Canadian Geomatics
GIS, Cartography, LiDAR, Remote Sensing, Surveying, and Geographic Information
GIS, Cartography, LiDAR, Remote Sensing, Surveying, and Geographic Information
Cartography is the practice of creating maps or visual representations of geographic areas. Traditionally maps have always been created on paper, but since the wide spread use of geographic information systems (GIS), maps have evolved more into digital formats.
GIS, an essential tool for urban and resource planning, allows people to solve and model real world situations by incorporating spatial and tabular data, and has become an essential cartographic tool.
Remote sensing is the process of acquiring information about an object without making any actual physical contact with it. Remote sensing is vital to numerous fields, including geography, surveying and most Earth Science related disciplines.
LiDAR, a specialized remote sensing technique uses high precision GPS with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) to determine accurate location. The resultant measurements consist of geographic locations that can be further processed to produce many different spatial data products.
Surveying uses techniques of determining terrestrial positions of points on the Earth’s surface, and the distances and angles between them, to establish maps and boundaries. A global positioning system (GPS) is a highly accurate navigation system that uses satellites and established control points to determine accurate locations.
The surveying and mapping community was one of the first to take advantage of GPS technology to it dramatically increase productivity, resulting in more accurate and reliable data.