Introduction – Slide 1

Thank you for the opportunity to address you today.

Right now, Queensland has the opportunity to take greater advantage of the currently under

utilised state asset that is ‘the cadastre’, and re-envisage it as something more useful, more

efficient and more productive to achieve a more prosperous Queensland. The aim of

the 3dQLD (three dimensional Queensland) is to build on successful centuries old land

surveying practice and law, transitioning to a modernised and efficient system suitable to

meet the needs of the 21st century. 3dQLD will be realised in part by land surveying

professionals incorporating survey accurate, three dimensional measurements on the earth

into their everyday practice and presenting this in a digital format. This will create a 21st

century digital cadastre capable of supporting the changing needs of the community for

generations to come. This vision is unfolding in Queensland and this paper addresses the

collaborative industry / government inception of the vision to current status..

Slide 2

To assist in providing as insight into the 3dQld Initiative I will cover some background on

our titling system and cadastre and then provide an overview of the 3dQld initiative from the

importance of having the right participants, to the need and key drivers for change, the

vision for the future and strategy going forward. As the 3dQld initiative has progressed it

has become increasingly evident that the implementation of such initiatives are critical to

the eventual realisation of a positionally accurate cadastre in which rights, responsibilities

and restrictions can be depicted in a 3D digital built environment.

Slide 3

Some Background

Australia has been well served by a strong system of land tenure definition and records of

property rights, obligations, and restrictions from its very early days. The ability to provide

certainty of title to land was enabled through the creation of the Torrens Title system

developed by Robert Torrens, which he adapted from various systems he observed in the

mid 1850’s such as the system used for the transfer of title to Merchant Ships in the United

Kingdom. The Torrens system of transfer of title by recording on a register an interest in

land by the State was adopted as the underpinning evidence of ownership or interest in

1858 in South Australia. The term indefeasibility of title was then created whereby the State

guaranteed that interest through the central record. This system was adopted across

Australia by 1875.

The ability to provide this certainty to land titles and interests was at its inception and still is

underpinned today by a host of maps and plans which in each case uniquely define the

location of the interest. Our legislators take this action so seriously that they continue to

maintain through a range of legislative heads of power, control of the standards of

definition and competencies of those persons (ie land surveyors) able to define the interests.

Whilst our titling legislation has moved from 2 dimensional definition to 3 dimensional with

property and interests being defined in stratum or volumetrically as required, records still

reside in flat plan or scanned digital imagery for the most part. The dimensions shown on

plans between property corners or expressed as heights above sea level have increased in

precision over time as measurement technology has improved. A key fact to recognise is

that the evidence of the location of the cadastre is monumentation based, that is to say the

mark placed by the surveyor at the corner defines the parcel or interest in the land.

Slide 4

Typically spatial certainty in property boundary terms is achieved through seeing where the

“little white peg” is on the ground. To support the future spatial integrity of the digital /

virtual world the point of truth must be moved to position on the earth’s surface expressed

in x, y & z.

Spatial certainty on the earth’s surface is becoming a critical factor in the framework of

decision making, whether it be using a car navigation system to find the way to a

destination or a farmer or contractor who uses satellite navigation systems to guide their

machinery or the digital 3D visualisation model for a new housing or high rise development

used to convey its suitability to meet land use and other requirements.

It is clear however with technologies enabling 3 dimensional digital visualisation and online

digital access that the growing user expectation is that information such as property

parcels, rights and interests that are spatially defined, should be able to be visualised within

a digital model to a commensurate or better positional certainty as other data sets.

Slide 5

An example in the Web platform is the overlay tool on the Google Earth portal, called Qld

Globe, which has been developed by the Queensland Government to meet its open data

policy of freedom of access to certain Government spatial datasets. This spatial tool enables

access to a depth of boundary and tenure data. Essentially the boundary & tenure data

source is the State Digital Cadastral Data Base (DCDB) which is a largely digitised base from

hard copy maps, augmented with some direct metes & bounds entry and then adjustment to

meet real world coordinates. An exert from Qld Globe can be seen on the slide.

At best this is a fair graphical representation of the cadastral fabric of Queensland, but there are questions, such as

• What are the limitations to the use of the data? • How was the data set captured?

• In the decision making process to what extent can I rely on the information?

