What is Geomatics?
Geomatics searches for answers to an infinite range of where and when questions, which are intrinsic to human existence, our societies, our infrastructure and our environment. Geomatics professionals develop and manage knowledge that is fundamental to nearly all sectors of our world, be it securing economic systems by land tenure, modeling climate change, environmental impact or resource planning by providing measurement methods and data, or by developing the knowledge and infrastructure for disaster management, resource management and intelligent transport solutions.
Geomatics comprises elements of computer science, mathematics, economics and cognitive science but our students also develop a special awareness of how spatio-temporal information is gathered, managed, analysed and communicated. This information is needed in all walks of life and on many scales, with applications as broad as construction engineering (from measuring positions to tracking processes), architecture and urban planning (from navigation to evacuation planning), artificial intelligence (from understanding human orientation and wayfinding to robotics), and medicine (from imaging to genome databases).
The Department of Geomatics at the University of Melbourne recognizes these diverse applications and focuses its world-leading research in three key areas: three- and four-dimensional measurement science including image interpretation and sensor networks; spatial data infrastructures; and communication of geographic information including mapping, visualization and verbalization. Our expertise and educational programs cover state of the art surveying, ubiquitous positioning, sensor networks, image interpretation, spatiotemporal databases, and the generation of spatiotemporal information products to answer where and when questions. Our three research teams work in spatiotemporal measurement science, spatial data infrastructures, and geographic information science.