Aerial survey specialist Bluesky is developing a new service to map Britain’s cities and towns at night. Captured using specially developed aerial survey equipment Bluesky’s Nightsky photomaps will accurately record the location street lights, illuminated road signs and other night-time sources of light. The light emission maps will also provide an accurate base for asset inventories, light pollution assessment and energy optimisation for electricity plants.

Using specially developed technology to capture night orthophotos for the first time, Bluesky’s map accurate images can be used directly in a desktop mapping tool or geographical information system (GIS). Providing additional intelligence for Local Authorities and other organisations that are responsible for lighting infrastructure Nightsky maps can be used as an aid for street lighting inventories and condition assessments and to assist with the identification of units for routine maintenance or fault repair.

Additional applications of the night-time survey images are expected to include measurement of illumination for energy consumption evaluations and additional intelligence to support innovative projects to ‘dim’ or even switch off selected streetlights in an effort to save money and reduce carbon emissions. Using advanced spatial queries and mapping techniques Bluesky Nightsky maps can also be used to provide an assessment of light pollution helping to reduce unnecessary illumination and focus lighting infrastructure where it is needed most.

“We believe this is a really valuable addition to our product portfolio,” commented Rachel Tidmarsh, Managing Director of Bluesky. “The natural and built environments are well documented with many types of remotely sensed data available including detailed aerial photography, height models and colour infrared. By capturing night orthophotos we can discover more about how we illuminate our cities and towns and, hopefully, help reduce energy consumption and improve the effectiveness of urban lighting projects.”

Bluesky already has considerable experience and expertise in the capture and creation of off the shelf night-time aerial imagery as they are the UK’s leading provider of thermal photomaps to Local Authorities and partner organisations. Bluesky’s thermal survey service measures building roof heat loss levels across an entire city in just one evening together with a bespoke thermal mapping service creating intelligent energy consumption and fuel poverty maps to support energy strategies and local campaigns.

Aerial survey specialist Bluesky has reported its most successful year yet following a record-breaking aerial photography season. Bluesky’s aerial surveying contributed toward a total area of 32,000 sqkm that was captured for GeoPerspectives – the country’s most up-to-date digital aerial photomap – covering Britain’s cities and countryside stretching from Glasgow to the Scilly Isles. Bluesky employed the latest imaging technology that enables the creation of 3D computer-generated fly-through maps and infrared maps that reveal the type of vegetation on the ground. The imagery is now available and can be viewed at www.bluesky-world.com

During the 2009 Bluesky’s aircraft were able to capture several cities including Manchester, Glasgow and Leeds as well as counties such as Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Yorkshire and Bedfordshire. “After successive years of dull summers we made the most many clear blue skies in 2009 and we broke all recent records for aerial surveying” commented James Eddy, Technical Director of Bluesky. “Aerial photography and derived map products continue to play an increasingly important part in the management of the natural environment and economic development and the creation of 3D cityscape models is the future of mapping”.

Bluesky use the latest digital imaging technology to capture aerial photography at ultra high resolution. All the areas flown to date will be produced in either 10cm, 12.5cm or 25cm resolution. The digital, map accurate datasets will be used to update the GeoPerspectives national archive of orthorectified aerial photography.

The aerial datasets are soon to be made available online at www.bluesky-world.com where visitors to the site can search, view and download digital image files. The Bluesky imagery is being used to produce digital terrain and surface models (DTM/DSM) for 3D modelling and complemented with colour infrared imagery (CIR), simultaneously captured, for vegetation analysis.

Aerial mapping company Bluesky is helping to fund an exciting environmental project in Peterborough, promoting sustainable lifestyles and raising awareness of environmental issues through practical demonstration and community involvement. The Green Backyard project is set to benefit from the donation following a thermal aerial survey completed by Bluesky on behalf of Peterborough City Council. As active supporters of The Green Backyard the city council approached Bluesky to see how they could compensate for the greenhouse gases emitted as a result of the survey and Bluesky were happy to make the donation to the local community growing project.

