We peer through the lens of the battery-powered 3D glasses trying to find our way through a grey and black pine forest which fringes a deep pit. It's as if we are in a plane high above the forest, watching roads snake through the woods.

In fact, we are sitting in the photogrammetic lab in DIT Bolton Street looking into a computer screen which is displaying two photographs alternately, 50 or 60 times each second. All part of the high-tech process of modern mapping.

In the processing lab next door, a 9-square inch colour photograph of Malahide, Co Dublin, is being digitised. The aerial photo can be converted into a map using a Computer Aided Design (CAD) package. Paint, in an infinite palate of colours and symbols, can be added. Printed out on a laser printer, it's very similar to Ordnance Survey maps.

Information is gathered by aerial photography, satellite and ground surveying. Angles, distances and height differences must be accurately measured on construction sites using standard surveying equipment. Many of the graduates of DIT's geomatics course will find work in engineering and construction.

Frank Prendergast, assistant head of the college's department of surveying and building technology, explains that Bolton Street has long offered a certificate and a diploma in geo-surveying. This year, students perusing the college prospectus will find a four-year degree in geomatics. This replaces the cert and diploma.

The discipline of geomatics encompasses all of the mapping sciences, he says. "It uses all of the information essential in creating maps and plans. More recently all of the information is in digital form. It's collected by electronic and laser and satellite equipment and then is processed and turned into a useful product."

The landscape is continually changing and developing, says Prendergast, so there is an ongoing requirement for environmental information and monitoring. Clients for geomatic services range from local authorities to Government agencies to the private sector.

The change in the course name, from geo-surveying to geomatics, reflects a broadening of the range of courses, specialisations and applications which have come about because of the information technology revolution, he explains. The advent of the degree opens up more career possibilities. At present, many diploma graduates go abroad and continue their studies to degree level.

Second-level students interested in geomatics will need or be interested in acquiring good mathematical, scientific and computer skills. You will need a minimum of a B3 in ordinary-level maths in the Leaving Cert.

The job entails a combination of outdoor and office work. It's very much a global career. While no work placement is built into the course, Prendergast says the college encourages students to find vocational employment in the holidays.

Third-year student Cian O'Connor was interested in geography at school and, being a member of the scouts, he was no stranger to maps. "It's a very enjoyable course with lots of practical work which I like." He's working on a presentation on the transition from paper to digital mapping as we speak. After graduation he hopes to do an add-on degree.

Fellow-student Isa Glancy is one of six women in third year. There are also two German women studying as ERASMUS students. Generally, the gender breakdown is about one female to three male. Isa is also thinking about studying for a degree, possible in Glamorgan University in Wales.

Mature student Alan Rispin is on secondment from the Land Registry for the three-year course. The Land Registry has sent one student on to the course each year for some 10 years, in an ongoing bid to up-skill its workers so as to change from paper to a digital database.

Rispin, a mapping draughts-person, loves the course: "It was hard in the beginning but you find you soon settle in. After being in an office for 20 years, it's a pleasant change." Appropriately, his class presentation will focus on the Land Registry, which was set up in 1892.

DIT has a website at www.dit.ie where students can explore the possibilities offered by geomatics in the faculty of the built environment.