
this sameness tends towards males who are on average fifty years or older. As the world has become more globalised over recent decades, an increase in access to education as well as cultural shifts in many countries have inspired more people from various cultural backgrounds, genders etc — who might differ from the ‘average’ surveyor — to step into the surveying and geospatial industry. These people bring with them perspectives, knowledge and life experiences that help to create a broader, more diverse culture within our industry, including new ways of innovating and creating business benefits.
Diversity and power
There are many features that can make up a person’s identity — gender, age, sexual orientation, cultural background, race, class, worldview, (dis)ability and so on. Some of these tend to be visible (such as gender) and others invisible (such as worldview or Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander background). Additionally, the impact of these attributes may vary according to context. For example, in some situations being a young professional might place you in a context where you inherently hold greater power (such as when speaking to undergraduate students looking for tips on getting into the industry), and other situations you might hold less power (for example, sitting in a meeting room with many experienced colleagues and clients).
The third aspect of diversity as linked to power is that these dynamics can occur at three different levels — interpersonal, institutional and systemic. Institutional power imbalances spread within an organisational culture, influencing the norms for treating people in different ways based on their different identities. Systemic power imbalances occur across countries and generations. These matter because the world we live, work and play in is a social one, and social structures contain social dynamics. Within the workplace, these manifest as unconscious undercurrents of access to opportunity, recognition and fair treatment through power (the level of access to influence or control over others) and privilege… the experience of having access to power as a result of our identity, which provides us with benefits or rights that others may not have as a result of their identity).
The leaky pipeline
The concept of the ‘leaky pipeline’ tells us that diversity is not the whole story. We need to develop inclusion on an industrywide level if we want to retain those coming into the industry, and attract more people as school-leavers or from other industries. Picture a hundred girls in primary school. They hear subconscious societal messages that science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine jobs are more for men rather than
The quality of your workplace culture can elevate your business outcomes much more powerfully than your strategic planning.
© iStockphoto/LvNL
women. During subject selection in high school, the weight of these subconscious societal messages impacts their subject choices, influencing their choices after finishing school. After school, ten girls are studying at TAFE and 70 at university. At TAFE, only two women are studying STEMrelated courses and only one is doing surveying. At university, only 30 are doing STEM-related courses, with five related to surveying and geospatial. Upon graduation, we have one completing her TAFE qualification and three graduating university within surveying and geospatial — the other two have transferred out of the degree they started in. As these four women start working in geospatial, we find that within the first ten years of their career, two of them transition into careers in other fields, finding that the workplace was too isolating for them. The remaining two women are thriving in their careers, however both experience challenges in receiving similar opportunities compared with their male counterparts, and neither of them have ever received the same salary as their male counterparts, despite holding similar or senior positions. One of these women chooses to start a family with her partner, and finds it challenging to return to work after maternity leave without the flexibility to take on the caring responsibilities that come with being a mother, alongside caring for her and her partner’s elderly parents. She
experiences discrimination and microaggressions from her colleagues, and is never able to make it to the managementlevel position for which she once held aspirations. The other woman is able to gain a position on the executive of an organisation, and finds herself making a positive impact on the industry she loves. Despite this, she still experiences a lower salary compared to other men at her level. This story illustrates the leaky pipeline in a very simplified way, not considering other visible or invisible aspects of diversity. It does, however, start to show us how the compounded effects of a lack of diversity translating into inclusion affects our industry’s workforce… something that is of concern as we consider how to retain talent and be able to grow as an industry within the global context.
Business benefits
Drucker’s famous statement, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” highlights that the quality of your workplace culture can elevate your business outcomes much more powerfully than your strategic planning. Having diversity within your workforce or team does not automatically bring benefits. Sometimes, it just creates more friction or greater staff turnover. For diversity to translate into business benefits, it requires the culture of your team or workplace to embrace inclusion to create a sense of belonging. Inclusion is a lesseasily measured feature than diversity, and
refers to a person’s experience within the culture of an organisation, industry or other group. As Verna Myers is often quoted as explaining, “Diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance, and belonging is dancing like no one is watching”. Signs of a diverse, inclusive culture include: • Better decision making through a variety of perspectives, giving rise to robust, respectful discussions • Greater ideation and debate, leading to thought leadership • A culture of belonging, leading to higher employee engagement and greater retention of talent • Greater levels of innovation as a result of psychological safety allowing for failing fast, making mistakes and learning from them, and the ability to try new things together • Making better decisions, faster, leading to increased profits and business results • Increased organisational brand due to healthier and safer culture, attracting top talent more effectively • Stronger ability to respond well to disruptions. The Gartner Inclusion Index identifies seven statements on inclusion — the more that employees agree with these, the higher the level of inclusion in a workforce: • Fair treatment: Employees at my organisation who help the organisation achieve its strategic objectives are www.spatialsource.com.au 27
year of the career © iStockphoto/wildpixel
“ Diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance, and belonging is dancing like no one is watching.” Verna Myers
rewarded and recognised fairly • Integrating differences: Employees at my organisation respect and value each other’s opinions • Decision making: Members of my team fairly consider ideas and suggestions offered by other team members • Psychological safety: I feel welcome to express my true feelings at work • Trust: Communication we receive from the organisation is honest and open • Belonging: People in my organisation care about me • Diversity: Managers at my organisation are as diverse as the broader workforce. Four ways to create greater inclusivity in your culture, as outlined in greater detail in the Harvard Business Review article “How to measure inclusion in the workplace” (May 2021), are: 1. Listening — Hearing from the people who experience exclusion or marginalisation (formally through focus groups or anonymous surveys, or informally) can provide insights into where gaps in inclusion or diversity might lie in the recruitment process, development and recognition process, 28 position February/March 2022
leadership and culture. These insights can be used to create a plan for change. 2. Self-reflection — Culture trickles down from the top, so creating space and accountability for executive and management to reflect upon their leadership behaviours (conscious and unconscious) can contribute towards positive changes in supporting team performance and growth, fostering accountability, conflict resolution, communication and showcasing integrity. 3. Vigilance — Through leaders at various levels within an organisation maintaining vigilance in calling out unacceptable behaviours, and setting the standards for what inclusion and belonging can look like. Calling out micro-aggressions (unconscious but still damaging comments or attitudes around gender, race etc), micro-assaults (discriminatory remarks), microinsults (demeaning remarks), microinvalidations (dismissive remarks) and other micro-inequity can hold the employee body to account and shape a culture that’s more welcoming and
psychologically safe for all employees of all backgrounds and identities. 4. Process changes — Leaders within an organisation are in contact with diverse groups across the business, enabling them to propose and implement process changes that promote inclusion and belonging. So I pass over now to you, dear reader. I invite you to reflect over a cuppa. How will you try to be aware of your unconscious biases and blind spots? What might be some ways you could influence your workplace culture towards greater inclusivity? How can you help others in our incredible industry to feel a greater sense of belonging and help stem that leaky pipeline? n With a background in environmental science and management, human geography, palaeoclimatology and business, Roshni Sharma is a graduate of the Homeward Bound Women in STEMM leadership program, facilitator of the Locate Hub, and Convenor of the Space, Spatial and Surveying Diversity Leaders Network (SSS-DLN). At FrontierSI, Sharma is making it her life’s work to harness location intelligence to create tangible, positive change for society.