In response to these questions it is suggested that users expect a higher and higher degree

of integrity in the dataset almost proportional to the ease of access and / or clarity they see

in the image. Consider the drivers frustration when using their in car navigation system and

a road destination dialled in isn’t there or they find themselves driving down a road not in

the system or new road works creates a deviation and the contractors have a sign up telling

the driver not to rely on their navigation system for directions.

Slide 6

As users view digital spatial data sets they are increasingly wanting the ability to make

informed decisions on the basis of the data that they are accessing through their IPAD or

iphone, android or desktop. For example Local Authorities are seeking ever increasingly

more accurate 3d digital models of their cities to make all manner of planning decisions on

such elements as density, amenity, transportation, natural disaster impact and the like. One

such model in Queensland is the trial which my company THG in conjunction with

Aerometrics have just created for Townsville City Council.

View video

The natural extension of this is the overlay of property boundaries and interests that can be

relied upon for positional integrity and not just a graphic.

The need to express spatially relevant land information in digital form with a high level of

positional certainty in real earth coordinates is fundamental to achieving the ultimate

decision making capability. A further imperative is the need for a fully integrated and

statutorily recognised Datum to which all data can be connected and defined with the

required level of spatial certainty.

It is precisely at this point where the 3dQld initiative was birthed in Queensland.

Slide 7

The Participants

At the outset it was recognised that for the 3dQld initiative to be successful that it must

have the support across both government and industry. To this end a taskforce was formed

to carry the initiative. Participants in the taskforce include industry representation through

persons representing:

Lee Hellen Chair of the Spatial Industry Business Association

Chris Swayne SSSI - Land Surveying Commission (Qld)

Callum McNaughton Chair of the Australian Institute of Mines Surveyors

From Government persons including :

Steven Jacoby PSM Executive Director, Land & Spatial Information

Elizabeth Dann Executive Director Titles Registry, Registrar of Titles and

Registrar of Water Allocations

Dr. Russell Priebbenow Director, Cadastral and Geodetic Services

Director of Surveys

Chair of the taskforce is

Peter Sippel Chair of the Surveyors Board of Queensland

The importance of a collaborative industry and government approach was highlighted in the

release of the Queensland Plan, a strategic 30 year vision for the State. The Queensland

Plan was formulated through an intensive community consultation, itself a leading example

of collaboration. The government made a clear acknowledgement in the document that

“government can’t realise this plan alone, but as a community working together we can

achieve everything we want for our state’s future”.

The 3dQld task force is a working exemplar in Queensland of this statement and considers

that this collaboration is critical for success.

Slide 8

Another essential element is that participants clearly understand the importance of their

roles. These have been defined as :

Government’s role – recognising government’s role as custodian and point of truth for land

and mining tenure registers, provision of the geodetic network and setting the standards

governing effective quality control over data.

Private Sector’s role – recognising the private sector’s role of contributing to, using and

enhancing that foundation information to provide a wide range of both basic and

sophisticated, both traditional and highly innovative, products and services.

Surveyors’ Role - recognising registered land surveyors as creators of survey data of high

integrity. This data that can be supplied in a format that can be used and reused by

intelligent data management systems, allowing for future value add opportunities by the

wider community.

An aspect of the 3dQld Initiative is that it is

being driven from private industry on the

basis of creating a stronger and more

prosperous economy for our State. Whilst

government may create mandatory

requirements through regulation and or

standards I see this as facilitating the ability

for industry to drive forward with confidence

to develop new innovative products and

services.

The need for change

It is clear whether an organisation is constructing a new building or indeed a green field

community, prospecting for a mine, planning their machine guidance farming systems or

irrigation and water rights for agribusiness, the need to access timely and accurate spatial

data, above and below ground is critical to the productivity of these businesses.

Over the last decade, technological

advances in Global Navigation Survey

Systems have become far more

ubiquitous and can now provide

positional data with high levels of

accuracy from hand held devices to on

board machine guidance systems in

mining, construction and agriculture

enabling high precision, driverless

operations. Furthermore, the growth of

online imagery and maps means

businesses can overlay a variety of

information on a digital map or aerial

photograph and manipulate those

images electronically in a range of innovative and sophisticated ways.

However, much of Queensland’s cadastral information, land and mining tenures,

infrastructure and underground assets (mining and buried services) were collected prior to

the ready availability of modern positioning technologies. In most cases, this high quality

data infrastructure is not connected to a coordinated framework and certainly not to a

National Datum. This means that these data sets are not always easy to overlay with any

accuracy.

