Journal articles on the topic 'Geomatics discipline'

Geomatics is a discipline of collecting, processing and analysing geospatial data. Data collection is a core process of geomatics which usually adopt precise equipment to measure geospatial data. With the development of technology, a smartphone in this present era is not simply for communication; several low cost measurement devices such as Global Positioning System (GPS), gyro and camera are assembled in a smartphone. Although the devices assembled in a smartphone could not meet the needs of accuracy requirement for many geomatics applications, millions of mobile applications (Apps) can be downloaded and installed from Google Play and Apple Store freely, and a variety of sensors can be chosen for user. Considering that the popularity and convenience of a smartphone, and assuming that the accuracy of those collected data is acceptable for learning purposes, it is expected that a smartphone can be employed in geomatics for hand-on education. For example, Vespucci OSM Editor is an App to edit the OpenStreetMap on Android. The user may have the hand-on experience on GPS positioning, web services and mapping via Vespucci OSM Editor. The aim of this paper is to collect and analyze different Apps for geomatics education. The Apps are classified into four categories, namely, surveying, remote sensing, GPS and Geographic Information System (GIS). In this paper, more than 20 free Apps are collected and analysed for different hand-on studies in geomatics education. Finally, all the related Apps are listed on a website for updating.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The recent outbreak of geospatial information to a wider audience, represents an inexorable flow made possible by the technological and scientific advances that cannot be opposed. The democratization of Geomatics technologies requires training opportunities with different level of complexity specifically tailored on the target audience and on the final purpose of the digitization process. In this frame, education plays a role of paramount importance, to create in the final users the awareness of the potentials of Geomatics-based technologies and of the quality control over the entire process.</p><p>This paper outlines the current educational offer concerning the Geomatics Academic discipline in the Italian higher education system, highlighting the lack of dedicated path entirely devoted to the creation of specifically trained figure in this field. The comparison with the International panorama further stresses out this necessity. The purpose of this work is to present different educational approaches by distinguishing between the starting knowledge level of the students/participants and the final aim of the training activities. Three main audiences have been identified: i) experts, who already know some basics of Geomatics to understand the theoretical concepts behind its technologies; ii) intermediate audience, who are interested in learning about Geomatics technologies and methodologies, without any previous or poor education concerning these topics; iii) non-experts, a mix of a wide group of people, with different educations and interests, or without any interest at all.</p><p>For each group, the multi-year experience concerning educational and training activities for the geomatics-based knowledge transfer in all the multi-level approaches of the GECO Lab (University of Florence) is presented.</p>

The technology-driven, rapidly advancing field of spatial data and information science (SDIS) is an integral part of numerous engineering professions. Many college civil engineering programs are struggling to find ways to accommodate this subject in an already crowded undergraduate curriculum. There are several reasons that taking a course in SDIS is desirable for civil engineers entering today’s demanding job market. First, technologies related to surveying, spatial data, and information science are among the fastest developing in the industry, and there is significant demand for skills in the latest technology. Second, spatial data collection and analysis are essential to all civil engineering disciplines; thus, a fundamental understanding of data collection and analysis techniques is desirable. The transportation discipline of civil engineering may face the greatest need for professionals specializing in SDIS. Transportation planning, system design, facilities management, and transportation logistics rely heavily on SDIS technologies, including conventional surveying, geographic information systems, Global Positioning System, remote sensing, and digital terrain modeling. A description is given of a widely transferable and technically up-to-date course in geomatics that expands on traditional surveying by incorporating modern methods of spatial data collection, management, and analysis. Including a course on geomatics early in students’ undergraduate civil engineering curriculum may plant the seed for the development of future SDIS and SDIS for transportation professionals. Lessons learned in developing geomatics courses at Clemson University, Georgia Tech, and The Citadel are presented. Findings and recommendations are summarized with respect to broader application issues affecting the civil engineering curriculum.

Geomatics is the discipline of electronically gathering, storing, processing, and delivering spatially related digital information; it continues to be one of the fastest expanding global markets, driven by technology. The British Geological Survey (BGS) geomatics capabilities have been utilized in a variety of scientific studies such as the monitoring of actively growing volcanic lava domes and rapidly retreating glaciers; coastal erosion and platform evolution; inland and coastal landslide modelling; mapping of geological structures and fault boundaries; rock stability and subsidence feature analysis, and geo-conservation. In 2000, the BGS became the first organization outside the mining industry to use Terrestrial LiDAR Scanning (TLS) as a tool for measuring change; paired with a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), BGS were able to measure, monitor, and model geomorphological features of landslides in the United Kingdom (UK) digitally. Many technologies are used by the BGS to monitor the earth, employed on satellites, airplanes, drones, and ground-based equipment, in both research and commercial settings to carry out mapping, monitoring, and modelling of earth surfaces and processes. Outside BGS, these technologies are used for close-range, high-accuracy applications such as bridge and dam monitoring, crime and accident scene analysis, forest canopy and biomass measurements and military applications.

