Future for the Services

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Which future for the services of cartography?

We are clearly with the stammerings of the type of applications suggested by Google Earth or NASA World Wind. Already very impressive, those must nevertheless make with some limitations: whatever the software used, it always arrives a moment when the sight becomes fuzzy. Google Earth proposes its sight "buildings", but one begins to dream of modelings even more detailed of the streets. This progress themselves is limited by the colossal task that the virtualisation of our planet represents and inevitably influenced by their geographical origin. For the moment, the two software headlight is American. Google Earth has a very significant Community support which largely helps to fill the international gaps of the software. Multiple projects are born: the near total of Germany thus has been just covered in high resolution and a project of modeling of the streets of London is in hand. Nevertheless, the software takes all its direction only if one lives in the United States or that one projects to go there. In the state, the "local" side of this type of services is still far from being exploitable for other countries.

The most promising initiative remains "Google Earth French" promised by the IGN. Few information still filtered on this project, which should be partially paying, but it should restore a certain balance and to reach a level of detail without precedent of our territory the IGN thus promises a precision of a pixel for 50 cm thanks to photographs taken during mission of overflight in the plane. 400.000 stereotypes would be thus used to cover the hexagon and the DOM supplemented by 3600 charts sets of themes on the scale (excursions, river, drills, parks...). Partners as the Land register could them also bring their data. A video first of demonstration of the service is available since the blog of Jean Michel Billaut


While waiting, Google Earth remains currently the most advanced application in its kind and the "total" dimension of the software is as for it a mine of information on our planet. Good explorations!