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A TOOL FOR PLANNING AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Citation:
CLINTON, P. J., D. R. YOUNG, AND D. T. SPECHT. A TOOL FOR PLANNING AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY. Presented at Coastal GeoTools '05, Myrtle Beach, SC, March 07 - 10, 2005.
Description:
abstract The U.S. EPAs Pacific Coastal Ecology Branch has developed a tool in the form of an Excel. spreadsheet that facilitates planning aerial photography missions. The spreadsheet accepts various input parameters such as desired photo-scale and boundary coordinates of the study area and compiles an ArcInfo. macro language (AML) script for generating a photo-center coordinate list and geographic information systems (GIS) datasets for constructing flight maps. The spreadsheet also compiles an Internet address or URL for downloading a digital basemap of the study area from seamless digital raster graphic USGS quadrangle maps. One meter resolution black-and-white digital orthophotos corresponding to the area of each planned aerial photo may also be downloaded via URLs generated by the utility. A number of other output parameters such as total number of photos and the size of a photo in megabytes when digitized are useful in interactive flight planning. The tool greatly reduces the amount of time it takes for Principal Investigators and GIS professionals to plan aerial photo missions. To fully utilize this tool, the user must have access to Excel., ArcInfo. v7x (or later) and the Internet.