Color Infrared Orthophoto, NW quadrant of Latanier Bayou Quadrangle, LA, 50:1 MrSID compressed, LOSCO (1999) [c2909204_nws_50]

Metadata also available as - [Outline]

Frequently-anticipated questions:


What does this data set describe?

    Title:
    Color Infrared Orthophoto, NW quadrant of Latanier Bayou Quadrangle, LA, 50:1 MrSID compressed, LOSCO (1999) [c2909204_nws_50]
    Abstract:
    This dataset is a 3.75 minute color infrared (CIR) orthophoto for the NW quadrant of the Latanier Bayou quadrangle, Louisiana. An orthophoto is a planimetrically correct 'photomap' because the distortions of scale due to elevation differences and aircraft orientation inherent in raw aerial photography have been removed as part of the orthophoto production process. An orthophoto can often be used directly with vector map data.

    This color infrared orthophoto was created from color infrared aerial photography film. Color infrared film is manufactured to be sensitive to red, green and near-infrared wavelengths. This type of film makes near-infrared reflected energy visible to the human viewer by capturing that energy and representing it as a visible color. The dyes that are used in the film render green objects as blue images, red objects as green images, and objects that primarily reflect infrared as red images. Because healthy vegetation reflects strongly in the near infrared, areas of vegetation appear red or pink. The appearance color for water in CIR imagery is highly variable and dependent on the depth and amounts of floating vegetation and suspended matter. It can range in color from olive drab through turquoise, deep blue and to black. Barren areas can be highly reflective at all wavelengths, thus frequently appear very bright in a CIR image.

    This image has an overedge of approximately 300 meters on all sides, so the area encompassed is actually somewhat larger than 3.75 minutes by 3.75 minutes. Each pixel in these orthophotos represents an area of one square meter on the ground.

    The image is in Multi-Resolution Seamless Image Database (MrSID) form. Like the other common photographic image compression methodology, JPEG, MrSID compression maintains high visual image quality even at high compression levels. The advantages MrSID offers over JPEG is a faster display rate and a 'smooth' appearing image at any magnification level, the latter being a manifestation of the 'Multi-Resolution' qualities of this imagery. The compression levels obtained make it possible to distribute this MrSID imagery over the web, even to users with modem-only access to the Internet, and to put a hundred or more MrSID orthos on a single CD-ROM. Imagery in MrSID form is supported in most major GIS software. It can also be manipulated in Adobe Photoshop or viewed, subset, and converted to standard TIFF format imagery with a free stand-alone viewer available from LizardTech (<URL:http://www.lizardtech.com>).

    Supplemental_Information:
    The image has eight internal reference tics which correspond to the theoretical corners of a regular 3.75 minute grid cell in the primary (NAD83) and secondary (NAD27) datums of the image. The north, south, east, and west bounds of that grid cell in geographic coordinates is given in the Bounding_Coordinates portion of these metadata. Because of the 'overedge' on each image, these tics occur approximately 300 meters in from each image edge, and because of the coordinate shift between datums, corresponding primary and secondary datum tics are about 25 meters apart.

    The primary datum tics (13 by 13 pixel solid white crosses) have the following ground coordinate values in UTM Zone 15 NAD83 coordinates:

    corner easting    northing
    NW     536168.01  3318844.53
    NE     542196.07  3318865.90
    SE     542222.49  3311940.33
    SW     536190.65  3311918.98
    
    The secondary datum tics (13 by 13 pixel dashed white crosses) have the following ground coordinate values in UTM Zone 15 NAD27 coordinates:
    corner easting    northing
    NW     536168.74  3318664.51
    NE     542196.92  3318685.88
    SE     542223.34  3311760.55
    SW     536191.38  3311739.21
    
    Because of the image detail that is lost when full-detail source DOQ imagery is compressed, the tics no longer appear as solid white crosses or dashed white crosses in the MrSID compressed imagery. Nonetheless, the primary datum tic can be differentiated from the secondary datum tic because the former appears brighter and whiter than the latter.

