Gottfried Konecny:the influence in the global development of the three geosciences

PREFACE The paper contains a brief overview of the professional activities of Professor Gottfried Konecny,Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Photogrammetry and GeoInformation,Leibniz University Hannover,Germany,and his influence on photogrammetry,remote sensing and geospatial infor-mation science during his time at the University of New Brunswick,Canada,and at the Leibniz University.His work can be divided into educational,scientific,application,organizational,and work in international societies.Additional activities comprised of giving courses in various languages,consultancy activities,and various other cooperations which took place in many South American countries,in Africa and Asia,for organizations such as the World Bank,United Nations,German Space Agency DLR,to name only a few.Activities in connection with international societies mainly took place during Prof.Konecny's engagement in the Council of the International Society for Photogrammetry(ISP),renamed the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing(ISPRS),and the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories(EARSeL)Bureau.He was a key figure in bringing many countries and organizations to ISPRS as Ordinary and Sustaining Members.Professor Konecny has always been aware of the importance of international cooperation at various levels,also with sister societies such as the International Cartographic Association and the United Nations-Global Geospatial Information Management(UN-GGIM).His application activities span from the photogrammetry-oriented projects he was awarded in Canada,to remote sensing topics and geospatial sciences,combined with cartography during his Hannover period.His vision and endless effort are exemplary for a person who has always been devoted to the three geosciences mentioned above.Professor Konecny is the author of a number of books,journal papers and papers presented at international and national conferences.He has been a recognized keynote speaker at many conferences throughout the world due to his vast experience.This paper describes 75 years of a man who is an expert in fields which arose during his academic life.     

Gottfried Konecny:involvement of spatial information sciences in ISPRS disciplines

Preface I am pleased to contribute an article to GSIS to com-memorate the great achievements of Prof.Dr.Gottfried Konecny on the occasion of the celebration of his 90th birthday. I was lucky to work closely with Gottfried as an ISPRS Council member for the first time in 1984 in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil,when I was elected as Congress Director of the Kyoto ISPRS Congress to be held in 1988.Gottfried was elected as ISPRS President for 1984～1988.At the first Council meeting under the President Gottfried,he said to all Council members"as we are like a family,I request that we address each other by our first names".If he had not said this,I might have called him Professor Konecny,according to Japanese custom.     

基础地理知识服务的基本问题与研究方向

基础地理数据具有空间载体和知识存量两大作用。以往人们主要关注其空间载体作用,研发和提供了丰富多样的基础地理数据服务与信息服务,但对其知识存量挖掘不够,提供的地理空间知识服务极少。近年来,“数据海量,信息爆炸,知识难求”现象愈加突出,从地理数据信息服务走向知识服务势在必行,已成为测绘科技转型升级的一项重要任务。借鉴知识图谱的最新研究进展,讨论了基础地理数据、信息和知识的基本内涵,提出了以结构化和关联化为重要特征的基础地理知识服务总体思路,分析了由此带来的4方面问题;继而从领域知识体系构建、关键技术、应用服务3个方面讨论了基础地理知识服务的研究方向与重点;以GlobeLand30知识服务为例,介绍了初步研究进展。     

Gottfried Konecny:The photogrammetric and remote sensing trend setter

PREFACE There are various publications on the 90th birthday of Gottfried Konecny.His involvement in the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing(ISPRS)is particularly described by others.Here,his forward-oriented impulses in research and development at the former Institute for Photogrammetry and Engineering Survey of the(Technical)University of Hannover,today Institute for Photogrammetry and Geoinformation,Leibniz University Hannover,and some of his activities supporting developing and other countries by given short-term courses are highlighted.Gottfried Konecny was always one of the first in pushing new technologies.With the analytical plotter AP/C-3,he introduced analytical photogrammetry in Germany.Based on his experience with this not really operational version,he induced the company Zeiss to develop the first really operational analytical plotter Planicomp,which resulted in the end of analog photogrammetric devices and their limitations.At the invitation of Gilbert Hobrough,a mainly hardware-based image correlator was developed for the AP/C-3 in Hannover which anticipated many of today's applications.Gottfried Konecny initiated remote sensing in Germany.Based on his proposal with the Metric Camera Flight on Spacelab,the then highest resolution civil stereoscopic space images available were generated.Despite limited computer performance at his institute,a digital stereo plotter was developed,using hardware components from the cooperating Swedish company Context Vision,long before digital stereo workstations with increased and affordable computer capacity were possible.Also,in the area of GIS,he too,pushed development in collaboration with companies and administrations.Shortly before the end of his time as head of the institute,and more so after he became emeritus professor,he started a series of educational workshops,particularly in developing countries,but also other countries,to support the development of photogram-metry,remote sensing and GIS.He promoted the use of space imagery for mapping to improve the situation of poorly updated topographic maps.     

