Capturing Road Network Data Using Mobile Mapping Technology

The continuous improvement and application of computer technology is rapid changing the way the people manage their environments. With the sophisticated software in use, data acquisition is becoming the most expensive part of establishing a road network database. For this challenge, the mobile mapping systems have been developed to quickly and accurately collect road infrastructures. One of these systems is GPSVision system which integrates the Global Positioning System (GPS), an Inertial Navigation System (INS) and stereo cameras into a moving platform. The GPSVision captures the images of road environment while its position and orientation are provided by the GPS/INS. After the system is calibrated, every visible feature which is seen from two images can be located in a global coordinate system. From the application perspective, the positions and attributes of physical facilities, such as traffic signs, road crossing and buildings can be obtained. A typical client can accurately measure and inspect the infrastructures from images, can simulate the view as one drives down the road and can create complete vector map from images. This paper will discuss the basic issues of a mobile mapping system. A brief description of the system configuration is given, followed by data processing procedure. Finally, applications of the mobile mapping technology in transportation market, and telecommunication market are presented.