OGRS2012 Symposium Proceedings

Do you remember the Open Source Geospatial Research and Education Symposium (OGRS) in Nantes? "Les Machines de l’Île", the Big Elephant, the "Storm Boat" with Claramunt, Petit et al. (2009), and "le Biniou et la Bombarde"? A second edition of OGRS was promised, and that promise is now fulfilled in OGRS 2012, Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, October 24-26, 2012. OGRS is a meeting dedicated to sharing knowledge, new solutions, methods, practices, ideas and trends in the field of geospatial information through the development and the use of free and open source software in both research and education. In recent years, the development of geospatial free and open source software (GFOSS) has breathed new life into the geospatial domain. GFOSS has been extensively promoted by FOSS4G events, which evolved from meetings which gathered together interested GFOSS development communities to a standard business conference. More in line with the academic side of the FOSS4G conferences, OGRS is a rather neutral forum whose goal is to assemble a community whose main concern is to find new solutions by sharing knowledge and methods free of software license limits. This is why OGRS is primarily concerned with the academic world, though it also involves public institutions, organizations and companies interested in geospatial innovation. This symposium is therefore not an exhibition for presenting existing industrial software solutions, but an event we hope will act as a catalyst for research and innovation and new collaborations between research teams, public agencies and industries. An educational aspect has recently been added to the content of the symposium. This important addition examines the knowledge triangle - research, education, and innovation - through the lens of how open source methods can improve education efficiency. Based on their experience, OGRS contributors bring to the table ideas on how open source training is likely to offer pedagogical advantages to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in tomorrow’s geospatial labor market. OGRS brings together a large collection of current innovative research projects from around the world, with the goal of examining how research uses and contributes to open source initiatives. By presenting their research, OGRS contributors shed light on how the open-source approach impacts research, and vice-versa. The organizers of the symposium wish to demonstrate how the use and development of open source software strengthen education, research and innovation in geospatial fields. To support this approach, the present proceedings propose thirty short papers grouped under the following thematic headings: Education, Earth Science & Landscape, Data, Remote Sensing, Spatial Analysis, Urban Simulation and Tools. These papers are preceded by the contributions of the four keynote speakers: Prof Helena Mitasova, Dr Gérard Hégron, Prof Sergio Rey and Prof Robert Weibel, who share their expertise in research and education in order to highlight the decisive advantages of openness over the limits imposed by the closed-source license system