Gottfried Konecny:From draftsman to Professor emeritus-75 years of involvement in photogrammetry and remote sensing

This special issue is dedicated to Prof.Gottfried Konecny(see Figure 1),the former president of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing(ISPRS)on the occasion of his 90th birthday,which he celebrated in good health and spirits in June 2020(see Figure 2).A visionary leader and missionary of global topographic mapping,a world scientist and a world citizen who restlessly built and continues to build sustainable bridges between different generations and different peoples of the globe and a true pioneer of photogrammetry and remote sensing,Konecny has shaped our field of research and development over the last 75 years in ways second to none.He also has a very special con-nection to China,which prompted the Editor-in-Chief of Geo-spatial Information Science to suggest this jour-nal as a very good place to publish this special issue.As the successor of Prof.Konecny at the Institute of Photogrammetry and GeoInformation of Leibniz University Hannover,it is with great honor,joy and thankfulness that Christian Heipke accepted the invi-tation to be guest editor of this special issue,together with Deren Li.     

Access to Geospatial Data in 2003: A Global Survey of Public Policy and Technological Factors

Access to global geospatial data, and the way these data are being used, has changed dramatically in the past decade. This is true for a variety of reasons, many of them not readily apparent. This article will explore some of the essential changes in this sphere since the early 1990s, as seen from the perspective of a commercial distributor and service bureau involved with international maps and related data.     

Fundamental aspects of access control for geospatial data

Abstract

In recent years, geographical information systems have been employed in a wide variety of application domains, and as a result many research efforts are being devoted to those upcoming problems. Geospatial data security, especially access control, has attracted increased research interests within the academic community. The tendency towards sharing and interoperability of geospatial data and applications makes it common to acquire and integrate geospatial data from multiple organisations to accomplish a complex task. Meanwhile, many organisations have the requirement for securing access to possessed sensitive or proprietary geospatial data. In this heterogeneous and distributed environment, consistent access control functionality is crucial to promote controlled accessibility. As an extension of general access control mechanisms in the IT domain, the mechanism for geospatial data access control has its own requirements and characteristics of granularity and geospatial logic. In this paper, we address several fundamental aspects concerning the design and implementation of an access control system for geospatial data, including the classification, requirements, authorisation models, storage structures and management approaches for authorisation rules, matching and decision-making algorithms between authorisation rules and access requests, and its policy enforcement mechanisms. This paper also presents a system framework for realising access control functionality for geospatial data, and explain access control procedures in detail.     

Temporal divergence in cropping pattern and its implications on geospatial drought assessment

Time series data on cropping pattern at disaggregated level were analysed and its implications on geospatial drought assessment were demonstrated. An index of Cropping Pattern Dissimilarity (CP-DI) between a pair of years, developed in this study, proved that the cropping pattern of a year has a higher degree of similarity with that of recent past years only and tends to be dissimilar with longer time difference. The temporal divergence in cropping pattern has direct implications on geospatial approach of drought assessment, in which, time series NDVI data are compared for drought interpretation. It was found that, seasonal NDVI profiles of drought year and normal year did not show any anomaly when the cropping patterns were dissimilar and two normal years having dissimilar cropping pattern showed different NDVI profiles. Therefore, it is suggested that such temporal comparisons of NDVI are better restricted to recent past years to achieve more objective interpretation.     

