PSM Lecture

The second lecture of PSM was held today. This is the third week of lecture (no lecture last week due to public holiday) and students are supposed to submit PSM synopsis by today. Many of them managed to have it done.

The class

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Geoid School Closing Ceremony

Today is the last day of Geoid School 2016. There is no more lecture given by Prof Sjoberg in the morning session. The morning slot was occupied by Ramin and he continued with the lab on the use of KTH software. The lab was emphasised on fitting the gravimetric geoid to GPS on benchmarks.
In the evening a closing session of Geoid School was scheduled. It starts with participants giving feedback on Geoid School by answering questionnaires. The feedback showed that participants are satisfied with the Geoid School on overall and some suggestions are put forward for future improvement. Among the suggestions is to provide a longer slot for the lecture on basic Physical Geodesy.

The closing ceremony was ended with the presentation of certificate to all participants.

Certificate presentation

Wan Anom receiving her certificate

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Geoid School BBQ Dinner

One of the events set for the Geoid School is the BBQ Dinner. The Geoid School BBQ Dinner was held at Balai Cerap UTM. The dinner was attended by all participants, committee members and invited staff. The event began with the arrival of guest and all participants by UTM van at around 8.15 pm. Soon after arrival all were busy with the photo session with a beautiful night view of UTM as background. After that guest were taken for a short visit to the Galeria at ground level of Balai Cerap. The Galeria is filled with display of old survey instruments likes total station, tellurometer and Marconi Doppler receiver. Those were old instruments used by students in their survey projects in 1980s.

The BBQ dinner started soon after the Galeria's visit. The menu were prepared by Mak Jah Cafe and paid for by Jurukur Dr Majid, an established survey company belong to a former geodesy professor of FGHT.

The team from KTH

Dinner time

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Preparation of Balai Cerap for BBQ

The BBQ dinner of Geoid School was arranged to be held at Balai Cerap. The preparation for the event started as early as 3 pm with committee members busy with logistic arrangement of  canopy, dining table and also the PA system. Many thanks to hardworking committee crews - Nazirah and Amalina. Thanks also to Astina for making the necessary booking arrangement for the venue and also the necessary facilities.

The canopies

Crew of Mak Jah Cafe's in action

Preparing the PA system

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Geoid School - The Aim and Contents

The objectives of the Fourth International School on Least Squares Approach to Modelling the Geoid was aimed at providing a good opportunity for the students to familiarize themselves with the latest developments in geoid determination with special focus on the use of KTH Least Squares Modification of Stokes Approach software package (LSMSA). The school was also aimed as well for the participants to building up contacts with the professionals dealing with geoid determination particularly among those within the participant's countries.

The content of the lectures of the Fourth International School on Least Squares Approach to Modelling the Geoid include the following topics;

- Basic Physical Geodesy, Modification of Stokes' formula, Additive corrections in the KTH Method, LSMSA vs the R-C-R technique and some practical experiences geoid computation using KTH Method.
The lab sessions were focused with the following contents;
- Gravity data snooping and gridding, Gravity field determination by global geopotential models, Digital Elevation models (DEM) and geoid, and full project workshop of computing geoid using KTH GEOLAB Software.

Geoid School Participants

A total number of thirteen participants attended the Geoid School. Only two foreign participants managed to come. Both are from Bandung Institute of Technology. The rest are all from Malaysia. Four of them are surveyors working in the government sectors - three from Land and Survey Department Sarawak and one from National Surveying and Mapping Department Kuala Lumpur. Two geodesy academic staff from local universities also participated - one from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai and one from Mara University of Technology Arau Perlis. One participants from surveying instrument company also attended. The rest of the participants are all postgraduate students of UTM Skudai Geomatic Innovation Research Group whom their research mainly involved on gravity and geoid determination.

Group photo after the official opening of the Geoid School

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Opening of Geoid School 2016

The Geoid School 2016 was finally began today. The Geoid School which is officially named as The Fourth International School on Least Squares Approach to Modelling the Geoid was organized by Geomatic Innovation Research Group (GnG), Dept of Geoinformation FGHT. The school was conducted in collaboration with Prof Lars Sjoberg and Dr Ramin Kiamehr. Both are from Geodesy Department, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Stockholm, Sweden.

