Do you sometimes (or always)
switch from the map view to the satellite / photography backdrop when using
Bing Maps, Google Maps or Esri online products? I do because I like the extra
information conveyed with pictures.
Long before the Google,
Microsoft and Esri online products were around Manitoba was collecting and
creating a photo mosaic backdrop for Manitoba.
Although in those days, it was primarily for GIS and CADD desktop users.
The first round of what many people referred to as digital ortho
imagery – or DOI - was flown in the 1990s.
The geographic coverage was southern Manitoba – primarily targeted at
the agricultural area, although scope expanded into the Interlake, Whiteshell
and Duck Mountains. The photos were black
and white and collected at a 2 meter resolution.
The imagery turned out to be one of the most important and
frequently used GIS datasets that Manitoba has produced. The usefulness of the imagery also changed
the thinking of many hard-core GIS purists, who were convinced that the imagery
program was a waste of money and that topographic mapping was the way to
continue.
In 2005 a consortium of Manitoba Government Departments, Agriculture
Canada (PFRA) and Manitoba Hydro was formed to organize, fund and capture a second
round of imagery. Later Louisiana
Pacific also contributed to the program.
The first year of capture was 2007 and the program ended in 2013. The geographic area was similar to that
captured in the 1990s. The imagery was
collected in both color and black & white at 50cm resolution.
The ortho images were made available to the public on the Manitoba
Land Initiative (MLI) site. (Not all
imagery is on the MLI because of space limitations.) In addition, Manitoba
created an agreement to provide the data to Google so that the information was
available in Google Earth and Google Maps.
For a while it was common to see Manitoba credited when zooming around
Manitoba in Google products. Lately, it
is less common to see Manitoba credited as Google replaces the Manitoba imagery
with more recently collected sources from Landsat, DigitalGlobe, etc.
More than two years ago, in January 2012 (my New Year’s wishesblog), I asked for a new imagery program and stated that: “A Provincial Image strategy
that includes the North needs to be developed.” The last round of imagery is getting old –
some of it is 7 years old.
Should Manitoba undertake the cost and effort to
embark on a new round of imagery collection?
Should there be an ongoing imagery collection program? Should the program include the North and the
remote areas of Manitoba? Or, should we
rely on the imagery provided by Google, Esri and Bing?