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Driving a response to the supply chain crisis
BY C.P. KLINE
A proven roadmap for managing risk and uncertainty.
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hen a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck central Mexico in 2017, General Motors (GM) faced the prospect of serious disruptions to its annual production schedule of over 10 million vehicles. As the crisis unfolded, the company’s supply chain risk management team were able to draw on intelligent mapping tools to physically plot the interdependencies between the automaker’s thousands of suppliers. The insights gave decision-makers at GM a more complete view of the potential impact the crisis could have on the company’s bottom-line and, more importantly, a clear picture of how best to respond. Within hours, GM’s crisis team were able to identify every contractor within a 160-kilometre radius of the earthquake — quickly deploying a plan to get ‘boots on the ground’ support for affected suppliers. In the same year GM was demonstrating a world-leading approach to supply chain disruptions, a Geodis survey identified ‘supply chain visibility’ as the third-highest priority among sector executives. The report sensationally revealed that — while a priority for supply chain execs — only 6% of them had a clear view of their company’s production lifecycle. For GM, the choice to integrate weather feeds and news reports into the company’s geographic information system (GIS), proved to be a masterstroke in crisis response planning. 30 position February/March 2022
GIS underpinned parts of GM’s operation — including management of their 5,500 supplier sites — but had quickly been adapted to become one of the most powerful business information tools in the company’s arsenal. By essentially being configured to ‘listen’ for alarming events, the system was able to quickly inform the crisis team of a potential threat to GM’s operation. The platform was ultimately able to identify more than 700 high-risk events in its first year of operation. GM’s crisis team responded to over one third of these events, saving the company thousands of hours of potential lost productivity.
The perfect storm
The fragility of Australia’s supply chain has been laid bare amidst the perfect storm of Omicron, catastrophic weather events and growing geopolitical tensions. Facing unprecedented threats to their supply chain, anxious business leaders globally have turned to GIS technology and location intelligence for answers. In the case of South Australian government authorities, GIS-based solutions have been deployed to help assess the extent of the damage to roads and railways — the lifeblood of Australia’s supply chain network. When the Stuart Highway in South Australia was cut off during a once-in-200year flood, outback towns between Darwin and Adelaide were isolated for almost two
weeks and key freight routes impeded — leading to food shortages in the Northern Territory. Emergency flights dropped off 36 tonnes of supplies to flood-ravaged Coober Pedy. Cloud-based drone mapping software — SiteScan for ArcGIS — enabled South Australia’s SES to survey an aerial view of the damage, informing planning options for the area and ensuring critical supply chain networks were reinstated.
“ ...while a priority for supply chain execs - only 6% of them had a clear view of their company’s production lifecycle.” Innovative last-mile delivery
Elevated package volumes have been straining carrier networks. For United Parcel Service (UPS), seconds add up to minutes, and minutes add up to millions. A case in point — in 2017, one minute of a driver’s idle time was worth over $515,000 USD. For the past twenty years, UPS worked on a way to save time — and landed on ORION (On-road Integrated Optimization and Navigation), an algorithmic and GISbased platform efficiently routing over 50,000 delivery drivers through their day. ORION considers not just where the delivery is, but what time the driver
A personnel status dashboard communicates staff capacity in real-time.
Global supply chain map provides real-time tracking of goods and potential disruptions.
Getting started with supply chain mapping
will be there. The result is sometimes counterintuitive — a driver may be routed past three nearby deliveries, because of time-savings gained later in the day. Most recently, ORION was transitioning to dynamic optimisation — refining the delivery route multiple times a day based on whether the driver is ahead or behind schedule. But the vision is broader. UPS are looking to enhance the entire network by optimising two final pieces of the logistics puzzle. The first is city-to-city movement — deciding which packages should go into which trailer, which driver should haul the trailer and where the packages should be sorted. While the second focuses on parcel and people movement with UPS transfer depots: how many people are needed, where should the packages be sorted and where should vehicles be parked? Despite a challenging operating environment, UPS stocks have recently surged, after posting record annual earnings for 2021. Perhaps unsurprisingly, UPS’s CFO credits on-time delivery as one key driver of the gains.
A roadmap for business continuity
An unexpected consequence of new COVID-19 variants has been the compounding effect on staff shortages on global supply chain bottlenecks. The Omicron ripple effect has been felt across the retail, logistics, manufacturing, education, health, hospitality and finance sectors. Overnight, operations came to a screaming halt as workers fell victim to the relentless spread of the virus.
Like many other business functions during the pandemic, asset and facility management professionals looked for digital solutions to help pivot their operations to more pliable models — ones that would adapt to the continuously evolving environmental challenges brought on by the pandemic. GIS technology — a staple for bricks and mortar asset management — emerged as an unexpected digital hero. Under pandemic conditions, new applications of the technology were explored, with GIS being used to assist companies to monitor in real-time the status of their human assets, generating insights into employee wellbeing, availability and location. When Bass Pro — ranked as the third most reputable major retailer in the US — was faced with growing COVID-19 cases, the leadership team turned to GIS to manage its 170 outlets across 45 states. With previous experience running complex emergency operations at Walmart, Chief Security Officer Jason Jackson quickly saw how GIS dashboards could help Bass Pro mount an agile response to the outbreak. Jackson developed dashboards that revealed the status of the company’s operations at a glance, including store closures, and where employees had tested positive for COVID-19, along with valuable key performance indicators. As demand surged for Bass Pro’s products, the dashboards helped the business navigate the balance between meeting customer demand and ensuring employee safety in a way that a spreadsheet could not.
