Description The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), along with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), are acquiring high resolution orthoimagery for the major metropolitan areas, and state capitals of the United States. As an essential element of The National Map, the need for up-to-date imagery is critical for Homeland Security and Emergency Response. The Orthoimagery category is one of the framework layers for The National Map. The imagery can be used as a base layer for updating or deriving additional geographic information, such as transportation networks, hydrographic features, elevation, and land cover. The orthoimagery are natural color, black and white, or color infrared. The resolution of the orthoimagery is 0.3 meters to 0.75 meters, depending on the source imagery. The imagery is available as Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection and referenced to North American Datum of 1983, unless otherwise specified in the metadata. For example, the New Jersey orthoimagery is available as New Jersey State Plane NAD83. The file format is Georeferenced Tagged Image File Format(GeoTIFF). Orthoimagery is available from Seamless Data Distribution System (SDDS) http://seamless.usgs.gov. As imagery is received at the EROS Data Center, it is quality checked and placed on SDDS. A listing of areas available is posted on SDDS in List of High Resolution Orthoimagery Available. In addition, an index layer can be placed on the SDDS map interface to see coverage area. The imagery is available on CD-ROM or DVD for any selected area. Direct download is also available for up to 3.0 gbytes of data (in 250 MB files). Back To Top Specifications
Back To Top Format Information TIFF is a GeoTiff (.tif and .tfw files included) Back To Top Download Information
NOTE: Contact a Customer Service Representative (seamless@usgs.gov) for custom product media options. |