Geo-Siberia 2007

Geo-Siberia 2007 conference and exhibition was held in Novosibirsk, Russian Federation from 25-27th April 2007, organized by the Siberian State Academy of Geodesy (SSGA) in Novosibirsk, and attended by more than 400 participants, including 40 international visitors.

At the opening ceremony, the Vice Mayor of Novosibirsk, and as well as other local and visiting academics, including John Trinder First Vice President ISPRS, welcomed participants to the conference and exhibition. The exhibition included many international companies and local government and commercial organizations involved in the spatial information industry

The conference included papers (mainly in Russian) by staff of SSGA, international visitors, local researchers and industry representatives. In the opening plenary session, Professor Kaprik, Rector of SSGA spoke of the SSGA education program, which comprises specialists in cartography geodesy, photogrammetry etc, in 5 institutes, 27 departments and others related to them. The summer is used for field practice. The Academy spends 100m rubles per annum (25 rubles≈1USD) on research and has excellent facilities for R&D. Cooperation with various industry groups is very fruitful and creating innovative technologies. SSGA and MIIGAik in Moscow are the two major education institutions in Russia for geodesy, photogrammetry etc.

Professor Yambaev MIIGAiK (Russia) spoke of crustal motion and engineering deformations studies using GLONASS for predicting earthquakes. Professor John Trinder (ISPRS - Australia) spoke on the definition of sustainability indicators and the contributions that can be made to assessing sustainable development using remote sensing technologies. James Cavanagh (UK) spoke of a Crisis in Surveying in UK. There is a confused market, since the public are not aware of the importance of the work of professional surveyors. Professor Schmitt (Germany) spoke of earthquake risk research in Rumania, based on a team of 40 German researchers which have made GPS measurements for crustal motion determination. Professor Konecny (Germany) spoke of the cadastre and photogrammetry. Cadastral systems are needed to manage ownership of land parcels and can double the value of land. Coordinated cadastres are better than monumentation. Costs of cadastres based on orthophotos can be reduced to $US5 per land parcel. By 2014 a digital cadastre can show complete data, books will disappear, it will be run by the private sector and be cost effective.

A session on Earth Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry included papers on the latest developments in the state of the art of photogrammetry and remote sensing, by J. Trinder, and new Leica (P. Schreiber) equipment, the ADS40, flight management, point positioning & GSD as well as the ALS50. A small format digital aerial camera with 2k pixels was described and displayed in the exhibition by a Russian company, AeroGIS. Papers were also given during the conference on behalf of ISPRS in the topics of LiDAR and terrestrial laser scanning by C. Briese (Austria) and A. Bucksch (The Netherlands). Many papers on a broad range of topics on spatial information were given in Russian.

A Round Table was held to discuss the possibilities of greater cooperation in research and teaching between SSDA and other international organisations.

Proceedings of the meeting are available in 7 volumes in hardcopy and on CD, although most of the papers are printed in Russian.

John Trinder
First Vice President ISPRS
University of NSW, Australia

The participants in the round table discussion of international cooperation with SSGA (left).

John Trinder ringing the bell to announce the commencement of the conference and exhibition (right).