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 is 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 project is managed by the NC Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (CGIA) in the NC OneMap framework of data access. CGIA is collaborating with the Geospatial and Technology Management Office in the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety to take advantage of the Qualifications-Based Selection contracts in place for ortho imagery acquisition, the NC Geodetic Survey to assure positional accuracy of the new products, and the Statewide Mapping Advisory Committee’s Working Group for Orthophotography Planning for technical advice.  Digital cameras captured imagery across the state in early 2010, and products will be available in early 2011. The products will include true color imagery captured and processed at 0.5-foot resolution (6-inch pixels, equivalent to mapping at 1 inch = 200 feet) as well as compressed imagery for faster performance in GIS.  Products will be distributed to Public Safety Answering Points in each of 100 counties on portable drives with the expectation that data will be shared with all county and municipal 911 and GIS operations.  Web map services and downloadable files will be available to the public through www.nconemap.gov.  Approximate file sizes by county are available in a summary document.

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