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SATELLITE IMAGE DATA AND THEIR POTENTIAL FOR THE COMMERCIAL USE OF UPDATING AND CREATING 
OF LARGE SCALE TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS 
Christian G. Hoffmann 
University of Vienna 
Vienna, Austria; No.: IV 
Abstract: With the development of remote sensing we have today a various number of possibilities to 
achieve cartographic products of excellent quality. These digital images and the derived, extracted line 
maps are relatively inexpensive to obtain, compared to conventional techniques. The tremendous savings 
of resources in this high cost environment could be used for updating and mapping of new areas. The 
current topic of interest shows with examples that through these new innovations it is possible to 
generate the same type of maps and could therefore lead towards an operational phase in the use of 
satellite image data for cartography. 
Keywords: Cartographic, Economic, Map Revision, Remote Sensing Application 
For centuries topographic maps have 
presented a more or less exact picture of 
the earth surface and have widely been used 
to provide solutions in such fields as 
resource management. However, in many 
developing countries we currently have to 
deal with the complete lack of large scale 
topographic maps. On the other hand, 
changes occuring in highly developed 
countries within five years can well be 
over 30% of the area covered by one map 
sheet. As a result it will become more and 
more difficult and costly to map new areas 
or to update existing maps on a regular 
basis. 
With their current resolution satellite 
image data represent an adequate tool to 
overcome the above mentioned problems. In 
order to emphasize this, a sample site on 
the Austro - Czechoslovakian borderline was 
depicted by the author and updated with the 
help of Spot panchromatic and Landsat TM 
data. The chosen area is covered by the 
sheet 29 Hohenau of the Oesterreichische 
Karte 1 : 50 000 and has never been updated 
at the Czechoslovakian side since 1931. 
With the use of geocoded data it has now 
been possible to correct misplaced objects 
and to carry out a full revision of this 
map sheet. 
Spot panchromatic combined with Landsat TM 
data seems to be sufficient for determining 
most of the elements and features that are 
found in a 1 : 50 000 map. Problems arise 
in newly built up areas where roads or 
single houses cannot be detected. In 
general the following parameters determine 
the exactness for recognizing an object: 
size of the feature 
contrast 
shape 
shade 
* X xo 
Of further interest may be the deviation 
of a background image and a superimposed 
499 
topographic map. Examinations carried out 
with the root mean square error have shown 
that an adequate exactness is guaranteed 
even though these results cannot be 
compared to the output of a high resolution 
aerial photography. 
Having done the necessary geometric and 
radiometric corrections one can move on to 
the next step in the workflow and start to 
implement the satellite image data in a 
computer assisted cartography system. In 
this phase the extracted elements are 
compared with the scanned map and all the 
editing for the final printouts can take 
place. 
With the successful combination of the 
above mentioned technologies a solution for 
the application of digital data in large 
scale mapping has been found and could 
therefore lead towards an operational 
phase. Due to the savings in cost (up to 
30% and more) it is realistic to assume 
that these new media - as improvable as 
they may seem in some aspects - will soon 
strongly compete with conventional 
cartographic and photogrammetric 
techniques.