NGIS has been creating spatial information technology solutions since the industry was in its infancy.
NGIS has been creating spatial information technology solutions since the industry was in its infancy.
Established in 1993, the innovative provider of location-based technology, which was a finalist in this year's WA Business News Rising Stars Awards, now employs 88 staff throughout Australia and the Asia Pacific region, including in Hong Kong.
In 2005, NGIS was a finalist in the WA Industry and Export Awards, and that same year won the Asia Pacific Spatial Excellence Award.
Also during that period, NGIS began working on a web-enabled application to visually display the extent and environmental impacts of proposed developments, known as 3DSee.
NGIS has tested the innovative software application in Hong Kong during the past year, where it has an established office with expertise in acoustics.
"This application allows you to visualise noise, particularly in the third dimension, which is something quite new," NGIS founder and chief executive Paul Harris told WA Business News.
The 3DSee software analyses terabytes (1,000 gigabytes) of data and factors such as air, water quality and noise can be factored in, with the results displayed graphically so the effect on the surrounds is easy to visualise.
Mr Harris said the application was ideally suited for regions with high-density residential areas, which were susceptible to high levels of noise for a sustained period of time.
"The 3DSee application is suitable for any local government where noise is an issue," he said. "In Australia, it might be inner Sydney or North Sydney, or it could be parts of Melbourne.
"The information is pretty much available in Australia - the base information of where properties are and the heights of buildings and those sorts of things - so that all gets plugged into the noise model, and then you need traffic counts to get an accurate calculation.
"Hong Kong was chosen as a test case for a couple of reasons. One, we have an office there and two, the office has noise expertise because noise has been such a huge issue that Hong Kong has been trying to deal with for at least a decade.
"And if you have a look, Hong Kong is very high-density housing with skyscrapers everywhere.
"So it has recognised noise as a major problem and the latent, or ambient noise as it is known, in Hong Kong is actually above the UN recommended levels, so any addition of noise to that can have quite an effect on the health and well-being of residents."
Mr Harris said the World Health Organisation suggested that any noise above 55 decibels was of concern.
About 17 per cent of the Hong Kong population experiences noise levels above 70dB on an extended basis, and many more for shorter periods of time.
Mr Harris said project developers from around the world could now accurately determine the impacts their developments would have on a region and its people.
He said NGIS, which also exports a range of spatial data and mapping solutions to the Asia Pacific region, was hoping to export 3DSee to the European market.
"The European Union has identified that noise is an issue in major cities in Europe and they are trying to do something about it, and at the moment we're just investigating the market potential of Europe to take our product there," Mr Harris said.
