National geographical institute (France)

See also: national geographical Institute

The national geographical Institut ( IGN ) is a public corporation of the State related to administration having for mission of Public service of ensuring the production, maintenance and geographical information circulation of reference in France. The IGN was created by decree the June 27th 1940 and succeeded the geographical Service of Army (SGA), dissolves in 1940.

History

The IGN was created by decree the June 27th 1940 and succeeded the Service geographical of Army (SGA), founded in 1887 and dissolves in 1940. The funds of old charts is then divided into two batches: one which will remain at the Institute and the other which joined the military files of Vincennes. The general Louis Hurault, who was at the origin of these modifications, is the first director of the IGN. This last negotiates the statutes and tries, in vain, to recover the material seized by the Germans. A law in ten articles is signed the September 14th 1940 in order to define the functions of the IGN. The statutes will be signed the April 8th 1941. The latter set up in particular the National school of geographical sciences in order to train engineers cartographers.

During the Second world war, the IGN became in particular famous for its forgers. The cartographers are indeed experts in penmanship and the hardware requirement with the production of false paper was available to the Institute. Certain engineers of the IGN were in contact with the allied intelligence services based in London. They in particular forward clandestinely to London a complete set of charts covering France and North Africa in order to replace the funds destroys in a bombardment. Moreover, the agents of the IGN take an active part in the resistance armed as from spring 1943. Several agents are shot by the Germans or die in the combat. Between September 1944 and on May 8th, 1945, the IGN is put at the service of the provisional government and most of its personnel and of his means are transformed into “military geographical Service”. At the end of the war, the IGN receives the thanks of the Bradley general and the Eisenhower general.

Between 1945 and 1946, the debate is intense concerning the future of the IGN, last creation of the Third Republic. A decree is finally signed the April 8th 1946. It confirms the membership of the IGN to the public Ministry of Labor and sets up the “geographical Section of the État-major of the Army”, charged to meet the military needs.

In 1947, the IGN receives the mission of covering the whole of France, but also all the territories dependant, like North Africa, Western Africa, Madagascar, the states associated with Indo-China and the departments and overseas territories. The task is considerable with more than 12 million km ² being covered. The independence of these countries will have as a consequence the creation of national services in each country (examples: DTGC in Senegal, IGN-N in Niger).

Public corporation related to administration since January 1st 1967, it is placed under the supervision of the ministry for Transport, the equipment, tourism and the sea.

In 1971, the IGN and the CNES form the “Group of searchs for space geodesy”. This collaboration between the IGN and the CNES continues with the launching of the program SPOT the February 5th 1978. The launching of satellite SPOT-1 takes place the February 22nd 1986.

Six days after the placing in orbit of SPOT-1, the IGN its program of " launches; bases of données". The data base of the communes, the data base of diffusion of levelling, the data base of diffusion of geodesy, the air data base of the missions and the data base of the toponyms are thus installation gradually. The “BDTopo”, digitized database topographic, cover from now on the whole of France and account two million toponyms.

Its activities abroad are externalisées into 1986 within a new subsidiary company of International private law IGN France.

In June 2006, the IGN opened the service Géoportail allowing the cartographic visualization of the French territory " with the mode Google Map" and using on the one hand funds of air photographs and on the other hand digitized charts to the 1/25 000. “Phase 2” of Géoportail was put on line one year later, with a new ergonomics.

At the end of 2006, the IGN was implied in the production of a receiver GPS, for the excursion and automobile navigation, called Evadeo. The software of Navigation was provided by BCI navigation, the road data are of Navteq and antenna GPS of SiRF, and the IGN provides flagstones with extracts of its charts to various scales.

In June 2007, a service of personalization of the charts was set up, the “Chart with the chart”, the image of what the Ordnance Survey had done for a few years.

In July 2007, Géportail proposes the possibility of sailing in 3D on the territory " with the GoogleEarth" mode;. With this intention it is necessary to install the plugin TerraExplorer of the american company Skyline Software Systems.

Recruitment

In order to train its technical personnel, the IGN maintains an educational establishment of point in the field of geographical sciences: ENSG, with Marne-the-Valley. On the fourteen training cycles exempted with the ENSG, three are composed pupils intended for the IGN:

mapmakers (working);
technician-geometricians;
engineers of work.

Recruited on contest before integrating the ENSG, the pupils of these cycles pass there two or three years then join the Institute. The ENSG is also associated with the four research laboratories controlled by the IGN: the COGIT (Design of object and generalization of topographic information), specialized in SIG and Cartography, the MATIS (Methods of analysis and of image processing for the stéréorestitution), specialized in Photogrammetry, the LOEMI (Laboratory of optics, electronics and microprocessing) which develops instruments (in particular of catch of sights), and the LAREG (Research laboratory in geodesy), a laboratory of Géodésie located in the walls even of the ENSG, which maintains ITRF, the geodetic reference frame world.

Charts paper

The French IGN publishes several great types of topographic charts.

the charts to the 1/25 000 (1 cm = 250 m) which replaced the Geological Survey maps.
the charts to the 1/50 000 (1 cm = 500 m), which it has tendency to forsake within the framework of its marketing policy, but which always is very much used by the soldiers of the Army.
the charts to the 1/100 000 (1 cm = 1 km) which are used as regional road maps.
the charts to the 1/250 000 (1 cm = 2,5 km) which are useful for the national road atlas.
the road map of France to the 1/1 000.000 (1 cm = 10 km).

To that plans of city are added.

The French IGN is also the French distributer under its logo of charts of cities and foreign countries, in particular those of the Marco Polo editor.

Relief maps

The French IGN proposes, in addition to the charts paper, a whole range of relief maps. The zones suggested cover all the France on very varied scales: from the 1/3 400.000 and the 1/1 200.000 for the whole France until 1/50 000 (Massive of Mont Blanc, Vanoise).

Old charts

The IGN has a true treasure of old charts: charts of Cassini (of the 18th century), Geological Survey maps (19th century), charts of huntings of the king (17th century), etc All these charts are preserved on their original copper support, which allows an unchanged impression in Taille-douce Villefranche-on-Expensive.

Many other old charts of France but also some of its old colonies are preserved and can be consulted with the map library of the IGN with Saint-Mandé. The IGN practiced a long time the board swapping with other foreign institutes and also has a solid melts concerning the foreigner.

The IGN began a long process of digitalization from its old charts and transfer ds exemplary papers original of these charts to Villefranche-on-Expensive, center of storage of the IGN.

Air photographs and national Photographic library

One of the public service missions of the IGN is to ensure the cartography the 1/25 000 of France. With this intention, the planes of the IGN photograph the French territory; the catches of air sights allow the realization of the chart thanks to the photogrammetric techniques of restitution. A long time silver, the catches of sights are numerical today, which improves the treatments of restitution. The IGN has four planes on its air base of Creil; they currently cover the totality of the territory in five years.

Among the notable planes of the IGN, one can quote the 14 Boeing B-17 " Fortresses volantes" used of 1946 to 1975 and 8 Hurel-Dubois HD-34 used until 1985. The current park consists of 4 Beechcraft Super KingAir 200T and of a Mystère 20.

The national Photographic library preserves the stereotypes of the territory initially realized since 1921 by the geographical Service of the Army, then by the IGN, on its site of Saint-Mandé.

Geographical information system or SIG

The IGN provides to its public or private customers geographical databases, component whole or part of geographical information systems. They make it possible on a bottom of usual chart to select, add and represent various information but cartographiables. The IGN constitutes and brings up to date the reference frame with large scales (RGE), including/understanding four components: topographic, orthophotographic, compartmental and addresses.

Notes and references of the article

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