February 21 – Happy Birthday, Edouard-Gaston Deville

nPostednon February 21, 2014

nHavenyou heard of phototopography? How about photogrammetry?

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nYeah,nme neither! Actually, even my spell checker hasn’t heard of the firstnone!

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Butnactually, this field (which has two names, and which was first perfected by today’s birthdaynboy) is really important—and even something we take for granted:

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nItnis the use of photography to make maps.

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nSomendescriptions of photogrammetry say that it is a non-contact method of making maps. In the past, people had to actually walk or sail innorder to survey land, in order to make the measurements that assurednthat the map would be fairly accurate and therefore useful.

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nWhonwas Deville?

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Bornnin France, Edouard-Gaston Deville attended naval school, served innthe French navy, and learned about surveying. He moved to Canada atnage 25 and began to work as a surveyor and astronomer. He was quicklynpromoted to top surveyor, and for many years he directed Canadiannsurveying activities.

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nSo,nyou know what Canada is like, right? It is the second largest nationnin the world, after Russia, and a lot of it is high mountains ornremote Arctic lands. At the time that Deville developed new surveyingntechniques, in the late 1800s, there was no Google Earth or satellites in space, ofncourse, and even the airplane hadn’t yet been invented. However,nphotography was nearly half a century old and was revolutionizingnmany aspects of life. Deville wanted to use it to survey Canada’snmountains in a faster, cheaper way.

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Henhad to design a rugged but lightweight field camera that could bencarried up to the top of a mountain. Once the camera was in place onna mountain peak, the surveyors pointed the camera at the horizon andntook panoramic photos of the nearby peaks. Each photo shot wasncarefully recorded with a measurement of the angle of the camera tonthe survey station. Surveyors did all their measurements and took allntheir photos during the short Canadian summers, and during the longernwinters they would make their calculations and draw their maps. Thenfirst such mountain survey was started in 1886.

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nItnturned out that, not only were these techniques much faster thanntraditional surveying techniques—and cost only about a third asnmuch—the results were more accurate. Soon Deville became ansought-after expert in mountain surveying, and people all over thenworld asked his advice, read his pamphlets and textbook, and copiednhis camera and techniques.

nAsnyou can imagine, when air flight became possible, surveyors could usenDeville’s camera to create aerial photos. This helped Canadiannsurveyors accurately map the flat-but-remote northern areas of thennation.

This is Mount Deville, named
for today’s birthday boy.
It is in Yoho National Park in
Canada–and, oh, my!–is that
place GORGEOUS!!!

nMore on maps…
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Check out these child-drawn maps created in the 1700s and 1800s. Students often carefully copied and colored maps in order to learn geography. Do you think the parts that don’t match modern maps are inaccurate because the kids were—you know—just kids, or do you think that they were pretty accurate copies of what people knew back then?

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