GIS Use in the Map Chart and Data Production Community
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GIS Use in Map, Chart & Data Production TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 Welcome to the MAPS Community Esri designs and develops the world’s leading geographic information system 4 Topographic Mapping (GIS) technology. GIS is an important 5 Geoscience Australia tool used by national mapping int 6–7 Natural Resources Canada agencies, aeronautical and nautical organizations, and commercial map 8–9 TASMAP and chart publishers around the world. FOR PR 10 Department of Sustainability and Y For more information about Esri, Environment, Victoria, Australia OR please visit esri.com. To learn more T about GIS for the MAPS community, 11 Spatial Data Infrastructure visit esri.com/maps. 12–13 Geospatial One-Stop YOUR S YOUR If you are interested in learning more 14–15 GEOSS GEO Portal mit about the solutions in this booklet or 16–17 Center for GIS, Qatar would like to submit your own solution SUB story, please e-mail [email protected]. 18–19 Small Island SDI 20 Geospatial Intelligence 21 National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 22 United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire 23 North Atlantic Treaty Organization International Security Assistance Force 24 Imagery 25 Foreign Agricultural Service 26 Woods Hole Research Center 27 Indian Space Research Organization 28 Nautical 29 The Marine Chart Division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 30–31 Portuguese Instituto Hidrografico 32–33 New York Ocean and Great Lakes Ecosystem Council 34 Aeronautical 35 International Civil Aviation Organization 36–37 French Aeronautical Information Service 38–39 Romanian Civil Aeronautical Authority 40 Cartography 41 Swiss Federal Office of Topography 42 Good Shepherd Engineering and Computing 43 Mapping Specialists, Ltd. Welcome to the MAPS Community Organizations are under great pressure to generate more products and services in less time and with fewer resources. Esri® software helps meet these requirements, no matter the size of the organization, through a database-centric workflow. The database acts as the hub to coordinate activities, from capture through production, data dissemination, and maintenance. Changes can be made at any step in the process. Compared with traditional linear workflows, this unified approach increases return on investment, improves data integrity and decreases risk. Using GIS to collect, manage, produce, and share information makes the ability to create maps, charts, data, and Web services an achievable goal for any organization. Esri’s ArcGIS® system of software ties workflows with tried-and-true GIS methodologies, ensuring a streamlined production environment. The software’s ability to handle the specific data, products, data models, and symbology of different industries means that aeronautical, nautical, topographic, and other agencies can create their own unique information using the same geographic database. To find out more about Esri’s solutions, please visit esri.com/maps. 3 Topographic Mapping 4 GIS Automates National Mapping in Australia Geoscience Australia Highlights Checks for completeness, positional accuracy, attribute • GIS enables faster workflow. accuracy, and logical consistencies are performed. • Maintenance and data costs decreased. On passing validation, the data is checked back into the • Multiple products can be generated. national database, and a largely push-button approach is undertaken to output print files for color maps. • The group now attracts young, technically savvy staff. Using a geodatabase allows Geoscience Australia to create Australia has a land area of more than 7.5 million square nonstandard maps as they are requested. An example kilometers and an exclusive economic zone of a further is the recently released West MacDonnell National Park 8 million square kilometers. Australia’s coastline (including series, developed to satisfy land management, emergency 8,000 islands) is almost 60,000 kilometers long. Readily management, and tourism needs. In this particular case, accessible fundamental information and knowledge a number of customizations were made including the about this area is essential for national security, public addition of a satellite image map on the reverse side, safety, resource management, agricultural production, nonstandard map extents, and a customized map surround. environmental management, infrastructure development, recreation, and many other uses by government, business, Implementing GIS throughout the Geographic Information and the community. Group has enabled faster workflow, easier maintenance of data, and cost efficiencies in terms of the ability to generate For 47 years, the Geographic Information Group of multiple products—digital and hard copy—from a single Geoscience Australia has mapped the country at scales database. The organization is now able to generate a suite of 1:100,000 to 1:20,000,000. For many years, Geographic of digital products including GIS-ready vector data, raster Information Group used manual methods of cartography maps, and PDF format maps suitable for backdrops in a to produce paper maps. This was a time-consuming and broad range of new technologies such as GPS receivers and exacting blend of art and science undertaken by teams of personal computing or telephony devices. cartographers using pens, ink, and scribe tools. GIS has also made it easier to attract younger staff who In the last 20 years, digital methods of cartography and a see the potential of the new technology and the broader broader range of products, many of which are also digital, range of career options it offers them, such as in the fields of have been introduced. Recent advances in database analytic GIS, map production, and data management. technology for managing GIS spatial data have been embraced by Geoscience Australia and promise to further In the case of the West MacDonnell National Park maps, revolutionize the way the group fulfills its national mapping Geoscience Australia has been able to easily generate a obligations. For instance, it has created an object-oriented number of potential mock-ups of the map face and print, seamless topographic database for the entire continent and inspect, and improve them efficiently until the desired developed tools in ArcObjects™ for the automated push- product was achieved. button production of hard-copy maps. Geoscience Australia relies on Esri’s ArcGIS system for map production, from data extraction to data production. First, data is extracted from existing databases. The data is then checked for position against satellite imagery or aerial photography and for attribution against intelligence gathered from a variety of sources including state and local governments; publications; and older, large-scale maps. Field mapping is undertaken to upgrade the accuracy of roads and other infrastructure features and to broadly check the validity of the data. Formal data validation is undertaken to ensure that the data meets quality requirements as defined in the database specification. 5 Generating New Canadian Topographic Maps APPING M Natural Resources Canada IC H Highlights that were previously unmapped are also included. These AP R • Automated symbolization, text placement, and map are the first of 2,500 new topographic maps of Canada G to be produced by NRCan over a three-year period. The O surround creation P map publishing process has been automated to the point • Easier text placement for maps TO where each new map requires less than half a person-day, • Quadrupled capacity for cartographic editing including text placement, for completion. Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) provides various types The initial objectives were to develop a map generator to of geospatial data for Canada including topographic maps automate cartographic symbolization, text placement, and at 1:50,000 and 1:250,000 scales. Over the past 15 years, the building of the map surround so that the map technician NRCan has focused on building and improving national would be able to publish two 1:50,000-scale maps per day. coverage of vector topographic data, including integrating Since users of NRCan’s topographic maps expect a high updated data from the GeoBase initiative (GeoBase.ca) caliber of cartographic quality and content, there were several and legacy data from the National Topographic Database challenges to overcome. Initial challenges were twofold. (NTDB). Topographic products are distributed online The first was to manage the map content in a way that takes through the GeoGratis Web portal (GeoGratis.gc.ca) at no advantage of the newly acquired GeoBase data for roads cost and with no restrictions. and hydrography, integrate this data with a large number Since 2009, a new program of topographic map revision of other feature classes drawn from the NTDB data, and and production has used this vector database to produce update the place-names and administrative boundaries. The a new generation of 1:50,000-scale maps covering selected second challenge was the integration of datasets originating areas of Canada. The map sheets chosen for production are from a variety of sources having various data formats, scales, those deemed most in demand by the public and various and collection techniques to allow manipulation to achieve a government agencies. Areas of Canada’s northern region high cartographic standard output. Center for Topographic Information Map Production Other Sources Map Generator • Extraction to PGDB (FME) • Integration (ArcInfo, ArcEditor, .NET) • Geospatial Editing (ArcEditor) • Format Manipulation Cartographic • Labeling (Label-EZ) • Data