Step 1: Visualise the data: GM collected detailed data on their tier 1 suppliers and put processes in place to collect all necessary information during the sourcing process. Step 2: Trace connections: Understand all the network connections, complex relationships and potential impacts — know not only where key suppliers are, but who supplies the suppliers. Step 3: Conduct analytics: Mitigate threats by integrating weather feeds and news sources. See precise global statuses and identify service area gaps. Step 4: Implement real-time tracking: Proactively get alerts when disruptions emerge that may impact factories. Include real-time information on the status of facilities and personnel with status dashboards. “While facility and supply chain mapping requires upfront work, it’s a critical corporate asset — and during a threatening event, it pays for itself several times over. There’s no scrambling to understand which stores, suppliers and parts are at risk — the information is there within minutes, not weeks.” says Esri Australia’s supply chain specialist, Jacinta Brown. “Once those facility and supply maps are in place, they can be used as a roadmap out of the crisis — it’s simply a matter of choosing to make a start.” If you’d like to know more about getting started with location solutions for the supply chain, register your interest in attending a free session at esriaustralia.com.au/supply-chain. n Information provided by Esri Australia. www.spatialsource.com.au 31
careers
The road to a national standard Work is progressing on the development of a National Standard of Competency for Licensed/Registered Surveyors. JONATHAN NALLY
© iStockphoto/urbancow
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he Council of Reciprocating Surveyors Boards of Australia and New Zealand (CRSBANZ) has issued a call for industry members to participate in the development of a National Standard of Competency for Licensed/ Registered Surveyors. According to the CRSBANZ, a National Standard will be an important first step on the path to achieving Goal 5 of the Cadastre 2034 vision, which is to achieve a unified federated cadastral system based on common standards. It is hoped that a unified, federated cadastral system will “enable people to readily and confidently identify the location and extent of all rights, restrictions and responsibilities related to land and real property”. It should also “promote and support innovation and provide the leadership, coordination and standards necessary to deliver a unified cadastral system that can be leveraged to fund sustainable solutions to meet emerging needs and opportunities”. 32 position February/March 2022
Part of the impetus for the effort is that by 1 July 2022, a new national Automatic Mutual Recognition of Occupational Registration (AMR) scheme will be in operation in most Australian jurisdictions. The development of a National Standard will need the surveying profession to consider: • The role of a cadastral surveyor across diverse modes of practice now and into the future • The broad scope of its work and its contribution to the community • The changing needs of the surveying and mapping industry • Current and emerging risks and opportunities across the whole profession • The competencies that graduates should achieve at completion of tertiary qualification • Post-graduate training requirements • The skilled workforce supply chain CRSBANZ has published an Issues and Opportunities Paper (https://bit.ly/362It65) covering these matters, which: • Outlines the methodology and
• •
1.
2.
3.
consultation framework for the Competency Review Identifies issues and opportunities to be considered in consultation Provides the basis for stakeholders to respond to the matters identified in the paper The terms of reference of the review are: Establish agreed competency standards that a licensed or registered cadastral surveyor should have in Australia and New Zealand now and into the future Update The Attributes of Surveying Degrees Recognised by CRSBANZ by John Fryer and Harvey Mitchell (2013) (Fryer Michell Report) with a catalogue of agreed mandatory core surveying degree content and non-core topics to be studied to meet the equivalent university degree qualification to be a licensed or registered cadastral surveyor. Develop an Implementation Plan for university education programs to satisfy contemporary requirements of Fryer Michell Report.
The CRSBANZ Steering Committee comprises Paul Rhodes (Chair of CRSBANZ and Chair of Land Surveyors Licensing Board of Western Australia), Rob Sarib (Chair of the Surveyors Board of the Northern Territory) and Joe D’Aloia (Chair of Surveyors Board of South Australia). The review is being undertaken in a number of stages, including the current consultation period to March 2022. Following those consultations, in April 2022 it is proposed to present the consultation report to CRSBANZ and establish agreement on a standard of competency for licensed or registered cadastral surveyors. The next stage will involve university and TAFE consultations to “Synchronise agreed competencies with a review of Fryer Mitchell Report and catalogue proposed core surveying degree content in detail, as well as a list of non-core topics, including implementation plan for university education programs”. The final stage aims to present a final report to CRSBANZ in June 2022, although the ongoing COVID situation may affect this timeline.
Career challenges
An important aspect of the whole equation is the sustainability of the cadastral surveying profession, which is facing several headwinds, including an expected spike in the number of surveyors who will be retiring in the near future. According to the Issues and Opportunities Paper, a 2018 report by Consulting Surveyors National found that the surveying profession is experiencing a workforce gap nationally, with, for instance,
surveyor shortages expected to exist in Victoria through to 2028. “Currently, the rate of surveyors successfully obtaining a licence is insufficient to match the rate at which licensed surveyors are expected to retire or leave the workforce. In the year 2019/20, the SRBV removed 13 licensed surveyors from the register who either did not renew their registration or died. In contrast, only seven new licensed surveyors were registered,” it says. “Data from Consulting Surveyors National & BIS Oxford Economics also shows that eight per cent of the surveying and geospatial workforce are expected to retire in the next seven years in Australia. This issue is exacerbated by the ageing workforce of cadastral surveyors.” A National Standard of Competency should serve to help unify the surveying industry, by: • Enabling greater mobility through stronger recognition of cross-sector and transferable skills • Developing pathways to allow graduates to move or transfer between jurisdictions • Making better use of industry and educator expertise to ensure better quality outcomes • Improving pathways advice for supporting lifelong learning and building resilience in the profession The development of National Standard of Competency will be a very important milestone in the industry, which is why CRSBANZ is encouraging individuals and industry groups to have their say by providing feedback (https://bit.ly/3uD6RFy), which much be received no later than COB on Monday, 14 March 2022. n
ealand’s A 2018 report by Consulting Surveyors National found that the g andsurveying profession is experiencing a workforce gap nationally.
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remote sensing Artist’s impression of the NovaSAR-1 satellite in orbit. Via the CSIRO, Australia has a 10% capacity share in the mission. Image courtesy SSTL.
Australian Earth sensing — ready for launch? New sovereign remote sensing space missions promise to help Australia deal with environmental concerns.
