Tons of new products were introduced at Intergeo in Germany. A buzz on the floor involved the new line of total stations from Spectra Precision and Nikon, in particular the Nikon Nivo series (right) and Spectra Precision Focus series. These full-featured "baby" total stations from Trimble stand less than 12 inches tall and weigh less than eight pounds! It is simply amazing that so much power and capability can be built into such a small package.

Also creating interest at the show were the new Viva handheld controllers from Leica Geosystems (left). According to Leica, the controllers work with all its gear and integrate a 2 Mpixel camera for convenient field documentation. They also support a wide range of data storage and transfer capabilities such as wireless LAN, USB, Bluetooth and CF/SD-cards. Leica also released several other GNSS/GIS products.

Bruce Carlson of Carlson Software gave a technical session about a new feature (a European resection) the company had coded for the European market. It was almost humorous, but Bruce said that one German surveyor told him that it would be illegal if they surveyed without starting from a resection! (See my last newsletter for an explanation of how European surveyors use control.)