After 12 days of georeferencing, rectifying, and digitizing I, with the help of Ben Woodward, finished a contour map of Esen Tepe (ancient Alexandria in modern Iskenderun). As I explained in a previous post the site and its immediate environs has suffered from modern development, which in turn has made it very difficult to conduct a traditional Total Station survey. Rather than dragging the Total Station out to the site and taking points where it would be feasible, we decided to use a series of Iskenderun municipal maps and ArcGIS to create a contour map. The first step was to georeference the municipal maps to a Quickbird satellite image (first picture below). By georeferencing the municipal maps we essentially gave the image a coordinate system. After georeferencing the maps we digitized all the modern roads, rivers, highway, and contour lines from the municipal maps (second picture below). Once this information was digitized within a coordinate system we were left with a contour map of the site and data that we could use to create a TIN image (third picture below). Although the process took the better part of 12 days, we now have an accurate contour map, which we could not have secured through traditional methods (ie with the Total Station).