    The ground coordinates of the upper left hand corner of the upper left hand pixel in primary datum (UTM zone 15 NAD83) coordinates are:

    easting    northing
    535854.00  3319189.00
    
    The ground coordinates of the upper left hand corner of the upper left hand pixel in secondary datum (UTM zone 15 NAD27) coordinates are:
    easting    northing
    535868.37  3318985.85
    
    The metadata for this image are encapsulated into several documents. The metadata are not complete if you did not receive the following files along with the data set:

    c2909204_nws_50.mtd - this metadata in mp (metadata parser) compatible ASCII text form
    c2909204_nws_50.html - this metadata in HTML form
    c2909204_nws_50_faq.html - this metadata presented as Questions and Answers
    c2909204_nws_50.sgml - this metadata in SGML form
    <URL:c2909204_nws_50.hed> - the first 50-60 lines of the source ortho header.  This information
                               may be more easily parsed than these metadata if further automated
                               processing of the imagery is desired.
    
    The image is accompanied by a georeferencing 'world' file. Following the ArcView / ArcInfo convention for such files, the xy origin specified in this file refers to the center of the upper left hand pixel of the image. You should have received the following as part of the dataset:
    c2909204_nws_50.sid - image in 50:1 compressed MrSID form
    c2909204_nws_50.sdw - world file for image
    

  1. How should this data set be cited?

    Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office (LOSCO), 19990913, Color Infrared Orthophoto, NW quadrant of Latanier Bayou Quadrangle, LA, 50:1 MrSID compressed, LOSCO (1999) [c2909204_nws_50].

  2. What geographic area does the data set cover?

    West_Bounding_Coordinate: -92.625
    East_Bounding_Coordinate: -92.563
    North_Bounding_Coordinate: +30.000
    South_Bounding_Coordinate: +29.938

  3. What does it look like?

  4. Does the data set describe conditions during a particular time period?

    Calendar_Date: 02-Mar-1998
    Currentness_Reference: date of source image aerial photography

  5. What is the general form of this data set?

  6. How does the data set represent geographic features?

    1. How are geographic features stored in the data set?

      This is a raster data set. It contains the following raster data types:

      • Dimensions 7570 x 6668, type pixel

    2. What coordinate system is used to represent geographic features?

      Grid_Coordinate_System_Name: Universal Transverse Mercator
      Universal_Transverse_Mercator:
      UTM_Zone_Number: 15
      Transverse_Mercator:
      Scale_Factor_at_Central_Meridian: 0.9996
      Longitude_of_Central_Meridian: -093.000000
      Latitude_of_Projection_Origin: +00.000000
      False_Easting: 500000
      False_Northing: 0

      Planar coordinates are encoded using coordinate pair
      Abscissae (x-coordinates) are specified to the nearest 1.0
      Ordinates (y-coordinates) are specified to the nearest 1.0
      Planar coordinates are specified in Meters

      The horizontal datum used is North American Datum of 1983.
      The ellipsoid used is Geodetic Reference System 80.
      The semi-major axis of the ellipsoid used is 6378137.
      The flattening of the ellipsoid used is 1/298.257.

  7. How does the data set describe geographic features?


Who produced the data set?

  1. Who are the originators of the data set? (may include formal authors, digital compilers, and editors)

  2. Who also contributed to the data set?

  3. To whom should users address questions about the data?

    Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office
    c/o David Gisclair
    Technical Assistance Program (TAP) Director
    Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office
    Baton Rouge, LA 70804

    (225) 219-5800 (voice)
    (225) 219-5802 (FAX)
    <URL:mailto:tapgis@linknet.idt.net>


Why was the data set created?

Color infrared orthophotography serves a variety of purposes. It is commonly used as a backdrop for sparse vector data in a GIS. It may be used as a source for photointerpretation of features or for on-screen digitizing of the positions, paths, and boundaries of recognizable features such as oil storage tanks, roads, and buildings.