The management of an urban context in a Smart City perspective requires the development of innovative projects, with new applications in multidisciplinary research areas. They can be related to many aspects of city life and urban management: fuel consumption monitoring, energy efficiency issues, environment, social organization, traffic, urban transformations, etc. Geomatics, the modern discipline of gathering, storing, processing, and delivering digital spatially referenced information, can play a fundamental role in many of these areas, providing new efficient and productive methods for a precise mapping of different phenomena by traditional cartographic representation or by new methods of data visualization and manipulation (e.g. three-dimensional modelling, data fusion, etc.). The technologies involved are based on airborne or satellite remote sensing (in visible, near infrared, thermal bands), laser scanning, digital photogrammetry, satellite positioning and, first of all, appropriate sensor integration (online or offline). The aim of this work is to present and analyse some new opportunities offered by Geomatics technologies for a Smart City management, with a specific interest towards the energy sector related to buildings. Reducing consumption and CO2 emissions is a primary objective to be pursued for a sustainable development and, in this direction, an accurate knowledge of energy consumptions and waste for heating of single houses, blocks or districts is needed. A synoptic information regarding a city or a portion of a city can be acquired through sensors on board of airplanes or satellite platforms, operating in the thermal band. A problem to be investigated at the scale A problem to be investigated at the scale of the whole urban context is the Urban Heat Island (UHI), a phenomenon known and studied in the last decades. UHI is related not only to sensible heat released by anthropic activities, but also to land use variations and evapotranspiration reduction. The availability of thermal satellite sensors is fundamental to carry out multi-temporal studies in order to evaluate the dynamic behaviour of the UHI for a city. Working with a greater detail, districts or single buildings can be analysed by specifically designed airborne surveys. The activity has been recently carried out in the EnergyCity project, developed in the framework of the Central Europe programme established by UE. As demonstrated by the project, such data can be successfully integrated in a GIS storing all relevant data about buildings and energy supply, in order to create a powerful geospatial database for a Decision Support System assisting to reduce energy losses and CO2 emissions. Today, aerial thermal mapping could be furthermore integrated by terrestrial 3D surveys realized with Mobile Mapping Systems through multisensor platforms comprising thermal camera/s, laser scanning, GPS, inertial systems, etc. In this way the product can be a true 3D thermal model with good geometric properties, enlarging the possibilities in respect to conventional qualitative 2D images with simple colour palettes. Finally, some applications in the energy sector could benefit from the availability of a true 3D City Model, where the buildings are carefully described through three-dimensional elements. The processing of airborne LiDAR datasets for automated and semi-automated extraction of 3D buildings can provide such new generation of 3D city models.

In the last few years, new technologies have become indispensable tools for specialists in the field of cultural heritage for the analysis, reconstruction and interpretation of data but also for promotion of artefacts or buildings sometimes inaccessible or in a bad state of conservation. The discipline of geomatics offer many opportunities and solutions for integrated digital surveys and the documentation of heritage (point-based methods, image-based photogrammetry and their combination): These data can be processed in order to derive metric information and share them using databases or GIS (geographic information system) tools. This paper is focused on the description of combined survey methodologies adopted for the geometric and architectural documentation of the site and surviving structures of the Castel of Scalea (Cosenza, Italy). It is a typical context where traditional survey procedures do not fully succeed or require a longer amount of time and great effort if a high level of accuracy is requested: For this reason, aerial close-range digital photogrammetry enhanced by the GNSS (global navigation satellite system), and total station positioning systems have been used at various levels of detail for the production of a detailed 3D model and 2D thematic maps with an excellent level of in the positioning of the structures and in the architectural drawing. Thanks to the collected dataset, it was possible to better identify the building units (CF), to digitize the limits of the masonry stratigraphic units (USM), and to draw up a first constructive diachronic sequence hypothesis on which to base chronology. Moreover, some particular masonry techniques have been sampled and compared at the regional level with the aim to better dating of constructive expedients. It was finally demonstrated how the use of integrated methodologies allows us to obtain a complete and detailed documentation including information regarding not only architectural and geometrical features but also archaeological and historical elements, building materials and decay evidences—all useful as support of the interpretation of data.

