Aerial Photos and Satellite Imagery

FIGURE 1: With an internet connection, you can download aerial imagery and topographic maps with a single mouse click. (Click to enlarge)

FIGURE 2: Use aerial and satellite images for creating and editing geographic files. (Click to enlarge)

Pictures and images enhance your maps and expand the types of information you can use in your work. Maptitude mapping software lets you use one or more pictures, satellite images, aerial photographs, or scanned documents as layers in your maps. They can improve the appearance of your maps, add to the depth of information displayed there, and provide a basis for editing and updating your map files.

You can use raster images such as satellite or aerial photographs directly in your maps. Maptitude can display TIFF, GeoTIFF, JPEG/World, JPEG 2000, MrSID, SPOTView, Orthophoto, and ECW image files (for a full list see http://www.caliper.com/Maptitude/DataAccess.htm).

Maptitude makes it easy to access free imagery from the World Wide Web. Maptitude includes the Microsoft Corporation TerraServer-USA toolbox that lets you download USGS aerial photos and topographic maps for any area of the United States with the click of a button (Figure 1). The GoogleEarth toolbox lets you use GoogleEarth images with your maps or add your maps to GoogleEarth, and also to synchronize the scales of Maptitude with Google Earth maps.

These images can be used as a means of reference or in conjunction with the map editing tools to create or edit geographic files. After you display an image, you can use the geographic editing tools to trace new map layers such as building footprints, new subdivisions, or manhole covers. (Figure 2)

Most images have the information that Maptitude needs to display them at the correct location. Maptitude even has tools for images without this information, allowing you to register TIFF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, and MrSID images to indicate the true location on the map.

Maptitude lets you manage large sets of images. You can use the Image Librarian to create Image Libraries, and then add one or more Image Libraries as layers in your map.

To see an Maptitude for the Web example web site showing parcels with aerial photos, please visit the Maptitude Newton City Guide.

In-Depth: The Maptitude TerraServer-USA Toolbox
Maptitude can now download imagery for any area of the United States with the click of a button. These images are accessed from TerraServer-USA, an on-line database of high resolution USGS aerial imagery and scanned USGS topographic maps. In conjunction with Internet access, users can use the tool to download images of three types:

• Aerial image: nationwide black and white digital orthophoto quadrangles (DOQs)
• Topographic map: nationwide digitally scanned images of USGS topographic maps, also called digital raster graphics (DRGs)
• Urban color image: color DOQs for the 133 most populated metropolitan areas of the United States

A distinctive feature of the tool is that the user can specify the resolution and this allows the download of high quality images over a large area. As an alternative to choosing the resolution of the image, the user can let Maptitude automatically make this choice. Once accessed, these images can be saved as layers to be used in any on-line or off-line map.

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