Land use/land cover dynamics in Umngot watershed of Meghalaya using geospatial tools

Meghalaya is a landlocked state where the progress of industrialization is very slow. Majority of the population (rural) depends on agriculture. Agriculture in the state is carried on in primitive ways with Jhumming prevailing in many parts. This practice is considered destructive as vast forest areas are cleared and burnt. Such areas are used for cultivation and left out. After a gap of few years (2–3 years as of now and 15–20 years in past) the area is revisited for cultivation without allowing to rejuvenate. The present work provides a status and trend of Land use land cover dynamics in parts (at watershed level) of Meghalaya. The geospatial tools have been used to assess (a) the changes in land use land cover since 1970s to 2005; (b) patch dynamics for understanding the degree of fragmentation; (c) changes along the terrain topography. Umngot watershed of Meghalaya is taken as experimental area, which is a representative of mid-altitudinal watershed particularly in the Jaintia hills district of Meghalaya.     

How to Apply the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) Properly to Parallel Geospatial Raster I/O?

Input/output (I/O) of geospatial raster data often becomes the bottleneck of parallel geospatial processing due to the large data size and diverse formats of raster data. The open‐source Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL), which has been widely used to access diverse formats of geospatial raster data, has been applied recently to parallel geospatial raster processing. This article first explores the efficiency and feasibility of parallel raster I/O using GDAL under three common ways of domain decomposition: row‐wise, column‐wise, and block‐wise. Experimental results show that parallel raster I/O using GDAL under column‐wise or block‐wise domain decomposition is highly inefficient and cannot achieve correct output, although GDAL performs well under row‐wise domain decomposition. The reasons for this problem with GDAL are then analyzed and a two‐phase I/O strategy is proposed, designed to overcome this problem. A data redistribution module based on the proposed I/O strategy is implemented for GDAL using a message‐passing‐interface (MPI) programming model. Experimental results show that the data redistribution module is effective.     

顾及地理空间视角的区域SDGs综合评估方法与示范

目前世界各国正积极落实联合国《2030年可持续发展议程》及其17项可持续发展目标(Sustainable Development Goals,英文缩写为SDGs),重要举措之一是利用统计和地理信息进行SDGs进展评估监测。就总体而言,国内外这方面研究尚处于概念设计、方法探讨和单指标、小范围试点阶段。究其原因,主要是涉及因素众多、技术过程复杂,既面临全球指标体系的科学理解、海量时空数据的融合处理、顾及地理视角的指标计算、基于事实的SDGs分析评估等诸多技术难题,还要实现跨学科的综合分析、多机构的沟通协调等。针对这一国际前沿课题,笔者研究提出了统计和地理信息相结合的综合评估方法,完成了浙江省德清县践行2030议程情况的定量综合评估。既为总结当地践行SDGs经验、发现存在问题、制定改进方案提供了重要科学依据,也为国内外其他区域开展SDGs定量评估监测提供了可借鉴的方法与范例。     

“数字丽水”地理空间框架建设主要成果与技术创新

"数字丽水"地理空间框架建设项目建立了完善的地理实体数据库、地理信息公共平台以及一系列应用示范系统,目前已为政务部门20多家用户单位提供地理空间数据服务。本文对"数字丽水"地理空间框架项目建设的主要成果与技术创新进行总结。     

User Assessment as Input for Useful Geospatial Representations within Mobile Location-Based Services

Mobile Location‐Based Services (mLBS) are an increasingly consumer‐based concept borne from, and continually driven by, technology‐centred development; as opposed to the needs of end users. Where users have been made a focus, the research generally concerns issues of overall system appearance, functionality, information content and interaction methods, with little emphasis on the component geospatial representations. This paper describes the initial stages of a research project aimed at filling this void through the application of a qualitative User‐Centred Design (UCD) methodology for optimising geospatial representations within mLBS applications, in order to support a selected user group: Australian ‘leisure‐based travellers’. Presented in this paper is an account of two UCD activities adopted for the research. The first, user profiling, served to define the target user population in terms of their technological, geospatial and travel experiences, using an online questionnaire. The second, user task analysis, involved in‐depth interviews with a subset of users in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the geospatial goals, tasks, needs and preferences within the population, as well as the range of user differences and variability in tasks present. An overall user assessment, through combined analysis of the two result sets, highlighted considerations for the ongoing research, including a set of specific implications for the design of alternative models for geospatial services, representations and interactions. The themes described in this paper represent an initial and necessary component of UCD, which has been largely overlooked in research relating to mLBS. Whilst the focus here is on a specific user group and context of use, it is envisaged that many of the concepts tested and ratified by the resulting models will be relevant to mLBS applications in general.     

