IV Remote Sensing - the Synergy of high technologies

Results of the IV International Conference "Remote Sensing — the Synergy of High Technologies"

The IV International Conference "Remote Sensing — the Synergy of High Technologies" organized by Sovzond was held April 14-16, 2010 in the Moscow region.

Figure 1. Atlas Park Hotel. Registration of participants of the IV International Conference "Remote Sensing — the Synergy of High Technologies"

DigitalGlobe was platinum sponsor, GeoEye and ITT VIS (both are US companies) were gold sponsors, and RapidEye (Germany) became a silver sponsor of the conference. GIS-Association (Russia) acted as a conference partner. Information support for the conference was provided by Aerospace Courier, Geoinformatics, Oil and Gas Geology, GEOMATICS, Geoprofi, Information and Space, Oil & Gas Vertical, Astronautics News, BYTE/Russia, GEOconnexion, GIM International magazines, GISinfo newspaper, GISCafe internet portal, GeoTop electronic catalog.

The IV International Conference "Remote Sensing — the Synergy of High Technologies" gathered managers and lead experts of Russian and foreign companies working in the field of Earth remote sensing (ERS), GIS and mapping, cadastre, ecology, urban planning, land-use planning, regional and municipal management. An opportunity to exchange experience was afforded to ERS data providers, software and hardware suppliers, and users working in various fields of economic activity, including oil & gas industry, forestry, agriculture and many others.

The breakdown of attendees by fields of their activity is shown on the diagram:

Figure 2. Breakdown of attendees by fields of activity

The conference 2010 was attended by over 350 representatives from 13 countries: Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Tadjikistan, Austria, Brazil, Germany, Canada, USA, France, Japan.

The IV International Conference "Remote Sensing — the Synergy of High Technologies" was opened by Sovzond director, V.I. Mikhaylov. In his speech he noted that geoinformation technologies are more and more applied in scientific researches and production activity. This is facilitated by active development and improvement of software and hardware. One of the main sources of spatial data is Earth remote sensing from space which has undergone truly revolutionary changes in recent years: increase in the spatial resolution of survey systems and their capacity, improvement of spectral performance and capabilities for online monitoring of vast areas. Software products for data processing and creation of geoinformation systems keep the same pace. An indispensable condition for implementation of geoinformation technologies at the present stage consists in joint use of space imagery, other types of spatial data, software for ERS processing and analysis, GIS-applications, spatial data visualization systems. Mr. Mikhaylov congratulated all participants on conference commencement and expressed hope for useful and fruitful work.

Plenary sessions, seminars, an exhibition, a round table, announcement of results of the contest for the best geoinformation project and other events were held as part of the conference.

The plenary session held on the first day of the conference (April 14) was dedicated to the state of the art and development trends of Russian and foreign ERS software and integrated solutions in the field of ERS and GIS. The concept of up-to-date approach to online space monitoring was reported by Sovzond Deputy General Director, M.A. Bolsunovsky. He analyzed the existing traditional approaches to acquisition of ERS space data and found that the system of ordering and acquiring data from ERS satellite operators through a distributor is more advantageous; the system of ERS data acquisition directly to own acquisition stations provides for limited applicability and low economic efficiency. Nevertheless technological progress has necessitated a new approach which consists in the fact that the customer gains access to geodata bases of space system operators on the basis of virtual acquisition principle. In this case the role of system integrators offering integrated solutions on the basis of geoserver technologies rises. Development of such technologies as well as execution and implementation of ready-made geoinformation projects and service rendering in the field of ERS data support has been the main line of Sovzond’s activity in recent years.

During the plenary session representatives of leading world providers of ERS space data and software for their processing (DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, RapidEye, ITT VIS, INPHO, RESTEC etc.) made their reports.

Figure 3. Plenary session

Much interest was aroused by the report made by First Vice-President of DigitalGlobe (USA), R. Khan, dedicated to the most efficient up-to-date super-resolution satellite system. Upon putting cutting-edge WorldView-2 space vehicle into commercial operation the capacity of DigitalGlobe satellite constellation has reached 2.7 million square kilometers per day. The reporter noted that so far the space imagery archives of the company reached 1 billion square kilometers of Earth surface coverage.

