Photography Tidbits

Aerial Mapping - California provides an amazing array of services for creating aerial surveys, maps and pictures of California. These services include aerial mapping, surveys, GPS integration, aerial photography, orthophotography, topographic mapping, and aerial volume studies. California has a wide variety of companies and services.

Many engineering firms and real estate developers use these services. Planners and civil engineers produce proposals and environmental impact reports. The scale of these surveys ranges from resolution of small individual property boundaries to resurveying subdivisions and townships.

Government agencies may use an aerial mapping company in California to develop Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A GIS is a topographic map showing the placement of sites such as fire stations, hospitals, schools, electrical and telephone switch stations and other infrastructure lines. These maps are invaluable in cases of large scale disaster such as the Kansas City or World Trade Center bombings.

Aerial survey information is used by many non-profit organizations doing work on conservation, water use and large scale photographic surveys such as that produced by the California Coastal Records Project. Cal State Northridge, Whittier College, and the California aerial and Acoustic Sardine Survey are examples of agencies that use the services provided by aerial mappers.

Aerial mapping is used to develop topographic and hydrographic mapping. Contour overlays are added to create the commonly known “topo” map, produced by the United States Forest Service for Forest Service and Wilderness lands. The US Geographical Survey (USGS) has jointly managed Land Sat, or Land Remote Sensing Satellite system, with NASA since 1972, to gather information about the earth’s surface resources. This data is available and used by aerial mapping companies.

Aerial photos are distorted by the curve of the earth. In order to correct this distortion, Orthophotography corrects this distortion through computer input so that the photo map shows the same uniform scale as a flat map, but it incorporates the aerial photographs.

Aerial Mapping services are based throughout California. Some are based in areas of specific interest, such as aerial photos of hot air balloon trips and even weddings. Traditional surveying and mapping is provided by companies based from Northern California to the Mexican border.

There is a strong overlap of networks in this field ranging from University programs to NASA and other government agencies such as USGS. Private companies know how to access the important elements of these networks. Many companies have been in business for years going back to the 1940’s in some cases. The consumer will be well rewarded by researching and comparing the various companies’ demonstrated expertise.

For more information visit Digital Mapping.