Although it seems that the international standards have not yet 
become “de facto” standards on GIS format, the ISCGM tried to 
be vendor-neutral and compliant with the existing international 
standards, which could be a good practice shared with the 
participating NMOs. The application schema which describes 
Global Map Vector format and the Global Map Metadata 
Schema are described in the Global Map Specifications. 
2.2 Data Developing Schema and Methods 
Data Developing Schema: The project participating NMOs are 
expected to develop their own Global Map datasets. However, 
if some countries have difficulties in developing their Global 
Maps, such as lack of technical equipment and financial 
limitation, other countries voluntarily support these countries to 
develop their data. The ISCGM manages and promotes the data 
development and the secretariat checks the data so that the data 
can satisfy the minimum requirements mentioned in the Global 
Map Specifications. 
  
International Steering Committee Tor Global 
Mapping SOCOM) 
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Development 
Release 
  
  
  
country A's 
NMO 
country B's 
NMO 
country C's 
NMO 
  
    
  
     
  
     
Figure 5: Framework of the project 
Data Developing Methods: The sources of the Global Map can 
vary from country to country. In a case that NMOs have some 
GIS datasets suitable for Global Map, they generally convert 
them and reclassify the data into Global Map structure. If 
NMOS have no digital data, they usually develop their data by 
digitizing the exiting small scale maps that NMOs own. Other 
existing global data, such as VMAP-0 and satellite images can 
be used where there is no appropriate data available as the 
source. Although the Global Map Specifications define the 
minimum requirements for data quality, the quality of each data 
is not always at the same level. Its metadata, which is 
concordant with ISO19115, shows the source of each Global 
Map dataset and explains about the quality. 
   
  
Paper Maps 
Global Map 
Existing Information 
Figure 6: Data development flow 
To give a certain guideline to develop the data, the secretariat of 
the ISCGM developed the Manual for Development and 
Revision of Global Map, which includes data processing 
methods from several kinds of materials, such as printed maps 
and digital geospatial information. It also mentions about the 
data development method using satellite images based on the 
lessons learnt from some preliminary effort of the ISCGM 
Secretariat. The manual also recommended that participants use 
best available data because the data sources directly affect the 
quality of the product. 
2.3 Quality Control 
Global Map Data Check Software: In order to improve the 
quality of the data toward the completion of the Global Map . 
Version 2, GSI has developed the Global Map Data Check 
software (GMDC) from 2010 to 2011, the latest version of 
which is 2.0. This software was specially dedicated to the 
Global Map and distributed to the project participating NMOs. 
By using this software, each NMO easily finds topological 
errors, inappropriate attributes and logical inconsistency of 
features, which they had to manually detect before. The GMDC 
detects basic errors, such as dangles, overlap and disconnection 
within a feature class. In addition, it also detects logical errors 
between feature classes such as the relation between the 
boundary line and the boundary areas. Major functions of the 
GMDC are as follows: 
1) Import GML/shape file data, 
2) Overlay images (tiff/bil), 
3) Basic check (file name, attributes, topology and so on), 
4) Inter-feature check 
5) Display/hide error marks and save the error list, and 
6) Modify errors automatically or manually. 
  
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Figure 7: Examples of errors detected by GMDC 
The GMDC enables participating NMOs to modify their data 
easily even if they do not have enough number of GIS software 
licenses. It is expected to play an important role in developing 
Global Map dataset especially in the countries whose GIS 
environment is not sufficient. 
2.4 Capacity Building 
The Global Mapping Project also plays a role in capacity 
building. GSI annually hosts a two and half month group 
training course on the development of Global Map conducted 
by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). This 
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