3rd IAG Symposium on Geodesy for Geotechnical and Structural Engineering and 12th FIG Symposium on Deformation Measurements

Baden, Austria, 22-24 May 2006

by Günther Retscher, Vienna
Chairman of the Organizing Committee

The 3rd IAG symposium on “Geodesy for Geotechnical and Structural Engineering“ was held jointly with the 12th FIG symposium on “Deformation Measurements” in Baden, Austria, from May 22-24, 2006. It was organized by the Research Group Engineering Geodesy of the Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics of the Vienna University of Technology (Prof. Heribert Kahmen) together with Prof. Adam Chrzanowski from the Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering from the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada. The meeting was cosponsored by the IAG Sub-Commission 4.2 and the FIG Working Group 6.1. The conference was attended by 140 participants from 35 countries from all over the world. About 121 papers were presented in 23 technical sessions and one poster session. Main topics of the conference were sensors and sensor fusion, wireless sensor networks, geodesy on large construction sites, geodesy in the open pit, oil and gas industry, landslides and crustal movements, monitoring of structures (dams, tunnels, etc.), modelling of deformations, navigation and mobile mapping as well as InSAR. After welcome addresses from Prof. Kahmen, Prof. Chrzanowski, Prof. Brunner representing the Austrian Geodetic Commission and a representative of the city of Baden in the opening ceremony, the keynote speech was given by Prof. Chris Rizos from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. It was entitled “From Idea to Reality: The Case Study of a New Deformation Monitoring Technology”. A second presentation in the opening ceremony was given by Joël van Cranenbroeck from Leica entitled “Driving Burj Dubai Core Walls with an advanced Data Fusion System”. The following technical sessions were run in two parallel streams. On the first day one session on “Large Construction Sites” and “Landslides / Crustal Movements” as well as two sessions each on “GPS / Pseudolites” and “Open Pit / Gas / Oil” were held. On the second day eight sessions were held, i.e., one on “Instrumentation and Analysis of Deformations”, two on “Monitoring of Structures” and “Laserscanning” as well as three sessions on “Modelling of Deformations”. The third day saw a session on “Monitoring of Dams”, “Monitoring of Tunnels”, “Monitoring of Bridges”, “Optical 3D Systems”, “Navigation of Construction Processes”, “Navigation / Mobile Mapping” as well as two sessions on “InSAR” followed by the closing ceremony. On the first two days of the conference four companies (i.e., Leica and Rost, Trimble and Geodäsie Austria, 3D Laser Mapping and Walter de Gruyter) participated in the technical exhibition. On the third day a poster session with 17 presentations was held parallel to the technical sessions. The social events included a Ice Breaker Party on the first day of the conference and a typical dinner at a Wine Tavern (“Heuriger”) on the second day.

The conference proceedings was published on CD Rom. It can be ordered for a prize of Euro 40 (+ Euro 15 for postage and packing for delivery in Europe) by sending an e mail to conf@pop.tuwien.ac.at. Further information can also be found on the website of the conference at http://info.tuwien.ac.at/ingeo/sc4/baden/. Due to the great success of the conference it was decided to organize the next conference in two years.