The user should be aware that adjacent orthophotos were produced from imagery with different center points. Because the orthophoto production process only corrects features at the ground level, the tops of buildings and other structures elevated above the surface of the ground 'lean' or 'tilt' away from the center point of the source photography and from their own bases. Adjacent orthophotos share common area because of the 'overedge' on each image. In these shared areas, the 'lean' direction of elevated objects will be different for the adjacent orthophotos because their source photography had different center points. For the purposes of photointerpretation of the locations of elevated objects visible in orthophotography, the user should select a point at the base of the elevated object rather than at its top. This convention will insure that the object location point appears at the base of the elevated feature, independent of which orthophoto is displayed as a backdrop. A point selected at the top of an elevated object in one orthophoto will very likely not fall at the top of the same elevated object in the adjacent orthophoto. Furthermore, the xy coordinates of a 'top point' so selected are neither the coordinates of the top of the object in the real world nor its base because of the 'lean' displacement in the orthophoto caused by the non-compensated height of the elevated object.


How was the data set created?

  1. Where did the data come from?

  2. What changes have been made?

    Date: 13-Sep-1999 (change 1 of 3)
    The digital orthophoto is created by scanning the negative film roll using a roll feed scanner. The scanned data file is then digitally rectified to an orthographic projection by processing each image pixel through photogrammetric space resection equations. This process requires, as input, ground control points acquired from ground surveys or developed in aerotriangulation, conjugate photo-coordinates of ground control, camera orientation parameters, and a digital elevation model (DEM). The mission that produced the source aerial photography incorporated the use of Airborne GPS, necessitating a minimal amount of ground control. The rectified digital image is then archived on CD-ROM media with a keyword-based informational (metadata) header affixed to the beginning of the band interleaved by pixel (BIP) digital image.

    The BIP orthophoto was created from a digital elevation model (DEM) dated 19990101 and the aerial photo(s) listed below using 'Carl Zeiss PHODIS on SGI' software and hardware:

    date       Image ID
    19980302   'NAPP 10828 129'
    
    A DEM source date like this one, 19990101, ending in '0101' is a 'flag date,' of sorts. Any DEM source date ending in '0101' means that either the DEM source day within the month of January was unknown or, more likely, neither the month nor the day within the year 1999 for the production of the DEM is known. Thus, the particular DEM under consideration may have been produced at any time within the 1999 year. However, many DEMs produced earlier than 1993 had no source date information. In that situation, the procedure is to write a DEM_SOURCE_DATE in the DOQ header composed from the year of ortho production, '01' for the month, and '01' for the day. This DEM source fits that picture and hence, in addition to the possibility of being produced at any time during the 1999 year, the DEM may have been produced at some unknown date prior to 1993.

    Person responsible for change:

    3001, Inc.
    c/o Kevin Hanzo
    Department Manager, Orthorectification
    5525 Mounes, Suite 102
    New Orleans, LA 70123

    (504) 733-3001 (voice)
    <URL:mailto:khanzo@3001data.com>

    Date: 1999 (change 2 of 3)
    The BIP image was converted to GeoTIFF form with an accompanying georeferencing world (.tfw) file.

    Person responsible for change:

    3001, Inc.
    3655 SW 2nd Ave., Suite 3C
    Gainesville, FL 32607

    (352) 379-3001 (voice)

    Date: 1999 (change 3 of 3)
    The GeoTIFF form orthophoto data was compressed at a nominal 50:1 compression ratio with MrSID Compress Publisher to produce a MrSID compressed image.

    Person responsible for change:

    3001, Inc.
    c/o Mendi Johnson
    GIS Analyst
    3655 SW 2nd Ave., Suite 3C
    Gainesville, FL 32607

    (352) 379-3001 (voice)
    <URL:mailto:mjohnson@gnv.3001data.com>


How reliable are the data; what problems remain in the data set?

  1. How well have the observations been checked?

  2. How accurate are the geographic locations?

    In order to be approved by the USGS, a certain number of orthophotos are checked to insure that they meet National Map Accuracy Standards for this product. Digital data like these have no inherent scale, but for purposes of testing, 3.75 minute digital orthophotos are evaluated as if they were a paper map published at 1:12000 scale. The criteria for these orthophotos is then that 'not more than 10 percent of the points tested shall be in error by more than 1/30 inch, measured on the publication scale.' At the 'scale' of this product, that can be translated to: 'not more than 10 percent of the points tested shall be in error by more than 33 feet (as measured on the ground and using other higher accuracy data as positional reference)'.

    The root mean square error (RMSE) of the parent BIP orthophoto for this particular image is 1.26 meters.