Bluesky conducted the cutting edge thermal survey in April of this year capturing property level heat loss imagery for the city of Peterborough and its urban suburbs. The council will use the digital image map in its geographical information system (GIS), in conjunction with Ordnance Survey mapping and the council’s centralised address database (the Local Land and Property Gazetteer / LLPG), to help identify communities to target with awareness campaigns promoting energy efficiency measures. The data will also play an important role on the newly revamped council website where local residents can simply enter their postcode and house number to get a personalised ‘score’ for their property together with advice on improvements in insulation, energy efficiency and reducing consumption.

“As a city Peterborough is very proactive when it comes to environmental issues. In fact we are campaigning to become the UK’s Environment Capital,” commented Jenna Hiley, climate change officer at Peterborough City Council. “Even though it was important for us to map heat loss across the city we were conscious of the emissions generated by the survey aircraft and we wanted to do something meaningful for the local community.”

“The generous donation made by Bluesky, more than twice the recommended amount per tonne of CO2, will be used by The Green Back Yard project to fund some mature fruit bushes for the site on London Road,” continued Hiley.

Rachel Tidmarsh, Managing Director of Bluesky commented “Thermal imagery is an important tool helping councils identify households, businesses and even public sector buildings that could benefit from advice, grants or support to reduce energy waste and consumption. Although we already contribute to a carbon offsetting programme we were happy to support this project which is helping change the urban environment in Peterborough.”

Bluesky offer an end to end thermal data solution, including a cost effective airborne survey service measuring building roof heat loss levels across an entire city in just one evening plus a bespoke thermal mapping service creating intelligent energy consumption and fuel poverty maps to support energy strategies and local campaigns. Bluesky are also able to provide an easy to use software package, HELIOS, which helps councils analyse complex data from multiple sources and share results with colleagues, partner organisations and members of the public.

Coalville, Leicestershire, UK, November 2009 – Dorset’s A35 and C6 roads form a crucial link down to the county’s south coast. With a view of improving this link and therefore relieving seasonal congestion on over-capacity neighbouring routes, Dorset County Council has commissioned multidisciplinary engineering consultancy Buro Happold to prepare a feasibility study into bypass options for the village of Bere Regis.

In order to accurately understand the levels and features of the local terrain, the consultancy has used UK specialist Bluesky’s 3D map system which creates digital maps captured by aircraft mounted lasers. Bluesky have also supplied high resolution aerial photography that has been used to create 3D fly-throughs and visualisations of the resulting designs. 

Using 12d Model, a powerful terrain modelling and civil engineering software package, Buro Happold has expanded on an earlier feasibility study and prepared three options for the bypass. The detailed terrain model has allowed the designers to minimise any impact on the environment, particularly the associated costs of cut and fill operations.

“The size of the study area meant a traditional topographic survey was simply not feasible due to cost implications,” commented Neil Harvey, Senior Engineer in Buro Happold’s Highways and Infrastructure division. “However for the same price as a relatively small ground survey we were able to acquire very accurate terrain measurements and high resolution aerial photography of the entire study area. These have proved instrumental in progressing the feasibility study and preparing designs for each of the three options. The aerial photography will also be fundamental in communicating these designs during a future public consultation period as they provide real world detail to our computer generated models.”   

In order to capture the highly accurate LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data a survey aircraft equipped with a system of lasers was used. Lasers were beamed to the surface and the time taken for the beam to be bounced back to aircraft-mounted receivers was recorded. Using the known position of the aircraft (derived from on-board satellite positioning equipment), the time taken for the return of the laser beam and the known value of the speed of light; the distance between the aircraft and ground is calculated. Additional readings can also be taken to determine the height of buildings, vegetation and other surface structures.

The Bluesky LiDAR data forms part of a detailed 3D terrain map, which is available online, that covers most of England and Wales including all major urban centres, coastal areas and flood plains. Aerial photography for the whole of England, Wales and parts of Scotland is also available to view and purchase online.

