
Cambridge University Launches Archive of Aerial Photos Going Back to 1945 - sohkamyung
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/feb/22/historical-google-earth-project-changing-britain-aerial-photography
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eunoia
So much potential here.

A few years ago I put together a project overlaying aerial photography of
Denver from 1933 on modern satellite imagery.

Check it out if you're interested [https://oldcity.io](https://oldcity.io)

Edit: I have the imagery to do the bay area in 1939 too, just have not gotten
around to it.

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csteubs
This is awesome. How did you work out the position of the maps so they overlay
correctly?

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eunoia
Thanks! It was a lot of fun and simultaneously a big headache.

The original bounds came in a shape file from the city's open data catalog
[1].

After that it becomes a multi step process that has to be repeated at each
zoom level.

So say zoom level 20:

\+ Size the image where 1 px = 1 mercator pixel @ zoom level

\+ "Seat" the image. Map tiles are usually 256x256 and your large image
probably does not align correctly. i.e. probably (width % 256 != 0 && height %
256 != 0). So you have to calculate those offsets and add them as a border to
the huge image.

\+ Tile the large image into 256x256px tiles. (~240k of them at zoom level
19!, 60k at 18 etc etc.)

\+ Repeat @ next zoom level

\+ Store all the raster tiles on S3 and put CloudFront in front

\+ Have your app implement a custom tile overlay (iOS, Android, GMaps JS all
support this)

\+ ???

\+ Profit (just kidding, this costs me money)

There might be a better way to do this. I couldn't find a lot of good
resources when I set out on the project so I made it up as I went along.

[1] [https://www.denvergov.org/opendata](https://www.denvergov.org/opendata)

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gs7
Direct link to the photo archive:
[https://www.cambridgeairphotos.com/](https://www.cambridgeairphotos.com/)

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jackdh
thank you

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jlarocco
Google Earth supports historical imagery, and it'd be neat if these images
could be added.

Based on the age I suspect they're missing a lot of necessary meta-data,
though. Maybe it could be crowd sourced in a "captcha" somehow?

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1zee
I didn't know this... how can you access historical images in Google Earth?

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Jackim
Here's how:
[https://support.google.com/earth/answer/148094?hl=en](https://support.google.com/earth/answer/148094?hl=en)

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richardhod
What an interesting archive! Pity the website has the most terrible UX,
whereby it's impossible to browse the pictures easily or search them well. Or
at least if it is, they don't make it easy to figure out how.

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zeristor
Impressive pictures, it is strange to see colour pictures from the forties in
focus, compared to all of my family's blurred snaps.

Good though the pictures are the UI for this website really doesn't do the
images justice, with 1/2 million to be added I assume that a more enticingly
navigable website is in the works.

Text search for towns would be helpful by year, or via points on a map. Paging
through images in no apparent order 10 at a time through 170 pages gets me
climbing up the wall.

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zeristor
Ah, here's a map navigation of the pictures just in case anyone else is
gingerly dismounting the wall:

[https://www.cambridgeairphotos.com/map/](https://www.cambridgeairphotos.com/map/)

Now slowly banging head against aforementioned wall

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jacobajit
[https://www.historicaerials.com/viewer](https://www.historicaerials.com/viewer)
is amazing for this purpose. They've aggregated decades of aerials and topo
maps covering most of the US.

A great way to analyze urban development patterns and answer local historical
questions.

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52-6F-62
I enjoyed being able to see my grandparents’ region from the sky above Derry
and County Down (N.I.) before they moved here.

I’m happily anticipating what’s to be seen around Largs and Fairlie Moor
(Ayrshire) as well as Uphall/Broxburn/Kirkliston (near Edinburgh) for my other
grandparents!

Thanks for posting this!

Edit: typos/grammar

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pbhjpbhj
Slight aside: I was searching previously and came across a few different
archives - including the UK's National Archive - with historic aerial photo
collections. It seemed like there was much needless duplication.

I wonder if the people involved here considered adding the images to an
existing aerial photo archive?

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AibrahimRiyadh
Good job!

