cteco

Update: 2023 Aerials and More

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It is high time for a data update!

The final aerial tiles including true orthos* were delivered a few weeks ago and a statewide, final, dynamic, image service is now available on CT ECO! Find the service on the

*True orthos are tiles are ones that were selected because they contained tall buildings or bridges. They have received extra correction to avoid shadows and distortions.

What do you do with an image service?

If you are a GIS user, it is possible to connect to the service in your GIS software so that it can be used with other layers. The service can be manipulated to change the band combination, stretch, and more.

If you are not a GIS user and want to take a peak, go to the service link and then click on ArcGIS Online Map Viewer. This opens the service inside the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer where you can zoom in and out, move around, search for an address, and more.

What’s next?

Service. Although the dynamic service is the foundation of things to come, it is not the end. The next step is to create a tiled, or cached, version that will draw even faster. The tiled service will be available to users and it will be added to existing viewers like the Aerial Imagery Viewer.

Download. Once we receive the final metadata, hopefully by the end of the month, we will start packaging the 23,000+ image tiles into zip files for the download tool. If you are in dire need of image files before that, send us an email and we will do what we can to get them to you.

Elevation. We hope to receive the final elevation files in the next few weeks as well. Once that happens, we will create an elevation image service and derivative services such as hillshade, shaded relief, slope, and aspect. Following that, the elevation tiles and their metadata will be zipped and added to the download tool. Contours are also slated for delivery and will be served by the CT GIS Office. CT ECO will likely provide static download of contour blocks that are bigger than tiles but still a reasonable file size.

Other Layers. The buildings and 3D buildings should be finalized soon as well. Stay tuned for updates and info about where and how to access them.

Check back on CT ECO new for future updates and delivery news.

Aerials 2023 screenshot

First 2023 Aerials Delivery

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2023 Flight Blocks Status 1

I am happy to report that the first batch of 2023 aerials has been received, published, and is looking good!

The first delivery consisted of all of block 1 (parts 1 and 2) and parts 1 and 2 of block 4.

The aerials are currently available as a dynamic image service on CT ECO. A dynamic image service is not tiled and may take a few seconds to draw. It may also be unavailable from time to time as we add more parts and make updates.

Once we receive full delivery and metadata, we will work as fast as possible to create

  • the statewide dynamic image service,
  • the statewide tiled image service, and
  • data download.

Check back (CT ECO news) for future updates and delivery news and the 2023 flight page for more information.

2023 Aerial of UConn campus

CT ECO System Upgrades

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CT ECO has received a number of upgrades this summer and there are a couple more in the pipeline. CT ECO is a system of five servers including a web server, three mapping servers, a database server, and a large storage drive. They connect to each other so that loads of Connecticut’s geographic data can make it’s way to you on both CT ECO and the CT Geodata Portal. Along with some security patches and other minor things, the major upgrades so far are –

  1. operating systems upgraded on all of the servers which are now running the latest Windows Server 2022,
  2. software upgraded bringing the mapping servers to ArcGIS Server version 10.9.1,
  3. with the software upgrades, we republished all services under the ArcPro runtime (previously ArcMap runtime), and
  4. increased the number of processing cores in order to increase the drawing speed and reliability of services.

We are also working on upgrading the large storage drive to increase access speed and provide more room for all the 2023 files and tiles that we will be here before we know it. The team, including UConn IT attempted, this twice (gulp) with issues that we are working through before attempting again on on Tuesday, Sept 5 at 5pm.

And also coming soon will be another software upgrade to ArcGIS Server version 11.1, the latest and greatest.

All of these upgrades have resulted in periodic system downtime and interruptions in service. A number of UConn IT folks work closely with the CT ECO mapping folks to bring the worlds together and minimize impact for our users. We greatly appreciate your patience while we navigate running and maintaining a complicated system.  As always, feel free to email us at clear@uconn.edu with any issues or questions.