Berlin, 16 May 2017
3, 2, 1 and lift-off. The 2017 INTERGEO season is underway, with a programme fully reflecting its long-standing key focus – “Knowledge and action for planet Earth”. Once again in 2017, the leading international trade fair for geodesy, geoinformation and land management’s hot topics will highlight ground-breaking developments and projects of a dynamic geo-IT sector.
With COPERNICUS, as one of its headline topics, this year’s INTERGEO acknowledges the growing importance of remote surveying. Very aptly given that Berlin is hosting INTERGEO this year, open data and open government have also emerged as key focal points. Further features of this year’s INTERGEO include the smart city/digital city, digital planning and building/BIM, which were successfully established last year, and developments/applications relating to UAS.
Remote surveying as a basis for decisions and business
With the recent launch of the Sentinel-2B optical imaging satellite, COPERNICUS has posted another sentry in space to monitor, document and archive processes and conditions on Earth. Germany’s CODE-DE platform, which was activated just last week as a national contact point for unlimited access to COPERNICUS data and services, will provide further momentum for the successful European project. COPERNICUS is already providing answers that are freely available to everyone in the form of open data. CODE-DE now also intends to provide straightforward access to Earth observation data so as to make everyday working life easier for landscape planners, meteorologists, farmers, forest managers, nature conservation officers, urban developers, the public sector and industry. The ESA’s Sentinel Mission Manager Dr. Bianca Hörsch will present the latest COPERNICUS developments and applications at INTERGEO.
Open data becoming a must
Professor Hansjörg Kutterer, President of INTERGEO’s host organisation the DVW (German Society for Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management), sees COPERNICUS – a headline topic at this year’s INTERGEO – as a sign of a dynamic industry that is transforming. “An increasing number of segments associated with geodesy are becoming part and parcel of our everyday working lives. We recognised this with last year’s focal points and intend to continue this strategy. With Berlin as the host city for INTERGEO 2017 – and also in connection with COPERNICUS – we’ll be putting open data and open government on our agenda. The German government will be introducing an open data law during this legislative period,” he says.
Continuing on from previous events, INTERGEO will make a point of reporting on the latest developments from the digital city/smart city, digital planning and building/BIM segments, as well as the applications from the UAS sector.
Smart city – digital first
Digitisation concepts and strategies are currently developing at an incredible speed under the umbrella term smart city/digital city. They aim to improve administrative efficiency, involve citizens and companies in urban development processes and thus turn cities into sustainable living environments. According to Thomas Eichhorn from Hamburg’s geocompetence centre, we should clearly be looking to put digital first. He explains that Hamburg’s entire city council is working hard on both internal and external digitisation and on providing answers rather than simply data. The INTERGEO conference programme is taking up and presenting this highly-motivated approach.
Planning and building in 3D with VR and AR
The successes and developments in digital planning and building/BIM (building information modelling) are no less revolutionary. According to industry expert and BIM consultant Dr. Ilka May, 2D planning principles are in the process of being completely replaced by 3D methods. “Building and planning processes are experiencing a radical shake-up. Digitisation is taking processes into the third dimension in order to make them clearer, more efficient, and easier to plan and track. We are working with virtual reality and augmented reality in order to support decisions and shorten processes,” she explains. The INTERGEO conference and trade fair will outline the latest developments in BIM, digital planning and building.
UAS – optimisation and improving efficiency
Virtually no other sector is growing and becoming more professional at a faster rate than UAS (unmanned aerial systems). The focus has long since moved beyond purely technical aspects such as drone hardware or software and has now shifted to the huge range of possible uses. The emphasis is increasingly on optimisation and on improving the efficiency of business processes. As Europe’s number one industry event for commercial and civil drone applications, the INTERAERIAL SOLUTIONS part of INTERGEO provides a comprehensive overview of the latest market developments, integrated business models, manufacturers and suppliers. The conference will highlight and discuss topical issues from the worlds of industry, politics, administration and science.
Continuously presenting innovations
As DVW President Professor Kutterer explains, “Last year, we already made a success of moving into related topic areas close to our core business – the smart city, smart building and building information modelling, also in conjunction with virtual and augmented reality. We’ve discussed all this again and reorganised it for the 2017 INTERGEO participants. Our current INTERGEO profile shows our continuity in an environment that is undergoing a highly dynamic process of change. It’s important to us to present the latest status of the really interesting topics in Berlin. We’re already looking forward to it!”
About INTERGEO
INTERGEO, which consists of a conference and a trade fair, is the world’s largest event for geodesy, geoinformation and land management. It is held every year at different venues in Germany. The conference, which has around 1,300 participants, deals with current issues from politics, administration, science and industry. At last year’s leading trade fair, more than 17,000 visitors discovered the latest innovations from 531 companies from 37 different countries. Visitor, exhibitor and exhibition area statistics for INTERGEO are calculated and certified in line with the standardised definitions of the FKM (Society for the Voluntary Control of Fair and Exhibition Statistics). INTERGEO’s aim is to facilitate process optimisation in numerous target markets with the geo-IT potential it showcases. Its forthcoming venues are the internationally renowned exhibition cities of Berlin in 2017, Frankfurt in 2018 and Stuttgart in 2019.
INTERGEO is hosted by DVW – the German Society for Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management.
Further information is available at www.intergeo.de. Relevant interviews and video clips can be found at www.intergeo-tv.com.
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