National Standards Authority of Ireland

In June 2014 ISO 9001:2008 certification was granted to Ordnance Survey Ireland by NSAI (National Standards Authority of Ireland). The updated certification I.S. EN ISO 9001:2015 extends to 10th June 2023. This is in respect of a particular technical flowline within the Remote Sensing & Geodesy Area, together with the associated management and support services that fall within the scope of the certification (please see online certificates for both Dublin HQ and Ennis Regional Office for detail of scope).


This was the culmination of a process that commenced in July 2013 when the organisation resolved to achieve the certification recognising that 9001:2008 Quality Management System is now the globally accepted standard for providing assurance about the quality of goods and services in supplier-customer relations. The goal is to consistently meet customer requirements and improve operational effectiveness. Download the OSi Quality Policy here.

The year long process involved ISO 9001 training delivered by an outside consultancy firm, defining a quality policy, writing up a quality manual, setting out standard operating procedures, drawing up quality forms, constructing an internal ISO portal, delivering staff awareness training and carrying out internal audits. This was followed by a two stage external audit process carried out by a NSAI auditor which resulted in the aforementioned certification.

MapGenie Standards

OSi’s method of supplying mapping data via a web service i.e. MapGenie, is available via both desktop (WMS) and website/mobile application (REST). MapGenie’s WMS supply method is OGC compliant. If your GI or Cad software is Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant, it will be able to bring in MapGenie. There are numerous software that are OGC compliant and the following is a list of some organizations that supply them :

  • airGmap Aerospace Technology Limited
  • AllforLand
  • Autodesk, Inc.
  • Bentley Systems, Inc.
  • BILGI GIS
  • Cadcorp
  • Carmenta AB
  • CCI Co. Ltd.
  • CubeWerx, Inc.
  • Demis BV
  • eSpatial
  • ESRI
  • exactEarth Limited
  • GE Smallworld
  • GEOMEX SOFT Co., Ltd.
  • GIS Consult GmbH
  • Indra Software Labs
  • INFOCAM
  • interactive instruments GmbH
  • Intergraph
  • Luciad
  • Oracle USA
  • Pitney Bowes Software
  • Pixia Corporation
  • Politerm LL
  • Rolta India, Ltd.
  • RSI SOFTECH INDIA PVT LTD
  • Skyline Software Systems, Inc.
  • SuperGeo Technologies Inc.
  • SuperMap Software Co., Ltd.
  • Tercera Fase Software S.L.
  • VizExperts

OSi Irish Aviation Authority eTOD Project Summary

In February 2004 the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) adopted Amendment 33 to Annex 15 of the Convention of Civil Aviation. This required individual member states to acquire and maintain electronic obstacle and terrain data (eTOD) and make it available to all relevant agencies, operators and individuals. In 2010 the IAA contracted Ordnance Survey Ireland, the only agency within Ireland approved to provide aeronautical data, to carry out the required surveys.

The requirement was to provide eTOD data for ICAO Areas 1 for whole country, 2, 3 for eleven airports in the state and Area 4 is for 4 Airports in the State. The airports are Dublin, Shannon, Cork, Waterford, Kerry, Galway, Connacht, Sligo, Donegal, Casement and Weston.

ICAO Area 1 – the entire territory of the State (ex. Wind farms, masts, chimneys), ICAO Area 2 is defined as the terminal control area and is contained within a 10k radius extending from the ends of the active runway strips of each airport. ICAO Area 3 is defined as the airport surface movement area. ICAO Area 4 is area extending prior to the runway threshold and each side of the extended runway centre line in the direction of the approach on the precision approach runway Category II and III. Each of these areas has a specific eTOD numerical or accuracy requirement.

The project plan devised by OSi was to carry out the obstacle identification using vertical aerial imagery. The requirement was to fly a 10k radius of each airport to produce high resolution 15cm imagery. Each site therefore consisted of an approximate 20x20k block which was flown at an approximate height above sea level of 1500m (4700ft). OSi utilised its Leica ADS80/ADS100 digital camera which is mounted in the fuselage of a Piper Aztec aircraft to carry out the aerial data capture.

The raw digital imagery was downloaded from the aircraft and post processed using Leica IPAS and XPro software. This processed imagery was then aerial triangulated using Leica XPro bundle adjustment and georeferenced using GPS ground control points. This resulted in creating strips of digital stereo imagery covering all of the airport sites.

The digital stereo imagery was then interrogated to identify all appropriate obstacles. Using BAE ClearFlite software obstacle identification surfaces were generated around the airport runways. All objects that penetrated the surfaces were assigned an appropriate feature class and digitised. The digitised features were stored in a BAE Socet Set feature database file. Obstacles were captured as points, lines or polygons in accordance with ICAO specifications

The BAE Socet Set feature database fie was exported into an ESRI ArcGIS Geodatabase. The ICAO has defined a minimum of 25 eTOD metadata attributes and these were added to the Geodatabase files for each airport. The data was then transformed from ITM EPSG: 2157 projection to WGS84 EPSG: 4326 projection and delivered to the IAA

During the project the IAA carried out a two day audit to ensure that OSi was conforming to ICAO requirements and confirmed the organisation as an eTOD Data Originator. The project was completed and signed off early 2013.