  3. How accurate are the heights or depths?

  4. Where are the gaps in the data? What is missing?

    The image has an overedge of approximately 300 meters on all sides of the nominal 3.75 minute cell this image is meant to cover.

  5. How consistent are the relationships among the observations, including topology?

    In order to be accepted by the USGS, the source aerial photography used for production of orthophotos must meet certain criteria including those related to natural defects (clouds, smoke, flooding, contrails), preventable defects (scratches on film, poor exposure, unlit fiducials), and overall frame density (measure of proper exposure and development). Color Infrared film must meet additional performance criteria. The flight line, exposure center, and aircraft orientation for the aerial photography must meet criteria set for the National Aerial Photography Program (NAPP) to be accepted. The orthophoto(s) produced from those aerial photos must meet National Map Accuracy Standards, and in the case of this image, the oversight agency responsible for checking and submitting the band interleaved by pixel (BIP) source orthophoto into the National Digital Cartographic Database was the MID-CONTINENT MAPPING CENTER (MCMC).

    Conversion of the BIP imagery into GeoTIFF form does not affect the image quality or any of the other image properties that the USGS uses to evaluate image quality and accept or disapprove contractor submitted imagery. As a natural consequence of the MrSID compression process, which is lossy, some degradation of image detail occurs on conversion to MrSID compressed form. However, the effect is acceptable for most uses at a 50:1 compression level. Because the compression is lossy, conversion of a MrSID compressed image back to a TIFF format file of much larger size does not at the same time restore all the detail present in the original BIP imagery.


How can someone get a copy of the data set?

Are there legal restrictions on access or use of the data?

Access_Constraints: none
Use_Constraints:
Appropriately citing the source of this imagery when used would be appreciated. The metadata must be transmitted along with the imagery if the imagery is further distributed.

  1. Who distributes the data set? (Distributor 1 of 1)

    Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office
    c/o David Gisclair
    Technical Assistance Program (TAP) Director
    Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office
    Baton Rouge, LA 70804

    (225) 219-5800 (voice)
    (225) 219-5802 (FAX)
    <URL:mailto:tapgis@linknet.idt.net>

  2. What's the catalog number I need to order this data set?

  3. What legal disclaimers am I supposed to read?

    The data herein, including but not limited to geographic data, tabular data, analytical data, electronic data structures or files, are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, or statutory, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties or merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the data is assumed by the user. No guarantee of accuracy is granted, nor is any responsibility for reliance thereon assumed. In no event shall the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office (LOSCO) be liable for direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or special damages of any kind, including, but not limited to, loss of anticipated profits or benefits arising out of use of or reliance on the data. The LOSCO does not accept liability for any damages or misrepresentation caused by inaccuracies in the data or as a result of changes to the data caused by system transfers or other transformations or conversions, nor is there responsibility assumed to maintain the data in any manner or form.

    These data have been developed from the best available sources. Although efforts have been made to ensure that the data are accurate and reliable, errors and variable conditions originating from physical sources used to develop the data may be reflected in the data supplied. Users must be aware of these conditions and bear responsibility for the appropriate use of the information with respect to possible errors, scale, resolution, rectification, positional accuracy, development methodology, time period, environmental and climatic conditions and other circumstances specific to these data. The user is responsible for understanding the accuracy limitations of the data provided herein. The burden for determining fitness for use lies entirely with the user. The user should refer to the accompanying metadata notes for a description of the data and data development procedures.

    Although these data have been processed successfully on computers at the LOSCO, no guarantee, expressed or implied, is made by LOSCO regarding the use of these data on any other system, nor does the act of distribution constitute or imply any such warranty. Distribution of these data is intended for information purposes and should not be considered authoritative for navigational, engineering, legal and other site-specific uses.

  4. How can I download or order the data?


Who wrote the metadata?

Dates:
Last modified: 11-Dec-1999

Metadata author:
3001, Inc.
3655 SW 2nd Ave., Suite 3C
Gainesville, FL 32607

(352) 379-3001 (voice)
(352) 377-4234 (FAX)

Metadata standard:
FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC-STD-001-1998)


Generated by mp version 2.4.33 on Sat Dec 11 14:30:06 1999