Geomatics engineer also known as land surveyor or geospatial engineer.

Geomatican design, develop and operate systems and instrument or tools for collecting,
analyzing, modelling and displaying spatially geo-references data about land, oceans
natural resources and man-made feature with good accuracy characteristic and in
digital format. Geomatican work more related to civil engineering including design and
layout of public infrastructure and urban subdivision and mapping and control survey for
construction. But this doesnt mean that geomatican work is around the civil work
instead a geomatican will useful for many field. Geomatican utilize various kind of
technologically advanced tools like total stations, Global Navigation Satellite System
(GNSS), digital aerial imagery and computer based Geographic Information System
(GIS).

The geomatics also is a study of many kind of disciplines. This makes a geomatican
can adapt and contribute to many kinds of profession. The types of the disciplines are
geodetic surveying, topographic surveying, cadastral surveying, detail or engineering
surveying, mining surveying, hydrographic surveying, underground utility surveying, and
photogrammetry and remote sensing. Explanation for each and every of the surveying
field will be explained later on.

Geodetic surveying is the involving with undertaking very precise measurement to

determine the shape and size of the earth and track the movement of the continents.
The measurements are used in monitoring sea level rise, earthquake and tracking of
satellites. Geodetic surveying also involving the development of coordinate systems and
datums which are used in the production of maps and plans.

In topographic surveying, surveyor gather data on the location of natural and man-
made features, contours and ground elevation to create topographic map. Topography
started with and part of geodesy, this is the combination of procedures for direct land
survey. Topography is combination of methods and instruments to comprehensively
measure and represent details of the Earths surface.

Cadastral surveying involves measuring and determining property boundaries which

are as the basis for all property transactions including buying, selling, mortgaging and
leasing. Due to the importance of having secure and strong property market, a cadastral
surveyor needs to be registered to be able to carry out cadastral survey.

Detail or engineering surveying is all about construction industry and ensure

construction works are built in the correct location and as per their design. Engineering
surveyors generally will be found on construction sites setting out various types of work
such as buildings, roads, bridges, tunnels and various other form of infrastructure.

Mining surveying involved in the development and construction of mining operations

and mining surveyors can generally be found above and underground taking
measurements to determine volumes and setting out new excavations and tunneling.
Mining surveyors should be registered due to many safety issues involved in mining
including ensuring mining doesnt encroach upon hazardous areas and future
subsidence.

Hydrographic surveying involves locating and measuring points under the sea and
on the shore. These measurements are used to design infrastructure such as docks and
jetties as well as ensuring ships have enough clearance from the sea bed to safely
travel around the world. Using sonar scanners hydrographic surveyor are able to
provide a picture of the sea bed without needing to get their feet wets and enabling the
discovery of ship wrecks and other objects lost at sea.

Underground utility surveying is the process of mapping subsurface utilities using a

combination of geophysics principle and land surveying technique to locate, detect,
identify and investigate buried services. This survey field requires the surveyor to use a
wide range of cutting edge technology such Ground Penetrating Radar(GPR) and
Radiodetection.

Photogrammetry and remote sensing involves taking measurements of the world via
photography or other wavelength bands such as infra-red or ultra-violet. Measurements
may be sourced from aerial photography or satellite imagery. Photogrammetry and
remote sensing is used to map large areas and determine changes in the world over
time.
 Mainly a geomatican will work in the field related to surveying after his or her studies
whether in government office or a private company or as a free lance. For government
work, geomatican will work for Department of Survey and Mapping, Remote Sensing
Agencies and National Hydrography Center.

The profession of a geomatic engineer is not restricted to only surveying work

instead geomatic engineer could enter any field as their study can be used in almost
every field. For example, a geomatican can work in meteorology department where he
can contribute for the weather forecast and disaster prediction like tsunami or
earthquake using some geomatic tools like GPS and seismic sensors. Moreover, the
products of geomatic field is used by various kind of people with vast number of
function. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is used for military purpose
and navigation. The Geographic Information System (GIS) is used for town planning,
finding strategic spot for business and for transportation also. These are some of the
example of profession that a geomatican can choose and the products of geomatic
engineering.

