ASPRS Aerial Data Catalog

The American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) has a new tool and is provided as a free service to the communities that utilize aerial photography. The tool is called the ASPRS Aerial Data Catalog and is a means to locate aerial photography from private companies, universities, states, NGOs, and federal sources.  The catalog contains metadata allowing users to determine if coverage exists over an area of interest.  The acquisition date, film type, sensor type, and scale are also provided along with the supplier contact information. Continue reading

NextGen Brings More Aircraft Noise to SoCal

The Next-Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) will most likely bring more aircraft noise to Southern California.  Residents of Mar Vista, Culver City, Santa Monica, and Pacific Palisades already are noticing jets flying in and out at lower altitudes and more often.  This is because the NextGen system uses satellites instead of air traffic controllers for precision separation of aircraft, allowing them to fly at lower altitudes and much closer together for landings and departures.  Continue reading

OpenStreetMap Mapathon

Hi SoCalGIS group,

We’re reaching out to you and your organization about an upcoming mapathon Saturday April 2nd (http://meetu.ps/2Wjm0m) at the LA Times in downtown LA to get people together to edit OpenStreetMap and import all the buildings in the City of Los Angeles!

This is part of a larger effort to import all 3 million buildings in Los Angeles County using open data from the LARIAC (Los Angeles Region Imagery Acquisition Consortium) Program and the L.A. County Assessor. The import will improve Southern California’s maps by adding building shapes and data on heights, elevation, general use, year built, and the number of residential units. Continue reading

USGS Crowd-Sourced Structures Data Webinar

This is a reminder that U.S. Geological Survey is hosting a webinar next week on our Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) program. VGI provides an editing environment that allows interested persons to add, delete, and modify certain structures in the USGS structures database. The online VGI editor is based on the popular Open Street Map interface and anyone who is interested can sign up for an account to help us update structures and improve the quality of our data for future release to the public.

Structure types available for editing include schools, colleges/universities, fire/EMS stations, police stations, correctional facilities, state capitol buildings, hospitals, ambulance services, cemeteries, and post offices. Continue reading