Digitising

Digitising is the process of turning a map or diagram into a digital (vector) form - usually from a paper or scanned original. A vector map or diagram allows re-scaling without losing detail and is extensively used in mapping, GIS, CAD and similar drawing systems when working with spatial information (both 2D and 3D). Digitising may be achieved in several ways depending on your source material: 1.Manual digitising from paper / printed maps or diagrams using a Digitising (or Graphics) tablet. 2.Scanning paper / printed maps or diagrams into digital form (usually in the form of a raster image) then digitising from the image on the computer screen. 3.Digital images (for example aerial or satellite images) are the primary source and are digitised as in 2 above. 4.Automatic digitising from raster images – where the computer analyses the contents of the images and extracts the straight line items. Less time consuming, but possibly less discriminating, than manual digitising.

For more information on Digitising talk to GeoMEM Ltd