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n November, the Australian Space Agency released its Earth Observation from Space roadmap, the second in a series of seven roadmaps the Agency will produce to direct the growth of the space industry over the next decade. It is an attempt to put flesh on the Agency’s mission to triple the size of the sector to $12 billion by 2030, generating an additional 20,000 jobs in the process. Speaking at the National Press Club on 29 November, the Agency’s chief executive, Enrico Palermo, said the roadmap outlined a ten-year plan to direct the growth of Earth observation. “It provides a map for industry to coordinate and build capabilities and technologies that support jobs and critical services into the future,” he said. The plan has been broken down into five focus segments that are areas of significant opportunity for Australia, Palermo says. First and foremost: the creation of Earth observation payloads. A second area is international partnerships where, for the first time, the federal government envisages supplying data rather that merely consuming it. 34 position February/March 2022
The other areas — data quality assurance and integrity monitoring, enhanced data management, and access to international data and missions — are all areas where Australia has 50 years of experience. CSIRO first dabbled in remote sensing back in 1972, when NASA launched the Earth Resources Technology Satellite, later known as Landsat 1. However, the growing significance of Earth observation, new sensors and the sheer amount of data available, mean that all these areas require development. It’s a different story with putting payloads into space, where an industry must be created from scratch. Historically, attempts at building sovereign capacity have been frustrated by Canberra, where politicians and bureaucrats have baulked at the costs and risks involved in sending payloads into space. Paradoxically, it is now this aim that has assumed centre stage. The argument that only purpose-built payloads can deliver the services Australians require suddenly has some traction. For instance, there is already quite a bit of remote sensing activity aimed
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at combating bush fires. CSIRO has purchased a 10% share in NovaSAR-1, which carries a synthetic aperture radar. It’s good at mapping vegetation through clouds. It is probably as good as it gets, but it can’t necessarily distinguish variations in water or oil content and cellulose and lignin that make eucalypts so dangerous. It also lacks the timeliness required to support firefighting.
Synthetic Aperture Radar image of Sydney Harbour at 6m resolution, acquired by NovaSAR-1 2018. Image courtesy SSTL.
The argument that only purpose-built payloads can deliver the services Australians require, suddenly has some traction.
CSIRO also runs Sentinel Hotspots, a website used for mapping the location of hotspots. Since 2003, it has been using data from thermal infrared satellites operated by overseas agencies to detect fire hotspots. As with NovaSAR, it is probably as good a service as is possible so long as we rely on foreign technology. It suffers inevitable limitations of latency and resolution caused by the orbital configurations of the satellites. Those orbits were created, of course, to satisfy the requirements of their operators who have little concern with Australian bushfires. But Australians have significant problems caused by the environment in which we live. Consider the issue of monitoring land cover. For all the horror of the 2019–20 bushfires, they were graphic proof that the nation needs to get better at managing the land. Those fires produced damage costed at over $7 billion on some estimates. The price tag associated with space monitoring is trivial by comparison. Moreover, climate scientists warn that the socio-economic and environmental cost of bushfires is set to increase in the coming years with the impacts of climate change, while the relative costs of space infrastructure will likely decrease even more in the coming decades.
Water, water everywhere
The same is true of water management. Water is the central constraint on the development of regional areas. Despite 200 years of experience, we still do not fully understand how water behaves in the Australian environment. The potential rewards for getting it right far outweigh the cost of developing infrastructure to study it. The need for reform of the management of waterways is overwhelming. If there was any doubt on this score, the 2018–19 fish kills in the Menindee region of the Darling River were a powerful wakeup call. Moreover, the woes of Menindee seem to be spreading to infect the whole of the lower Darling, and the communities that rely on the river. While it is easy to describe the problem, it is much harder to find a solution. Broadly speaking, river communities blame people up-river for stealing the water, and those down the river for wasting it. The political brawl, which has pitted one bush community against another, has been especially bitter. It is no help that there are so many
contested facts about the use and misuse of water. This makes improved monitoring of freshwater and coastal resources especially appealing. Palermo argues that Earth observation is critical to managing problems such as these. “Natural disaster response and climate science look to remote sensing to model and mitigate the impacts of catastrophic weather events like bushfires and drought, which have significant economic and social effects on the community,” he said. The Roadmap includes several projects that are relevant to such concerns. In August, the ANU’s Institute for Space, one of the authors of the plan, released what it called a pre-Phase A study of a project called OzFuel, which envisages the use of infrared technology to monitor forest fuel from orbit. Geoscience Australia and CSIRO were also involved in the study. According to the ANU this will provide the first constellation designed to address challenges in pre-fire mitigation. OzFuel advances the science by delivering data about land cover that can drive models so that users can predict where fires are likely to occur. According to the OzFuel report: “One of the most crucial aspects of fire prevention is understanding vegetative fuel state. The 2020 Royal Commission into National Natural Disasters highlights the need for whole-ofcontinent visibility of vegetative fuel state — how much fuel there is and how dry it is.” Another relatively advanced mission is Aquawatch, which is now being promoted by Aquawatch Australia. The director, Alex Held, is also director of CSIRO’s Centre for Earth Observation. The aim is to establish a comprehensive national water quality monitoring system. Collaborators include the Smartsat CRC, University of NSW, Curtin University, University of Queensland, and Water Research Australia in Adelaide. The project proponents envisage an extensive network of ground-based sensors as well a constellation of satellites. Both sources will feed data into predictive analytics so as to provide forecasts for water managers.
Calibrated effort
The second area of interest in the roadmap is developing the ability to contribute to the international Earth observation community. The Report cautions that, while the global observing system is critical to Australia,
The proposed $36 million Satellite Cross Calibration Radiometer would ensure that the instruments in optical satellites are properly calibrated. Courtesy UNSW.
there is no intent to replicate it. However, Australia can be a good global citizen by making a valued contribution. One potential way of making such a contribution is the proposed $36 million Satellite Cross Calibration Radiometer. The project is being driven by UNSW Space in Canberra, Geoscience Australia and CSIRO. It imagines a series of satellites that would be used to ensure that the instruments in optical satellites are properly calibrated. Currently, many operators are developing small optical Earth observation satellites. The idea is to make the data generated by these satellites more interoperable with other satellites and more usable by a wider community of practitioners. The most highly-calibrated data in the industry is delivered by the Landsat, Planet and Sentinel systems. The Cross Calibration Radiometer would perform coincident, hyperspectral observations that could be used to provide accurate and stable cross-calibration to cooperative missions with lower radiometric accuracy. The project proponents say their system can improve the results of low-cost missions such that it would become possible to identify specific crops, where before it was only possible to identify generic agricultural activity. At the time of writing, none of these projects had been greenlighted. However, if the federal government’s plans to have a viable space sector are to be realised it seems they will all need to be fully operational before the end of the decade. Indeed, if the ambition is to triple the size of the industry by then, these current plans are just a taste of what is coming down the track. n Jon Fairall is a Sydney-based writer, and founder and former editor of Position magazine. www.spatialsource.com.au 35
roadmap to orbit
Sovereign space The Australian Academy of Science has published a blueprint for the development of Australia’s space industry.