One of the fastest developing scientific disciplines in forestry are geomatics and remote sensing. The use of unmanned aerial vehicles deserves a mention. On the example of the Świdwin Forest District the possibilities of using drones in forestry were presented. Unmanned aerial vehicles are mainly used for fire protection, creation of orthophotomaps, checking the health status of stands, monitoring spruce forests and the promotion of state forests.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> This paper is focussed on the work and remit of the ICA’s Commission on Education and Training (CET), presenting a reflection by the retiring chair of the current issues which affect the work of Commission members and all engaged in current education and training of students of cartography around the world.</p><p> The nature and development of cartography as an academic and professional discipline has been discussed through many presentations, both conceptual and applied, and in various arenas and communities, over the past half century. As cartographic practice became standardised in the 20th century, so educational and instructional materials describing and analysing the discipline conveyed a relatively uniform message, ensuring that the audience of learners were educated and trained positively to an agreed agenda. In effect, a subtle, as yet unwritten, ‘Body of Knowledge’ was developed and elucidated in educational materials, notably textbooks on cartography, in the last few decades of the last century (Kessler, 2018).</p><p> It was during these years, however, that cartography developed as a discipline far beyond its initial roots as a map-making technology. The technology of map-making certainly changed completely, and a host of other aspects were incorporated, from metrical analysis of historical map documents to gender-oriented investigations of mapping activity; from the integration and importance of cartography in contemporary geospatial data handling to the role of volunteer map-making; from the psychology of map interaction and decision making to the mathematics of map projections and multi-dimensional data representation; and many, many other activities and issues which must be included in educational programmes in cartography.</p><p> It is the establishment, adoption and maintenance of a Body of Knowledge (BoK) which is one of the main <strong>challenges</strong> (this paper presents 11, in <strong>bold</strong> below) and, if successfully met, it can assist in ensuring that cartographic education and training develops as required in the next few decades (Fairbairn, 2017). The further challenges highlighted in this paper can form the basis for further investigation by the CET in the future. This listing of issues is informed by a number of contemporary changes in technology, by closer integration of cartography with other geospatial sciences, by research achievements and investigations in the field, by advances in educational praxis, by demands on cartography by a host of other activities, and by consequent recognition of the discipline by learned and professional bodies.</p><p> One of the main purposes in developing a <strong>Body of Knowledge</strong> is to encompass and facilitate curriculum design. As the widening scope of cartography will be reflected in the developing BoK (most notably in cartography’s contribution to GIS), <strong>curriculum design</strong> must be flexible and innovative enough to cope with more numerous and wider, though focussed and integrated, topics. The admirable, existing BoK in Geographic Information Science and Technology, already being reviewed and enhanced, but omitting many <strong>specific cartographic principles</strong>, is a possible framework for incorporating these. Alternatively there are sound arguments for a uniquely cartographic BoK, and this enterprise is certainly an ICA-approved pursuit.</p><p> Also within the BoK, the <strong>theoretical foundations for the study of cartography</strong> must be elucidated and moved from the research agenda to the educational curriculum. A revised <i>Research Agenda</i> developed under ICA auspices and a focussed <i>Body of Knowledge</i> are synergistic documents, with interdependent content in one directing content in the other. Such documents may be perceived by many to be overly conceptual, un-related to everyday mapping activity. In terms of cartographic production in the past 50 years, we have moved far from the standardised methods mentioned earlier, applied by every commercial and governmental mapping organisation. The activity of map-making has adopted a host of alternative methods, and artefacts, data-sets and representations are created and ‘mashed-up’ by an increasingly wide range of individuals and groups with highly variable experiences, expertise and understanding of cartographic procedures. In terms of ‘organised’ cartography in multi-employee companies, government and non-government agencies, academic and research groups, and associated industrial and environmental companies, a further challenge is <strong>understanding what employers want from graduates in cartography and GIS</strong>. The delivery of education in cartography is an academic activity, but it must be done in a manner which demonstrates relevance to the community which relies on the skills of an educated workforce.</p><p> In some cases the cartographic community, notably its educators, may have to direct their attention outside the classroom and convince the fragmenting industry that cartographic principles are vital for effective management and communication of information, and that the products of cartographic education (the graduates from educational programmes) are serious and informed potential employees with much to offer a wide range of human activity. Such recognition by those outside the academy can be encouraged by seeking and receiving <strong>professional accreditation</strong> from awarding bodies such as industry associations, learned societies, educational authorities and public bodies. The landscape of professional recognition in the disciplines of cartography and GIS is highly varied, geographically, institutionally, legally, and pedagogically. The fluid nature of the disciplines, and in particular their fuzzy distinction from a host of other geomatics, geospatial, engineering, environmental, and social activities means that cartographic education must acknowledge and address its interaction with education in many other sciences. <strong>Linking cartographic education and its principles with related education in other closely related geo-disciplines</strong> is particularly important. Common messages must be presented stressing cartography’s importance and relevance.</p><p> At the possible wider levels mentioned above, experiences and <strong>lessons learned from teaching cartography and GIS to a broad range of non-specialists</strong> must be documented: cartographic principles must be shown to be important and relevant to all those engaged in handling maps and mapping data. Stressing the importance of such principles is especially vital when education is done at a distance: the Commission has long been interested in those activities which <strong>develop on-line educational resources</strong> and look at innovative ways of delivering education widely to large audiences outside formal educational establishments. We already have reports on mature and effective resources in the form of MOOCs, distance learning courses, and online training modules (e.g. Robinson and Nelson, 2015). Such methods of delivery for cartographic education have proven popular and efficient: educators must ensure continued relevance, update, and diligence, in managing these activities.</p><p> In addition to content development and assessment frameworks, it is technical requirements which are often perceived as major blocks to effective use of in-line educational resources. <strong>Technical support requirements</strong> are critical in every form of cartographic education: in the past replication of map reproduction labs was prohibitive for most educational establishments; today it is the acquisition of a full range of software which mitigates against full exposure to the varied range of cartographic and geospatial data handling activity as practised in the ‘real world’. The generosity of some software providers is widely acknowledged in educational institutions, and many of the software products are generic enough to be able to demonstrate the required cartographic principles in a non-partisan manner. However, in many cases employers are seeking specific training skills in particular packages and this can be difficult to provide within a formal educational programme.</p><p> Recent additions to the ‘wish-list’ of employers, however, have been related to abilities in coding and computer programming. Luckily, the most commonly sought skill is ability to write code in Python or Javascript. These are open source, rather than a commercial, products, and hence can be acquired by any educational establishment. The <strong>use of open source software and datasets in geospatial and cartographic education</strong> is becoming increasingly important, and their effective integration with traditional (and indeed contemporary) curricula in cartographic education is clearly a further challenge.</p><p> This paper has outlined a number of challenges facing cartographic education. Like the wider discipline, education in cartography is delivered by capable and dedicated individuals, each with interests in the development of the discipline in an increasingly diverse and varied educational arena. The Commission is intent on addressing the challenges outlined, promoting effective and high-quality cartographic education.</p>

