The Victorian Government is investing $45 million to bring the authoritative map of Victoria’s property boundaries into the digital age, ensuring that one of the state’s most important datasets is accurate, modern and easily accessible.

The project will deliver cost and time savings in property development and real estate and provide better information for our utilities, helping to improve location and maintenance of assets and may reduce incidents as a result of excavation, as well as enabling property boundary information to be more easily used in the broader spatial domain.

Vicmap is the state’s authoritative suite of spatial data products which provides the foundation of all mapping in Victoria. It is available as open data and accessed by more than 6,000 customers over 100 million times per year.

This project will enhance the locational accuracy of Vicmap and is key to ensuring it continues to provide the digital infrastructure Victoria needs, both now and into the future.

Digital Cadastre Modernisation Project

The digital cadastre upgrade is part of Land Use Victoria’s five-year initiative to transform the legacy map of Victoria’s property boundaries into a data-driven, spatially accurate, 2D digital representation of the cadastre.

Digital Cadastre Modernisation will run over four inter-related stages and comprise deep stakeholder engagement.

In Stage 1 Digitisation, accurate data from each plan is converted into a digital record

Stage 1 is focused on the back capture of plans and surveys and the conversion of this information into a digital record.

The title dimensions, survey measurements and related parcel information from 880,000 plans and surveys, containing an estimated 3.3 million property parcels, are being entered into the Digital Cadastre Modernisation Database.

Testing and quality checking of the data will be undertaken and an initial calculation of the position of all property parcel nodes in each municipality will occur.

In Stage 2 Adjustment, data from plans is joined and mathematically adjusted to improve spatial accuracy

In stage 2 the data is used to calculate the most reliable position (through Least Squares Adjustment) for each property parcel node and a unique identifier is assigned.

The unique identifier enables the creation of a numerical cadastre. This process will also enable an estimate of the spatial quality of each node, line and parcel within the Digital Cadastre Modernisation Database.

In Stage 3 Integration, the updated data is published, and changes in location are cascaded through Vicmap layers

The new changes will be cascaded throughout the Vicmap suite of products.

This will immediately refine the visualised position of the property parcel layer and other Vicmap products: Vicmap Address, Vicmap Admin, Vicmap Crown Land Tenure, Vicmap Index, Vicmap Planning.

In Stage 4 Automation, development of automated processes to keep the digital cadastre and other Vicmap layers up to date and spatially accurate.

This involves the development of software that will automate the process of adding all survey-based subdivisions and changes into the upgraded digital cadastre and Vicmap as they occur.

For more information contact digital.cadastre@transport.vic.gov.au

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Page last updated: 25/06/25