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ustralia’s almost total reliance on foreign-owned satellites for the provision of vital services poses a dangerous and unacceptable sovereign risk to the nation, according to a new report from the Australian Academy of Science. The report outlines a 10-year plan for correcting the situation, which includes “investment in a home-grown Earth observation satellite program, which would design, build, launch and operate the satellites and the sensors on-board used to collect a wide range of data types”. Emeritus Professor Fred Menk, Chair of the Executive Working Group that developed the plan, said that meeting Australia’s “future Earth observation needs requires appropriate sovereign capability including enhanced science, observations, analysis and modelling capability”. The plan also calls for a national program of space weather research “to help protect Australia’s critical energy, water, information and transport infrastructure, advance space weather forecasting and improve our situational awareness of space”. “A major space weather event with catastrophic impacts on the global economy is likely within our lifetimes, however, Australian research can greatly improve our predictive capability,” said Professor Menk. Other challenges include tackling the “significant workforce skills gap, an ad-hoc funding environment, and a lack of a national strategy for space with no long-term plan to address knowledge and capability gaps”.
The plan makes three top-level recommendations. • A national research priority in space science should be established that aligns with civil and defence sovereign industry capability requirements, encourages discovery and innovation, and helps build capacity for national benefit and international impact. • A Lead Scientist role should be established within the Australian Space Agency with responsibility for space science policy settings. The role should include responsibility for providing strategic science policy advice, facilitating cross-sector engagement and international collaboration, and fostering capacity development initiatives. • There should be a commitment to and investment in an ongoing national space program, enabled by space missions that advance science, stimulate technical innovation, address national priorities, grow capability and inspire citizens. There are six further, more specific recommendations: • Development of an integrated national space innovation and education strategy, led by the Australian Space Agency, that is consistent with the national curriculum, spans the primary, secondary, tertiary, VET and industry sectors. • A program of small space missions to advance knowledge and discovery, foster and leverage international collaboration, accelerate development of new technologies, applications and
JONATHAN NALLY
the skilled workforce, and help grow sovereign capability. This should be the responsibility of the Australian Space Agency, with NCRIS or similar support. • A national program focusing on space weather research activities to help protect critical infrastructure and advance space weather forecasting and space situational awareness activities. • An ongoing Earth observation satellite program led by the Australian Space Agency to mitigate data supply risk, address grand national challenges, grow capacity and contribute to global programs. Australia should lead international efforts on global instrument and data calibration and validation. • An integrated program to advance basic and applied research on transformative technologies in secure RF and optical communications technologies networks, advanced on-board processing, and next generation secure positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities. • A commitment of support to space life science research, including space medicine and human factors, and space agriculture and nutrition. Professor Menk said that while federal investments in space are stimulating growth of the space sector, more effort is needed to boost research and innovation capabilities if a national space ecosystem is to be established. “Australia must have a space industry of its own — one that we can turn into a hightech manufacturing, knowledge-based, research supported, export industry in a world hungry for it,” said Professor Menk. “An internationally competitive space industry in Australia will depend on a foundation of excellence in science and technology.” n
©stock.adobe.com/au/
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new products
Phase One aerial mapping workflow software
Geospatial Data Validation Hub
Phase One has announced iX Suite, a fully integrated software package for aerial mapping project management. Compatible with all Phase One PAS airborne systems, iX Suite handles mission planning, flight management, data acquisition, image selection and processing and in a common workflow. iX Suite makes quality control a key focus throughout the workflow to guarantee the generated image products meet end user specifications. Imagery can be reviewed in flight and re-collected immediately if necessary, reducing the need for budget- and schedule-killing re-flights days or weeks later. The iX Suite comprises three tools that automate many functions to reduce workloads for pilots and operators in the air and streamline processing activities for technicians on the ground: iX Plan, a 3D photogrammetric flight planning application; iX Flight Pro, a flight and sensor management application; and iX Process, an all-in-one mission review, quality assurance and image export application.
1Spatial, together with DIGITAL-HIVE, has announced the launch of its Geospatial Data Validation Hub, GDV Hub. The company says the ‘one-stop’ self-service portal enables developers, councils and utilities providers to submit and validate their GIS data against industry standards such as A-SPEC and, where appropriate, automatically apply logical corrections. GDV Hub has been set up to automatically read files in a range of formats, determine which disciplines of the A-SPEC standard validations are required to check against and ensure compliance to the required standard. Users are able to manage their submissions and review the performance of previous submissions using the built-in dashboard. The platform also supports external dashboards such as PowerBI. The GDV Hub is a SaaS solution and does not require additional software. Users can simply register on the GDV Hub to start validating their design and as-constructed data.
RTK Rover with visual positioning Leica has introduced the GS18 I, a versatile, survey-grade GNSS RTK rover with Visual Positioning designed to measure points which previously could not be measured easily and accurately with a GNSS rover. The GS18 I enables the fast capture of sites in images, with measurement of points possible either in the field or later in the office. Based on sensor fusion of IMU and GNSS, GS18 I’s tilt compensation is immune to magnetic disturbances and the company says it works immediately without calibration. Surveyors have the flexibility to measure points with a levelled pole and still save the tilt values of each measurement. Multipath reduction and interference mitigation options in Captivate boost GNSS signal tracking quality under harsh environments, which improves RTK availability and accuracy. An interference toolkit will enable filtering to remove in- and out-of-band distortions for even more robust GNSS signal tracking.