SURVEYING INSTRUCTION AT THE UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Education at the university should in essence be concerned more with theory than technique, with principles rather than practice. Should a university lose sight of this aim it will of a certainty become a university only in name. The attention to be given to vocational training will necessarily vary from faculty to faculty—that some vocational training is deemed desirable is shown by the very presence of an engineering department in nearly all our universities, a department in which practical training is necessarily mingled with theory. It is possible to say with truth about a certain type of engineering student that he will make a good engineer if only he can get through his examinations; to make the comparable statement about, say, a mathematics student is clearly ridiculous. In other words, the engineering profession, and in particular the civil engineering profession, has room for a good practical man to whom theory does not come easily; and yet in many of our university engineering departments no allowance is made for a man's chosen career save that after his first year of general engineering work he may elect to be a civil mechanical, electrical or aeronautical engineer. Often he has no choice of subjects for study; sometimes he is given a choice of four out of five subjects, as with the external civil engineering degree of London University where his freedom of action resolves itself into a decision between Hydraulics and Mathematics. In this examination, and many others, all candidates are required to sit the same papers in a subject, irrespective of whether they are potential first-class honours men or may expect to obtain a pass degree.     

THE QUEST FOR CAMERON'S PLATEAU

Abstract

A Newcomer to Malaya visiting Cameron Highlands for the first time may probably wonder, after his car has made its tortuous ascent into the mountains, how this area became Malaya's main hill station and why it received its name. He may not know that years before the Highlands came under serious consideration and after it was obvious the development of Fraser's Hill could only be limited, Gunong Tahan, the highest mountain in the peninsula (7,186 feet) on the borders of Kelantan and Pahang, was for a long time considered as Malaya's only hope of a hill station likely to rival those of India and Ceylon. In fact, a topographical survey made by the Federated Malay States Survey Department just before and during the 1914–18 war revealed the presence there of an extensive plateau at a height of about 5,400 feet, It seemed so promising that in 1912 the Governor, Sir Arthur Young, made the ascent on foot to inspect it. However, before coming to a decision Government considered it advisable to test the climatic conditions there, and accordingly a party of observers was recruited from England for the purpose. They spent a year on Gunong Tahan between 1921 and 1922 and subsequently made a report on their observations. Opinion then became unfavourable, partly because the plateau is but imperfectly furnished with soil, partly because it is somewhat inaccessible from most of the inhabited areas of the peninsula, and partly because during too many days of the year it is liable to become enshrouded in heavy mists. The idea of immediately developing Gunong Tahang was therefore abandoned. Those who thought they saw in this mountain another Newara-Eliya or Ootacamund were naturally disappointed and soon cast around for another site to accommodate the hill station of their dreams. In this quest someone remembered or alighted upon in the archives of the Perak Public Works Department a report by an explorer named William Cameron on his journey overland about 1884 from Kinta to the mouth of the Pahang River. The late Sir Frank Swettenham, in his last book, “ Footprints in Malaya “, published by Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., London, in 1942, throws some light on Cameron and his activities about this time. He says, “ Amongst the strangers from Ceylon and India, from Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Australia and elsewhere, who strayed into Selangor was Mr. William Cameron, brother of the editor of the Straits Times, a highly respected resident of Singapore. Mr. William Cameron came to Selangor shortly after I became British Resident there, and he asked to be allowed to do something which would help in the development of the country. His culture and his quiet manner appealed to me, and I asked him what he proposed to do. He explained that he had some knowledge of minerals and geology, and he suggested that he should be given a roving commission to go, with a party of wild people whom he would collect, and explore the depths of the jungle and report the result of his search …. I engaged Mr. Cameron to do what he suggested. He made all his own arrangements, managed somehow to collect a party of aborigines, and disappeared into the jungle for weeks at a time. When he returned from these expeditions he used to come to the Residency, stay a few days, make his report and start off again. After one prolonged absence, when I became anxious about his safety, he returned very ill and had to be carried the last stage of his journey. He then reported the discovery of the high table-land on the borders of Perak and Pahang, now known as Cameron Highlands. I do not know what had upset him, unless it was the hardships he went through in those many weeks of travel up and down the jungle-covered mountains of the main range, but while he stayed with me he was subject to strange delusions, walked about the house at 3 a.m., carrying an iron bar, and two or three times in a night I had to put him back in his bed. Finally, one morning, he produced a revolver and shot at his Chinese servant, and when I went to his room and told him I had removed all his firearms because of that incident, he merely remarked: ‘Yes, but I didn't ·hit him.’ Eventually it was necessary to send him to the Singapore Hospital’ for proper care, and there he died.”     