Hybridizing animal geographies scholarship encourages creative conversations among geography sub-disciplines and generates holistic knowledge of human-animal relations. This article surveys existing trends in ‘hybridity’ as a foundational concept emerging from animal geographies primarily located within human realms of geography. Fully operationalizing hybridity requires affective engagements with animals through interdisciplinary investigations of animal agency, behaviours and experiences. To this end, this article explores how animal research in geography may benefit from further extension into human-environment geographies, physical geographies and geomatics to capitalize on hybridity as both concept and practice.

Studying at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) will ensure academic and technological excellence. The Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate (FGHT), established in 1972, focus on education and research for undergraduate as well as postgraduate programs in the related disciplines such as geomatic engineering, geoinformatics, remote sensing, property management and land administration & development. FGHT strives to be a leading academic center in geoinformation and real estate in Southeast Asia. Graduates and alumni form major strong professional societies and work force in the related industries. Many of our graduates end up with good jobs not just in Malaysia but also in other countries (Asian, Middle East, Africa and Europe). The strong team and knowledgeable academic members in this faculty provide excellent ingredients for the success of the programs (i.e. with the relevant and up-to-date curriculum and syllabus). FGHT is continuously working to provide and offer first-class geoinformation and real estate education and research in the country and be at a par with other leading institutions in other parts of the globe. The Department of Geoinformation at FGHT runs a Bachelor of Engineering in Geomatic and a Bachelor of Science in Geoinformatics. At the postgraduate levels, namely M.Sc. and PhD programs, the offered disciplines are Geomatic Engineering, Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing. In the following, the state of the art of FGHT’s postgraduate education in Geoinformation is presented, including a comparison with other universities in Malaysia, program content and curriculum information, alumni statistics as well as future strategies.

Natural resource management requires reliable and timely information available at local, regional, national, and global scales. Geo-informatics, by remote sensing, global navigation satellite systems, geographical information systems, and related technologies, provides information for natural resource management, environmental protection, and support related to sustainable development. Geo-informatics has proven to be a powerful technology for studying and monitoring natural resources as well as in generating predictive models, making it an important decision-making tool. The manuscripts included in this Special Issue focus on disciplines that advance the field of resource management in geomatics. The manuscripts showcased here provide different examples of challenges in resource management.

Sustainable mobility has been one of the central paradigms of research in the field of transport and mobility for several decades. However, the implications of adopting the concept of “sustainable mobility” for the conduct of interdisciplinary research has been little discussed within the relevant research community. Research in the field of transport and mobility has nevertheless been the setting for major debates in recent years on the question of interdisciplinarity, or even transdisciplinarity, with the emergence of mobility studies as opposed to transportation studies. The objective of this paper is to show, empirically, how researchers who are specialised in mobility and transport issues, but who belong to different disciplines (anthropology, computer science, economics, geomatics, sociology and urban planning) have sought to build an interdisciplinary research project—which is currently ongoing—around the links between the development of coworking, which is a new way of organising work, mobility and sustainability. This paper sets out to highlight cross-fertilisation between disciplines, the issues raised, and the difficulties encountered. As such, it provides an account that is as faithful as possible to our experience of conducting interdisciplinary research in the area of sustainable mobility.

