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3D Information Events

IndoorGML Workshop

In-person meetings with domain experts are extremely important to my continued growth and to my contribution to the advancement of others. In Korea this week I'm enjoying a full week with OGC members and others in the Korean technology community. I could write at length about all that I learned in the first day during the public opening sessions hosted by the Korean Ministry of Land, Transportation and Marine (but my time is so heavily booked I must choose the topics on which I prepare a post carefully!).

The first IndoorGML Workshop, which I chaired today, was worth the many hours of travel. There were approximately 40 people in the workshop. Only 20% of those in the room said that they were researchers. Another 10% said that they considered indoor topics to be the focus of their work. And, only one person raised a hand when I asked if there were any users in the room. That was very interesting considering that, in my opinion, we are all users of indoor technologies every day. Perhaps my definition of a "user" was not clear. 

The goals of the workshop were clear and simple to express: we wanted to brief people about the status of the IndoorGML specification and to hear from six invited speakers about what they are doing that could benefit from IndoorGML or contribute to the greater utilization of IndoorGML. Having clear goals doesn't necessarily make them them easy to achieve but in this case the contributions fit the bill.

Each speaker spoke excellent English (they were all Korean-based) and was well prepared. They spanned the gamut from describing a new tool to edit IndoorGML files to the requirements of Martime management services for defining the use of indoor spaces in ships carrying passengers. Between these were two mobile application projects (one for use in the Coex Center where the 82nd OGC Technical Committee meetings are being conducted) and two projects used indoor navigation with robotics. 

After each talk I thought of connections between these speakers, their projects (all but one new to me) and some of my past and current projects. I look forward to following up with each and using the workshop as a springboard to new dialog in the future.

The presentations will be available in the next few days on the IndoorGML Workshop web site so that others may also benefit while requiring less travel time and cost.