Overhead photos, maps, and security

       First an old email to my relatives.

We all have our hobbies.

One of mine is overhead photos. And what is out there for free is amazing these days.

Here locally I have five different sources of photos. One is commercial, one is County (at least in MO, TN, SC, and GA), one is USDA, one is US soil survey, and one is state of Tennessee. All are online.

As you might imagine, no one talks to each other, likes shares their photos.

And the sources vary from satellite to aerial.

And some sets are better than others. Even the USDA photos available through the free Google Earth differ in quality just between days of the week the photos were taken. Said another way, some are better than others. Most are current within the last six years...usually like in the last year or two.

Often there are leaves on and leaves off photos, too. Obviously, one can see more on the ground when the leaves are off in the photos.

If you want to test your local sources, it’s up to you. I would suggest pick some known land, like where you live, and go from there.

Last, expect surprises. I’ve got some land in middle Tennessee, and the GIS system that supports all that is pretty neat, like the detail.

And there’s no book on all this these days. One just gets surprises, both good and bad.

And the level of detail is around 2 meters, which is pretty good to me. Maybe a decade ago it was like 10 meter level of detail.

 

            Second here are some links that might help you where you live.

 

There are many free links via the Internet.

What follows are just some that might help you where you live.

 

http://www.google.com/earth/index.html

http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/HomePage.htm

 

Your local GIS, State, and County web pages which do vary. For example, much of Canada is available at 1:50,000, while other places are at better scales, like more detail. 

 Now the good maps for Kuwait and Iraq came from government sources, including what we captured. They were often in the scale 1:50,000, which is a poor scale for patrolling a local area. 

Terraserver on the internet, which may be gone by now.

 

Your commercial sources for maps and overheads. 

Your own paper maps. 

Local hand drawn maps, which often work pretty well for security things. They even work for horseback riding and hiking  trails, too. 

Last, one more story as an example of what one might be able to find on the Internet. I was sitting in Athens, Georgia, USA, and able to get Russian made topographic maps from Mozambique for a South African friend who ran safaris there. Not too shabby I would say.   

But my mission is patrolling and security for my Family and friends, and that is more local, to include protecting my garden areas. And there is plenty out there to help us where we live. But even if the electricity and Internet access goes out, don't forget you can make hand drawn maps that should work pretty well for security things.  One reason we humans survive is because we can improvise.