The Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation (OSGOF) and the United States-based company, PLACE, have been inaugurated to carry out the Drone Imagery Acquisition and 3D City View of parts of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
Surveyor General of the Federation (SGOF), Abduganiyu A. Adebomehin, revealed this when he played host to the US-based team in his office in Abuja, stating that it is going to be new in Africa and that its data will analyze building footprints, their locations, and road networks.
Adebomehin explained that the PLACE aerial data has a ground sample distance (GSD) of around 5 cm, saying this is an order of magnitude better than typically available commercial satellite imagery, which has a GSD of 40-50 cm.
According to him, Google and Apple generally strive for the best available commercial satellite data, but PLACE aerial data is significantly higher in resolution and more useful for determining factors such as property boundaries, land use, economic activity, and population.
He noted that the firm will not stop at collecting aerial data but will also collect anonymised street-level data. “Of course, it’s more than good enough for building a street map where anybody can verify the existence of roads,” he added.
While thanking the team of technicians, the SGOF urged them to work tirelessly to make this a reality. He also stressed the need to explore ways to empower other organisations and build a machine learning model to easily detect road surface types and classifications, ultimately automating the process.
Also, the team leader, Frank Pichel, expressed optimism that the acquisition of data will help improve the delivery of government services and benefit the private sector in numerous ways, enhancing efficiency and automation.
Pichel also highlighted the importance of Drone Imagery Acquisition with a 3D City View, saying it will unlock vast potential for business ideas across all sectors of the national economy.
“Everything from monitoring change to improving and expanding road outlines will be possible. The use of data will only be limited by our imagination,” he stressed.
