US Insight, page-44

Imaging Technology Deployed Before and After Hurricanes

September 13, 2017

*** Aerial imaging firm Nearmap focuses on not just capturing photos but also deliverables useful to the construction industry. Working from images captured by regular flyovers, the firm is able to generate high-resolution aerial imagery that can be imported into CAD programs for reference during repairs and reconstruction after a storm....

*** The use of before-and-after data on storms is tried and true, but as data gathering grows more sophisticated, assessing the scale of the damage and pinpointing the areas and structures most in need of repair is accelerated. Nearmap’s approach is to gather as much aerial imagery of urban areas as possible in an ever-expanding library. This lets the firm provide relatively recent images of sites when requested, rather than having to arrange flyovers for every job. In the case of Harvey, the company made an exception and got planes in the air a few days after the storm’s passage.

Agresta thinks that, in the case of Harvey, relatively recent flyovers conducted by the company may prove invaluable in the rebuilding effort. “Nearmap high-resolution aerial maps allow users to show change over time, including 2017 and 2016,” he explains. With geotagged images, contractors, owners and disaster-response crews can pinpoint the worst-hit areas and better plan for the rebuilding phase after cleanup. Nearmap imagery “can be exported or directly accessed via APIs within CAD products or mapping tools such as Esri,” he says...

All of it:

http://www.enr.com/articles/42728-imaging-technology-deployed-before-and-after-hurricanes