DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION OF THE HIGHWAY MAPPING SYSTEM OF OHIO-STATE-UNIVERSITY

Since 1990, the Center for Mapping at Ohio State University has been developing mobile mapping systems to automate and accelerate the collection of digital map data. These systems integrate the global positioning system (GPS) with inertial navigation units and imaging sensors to produce digital geographic data. They are modular and can be installed on various platforms, such as vans, trains and aeroplanes. New developments with the imaging system and the fully integrated data-processing environment are discussed in this article. The stereovision system enables the user to obtain three dimensional co-ordinates of any object in the field of view of the camera. Digital mid video images, together with GPS positions, are stored in an object-oriented database, which merges data collected by airborne and terrestrial mapping platforms. Exploiting the enormous amount of information contained in the digital stereoscopic imagery is a challenging topic of current and future research.