Successful completion of the InSAR cartography project in Venezuela (CartoSUR II) | January 08, 2004

Company: Orbisat Remote Sensing
Industry: Remote Sensing & Image Processing
Location: Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil

CartoSUR is a national operational cartography project in Venezuela covering about 1/3 of the country by Radar based maps using a 1:50.000 scale.

Orbisat da Amazônia has successfully completed phase III, the automated processing of InSAR data of the States of Bolivar and Delta Amacuro in Venezuela, in cooperation with Infoterra GmbH, an EADS/Astrium company in Germany, who is the prime contractor of this World Bank financed project and Mercator as the Venezuelan counterpart, responsible for the logistics of the processing facilities. The 263,000 sq. km. mapping project began in January 2003 and has completed the aerial survey in April 2003 utilizing OrbiSAR-1, the company’s own airborne Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar system (InSAR). OrbiSAR-1’s design for simultaneous acquisition of two RADAR bands (X- and P-band) allowed the rapid production of 518 high quality Ortho-SAR 1:50,000 scale maps together with digital elevation models, contour lines, water bodies, streams, roads and various land cover elements such as forest types, building density, land use, etc..

The data was processed with InSAR software developed by Orbisat da Amazônia S.A. at the Centro Profesional del Este in Caracas, which is maintained by the Venezuelan counterpart of the project, Grupo Mercator from Caracas. Local Venezuelan SAR and cartographic specialists, trained by Orbisat da Amazônia, processed the data 24 hours/day in three shifts. Experts from Infoterra GmbH, Germany execute quality assurance and -control of the processing and the products. The last map was delivered to the client of this project, the Geographical Institute of Venezuela Simon Bolívar (I.G.V.S.B.), on 16th of December 2003. The project closing ceremony was therefore held on the 19th of December 2003. The Institute is presently archiving the delivered maps into their Cartographic Information System, which presently consists of more than 500 000 sq. km of excellent Ortho-SAR maps.

After this successful nationwide mapping project in Venezuela, Orbisat is preparing the continuation of its “ready map” program, which will cover all of Latin America with its ready to use Ortho-SAR Maps, a unique standard of Orbisat’s Remote Sensing Division. Due to the outstanding success and reputation of Dr. João Moreira and his team of InSAR specialists, Orbisat is now urged to extend its ready map program to other countries outside of Latin America.

The support of the Brazilian government is expressed by an outstanding export financing program of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), which allows Orbisat’s international clients a multi annual, low interest amortization period of the delivered products.

Contact address:
Dr. Markus Rombach
Orbisat RS
Av. José de Souza Campos 1815–CJ 308
13025–320 Campinas (SP), Brazil
Phone: +55 19 3295-8844
Fax: +55 19 3252-9105
E-mail: Info.Remote-Sensing@Orbisat.com.br, web: http://www.orbisat.com.br

Markus Rombach (markus.rombach@orbisat.com.br)
Phone: +55 19 3295 8844