Aerial Photography

Satellite imagery is more often in the news however aerial photography can offer multiple advantages, for example commercial aerial photography is capable of higher resolution (level of detail) than the best-available commercial satellite imagery, acquires imagery closer to nadir (looking closer to straight down) and can cover very large areas with consistent seasonality. Aerial platforms can also offer oblique (side) views and premium 3D elevation data. Commercial satellite imagery is licensed whereas a custom commercial aerial collect is typically owned by the customer.

Commercial Aerial Imagery/Elevation

LAND INFO partners with multiple sensor operators to offer 5 – 30cm ( 2.2 – 12 inch) resolution aerial imagery with multiple elevation options — LiDAR and PhoDAR/SGM (Semi-Global Matching.) Our multi-modal approach includes both off-the-shelf (OTS) content and custom acquisitions via crewed aircraft: propeller-driven with traditional floor port large-format metric cameras or strut-mounted pod sensors, and high-altitude jets for large-area coverage. OTS aerial content is available for Western Europe, all of the conterminous United States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and USVI (limited coverage of Alaska.) Select areas are also available off-the-shelf in Canada, Eastern Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries. For smaller projects Land Info is able to leverage an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS – drone) network.

USGS 3DEP Public Domain LiDAR

3DEP is one of the most ambitious remote sensing projects ever undertaken, assembling USA-wide public domain elevation data. Coverage includes the lower-48 states, most of Hawaii, select areas of Alaska (all of Alaska is available via lower-resolution Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar), Puerto Rico, USVI, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and America Samoa. 3DEP began in 2015 and a decade later, 99% of the USA has baseline data available or in progress that meets established accuracy and resolution specifications. The base format for 3DEP is a LiDAR point cloud – while this is the actual collected data (with calibration and classification), most GIS users work with gridded raster elevation. Land Info is adept at processing 3DEP at scale in the cloud to create Digital Surface Models (DSMs), Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) and nDSMs (heights of objects above ground), and has many hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of US urban areas already off-the-shelf. While 3DEP is not as current as commercial elevation sources, it’s still a valuable input – LiDAR is the gold standard for accurate elevations and is the most effective method to create a DTM in areas of heavy tree canopy. Contact LAND INFO for a free vintage analysis of your project area!

NAIP (National Agriculture Imagery Program) – USA Lower 48 & Hawaii

NAIP is aerial photography acquired by USDA contractors during agricultural growing seasons and is an effective option to cover large areas with relatively recent imagery (states are often flown every other year – Contact LAND INFO for state availability by year.) Earlier imagery was 3-band (typically RGB, occasionally CIR) however all imagery is now 4-band.

Off-shelf CCMs (Compressed County Mosaics) are 3-band only, tonally balanced (not entirely seamless)/mosaicked by county, typically MrSID MG3 15:1. GeoTiff QQs (Quarter Quads) are now 4-band. Depending on project requirements
LAND INFO can custom process CCMs or QQ’s.

Except for some older 2m datasets, all NAIP imagery has been flown at 60 cm – 1m resolution, and is now standardized at 60cm, with the exception of state upgrades to higher resolution.

Starting in 2010 the NAIP accuracy spec improved to 6m CE 90 accuracy, older NAIP imagery accuracy specs called for ± 5m match to reference DOQQs (+/- 10m in the case of the 2m datasets).

Except for older 1m – 2m resolution captures, all NAIP imagery is now flown at a standardized 60 cm resolution, except in cases where a state upgrades to higher resolution (typically 30 cm).

Legacy USA Aerial Photography Products:

Vantor (formerly Maxar) Precision Aerial

Via a partnership between Vantor (formerly Maxar) and Microsoft, a “Wall-to-Wall” 30 cm or better complete coverage aerial ortho mosaic was acquired of the conterminous US and Western Europe (the program was previously referred to as “Clear 30” however Germany and select urban areas were acquired at 15cm resolution). Most areas are already available for purchase — Contact LAND INFO for a status graphic to see if your area of interest (AOI) is available.

By employing a common sensor (Vexcel UltraCamG) for all imagery collection, high quality is consistently maintained. Accuracy is an outstanding 4m CE 90 for standard tiles and 2.7m CE90 for high-value areas. All imagery is eye-pleasing, tonally balanced and cloud-free. In addition to the 30cm or better true/natural color imagery, 60 cm color infrared (CIR) is also available. As an off-the-shelf product, pricing is significantly less than custom aerial flights and refresh plans will maintain the currency of this premium quality imagery. Additional information and specifications available via the Vantor (formerly Maxar) Precision Aerial downloadable.pdf. For pricing details and sample imagery, please Contact LAND INFO.

USA Urban-Area High-Res

USGS and NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) contractors acquired (starting 2002) higher-res ortho aerials for major metropolitan areas, sometimes extending to larger regions such as counties, smaller states, coastal areas and border regions. Imagery is typically natural color and 30cm (1 ft.) resolution but as high as 15cm (half foot) and as low as 1m. Unlike NAIP imagery the seasonality of the imagery varies. The main advantages of these datasets are higher resolution (level of detail), higher accuracy (often 3m RMSE) and tonal balancing / mosaic output by major metro area. Please contact LAND INFO for an up-to-date list of all available datasets.

DOQQs (Digital Ortho Quarter Quads) – USA Only

DOQQs were the first US digital aerial photography products to be widely available on a national-level scale. Typically either 1m pan (gray-scale) or CIR (color infra-red) (some quads were re-flown and available as both pan and CIR), DOQQs cover almost all of the lower 48 states and most of Puerto Rico; only limited coverage is available of Alaska.

Each DOQQ covers an area of 3.75 minutes of latitude by 3.75 minutes of longitude (roughly four miles by four miles) and meets 1:12,000 NMAS (National Map Accuracy Standards, equivalent to 10m CE 90).

Delivery Options

LAND INFO provides several different delivery options:

• On-line delivery via FTP or cloud
• Large-project delivery via USB 3 external hard drive
• Contact us for streaming subscriptions