# Presentation: 649825

## Geospatial Data and the APFO: Past, Present, and Future

- Zack Adkins, Cartographer
- Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop
- March 25-27, 2008

- 3/26/2008

## Outline

- APFO History
- Beginnings of geospatial data at the APFO
- Migration to present day
- Geospatial data in the present
- Future of geospatial data

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## APFO History

- USDA created in 1862 as a non-cabinet level department
- Became cabinet level in 1889
- Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933
- Part of New Deal
- Result of the effects from the Great Depression
- Created new programs to help farmers

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## APFO History (cont)

- Aerial photo labs created in 1937
- Initially in Washington, D.C. and Salt Lake City
- Established to provide rectified aerial photography for accurate field measurements
- Aerial imagery supported then newly created farm programs

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Slide 5

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**Notes:**
WDC and SLC in 1940; 1962 DC moved to Asheville; 1975 consolidation in SLC... becomes APFO

## APFO History (cont)

- Aerial Photography Field Office
- 1975-present located in Salt Lake City
- Primary source of aerial imagery for USDA
- Current holdings
- 60,000 archived rolls of film from 1955-present (over 10 million images)
- >80 terabytes of digital geospatial data

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Slide 7

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Beginnings of Geospatial Data at the APFO

- Pre-1955
- Aerial imagery acquisitions
- 1937: 375,000 square miles flown
- 1941: 90% of US agricultural areas acquired
- Film housed at the National Archives

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Source: Harry Tubis (1937), photogrammetrist with the Tennessee Valley Authority

*Source: Harry Tubis (1937), photogrammetrist with the Tennessee Valley Authority*

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**Notes:**
1937 aerial compliance selections

## Slide 10

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Beginnings of Geospatial Data at the APFO (cont)

- 1955-1980
- Film holdings
- ASCS (Agricultural Stabilization & Conservation Service)
- APFO archive: >23,000 rolls
- 1:20,000 nominal scale
- Forest Service
- APFO archive: >19,000 rolls
- SCS (Soil Conservation Service; now NRCS) film
- APFO Archive: >2,000 rolls

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**Notes:**
ASCS is precursor to FSA.

## Slide 12

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Beginnings of Geospatial Data at the APFO (cont)

- Photo index maps
- Used for research
- Photo mosaic of entire county
- APFO archive: >65,000 indexes

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Slide 14

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**Notes:**
Photo index map of Gwinnett GA.  These are currently being scanned and georeferenced.

## Beginnings of Geospatial Data at the APFO (cont)

- Rectified Film Enlargements
- 24” x 24”
- Technicians drew field boundaries on photo enlargements
- Predecessor to CLU (Common Land Units)
- Area measured with a planimeter

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Slide 16

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Beginnings of Geospatial Data at the APFO (cont)

- NHAP (National High Altitude Photography Program)
- Ran from 1980-1989
- USGS coordinated interagency program
- 48 states, 5 year cycle
- Coverage varied due to budget
- CIR 1:58,000, BW 1:80,000
- 40,000 feet flying altitude
- 2m spatial resolution
- APFO archive: >1500 rolls of film

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Slide 18

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**Notes:**
NHAP from 1982

## Beginnings of Geospatial Data at the APFO (cont)

- Spot Indexes
- Began with NHAP
- Created through late 1980s
- Shows center point of each image
- APFO archive: >5,000 spot indexes
- Line Indexes
- Forest service acquisitions
- Shows center point of each image
- APFO archive: >10,000 spot indexes

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Slide 20

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Geospatial Data Migration to the Present

- NAPP (National Aerial Photography Program)
- 1987-2003 (replaced NHAP)
- USGS coordinated interagency program
- 48 states & Hawaii, 5-7 year cycle
- Coverage varied due to budget
- 1:40,000 scale
- 20,000 feet flying altitude above mean terrain elevation
- 1 meter spatial resolution
- APFO archive: > 5,000 rolls of film

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Slide 22

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Geospatial Data Migration to the Present (cont)

- Digital Line Indexes
- Shows center point of each image
- Created at APFO using AutoCAD
- Late 1980’s-2003 (coincided with NAPP cycles)
- APFO archive: > 2,000 indexes

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Geospatial Data Migration to the Present (cont)

- Hardcopy to Digital
- MDOQ (mosaicked digital ortho quarter quad) creation
- Process ran from 1997-2004
- Seamed and color balanced
- 16 DOQQs (digital ortho quarter quad) to create 1 MDOQ
- 4 primary + 12 surrounding
- Used as base layer in GIS
- ~6 terabytes of MDOQ data hosted at APFO
- CCM (compressed county mosaic) created from these MDOQs

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**Notes:**
Created using socet set

## Slide 25

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Geospatial Data in the Present

- CLU (Common Land Units)
- CLU replaced hand drawn field boundaries on photo enlargements
- Digitized on MDOQs
- Fully attributed with service center data
- ~500 gigabytes of CLU data hosted at APFO

