Category Archives: Magazine

Jack Dangermond’s Vision for the Future

The geospatial industry is moving through a period of profound transformation. Advances in reality capture, artificial intelligence, and cloud integration are converging with urgent global challenges, from climate resilience to urbanization. In this moment, few figures are as influential as Jack Dangermond, founder and CEO of Esri. For more than fifty years, he has guided...

Topcon 2.0: Reclaiming the Geomatics Frontier

For decades, Topcon has been a trusted name in precision optics, GNSS receivers, and machine control. Its equipment became a familiar sight on survey crews, construction sites, and agricultural fields across the globe. Over the past decade, the company leaned heavily into high-growth sectors such as machine control and precision agriculture, expanding its presence in...

The Essential Instrument Gets Smarter

Just when you thought there was nothing new in the world of Total Stations… Appearances can be deceptive. If you’re thinking that this is just another total station, you might be pleasantly surprised by the following look under the hood. But why a new total station? Didn’t the technology of such instruments peak in the...

Fixposition’s Vision-RTK Pro + Esri Is a Game Changer

The streets of modern cities are lined with glass and steel, forests close their canopy around remote infrastructure projects, and construction zones sprawl across bridges, tunnels, and high-rise footprints. These are not exceptions but the everyday environments in which surveyors and mapping professionals work. Yet in these very settings, the bedrock of their craft—centimeter-level GNSS...

xyHt Magazine September 2025

Read the September 2025 xyHt digital edition. Table of Contents GIS Needs Geodesy – Why accuracy matters more than ever as GIS expands into digital twins, utilities, and infrastructure management. Topcon 2.0: Reclaiming the Geomatics Frontier – A strategic reset positions Topcon’s new Geomatics Group at the center of connected workflows. The Essential Instrument –...

GIS Needs Geodesy

Why Accuracy Matters Now More Than Ever When I entered university to study geodesy in 1976, graduating students had begun their studies with slide rules and thick algorithm books. Pocket calculators were nonexistent, and electronic distance measurement (EDM) devices were heavy, delicate, and cumbersome. No satellite positioning systems were yet available. At that time, the...