Today, we are not yet in a position where a person can readily access a single system that

allows them to see, accurately and confidently, combinations of rectified imagery, the

cadastre, the mining tenures, the utilities placements, and the range of other overlays that

would provide for public safety, productivity enhancements and increased business

innovation and services. We can overlay all these datasets but we cannot always use the

resulting product with certainty and confidence.

In a modern economy, certainty about location and confidence that the information is telling

the full story, underpins the productivity of businesses and government and enables the

markets to be more effective in managing risk. Industry and the broader community is

driving greater demand for a 3D representation of the increasingly complex tenure

arrangements, to meet consumer need.

2. The vision for the future

The 3dQLD vision aims to make Queensland one of the easiest places in the world to invest

in the built or natural environments, construction, tourism, mining and agriculture because

of the quality of information that is readily available to decision makers, providing them

with confidence and certainty about opportunities and investments.

Our vision is that Queensland will lead the way in 3D visualisation of spatial information that

supports a wide range of activities including construction in the vertical as well as horizontal

development of our cities, the subterranean exploration of natural resources, the

enhancement of efficient precision agriculture, the management of groundwater and marine

resource, providing greater certainty and clarity to businesses and government.

To realise an integrated and unified outcome a national vision is critical in digital

representation of the cadastre. It was pleasing to see in this regard the release by the

Intergovernmental Committee for Surveying & Mapping of the Cadastre 2034 Vision at

Locate 14. This vision recognises the need for a system that enables the future 3D

digital environment capable of providing certainty in visualisation of land and property

rights, restrictions and responsibilities. The paper notes

In a release on the strategy in Victoria it was noted that there are significant gaps between

the current capability and what is and will be required by industry and the community as we

head to 2034. The gaps identified included:

The 3dQld Initiative embraces these gaps and is focused on creating innovative and efficient

solutions into the future.

3. Strategy for achieving the vision

It is clear that the realisation of this vision cannot, and will not, be achieved unless industry

and government work together in a collaborative partnership.

Critical is the recognition of the important role of private sector investment in delivering this

vision; encouraging and facilitating the innovative and entrepreneurial role of industry.

In developing this initiative the surveying and spatial industry has recognised the need to be

a leader in providing go-to and authoritative services that will drive reform and accelerate

the attainment of the vision.

There are three key elements that need to come together in order to realise the vision that

will deliver a mix of short and long term wins for Queensland

Modernise survey practice

Modernise survey practice to improve confidence in the authoritative status of survey plans and related data. This means:

� Ensuring all land and mining tenure surveys going forward are based on a national datum.

� Reforming the way survey data is captured, maintained and published in the cadastral database, strengthening its authoritative linkage with land and mining registers.

� Government and private industry working together to develop modern and sustainable approaches to the maintenance and upgrade of the cadastral and mining data registers.

Improve integration

Improve the integration of authoritative data sets ensuring that users can access through a

single point all of the required information. This means:

� Enabling a user to gain access to all of the data sets that intersect in both the

vertical and horizontal dimensions as well as traversing backwards in time to discover prior data.

� Government and private industry working together to ensure industry is able to support and maintain their value added data sets in conjunction with the government’s authoritative underpinning data.

� Reinforcing a commitment to government Open Data and the Queensland Digital Economy Strategy.

Incentivise progress

Identify and implement incentives to attract and encourage industry to accelerate the

collection and correction of 3D co-ordinates, this may include for example:

� data sharing arrangements between government and industry � access to information for contributors to 3dQLD � accreditation status for participants � commercialisation opportunities for value-added data and services � right sourcing of maintenance, management and upgrade functions

3. Key Concepts

Start now

It was recognised that the 3dQLD is a vision that will take many years to realise and will

mature and evolve over time; however there are many things that can be done right now

that will head us in the right direction so we should make a start even if we don’t yet have

all the answers.

Collaboration

Industry and government working together to co-design an improved framework for

collection, correction, maintenance and publication of the cadastre culminating in the

establishment of an industry roadmap.

Incentivisation

Development and implementation of a range of short and medium term incentives to

encourage parties to invest in activities that will work towards the vision.

Modernise and align

Amending the current regulations to ensure that all new tenure surveys are referenced to a

3D national datum and integrating 3D mining and survey plans into a single seamless

authoritative object. This key concept is consistent with the State Development,

Infrastructure and Industry Committee review into the future and continued relevance of

government land tenure across Queensland.