The official opening is held today at Seminar Room FGHT. It was officiated by Head of Geoinformation Department. The ceremony was began with opening remark by me as Chairman of the Organizing Committee. Then it was followed by speech by Prof Sjoberg as co-organizer and finally the official opening speech by Assoc Prof Dr Zulkepli Majid.

The official opening was followed by group photo and later breakfast was served at the banquet room nearby.

 The Organizing Committee Chairman giving his speech

A shot after the breakfast

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Get together session at G&G

Prior to Geoid School a get together session with Prof Sjoberg was held at G&G Lab. The session was attended by handful of G&G staff and postgraduate students.  The event was arranged at the request of G&G postgrad students whom very keen to meet Prof Sjoberg and to get to know him. Prof Sjoberg during his speech was telling about his academic endeavour and also about his teaching and research experience at KTH. The get together session was followed by tea and snack prepared and arranged by the participating students.

Get to know session

Tea session

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Prof Sjoberg Arrival

Geoid School is so near to starts. It begin with the arrival of Professor Sjoberg at Changi Airport. Sjoberg started travelling from Stockholm to Helsinki Airport Finland Thursday evening at 5 pm (local time) and from there en-route Changi flying on FinnAir. Sjoberg arrived Changi at 4.50 pm and UTM transport was arranged to pick him up. The UTM car arrived Changi at about 5 pm (10 minutes late) due to traffic congestion. By the time we arrived Prof Sjoberg already waiting there. It shows how efficient the system at Changi Airport. Arrival passengers cleared everything very quick.

Sjoberg on arrival at Changi Airport

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Persiapan Ruang Geoid School

Hari ini fokus diberikan kepada persiapan untuk ruang program Geoid School. Ruang yang diberikan ialah di Bilik Seminar Aras Bawah C02 dan juga Bilik Jamuan bersebelahannya. Antara perkara pentingnya ialah memastikan kemudahan wifi dan sistem projektor dapat berjalan elok. Pemasangan banner dan bunting tidak dapat dibuat kerana kedua-dua item ini masih belum siap.

Persiapan Bilik Geoid School

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Geoid School Meeting

The Geoid School meeting was held this evening. The meeting starts at 2.15pm and held to discuss the last preparation before the event start next week.

The meeting attendees

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Vermessung & Geoinformation - Austrian Journal

A good website giving information about Surveying and geodesy education in Austria. Among the information given are journal papers published in OVG journal - V & G. Also given there are the undergraduate thesis being and written worked at Austrian universities.

The website - ovg.

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Croatia Geoid 2015

A new and most recent geoid for Croatia was computed recently at Faculty of Geodesy, U of Zagreb. The geoid was computed by a PhD candidate Olga Bjelotomic. The geoid computation done by Olga was implemented using least squares of Stokes modification approach. She already submitted and defended her thesis and awarded with a PhD in Technical Sciences. Her research was supervised by Prof T Basic

Croatia Geoid - PhD in Technical Sciences

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Argentina Geoid 2015

A recent geoid for Argentina was computed from a graduate research work project done in Australia. The geoid was computed by Pinon as his research work leading to a MSc degree at RMIT University, Melbourne. The computation was done using Gravsoft geoid package. The research was supervised by Prof K Zhang as his main supervisor. Pinon is from Instituto Geografico Nacional, Buenos Aires.
A poster presentation of the new Argentinian Gravimetric Geoid Model GEOAR can be downloaded here.

RMIT Msc Thesis - Argentina Geoid

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Recipients of the Weikko A Heiskanen Award

The Division of Geodetic Science OSU has continued presenting the Heiskanen award to outstanding geodesist. The award was started in 1959 with the first three awardees was Clarence Robert Johnson followed by Jesse Schreiter (1960) and Mar Ann Hmphre (1961). Given below is the list of Heiskanen Award winners for the past ten years (Senior Award);

2016 - Thomas J Johnson (NGA Project Scientist; also former NASA program manager)
2015 - Wenbin Shen (PhD Graz 1996; Professor at Wuhan; Guest Scientist Stuttgart)
2014 - Michael Durand (PhD UCLA 2007;  Assoc Prof Earth Science OSU)
2013 - Michael Schmidt (PhD 1990 Bonn; DGFI Munchen; Professor TU Munchen)
2012 - Jun Yi Guo (Senior Research Scientist, Earth Sciences OSU)
2011 - Kamil Erkan (Post-doc OSU; OSU Report 488-2008 & 509-2015; Professor CE Dept, Marmara University Istanbul)
2010 - Pierre Desjardins (Trimble Navigation Westminster CO)
2009 - Matthew S Platz
2008 - Michael G Bevis
2007 - Jay H Kwon

