EuroSDR ANNUAL REPORT 2006

2006 proved a milestone year for EuroSDR with the distribution of its 50th publication in December. It contains the reports of four completed EuroSDR projects or project phases:

• Evaluation of Building Extraction Report by Harri Kaartinen and Juha Hyyppä

• Change Detection Report by Klaus Steinnocher and Florian Kressler

• Sensor and Data Fusion Contest: Information for Mapping from Airborne SAR and Optical Imagery (Phase I Report) by Anke Bellmann and Olaf Hellwich

• Automated Extraction, Refinement, and Update of Road Databases from Imagery and Other Data Report by Helmut Mayer, Emmanuel Baltsavias, and Uwe Bacher

OEEPE (EuroSDR since 2001) has been publishing the findings and outcomes of its research activities for over forty years and these have covered a range of topics across the spatial data provision, management and delivery spectrum.

The majority of publications are in book form being the reports of applied research projects, but in recent years an increased number of CDROM publications have reflected the growing number of focused workshops aimed at assessing state-of-the-art and key issues in focused areas.

Official EuroSDR publications are generously sponsored by Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG), Frankfurt, Germany where master documents are prepared. Printing and distribution is carried out under contract with a commercial print-on-demand publishing company in the Netherlands.

Low resolution versions of recent book publications and online versions of CDROM proceedings are available on the EuroSDR website (www.eurosdr.net), which also contains the relevant links to purchasing full resolution versions of all.

Publication No.49, also published in 2006, contains the proceedings of three EuroSDR workshops, namely:

• PAI2: Achieving Geometric Interoperability of Spatial Data (June 2005)

• Next Generation 3D City Models (June 2005)

• Feature/Object Data Models (April 2006)

This publication was the second presented under the 'new' template for workshop proceedings and is available for online reading through the EuroSDR website.

Continuing the theme of dissemination of material, EduServ4 - the fourth in a series of annual EuroSDR E-Learning modules - was completed in Spring, with the pre-course workshop being hosted by ITC in the Netherlands. Four courses were offered:

• Co-ordinate Systems and Transformations for Spatial Data Position, from The Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland,

• Positional Accuracy Improvements in GI Databases from Ordnance Survey, UK and TU Berlin, Germany,

• Quality of Geospatial Data and the Related Statistical Concepts from ITC, The Netherlands,

• Methods for Checking and Improving of Digital Terrain Models from Aalborg University, Denmark.

Each course had between ten and fourteen participants. Certificates of attendance (signed by the responsible course teacher and the president of EuroSDR) were delivered to the successful participants.

EuroSDR organized or co-organised three workshops in 2006, namely:

• Quality Assurance in Geographic Data Production, together with AGILE and EuroGeographics, at Marne-La-Vallee, Paris, France from 13th to 14th February.

• Feature/Object Data Models, together with EuroGeographics, at the Bavarian Landesamt für Vermessung und Geoinformation, Munich, Germany from 24th to 25th April.

• NMCAs & GMES, together with EuroGeographics, at BKG, Frankfurt am Main, from 5th to 6th September.

All workshops were well attended and a network of contacts across Europe has emerged focussed on evaluating state-of-the-art in a variety of GI fields and identifying key issues requiring attention. Many of these experts are contributing to the drafting of the implementing rules for the EC INSPIRE directive, which was approved in 2006 by the European Commission and Parliament.

In a related field, EuroSDR members were active throughout 2006 contributing input to the development or discussion of standards in our field through the liaison status enjoyed by EuroSDR with CEN/TC287 and ISO/TC211. A discussion document on a draft CityGML specification was also made available by OGC following an initiative from the EuroSDR City Modelling project.

The City Modelling project is one of twelve projects either continuing or completed during 2006. These are:

• Direct Georeferencing Reliability, examining the reliability of Direct Sensor Orientation and Georeferencing, led by Jan Skaloud of EPFL, Lausanne.

• NewPlatforms - Unconventional Platforms for Remote Sensing, reviewing the applicability of unconventional platforms to spatial data acquisition, led by Jurgen Everaerts, VITO, Belgium.

• Sensor and Data Fusion Contest, a comparison of visual analysis between SAR- and Optical Sensors, led by Olaf Hellwich of Berlin University of Technology.

• Automated Extraction, Refinement, and Update of Road Databases from Images and Other Data, led by Helmut Mayer, Bundeswehr University Munich.

• Tree Extraction using laser scanning data and imagery, led by Juha Hyyppå, Finnish Geodetic Institute.

• Evaluation of the Quality of Digital Terrain Models, led by Joachim Höhle, Aalborg University, Denmark.

• Change Detection, led by Klaus Steinnocher, ARC systems research GmbH, Vienna

• Detection of unregistered buildings for updating 2D databases, led by Nicolas Champion, IGN, Paris.

• Building Extraction, evaluating the quality, accuracy, feasibility and economical aspects of LiDAR and imagery based extraction methods, led by Juha Hyyppå, Finnish Geodetic Institute.

• EuroSDR network on Digital Camera Calibration and Validation, led by Michael Cramer, University of Stuttgart.

• CityGML, leading to the Interoperable exchange of 3D city models, led by Thomas Kolbe, Technical University Berlin.

• Generalisation - Research on state-of-the-art, led by Jantien Stoter, ITC, Enschede.

Three further EuroSDR initiatives were started in 2006. In the first, issues relating to the harmonisation of land and sea data towards a seamless spatial information framework have been explored and a focussed workshop on this topic is planned for Malahide, Ireland from 21st to 23rd March 2007. The second initiative relates to the certification of digital aerial cameras, an issue of considerable importance and concern to national mapping and GI organisations across Europe. 2007 will see further EuroSDR activity in this area. Thirdly, EuroSDR Commission 5 is active in working with AGILE and the OGC in examining the potential of an Interoperability Test Bed and a workshop on issues surrounding this initiative will take place in Aalborg on 8th May 2007.

EuroSDR Science committee meetings took place in Stockholm and Portugal during 2006 and a new Rolling Research Plan for the period 2007 - 2010 was adopted (available from www.eurosdr.net). The Stockholm meeting was addressed by the ISPRS President, Prof. Ian Dowman, and an initiative was started to better exploit the considerable synergy between both our organisations.

Kevin Mooney, Secretary-General, EuroSDR