State Development, Infrastructure and Industry Committee; ( May 2013), Final report; Inquiry

into the future and continued relevance of government land tenure across Queensland'

Recommendation No 43 - 'The committee recommends that the Queensland Government

integrates all tenure data sets and maps to address surface and subsurface tenures as a

priority', pp 147-150.

Digital Efficiency

Implementing the digital collection of survey data to deliver maximum economic benefit

across all sectors, and migrating paper based mining tenure and survey plans to integrate

with digital land tenure and publish through a single portal, thus enabling the linking of

other key value add and commercial data sets.

Progress in 3dQld

To progress the concept an Action plan was developed between Government and industry to ensure

a START was made. Key actions which are now underway include:

Enhancement of existing surveying standards and regulations

A pilot project was established as a development platform on which a range of activities, standard variations and innovations could be trialled and implemented. The pilot is focused on a major green field community development known as Flagstone City which is part of a major growth corridor in SEQ Qld ultimately to house approximately 100,000 people. The Pilot area encompasses some 1,400ha and includes development of a new town centre, and accompanying 10,000 dwellings centred on a future railway station. It provides a testing ground that allows collaboration of industry with state and local government across activities of design, development assessment, construction, tenure establishment, and ongoing operational environments including asset management. In this instance the pilot allows for the building of a robust 3D framework from the outset. Key objectives are:

• Achieve Statutory Positional Integrity - Achieved – property boundary forms the underpinning framework element upon which

all spatially related data sets are registered. • Utilization of Statutory coordinated framework for all spatial activities.

– Briefing and education of associated consultants • Enable innovation in standard development and regulatory procedures

– Deliver efficiencies in both time and cost. – Digital lodgement of survey plans for registration through the “Eplan” – Construction innovation and efficiencies through greater use of machine

guidance. • Spatial integrity of the service asset infrastructure

– Meets the evolutionary development needs. – No need to resurvey every time a redevelopment or new infrastructure

proposed • Enable a 3D digital environment where cadastre can be viewed in conjunction with

built form, including supporting infrastructure with positional confidence.

From the learning to date amendments to current regulatory frameworks have been

developed which will be released shortly to enable extension of the 3dQld vision across the

state. These regulatory / standard changes will enable productivity and efficiency

improvements for industry. Education is critical going forward as this is a major platform of

change.

Facilitate and promote the digital collection and lodgement of authoritative cadastral

and mining survey data.

A key element to enabling of a 3D cadastre is the ability to lodge data in digital format. A

national project is underway developing the protocols for Electronic Lodgement and

Transfer of Survey Data (ePlan) under the overview of the Intergovernmental Committee on

Survey & Mapping. This will be the key gateway required for effective transfer of digital

cadastral data between Industry and Government.

The focus in Qld of achieving the transfer of not just the basic cadastral information but a

positional accurate model that can be directly imported into a cadastral framework of the

state providing a definitive point of truth for data. Trials of this framework are underway

between industry and government. Some jurisdictions already receive digital data but are

mainly treating it as an efficient storage and assessment means; rather than strategic

development of a 3d Cadastre.

Conclusion

In conclusion consider why spatial certainty is so important in the respect to the cadastre.

One only has to consider that the basis of most investment in our State is generally

underpinned by security of land tenure as a starting point for uses such as mining,

agriculture , tourism, and Greenfield or Infill development (construction).

The form most familiar is the purchase of a freehold block of land on which to build a

detached house. Given this situation the provision of a statutorily recognised spatial

reference framework, which gives the property boundary unique and accurate spatial

integrity which is readily redefinable on the earth’s surface with the latest technologies with

a high level of confidence is certainly desirable.

With the underpinning digital cadastre defined in a statutory spatial framework other digital

data sets can be integrated or overlayed with confidence. The statutory nature of the

underpinning spatial framework in which the digital cadastre is expressed then fits well with

the intent of Torrens of the indefeasibility of title and interests in land.

The demand for expression of spatially accurate data in the virtual world to support decision

making from design to transactional outcomes is clearly evident. Initiatives such as 3dQld

and others across Australia and New Zealand are critical for us to meet the community

needs of the future and enable a digital 3D cadastre that is capable of supporting an

essential future digital economy infrastructure.

Thank you.