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KTH combined topographic correction

The additive corrections in the KTH approach involved  four separate corrections and the combined topographic correction is the first to be dealt with. The list follow gives the reference readings on the combined topographic correction;

Sjoberg (2000) Topographic effects by the Stokes-Helmert method of geoid and quasi-geoid determinations. J of G 74:255-268

Sjoberg (2001) Topographic and atmospheric corrections of gravimetric geoid determination with special emphasis on the effects of harmonic of degrees zero and one. J of G 75:283-290

Sjoberg (2007) The topographic bias by analytical continuation in physical geodesy. J of G 81:345-350
Vermeer (2008) Comments on Sjoberg (2007) J of G 82:445-450
and answered by Sjoberg in;
Sjoberg (2008) Answers to comments by Vermeer. J of G 82:451-452

Sjoberg (2009) The terrain correction in gravimetric geoid determination – is it needed? GJI 176:14-18

[Taken from Ssengendo et.al (2015) - bind H01 - paper 2]

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Geodesy with the GPS

Kuliah mengenai GPS untuk geodesi boleh diperolehi dari banyak sumber. Satu daripadanya boleh dilihat dari sumber online universiti luar negara yang menyertakan juga slides yang mereka sediakan. Antara kuliah yang boleh dikongsi ialah oleh Profesor Jim Davis dari Columbia University. Beliau menyediakan bahan kuliah 'Geodesy with the GPS' dengan emphasis kepada aplikasi geoscience.

Dapatkan dari sumber berikut - columbia uni.

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From the Earth's Core to Outer Space

An interesting publication from Springer.

Outer Space

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South African Journal of Geomatics

South African Journal of Geomatics is an open access journal.The most current issue is Vol 5 No 1 (2016).

It can be accessed from here - link.

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What is relativistic geodesy?

Read paper by Professor Flury "Relativistic Geodesy" published in Journal of Physics - Conference Series 723 (2016). The paper was earlier presented at 8th Symposium on Frequency Standards and Metrology in 2015.

Paper published in 2015

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Relativistic Geodesy

Satu topic terkini yang dibincang oleh ahli geodesi ialah "Relativistic Geodesy". Sebuah seminar telah diadakan dan beberapa topic fundamental mengenai RG telah disampaikan oleh mereka yang ternama. Seminar "Relativistic Geodesy: Foundations and Applications" telah diadakan di Germany (Bonn) pada Mac lalu.  Antara tokoh yang menyampaikan syarahan ialah Grafarend, Flury, Mayer-Guerr dan J Mueller. Keempat nama yang disebut adalah mereka yang aktif dalam fizikal geodesi dan graviti.

Lawati website berikut untuk info tentang RELGEO 2016 - source.

The website display

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What is tides-free EGM2008?

EGM2008 is said to be a tides-free gravitational model. What is mean by tides-free model?

The meaning is explained in a paper written by Botai et al (2014) "Investigating the effect of tide parameterization and gravity field models on SLR solution". This paper deals with the case of gravity field derived from SLR data but the concept of tides effect is applicable much the same in the case of gravity mission satellite.

The paper by Botai is available here - link.

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EGM2008

The full compilation of reports of EGM2008 evaluation done by IAG WG was published in Newton's Bulletin under the auspices of International Geoid Service. A full report of Australian evaluation is also available. The 45 pages report can be accessed freely.

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EGM2008 evaluation procedure

The evaluation of EGM2008 is implemented by deriving or extracting the relevant gravity field components which can be computed using the harmonic coefficients of EGM2008. For this purpose the computations are carried out using fortran routine HARMONIC_SYNTH.f available freely. This routine can be download from the official EGM2008 website.

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EGM2008 evaluation in Australia

The evaluation of EGM2008 (when it was early released) was implemented in many countries under the IAG WG led by Kotsakis (when the model was early released). An effort of such evaluation was also done in Australia particularly by Geodesy Group at Curtin led by Featherstone. Results of these evaluations were highlighted and published in many publications. One of them is in proceedings of the Crete Geoid Meeting 2008 [printed copy available in WF9].