Website: www.bluesky-world.com

Editorial enquiries, contact Robert Peel on +44 (0)1666 823306 

All reader enquiries to Bluesky sales on +44 (0)1530 518 518

Editor’s Notes:

Bluesky is a UK-based specialist in aerial imaging and remote sensing data collection and processing.  An internationally recognised leader with projects extending around the globe, Bluesky is proud to work with prestigious organisations such as Google, the BBC and Government Agencies. Bluesky has unrivalled expertise in the creation of seamless, digital aerial photography, 3D landscape/cityscape visualisations and prints and also runs a national mapping centre, providing digital mapping, satellite imagery and aerial photography including ultra-high resolution imagery of cities and towns.

www.bluesky-world.com

Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976. It offers civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, management consultancy, health and safety management, infrastructure and traffic engineering, ground engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, computational fluid dynamics analysis, inclusive design consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services

www.BuroHappold.com

Leicestershire, UK, 02 November 2009 – James Eddy, Technical Director of aerial survey company Bluesky, has been appointed Chairman of a steering group providing advice and guidance to G-STEP a University of Leicester service designed to maximise the use of satellite imagery by businesses.

G-STEP (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) – Space Technology Exchange Partnership) will build on the work of the flagship, multi billion euro European Commission / European Space Agency programme GMES. The role of G-STEP is to work in partnership with businesses to support them in the pioneering use and development of Earth Observation data projects.

“With the establishment of G-STEP some of the biggest barriers to the wider use of satellite data in the UK have been addressed. Namely knowledge, ease of access and relevance to business operation,” commented Adam Edwards, G-STEP Business Manager. “Earth Observation technology is currently under exploited yet has the potential to revolutionise business in a similar manner to the information technology expansion.”

“Bluesky are expected to be one of the pioneering businesses highlighting the potential of Earth Observation data and technologies and James is providing valuable insights as to how G-STEP needs to position itself to develop the market,” continued Edwards.

“This appointment is a real honour,” added James Eddy. “Earth Observation data is not just about expensive satellites orbiting the earth it also covers data from aircraft and ground observations too. With more than 20 years experience developing and maximising the use of remotely sensed data I hope that I can help other businesses derive value and benefit from its exploitation.”

G-STEP draws on the substantial expertise and knowledge base established within the University of Leicester’s wide-ranging scientific programme in Earth Observation (EO) which already has strong connections to GMES. It will also draw strategic partners, such as Bluesky, into the knowledge-exchange hub to provide immediate access to a broad range of applications for non-EO and EO specialist companies.

G-STEP can broker existing solutions through its extensive knowledge of the EO data, information and commercial industry contacts. It can provide partnership, as appropriate, to develop new EO solutions for customer needs. It can also set up collaborative projects with some seed funding for new developments for downstream products and services or innovative new applications. G-STEP is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through EMDA (East Midlands Development Agency), the Leicester Shire Economic Partnership (LSEP) and the University of Leicester.

Website: www.bluesky-world.com

 Telephone: +44 (0)1530 518 518

Notes to Editor:

Bluesky

Bluesky is a UK-based specialist in aerial imaging and remote sensing data collection and processing.  An internationally recognised leader with projects extending around the globe, Bluesky is proud to work with prestigious organisations such as Google, the BBC and Government Agencies.

Bluesky has unrivalled expertise in the creation of seamless, digital aerial photography, 3D landscape/cityscape visualisations and prints and also runs a national mapping centre, providing digital mapping, satellite imagery and aerial photography including ultra-high resolution imagery of cities and towns.

www.bluesky-world.com

G-STEP (GMES Space and Technology Exchange Partnership) is a University of Leicester-based knowledge-exchange hub to support and accelerate business and policy exploitation of Earth Observation (EO) data and information services. G-STEP will innovate, partner and broker the developments of new EO applications for its client base.

G-STEP is a business-facing service platform established in 2009 to support business and public sector organisations in the use of state-of-the-art Earth Observation information technology. The exploitation of this technology is expected to have a major impact on business operations and competitiveness.

