Historic evolution of the Military Geography Institute of Chile

Abstract

The important growth and transcendence that cartography reached at the beginning of the 20th century, brought as a consequence the creation of an autonomous organization that would dedicate itself to such studies and works. That is why, in 1922, the Military Geographic Institute was created with the aim of being the official State entity, in charge of everything related to the cartography and survey of the national territory, giving continuity to the work previously carried out by the Office of Geography, Cartography and Topography, dependent on the technical office of the General Staff. But it is in the year 1955 where the elaboration of Conventional Cartography began by means of aero photogrammetric flights, with a totally analogous methodology. The passing of the years and the arrival of new technologies, allowed the Military Geographic Institute at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, to migrate all its analogical procedures to digital procedures, which allowed to increase the accuracy and speed in all the procedures, as well as solving calculation difficulties that directly intervene in Earth sciences and particularly in cartography.

Today, 1:25,000 scale digital cartography is the main product generated at the IGM. The process began when satellite images and orthophotos with high resolution standards were acquired. From these, a 3D environment was generated that will be the basis of the photo-interpretation that makes up the geographic information.