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Slide 27

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**Notes:**
Manhattan, KS/Riley County CLU

## Geospatial Data in the Present (cont)

- NAIP (National Agriculture Imagery Program)
- 2002-present
- Began as a pilot program
- Response to needs for more current imagery to support USDA programs
- ~50 terabytes of NAIP data housed at APFO

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Future of Geospatial Data at the APFO

- Continued hosting and support of NAIP
- Continued hosting and support of CLU data
- CLU replication efforts
- Checking for geometric errors
- Checking for farm records database errors
- Generate error reports for counties and states

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**Notes:**
CLU replication involves checking clu for geometric errors and checking that CLU IDs match farm program record IDs in KCMO

## Future of Geospatial Data at the APFO (cont)

- LIDAR & IFSAR data

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**Notes:**
Ideal for areas where aerial imagery is difficult to obtain.

## Future of Geospatial Data at the APFO (cont)

- Custom applications using geospatial data to support FSA
- Natural disaster recovery
- Land use change
- CLU acreage change over time

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Future of Geospatial Data at the APFO (cont)

- Archival scanning
- Line, spot, & photo indexes
- Georeferencing
- Creation of enhanced shapefile & metadata
- Film vault
- “Mammoth” project
- Dependant upon funding and resources

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Future of Geospatial Data at the APFO (cont)

- APFO’s mission will continue to support geospatial data efforts
- Contract for, develop, and carry out the imagery and remote sensing programs within the FSA

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP)

- John Mootz, Contracting Officer
- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Topics

- What is NAIP
- Program History
- Current Program
- Improvements/Ongoing Pilots
- Future

- What is NAIP
- Program History
- Current Program
- Improvements/Ongoing Pilots
- Future

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## What is NAIP?

- Annual coast-to-coast program
- Quarter-quad based orthos
- 1m and 2m resolution
- 5-year cycle for 1m base replacement
- Leaf-on, peak-growth
- Very rapid, aggressive collection

**ALL IMAGERY PLACED IN PUBLIC DOMAIN**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Contract Deliverables

- Full-resolution DOQQ tiles
- GeoTIFF
- NAD83, UTM
- Compressed County Mosaics (CCM)
- MrSID compression (moving to JPEG2k)
- Radiometric balanced
- Projected in predominant UTM

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Acquisition Requirements

- 10% clouds or less
- Free of standing water
- Minimum 30° sun angle
- Minimize specular reflections
- Especially in agriculture areas

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## DOQQ Requirements

- Most current version of NED
- 300m (±30) buffer
- No non-imagery (borders, fiducal)
- May mosaic imagery
- Radiometric balance within tile
- ±3 pixel offset requirement
- Horizontal Accuracy
- Relative: ±5m on 90% well-defined pts

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## DOQQ Requirements (con’t)

- _Prefer_ not to “radiometrically balance”
- Minimize color data lost
- New “histogram” requirements
- 1 pixel limit on band-to-band misregistration
- List of acceptable blemishes
- Band order: RGB, NRG, or RGBN

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Topics

- What is NAIP
- Program History
- Improvements/Ongoing Pilots
- Future

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## 2002 Pilot Program

- Pilot compared 35mm to imagery from mapping cameras
- 1m – ortho
- 2m - geo-rectified

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

**2006**

**2004**

**2003**

**2005**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Topics

- What is NAIP
- Program History
- Improvements/Ongoing Pilots
- Future

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Improvements/Ongoing Pilots

- Radiometric improvements
- Absolute horizontal accuracy
- Seamline shapefile
- 4-band imagery
- Requires new compression

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Radiometric Improvements

- Problem: Quality was not consistent

**Actual NAIP imagery (2004-2006)**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Radiometric Improvements (con’t)

- Solution: Develop new radiometric specifications
- ITT Space Systems contracted
- Conducted user sensitivity study
- “Best Practices” document
- Implemented 4 histogram specs
- Require “pre-production” sample from contractor

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Radiometric Improvements (con’t)

- Clipping: <2% (<1% preferred)
- Contrast:
- 	   140 – 160
- 	    (150 goal)
- Histogram Peak: ±15% of middle (108-148 for 8-bit)
- Color: RGB triplet within ±5

**There is no perfect histogram but these specifications are a good start**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Radiometric Improvements (con’t)

- Clipping – 0%
- Contrast – 131
- Histogram Peak – 80
- Color Balance (RGB) –  147,128,105

**Original 2006**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Radiometric Improvements (con’t)

- Clipping – 0.02%
- Contrast – 151
- Histogram Peak – 147
- Color Balance (RGB) –  192,194,191

**Adjusted 2006**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Absolute Horizontal Accuracy

- Large investment in CLUs required relative accuracy
- Tied to the original 1990s “MDOQ”

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Absolute Horizontal Accuracy (con’t)

- Need for absolute identified
- Partners were requesting change
- Dataset accuracy is better described (valuable)
- Pilots were conducted in 2006 (UT) and 2007 (AZ)
- AZ: 2.87m RMSE (530 check points)
- Future states will be phased in
- Once converted, state will not revert
- 7 new states are planned for 2008

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Absolute Horizontal Accuracy (con’t)

- Working with other federal and state agencies to create a photo identifiable control database for QA check points
- Should this become a “national” database available to others?