Geospatial automated monitoring software Trimble has introduced the latest version of its core geospatial automated monitoring software, Trimble 4D Control version 6.3. The software provides automated movement detection to enable informed decisions about infrastructure for surveying, construction and monitoring professionals. Version 6.3 adds new capabilities for the software to work in combination with the Trimble SX Series Scanning Total Stations’ imaging and measurement capabilities. This version also supports vibration and weather station sensors and a streamlined workflow between the Trimble Access Monitoring Module in the field with the new T4D Access Edition used in the office. Enhancements provide increased accuracy, simplified sensor data collection, reporting and alarms, and make it possible to move from semi-automated to fully automated monitoring on a project. www.spatialsource.com.au 37
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News and views from the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute
I SSSI Board – 2021 Paul Digney President Dr Lesley Arnold President-Elect & Director – WA Wayne Patterson Director – NSW Dale Atkinson Director – Qld Nicholas Brown Director – ACT Michael Grear Director – SA Neil Hewitt Director – HC Andrej Mocicka Director – Vic Inga Playle Director – Tas Dr Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse Company Secretary Roshni Sharma YP Observer
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trust all our valued SSSI family of staff, members and supporters have had a safe and relaxing break over the festive holiday period, and a chance to reflect and hopefully reset from what has been another exceedingly challenging year. The ongoing COVID pandemic and the unwelcome arrival of the new Omicron strain continued to disrupt and affect every part of our lives. Nevertheless, for SSSI, 2022 brings a new chapter and anticipation for what the New Year will bring. The most anticipated activity for this year is the continued progress towards the potential merger with SIBA | GITA. A merged entity has the potential to provide the greatest value for our members and the broader surveying and geospatial sector, representing equally the interests of both individuals and companies, and for championing change and reform within our industry which is undergoing rapid growth and advancing technology. An update of what has happened so far. Both the SSSI and SIBA|GITA boards met towards the end of last year to determine if our values were aligned and priorities compatible. We also discussed our vision for the entity and what its focus would be. It was evident during these discussions that we need to focus our efforts towards workforce development. It’s a common tale among many surveying or geospatial companies — there is a dire need for more skilled professionals. How do we build industry capability? How do we attract people to work in our sector? Meetings were also held with key external stakeholders — senior executives from business, government and academia — providing a forum for us to bring together industry thought leaders to evaluate effective ways to best support and nurture the geospatial industry during
President’s Column this time of growth. These discussions reinforced the need to continue our work in workforce development, but also highlighted there are many other areas requiring our attention, with the need for one body taking a leadership role on behalf of the entire sector. Based on all the discussions and consultation, the boards of both SSSI and SIBA | GITA have independently committed to proceed with the merger, subject to completing the investigation and due diligence (with independent assessment of both entities simultaneously); the development of a communications and engagement plan, governance and operational structures; a value-based membership fee model; other income streams; and the development of a Business Plan and Transition Plan. The next steps will be to engage with our members, which will involve robust consultation to gain feedback on our proposed model, vision and core functions, and offer the opportunity for members to share thoughts and opinions during this important phase. After the consultation period, members will ultimately decide if the merger will proceed. Throughout the process I am committed to keeping all SSSI members and the broader sector wellinformed and engaged, so regular updates will occur in 2022. If members decide to proceed, we want all to be part of the new entity and help us drive positive change. Rest assured, while this is all happening in the background, SSSI will continue to provide much value to our members. Though Omicron has caused a few minor hiccups regarding our face to face events in the first quarter of the year, we are equipped to deliver an outstanding events and CPD program online. Work on the Space+Spatial Industry
Growth RoadMap is continuing and an industry white paper will be released shortly. Australia needs a fully integrated space and spatial strategy — a National Space Mission. This strategy will chart the course for the next two decades and beyond for these two vital industries. This is the key outcome of an extensive process of consultation from across the space and spatial communities that has been led by the peak space and spatial bodies, and SSSI has been integral to this process. One event I am looking forward to this year is Locate22. This year, Locate will be held at the National Convention Centre Canberra from 24 to 26 May. Registrations are now open! We are keeping all our fingers and toes crossed that this will be a face-toface event. I am personally looking forward to attending — as well as the outstanding list of speakers gathered, it’s a great opportunity to connect with other professionals, friends, and colleagues many of whom I have not been able to meet with for many months. I would encourage you to try and make the event this year — it is our national showcase of work, research, policy and product development in the geospatial industry. The Locate22 program is currently being finalised, with keynote speakers beginning to be announced. One speaker I am looking forward to hear is astrophysicist, Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith. Professor Harvey-Smith is the Australia Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador and Professor of Practice in Science Communication at UNSW. She will be discussing the future trends in space and spatial. As we work towards developing an integrated space and spatial strategy, it is essential we take these future trends into consideration. Whilst COVID continues its disruption, 2022 provides emerging opportunities in the current unpredictable environment @istockphoto/gan chaonan
for SSSI and the entire geospatial industry. A federal election in the first half of the year will likely see increased spending in a range of sectors that will have benefit to our industry, including further spending and investment in the space sector, which will have strong flow-on into the geospatial. Spatial sciences and surveying has been identified by the Commonwealth as critical skills that are required to support Australia’s economic recovery from COVID, based on expert advice from the National Skills Commission and consultation with Commonwealth departments. There is the opportunity to fast-track and prioritise visa applications to support the strong demand in the labour market which is desperately needed to support the sector which is experiencing rapid growth. A significant opportunity for SSSI and an area of major focus with our newly established Careers Committee is working towards is promoting the profession to not only students/graduates, but also to those in other professions who are looking for a career change and have skills complimentary to our profession. We are also working closely with government such as ANZLIC and Geoscience Australia, supporting one another on strategies and looking to identify initiatives to both build opportunities for growth and to solve the issues around skills shortage, which are impacting both private and public equally. In other notable news, we continue to experience strong membership growth and engagement with our members, who are actively engaging with our regional and commission committees. This all adds up to a stronger institute that can better represent and offer greater value to our members and the broader profession. Paul Digney President
Commission Chairs Engineering & Mining Surveying Chair Andrew Edwards chair.emsc@sssi.org.au Hydrography Commission Chair Neil Hewitt chair.hc@sssi.org.au Land Surveying Commission Chair Lee Hellen chair.lsc@sssi.org.au Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Commission Chair Dr Petra Helmholz chair.rspc@sssi.org.au Spatial Information & Cartography Commission Chair
Robert Campbell chair.sicc@sssi.org.au
