Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have been gaining a growing interest in Turkey. Many local governments and public agencies have been struggling to set up such systems to serve the needs and meet public requirements. Urban life shelters the advertisement reality which is presented at various places, on vehicles, shops etc. in daily life. It can be said that advertisement is a part of daily life in urban area, especially in city centers. In addition, one of the main sources of revenue for municipalities comes from advertising and notices. The advertising sector provides a great level of income today. Therefore advertising is individually very important for local governments and urban management. Although it is valuable for local governments, it is also very important for urban management to place these advertisement signs and billboards in an orderly fashion which is pleasing to the eye. Another point related to this subject is the systematic control mechanism which is necessary for collecting taxes regularly and updating. In this paper, first practical meaning of notice and advertisement subject, problem definition and objectives are described and then legal support and daily practice are revised. Current practice and problems are mentioned. Possibilities of measuring and obtaining necessary information by using digital images and transferring them to spatial databases are studied. By this study, a modern approach was developed for urban management and municipalities by using information technology which is an alternative to current application. Criteria which provide environmental harmony such as urban beauty, colour, compatibility and safety were also evaluated. It was finally concluded that measuring commercial signs and keeping environmental harmony under control for urban beauty can be provided by Digital Photogrammetry (DP) technique and GIS capabilities which were studied with pilot applications in the city center of Ankara.

In the urban environment there is a need for new and renovated building façades to be created in harmony with the existing environment. This paper describes a simple approach to the acquisition of geo-data. An off-the-shelf software package together with low-cost equipment was used to collect building inventory data from a combination of high-resolution digital and video camera images, digital close-range photogrammetry techniques and geographic information systems. The method consists of three stages. First the potential of geo-data acquisition is investigated by using a video camera and a digital camera. The second stage outlines the metric survey for the management of building façade inventory data for geographical information systems in making correct decisions in urban areas. The third stage explains how video camera images can be used to obtain attribute data related to different uses. The methodology developed was tested in a street in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. It is concluded that this low-cost method using off-the-shelf software offers many advantages and benefits in different expertise fields, particularly for local governments and municipalities.