Finland Joins European AeroGRID

AeroGRID (France) is to distribute aerial imagery from the National Land Survey of Finland (NLS) via its WMS server. NLS Finland is the third government organisation to join the AeroGRID partnership after IGN France and CNIG Spain. The growing AeroGRID library of accurate aerial imagery is being made available via WMS, the standard protocol for streaming georeferenced map imagery over the internet to web-based applications, GIS and CAD software.

Kari-Pekka Karlsson, product group manager at National Land Survey of Finland says this is well timed, because 2010 saw the aerial survey activities of NLS and the Agency for Rural Affairs in Finland, combined. This provides imagery for over 100,000 km² of the country with an agreed update programme that will provide new imagery for up to a third of the country every year.

Miles Taylor, AeroGRID general manager, said that the Finnish data has special value because, in these Northern latitudes, satellite imagery is scarce. "I feel confident that it is only a matter of time before we are able to provide access to the whole of this vast area of over 1 million km², which is playing an increasingly important role in the European economy."