GEODIS, the largest geoinformation company in Central Europe, has supplied more unique oblique images of towns in Bohemia and Moravia to the country’s most popular map portal at Mapy.cz. By doing this it has considerably increased the number of places on the map covered by oblique aerial images to 230 towns and municipalities with a population exceeding 6 000. This gives GEODIS map users the unique opportunity to observe the tiniest details of their town or village, their house, and many other interesting angles of view that the human eye has no chance of seeing. Besides Mapy.cz, GEODIS maps are also used by Google Maps and others.
„Georeferenced oblique images have their particularities such as trapezoidal shape which makes it impossible to stitch the pictures together without performing a specific warp. At Mapy.cz we have decided not to stitch the oblique images but to use them only for the biggest zooms of our maps, as the user moves the map, one oblique picture switches to another. Thus at Mapy.cz we do not deform the pictures,” Miroslav Talášek, the head of the research team of Mapy.cz, explains the specificities of the use of oblique images at Mapy.cz
To take these images GEODIS used its own fleet of aircraft equipped with GEODIS PixoView, a patented system that combines five cameras simultaneously. Unlike the classic vertical shots, in which objects are mostly shown in outline, oblique images contain information shot from the side. The details displayed on oblique images have the added advantage that they supplement data acquired from our “standard” aerial maps. “So far our technology has been used to photograph approximately 80% of the towns and municipalities in the Czech Republic with a population of more than around 6 000 people. We plan to complete the remaining 20% in 2013,” confirmed Drahomíra Zednícková, Commercial Director of GEODIS.
The oblique images taken by GEODIS make it possible to ascertain how neighbouring buildings are interrelated, links to building access points, and how individual entrances connect up to the surrounding infrastructure.
Moreover, the high resolution of the images, ranging from 0.1 to 0.2 m, also makes it possible to see details of balconies, galleries and facades, including technology and equipment located on them. GEODIS technology can be used to shoot images from a height of 300 m upwards. At the lowest height images can be taken at a resolution of 0.05 m, but images are generally shot from heights of around 600 m above the ground, where the resolution of oblique images ranges from 0.1 to 0.2 m.
In order to optimize the oblique photography process we prepare a flight plan, which takes the ground relief and the layout of buildings within the town into consideration.
About GEODIS
GEODIS was incorporated in 1990 in the Czech Republic. The GEODIS GROUP is currently made up of 13 companies that offer a complete range of services in the fields of geodesy, land registry, photogrammetry and GIS to public and private customers. Over 460 specialists are employed in 6 countries. GEODIS continues to invest in new technology, such as lidar scanning, mobile mapping, UAV/UAS, three-dimensional modeling and digital imaging, to provide clients with a variety of up-to-date high-precision map and digital 2D and 3D data.