Historical Aerial Photography CD Rom 1981

The Photo Index was prepared using GIS software (ESRI ArcView) and RIGIS data. Photo numbers were derived from a combination of the flight line and photo number of each original photograph. Photo outline limits are approximate. You may want to use another image viewing software package already installed on your computer to view this index as a JPEG image. The corresponding image file index001.jpg can be found in the file folder PhotoIndex_files.

All scanning, indexing, compression, and reduction of data to CDROM media was conducted at the Rhode Island Department of Administration, Statewide Planning Program by state employees and Rhode Island College student interns in April of 2001.

Aerial photography for Rhode Island for 1981 was obtained from Air Photographics, Inc. of Martinsburg, West Virginia. The original photography consisting of 486 negatives was captured using standard airborne photogrammetric techniques on April 13 and April 22 of 1981. Actual dates along with fight line and photo identification number were imprinted on each of the photographs. A separate composite data set of 256 black and white unrectified photopositive 9"X9"prints at a photo scale of 1" = 1667' consisting of every other print in each flight line was obtained and used for this project. This provided full coverage for the state while eliminating redundant data from north/south photographic overlap contained in the original full dataset. The project was conducted in-house by Statewide Planning in April of 2001. Individual prints were scanned on an Espson 836XL Expression flat bed scanner using Adobe Photoshop 5.0 Limited Edition and Epson Twain Professional (32) Rev.1.50A Software. The scanning rate selected was 400 dots per inch (dpi) with 8 bit gray (standard) and software default settings selected. Resulting scanned images were saved to Tagged Image File (tif) format using Adobe Photoshop with file names corresponding to the combined four-digit flight line and photo number identification on the photos.

Tables showing photo numbers, their respective dates and CDROM product (RIDOA Statewide Planning) are also included on this CDROM as aphoto81.mdb(MSAccess), Aphoto.xls(MSExcel), and Aphoto81.dbf (Dbase IV).


1981A_TIF - Flight Lines 01-06
1981B_TIF - Flight Lines 07-09 to PhotoNum 0921
1981C_TIF - Flight Lines 09 from PhotoNum 0923 - 11
1981D_TIF - Flight Lines 12-14
1981E_TIF - Flight Lines 15-19

1981_SID - All 256 images in the 1981 series compressed with LizardTech MrSID Geospatial Encoder 1.4 compressed at a 5:1 ratio

Software

For those who are not already GIS users or who lack the specialized software required for extended GIS analysis, we have included Lizardtech's MrSID GeoViewer. This program is also available for free over the world wide web and can be accessed at http://www.lizardtech.com/. Please consult the accompanying license for any questions concerning this program's usage.

If you do not already have Arcview or another application that supports the MrSID image format, you will need to install the MrSID GeoViewer software on your computer. 

MrSID GeoViewer is a very small installation. It requires only the following:

Windows

  • Microsoft® Windows 95/98/2000 or Windows NT® 4.0 with service pack 6 or greater
  • 200MHz PC processor
  • Minimum of64MB RAM
  • Internet Explorer 4.0 or greater, or Netscape® navigator 4.5-4.7

Power Macintosh

  • Apple® G3 or later
  • Mac® OS 9 or later
  • 20MB allocated to Web browser
  • 5MB hard disk space
  • Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater or Netscape® Navigator 4.5-4.

Additionally, please note that ESRI's Arcexplorer (2.0) supports the MrSID image format. Arcexplorer is a free GIS data viewer available from ESRI. For information about other GIS and image processing software with which to view MrSID images, please see http://www.lizardtech.com/.

About RIGIS

The Rhode Island Geographic Information System (RIGIS) is a consortium of government and private organizations employing computer and communications technology to manage and use a collective database of comprehensive geographically related information. The mission of the RIGIS is to monitor, coordinate, and provide leadership for activities related to the use of GIS technology within Rode Island, to support initiatives to implement or use the technology, and to manage and provide access to a common database of geographically referenced information.

The RIGIS database is maintained on a server at the University of Rhode Island's Kingston Campus, and at the Rhode Island Department of Administration in Providence. The Environmental Data Center within the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at the University provides on line access (web-browser only) to most RIGIS data via the Internet at www.edc.uri.edu/RIGIS. Data can also be provided on magnetic and optical media by request from the RIGIS coordinator at the RI Department of Administration's Statewide Planning program at rigis@admin.ri.gov.

RIGIS data are copyright protected and licensed for use by the RI Board of Governors for Higher Education. Restrictions include prohibiting the secondary distribution of RIGIS data without prior written approval.

RIGIS Contact Information:

John Stachelhaus-RIGIS Coordinator
RI Dept. of Administration/Statewide Planning
1 Capitol Hill
Providence, RI 02908

email: rigis@admin.ri.gov

telephone: (401) 222-6483