My law firm is prepping a case for trial and I need an aerial photograph of the section of highway where the accident took place, to be blown up into a color poster, for a visual aid/exhibit. I found the necessary photo on MapQuest, but the clerk at Kinko’s advised me that MapQuest is actually very low-resolution and this sort of thing works better with high-resolution photos. Does anybody know where I might find a better photo?
Usually, you’ll need to go analog for this - there are probably dozens of companies around Tampa that do aerial photography, but they won’t have their work available online.
Just as one example, these people have images online at Web resolution - 75 dpi, but the source negatives are 3,000 dpi. To get these, you have to go to them and place an order.
Looking at downtown Tampa with Mapquest, the resolution looks to me as good as you’re going to get for free. But if your area of interest is outside an urban area, you’ll probably have to pay for comparable resolution.
Google Earth would give you more flexibility to view that same free data.
Or if you want to fiddle with the National Map Viewer http://nationalmap.gov/index.html, you can download TIFF images for the free max available resolution.
Microsoft’s http://www.live.com maps have a pretty cool “Bird’s Eye View” that may prove useful.
I’ve bought from GlobeXplorer.com before. This is the Wiki on it, but I cannot access the site right now and I know not why.
Not sure if the resolution is any better, but if you go to www.flashearth.com you can toggle back and forth between Googlemaps, MSN maps, and a couple of others to find the best resolution available.
Then I’d just take a Print Screen shot and save it as a BMP or PNG.
Just a thought.
Making a print of any image found on the Web would be a violation of copyright, of course (excluding NASA or other U.S. Government images, some of which are not copyrighted). The clerk at Kinko’s should certainly have known that.
So whatever source you use, you must get permission to reprint it legally.
But I’m sure you knew that.
You should try calling the City of Tampa’s Geographic Information Systems (813) 274-7301. They have a lot of data for download, but unless you know what you’re doing, you’re better off just calling to see if they might help.
From my fiancee, who has to get aerials for her job as an environmental scientist:
Try contacting the NRCS (National Resource Conservation Service), DOT, nearby libraries, or the University Map Library at your nearby University (might mean going to Gainesville). These aren’t online sources, but if you can’t find anything useful online then these would likely be your best options. Lady Soul also cautions that the NRCS is a Georgia agency, but she knows that Florida has an equivalent (she’s dealt with them before) but isn’t positive what the name is. It might be the same.
Not to be a nitpick, but I believe anything that the US Government produces cannot be copy written and is all in the public domain.
I will second checking out www.live.com and using the birdseye view. You can also change it so you can view it from 4 different angles. You could try using a projector or large monitor to display this in court. It seems what you want is an aerial photograph, not a satellite image. These are tough to come by for free of charge. The easiest thing might be to hire a private aerial photography firm.
I’m afraid she’s mistaken. The Natural Resources Conservation Serviceis a part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). You may remember them as the SCS (Soil Conservation Service). Each state has their own office. Here is Florida’s.
In Mississippi, we can access aerials taken through the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) (Also a program of the USDA).
Ours are available on-line through a state agency known as MARIS; I wonder if Florida has something similar.
If the Tampa GIS office doesn’t work, try this:
Not to nitpick, but I only said “some” to avoid making an absolute statement to which some nitpicky objection might have been raised.
To nitpick, it’s copyrighted, not copywritten. It’s a right, not a write.
