Global Geospatial Information: Addressing the Appetite of Geographic Information Systems

Roberta E. Lenczowski and David M. Danko

Abstract:	The Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) recently developed the Vector Product Format (VPF), accepted both as a military and as an international product exchange standard. This standard for packaging global geographic information in a georelational vector format will be used by the agency and its coproducers to provide digital products to customers. The standard has been designed to support a wide range of analytical and display uses and allows direct access to the data from its storage media without prior conversion to a working format. The standard was developed in cooperation with the military mapping agencies in Australia, Sanada, and the United Kingdom. Released simultaneously with the standard, the Digital Chart of the World (DCW) is the first in a family of DMA vector products to use the VPF. It carries planimetric and topographic information equivalent to the resolution of a 1 :l million scale chart and provides global coverage. The DCW is listed as a public release product , nations. sold by the co-developer In the United States the sales agent is the United States Geological Survey (USGS). DMA has also prototyped other vector formatted products, like the Digital Nautical Chart (DNC) and Vector Smart Map (VMAP) with appropriate data resolution and content to support its varied customers with manageable sources of geographic information. DMA is committed to move from its traditional map manufacturing orientation to the more relevant spatial-database generation, management and distribution.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1993) June 21 - 23, 1993 Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge, MA
Pages:	479 - 486
Cite this article:	Lenczowski, Roberta E., Danko, David M., "Global Geospatial Information: Addressing the Appetite of Geographic Information Systems," Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1993), Cambridge, MA, June 1993, pp. 479-486.
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