The National Map from the USGS

I spent half an hour at the USGS booth at the conference yesterday playing with this website. Okay, that does it, I'm getting broadband, ASAP! Don't even try it on dial-up.

Not only does it have topo coverage, but older air photos and newer, full color photos as well. Coverage, of course, varies. I can resolve objects a square meter in size in the image of our house. And smaller if it has a high contrast. In addition, the database contains census map data, hydrology, transportation labels, etc. The site incorporates this data through a cooperative effort between several agencies on both the national, state, and local level.

Did I mention it's free? Well, not really, since it's our tax dollars at work. And, in my opinion, working well. From its inception, the USGS has had to fight for every budget dollar. Recently, it's gotten worse. But I contend that every dollar spent in the mapping program results in a several-fold benefit to the private sector. Imagine if everytime a company needed a map or airphoto they had to create it from scratch. The savings to government agencies is huge as well. This web site is already being used by the department of Homeland Security, FEMA, EPA, the Interior Department, the National Park Service, state departments of Transportation....

Oh, I also talked to the vendors of that other mapping program, the one that merges air photos and topomaps in 3-D. It looks like a pretty neat program, but their coverage of Colorado is really bad. Not worth my dollar.