G-STEP seeks to connect with businesses and organisations to support them in pioneering GMES product development (sourcing business) and in utilising GMES services in commercial and business applications (supporting business). This project is the first GMES accelerator initiative in the UK.

www2.le.ac.uk/projects/g-step

Bluesky’s aerial survey aircraft made the most of the blue skies over the UK to capture 12,000 sqkm of high resolution imagery of Britain’s cities and countryside. Bluesky’s ambitious flying programme includes a five-year update programme for the GeoPerspectives national archive as well as ultra high resolution surveys of cities across the country.

Urban areas captured during May and June include Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Burnley, Blackburn and Milton Keynes together with county coverage of Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, most of Surrey and the remaining areas of South and West Yorkshire.

“2008 and 2007 were both poor years for the UK aerial survey market with many companies struggling to get survey planes off the ground let alone capture significant amounts of data,” commented James Eddy, Operations Director at Bluesky. “We have flying contractors strategically located to cover the country, scrutinising weather conditions and forecasts, in order to make the most of any opportunity to fly. However we will not compromise on quality and we will only produce data from images flown during optimum conditions once it has passed our rigorous quality assurance process.”     

Bluesky use the latest digital imaging technology to capture aerial photography at ultra high resolution. All the areas flown to date will be produced as 10cm or 12.5cm resolution, digital, map accurate datasets and will be used to update the GeoPerspectives (a joint venture between Bluesky and Infoterra) national archive of orthorectified aerial photography.

The aerial datasets will, in due course be available online at http://www.bluesky-world.com where visitors to the site can search, view and download digital image files. The Bluesky imagery will also be used to produce digital terrain and surface models (DTM/DSM) for 3D modelling and complemented with colour infrared imagery (CIR), simultaneously captured, for vegetation analysis.

Bluesky is a UK-based specialist in aerial imaging and remote sensing data collection and processing.  An internationally recognised leader with projects extending around the globe, Bluesky is proud to work with prestigious organisations such as Google, the BBC and Government Agencies.

Bluesky has unrivalled expertise in the creation of seamless digital aerial photography, 3D landscape/cityscape visualisations and prints and also runs a national mapping centre, providing digital mapping, satellite imagery and aerial photography including ultra-high resolution imagery of cities and towns.

Website: www.bluesky-world.com

Editorial enquiries, contact Robert Peel on tel. +44 (0)1666 823306

Colour separation requests – please fax only to +44 (0)1666 824 668

All reader enquiries to Bluesky sales on +44 (0)1530 518 518

Notes to editors:

Bluesky is a UK-based specialist in aerial imaging and remote sensing data collection and processing.  An internationally recognised leader with projects extending around the globe, Bluesky works with prestigious organisations such as Google, the BBC and Government Agencies.

Bluesky has unrivalled expertise in the creation of seamless digital aerial photography, 3D landscape/cityscape visualisations and prints and also runs a national mapping centre, providing digital mapping, satellite imagery and aerial photography including ultra-high resolution imagery of cities and towns

Aerial photography specialist Bluesky has acquired the UK’s largest collection of commercial aerial survey photographs and will be making it available online. Following an agreement between Bluesky and Blom Aerofilms, photographs dating from the 1950s, held on about 7,000 original films, will be available to purchase from www.oldaerialphotos.com.

Many of the images have not previously been available to purchase online. These were captured by some of the most prestigious names in the UK aerial survey industry, including Fairey, Huntings, Simmons, Clyde and Engineering Surveys – all part of Blom Aerofilms’s UK heritage. The agreement also covers the housing and management of the original films at Bluesky’s dedicated film archive facility.

Visitors to http://www.oldaerialphotos.com can already search through nearly a million aerial photos dating back to the early part of the last century by simply entering a postcode, address or grid reference. Detailed search results, including the age and ground coverage of every photo that matches the search criteria are displayed and the visitor can choose to purchase either a hard copy print or digital image file.

The enormous task of processing the films and transferring information about the imagery to the online search engine will take place at Bluesky’s image processing facility in Coalville, Leicestershire.  This is likely to take quite some time.

For Blom Aerofilms, these images represent a 90-year history of the company as one of Europe’s leading specialists in aerial imagery, plotting work undertaken over many years for local authorities, public bodies and commercial organisations across the UK and beyond.  “It’s a unique and specialist collection, and we hope that many people with both a commercial and personal interest will find it as valuable and informative as we have,” commented Gavin Lewis, Sales and Marketing Director at Blom Aerofilms.

