From the 14th to the 16th April the annual RSPSoc Wavelength conference, aimed at students and young professionals to present their work to their fellow peers in an informal environment, was hosted among the quaint hills of Great Malvern, Worcestershire.
I was given the pleasure of opening the conference with a presentation on the work I have been undertaking on automatic 3D city modelling. This was followed by presentations on change detection, archive stereo imagery and forestry applications from various remote sensing satellites. Other presentations during the conference included the use of UAV and structure from motion, atmospheric correction of remote sensing data and the fusion of imagery and lidar.
During the three days keynote speakers included Dr Alastair Graham of Geoger Ltd, Dr Matthew Blackett from Coventry University and Professor James Brasington from Queen Mary University, who all gave invaluable advise of skills and abilities needed to progress during these early steps of research. A consistent theme mentioned by all was the need to be able to write software via different programming languages. A good historical overview was given by all of how data capture, storage and processing has changed. This was also the first year that a sponsor session was held allowing sponsors to present what their respective companies do and how our work fits into these remits. Simon Mears from Leica Geosystems presented some of their recent hardware, particular the Aibotix UAV which was on display, and software developments. Dr Andy Wells from Sterling Geo gave a good overview of the developments of the ERDAS Imagine software and linked this to the topics that had already been presented that day.
The always popular poster session saw a wide range of topics being presented from mass grave detection to how soil moisture content change can be detected. The sessions was almost dominated by Newcastle University with posters presented by first year PhD students Polpreecha Chidburee, Maria Peppa, Magdalena Smigaj, Elias Berra, who presented work on how they intend to undertaken their individual research projects, and Mitko Delev, who presented work undertaken as part of his masters project on using photogrammetry for structural gauging in a railway environment. A poster was also presented by undergraduate student Cedric Meyer who presented his dissertation work on the potential for bio-physical information retrieval.
As well as having a strong scientific program , several social activities were also offered including high pole activities, a trip to Worcester and a guided walk around the hills of Great Malvern. Luckily the sun shone all week, which made the walk much more enjoyable. An evening activity of laser quest was well attended with individuals battling it out to become the ultimate champion. With many references being made about laser scanning and how a scanner could be set up in the arena to make it even harder, it is fair to say I will never look at laser quest in the same way. Drinks were enjoyed at the end of both days allowing delegates to discuss their research work further as well as taking the opportunity to talk to the sponsors and keynote speakers.
A huge congratulation goes to Amy Woodget of Worcester University for organising such a successful conference. As I am about to take over as RSPSoc Wavelength Representative and start to organise next year’s conference here in Newcastle, I hope to build on the success on this year’s conference as well as show everybody what a vibrant city Newcastle is and what it has to offer.
Andrew McClune