Topographic Mapping

This book is addressed to students and professionals and it is aimed to cover as much as possible the wider region of topographic mapping as it has been evolved into a modern field called geospatial information science and technology. More emphasis is given to the use of scientific methods and tools that are materialised in algorithms and software and produce practical results. For this reason beyond the written material there are also many educational and professional software programs written by the author to comprehend the individual methodologies which are developed. Target of this book is to provide the people who work in fields of applications of topographic mapping (environment, geology, geography, cartography, engineering, geotechnical, agriculture, forestry, etc.) a source of knowledge for the wider region so that to help them in facing relevant problems as well as in preparing contracts and specifications for such type of work assigned to professionals and evaluating such contracting results. It is also aimed to be a reference of theory and practice for the professionals in Topographic Mapping. This book applies a didactics method where with a relatively small effort someone can digest a quite large volume of simple or complicated material of knowledge at a desirable scientific depth within a relative short time interval. The objective that educated people must be 'smarter than the machine' and not to treat the machine as a 'black box' being 'button pushers' has been achieved, through the author’s experience in USA and Greece, with relative success by adopting this didactics technique. There are 11 chapters and two Appendices including: Reference systems and Projections, Topographic instruments and Geometry of coordinates, Conventional construction of a topographic map, Design and reproduction of a thematic map, Digital Topographic mapping - GIS, Digital Terrain Models (DTM / DEM), GPS, methods of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, new technologies LIDAR, IFSAR, the method of Least Squares adjustment, Description of educational software accompanying the text.