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CompassData Ground Control and Field Collection Services and The National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP)

The National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP), administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)'s Farm Service Agency (FSA), is in the process of acquiring aerial imagery of America's agricultural growing seasons, with the primary goal being to make digital ortho photography available to governmental agencies and the public.

Northwest GEO turns to CompassData again in 2011 to provide GCPs for the NAIP program.

“CompassData has supplied North West Geomatics with NAIP ground control for several years. Control locations selected by the CompassData field crews have always been excellent and well documented. We continue to be impressed with the quick turnaround and high accuracy of the control we receive from CompassData” -John Welter, VP North West Geomatics

CompassData's field service Control Freak crew has supplied Ground Control Point collection for this program in 23 states, so far.

In 2009 alone, with only a two-month turnaround, CompassData provided 354 Precision-2 (20cm X,Y,Z) new collect points, along with 40 points from our Archive for a NAIP contractor.

The "leaf-on" imagery provided through NAIP is used as a base layer for GIS programs across the USDA.

NAIP REQUIREMENTS:

NAIP imagery is acquired at a one-meter ground sample distance with a horizontal accuracy that matches within six meters of photo-identifiable ground control points.

NAIP imagery products are available either as digital ortho quarter quad tiles (DOQQs) or as compressed county mosaics (CCM). The area for DOQQs corresponds to the USGS topographic quadrangles. Each image tile covers a 3.75 x 3.75 minute quarter quadrangle plus a 300 meter buffer on all four sides. CCMs are generated by compressing DOQQ image tiles into a single mosaic. All individual tile images and the resulting mosaic are rectified in the UTM coordinate system, NAD 83, and cast into a single predetermined UTM zone.

For more information, CLICK HERE.