Maps have for years been an intrinsic part of the geomatics branch and are a convenient, simplified representation of the real world, easy to use and understand for many. Nowadays three-dimensional vector maps have replaced traditional paper maps and brought in many new possibilities. Laser scanning and photogrammetry are becoming more and more popular as the source of spatial information and the basis for extraction of features, also called vectorisation. 3D mapping is at the same time one of the most common deliverables based on data from laser scanning.
Documentation and monitoring of road condition is an important task that has to be done for thousands of kilometres of roads in each country. Traditional methods based on manual field measurements are being replaced by automated systems mounted on cars and equipped with several sensors. The huge advantage of such systems is increase in safety, minimised time needed to perform the field survey and more automated calculation of parameters describing hard surface of the road. Also point cloud data from laser scanning can be used for analysis of geometry and roughness of the road surface.
The purpose of this report is to compare data from three different mapping systems, two mobile and one airborne, and determine which of them is the most appropriate for the two abovementioned tasks. The focus has been put on identifying strengths and weaknesses of each system in terms of efficient feature extraction and road surface analysis.