Hartley Wintney, October 25, 2011 - Herefordshire Council has purchased a package of geo-spatial data from Getmapping. The package includes the latest 12.5cm resolution imagery of the whole county (2,400 sq km) plus 10cm resolution and oblique imagery for Hereford itself. This is complemented by Getmapping’s Digital Surface (DSM) and Digital Terrain Models (DTM) of the county, derived from the same aerial survey. The height data replaces data previously acquired, but now no longer licensed, under the terms of the new Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA).

Herefordshire Council makes extensive use of its imagery across a wide range of departments for uses such as environmental protection, contaminated land management, flood risk assessment, conservation and planning. The oblique imagery is used in combination with MultiVision software which enables accurate 3D measurements to be taken, reducing the need in many cases for a site visit. The measurements can be taken direct from the oblique photography using the tools provided, making it possible to ascertain building heights and elevation areas, calculate distances and much more.
Hereford Cathedral
Hereford Cathedral

MultiVision, is a unique product that combines vertical aerial photography with oblique photography in a single software environment. The Getmapping Digital Elevation Model provides the essential ‘xyz’ 3D geometry that enables MultiVision to combine the vertical and oblique photography. With MultiVision the centre of the screen is taken up by a vertical aerial photograph, a mouse click on any point in this image prompts the software to display 4 oblique photos taken from multiple directions, normally N, S, E and W. These multiple perspective views ‘look inwards’ towards the chosen point in the vertical image making it really easy to understand what is being viewed on the ground whilst providing lots of additional information that a vertical image alone cannot deliver.

“Under the old Mapping Service Agreement (MSA), Local Authorities benefitted from special terms for the supply of Intermap NEXTMap Britain height data, serviced by Getmapping. The new PSMA, which replaces the MSA does not have any provision for height data so previous licenses have expired,’ said Dave Horner, Managing Director of Getmapping. We have an extensive range of height data including datasets derived from own flying programme which means customers can have imagery and height data captured from the same survey.  In addition we have a full range of LiDAR and we still service the full Intermap NEXTMap Britain datasets.