According to GIS-Association, Russian geoinformatics makes impressive progress, whereas space imagery outpaces average growth rates in the industry (fig.1). On December, 4-6, Moscow hosted the cream of remote sensing business at Vatutinki recreation center of the Russian Presidential Administration for 3rd International Conference “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions”.
This biennial event is a sort of the industry's milestone, outlining the principle development trends and finding more applications for images acquired from space. For the first time such a great number of leading RS operators offered their VHR and radar data services covering the territory of Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus and other countries. Representatives of RADARSAT (Canada), CosmoSkyMed (Italy), TerraSAR-X (Germany) programs delivered their reports illustrating current status and plans for radar and submeter resolution imagery. Highly detailed optical imagery programs (IKONOS, QuickBird, WorldView, EROS-A and EROS-B, Formosat) were also represented at the conference.
A fundamentally new trend was the discussion of the integrated information service possibilities and programs by world leading RS market players: Telespazio/e-Geos (Italy), ecological program “Planet Action” (SPOT Image, France), Mid-Decadal Global Land Survey (MDGLS) program (NASA and USGS, USA), and application of data acquired from world popular MODIS spectroradiometers onboard Terra and Aqua remote sensing satellites.
Leaders of the largest international organization in photogrammetry and remote sensing – ISPRS – held a separate session presenting survey papers, making a comprehensive analysis of the possibilities of ecological, economic and social monitoring of the territories using space systems. Emergency situations and risk management, polar research work and shelf, natural resources and environment, remote sensing data for region development management issues traditionally captured the attention of the audience.
A unique in its own way session “Internet and RS data” was held covering a quite new on the Russian market, but already very popular issue of Internet content. Representatives of the “Internet and Business” association, as well as of leading international and domestic sites Google and Yandex and of OGS (Open Geospatial Community) consortium took the floor at the session.
Traditionally, the conference was convened for and managed to gather mostly the specialists in this area. However, gaining popularity, this event witnessed the greetings of governmental agencies' officials from Ministry of Natural Resources and Ministry of Transport and the Russian Academy of Sciences during the opening ceremony.
Parallel sections
The Training Hall of Vatutinki complex held the sessions on remote sensing data processing assets and technology. ScanEx RDC arranged 4 master-classes, demonstrating new software versions of ScanMagic v.2.5 and ScanEx Image Processor v.3.0 software applications. Once again the participants could enjoy a 15% discount on all ScanEx' software products during the conference days.
Educational session “Education for Sustainable Development: New Information Technologies” was a new topic for this event. It was managed in two blocks: higher education problems in sphere of remote sensing were discussed on December 6 in Vatutinki complex, whereas introduction of remote sensing methods into secondary education programs – on December 7 in the prefect's office of the North-Eastern District of Moscow.
One of the important RS market trends – manufacturing and usage of nanosatellites for Earth observation – was discussed by the leaders of this industry branch: Skobeltsin R&D Institute of Nuclear Physics at the Moscow State University, NPO-PM and Siberian State Aerospace University,
Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Russian Institute of Space Device Engineering”, NGO Transparent World and others.
A separate section was dedicated to special hydrometeo support and raised the issues of providing updated space images to the airports and other facilities.
Poster presentations
This year the poster presentation section was very loaded, enabling the participants to review the reports in between the conference hall sessions.
Exhibition
Traditional exhibition of RS achievements was organized in the vestibule at the entrance to the conference hall, presenting 12 companies: ImageSat International N.V., Antrix Corp. Ltd., Telespazio/e-GEOS, Racurs, European Space Imaging, Hitachi Software Engineering Co. Ltd., Law Center «Legal Business », ISPRS, NGO Transparent World, “Engineering Survey in Construction” association, “Prime Group” and GeoNavigator companies.
Real-time satellite data reception
During the conference, sessions of on-line data reception to UniScan mobile station were held and the space images were displayed using Wi-Fi technology on the plasma screen in the vestibule in real-time mode. The conference participants had an opportunity to watch the entire sequence of data reception and processing.
Entertainment program
At the end of the first day, a banquet was arranged in warm environment to a jazz band accompaniment, where all participants were invited. On December 5, a chamber concert was held with the artists from the Opera Center after Galina Vishnevskaya.
