How to become Cartographers and Photogrammetrist in 2024

Cartographers and Photogrammetrist Research, study, and prepare maps and other spatial data in digital or graphic form for one or more purposes, such as legal, social, political, educational, and design purposes. May work with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). May design and evaluate algorithms, data structures, and user interfaces for GIS and mapping systems. May collect, analyze, and interpret geographic information provided by geodetic surveys, aerial photographs, and satellite data.

Cartographers and Photogrammetrist is Also Know as

In different settings, Cartographers and Photogrammetrist is titled as

  • Aerial Photogrammetrist
  • Cartographer
  • Cartographic Designer
  • Digital Cartographer
  • Mapper
  • Photogrammetric Technician
  • Photogrammetrist
  • Stereo Compiler
  • Stereoplotter Operator

Education and Training of Cartographers and Photogrammetrist

Cartographers and Photogrammetrist is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Cartographers and Photogrammetrist

A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.

Education Required for Cartographers and Photogrammetrist

Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

Degrees Related to Cartographers and Photogrammetrist

Training Required for Cartographers and Photogrammetrist

Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Cartographers and Photogrammetrist in different industries are

What Do Cartographers and Photogrammetrist do?

  • Identify, scale, and orient geodetic points, elevations, and other planimetric or topographic features, applying standard mathematical formulas.
  • Collect information about specific features of the Earth, using aerial photography and other digital remote sensing techniques.
  • Revise existing maps and charts, making all necessary corrections and adjustments.
  • Compile data required for map preparation, including aerial photographs, survey notes, records, reports, and original maps.
  • Inspect final compositions to ensure completeness and accuracy.
  • Determine map content and layout, as well as production specifications such as scale, size, projection, and colors, and direct production to ensure that specifications are followed.
  • Examine and analyze data from ground surveys, reports, aerial photographs, and satellite images to prepare topographic maps, aerial-photograph mosaics, and related charts.
  • Select aerial photographic and remote sensing techniques and plotting equipment needed to meet required standards of accuracy.
  • Delineate aerial photographic detail, such as control points, hydrography, topography, and cultural features, using precision stereoplotting apparatus or drafting instruments.
  • Build and update digital databases.
  • Prepare and alter trace maps, charts, tables, detailed drawings, and three-dimensional optical models of terrain using stereoscopic plotting and computer graphics equipment.
  • Determine guidelines that specify which source material is acceptable for use.
  • Study legal records to establish boundaries of local, national, and international properties.
  • Travel over photographed areas to observe, identify, record, and verify all relevant features.

Qualities of Good Cartographers and Photogrammetrist

  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.

Tools Used by Cartographers and Photogrammetrist

  • Aerial imagery mapping-grade global positioning systems GPS
  • Analytical stereoplotters
  • Automatic levels
  • Color digital camera systems
  • Color inkjet plotters
  • Compasses
  • Computer servers
  • Digital camcorders
  • Digital image printers
  • Digitizers
  • Dividers
  • Drafting instruments
  • Drafting machines
  • Film processors and editors
  • French curves
  • Geodetic ground global positioning system GPS receivers
  • Global positioning system GPS receivers
  • Lamination systems
  • Large-format aerial digital cameras
  • Large-format plotters
  • Laser imaging detection and ranging LIDAR systems
  • Laser printers
  • Mapping grade global positioning system GPS receivers
  • Notebook computers
  • Panoramic digital line cameras
  • Personal computers
  • Photo enlargers
  • Photogrammetric scanners
  • Planimeters
  • Protractors
  • Remote sensing equipment
  • Scales
  • Scanners
  • T-squares
  • Templates
  • Total stations
  • Triangles
  • Type lettering sets
  • Video thermal imagers
  • Windows servers

Technology Skills required for Cartographers and Photogrammetrist

  • Adobe Acrobat
  • Adobe Creative Suite
  • Adobe Dreamweaver
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe InDesign
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Aerotriangulation adjustment software
  • Aldus FreeHand
  • Arbor Image Draftsman
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Autodesk World
  • Bentley MicroStation
  • Bentley Systems InRoads Suite
  • Boeing Kork Digital Mapping
  • Boeing SoftPlotter
  • C
  • Computer aided design CAD software
  • Corel CorelDraw Graphics Suite
  • Corporate Montage CADScript
  • Cosmo Software Cosmo World
  • Desktop publishing software
  • Digital databases
  • Digital mapping software
  • Email software
  • ERDAS ER Mapper
  • ESRI ArcGIS software
  • ESRI ArcInfo
  • ESRI ArcView
  • ESRI software
  • Extensible markup language XML
  • Geographic information system GIS software
  • Geographic information system GIS systems
  • Geomechanical design analysis GDA software
  • Hexagon Intergraph
  • IBM iSeries Access
  • Image analysis software
  • Image processing software
  • Intergraph ImageStation Stereo Softcopy Kit SSK
  • JavaScript Object Notation JSON
  • Leica AEROPLAN LiDAR
  • MapInfo
  • Mapping software
  • Mapthematics GeoCart
  • Master Seafloor Digital Database
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft operating system
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Microsoft Visual Basic
  • Microsoft Windows
  • Microsoft Word
  • MultiGen Paradigm Vega Prime
  • Oracle Database
  • Precision analytical aerotriangulation pugging software
  • Python
  • Quark Immedia
  • QuarkXPress
  • Rand McNally World Digital Database
  • RSI ENVI
  • SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise
  • SAP software
  • Software development tools
  • Spreadsheet software
  • Standardized general markup language SGML
  • Steroplotter software
  • Structured query language SQL
  • Terrasolid TerraScan
  • Word processing software
  • World Vector Shoreline