Acquisition and Reading of Digital Topographic Maps from IBGE

Abstract

For decades the main way to share and store spatial data was performed by means of printed files and recorded in analog medium (paper or photo). Today, with the implementation of digital systems and the internet it has become more practical and fast, culminating in information dissemination. In Brazil, one of the agency responsible for territorial mapping is the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which has an electronic site in which offers numerous cartographic documents, such as the Topographical Maps. However, most of these materials were fabricated in analog medium, being necessary to effect the conversion to digital. This process involves the discretization of the information and it was done in monochrome mode, resulting in the separation of its content in Photolithography. The objective of this work is to demonstrate how to get this stuff on the website of the IBGE and to describe the process of converting from analog to digital and its division into Photolithography, as well the normative used in the naming of these files. With this, these files can be better harnessed and used, especially in a geographic database and a Geographic Information System.