The End of the World As We Know It

Oops, just dropped a favourite mug.

This is a Bit Better

After struggling to find a decent explanation of LandXML earlier this month I've been pointed towards this page which is a tad better. To be honest, until I see a practical application of it I will be a tad in the dark. But I've been advised I may be enlightened at a meeting in September. Boy, the excitement is building already.

John the Asteroid

This is sooooooo cool!

Glastonbury

Travelled to Brussels for an RICS Chairman's day on Tuesday. A really good day with lots of networking and sharing ideas. Had to fly home via Southampton (I live in Exeter) as Flybe, or Flymaybe as a colleague calls them, cancelled my flight the week before and rerouted me. So my evening turned into a version of Planes Trains and Automobiles. Had a taxi to Brussels Airport, a flight to Southampton, train from Southampton Airport to Southampton Central, train from Central to Westbury (complete with friendly drunk who fortunately was distracted talking with Glastonbury campers), on from Westbury to Exeter St Davids and then a taxi home.

On Thursday it was up to London for another RICS meeting; this time the Geomatics Faculty Board. A low turn out but made it easier to chair and we reached consensus quickly. Again, Glastonbury reared its head as the train home was chocka with roll mats, tents and sleeping bags on the way home (not to mention a few hundred people of course). I wonder if they'll be using their GPS whilst there (see this article).

Also wrote my article for Geomatics World yesterday but unfortunately have not been able to slot in my favourite image due to cost/copyright etc. So I'll just have to provide you lucky readers with a link instead. Remind you of anyone?

World Hydrography Day

Attended a reception at Trinity House Wednesday evening in celebration of World Hydrography Day. Attended with the RICS president, David Tuffin. We had a good time chatting to people from the IHO, Royal Navy, UKHO, Port of London, MCA (Maritime Coastguard Agency) etc.

It was a lovely venue and great to chat to all and sundry about capacity building, surveying and charting. What more could I want?

Actually, one of these would be nice...

Time Flies

...and suddenly it's nearly two weeks since my last post.

I've been busy with external examining at Plymouth and keeping up with the day job so haven't got round to blogging recently. Enjoyed my latest edition of GISPro particularly Adena Schutzberg's column on metaplatforms, "platforms to manage platforms". Can't find a particularly good explanation of them on the web so, sorry, no link.

Off to celebrate World Hydrography Day at Trinity House tonight. Will hopefully take some photos to brighten up this blog.

Land XML for dummies?

I was up at the RICS on Tuesday for a Geomatics Executive board meeting. As usual, we got loads done and had great fun doing so. The best meetings are always the ones where you laugh lots - or was it everyone laughing at me.....

During the meeting LandXML was mentioned. I've obviously heard of XML but not this specific variant - probably because I work in marine rather than the land environment. So I thought I'd find out something about it. I'm not doing too well! The first site I found was this. Now, I'm an intelligent person but, honestly, this really put me off. I didn't know where to start! And this one wasn't much better (paragraphs would help). So where's the page "LandXML for dummies" to be found?