Capability Continues to Expand
Continental Mapping has been busy this year expanding our reach and our technical capabilities. In addition to taking on increasingly difficult projects, we’ve been adding new tools to stay up to date with changes in mapping. Continental Mapping has worked on several mapping projects in Panama through a partner company. Projects have included the photo-identification of control points and coordination of survey with a team in Panama, 1”=400’ scale planimetrics, 2-meter contours, and a .25-meter ortho. This is Continental Mapping’s third year working in Panama, and we look forward to expanding our presence there in the coming year.Municipal Mapping Continental Mapping recently completed an orthophotography update for the city of West Bend, Wisconsin. In 2006, Continental Mapping created city-wide orthophotography at a 4” pixel resolution and delivered 1”=100’ planimetric update mapping and 2’ contours to NSSDA standards. This spring, the city requested updated imagery for its GIS, which Continental Mapping was able to provide. Approximately 30 square miles of photography was collected at a scale of such that mapping can be performed in any area at a later date. Very High Accuracy Corridor Mapping Requires Helicopters, New Aerial Acquisition Systems Continental Mapping is currently involved with a number of multi-modal transportation corridor and energy corridor projects that require very high accuracy mapping. Project requirements include vertical accuracies of 0.2’ in some cases. These projects required us to implement a number of project design and technology changes that include the use of helicopter based acquisition, LiDAR, and digital camera systems. So far in 2008, Continental Mapping completed hundreds of miles of mapping of highway, rail, and energy corridors, with hundreds of miles to go. Precise Point Positioning Technology for Minimizing Ground Control Continental Mapping began implementing precise point positioning (PPP) techniques for some projects. Combining precise point positioning with airborne GPS allows us to substantially reduce, and in some cases eliminate, the need for ground control. While this technique does not work for all projects, it gives us another tool for project areas that are difficult to access or for regional scale projects. Continental Mapping Principals are Oregon Licensed Photogrammetrists Continental Mapping principals David Hart and Christopher Gross were granted licenses as Professional Photogrammetrists by the State of Oregon Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying in March of 2008. |