Regional Committee Chairs ACT Regional Chair Noel Ward chair.act@sssi.org.au NSW Regional Chair Mary-Ellen Feeney chair.nsw@sssi.org.au NT Regional Chair Rob Sarib chair.nt@sssi.org.au QLD Regional Chair Noel Davidson chair.qld@sssi.org.au SA Regional Chair Graham Walker chair.sa@sssi.org.au TAS Regional Chair
Inga Playle chair.tas@sssi.org.au VIC Regional Chair Andrej Mocicka chair.vic@sssi.org.au WA Regional Chair Darren Mottolini chair.wa@sssi.org.au SSSI National Office 27-29 Napier Cl, Deakin, ACT 2600 (PO Box 307) Phone: +61 2 6282 2282 Email: info@sssi.org.au
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Educating and inspiring the next generation PAUL MEAD, MANAGING DIRECTOR, SHE MAPS
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f you have been home-schooling your kids during the pandemic, then I’m sure you have a newfound appreciation for teachers and the role they have in keeping a group of 25-plus students on task and educated each day! It is sometimes only when we are made to feel a bit uncomfortable, that we start to appreciate what goes on in our lives, and appreciate those professions that we may have taken for granted. There is no doubt that teachers have a unique skill set and influence on their students. Current research suggests that primary school teachers should also be charged with the additional responsibility of influencing future career choices of their students (as if they don’t have enough to do already). Students (as young as five) arrive at school with ingrained stereotypes about what people do for a living based on their own gender, ethnicity and social status. Their career ambitions have been primarily shaped by family, friends and the media and they often have very clear ideas about ‘what they want to be’ when they get older. Fire fighters, police officers and doctors are all very common answers, and all very visual positions within our society. Career options in the geospatial industry are invisible to the large majority of students, both primary and secondary, unless there have a relative in the industry. This invisibility is now causing the geospatial industry problems — not only a lack of talent, but a lack of diverse talent. So how do we solve this? It requires a multi-pronged approach, based on what we call the Partnering for Purpose Model. When fire fighters, police officers or doctors go into schools, they are not recruiting, offering study plans or attending career fairs. They are being very visible role models, often in a uniform. They are sharing their knowledge and helping students understand what role they play in a functioning society. They are challenging students to explore things that are unfamiliar to them, but leading the students with confidence, so they too become confident. Role models play an important part in helping students form an understanding of who they are and what they want to ‘be’ in the world. ‘Being’ should not be focused on a job role, but rather what
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problems they enjoy solving, how they like to collaborate and work with others, and how they like to be creative with their thinking. Role models should also be diverse to reflect our society, so that all students in a classroom have an opportunity to see others like them, in positions of leadership, being successful or being happy in what they do. “The evidence suggests that giving children the chance to meet volunteers from the real-world helps them to see the meaning and relevance of the subjects they are studying at school. Embedding experiences of the real-world in learning and the school curriculum can lead to increased motivation resulting in increased educational attainment.”1 Having diverse role models from the geospatial industry (professionals who both wear and don’t wear high-visibility vests) engaged in our schools from an early age is a critical part of supporting students’ confidence in trying new things. This is what we call the Confidence Zone. Our teachers have specialist skill sets to engage students and bring content alive… as many parents who have attempted to teach their high school child maths, English or science during lockdowns will understand. It is challenging enough to teach one student, but to engage 25-plus students who are all at various levels, for six hours each day, for 10 weeks in a row? Let’s all raise a glass to teachers! The problem we have for the geospatial industry is that those subjects that help inspire students to explore geospatial skills, like geography and STEM subjects, often have teachers who have no formal training in these subjects. A study2 in Australia in 2016 found that 40% of geography teachers have no formal training in geography. Another study3 has shown that one in eight Australian Year 10 STEM classes are taught by teachers outside their field of expertise. Geography, maths and science in particular are subjects where geospatial skills can come alive and engage students, but only if teachers have the foundational knowledge and content connections with the real-world applications of the skills. This issue had been acknowledged before the advent of smartphones, by a report4 in 2007, that stated: “There has been a sharp decrease in the number of students studying Geography in Australian schools. As an example, while the overall number of Year 12 students has increased by 7% in the past five years, the number of Year 12 students enrolled in Geography has decreased by 24% in that period. At the lower secondary level, the situation is even more serious in most states, where Geography has been absorbed into the generic subject Studies of Society and Environment, often not taught by trained Geography teachers. This in turn has led to a critical shortage of Australians with geographical understanding and skills and, ultimately, a community that is less able to make informed decisions about issues such as climate change and ageing populations.”
Surveying days, career fairs, industry to school visits, work experience weeks are all activities that fit within the Connection Zone.
Here lies the problem. This lack of capability to teach the content to a level, not only that the curriculum expects it to be, but to take that next step of engaging students, has the opposite effect of disengaging students and leading them to self-select out of these subjects, mentally and physically. This is not the fault of the individual teacher, but the system which has failed our teachers. It is likely that the teacher is a passionate person, invested in the learning of their students, but they are also learning the content themselves to just stay ahead. An exhausting process and a feeling of inadequacy that hundreds of thousands of parents also found themselves in over the last two years, as the classroom appeared on the kitchen bench. If the geospatial industry wants to have talent coming into tertiary courses and joining the geospatial workforce, then we need to be better at supporting the teachers that can have an impact on these students, early! There is no point just helping at the senior secondary (Years 10 to 12) level, because students have already self-selected out of geography or STEM in late primary or early secondary due to lessons that didn’t engage their desire to solve problems or think creatively, whilst exploring geospatial skills. The out-of-field teacher didn’t have the time nor the content experience to lift the lessons to this level. So, students believe that these subjects are ‘boring’ and not something they want to pursue when subject selections are being undertaken as they enter Year 9. Those students that industry is ‘targeting’ in Year 10 to 12 are a small number, and it is becoming increasingly more urgent to grow the pipeline from an earlier age. Supporting teacher ability is essential, and we call this the Capability Zone. Now, if we have successfully placed diverse role models in front of students, so they have confidence in developing those human skills (problem solving, creative thinking, collaboration) that are important for the geospatial industry; and if we have teachers that are supported to increase their capability to conduct engaging and thought-provoking lessons, then we are ready to move to the next zone. The Connection Zone brings this model all together. A connection with the geospatial industry, which transitions into a real student experience of the industry, can only be successful if the foundations of the Confidence and Capability Zones have been implemented. Surveying days, career fairs, industry to school visits, work experience weeks are all activities that fit within the Connection Zone. These activities are going to be most successful when we get students self-selecting into these activities because they have an awareness of role models in the industry, and if they have been exposed to challenging and rewarding lessons that show relevance to the geospatial industry. We then get students who know why this industry is relevant to them and who understand how they can shape the future world they want to live in, using geospatial skills.