AbstractCity road networks have been extensively studied for their social significance or to quantify their connections and centralities, but often their geographical origin is forgotten. This work focuses on the spatial-geographical and geometrical aspects of the road network skeleton. Following previous work, a multi-scale object, the way, is constructed, based only on the local geometry at road crossings. The best method to reconstruct significant elements is investigated. The results show that this object is geographically meaningful, with many particular characteristics. A new indicator, structurality, is introduced and compared with previous indicators, on the cities of Paris and Avignon. Structurality appears to be stable over the borders of the map sample, and is able to reveal the underlying coherence of the road network. This stability can be interpreted as coming from the particular way the network developed in time, and was later preserved. This link with the historical development of the cites, which deserves to be further studied, is exemplified in the cases of Villers-sur-Mer (France) and Manaus (Brazil). The construction method, the results, and their potential meaning are discussed in detail so that they can be used in various related disciplines, such as sociology, town planning, geomatics, and physics.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> GAMHer (Geomatics data Acquisition and Management for landscape and built Heritage in a European perspective) is a three-year research project financed under the Italian PRIN 2015 framework (Progetti di Ricerca di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale). The project, started in February 2017 under the University of Bologna coordination, links other 5 Italian research groups mainly involved in Cultural Heritage (CH) documentation and data management: Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Torino, IUAV Venice, University of Florence, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio and University of Bergamo.</p><p>GAMHer aims at exploiting some research and practical challenges in those disciplines devoted to generate 3D models for objects related to both landscape and built heritage; primary focus is then on digital photogrammetry and 3D scanning. These techniques are more and more applied in different contexts, having as the main subjects monuments, buildings, natural and urban landscapes. Some critical points however remain for their implementation, also facing to the new European directives, strictly connected to the requirement of the Digital Agenda for Europe. A wider use of digital data has to be achieved, in Europe as well as internationally, and therefore an analysis of the current developments is significant, together with a critical assessment of their performances.</p>

Recent technological advancements in geomatics and mobile sensing have led to various urban big data, such as Tencent street view (TSV) photographs; yet, the urban objects in the big dataset have hitherto been inadequately exploited. This paper aims to propose a pedestrian analytics approach named vectors of uncountable and countable objects for clustering and analysis (VUCCA) for processing 530,000 TSV photographs of Hong Kong Island. First, VUCCA transductively adopts two pre-trained deep models to TSV photographs for extracting pedestrians and surrounding pixels into generalizable semantic vectors of features, including uncountable objects such as vegetation, sky, paved pedestrian path, and guardrail and countable objects such as cars, trucks, pedestrians, city animals, and traffic lights. Then, the extracted pedestrians are semantically clustered using the vectors, e.g., for understanding where they usually stand. Third, pedestrians are semantically indexed using relations and activities (e.g., walking behind a guardrail, road-crossing, carrying a backpack, or walking a pet) for queries of unstructured photographic instances or natural language clauses. The experiment results showed that the pedestrians detected in the TSV photographs were successfully clustered into meaningful groups and indexed by the semantic vectors. The presented VUCCA can enrich eye-level urban features into computational semantic vectors for pedestrians to enable smart city research in urban geography, urban planning, real estate, transportation, conservation, and other disciplines.

