Statewide, 3 inch, 4 band orthoimagery AND statewide Quality Level 1 lidar (minimum of 14 points per meter, which translates to a 0.5 meter digital elevation model) was collected in the spring of 2023. The project was managed by the CT State GIS Office with the Aerial Imagery Acquisition Workgroup. See Funding and Project Management below for more information.
2023 Aerial Imagery
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Aerial Imagery Viewer
Once the 2023 imagery is received and published on CT ECO as an image service, it will be added to the Aerial Imagery Viewer, which is an interactive viewer that contains all of Connecticut's statewide, digital aerial imagery.
> Aerial Imagery Viewer Help
CT Geodata Portal
Once the 2023 imagery is received and published on CT ECO as an image service, it will be added to the CT Geodata portal, part of the CT GIS Office, along with the other digital aerial imagery available from CT ECO.
Image Services (Coming in 2024!)
for advanced users
On the Map and Image Services page, look for Imagery-Spring Statewide and then 2023 Spring 4 band, 3 inch. Both dynamic and cached services are available.
> Service FAQs
Download (Coming in 2024)
for GIS users
Download will be available by GeoTIFF tile, MrSID Generation 3 tile and MrSID Generation 4 tile. MrSID Generation 3 Town Mosaic and MrSID Generation 4 Town Mosaics will also beavailable.
2023 Lidar Elevation
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Elevation Viewer
Once the bare earth DEM (digital elevation tiles) are received, they will be published as an image services including elevation, hillshade, shaded relief, slope, aspect and will be part of the Elevation Viewer.
> Elevation Viewer Help
Elevation Image Services (Coming in 2024)
for advanced users
Go to the Map and Image Services page and look for Elevation Layers from 2023.
> Services FAQ
Funding and Project Management
The 2023/2026 flight project is managed by Alfredo Herrera at the CT State GIS Office with assistance from the Aerial Imagery Acquisition Workgroup's eight members: Erik Snowden, lead (CRCOG), Dan Czaja (DESPP), Stuart Deland (DEEP), Eric Lindquist (DPH), Rich Gallacher (Town of Manchester), Mitch Gugliotti (DOT), Emily Wilson (UConn).
The project is funded by the American Rescue Plan with contributions from the CT Department of Transportation and the CT Department of Public Protection and Emergency Services.
Timeline and Deliverables
Deliverables
Imagery
- Statewide, leaf-off, 4-band orthoimagery tiles with 3 inch pixel resolution in GeoTIFF and MrSID formats, tide coordinated
- True orthoimagery (nadir) over urban center and tall bridges and overpasses
- Town mosaics in MrSID format
Elevation
- Statewide QL1 Lidar point cloud with a minimum of 14 points per square meter with 13 classes, hydro flattened
- Bare earth 0.5 meter DEM tiles in GeoTIFF format
- Lidar-derived contours lines (1 and 5 feet)
- Lidar-derived building footprings for all structures greater than 100 square feet.
- 3D Terrain Model with 3D buildings
Documentation
- FDGC/USGS compliant metadata
- Reports including data acquisition, survey, production, control and calibration and quality assurance and accuracy
Timeline
2023
March - April - Imagery and Lidar acquisition
Projected
June- Pilot delivery
August - November – Progressive data deliveries
December - Final delivery
2024 Projected
Imagery dynamic map service and tiled map service completed for the state. All tiles available for download.
Elevation (DEM) dynamic map service published, all tiles available for download.
Other elevation services published (hillshade, shaded relief, slope, aspect)
Town mosaics arrive at CLEAR
Town mosaics available for download
LAS files arrive at CLEAR
LAS files available for download.
Final metadata delivered and available
LAS files available for download
Citation
Please site the imagery as below. The elevation would be similar - just replace the data layer name.
CT State GIS Office. (2023). 2023 Aerial imagery. Retrieved from https://maps.cteco.uconn.edu/data/flight2023/.
Image and Elevation Formats
Image Formats
| GeoTIFF | Highest quality image available here but also the largest file size by a lot. |
| MrSID Generation 4 | Compressed image file that supports all 4 image bands (blue, green, red, near-infrared) |
| MrSID Generation 3 | Compressed image file with the smallest file size because it contains only 3 image bands (blue, green, red) |
TIFF or TIF stand for Tagged Image File Format and is used for storing raster images of all kinds. Geo indicates that the TIF has a word file, called TWF that stores geographic information about the raster file.
MrSID stands for MultiresolutionSeamless Image Database. It is a way of compressing imagery so that it can be quickly viewed. LizardTech pioneered the MrSID technology. With each Generation, LizardTech has improved the functions of the MrSID files. MrSID Generation 3 improved upon Generation 2 by supporting unlimited files sizes, lossless encoding with optimization and manipulation options. MrSID Generation 4 improved upon Generation 3 by supporting multi-spectral and hyper-spectral imagery and an improved mechanism for composite mosaicking. Read the full explanation on the LizardTech website.
Elevation Formats
DEM - a raster based (pixel) digital elevation model. The tiles available for download are in Tif format.
LAS - is a lidar data exchange file which is a standard format for airborne lidar point data.
The Facts
23,381 tiles covering Connecticut. Each tile is 2500ft on a side or 0.224 sq miles, 143.5 acres and 6,250,000 sq feet.
The Facts: Imagery
Statewide. 4 bands (red, green, blue, near-infrared). 3 inch pixels. GeoTIFFs. MrSIDs Generation 3 and Generation 4. CT State Plane NAD 83 (2011)* Feet. Captured in March and April 2023 (leaf off). Tide coordinated.
The Facts: Elevation
Statewide. USGS Quality Level 1, minimum of 14 points per sq meter. Minimally ground/non-ground classification. LAS files (point cloud). Bare earth 0.5 m pixel raster tiles (called a Digital Elevation Model or DEM). 1 foot and 5 foot contours derived from Lidar. Captured in March and April 2023 (leaf off). Tide coordinated.
* NAD 83 (2011) is the most current realization of NAD 83 published by the National Geodetic Survey and is consistent with the national Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) Network.