Vice-President of GeoEye (USA), P. Colombi, told about new developments, in particular, services providing access to archival data of GeoFUSE, GeoQ etc. and preparation of new GeoEye-2 satellite and its performance.

Conference attendees listened with great attention to the report of J. Ahlrichs, Vice-President of RapidEye AG (Germany). He told about unique monitoring capabilities of RapidEye satellite constellation and prospects for further development of company’s geoinformation projects and solutions on the basis of acquired data.

The report of K. Kuwabara, Deputy General Director of RESTEC (Japan), was devoted to application of ERS data acquired from ALOS satellite. He also told about plans to launch ALOS-2 radar satellite (1 m resolution) in 2013 and ALOS-3 optical-electronic satellite with 3 sensors to survey in panchromatic (0.8 m resolution), multispectral (5 m) and hyperspectral (30 m) modes in 2014.

President of American ITT VIS, R. Cooke, reported on integration of ENVI software product intended for ERS data processing and geoinformation applications of ArcGIS product line. Active cooperation with ESRI enables creating an algorithm of simple transition from image acquisition stage to GIS data analysis or output. New ENVI EX software product is intended for GIS-specialists which are low experienced in handling space imagery.

V.A. Zaichko, Roskosmos’s Head of Department, advised the attendees of plans on development of national ERS satellite constellation. He noted first-priority objectives which Roskosmos is focused on, i.e. creation of the radar observation system by 2013; deployment of the space emergency monitoring system (2010–2013) and agricultural land monitoring system (2015); creation of a dedicated national system intended to solve mapping issues by 2015–2017 etc. By 2020 the Russian orbital constellation of ERS facilities will include 15–20 space vehicles.

Development trends of ERS systems in Russia and their use for solving important public objectives were outlined in reports of V.P. Sedelnikov, General Director of Priroda State Center, and A.M. Abrosimov, OJSC NPK REKORD’s Head of Department.

Much interest was aroused by reports made by representatives of Space Research Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Zemlya Federal Cadastral Center, Shpilman Scientific Analytical Rational Mining Center, FGUP Uralgeoinform, Yangel Yuzhnoye Design Office (Ukraine) and others. Specific features of Canadian RADARSAT-2 ERS radar system were reported to conference participants by MDA manager, Mrs. G. Vudjanic. GIS-Association President, S.A. Miller, told about trends and main issues of ERS data acquisition and use in Russia.

On the second day of the conference (April 15) two plenary sessions "Software Complexes, Systems and Solutions for ERS Data Processing, from Russian and Foreign Developers" and "Experience in Solving Practical Tasks Using ERS Data" were held.

Attention of delegates was attracted by speeches made by representatives of leading world developers of software systems and hardware. New capabilities of INPHO software system for photogrammetric processing of space imagery were reported by R. Bisio, Director for International Sales of Trimble Germany GmbH (Germany). Integration of ITT VIS software systems for ERS data processing and GIS-applications of ESRI was the topic of the report made by Mrs. Сh. Darnel, technical specialist in marketing from ITT VIS (USA). Criteria for selection of professional stereo monitor were reported by T. Trover, Director for International Sales of Planar Systems (USA).

Reports made by representatives of Russian companies should be also noted: V.N. Adrov, General Director of CJSC Racurs made a report on PHOTOMOD 5.0 system, A.G. Demidenko, Deputy General Director of Panorama Design Office, made a report on implementation of multi-scale model of spatial data, N.A. Glebova, Head of Department in Ltd. DATA+, made a report on ArcGIS 10. Sovzond GIS-developers spoke about server and geoportal solutions.

During the second plenary session the reporters visually demonstrated wide capabilities of ERS data and geoinformation technologies while solving various issues in agriculture (RapidEye AG, Terra (Kazakhstan)), forestry (Zapsiblesproekt) etc.

The plenary session of the final conference day (April 16) was devoted to the experience in solving practical issues using ERS data, unique and advanced ERS technologies. Reports were made by managers and specialists from many Russian organizations and companies, including Samara Space Center, Online Earth Monitoring Scientific Center, Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, BARL Research and Production Center, LLC Gazprom VNIIGAZ and others.