On-the-fly server-based aerial imagery management system

Aerial images are valuable products when dealing with both geospatial and geotemporal analysis. Nowadays, they are widely used for many different purposes and by an extensive public, including private companies, official administrations and individual users. Although in the past few years there has been an increasing interest in showing all kinds of geographical information on the World Wide Web, access to aerial imagery and its dissemination are still difficult and lack flexibility. This paper introduces an aerial imagery management system based on client–server principles, operated so as to allow users quick and efficient queries, processing and management of huge sets of photogrammetric imagery stored on raster servers. It is a novel product that is ready to provide image-based cartographic data available in public and private digital warehouses, facilitating all the required visualisations and queries, as well as geometric and radiometric processing on the fly. This paper shows the design, system architecture and various functionalities of the system in a real-life scenario.     

矢量地图空间信息度量及其变化分析方法

如何计算地图的空间信息含量是评价制图质量、地图综合算法以及实现空间信息有效传输的重要基础。论文在详细分析现有的空间信息度量方法的基础上,提出了一种空间信息度量的新方法。该方法分别从几何、专题、拓扑以及专题拓扑4个方面来度量地图空间信息。然后,提出利用膨胀和序贯膨胀形态学算子分析几何信息熵、专题信息熵、拓扑信息熵以及专题拓扑信息熵随地图符号影响范嗣不同而引起的变化。通过算例分析发现,利用Voronoi图计算得到的结果是论文方法的一个极值结果（即特例）,并且该方法便于定量分析地图空间信息熵度量随符号影响范围（或大小）的变化情况。     

THE EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AN EMINENT WORLD CARTOGRAPHER

The multifaceted career and contributions of Professor Konstantin A. Salishchev, Chair of the Moscow University Department of Cartography and eminent world cartographer, are celebrated on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. These contributions include but are not restricted to: scholarly and administrative work in upgrading national atlas cartography worldwide, improvement of the quality of maps and cartographic instruction in higher education, publication of numerous excellent cartographic texts, formulation of the concept of the “cartographic method of research,” and promotion of international cooperation among cartographers and geographers through active participation and leadership in numerous world professional organizations. From the Russian original by I. D. Papanin, G. I. Rychagov, and A. F. Treshnikov.     

Building geospatial infrastructure

ABSTRACT

Many visions for geospatial technology have been advanced over the past half century. Initially researchers saw the handling of geospatial data as the major problem to be overcome. The vision of geographic information systems arose as an early international consensus. Later visions included spatial data infrastructure, Digital Earth, and a nervous system for the planet. With accelerating advances in information technology, a new vision is needed that reflects today’s focus on open and multimodal access, sharing, engagement, the Web, Big Data, artificial intelligence, and data science. We elaborate on the concept of geospatial infrastructure, and argue that it is essential if geospatial technology is to contribute to the solution of problems facing humanity.     

实景三维中国建设的基本定位与技术路径

当前国家大力推动数字化发展,推进数字经济、数字社会、数字政府建设,驱动生产、生活和治理方式的全面深入变革,对基础测绘产品与服务提出了新的更高要求。针对这一重大需求,自然资源部提出实景三维中国建设,研制能客观真实地反映人类生产、生活和生态空间的实景三维信息产品,构建能与现实三维空间实时互联互通的数字三维空间,为数字中国提供新一代的三维时空信息框架,提供高质量时空信息产品与高水平时空信息服务。这既是今后一个时期国家和地方基础测绘的重大任务,也是一项涉及因素复杂、技术难度极大的科技工程。要切实做好这项重要工作,应深化科学认知,厘清技术逻辑,明确基本定位,做好顶层设计。分析了实景三维中国建设的发展背景,讨论了其基本定位和总体技术逻辑,提出了主要的技术实现路径。