“Anyone with an interest in the UK aerial survey will have heard of the above companies and will be excited by the fact that the photos, for the first time ever, will now be available online,” commented David Drabble, Archive Manager at Bluesky. “For those less familiar with the industry it is probably more significant that these historically important photos are being added to what is already the UK’s largest online collection of aerial photography, making oldaerialphotos.com a one stop shop for anyone with a personal or professional interest in the past.”

Photos that are already available to purchase from oldaerialphotos.com include some of the earliest commercial aerial survey images and military photography from World War II and many national archives, including oblique aerial photographs. Offering a record of most major UK cities and towns, transport and utility infrastructure and commercial property developments, oldaerialphotos.com is an invaluable resource for anyone with a personal or professional interest in boundary disputes, local studies, genealogy, environmental land use research or town planning.

Website: www.bluesky-world.com

Editorial enquiries, contact Robert Peel on tel. +44 (0)1666 823306

Colour separation requests – please fax only to +44 (0)1666 824 668

All reader enquiries to Bluesky sales on +44 (0)1530 518 518

About Bluesky

Bluesky is a UK-based specialist in aerial imaging and remote sensing data collection and processing.  An internationally recognised leader with projects extending around the globe, Bluesky is proud to work with prestigious organisations such as Google, the BBC and Government Agencies. Bluesky has unrivalled expertise in the creation of seamless, digital aerial photography, 3D landscape/cityscape visualisations and prints and also runs a national mapping centre, providing digital mapping, satellite imagery and aerial photography including ultra-high resolution imagery of cities and towns.

www.bluesky-world.com

About Blom Aerofilms

BLOM Aerofilms Ltd is part of the BLOM group, Europe’s leading provider of aerial photography and digital mapping solutions for civil engineering design, environmental assessment and land information management. Blom employs more than 1,100 staff in twelve offices and production units across Europe. The company provides a complete range of mapping services including aerial photography, GIS base mapping, orthophoto production, geo-spatial solutions and airborne laser-scanning. Recent developments include BlomUrbex, an off-the-shelf library of high resolution oblique imagery integrated with a powerful measuring tool. 

www.blomaerofilms.com

Aerial survey company Bluesky has created three historically important aerial photomaps for the newly formed local councils in Cheshire. Using original films dating back to the early eighties, Bluesky has scanned, georeferenced and mosaiced nearly three thousand individual photographs to create the three high resolution, digital aerial datasets for use within the Councils’ geographical information system (GIS) and possible future use via the respective councils’ websites.

“When planning for the present and the future any authority needs to consider and understand the value of the past, especially the last ten to twenty years, and the value of temporal information held within historic datasets such as aerial photographs,” commented David Matthews, GIS Officer of Cheshire Shared Services. “Like many authorities we held older county wide aerial surveys in hard copy format stored in filing cabinets. Although consulted by a few specialist staff the real potential of the imagery could only be tapped if the images were converted to a digital format.”

The newly created digital datasets are being made available across the two Councils, Cheshire – West & Chester Council and Cheshire East Council – giving staff access to five different epochs of aerial imagery spanning more than sixty years.

Applications of the aerial photographic maps will include archaeological assessments of potential development sites and research by highways to investigate changes in the line and width of the highway to determine, for example, the extent of the highway that is maintainable at the public expense. It is hoped the imagery will also be put to use in public rights of way, land regeneration, enforcement, planning, contaminated land, change detection and legal applications.

The images will also be made available for purchase by members of the public, either directly from the Councils or from Bluesky’s online map shop (www.oldaerialphotos.com), for use in boundary disputes, planning applications and local area studies.

Aerial survey specialist Bluesky is making a valuable contribution to the life-saving work of the Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland Air Ambulance. In lieu of the more traditional festive activity of sending Christmas cards and gifts Bluesky has made a donation to the local charity, contributing to the £1.5 million per year needed to run the service. The Bluesky donation will help Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland Air Ambulance (DLRAA) continue to respond to emergency calls, carrying medical staff who provide on the scene treatment before patients are transported to the most appropriate hospital.

