In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Hartley Wintney, UK, April 8th 2013 – As part of its continued expansion into Africa, Geosense, Getmapping’s wholly owned subsidiary in South Africa, has opened a new office in Centurion. The office will be the new centre of flight operations and the focus of the company’s extensive LiDAR capability. Getmapping now has three offices in Africa - Cape Town, Centurion and Nairobi.

LiDAR uses a laser to measure the distance between the sensor, normally airborne, and the ground surface. The resulting highly accurate terrain map is suitable for a range of engineering applications, including infrastructure projects, such as road, rail and power transmission lines, and land based activities such as mining and planning. LiDAR is also suitable for 3D visualisation and modelling. LiDAR point clouds enable the generation of highly accurate, high resolution DEMs that facilitate the extraction of surface features based on height such as buildings, trees, and power lines. For mining applications, airborne LiDAR is a fast and inexpensive method of revealing hidden surface geology and subsurface geological structures, including faults and fractures. It also provides data for valuable subsidence monitoring, landfill volume estimates and much more.

LiDAR Image

“We have built up extensive LiDAR capabilities in South Africa to complement our existing large format digital camera capabilities and provide a full survey service to our customers, especially in the mining and power transmission sectors,” said Dave Horner, Managing Director of Getmapping. “It makes sense for us to base our LiDAR and the flight operations in an area where most of our mining and power transmission customers are also based. Our Cape Town office will continue as the production centre for much of our processing and analytical work for both Africa and the UK, and to service our customers in the Western Cape Area,” continued Horner. 

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Hartley Wintney, UK, January 29th 2013 - Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge and Malling District Councils in Kent are using Getmapping’s hosted WMS service to access aerial photography of the whole county. The aerial photography not only covers the whole of Kent but also multiple time periods representing the County’s three year update cycle. This means Council officers have access to aerial photography from 2000 to 2012, 5 distinct periods which enable them to monitor change accurately.  

High resolution aerial photography datasets can be quite large and take up a lot of server space which then has to be managed. Increasingly popular, WMS is a standard protocol for streaming georeferenced map imagery over the Internet to web based applications, GIS and CAD software. WMS feeds load only the imagery that a user actually needs to see rather than a whole dataset, which can often result in lengthy load times or delays when panning and zooming. Aerial photography can put a heavy strain on a network especially when it is being accessed by many users at the same time. Having an external source available through WMS reduces network load and the costs associated with data storage, update and management.

“Getmapping’s WMS service went live to our users across the two District Councils in March 2012,” said Peter Wain, GIS Manager at Tunbridge Wells District Council. “The speed of the service is impressive and provides our officers across the intranet with seamless access to aerial photography for 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012, the latest aerial photography flown and processed by Getmapping. Having access to imagery on a three year cycle is important to enable us to track change, check planning consents and much more. These days having access to the whole county is vital because our management of services and infrastructure does not just stop at the District boundary. It also enables closer working collaboration with the County Council,” continued Peter Wain.

“Our WMS and WFS services are going from strength to strength and we can now offer our customers not only aerial photography coverage but also the complete range of Ordnance Survey mapping including MasterMap for their area said Dave Horner, Managing Director of Getmapping. “We can ingest data from multiple sources including old archive imagery which can be scanned to create a digital layer if so required. Having this wealth of data easily accessible without the need to manage it makes sense for many organisations that have a large number of users,” continued Horner.

Hartley Wintney, UK, November 27th 2012 - Getmapping aerial photography is being used to help create and update Harvey Maps, which are enthusiastically endorsed by mountaineers, walkers, cyclists and orienteers. Getmapping also provides a WMS feed of its latest UK aerial photography to enable Harvey Maps to detect change so that its maps can be kept up to date.

Getmapping captures aerial photography with a range of high resolution large format digital cameras. The cameras capture frames with a large degree of vertical overlap so that images can be orthorectified to correct the distortions due to topographic relief, or camera orientation during flight. Image resolution varies according to requirements. Most urban imagery is captured with each pixel equivalent to 12.5cm ground sampled distance (GSD). Rural and mountain areas are generally captured at 25cm GSD.

Sciehallion, Scotland

Harvey Maps has always prided itself on the fact that its walking and other recreational maps are made using sound map making techniques and then checked by a team of experienced field surveyors who are themselves enthusiastic walkers. As a result Harvey Maps are renowned for their accuracy, clarity and practicality with many available in tough waterproof polyethylene. Many of these maps are now available in digital format, for example on an SD card for use with the Satmap Active 10 GPS receiver.

“We get stereo imagery from Getmapping which is then fed in to our photogrammetric process,” said Robin Harvey, co-founder of Harvey Maps. “Use of this imagery produces a virtual model of the ground from which we then create a base map. The data is very accurate and enables us to record all the features, create spot heights and contours, which help describe the shape of the landscape on a two dimensional map. The WMS feed provides us with online access to all of Getmapping’s most up to date imagery. This is very useful for detecting change so we can update our maps or get new features field checked by our surveyors,” continued Harvey.

“Harvey Maps have been justly acclaimed by outdoor enthusiasts for their accuracy and clarity and we are delighted that our data is being used as an important part of their map creation process,” said Dave Horner, Managing Director of Getmapping.”

photographic survey of Scotland. The whole of the country is now available in digital format, and can be supplied on disk, as specific area downloads from Getmapping.com or via a WMS feed. This is the most up to date aerial photographic survey of Scotland with over 80% captured in the last three years using the latest large format digital camera technology.

