According to Wikipedia, the definition of Geomatics is:
Geomatics is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as the "discipline concerned with the collection, distribution, storage, analysis, processing, presentation of geographic data or geographic information". Under another definition, it "consists of products, services and tools involved in the collection, integration and management of geographic data". It includes geomatics engineering (geodesy and geoinformatics engineering, formerly known as surveying engineering) and is related to geospatial science (also geospatial engineering and geospatial technology).
Source: Wikipedia
Please feel free to provide your insights, suggestions or other thoughts regarding this definition.
In the old days Land Surveyors had to do everything manually.
Now Geomatics (a contraction of Geodetic and Automatic) Engineers simply press the F5 key on their keyboard which starts the automatic surveying process. They have a lot of free time.
"Geomatics" is the science of geodetic measurement. "Geomatics Engineering" is geomatics lite, a dumbed-down version that can be grasped by engineers.
I've waited so long to reuse this, "That is definitely chimps flying rockets."
What stands out to me is the emphasis on data management, integration, and analysis.
The definition of "land surveying" (in the other pinned thread) is more detailed with respect to data collection but pretty light on management and analysis, beyond determination of boundaries.
It's been interesting to see the changes even in the short (~17 years) I have been involved in this profession/industry, especially as the tech sector and the power of "big data" has grown.
The license is a single tool in my geomatics toolbox. It allows me to place legal boundaries on the ground and publicly record my observations and opinions of them, but it doesn't (and shouldn't) restrict me from performing other geomatics services.
There's always going to be some need for "land surveying" as it relates to boundary determination, but geomatics and geospatial database analytics have really taken off and are quickly outpacing boundary work. That's where the future is - geodetic database maintenance, analysis and extraction, from a variety of sources, not necessarily total stations or GNSS receivers. Being able to maintain that database with rich attributes and metadata that can be queried and analyzed is critical.
PNEZD points in CAD drawing files, with 3- or 4-letter feature codes, no metadata, no geodetic reference, and no cross-referencing is useless for the future of geospatial data products.
@rover83 About a decade ago when I was the editor of Professional Surveyor Magazine (RIP) I wrote a column about keeping in mind that the definitions of the practice of land surveying and the business of land surveying were not always the same thing.
The practice of surveying can be defined as the activities that are regulated by the individual licensing bodies of the states...The business of surveying encompasses the activities regulated as the practice of surveying as well as ancillary services performed daily by surveyors—that the unique combination of education and knowledge in both legal matters and measurement sciences enables them to perform.
I think the survey program I went through changed names a few times over the last 15 years. When I graduated it was called geomatics engineering or something. I've had people ask what my degree is and I always hesitate to tell them geomatics because nobody has a clue what that is. I've seen enough confused looks where now days I usually just say land survey. People still don't know exactly what that is but at least they recognize the words.