“We rely solely on voluntary donations from local companies, organisations and the community we serve,” commented Barbara Parish, Regional Fundraising Manager. “Every donation, no matter how small, really makes a difference and we would encourage other companies to follow Bluesky’s example and help us save lives this Christmas.”

The DLRAA is a new air ambulance service that took over from County Air Ambulance on 1 April 2008. Based at East Midlands Airport the DLRAA’s primary response area is 2,100 square miles of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland, serving in excess of 1.4 million people. With the M1 dissecting the regions traffic, accidents are common and the Air Ambulance provides an essential service responding to any incident, regardless of cost, where land ambulances are unable to access the scene or where transfer by land ambulance would be too slow or create more injury to the patient.

“We decided to support the DLRAA as they are a local organisation providing a life saving service,” said Rachel Tidmarsh, Managing Director of Bluesky. “From their base at East Midlands Airport, the DLRAA takes just six minutes to reach the Leicester Royal Infirmary, under five minutes to get the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and Glenfield Hospital and just three minutes to Queens Hospital in Nottingham. Receiving rapid and appropriate medical treatment is paramount with significantly increased chances of survival if specialist trauma treatment is received within sixty minutes after an accident.”

Bluesky is a UK-based specialist in aerial imaging and remote sensing data collection and processing.  An internationally recognised leader with projects extending around the globe Bluesky is proud to work with prestigious organisations such as Google, the BBC and Government Agencies.  Bluesky has unrivalled expertise in the creation of seamless, digital aerial photography, 3D landscape/cityscape visualisations and prints and also runs a national mapping centre, providing digital mapping, satellite imagery and aerial photography including ultra-high resolution imagery of cities and towns.

Remote sensing and aerial survey specialist Bluesky has been awarded another project by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to create a digital archive of scientific images from the organisation’s Airborne Research and Survey Facility.

Bluesky will scan the new photographic images taken by NERC’s airborne survey unit, using state of the art hardware and software. The images will then be individually referenced for wider use by the Council, government, academia, other research agencies and commercial organisations. Bluesky has previously completed a contract on behalf NERC to scan more than 43,000 aerial images dating back more than 25 years.

The Bluesky team of experienced and dedicated personnel will scan the images, captured by the Airborne Research and Survey Facility (ARSF) during 2007 in a variety of locations throughout mainland Europe, Iceland, Greenland and the UK, using two high-end scanning machines, (Vexcel Ultrascan 5000 Photogrammetric Flatbed Scanners). Metadata (data about data) such as Project Name, Location, Film and Frame Number and the date, time and GPS position of the camera, will then be added to each digital file before the images are transferred to the NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC) archive at the CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot.

“The images were collected for historical comparison with existing photographic records providing a valuable record of landscape and land use change,” said David Davies, Co-Pilot and Systems Engineer at the ARSF of NERC. “We can only undertake this analysis by comparing like with like and as Bluesky created our ‘master’ archive it was only natural to award them the contract for conversion and reference of this years images.”

Davies continued, “In addition the digital files will be used to assist in the production of highly detailed 3D height models (DEMs) and as the images cover a variety of terrains including forest, heathland, wetland and glaciers as well as industrial and urban centres, they will provide a valuable resource for additional fieldwork and investigations.”

The original project was commissioned by NEODC as part of their role in supporting the Council’s earth observation community in locating, accessing, interpreting and exploiting Earth Observation data and ensuring the long term integrity of Earth Observation datasets produced and acquired by NERC projects and programmes.  The aerial photo dataset is now one of the most used within NERC.

Bluesky is a UK based company specialising in aerial imaging, photography and remote sensing data collection and processing. With projects extending across the globe it has an international reputation for the creation of seamless digital aerial photography and 3d landscape and cityscape visualisations. Bluesky’s national mapping centre provides digital maps, site maps, satellite imagery, aerial photography and ultra-high resolution imagery of cities and towns.