Title: USDA-FSA-APFO NAIP County Mosaic

Originator: USDA-FSA-APFO NAIP

Abstract:

NAIP mosaics are county mosaics of aerial photography produced for the National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP). The NAIP program is administered by USDA FSA and has been established to support FSA strategic goals centered on agricultural production, stewardship of America's natural resources while enhancing the environment, and ensuring commodities are procured and distributed effectively and efficiently to increase food security. The NAIP program supports these goals by acquiring and providing ortho imagery that has been collected during the agricultural growing season in the U.S. The NAIP ortho imagery is tailored to meet FSA requirements and is a fundamental tool used to support FSA farm and conservation programs.

As a result of new technology and innovation the contract specifications for NAIP imagery have changed over time reflecting agency requirements and improving technologies. These changes include image resolution, horizontal accuracy, coverage area, and number of bands. In general, flying seasons are established by FSA and are targeted for peak crop growing conditions.

NAIP horizontal accuracy specifications - From 2003 to 2004 the specifications were as follows: 1-meter Ground Sample Distance (GSD) imagery was to match within 3-meters, and 2-meter GSD to match within 20 meters of reference imagery. For 2005 the 1-meter GSD specification was changed to 5 meters matching to reference imagery. In 2006, all states used the same specifications as 2005 except for Utah, which required a match of +/- 6 meters to true ground. In 2007, all specifications were the same as 2006, except for Arizona, which used true ground specifications. In 2008 approximately half of the states acquired used true ground specifications and the other half used reference imagery. The 2008 states that used absolute ground control where; Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia. From 2009 to present all NAIP imagery acquisitions used the +/- 6 meters to ground specification.

NAIP utilized film cameras until 2010, when four band acquisition became standard. From 2003 – 2009 NAIP was acquired with both film and digital cameras. NAIP photographs acquired with a film camera have a nominal scale of 1:40,000. Most digital NAIP acquisition has four band, utilizing two main types of digital cameras – DMC (Intergraph) and ADS (Leica). See the APFO website for more details.

Color balancing is applied to the Compressed County Mosaics(CCM). Color balancing adjusts the intensity of colors within each image to match adjacent images. Non color-balanced quarter quad images are available from APFO. NAIP is orthorectified using the National Elevation Dataset (NED). Orthorectification corrects the scale of the image, using a 3D model of the earth.

The green status map on the gateway status maps page shows what is currently available. The status maps below are static and show what was contracted for the year. Contractors have until December 31 to complete the planned coverage. No states or areas will ever be added once the year is complete.

For specific information on which states and years are available and their parameters (1 meter, 2 meter, 3 band, 4 band, film, digital) please reference the APFO Status Map Page.

For a 'interactive' .pdf of NAIP coverage maps for all years where you can mouse over a state and see which years are available along with resolution, film type and format, please click here.

For coverage of the current year, please click here. After imagery is inspected it becomes available. Compare the 'Inspection Status' map to the 'Availablity Map' to see if an area of interest will be available soon.

Format Raster- MrSID compression, with mosaic option, was used on NAIP quarter quadrangles.
For 2003 and 2004, default values for the compression ratio are (20:1) and compression levels (10) are used.
8-bit pixels represent brightness values 0 - 255
For 2005, the compression is (15:1) and MrSID Generation 3 raster files are used. ArcGIS 9.0 and 9.1 have built in support for MrSID generation 3. For ArcGIS 8.3, MrSID generation 3 requires ArcGIS Desktop 8.3 Raster Update download and install.
For 2008, the images are either MrSid(.sid) or JPEG2000(.jp2). JPEG2000 images are of type '_m' meaning multi-spectral 4-band.
For 2009, the images are either MrSid(.sid) or JPEG2000(.jp2). JPEG2000 compressed mosaics for 2009 are all 3-band Natural Color.

Spatial Reference Information: Universal Transverse Mercator, North American Datum of 1983

Sample map