Updating Traditional 1/50,000 Topographic Maps Using Crowd-Sourced Geodata and Free Sources Satellite Images

Abstract

This paper addresses how open geodata and crowd-sourced geodata, and the open geoportals might be integrated with the mainstream surveying and mapping practices to update traditional topomaps quickly and inexpensively, that might be otherwise impossible to do it due to economic and logistic situations. The abundant geographic data on the internet could be used to update topographic maps while avoiding the time-consuming nature of the traditional method. To be able to use them, it is necessary to measure and quantify the quality of these data, as well as to verify their credibility, in order to incorporate them into official topographic maps. The proposed approach takes advantage of neocartography, and it’s not about further developing a new approaches, but looking differently at how data is collected, assembled controlled and been used for updating topomaps. At the beginning, the methodology used about how open geodata and crowd-sourced geodata involved in collecting, simplifying, generalizing, controlling and generating useful cartographic information that complement traditional and conventional counterparts is presented. This methodology was applied on a 1/50,000 topomap located in the north of Jeddah city (western region of Saudi Arabia), and we have demonstrated that by using this type of data, it is possible to update topographic maps quickly and at a lower cost while maintaining cartographic precision and accuracy standards.