VBMP Orthophotography

The Virginia Base Mapping Program (VBMP) first acquired aerial photography of the state during the spring of 2002 and recently updated the imagery with flights during 2006 and 2007. The orthophotography program was established to promote effective and economically efficient development and sharing of spatial resources across the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth of Virginia also sought to establish a consistent foundation or base map resource upon which local government spatial data, applications, and GIS could be consistently developed and maintained. Virginia is now committed to sustaining this program through regular updates of the photography. The program is funded through a combination of sources including the Virginia Wireless Services Board, state agencies, and revenue from sale of the data.

2006/2007 Orthophotography

In the spring of 2006, the Commonwealth of Virginia, through the Virginia Geographic Information Network Division (VGIN) of the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) contracted with the Sanborn Map Company to provide aerial data acquisition, ground control, aerotriangulation and development of statewide DTM and digital orthophotography.

Approximately 15% of the State was acquired in the year 2006 and the balance in 2007. All data acquired in 2006 is jurisdiction based and has been delivered to VGIN. The data acquired in 2007 includes overlap along the boundaries of jurisdictions captured in the previous year 2006. This ensures each jurisdiction has full coverage from either Year 2006 or 2007, without ‘mixing’ imagery vintage along the edge of a jurisdiction. The 2007 data is currently being delivered to VGIN and delivery should be complete sometime during late spring / early summer of 2008.
During this update, the imagery was developed at one of 2 scales:

• 1:2,400 scale (1’ resolution) over the entire Commonwealth and
• 1:1,200 scale (1/2’ resolution) in areas where localities chose the option to purchase higher accuracy product.
  Each locality was then offered the opportunity to upgrade to two additional products. They could choose to add contours or building planimetrics. The resolution of the upgrades was dependent on the resolution of the orthophotography chosen.

Deliverables include:

• Full resolution orthophotography in GeoTiff and MrSID format
• 1 meter resampled orthophotography in GeoTiff and MrSID format
• Digital Terrain Models in Microstation dgn format
• 2 or 4 foot contours for select areas in ESRI Personal Geodatabase format
• Building planimetrics for select areas in ESRI Personal Geodatabase format
• Raw image scans

 

2006/2007 Resources

Ordering Information

2006/2007 Order Form – Excel Spreadsheet
2006/2007 Order Form – PDF Document
2006/2007 Commercial Pricing Information – Excel Spreadsheet
2006/2007 Commercial Pricing Information – PDF Document

Reference Information

List of 2006/2007 Upgrades (XLS)

Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)

2006/2007 Orthophotography Resolution Map

2006/2007 Orthophotography Flight Areas

Imagery Examples (PPT)

Statistics and Storage Information

Shapefiles

2006 Tile Grid – Virginia State Plane South Coordinate System (ZIP)

2006 Tile Grid – Virginia State Plane North Coordinate System (ZIP)

2007 Tile Grid – Virginia State Plane North Coordinate System (ZIP)

2007 Tile Grid – Virginia State Plane South Coordinate System (ZIP)

* Each years's tiles are provided in the Virginia State Plane North and South Coordinate sytems. Each shapefile contains the entire tile grid for the flight year. Users can query the "SP_Zone" attribute to show tiles for each state plane zone separately.

2002 Orthophotography

On January 29, 2002, the Commonwealth contracted with VARGIS LLC. of Herndon, Virginia to produce full color, leaf-off, digital orthophotography for the entire land base of Virginia. The imagery was developed at one of 3 scales:

• 1:4,800 scale (2’ resolution) in rural areas
• 1:2,400 scale (1’ resolution) in urban and suburban areas and
• 1:1,200 scale (1/2’ resolution) in areas where localities chose the option to purchase higher accuracy product.

The extent of each scale was initially determined by evaluating population and housing densities to determine those areas that would be flown for 1:4,800 and 1:2,400 scale imagery. Each locality was then offered the opportunity to upgrade the scale of imagery in their locality by providing the cost difference between what the program would have paid and the cost of their optional upgrade.

Deliverables include:

• Full resolution orthophotography in GeoTiff and MrSID format
• 1 meter resampled orthophotography in GeoTiff and MrSID format
• Digital Terrain Models in Microstation dgn format
• Countywide TINs
• Digital Elevation Models in ESRI Grid format for Virginia State Plane North and South zones
• Raw image scans

2002 Resources

Map Showing State Coverage – Small
Map Showing State Coverage – Large

Shapefiles

Tile Grid – Virginia State Plane South Zone (ZIP)
Tile Grid - Virginia State Plane North Zone (ZIP)

* When unzipped, there will be four zip files for each zone with the 2002 data as follows:

• county_va_northsp83.zip – County Boundaries
• vgin_tile_100_n.zip – 100 Scale Tiles
• vgin_tile_200_n.zip – 200 Scale Tiles
• vgin_tile_400_n.zip – 400 Scale Tiles
  

Planned Orthophotography

VGIN is currently working on developing specifications for the next update of the orthophotography. The next flight cycle will begin during the spring of 2009. Details on this update will be posted here as they become available.

2009-2012 Flight Cycle Update (PDF)

2009/2011 Flight Areas (PDF)

State Agency Orthophotography Needs Summary 2007 (XLS)

State & Federal LiDAR Needs Assessment – August 2007

VBMP Orthophotography Licensing

VBMP Orthophotography Data License Agreement for Governmental Users – Clarification, September 2007 (PDF)

 

VBMP 2002 1m Disc Set Aux Files and Image Catalogs

VBMP 1m Disc Set Aux Files and Image Catalogs (ZIP))