The North Carolina 911 Board awarded a grant of $12.3 million to the City of Durham’s Emergency Communications Center on September 25, 2009 for acquisition of statewide ortho imagery (aerial photography for base mapping purposes). The City of Durham recognized that the value of up-to-date, consistent orthoimagery would apply equally to its neighboring counties. The current situation in North Carolina was a patchwork of imagery (years captured and resolutions) and a slow pace of new imagery acquisition in difficult economic times. The Durham PSAP concluded that a statewide project would maximize benefits in a timely way.

The NC 911 Board initiated a grant process in 2009 for Public Safety Answering Points with the purpose of enhancing emergency communications. The Durham PSAP worked with CGIA and the Working Group for Orthophotography Planning, one of the GICC subcommittees, to develop the grant proposal. By involving CGIA and the GICC committees in the grant application process, the City of Durham was able to fine tune its application and take advantage of the State coordination program’s expertise in imagery acquisition and its commitment to state and local cooperation. CGIA served as the project manager,with support from numerous other agencies (see Acknowledgments below).

• Final Report Read the final report for a detailed description of the project
• Business Plan for Orthoimagery in North Carolina
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Resources A compendium of technical reports, standards and presentations
• Elkin Tribune Article You may enjoy reading an article about the project from the Elkin, NC Tribune

The Statewide Orthoimagery Project 2010 is complete.  The project team delivered datasets to all primary Public Safety Answering Points for local computer aided dispatch and local GIS operations. An image service is available from the NC OneMap Geospatial Portal, which also supports a download tool for getting copies of up to 16 tiles via email notification and FTP download. 

The project acquired aerial imagery on schedule for more than 48,000 square miles. The contractors, managed by the NC Geospatial and Technology Management Office, processed the imagery into more than 57,000 panels (5,000 by 5,000 feet) with a 6-inch ground resolution. NC Geodetic Survey and NC Department of Transportation supported the project with a new camera validation range in Surry County to assure that the digital cameras met technical specifications.

Acknowledgments

CGIA managed the overall project for the City of Durham and the NC 911 Board. CGIA would like to acknowledge a true collaborative project involving numerous public and private organizations.  Recognition is due to the NC 911 Board for funding and guidance; the City of Durham Emergency Communications Center for initiating the project with a grant; the Office of the State Chief Information Officer and Information Technology Services for project management assistance and data hosting; the Floodplain Mapping Program in the Geospatial and Technology Management Office in NC Emergency Management for contractor management; the NC Geodetic Survey for contractor management; the Office of the Secretary of State for North Carolina Technical Specifications for Digital Orthophoto Base Mapping, Adopted August 2009; the NC Department of Transportation for planning assistance; and the many volunteers of the GICC’s coordination structure including members of the Statewide Mapping Advisory Committee and the Working Group for Orthophotography Planning. The project team also acknowledges the many contractors on the project, including AMEC, Sanborn, Photo Science, ESP Associates, Surdex, Aerometric, AECOM, Arcadis, Concord Engineering, Joyner Keeny, Stantec, Withers & Ravenel, W.K. Dickson, and Woolpert. 

Tim Johnson
Director, Center for Geographic Information and Analysis
Phone: 919.754.6588