AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR GEODETIC AND PHOTOGRAMMETRIC DATA CAPTURE AND PRO- 
CESSING, THE WILD SYSTEM 9 APPROACH 
Sigi Heggli 
Wild Heerbrugg Ltd. 
Heerbrugg, Switzerland 
ABSTRACT 
Digital mapping techniques, especially in photogrammetry, were in the past 
decade oriented towards the graphic aspects of the data. More and more 
endusers of digital information systems now demand more structured data 
sets as digital basemaps, that also conform to topologic constraints. 
New techniques for data capture and editing for such information systems 
are required. 
This paper describes the data model used by Wild in the SYSTEM 9 product 
family and the possibilities for improved data capture and editing with 
this data model, in order to fulfill these new requirements. The same tools 
are used for digitising existing maps, for photogrammetric data capture 
from aerial photographs and for handling geodetic field measurements. The 
individual preprocessors for these tasks are described. 
Data capture in existing information systems is very often an unsolved 
problem. SYSTEM 9 offers a powerful solution. 
INTRODUCTION 
For several decades photogrammetry was the surveying method that could 
avoid lengthy calculations. The main purpose was to produce a graphic out- 
put in the form of a map or cross-sections. With the analytical plotter 
and the digital plotting table the age of digital mapping began. Most of 
the commercially available analytical plotters were optimised for aerial- 
triangulation data capture and for higher quality and performance in 
graphic mapping using digital techniques. 
Also in field surveying, the measured angles and distances were very 
often converted to a graphic product with the help of polar coordinato- 
graphs. Only since the introduction of electronic theodolites, distance 
measuring and recording equipment have geodetic methods become quite 
competitive with photogrammetry for large-scale mapping, especially for 
smaller and highly populated areas. To handle this digital information, 
many small "field-to-finish" systems were introduced to the market, with 
the main idea being to produce a graphic output. 
The endusers of the graphic maps, the customers of the map producers, are 
themselves beginning more and more to use digital methods for their post- 
processing tasks. There is a growing interest in digital information 
systems based on a digital basemap for many different applications. The 
traditional suppliers of the basemap are forced by endusers to provide a 
much more flexible digital product supporting the data structures re- 
quired by those endusers. If the map producers are not able to deliver 
and update such a digital basemap, they will lose business. 
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