Bringing this process of confidence, capability and connection together means that the geospatial industry increases its chances of having students with a psychological identification to the industry, empowering them to explore career options in it. Industry associations, and those wanting to have an impact on this problem, cherry picking opportunities and activities from this model, will not have a sustainable and long-term impact. Establishing student confidence, teacher capability and industry connection as part of a longitudinal approach produces longer-term outcomes rather than a flash of excitement around a single activity. Everyone in the geospatial industry can play a role in this strategic approach, whether it is being a role model at a local school, connecting with a geography teacher or funding programs that support this holistic approach. Chambers, N., Kashefpakdel, E., Rehill, J., Percy, C. (2018). Drawing the Future Survey, Education and Employers 2: Weldon, P. (2016). Out-of-Field Teaching in Australian Secondary Schools, Australian Council for Educational Research. Policy Insights, Issue #6 3: Shah, C., Richardson, P., Watt, H. (2020). Teaching ‘out of field in STEM subjects in Australia: Evidence from PISA 2015, GLO Discussion Paper Series 511, Global Labor Organization (GLO). 4: Australian Geography Teachers Association. (2007) Australians Need Geography 1:
TAKING IT TO THE SCHOOLS She Maps has been Partnering with Purpose with The Surveyors’ Trust since 2019, building this model between schools and the geospatial industry in Queensland. We have programs in primary and secondary schools and have supported hundreds of teachers to increase their capability. Whilst we use drones to engage students, it is much more than flying for fun. We are embedding real-world problems into the activities, with a geospatial spin. This enables a wide range of teachers to use the resources and ensures a broader uptake of not only the lessons, but also our messaging to increase the diversity in the geospatial industry. There are three ways to get involved: • Confidence Zone: We want to hear from diverse role models in the geospatial industry who have a story to tell. • Capability Zone: By sponsoring our national Map My School competition you will help increase the capability of teachers. • Connection Zone: If you are doing something in a school already, we want to know about it so we can support you and highlight the great work already being done. For further information visit www.shemaps.com or contact Paul Mead (paul@shemaps.com) or Jules Blundell (jules@ shemaps.com). www.spatialsource.com.au 41
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We are looking forward to showcasing our surveying expertise and innovations to the rest of the world.
Addressing the future needs of the surveying and spatial sectors
O
ver the past year, providing value to our members has been our main priority. Like many organisations, SSSI has continued to navigate the ever-changing business landscape which COVID-19 has provided. Much consideration has been given towards our structure, internal processes and our ability to adapt to change. A new calendar year gives us opportunity to reflect on the past 12-months. I am proud of the SSSI team of staff and dedicated volunteers who tirelessly work towards facilitating a vibrant, innovative and skilled surveying and spatial sector. In my mind, some of the key highlights from the past year have included: • Delivering an extensive webinar program which presented technical content, helped develop soft skills and provided opportunities to share knowledge. In addition, we were proud to host Locate21 as a hybrid event — enabling attendees to participate either online or in person at several hubs located around Australia. • Forming the Spatial Digital Twins Special Interest Group, which aims to encourage and promote the advancement of spatial digital twin knowledge and foster inclusive and collaborative partnerships. Continuing the very successful SSSI National Young Professional Mentoring Program Contributing to the Space+Spatial conversation and being part of the coalition 42 position February/March 2022
of leading Australian space and spatial organisations that is working to develop the Space+Spatial Industry Growth Roadmap 2030. Participating on the Surveying, Spatial and Space Diversity Leadership Network (SSS-DLN). We were also proud to partner with several other industry-based organisations to champion the Diversity Council Australia’s inaugural Inclusion@ Work Index survey. The purpose of the survey was to establish a baseline to help us understand the current state of diversity and inclusion within space, spatial and surveying workforce across Australia and New Zealand. Outcomes from this survey will be released later this year. Forming the SSSI Careers Committee which is identifying innovative ways to attract more talent to the space, surveying and space sectors. One particular highlight for SSSI was that we were successful in our bid for Australia to host the 2025 FIG Working Week in Brisbane. We are looking forward to showcasing our surveying expertise and innovations to the rest of the world. So where is SSSI headed in 2022? We are enthusiastic about several projects and initiatives on the horizon. The Land Surveying Commission is leading a national discussion on the future role of a surveyor, and the opportunities that the digital transformation and Industry 4.0 create for surveyors to use their knowledge and expertise. We are also planning to develop an industry growth strategy for the whole
TONY WHEELER, CEO, SSSI
sector. Several market analysis reports carried out since 2018, have identified that the sector is averaging growth rates of 12–13% , with the growth rate in Asia even higher, up to 18%. Yet in Australia it’s a bleak picture. Our geospatial services sector is growing at the rate of just 4–5%. Why is Australia’s geospatial sector (surveying, spatial and remote sensing) only growing at less than half the pace of the global average? This needs to be addressed. Many within the surveying and spatial community are aware of the proposed merger discussions that are currently occurring between SSSI and SIBA|GITA. We are progressing our work to advance the merger of SSSI and SIBA|GITA. For this entity to work effectively, it must meet the future needs of members specifically and the sector more broadly. Since becoming CEO, one need has been raised with me constantly — employers across all disciplines of surveying and spatial sciences are reporting a severe shortage of skilled practitioners. There is an opportunity to work together to increase capacity and build capability within the profession. Regardless of whether the merger proceeds, SSSI and SIBA|GITA have committed to work together to address this critical issue. However, workforce development is just one issue that is confronting our sector. SSSI looks forward to working with our sector and other bodies in adopting sustainable solutions that address the future needs of the surveying and spatial sectors and foster its projected growth. n
THE SURVEYING & SPATIAL EVENT
Location in Action: Positioning the nation for a brighter future National Convention Centre, Canberra
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THALIA BALDWIN Director, UK Geospatial Commission
DR. STEFAN HRABAR CEO and Co-Founder of Emesent
REBECCA DE CICCO
MELISSA HARRIS
Principal, Digital Operations at Aurecon/ Director Digital Node and Global Chair of Women in BIM
DR. DAVID GRUEN
CEO, Australian Bureau of Statistics
DR. JAMES JOHNSON
DR. FIONA MCKENZIE
ADRIAN TURNER
CEO, Geoscience Australia
Chair, Australia and New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC)
Founder and Director, Orange Compass
CEO, Minderoo Foundation Fire & Flood Resilience Initiative
PROF. LISA HARVEY-SMITH
Astrophysicist, The Australian Government’s Women in Stem Ambassador and a Professor of Practice in Science Communication at UNSW
DR. MONICA WACHOWICZ
Associate Dean, Geospatial Science, RMIT University
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