Géo212 News

Oh Yeah!

 

Sangha first results : Presentation on May 15th

On May 15th, various survivors of Expedition Sangha2012 will present the first scientific results (strange plants - bad looking spiders - elephant poo) and other fun stuff during a conference at Magny Les Hameaux.

You are all invited ...

European Night of the Museums on May 19th

Once again, our team will be part of the European Night of The Museum on Saturday May 19th.

The topic chosen this year by the French Space Agency CNES will be "Space Controversies" with scientists and history and art specialists discussing in front of artwork.

This time we will head towards Besançon in eastern France, at the Musée du Temps (Time Museum). 

More details to follow.

 

Descartes in the news

Following a succesful experiment, the Descartes partners (Thales, CEA, MASA, GeoConcept and Géo212) organized a press presentation on March 29th 2012.

Various professional and mainstream praised the project both on its originality and down to earth usefulness.

Links here : Téléchargement Usine Nouvelle_Projet DESCARTES_02042012 

and there : Téléchargement Le Parisien_Prototype DESCARTES_09042012

 

Final presentation of the Descartes project

After 42 months of work, the Descartes Project partners (Thales, CEA, MASA, Geoconcept & Geo212) have presented on February 16th the projects results to the stakeholders (Paris Police, Paris Firefighters, Gendarmery, French Defense, Procurement Agency, Paris Hospitals, ...).

A short movie allowed everyone to see the results obtained during the January 18th operational experiment of this Emergency Information Management System.

Later, demonstrations were performed on the C2, simulation, data mining, image processing, geospatial information management, ... aspects of the project.

This project was conducted through the Systematic ICT Cluster.

Greetings from Sangha 2012

Topo work in Sangha lakes

Geo212 mission in the Sangha expedition is to provide a coherent spatial data infrastructure based on optical and radar imagery (provided by our partners Astrium Geo and e-Geos), various maps and data bases and field work. With the technical help from our friends from D3E and Toposat, Camille Netter is well equiped to come back with excellent ground control points and precise location of all the sensors (temperature, water level, ...) recording continuously the evolution of this ecosystem.

Of course, to get good measurements, you've got to get wet ...

 

News from Sangha 2012

The Sangha 2012 biodiversity mission is up and running right now. A first team arrived in Bangui (Central African Republic) on Jan 11th and a second group on Jan 18th. They reached the Sangha "Lakes" (more like ponds actually) one week later in order to start their biodiversity inventories.

Unknown mantisses and worms have already been discovered around the n°1 Lake where the landlord looked very friendly (as you can see on this night picture)

 

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Sangha 2012 on National Public Radio

For more than 18 months, we have been involved in the "Sangha 2012 expedition" project. Sangha 2012 will do an inventory of biodiversity in the Central African Republic forest near the Sangha river.

On December 7th, 2011, Philippe Annoyer and Samuel Danslous presented the upcoming expedition on France Culture, a national Public Radio Channel.

A podcast of the program is available here (discussion in French).

More information to come later on Sangha 2012, as Camille Netter from Geo212 will be part of the field team next month.

Conference in Brussels on November 21st

On November 21st, 2011, Thierry Rousselin joined a panel on surveillance issues in a debate in Brussels National Theater .

The debate was part of the Festival des Libertés organized by Bruxelles Laïque. It includes concerts, theatrical performances, a film competition, exhibitions and debates in Brussels and Liège.

A podcast of the panel is available here.

A new session for the Geointelligence Course at Mines ParisTech

From November 14th to 18th, 26 students from 10 different countries gathered at Mines ParisTech (Ecole des Mines de Paris) for the 17th edition of the Geointelligence for Natural Resources Evaluation and Sustainable Management Course.

Students worked on development issues linked with the development of oil fields in SouthWestern Chad and Eastern Niger.

Five Geo212 consultants were involved in the course: Thierry Rousselin, Karine Guérin, Alexandra Boulay, Gilles Lerouge and Jacques Massiani.

The course site is available right here.

Geo212 Presentation in the Agro ParisTech Remote Sensing Course

On November 16th, 2011, Karine Guerin will present our activities and operational projects in Remote Sensing Applications to Agro ParisTech students in Paris.

First US Presentation of the SAPO project at PECORA18

PECORA18, organized by ASPRS, is focused this year on "40 years of Earth Observation - Understanding in a Changing World".

The Conference is held in Herndon Virginia from November 14th to 17th, 2011.

Our paper "Definition of an Alarm System to Assess the Obsolescence of African Spatial Data Infrastructures" was selected by the organizers of the PECORA18 Conference.

 

Abstract

Reasons for obsolescence of spatial data infrastructures (SDI) have changed drastically over the past few years. Classical reasons were linked to the evolution of landscapes (natural or man made) and eventually to technological breakthroughs (new sources, new production techniques, new distribution methods). Products and services being proposed by official legitimate organisations, decisions on obsolescence rules (leading to updates or new products) were based on consensual rules. Now, thoses rules still apply but at a different pace, especially in developing countries where urban growth and changing landscapes face rhythms seldomly seen in developed countries. It is also true for sources and technologies which change faster.

