Browsing by Author "Jones, Kent Douglas"

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    Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms to Define Aboriginal Parcel Boundaries in Canada
    (2017) Jones, Kent Douglas; Barry, Michael; Bankes, Nigel; Detchev, Ivan
    The objective of this research was to explore strategic options for alternative boundary dispute resolution (ABDR) mechanisms that improve non-treaty boundary determination for First Nations in Canada by rebalancing the power relationships with government to relieve the comprehensive claims backlog. The comprehensive claims process concerns the negotiation of modern treaties between First Nations and the Canadian government and includes boundary determination. Boundary determination needs to balance the land interests of Aboriginal Peoples and government. This is informed by the seminal case, Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, [2014] SCC 44, where the Supreme Court of Canada said that traditional use informed boundary determination and relied on non-treaty boundary determination to grant Aboriginal title within Canada’s cadastre for the first time. A review of the literature found that a Canadian Alternative Boundary Dispute Resolution (ABDR) mechanism may assist boundary determination in comprehensive claims if it is structured to (i) include expert panels, (ii) apply both common law and Indigenous legal principles, and (iii) innovate by accommodating Aboriginal legal boundary principals. A graduated spectrum of diminishing rights was also described as a framework for Aboriginal traditional use lands within ABDR. The method of Barry (1999) that coupled induction with a descriptive narrative method was adapted to this research using twenty-two semi-structured interviews of seven First Nations in Canada and fifteen non-Aboriginal Canadians familiar with non-treaty boundary determination. Responses were coded into themes and ranked using an ordinal scale to support interpretation of the interview data and triangulation between the participants. It was found that a quasi-judicial framework may be established that is only reviewable by superior courts of appeal by developing a novel ABDR mechanism that empanels experts on Aboriginal law and issues who are culturally sensitive to Aboriginal Peoples. It should also utilize land surveyors in the field to walk the boundaries. By induction, it also found that a quasi-judicial ABDR mechanism may be viable within the Surveyor General Branch if this department is moved out of Natural Resources Canada where it could be expected to have greater autonomy and perceived independence by Aboriginal Peoples.
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    Automatic Registration of Imagery to Mobile LiDAR Maps
    (2024-02-15) Jones, Kent Douglas; Lichti, Derek D.; Detchev, Ivan Denislavov; Yang, Hongzhou; El-Sheimy, Naser M.; Chapman, Michael Alastair
    Mapping in 3D that records geospatial data from platform-mounted sensors with digital twinning supports maintenance and future planning of civil infrastructure. Three-dimensional mapping is efficiently performed with a Mobile Mapping System (MMS). This research demonstrates camera-only registration of subsequently captured images to an MMS point-cloud for updating MMS datasets. The research resolves key issues with inherent resolution differences between MMS laser scanner point-clouds and camera images by bridging differences between MMS point-clouds and camera images using a synthetic camera image (SCI). SCI are used to determine the approximate pose or coarse register the camera image to the MMS point cloud. The SCI coarse registration precision is maximized by generating surfaces, interpolating intensity values, and reducing noise with a median filter. The SCI is processed with a median filter to remove salt-and-pepper noise from the generation methods while preserving edges. Edgeboxes are adapted to find similar features in both SCIs and camera images. These features are then passed through layers of a convolutional neural network to provide a feature descriptor for coarse registration. Real camera images (RCI) are processed to mitigate resolution differences with the SCIs. The RCI is downsampled to align with the spatial resolution of the SCIs. Robust features are used to register the RCI to the SCIs. SIFT is used for fine registration between RCIs and SCIs generated from dense point-clouds. Landmark features are used for registration of RCIs to SCIs generated from MMS point-clouds. The edgebox parameters require tuning to detect the same features in two disparate image sets. The fourth layer of AlexNet was found to provide the most ideal feature descriptor for registration between RCIs and SCIs. The approximate location of the RCI using SCIs as interpreters between RCI and MMS point-cloud detect scenes at a precision of 97% when changes are less than 20%, and foliage does not exceed 20% of the camera image. This novel application of landmark features aligns with camera-to-camera place recognition precision. The focal length and IOPs do not influence the precision of the registration because the registration precision does not change when different cameras capture the real images.