Base Mapping & Geomatics in British Columbia

Base Mapping & Geomatics Services BC provides users with a number of useful geomatics products and services including the provincial baseline atlas, Geo Spatial Reference  system, Air Photo and Lab Services, data and product Specifications, and Product Ordering Data. Some of the popular online services include airphoto inventory, geographical names, and landata BC just to name a few.

Base Mapping and Geomatic Services Branch (BMGS) is composed of a team of Geomatics Technologists and Professionals who specialize in the provision of base map and georeferencing data, Corporate data sets and derived products as well as derived information to clients in government and the private sector.

See BMGS Business Plan 2003/04 (pdf)

Roles and Responsibilities:

  • Sets standards for base mapping and land related information systems, and for related remote sensing and survey control functions in the province.

  • Manages the official coordinate reference system in BC, consisting of 50,000 monuments and 10 ground stations for satellite positioning used for engineering, navigation and mapping.

  • Provides standardized base mapping, including the 3-dimensional Terrain Resource Information Management (TRIM) program, Digital Road Atlas, TRIM Watershed Atlas – for use by government, industry and the public.

  • Responsible for naming geographical features in B.C.

  • Manages the provincial Aerial Photography Program to acquire air photos to meet the operational needs of the provincial government. An air photo library and a reproduction lab ensures access to these resources by the public and private sectors.

Another key initiative of BMGS is the Digital road atlas – The Digital Road Atlas project (DRA) will build a data management system for all roads in British Columbia. Inputs into the system include roads data from TRIM, GIS Innovations, Elections BC, the Ministry of Transportation, resource roads from the Ministry of Forests, and all associated updates.

BMGS is also responsible for TRIMTRACK – a "Team Track" reporting utility, which will give the user an effective avenue for reporting defects they may find in the TRIM dataset

http://srmwww.gov.bc.ca/bmgs/index.html