But now, for SDI stakeholders, new issues threaten the perceived value of their infrastructure. First, geospatial products and services are more and more used for different uses than their original intended use. Second, new actors (both from the commercial side and from the crowdsourcing side) present both opportunities and threats. How to explain that it takes you two or more years to build a dedicated infrastructure while in the mean time Google will have changed three times the VHR coverage over the same area? How to face criticism on your products based on the fact that as soon as you deliver them, users can check them against crowd sourced photos, videos, GPS tracks, or Open Street Maps productions…?

Even if strong arguments push to defend the need to build and maintain spatial data infrastructures, new sources, methods and organizations must be used to identify, assess and process obsolescence as soon as possible.

The availability of global satellite coverages and crowd sourced data, integrated in a warning system, allow the stakeholder to be the first to anticipate the future obsolescence of his infrastructure. It also allows to initiate the right communication with end users on perceived obsolescences.

We will present the system defined for defense and oil & gas stakeholders to assess possible obsolescence of their SDI in Africa. It is based on multiple alert systems on operational requirements, change detection on the field, availability of sources to update the data and competition from other products or services. Those alerts held to build a dynamic cartography integrated in a quaterly dashboard reporting.

French Space Agency is 50 and celebrates with a book

For its 50th Birthday, the French Space Agency (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales - CNES) published a commemorative book illustrating space through 101 topics.

Named in french "C'est l'espace ! 101 savoirs, histoires et curiosités" (This is Space! 101 knowledges, stories and curiosities), this large book is published by the renowned Gallimard publishing company.

Amongst 101 scientists, scholars and artists selected to contribute on one of the topics, Thierry Rousselin was in charge of the book's "Surveillance" topic.

A perfect Christmas gift available in french bookstores or through Amazon

Presentation at CIOME2011 conference in N'Djamena, Chad

In October 2011, Chad held the 3rd edition of its Chad International Oil and Mining Exhibition and Conference (CIOME2011).

Government and Industry delegates from 20 countries attended the event in N'Djamena from October 11th to 13th. They discussed the perspectives of development following the operation of Djermaya refinery, oil & gas recent discoveries by CNPC and CPC and the arrival in the country of new companies (most notably Griffiths and ERHC).

On October 13th, Geo212 gave a presentation on "New Opportunities for Logistics and HSE Requirements for the Oil and Gas and Mining Industry".

Rousselin en ciome 2011

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SAPO Project presentation at ICC 2011

During the International Cartographic Conference held in Paris in July 2011, Thierry Rousselin had the opportunity to present the SAPO project in the Spatial Data Infrastructures Session.

Calife Research Project presentation at ICC2011

At the International Cartographic Conference 2011 in Paris, Nicolas Saporiti presented on July 5th the Calife Research Project, conducted with Thales Communications for the French Ministry of Defense (DGA - Procurement Agency).

Calife beeing a very large subject, Nicolas's presentation focused on the interaction between data quality and performances of an end-user function. The theoretical model was illustrated with road and track mobility functions in Chadian environment for various weathers and tracks alterations.

 

Icc 2011 presentation geo212

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A new english speaking GIS newsletter with a french flavor

Our media partner "SIG la Lettre" just created a small english speking spin-off named "GIS & Geomatics Intelligence".

The first issue will be distributed to all the participants of the International Cartographic Conference held in Paris in July.

 

In this first issue, two of our reports (previously published in the french speacking newsletter) are included.

First public presentation of the SAPO Project at Rencontres SIG La Lettre

"Les Rencontres de SIG La Lettre" is an annual conference of french geospatial specialists mainly focused on local government and utilities.

The 2011 edition was held in Paris - Marne La Vallée from May 17th to 19th, 2011. Thirteen sessions covered all the major actual topics of interest.

One of these sessions was centered on the new relationship between professional and collaborative practices in geospatial projects. Nine contributors provided interesting thoughts based on their experiences in different domains (research, local government, industry...). Ed Parsons, as a keynote speaker, gave insight from Google.

The whole session and the final panel discussion was organized and moderated by Thierry Rousselin.

In one of the nine presentations, Karine Guérin introduced the innovative SAPO project aimed at the analysis of potential obsolescence of african spatial data infrastructures.

 

Sapo rsll3

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3D Models from the 17th Century

Once a year in France, it's Museum Night, with free admission and events in participating museums and exhibit halls. CNES, the french space agency is part of this cultural event organizing stimulating confrontations between space technologies and historical or cultural masterpieces.

On May 14th 2011, in the Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille (Northern France), Thierry Rousselin was sent by CNES to discuss with an art historian on the Plans Reliefs Collection. The Lille Museum host a large part of collection of the french defense plan-reliefs collection. Created during the XVIIth century, those scale models of landscape and buildings  helped their creators to study intitial building projects or upgrades on fortifications or campaigns surrounding fortified locations.

Questions from the audience allowed to show how modern those models were and how actual 3D geospatial technologies and satellite and aerial imagery allow to answer the same kind of questions.