After many months of research and course design, an initial distance learning course offering was delivered in early 2011 called, “Introduction to Canadian Common Law for Land Surveyors”. The course was designed to expose foreign trained professional land surveyors to the study of boundary law. Many present candidates for articles and licensing in professional land surveying have been welcomed to Canada as permanent residents as part of an immigration screening process that recognizes foreign education and credentials. In meeting its obligation to offer learning opportunities for such candidates to gain admission to the practice of professional surveying in Ontario, AOLS undertook the development of adult learning courses in all disciplines, including survey law. This presentation will describe the issues surrounding development and delivery of survey law learning. The challenges are usually daunting enough when the subject matter is law. What has made the development of this series of courses novel is the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) which allows for the integration of reading resources, external references, video vignettes, and a replay of past learning sessions. The course design has been internet based and allows for learner participation from a distance through the internet. For adult learners who are working, have families, and live away from the teaching venue, these courses offer new opportunities in the education of the geomatics professional. For existing members looking for professional development, the full suite of courses promises to be a rich resource for staying current and in touch with new developments in boundary law.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Geographical names research could be used to reveal the condition of the landscape. Many studies in the geographical names are arranged geographically, surveying geographical names in an area by compiling and analyzing historical spelling sequences to build the origin of etymological geographical names. The geographical names is inherent in human life from birth to death. The trend of geographical names research influenced by cartographic education. This paper aims to review cartographic education in Indonesia in order to reveal how geographical names research influenced by cartographic education.</p><p> We reviewed many universities that held cartographic, geography, and geospatial education. A paper of geographical names research and cartographic research in Indonesia also examined.</p><p> We concluded that cartographic education in Indonesia mixed in geography and geomatic study. The development of cartographic courses in universities influences the interest in geographical names study. Based on articles examined, the study of it in Indonesia is dominated by linguistics discipline. They used qualitative methods in their research. Though some of the articles based on the geographical perspective. On the other hand, the trend of geospatial research tends to the technological aspect rather than the concept of cartography. Thus geographical names research is rarely involved. However, with the implementation of geospatial information laws, One Map Policy, and government regulations regarding the geographical names would facilitate the rising of geographical names research. Several universities also opened a new study programme relate to the geospatial field.</p>

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The availability of content constantly generated within theWeb has resulted in an incredibly rich virtual social environment from which it is possible to retrieve almost any sort of information. Since the advent of the social media connection with location-based services, this information has attracted the interest of manifold disciplines connected to the spatial data science. In this context, we introduce the URBAN-GEO BIG DATA (URBAN GEOmatics for Bulk Information Generation, Data Assessment and Technology Awareness), a Project of National Interest funded by the Italian Ministry of Education that aims at contributing to the exploitation of heterogeneous geodata sources such as VGI, geo-crowdsourcing, earth observation, etc. for a better understanding of urban dynamics. The presented work tackles one of the tasks requested by the project, which is connected to an investigation of the use of Twitter as a geodata source for retrieving valuable insights on the citizens’ interaction with mobility services and hubs. The study refers to five Italian cities, namely Milan, Turin, Padua, Rome, and Naples. Data collection is performed through the use of the Twitter streaming application programming interface. Collected data is analyzed by means of natural language processing techniques with Python. Results include a) extractions of mobility-related tweets presented by means of maps enabling the exploration of their spatial distribution within the cities, and b) a classification of the mobility-related tweets by means of sentiment analysis, allowing to investigate citizens’ perceptions of mobility services. A light and reproducible procedure to achieve these results is also outlined. In general terms, the results are intended for providing snapshots of the citizen interaction with both mobility infrastructure and services enabling a better description of mobility patterns and habits within the studied cities. The work leverages the geo-crowdsourced data within the traditional urban management practices in Italy and investigates the benefits, drawbacks, limitations connected to these data sources, which is the ultimate goal of the URBAN-GEO BIG DATA project.</p>

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Thrilling the society toward science and research is not trivial. Albeit the “academic industry” lavishes many efforts to spread its results not only among the insiders but to the whole mankind, the importance of sharing the knowledge of research is seldom a priority. The European Researcher Night is probably the most important EU action trying to overcome this limitation, putting altogether researcher from different disciplines to show their findings through stands, short communications and events. Within this framework, the event able to attracts citizens is the video mapping projection. In this article is described a multi-disciplinary process that makes use of a photogrammetric survey as an accurate source for video projection mapping. While well-established geomatics technologies (e.g. laser scanning and photogrammetry) paves the way for the virtual reconstruction of the architecture, they are even essential to perform analysis and studies which enables visual artist or art historians to tell the story of a building in a new and fascinating way. Besides the realization of the visual mapping and a critical discussion over the procedure that has been used to translate a 3D model in a visual storytelling of the building, the article also describes an innovative way that has been set up for the management of the whole SHARPER event. The system is app-based and was designed to allow the visitors to interact with the event directly from their smartphones; several active sensors have been displaced among the city, asking the user to search for virtual owls and to catch them by answering some questions, engaging the people by exploiting the gamification paradigm. This latter has been stressed further, since the video projection was conceived as a competition between the students of the Master degree course in Engineering-Architecture. Through the application, the attendant to the visual mapping where thus enabled to vote his/her favourite video in real-time.</p>

