An Electronic Drawing Aid for Map Compiling

A versatile digital electronic drawing aid is described for assisting an operator in scribing map originals from stereo-orthophotos. These photographs permit the user to see an accurate, stable, and uniformly scaled stereo image of the earth´s terrain. Direct measurement, planning and mapping within the stereo image is achieved with a simple instrument called a Stereocompiler. The drawing aid described has options that the operator of the Stereocompiler may use to facilitate the plotting of planimetry, contours, symbols, and the typescribing of alphanumeric annotation on map manuscripts while viewing the stereo image.