Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Digital Mapping: New Age Mapping Techniques


The collection of data and compiling it into a virtual image is called digital mapping or cartography. Maps which give accurate representations of some particular areas are produced through this process. It gives major details of roads networks and other interest points. Distance from a certain point to another is calculated through this technology.

Digital Mapping in the Digital Age

A variety of computer applications use this technology e.g. Google Earth. The maps are used in GPS satellite network which is used in the automotive navigation systems.

A terrestrial GPS receiver obtains the coordinates, position and atomic time from at least twenty four GPS satellites that do orbit the earth.  They interact together to provide digital mapping and programming.  The information provided has points of origin and the destination points needed in order to calculate the distance.

A map is later created from the analysis of the information. These maps give the easiest and the most efficient way to pass to reach a certain destination. The GPS coordinates (latitudinal and longitudinal exact points) are provided by the GPS receiver. The outputs of the coordinates approximately range between 10 to 20 meters of the actual location.  The beginning point that is entered via the coordinates and the ending point i.e. coordinates or the address input by the user, are later entered into the digital map. The route is represented by the map output in terms of real-time visual representation. Moving along this path that is provided helps the driver to move to the designated route. In case the driver drifts to the wrong route the navigation system recalculates a route to the destination location by use of the current coordinates.

Digital maps mostly rely on large amount of data that is collected over a certain period of time. These maps are mostly used in GPS navigation systems, scientific applications and also in computer applications.