Seeing Is Believing December 07, 2017 Jeffrey Heimgartner posted...

Seeing Is Believing

December 07, 2017


Jeffrey Heimgartner posted on December 07, 2017

At the drafting and design firm I mange, Advanced Technical Services, we often use satellite images for things such as space planning, site plans, design, and analysis of existing and proposed sites, or to highlight areas and details of civil and large construction projects. More often than not, however, when using some of the more popular free satellite map and image applications available, the images we find are months, if not years, out of date.
That’s not the case with Nearmap, a location content provider specializing in high resolution aerial imagery. It captures images multiple times a year. Since they are aerial images as opposed to satellite images, the images aren’t affected by potential obstructions like weather or the atmosphere. Per its website, “Nearmap captures leaf-off and leaf-on aerial photos year-round under the best possible conditions.” It quickly processes images that are streamed to the cloud in a matter of days, where they are available for viewing and use on both desktops and mobile devices. This is accomplished through an innovative, powerful, patented imaging and processing technology.
Continuing with its innovation, Nearmap recently announced the release of new forms of location content—Nearmap Panorama and Nearmap Oblique—available through a new MapBrowser interface. Nearmap had these new forms of imagery on display at this year’s Autodesk University 2017. Prior to these new forms, vertical imager—also referred to as orthorectified imagery—is what Nearmap provided. Orthorectification is a process used to correct the terrain distortion in aerial or satellite images that results from variations in the surface of the earth and tilt of the satellite or aerial sensor being used to collect the data. This process allows accurate information to be gathered from the images such as distances, angles and positions.
The new Nearmap Panorama gives users views of locations and features from multiple directions in a single viewing experience. As opposed to needing to switch from one image to another to view content from multiple perspectives, Nearmap Panorama allows users to pan and zoom across any size geography in an uninterrupted fashion, allowing information to be reviewed much more quickly...

All of it:

https://www.engineering.com/BIM/ArticleID/16087/Seeing-Is-Believing.aspx