<p>The dissemination of the tangible and intangible values of heritage building represents one of the most important objectives in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH). In recent years, different studies and research applied to heritage monuments have shown how it is possible to improve the awareness of the architectural heritage through the integration of latest developments in the field of 3D survey, 3D modelling, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and eXtended Reality (XR). On the other hand, this digital workflow requires a huge amount of data sources and a holistic approach to reach a high level of information sharing coming from different disciplines and sectors such as restoration, geomatics, 3D virtual museums and serious gaming. In conjunction with entertainment software and gaming, this research shows the main results obtained during the generative process of digital environments oriented to improve the level of information and to enrich the contents coming from the informative models. The case study is represented by one of the most important Lombard monuments: the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan. This study, starting from the 3D survey and the data collection of the historical records of the church, improves the creation of an XR experience that reaches a new level of interactivity for different types of devices (desktop, mobile, VR headset) and users (experts, non-experts).</p><p><strong>Highlights:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Generative modelling requirements and novel grades of generations (GOG) and accuracy (GOA) are presented in order to improve the digitisation of built heritage from the 3D survey, reducing time and costs of the scan-to-BIM process.</p></li><li><p>The holistic value of generative modelling allows experts to create digital worlds able to faithfully and accurately represent the detected reality and improve new immersive environments for Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) projects.</p></li><li><p>Immersive environments are created with a mixture of the latest generation software and hardware, allowing users to discover the hidden historical values of built heritage with new levels of interactivity and information.</p></li></ul>

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> While public participation in scientific achievements has a long history, the last decades have seen more attention and an impressive increase in the number of involved people. Citizen science, the term used for denoting such an attitude, is a very diverse practice, encompassing various forms, depths, and aims of collaboration between scientists and citizen researchers and a broad range of scientific disciplines. Different classifications of citizen science projects exist based on the degrees of influence and contributions of citizens. Haklay, Mazumdar, and Wardlaw (2018) distinguish the citizen science projects in three different classes:</p> <ol><li>Long-running citizen science, which are the traditional ones, the projects similar to those run in the past (Koboriet al., 2016; Bonney et al., 2009)</li> <li>Citizen cyberscience, strictly connected with the use of technologies (Grey, 2009) and which can be subclassified in:<ol><li>volunteer computing, where citizens offer the unused computing resources of their computers;</li><li>volunteer thinking, where citizens offer their cognitive abilities for performing tasks difficult for machines;</li><li>passive sensing, where citizens use the sensors integrated into mobile computing devices to carry outautomatic sensing tasks.</li></ol></li> <li>Community science, involving a more significant commitment of citizens also in designing and planning theproject activities in a more egalitarian (if not bottom-up) approach between scientists and citizen scientists(Jepson &amp; Ladle, 2015; Nascimento, Guimarães Pereira, &amp; Ghezzi, 2014; Breen, Dosemagen, Warren, &amp;Lippincott, 2015), which can be divided into:<ol><li>participatory sensing, where citizens use the sensors integrated into mobile computing devices to carry outsensing tasks;</li><li>Do It Yourself (DIY) science, which implies participants create their scientific tools and methodology to carry out their researches; </li><li>civic science, “which is explicitly linked to community goals and questions the state of things” (Haklay et al., 2018).</li></ol></li></ol> <p>The work presented here is of interest of community scientists which voluntarily offer their time for the development of scientific projects. Many software tools have been developed in order to simplify the insertion of data into structured forms and the aggregation and analysis of the obtained data. In recent years, the growing availability of feature-rich and low-cost smartphones have boosted the development of innovative solutions for data collection using portable devices. In this field, ODK (OpenDataKit) is widely known. It is an open-source suite of tools focused on simplicity of use, which includes an Android application for data collection. We used ODK for the first applications we developed.</p><p>One of the applications we developed using ODK is Via Regina (http://www.viaregina.eu/app). The application aims to support slow tourism in Via Regina, which is a road that overlooks the west coast of Lake Como in Northern Italy. Over the centuries, Via Regina has been a critical trade and pilgrim route in Europe. Moreover, from this road, a compact system of slow mobility paths departs, which span the mountainous region at the border between Italy and Switzerland. This region is rich in culture, regarding history, art, architecture, cuisine and people’s lifestyle. Considering collecting data on Via Regina and the paths around it would enable to rediscover and promote its culture while enjoying the territory, an Interreg project named “The Paths of Regina” started. The application developed within this project allows collecting data in predefined types: historical and cultural, morphological, touristic, and critical. Moreover, while reporting a point of interest (POI), the application asks the name, the position (through GPS or an interactive map), a picture, and optionally a video and an audio record of it (Antonovic et al., 2015).