Any suggestions on where I can get good aerial images for rough survey purposes

[SamB]

I'm currently an apprentice Landscaper and Horticulturalist and I'm trying to find out how to import aerial photos into Landmark so I can make surveys of plots that cover dimensions. I have physical access to the plots so it's not 100% necessary but I think it would make a good viewport to overlay dimensions onto an aerial photo.

 

Google maps seems to be too grainy and small.

 

Help would be great!

 

Thanks

Sam

[Tom W.]

There is GeoImage in the GIS tool set but I think you're talking about higher resolution imagery than this...?

[Tony Kostreski]

@SamB If Tom's suggestion does not suffice regarding the new GIS tool set, Vectorworks can import georeferenced images with associative world files (.bpw, .jgw, .pgw, .tfw, .gfw, or .wld formats). ECW, GeoTIFF, and JP2 (JPEG 2000) files store the georeferenced information with no need for an associative world file. When importing, you just want to make sure your Document Units match that of the photo. 

 

For more information check the Vectorworks help

https://app-help.vectorworks.net/2021/eng/index.htm#t=VW2021_Guide%2FImport%2FImporting_georeferenced_images.htm

 

For high resolution imagery, I've heard good things about https://www.nearmap.com/us/en

[Tom W.]

Or if it's UK you need you could try:

 

https://www.promap.co.uk/maps-and-data/aerial-photography/getmapping-aerial-photography/

 

They offer GEOTIFF format. I use them for standard OS mapping, never for aerial photography so can't vouch for the service...

[unearthed]

I was going to say just use your local council's GIS or the national data set, but thought I'd better look to see first. What a terrible, disorganised country you have there! I thought it'd be like NZ where everything's centralised into ~1800 layers and you can select layers (including aerials down to 10cm res or finer), draw a window and download everything inside it complete with a .jgw for the aerial, but no, it's a mess. 

 

Ah here it is - https://magic.defra.gov.uk/MagicMap.aspx - not too shabby, but hard to see how to download other than their print fcn. But better than other offerings and relatively useful without paying.

 

There may be some free data here  - https://osdatahub.os.uk/plans, but no aerials, lidar though bylook of it, which I find > useful than aerials a lot of the time. Yeah, .jpw/.tfw is well-supported by VW.

[Pat Stanford]

In the USA, that kind of GIS data is often kept on a county by county basis. There is usually a link of some kind from the County Assessor's web site.

[Christian Fekete]

If you are talking about topo, in sketchup at least when you download a google earth map view you get the rough topographical information (don't remember the height differences between curves, sorry), then you can import the topo into VW either as a 3D or just the topo curves. Works fairly well although it's a process. Good luck

If you are talking about 3D buildings I think you can go through a similar process but if I remember correctly the buildings will come as 3D meshes which is less than ideal but that was 3yrs ago since I did that myself

[SamB]

Hi all

 

I was really just hoping to get a rough outline of the boundary and existing hard features so I can scale with a known measurement. I'm trying to create a rough outline for design purposes.

 

I think google earth should just about have the resolution I need.

 

Thanks!

 

*edit - at this stage I'm still only using the 2D top down view.

Edited December 23, 2020 by SamB
Additional info

[Jens Marr]

On 12/22/2020 at 4:39 AM, unearthed said:

I was going to say just use your local council's GIS or the national data set, but thought I'd better look to see first. What a terrible, disorganised country you have there! I thought it'd be like NZ where everything's centralised into ~1800 layers and you can select layers (including aerials down to 10cm res or finer), draw a window and download everything inside it complete with a .jgw for the aerial, but no, it's a mess. 

 

Ah here it is - https://magic.defra.gov.uk/MagicMap.aspx - not too shabby, but hard to see how to download other than their print fcn. But better than other offerings and relatively useful without paying.

 

There may be some free data here  - https://osdatahub.os.uk/plans, but no aerials, lidar though bylook of it, which I find > useful than aerials a lot of the time. Yeah, .jpw/.tfw is well-supported by VW.

Hi all, can someone explain how to import aerial photos, so it is matching your plan. I have the image from LINZ including the .jgw file but when I import into my vw file I get this massage 

 

Also the imported image is not where I set my geo reference point and the image is tiny small.

[unearthed]

Hi Jens, I find I get a cleaner import by saving/ from linz as .shp and drag that into VW. Sometime I clean them up in QGIS first, or make contours etc.

 

I normally DL as:

NZGD2000 / New Zealand Transverse Mercator 2000 (EPSG:2193)

 

It sounds like you have a different coordinate system in your download compared with your file coordinates. This is made far worse in NZ as there are so many cordinate systems compared with anywhere else on the planet of a similar size.