New Imagery for Welsh GIS

The new imagery is served across the Vale of Glamorgan District Council's intranet to over 500 users via a web based GIS. The 2010 imagery layer complements two earlier aerial surveys, Ordnance Survey maps and numerous data layers created by the Council. Today detailed and up-to-date imagery informs and enhances many Local Authority activities and tasks. It is used extensively in planning and building control, address management, licensing and highways management. Where site-based investigation is required to take a close look at a property, tree, street lamp or even a route to school, the aerial photography is often the first point of reference and in many cases obviates the need for a special site visit.

The Vale of Glamorgan Imagery, was captured in 2010 using a Vexcel UltracamX digital camera mounted in a Rockwell Aerocommander. The highly detailed 12.5cm GSD (Ground Sampled Distance) imagery is part of a much larger survey of the whole of Wales carried out by Getmapping during 2009 and 2010. The rural areas were captured at 25cm GSD while the cities and more populated areas in the South of the country were captured at the higher 12.5cm resolution. This enables identification of specific assets, street furniture, trees, and road markings. It is particularly useful for development control to monitor construction activity. Getmapping holds a complete dataset for the whole of England, Wales and Scotland and is the only company committed to updating this data on a regular basis.

"The new Getmapping imagery compares very favourably with the earlier 2001 and 2006 imagery that we have been using up to now. It so sharp and detailed it is really possible to see what is happening on the ground and we are just beginning to consider using it for a number of new things such as reviewing street lining," said Anthony Tarrant, Senior ICT Officer at Vale of Glamorgan Council. "It now available to all our intranet GIS intranet users, that's over 500 people, in all service areas and so far everyone seems to be extremely pleased with it," continued Tarrant.