</p><p>However, since ODK application can be used only on Android devices, we developed a cross-platform application to collect similar data for the same purpose. It is available on Android, iOS, and web (http://viaregina3.como.polimi.it/app/). The application is developed using Apache Cordova, which is a mobile application development framework that enables running the application in multiple platforms. Leaflet library is used for web mapping. The data is stored in NoSQL PouchDB and CouchDB database, which enables both online and offline data collection. While reporting a POI, the application asks for its type, the user’s rating, a comment, and a picture of it either uploaded from device’s storage or taken using the camera of the mobile device. In addition to being cross-platform, it has the advantage of displaying and enabling the query of POIs reported, compared to the ODK-based version (Brovelli, Kilsedar, &amp; Zamboni, 2016). Regarding citizen science, besides the citizens using these two applications, Iubilantes, a voluntary cultural organization, has been involved in the project as community scientists. Iubilantes created slow mobility paths to walk in and around Via Regina, using their experience gained through studying ancient paths while protecting and enhancing their assets since 1996.</p><p>Mobile data collection can also be used to compensate for the lack of reference data available for land cover validation. We developed the Land Cover Collector (https://github.com/kilsedar/land-cover-collector) application for this purpose, which collects data using the nomenclature of GlobeLand30. GlobeLand30 is the first global land cover map at 30-meter resolution, provided by National Geomatics Center of China, available for 2000 and 2010 (Chen et al., 2015). There are ten land cover classes in the GlobeLand30 dataset, which are: artificial surface, bare land, cultivated land, forest, grassland, permanent snow and ice, shrubland, tundra, water body, and wetland. The collected data will be used for validating GlobeLand30 (Kilsedar, Bratic, Molinari, Minghini, &amp; Brovelli, 2018). The data is licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0 and can be downloaded within the application in JSON format. The application is currently available in eight languages: English, Italian, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, French and Spanish. The technologies used are the same as the cross-platform Via Regina application. As a result, it is available on Android, iOS, and web (https://landcover.como.polimi.it/collector/); and it supports display and query of the collected data. While reporting a POI, the application asks the land cover class of it, the user’s degree of certainty on the correctness of the stated class, photos in north, east, south and west directions, and the user’s comment. Three hands-on workshops were given to teach this application and various ways to validate GlobeLand30: the first on September 1, 2018 at the World Bank in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (in conjunction with the FOSS4G 2018 conference); the second on September 3, 2018 at the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) in Nairobi, Kenya; and the third on October 1, 2018 at the Delft University of Technology in Delft, Netherlands. The workshops, run by representatives of the project's principal investigators &amp;ndash; Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the National Geomatics Center of China (China) &amp;ndash; were attended by a total of 100 people with a background in GIS and remote sensing. (Brovelli et al., 2018).</p><p>Nonetheless, there are no widely adopted cross-platform open-source solutions or systems for on-site surveys that address the problem of information silos: isolated databases, where the information is not adequately shared but rather remains sequestered within each system, which is an obstacle to using data mining to make productive use of data of multiple systems.</p><p> PSAB (Participatory Sensing App Builder) is a platform that provides an open-source and easy to use cross-platform solution for the creation of custom smartphone applications as well as web applications and catalog service for publishing the data and make them available to everyone. It takes advantage of established standards (like XLSForm for defining the structure of the form and DublinCore for exposing metadata) as well as less known yet effective solutions, like WQ (https://wq.io), a framework developed for building reusable software platforms for citizen science. These technologies have been merged, together with other software like Django, PyCSW, PostgreSQL, in a single solution, in order to assist the user during the entire process, from the definition of the form structure, to the creation of an ad-hoc application and the publication of the collected data, inside a flexible and open-source platform.</p><p> Users registered to PSAB are allowed to create a new application by filling a web form where they can upload their XLSForm files and submit the metadata describing the data to be collected. A new application for collecting data on the field is generated and accessible via web and Android (while iOS requires a particular setup), ready to be used online and offline. The creator of each application is also the administrator of it, which means he/she is allowed to add or ban users and modify or remove existing data. Data is automatically synchronized between all the users participating in the project.</p><p> In the presentation we will show the applications we developed, starting from the ODK-based ones and coming to the PSAB application builder, and our experience related to their usage.</p>

On the spectra of soft-hard and pure-applied disciplines, geomatics engineering can be categorized as hard and applied, similarly to other engineering disciplines. One can expect that geomatics engineering would score lower in deep learning as such patterns have been observed for other engineering disciplines compared to soft and pure ones. Some students in upper level courses in geomatics engineering may still struggle with fundamental knowledge from lower level courses. This makes it hard for instructors to create an environment for deep learning. They may have to spend a significant amount of class time reviewing basic concepts, and not as much time is left for building up more complex concepts and problem solving. In order to be more successful in tackling higher level learning outcomes, it would be useful to identify areas of troublesome knowledge and specific threshold concepts in key geomatics engineering courses. By addressing these concepts, instructors can eliminate, or at least minimize, the bottlenecks in the learning process. This is the aim of the teaching and learning research study presented in this paper.The main method for collecting data for this study is classroom observations complemented by minute papers at the end of each course unit. Even though the study is in its early stage, some correlations between the type of lessons delivered and the student cognitive and behavioural engagement can be seen, and some concepts can already be identified as probable threshold concepts. As far as the authors are aware, this is the first study on threshold concepts in geomatics engineering