In general the conclusions is that EGM2008 is very good for use in Australian continent. EGM2008 was also confirming where the Australia gravity data are not good. Problematic marine gravity data from shipborne were detected and reasons suspected were also highlighted.

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Prof AHW Kearsley

Prof Kearsley is an academician with high caliber in physical geodesy. He is already retired from his teaching post in geodesy at UNSW. He is now visiting professor fellow at UNSW a post held ever since his retirement in 2004.

His publications was compiled from RG and stored in HDD.

AHW Kearsley

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AHD re-looked

Australia has adopted AHD as height references for the entire continent. Ever since its inception in 1971 many researchers has pointed out problems arisen from AHD. Among the studies touching on this issue were;

1. Holloway R (1988) The integration of GPS heights into the AHD. UniSurv Report S-33, UNSW.
2. Kearsley et al (1988) The AHD - problems and proposals. AS, 34(4):363-380
3. Kearsley et al (1993) National height datums, levelling, GPS heights and geoid. AJGPS 59:53-88
4. Featherstone (1998) Do we need a gravimetric geoid or a model of AHD to transform GPS heights in Australia. AS 43(4):273-280
5. Featherstone (2002) Prospects of the AHD and the geoid model. IAG Vistas for Geodesy, pp 96-101
6. Featherstone (2004) Evidence of a north-south trend between AUSGeoid98 and the AHD in southwest Australia. SR 37(291):334-343
7. Featherstone (2006) Yet more evidence for a north-south slope in the AHD. J of Spatial Sci 51(2):1-6
8. Featherstone (2008) GNSS-heighting in Australia: current and emerging issues. JSS 53(2):115-133
9. Featherstone & Dent (2002) Transfer of vertical control using only one GPS receiver. AS 47(1):31-37
10. WEF & Kuhn (2006) Height system and vertical datum: a review in the Australian context. JSS 51(1):21-42
11. WEF & Filmer (2008)

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Coordinates

The latest issue of Coordinates magazine was received today. Among the highlight themes are UAV, Geodesy and Navigation.

Coordinates

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Professor Richard Coleman

Prof Richard Coleman is the leading figure in Surveying program at Tasmania Uni. Dr Coleman graduated from UNSW with BSc in Surveying (1st Class) and later PhD also from the same university. At Tasmania Uni he has successfully supervised at least 32 PhD candidates. See the list of his PhD graduates here.

Among them were Prof Matt King (graduated in 2002) and Ngoc Lau Nguyen (graduated 2000). King wrote a thesis entitled "The dynamics of the AIS from GPS & terrestrial data" while Nguyen thesis was "Investigation of high precision vertical datum definition for geodetic networks".

In March 16, 2016 Prof Coleman was invited to give a special lecture at LSGI Poly University HK (source).

Richard Coleman (utas)
PhD NSW 1981; BSurv UNSW 1974
Now he is Pro-VC Tasmania University
researchgate
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The 1st IGFS Symposium - Istanbul 2006

The geodesist in Turkey are quite active especially in the field of gravity and geoid computation. For instance they have in the past successfully organized the first symposium of the International Gravity Field Service (IGFS) of the IAG. The symposium was held from 28 Aug to Sep 1, 2006. This symposium is in continuation of International Symposium of Gravity & Geoid (IGG) held by the former Internaional Geoid and Gravity and Geoid Commission.

A total of 78 papers were submitted to this 1st IGFS and all were peer reviewed. The 1st IGFS were headed together by Assoc Prof Dr Ali Kilicoglu and Rene Forsberg (IGFS President).
The proceedings can be downloaded from here.

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Surveying Program University of Tasmania

Another established surveying program in Australia is the one offered at Tasmania University. Among big names in Geodesy there is Professor Matt King and Prof Richard Coleman.

Read info on Surv program in Tasmania (website)

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Mesyuarat Jurnal Geoinformasi

Mesyuarat pertama membincang mengenai mengada semula Jurnal Geoinformasi diadakan hari ini. Jurnal Geoinformasi terhenti sekian lama sejak isu akhirnya pada 2011. Perancangan dibuat untuk menerbit semula jurnal dengan keluaran sulung menjelang Disember tahun ini.

Sebahagian ahli mesyuarat yang hadir

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