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DIGITAL REVISION OF NTS MAPS: A PILOT PROJECT 
Anna Marie Regan and Costas Armenakis 
Canada Centre for Mapping / Centre canadien de cartographie 
Natural Resources Canada / Ressources naturelles Canada 
615 Booth St. / 615 rue Booth, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A OE9 
tel.: (613) 943-0466, fax.: (613) 943-8059 
e-mail: armenaki@emrl.emr.ca 
ISPRS Commission II, WG II/III 
KEY WORDS: Map revision, generalization, vector-raster integration 
ABSTRACT 
The National Topographic Series (NTS) map revision pilot project that was conducted at the Canada 
Centre for Mapping is described. This project investigated the potential of using 1:50 000 digital 
data and Landsat TM imagery to derive and revise the 1:250 000 NTS maps, and digitized aerial 
photography to revise the 1:50 000 NTS maps. The UNIX based CARIS system was used for both 
the derivation and the revision of the prototype data sets. For the derivation of the 1:250 000 map, 
data generalization techniques were applied to a 1:50 000 data set. The revision of vector data from 
both Landsat TM image and digitized aerial photography was performed by integrating the raster 
images and the vector map data. Change detection was performed visually and new vector data 
collected. The procedures followed and the results obtained are presented. 
RESUME 
Cet article décrit le projet-pilote de révision cartographique de la Série de cartes topographiques 
nationales qui fut exécuté au Centre canadien de cartographie. Le projet-pilote a étudié les 
possibilités d'utiliser des données numériques au 1:50 000 et des images Landsat TM en vue de 
recompiler et de réviser les cartes au 1:250 000, ainsi que les possibilités d'utiliser des 
photographies aériennes numériques pour réviser les cartes au 1:50 000. Le systéme CARIS, 
articulé sur UNIX, fut utilisé pour la recompilation et la révision des ensembles de données du 
prototype. Des techniques de généralisation des données furent appliquées à l'ensemble de données 
au 1:50 000 pour obtenir la recompilation de la carte au 1:250 000. La révision des données 
vectorielles des images Landsat TM et des photographies aériennes numériques fut accomplie en 
intégrant les images raster et les données cartographiques vectorielles. L'identification de 
changements fut accomplie visuellement et de nouvelles données vectorielles furent recueillies. Les 
procédures suivies et les résultats obtenus sont présentés. 
1.0 INTRODUCTION 
The Canada Centre for Mapping, (CCM), is 
responsible for the production and maintenance 
of the National Topographic Series (NTS) maps 
for Canada. The NTS consist of maps at two 
scales: 1:250 000 and 1:50 000. Canada has 
complete coverage with the 1:250 000 maps, 
which have also been scanned for conversion to 
digital form. Although these 914 maps are in 
digital form, the data is currently only being 
used for GIS applications, not for map revision. 
These maps continue to be manually revised. 
The coverage of Canada at the 1:50 000 scale is 
approximately 92% complete, with a 
combination of digital and analogue maps. Of 
these 11, 931 maps at the 1:50 000 scale, 20% 
have corresponding digital data, either from 
stereocompilation or scanned reprographic 
material. This percentage of digital data is 
increasing as more new maps are 
stereocompiled and existing anologue maps 
revised by digital recompilation or scanned and 
converted to digital data. All of the digital data 
for the NTS maps is archived in the National 
Topographic Database. The only digital 
revision currently being used is the stereo 
recompilation of entire map sheets. At the 
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