1997 Annual Report of ISPRS WG II/1

Real-time mapping has had a steady progress since the Congress in Vienna in 1996. The progress can be characterized by the following trends:

1) The mobile mapping concept developed and implemented on land-based platforms has been expanded to airborne and satellite platforms. Typical examples are AIMS (Airborne Integrated Mapping System) developed at The Ohio State University Center for Mapping and the new generation of high-resolution satellite imagery. The former uses DGPS and INS to georeferenced airborne digital CCD images. Such a mapping system may greatly reduce or eventually eliminate ground control and aerial triangulation. The latter employs space GPS and star tracker to obtain the positions and attitudes of satellites. It will be of great interest of the WG to confirm the estimated mapping accuracies of the satellites in 1998.

2) Intelligent processing of mobile mapping data becomes a research topic. Advanced techniques such as neural networks and snake models have been applied to automate measuring procedures and automatic object recognition from mobile mapping data. The unique advantages of the mobile mapping data that the images have unknown exterior orientation parameters and the image sequences are along a known track make the automation more efficient and robust. Multiple image based matching has found its application in the mobile mapping processing. Bayesian networks have been actively researched and promise great potential for feature extraction.

3) More land-based systems are being developed. The accuracy and resolution of the sensors are increased. It is hoped that the costs of the system can be greatly reduced to a commercially acceptable level.

Recent relevant publications

Li, R. 1997. Mobile Mapping - An Emerging Technology for Spatial Data Acquisition. Journal of Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Vol.63, No.9, pp.1085-1092.

Tao, T. 1997. Automated Approaches to Object Measurement and Feature Extraction from Georeferenced Mobile Mapping Image Sequences. Dissertation, Department of Geomatics Engineering, The University of Calgary, 211p.

Braess, M. 1997. Strukturbasierte Merkmalszuordnung in kurzen stereoskopischen Videosequenzen. Fakultaet fuer Bauingenieur- und Vermessungswesen der Rheinisch-Westfaelischen Technischen Hochschule Aachen, 117p.

Toth, C.K. 1997. Direct Sensor Platform Orientation: Airborne Integrated Mapping System (AIMS). International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, ISPRS Comm. III, Vol. XXXII, part 3-2W3, pp. 148--155, 1997.

Accomplishments of the WG since Vienna Congress

- Suggested and contributed to a mobile mapping session at GIS/LIS 97 including papers on land-based (TransMap), airborne (AIMS) and satellite (1m) topics.

- A Mobile Mapping Workshop in Bangkok 1999 is being organized with the support from Prof. Shunji Murai.

- A Web page of the WG is being constructed and will be completed by the end of the year.

Other news on WG activities or plans for the future.

- Mobile mapping session(s) at Com.II Symposium in UK 1998

- Sessions at ISPRS Congress in Amsterdam 2000

- Although the WG is, for some reason, not officially sponsoring the Mobile Mapping Conference 1998 and Duane Brown Summer School in Geomatics 1998, both in Columbus, OH, mobile and real-time mapping are major issues of these two events. The WG will closely observe the scientific and technical trends discussed at the conferences.