The Cambridge collection of Aerial Photographs contains almost half a million images of the UK landscape collected since just after the war. Approximately half of the photographs are vertical and half are oblique. They represent a unique environmental record of change in the landscape and are widely used by a wide range of scientific disciplines, planning agencies and members of the public.
To date, access to the collection has been limited by the traditional, paper-based catalogue which has evolved over the last fifty years. To gain access to photography users usually need significant amounts of support from librarians who understand how to operate the catalogue and may have to visit the Library to complete their searches.
The digital internet project has created a digital version of the catalogue to uniform standards and made this catalogue accessible over the internet to any individual or organisation with access to the internet regardless of their location.
The project used new Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Technology in the form of an Internet Map Server to achieve its goal. This technology enables users who have a standard internet browser such as Internet Explorer to display a map of the UK, zoom in to any selected area, display the locations of photographs for those areas and retrieve their details from the catalogue. The background map data includes Bartholomews 1:200,000 mapping, Phillips map data and a range of other products. More specialist users who are prepared to download and install a customized Java script have access to a much more sophisticated range of search queries (e.g. create a 50 km. buffer zone around town x and display all photographs covering sites of special scientific interest which are below the 10 metre contour).
The project had three major strands in terms of its activities:
The source materials for the data capture programs were extremely variable both in terms of format and quality and content. Capture of the vertical data involved scanning and screen-based digitizing of flight plan traces whilst the oblique data required capture of typed and hand written documents. All data was map referenced to the Ordnance Survey National grid.
The project was completed just slightly behind schedule in November 2001 and the system has been run in parallel to the existing manual system since this date. Although a formal launch did not take place until May 2002, the user base and level of interest in the new catalogue is growing extremely rapidly. In addition to unsolicited feedback, a sample of major users has been asked to provide critical comments on the new system. To date the feedback has been extremely positive and users have welcomed the increase in accessibility that the Internet catalogue has offered. Most critical comment has revolved around details of presentation and a formal procedure is now in place for evaluation of these comments and programming improvements/alterations to the system where appropriate.
The presentation will include a poster providing more detailed information about the project including:
Delegates will also be able to interrogate Version 4 of the system using a PC.
The project consortium was led by the University of Cambridge and included
or from Mrs G. Renshaw at gr106@cam.ac.uk
Content: Gill Davenport
Last updated 5 July 2002