Cadastre and Cadastral Survey History of Hong Kong

Hong Kong has a long history of mapping and surveying since the beginning of the colony. This history dates back as far as the Qin (221-206 B.C.) and Han (206 B.C. – 220 A.D.) dynasties. Initial land divisions began on Hong Kong Island and would later extend to the New Territories. Since the current land area was returned to Chinese control, the land administration and cadastre survey have continued.
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What Are the Implications of Earthquake Displacement?

News from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) confirms that the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake caused a severe horizontal displacement. Japan’s GPS Earth Observation Network System (GEONET), which has 1,200 permanent monitoring stations, has provided a detailed view of between a 6 and 28 meter shift along two fault blocks totaling 400 kilometers long. With such a large displacement, what are some of the geospatial implications of such a shift?
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Next Generation Handheld Field Data Computing

Handheld field data gathering devices have rapidly advanced with new innovations. These hardware devices not only record field data, they augment spatial data gathering operations and workflows throughout the organisation. Next generation field data gathering supports gathering of data, offers two.way communications that link web services into operational environments and can include graphics enriched with markups.
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Linkfast Joins Pointools Sales Partner Program in Asia

Linkfast Technology Co., Ltd., a Taiwan-based survey solutions provider has joined the Pointools Partner Program in Asia. Pointools software is used by project teams to reference and reuse the largest point cloud models – the billions of measurement points taken by 3D laser scanners – inside the broadest range of applications for streamlining scan-to-model workflows.
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Malaysian Government Provides Additional RM60 Million for Land Survey

The federal government has provided an additional RM60 million for surveying native customary lands (NCR) in Sarawak, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Dougles Uggah Embas said Sunday. With the additional allocation, the Sarawak Land and Survey Department will be able to survey between 300,000 and 400,000 hectares of NCR land this year and next.
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Weathering Intensity Map of the Australian Continent

 Weathering intensity is a fundamental characteristic of the regolith, the often discontinuous and highly variable layer of weathered bedrock and sediments that overlies fresh bedrock at depth. The weathering intensity index has broad applications for a range of natural resource management, environmental, mineral exploration and engineering issues.
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How Japan’s Earthquake and Tsunami Warning Systems Work

The earthquake warning system, which has never been triggered before, automatically issued alerts via television and cell phones shortly after the first, less harmful, shock wave was detected, providing time for many people to prepare for the more powerful shock wave that followed. It also caused many energy and industrial facilities, and transportation services to shut down automatically.
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Intelligent Cities: Strategic Singapore

TIME explores the evolving, deep-rooted connections between technology and ever expanding cities — from education and energy to government, health care and transportation. Singapore has turned itself into a laboratory, teaming with MIT to form the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) center to examine the “future of urban mobility” as well as other growth issues. Its purpose?
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IBM Invests $38 million In Singapore Cloud Data Centers 

On 11 March, IBM announced a $38 million investment in a new IBM Asia Pacific Cloud Computing Data Centre in Singapore. This center will help deliver the company’s cloud computing services to clients in the Asia Pacific region which has seen a tremendous growth in demand.
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ADB to Chart Road Map for Assam for Urban Growth

The Asian Development Bank is charting out a 10-year urban development road map for Assam for the benefit of the underprivileged sections. A source said the state government had informed the ADB that it was planning to invest in urban infrastructure and required a road map for the purpose.
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AAM Plays Lead Role in Australian Disaster Planning

AAM has worked closely with Governments of Queensland and Victoria, as well as Brisbane CityCouncil in pre and post disaster response for the Brisbane and Victorian floods. More recently, the Queensland State Government have enlisted AAM’s help in creating an online record of the devastation and reconstruction generated by the floods and Cyclone Yasi in their newwebsite for the Queensland Reconstruction Authority.
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Wiki – 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami

This article documents a current disaster. Information regarding it may change rapidly as it progresses. Although this article is updated frequently, it may not reflect the most current or official information about this disaster for all areas.
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Quake Moved Japan Coast 8 feet, Shifted Earth’s Axis

“At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass,” said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
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XXV IUGG General Assembly

Union Symposia which cover a wide range of themes of concern to the eight Associations. Invited speakers feature in these Symposia, supported by poster presentations selected by the convenors from those submitted. Several of the Union Symposia are expanded or followed in greater depth in Joint Symposia or in Association Symposia. 
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Japan Hiroshima University Select SuperPad 3

SuperGeo Technologies announced that Japan Hiroshima University selected SuperPad 3 through Information & Science Techno-System Co., Ltd. (ISTS), SuperGeo’s reseller in Japan. 

ERDAS Offers Japan Imagery as Public Service

ERDAS is providing access to datasets that illustrate the devastation in Japan after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the subsequent tsunami on March 11, 2011.  This data is being supplied free of charge as a community service. ERDAS will add new imagery, maps and vectors as they become available.

Interactive Russian-English Agricultural Atlas

The Russian-English Agricultural Atlas is the world’s most comprehensive source of information on the geographic distribution of plant-based agriculture in Russia and neighboring countries. The Atlas contains 1500 maps that illustrate the distribution of 100 crops, 560 wild crop relatives, 640 diseases, pests and weeds, and 200 environmental parameters.

NovAtel Inc. Announces OEMStar Firmware Version 1.101  

The 14-channel OEMStar provides accurate positioning using L1 GPS, GLONASS and SBAS signals.  NovAtel’s advanced GL1DE® technology, which provides smooth pass-to-pass accuracy often sought in agricultural applications, is also available on the OEMStar receiver with a model upgrade.

Kyushu Institute of Technology Selects Intergraph SmartMarine 3D

Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech), one of Japan’s top science and research universities, has selected Intergraph® SmartMarine 3D design and engineering software for use in its Department of Creative Informatics to use in shipbuilding design research.

Trimble GCSFlex System — Grade Control for Excavators

The new Trimble GCSFlex Grade Control System for excavators is designed to meet the needs and budgets of owner operators and small to mid-sized contractors involved in a range of earthmoving.

ERDAS ECW/JP2 SDK, Version 4.2 Available

ERDAS ECW/JP2 SDK provides support for the visually-lossless ECW imagery format and the ECWP protocol.  ERDAS’ Enhanced Compression Wavelet (ECW) technology compresses bulky imagery files into manageable sizes, enabling faster processing and transfer of imagery and reducing the hardware investment required for the geospatial workflow.

Earthquake in Japan: Detailed Satellite Images Received

Detailed satellite images of the territory of Japan were received, where a series of earthquakes were registered on March 11 in its north-eastern parts. According to the Main Meteorological Service of the country the 8.9 magnitude earthquake was the biggest in the history of the country.

Sea Floor Mapping Improves Tsunami Prediction

There are DART buoys (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) in the ocean and on the bottom of the ocean to measure the sea floor pressure, and it measures the tsunamis to see how big they are, and we have models to predict what the amplitudes will be.

PCI Geomatics Receives Recognition for Chinese Work

PCI Geomatics has been very successful in China, implementing its sophisticated image processing software solutions for commercial and government clients who need to work with Earth Observation imagery collected by National and commercial satellite sensors.

UNDP Center Opened in Istanbul

Istanbul branch of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) International Center for Private Sector in Development was opened recently. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Turkish State Minister Cevdet Yilmaz said Istanbul in a sense became a center where the United Nations offered regional services.