LANDSAT 3 RBV IMAGERY FOR TOPOGRAPHIC MAPPING 
SECTIONS. 
IIRED 
Lee U. Bender 
and 
Neil L. Falcone 
U.S. Geological Survey 
521 National Center 
Reston, Virginia 22092 
ABSTRACT 
Cartographic research at the U. S. Geological Survey has 
included testing the use of RBV imagery in (1) map inspec 
tion and revision and (2) creation of a simple, low cost, 
mosaicked-image base map. 
At the scale of 1:100,000, it was found that unrectified 
RBV imagery can be successfully used to update cultural 
and natural features portrayed on topographic maps. It 
has also been found that the geometric fidelity of RBV 
imagery is sufficient to meet National Map Accuracy 
Standards. In a test of a mosaic comprised of four 
subscenes of Cape Cod, Mass., a root mean square error of 
33 meters was obtained when ground control was transferred 
to the subscenes from field-identified control on aerial 
photographs. Another test, of upper Chesapeake Bay, using 
control transferred from 1: 24,000-scale topographic maps 
was made. Application of four linear transformations--the 
similarity, the affine, the perspective, and the 
projective--resulted in root mean square error values for 
single subscenes ranging from 100 meters to 30 meters. 
INTRODUCTION 
Since the launch of Landsat 3 the National Mapping Division 
of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has been 
investigating the cartographic utility of the satellite's 
Return Beam Vidicon (RBV) imagery. The three aspects 
investigated include: (1) geometric fidelity, (2) image 
base mapping through photomechanical mosaicking, and (3) 
map inspection and revision. This paper summarizes the 
results of these investigations. 
GEOMETRY 
RBV Cameras 
The Landsat 3 satellite carries two 236-mm (nominal) focal 
length RBV cameras (USGS, 1979). By choosing appropriate 
exposure intervals, scenes as in Figure 1 result. Scenes 
denoted A and C are obtained from the camera with vidicon 
tube number S-19930; scenes B and D from tube S-19931. 
The sides of each scene cover a distance of approximately 
99 km on the ground, and the four scenes taken together 
cover approximately one Multispectral Scanner (MSS) scene. 
The face of the vidicon tube is 25.4 mm on a side; the