Almost all reports made at plenary sessions aroused much interest. Reporters were asked a lot of questions, discussions continued during personal talks and coffee breaks.

The following dedicated seminars attended by a lot of delegates were held as a part of the conference

DigitalGlobe Seminar: "Seconds to Anywhere" a guide to DigitalGlobe's Web Services"
ITT Visual Information Solutions Seminar: "New capabilities of ENVI 4.7 software package. Multispectral data processing using sample RapidEye data"
GeoEye Seminar: "GeoEye in Russia. Today and Tomorrow: from order to acquisition, delivery and dissemination"
Joint ITT VIS and Sovzond Seminar: "ENVI EX and ArcGIS Desktop Integration"
DigitalGlobe Seminar: "Deeper Analysis, faster insight: Enhanced applications with WorldView-2's eight spectral bands"
Sovzond Seminar: "Development of geoportals using ESRI server solutions"
Schlumberger Seminar: "Schlumberger Water Services products"
Trimble Seminar: "Use of INPHO for high-productivity DTM development"
"Development of municipal and regional urban planning information systems using distributed GIS technologies"
Sovzond Seminar: "Technological solutions in large-scale mapping using up-to-date remote sensing data"
Joint Sovzond and Uralgeoinform Seminar: "Applications of SAR data (COSMOSkyMed (1,2,3), TerraSAR-X and Radarsat-2)"

Seminars were held by representatives of sponsor companies and Sovzond lead specialists. An interesting presentation made by G. Marchisio, DigitalGlobe Senior Research Assistant, should be particularly noted. Within the seminar he demonstrated many examples of unique capabilities of up-to-date WorldView-2 multispectral satellite.

Figure 4. Dedicated seminars

For the first time the contest "Best Projects in the Field of Geoinformation Technologies and Earth Remote Sensing" was held within the conference. Winners who received original prizes in solemn atmosphere were chosen in 4 categories:

Best industry innovative project using Earth RS data. Winner — PII FAZO, Agency for Land Development, Geodesy and Mapping affiliated to the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan.
Best regional innovation project using Earth RS data. Winner — Department of Architecture and Town Planning of the Administration of Dzerzhinsk (Russia).
Significant contribution to the development of geoinformation technologies and Earth RS. Winner — LLC Gazprom VNIIGAZ (Russia).
Unique RS and GIS technology development. Winner — Institute for Water and Environmental Problems of Siberian Department of Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia).

Figure 5. Awarding of winners of the contest for the best geoinformation project

An exhibition was held within the conference. Companies showed their state-of-the-art developments on exposition stands. Russian and foreign companies took part in the exhibition: DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, ITT VIS (all are US companies), RapidEye, Trimble/INPHO (both are German), RESTEC (Japan), TTS, Online Earth Monitoring Scientific Center, Research Institute of Precision Instruments, Uralgeoinform, Sovzond (all are Russian). Intense interest aroused by demonstration of the TTS software & hardware complex for spatial data visualization and Planar stereo monitor for handling space imagery should be noted.

Figure 6. Exhibition

The round table – discussion jointly held with GIS-Association was devoted to standardization of exchange ERS data formats.

During all days of the conference a demo prototype of the space monitoring situation center was running. Conference participants could take a closer look at its operation principles and visually assure themselves of high efficiency of ERS data application as an information base of such center. The demonstration was held by the example of thematic geoportals developed by Sovzond specialists. TTS software & hardware complex was used as spatial data visualization tool.

Figure 7. Demo space monitoring situation center

Beside the official part the conference included a wide and lively entertainment program. On April 15 an evening party with a banquet for conference participants was held. An interesting show performed by Samotsvety musical band and its director, Yury Malikov, gave much pleasure to guests. The party lasted till late night.

Figure 8. Entertainment program with Samotsvety musical band and conference guests

All conference participants received a new Sovzond leaflet, recent issues of GEOMATICS magazine and souvenirs as a keepsake.

Run-downs and presentations of reports are currently available on the conference site in Program section.

Sovzond thanks all participants for active work and invites them to take part in the anniversary V International Conference "Remote Sensing — the Synergy of High Technologies" to be held in April 2011.