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Topographic Line Map/Cartography

Our In-House Processes Help Reduce the Time and Cost of Production

SAIC has developed an end-to-end production capability that expedites the feature extraction and map compilation process, thus reducing the costs associated with the production of these types of maps. Additionally, SAIC's GIS team is a leader in the map finishing industry and utilizes ISO standards as part of a rigorous quality assurance process.

SAIC's topographic maps portray all significant aeronautical, cultural, hypsographic, hydrographic, transportation, vegetation, industrial, and physiographic features in a particular geographic region. Features are symbolized at various scales using feature and attribute coding stored in a database extracted from imagery and ancillary source data. For example, road features are symbolized to show the surface type (e.g., hard or loose surface), weather type (e.g., all or fair weather), number of lanes, median type and width. Descriptive text is included in the map face to enhance the map's readability. All feature symbols are defined in a descriptive map legend that is customized to the country being mapped.

In general, topographic maps are one of the military's main cartographic products and, as such, are one of the more popular map products produced.

National source imagery, stereo models and orthographic imagery of the area are generated or acquired to support the compilation process. Stereo imagery is used to generate elevation models of the geographic area (which, in turn, are used to generate contours) and as a source for extracting required features. Extracted features and contours are then imported into SAIC's customized GIS and mapping software environment. One-meter ground sampling distance (GSD) orthographic imagery generated from the national source imagery is displayed as a backdrop to the feature data to provide accuracy of the final features and attributes. Once all feature and attribute data has been collected and reviewed for quality, the data is ready for map finishing processing.