School of Forest Resources and Conservation		UF / IFAS
	GEOMATICS AREAS OF STUDY
Areas of Study Geomatics Faculty Research Fall Courses Spring Courses Facilities	DIGITAL IMAGING AND MAPPING deals primarily with computer techniques and software to produce maps from images. This is the modern equivalent of the earlier, analog approach of producing maps from images and is closely associated with Photogrammetry. In a broader sense, digital imaging and digital mapping can be considered separately. For example, a digital image can be subjected to various computer processing operations in order to identify features, without a resultant map product. On the other hand, we might look at how other forms of spatial data can be processed to produce a digital map. By its nature, the study of digital imaging and mapping inevitably involves the use of a computer and associated software, and there are many examples and applications. One might use image processing software in order to detect the spread of disease in a forest. Data from digital sensors can be processed in order to produce a planimetrically correct image “map” called an orthophoto. Flood prone areas can be identified by computer processing of a large number of X,Y,Z data points on the surface of the terrain (collected by a system commonly known as LIDAR). This is just a small sample of the many applications in digital imaging and mapping.
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