Below are included an article of a geomatic disciplinary used to study about the
forest and its an example of profession in geomatic field.

Article on LiDAR, Imagery and InSAR for Digital Forestry

Benoit St-Onge is a professor at University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada. He works at

Department of Geography with major in 3D remote sensing for forest analysis.

He told that he did PhD in high-resolution images because he was disappointed he

cant see individual trees from satellite images from Landsat satellite when the forest in
Canada was invaded by some kind of insects during 1980s. Later on, his idea on
combining LiDAR and photogrammetry came after his use of photogrammetry to obtain
better reference data for tree height.

He continued that LiDAR is used to optimize the layout for forest roads, to find small
intermittent streams for protection and estimate timber volumes. Knowing exactly where
to send harvesting machinery optimizes the value chain while improving habitat
protection.
 The 3D forest mapping only adds the value if the process is repeated frequently.
However, the cost are prohibitive. The impetus for large digital terrain model (DTM) for
use in hydrology, civil engineering or risk assessment, while forest community is looking
for accurate forest information. The DTM is not expected to change rapidly but the
forest will evolve rapidly. This lead to the situation in which DTM is users satisfied with
old DTM while forest users need updated coverage. Regular airborne LiDAR surveys
can be considered for small countries but for large countries this is not happening
unless technologies sharply bring down the cost at LiDAR acquisition. This is why we
are hearing about combining LiDAR with photogrammetry to update the forest height
information.

The professor strongly advocate the use of dense image matching as an alternative
to LiDAR because the flight configurations are evolving towards a high forward overlap
at 80%. It doesnt not cost much more than the standard 60% but considerably helps
the matching process by deploying multi-ray techniques. The algorithms are more
sophisticated and speed has increased. The results are seen from best software and
the solutions are astonishing in terms of point density and accuracy. In comparison with
photogrammetric point clouds and LiDAR, the individual trees can be resolved in
photogrammetric surface model. By subtracting a LiDAR DTM from photogrammetric
surface model, we can get a very good canopy height model from which has attribute
such as height, timber volume and biomass can be extracted. Aerial photos can be
acquired from a higher altitude, at a faster flying speed and at lower cost from LiDAR
and plus we get information in full colour.

He also mentioned that the technologies are growing rapidly from the time laser
installed in aeroplane to LiDAR profiling of forest, scanning LiDARs and full waveform
LiDARs. Now we are seeing expansion towards multi-spectral LiDAR. The prototype of
hyperspectral LiDAR are also being developed. This LiDAR use white laser light
generated using a supercontinuum principle. Moreover, we also seeing photon-counting
or Geiger mode airborne LiDAR including with high point densities from 9 km flying
height. In another front, oblique multi-view photogrammetry is emerging thus increasing
our capacity to extract 3D information about forest canopies.
 Based on the article above that we can conclude that by combining some surveying
techniques, we can get better information and that information also can give some other
additional attributes like timber volume and biomass from the canopy survey. So, a
surveyor must be able to combine surveying techniques to get better information while
reducing cost and time consumption. Another example of surveying technique combined
is where photogrammetry is use to do traverse. These techniques are still under study
but the outcome of the survey will be a better traverse than using conventional method.
The wildlife management also can be done easily with using airborne LiDAR. Another
example of application of our advanced technology tools are pipeline integrity
management from space. This is because in the Western countries. These high-
pressure transmission pipelines are buried in the public space at the depth about 1.5
meters. Operators need to monitor the integrity of the pipelines on a regular or
continuous basis as the pipeline failures can cause severe damage to people,
infrastructure and the natural and built environment. The Copernicus Sentinel-1 a
satellite radar imagery is used to provide pipeline operators with a continuous
information for monitoring source of information for the monitoring and managing their
assets from space.

These are example of uses of geomatic study to solve and manage global issues
and it is clearly shown that a geomatican plays an important role in community.