It is a significant achievement as Scotland is notoriously difficult to survey from the air for a number of reasons, the main one being the variable weather. Scotland is also very mountainous and high latitudes mean a limited flying season due to less than optimal sun angles. Much of Scotland is also under snow for at least 4 months of the year. In the early spring and late autumn the sun angle reduces the amount of available survey time to less than 90 minutes per day.  A recent break in the weather enabled the last two ‘holes’ in the 2011 survey targets, in South Aberdeenshire and Angus to be captured.

“Flying and surveying Scotland has been hugely challenging for the company, and we were lucky to get a break in the weather last week to enable us to complete our 2011 survey” said Dave Horner, Managing Director. “Even when we had multiple survey planes permanently on station in Scotland the weather proved to be a constant frustration. Our commitment to new digital camera technology and a continuous up date programme means that 80% of the coverage in the complete survey, including the Islands and Highlands is no more than three years old and without doubt the best data of Scotland available,” continued Horner.Getmapping started its aerial survey of Scotland (including the Shetlands, Orkneys, St Kilda and other islands) in 2004 flying with analog film cameras. Getmapping was one of the first companies to adopt large format digital cameras specifically aimed at helping to capture the whole of Scotland. The survey is now complete using 3rd generation digital cameras. During this time Getmapping, the only commercial company maintaining Scotland has engaged in an ongoing update programme flying year-on-year to ensure the most up to date data.

Hartley Wintney, October 25, 2011 - Herefordshire Council has purchased a package of geo-spatial data from Getmapping. The package includes the latest 12.5cm resolution imagery of the whole county (2,400 sq km) plus 10cm resolution and oblique imagery for Hereford itself. This is complemented by Getmapping’s Digital Surface (DSM) and Digital Terrain Models (DTM) of the county, derived from the same aerial survey. The height data replaces data previously acquired, but now no longer licensed, under the terms of the new Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA).

Herefordshire Council makes extensive use of its imagery across a wide range of departments for uses such as environmental protection, contaminated land management, flood risk assessment, conservation and planning. The oblique imagery is used in combination with MultiVision software which enables accurate 3D measurements to be taken, reducing the need in many cases for a site visit. The measurements can be taken direct from the oblique photography using the tools provided, making it possible to ascertain building heights and elevation areas, calculate distances and much more.

Hereford Cathedral

MultiVision, is a unique product that combines vertical aerial photography with oblique photography in a single software environment. The Getmapping Digital Elevation Model provides the essential ‘xyz’ 3D geometry that enables MultiVision to combine the vertical and oblique photography. With MultiVision the centre of the screen is taken up by a vertical aerial photograph, a mouse click on any point in this image prompts the software to display 4 oblique photos taken from multiple directions, normally N, S, E and W. These multiple perspective views ‘look inwards’ towards the chosen point in the vertical image making it really easy to understand what is being viewed on the ground whilst providing lots of additional information that a vertical image alone cannot deliver.

“Under the old Mapping Service Agreement (MSA), Local Authorities benefitted from special terms for the supply of Intermap NEXTMap Britain height data, serviced by Getmapping. The new PSMA, which replaces the MSA does not have any provision for height data so previous licenses have expired,’ said Dave Horner, Managing Director of Getmapping. We have an extensive range of height data including datasets derived from own flying programme which means customers can have imagery and height data captured from the same survey.  In addition we have a full range of LiDAR and we still service the full Intermap NEXTMap Britain datasets.

Hartley Wintney, UK, June 14, 2011 - Getmapping has upgraded the mapping layers it makes available via WMS (Web Mapping Service). The WMS layer suite now includes all Ordnance Survey PSMA (Public Sector Mapping Agreement) datasets, all Ordnance Survey OpenData mapping and Getmapping’s own nationwide high resolution aerial photography.

Increasingly popular, WMS is a standard protocol for streaming georeferenced map imagery over the Internet to web based applications, GIS and CAD software. WMS feeds load only the imagery that a user actually needs to see rather than a whole dataset, which can often result in lengthy load times or delays when panning and zooming. Aerial photography which is a large dataset can put a heavy strain on a network especially when it is being accessed by many users at the same time. Having an external source available through WMS reduces network load and the costs associated with data storage, update and management.

Getmapping WMS Feeds

Getmapping combines all map scale layers into one WMS feed. This means that the feed detects the level of zoom and displays the most appropriate scale of mapping delivering only the data required. For example, with Ordnance Survey mapping when fully zoomed in, the WMS will display MasterMap, and then when zooming out say from a building to a neighbourhood it will display 1:10,000 scale mapping.

“Managing key datasets like Ordnance Survey maps requires considerable resource, not only the servers to host them but also the software and manpower to manage the regular updates provided by Ordnance Survey. By taking a WMS feed instead organisations such as Local Authorities can be sure of fast, cost effective access to the latest versions of the data,” said Dave Horner Managing Director of Getmapping.

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The Getmapping data layers include:

OS PSMA
OS OpenData
Getmapping

OS MasterMap® Topo
OS Streetview®
12.5cm Aerial Photography

OS VectorMap® Local
VectorMap® District
25cm Aerial Photography

1:10K Raster
1:250K
Colour Infrared photography

1:25K
Miniscale®
Shaded Relief height data

1:50K