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Seamline Shapefile

- FSA Users require a CCM shapefile
- Shows area of mosaic coverage
- QQ based, rectangular polygon
- Attributed with image acquisition date
- Not an issue with 1:40,000 film
- Direct digital acquisition requires mosaicking of several images
- Attribute is single field (majority date)

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Seamline Shapefile (con’t)

- Successful pilot was conducted in 2007 (Arizona) using ADS-40
- Will expand seamline shapefile requirements in 2008
- Test different digital camera footprints
- Resolve “unknowns” before proceeding to all states

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Seamline Shapefile (con’t)

**Standard rectangular polygon shapefile**

**2007 NAIP (TN)**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## 4-band Imagery

- Natural color is default
- FSA state office or partner could request false color IR
- 2003 - MO; 2004 - IL,PA,TX;         2005 - MI; 2006 - TX
- Conducted 4-band pilot in AZ during 2007
- ADS-40 with new head (SH-52)

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## 4-band Imagery (con’t)

**2007 NAIP (AZ)**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## 4-band Imagery (con’t)

**2007 NAIP (AZ)**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## 4-band Imagery (con’t)

- LizardTechTM MrSID compression does not support 4-band imagery
- CCMs in the 2007 pilot were delivered as NC 3-band
- 2008+ all 4-band CCMs will be compressed using JPEG2000
- RFI was released Nov 07 asking for end user/industry input on settings
- Settings were published in 2008 RFP

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Topics

- What is NAIP
- Program History
- Improvements/Ongoing Pilots
- Future

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Future

- 2m coverage has been dropped
- 5-year cycle may become shorter
- Proposed new coverage rules being review at FSA headquarters
- Limited to CLUs areas only (2009) – i.e. no more border-to-border coverage
- Unless cost-share partner is identified

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Partnership Opportunities

- Add DOQQ coverage to FSA req’ts
- Areas must be contiguous and/or substantial size
- Add 4th band
- Out-of-cycle years

**Other products can be contracted directly with the NAIP contractor**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## NAIP Points of Contact

**Programmatic**
**	****Kent Williams – Program Coordinator**
**801-844-2908****	****kent.williams@slc.usda.gov**
**Contract Information**
**	****John Mootz – Contracting Officer**
**801-844-2916****	****john.mootz@slc.usda.gov**
**Technical**
**	****Brian Vanderbilt –Service Center Support Branch Chief**
**801-844-2930****	****brian.vanderbilt@slc.usda.gov**
**Partnership Information **
**	****Cindy Sessions – Partnership Coordinator**
**801-844-2909****	****cindy.sessions@slc.usda.gov**
**Quality Issues/Problems**
**	****Brenda Simpson – Quality Assurance Branch Chief**
**801-844-2960****	****brenda.l.simpson@slc.usda.gov**

**NEW PHONE NUMBERS**

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Backup charts

- _[Data Sources](slide67.xml)_
- _[CLU information](slide68.xml)_
- _[2008 NAIP ](slide69.xml)__[Acq](slide69.xml)__[ Periods](slide69.xml)_
- _[2008 NAIP Coverage](slide70.xml)_
- _[NAIP Acquisition Rate](slide71.xml)_
- _[Digital ](slide72.xml)__[vs](slide72.xml)__[ Film Totals](slide72.xml)_
- _[Direct Digital Capture](slide73.xml)_

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Data Sources

- USDA/Farm Service Agency/APFO
- _[http://www.apfo.usda.gov](http://www.apfo.usda.gov/)_
- USDA Geospatial Data Gateway
- _[http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/](http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/)_
- APFO Geodata Warehouse (ArcIMS)
- _[gdw.apfo.usda.gov](http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/apfoapp?area=home&subject=maps&topic=gdw)_
- Contains imagery (MDOQs & NAIP organized by UTM zone) and vector data sets
- APFO Sales Section
- (801) 844-2922 _[apfo.sales@slc.usda.gov](mailto:apfo.sales@slc.usda.gov)_
- David Parry, sales section supervisor (801)844-2923 david.parry@slc.usda.gov

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## CLU information

- CLU data for release to the general public includes the following attribute data:
-  Shape & Calculated Acres
- Because sensitive information is contained in the full CLU attribute data, it is not releasable to the general public or most other government agencies.
- New FOIA regulations may change data that can be released with CLU

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## NAIP Acquisition Rate

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Digital vs Film Totals

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008

## Direct Digital Capture

- 2008 Civil Commercial Imagery Evaluation Workshop

- 3/26/2008