Explore the Amherst of 1956!

We've just added orthophotography from 1956 to the Amherst GIS Viewer. Local GIS consultant Michael Warner, who previously processed our 1939 imagery, has now processed and ortho-recitfied the 1956 imagery, which looks fantastic! This imagery covers approximately 1/2 of the land area of Amherst, covering predominantly the most populated areas of the community. The imagery can be switched on in the legend tab of most maps in the Amherst GIS Viewer.

Here's an example from the UMass campus just a few years before undergoing the expansion that created the campus that we know today:


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Here's a link to it on the Amherst GIS Viewer

Browser Security Settings for the Amherst GIS Viewer

In a recent post, I described how to enable popups in a web browser in order to get more out of the Amherst GIS Viewer. Now, I'll follow up with a similar technical tip that pertains to security settings in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

The Amherst GIS Viewer has some handy capabilities for extracting data, including the ability to export a spreadsheet of selected features, an image of the current map, a Google Earth KMZ file of the current map, or a Google Earth KMZ file of a map markup. Unfortunately, the default security settings of Microsoft Internet Explorer can prevent these from working. Here's how to fix that:

1. Open the Internet Options Dialog & click the Security tab (Tools -> Internet Options -> Security)


2. Click the "Custom Level..." button:
   


3. In the Security Settings dialog, scroll down to the "Downloads," category and Enable "Automatic prompting for file downloads"
   


4. Click Ok on both dialog boxes to enable the setting.


5. That's it, now you can extract spreadsheets, map images, & map or markup KMZ files from the Amherst GIS Viewer.

These screenshots have these features highlighted:

Explore Amherst in 1939!

We've just added orthophotography from 1939 to the Amherst GIS Viewer. Local GIS consultant Michael Warner has processed and ortho-recitfied the imagery, which looks fantastic! The imagery was provided to Michael by Steve Roof of Hampshire College. It covers most of the community, with the northern extent being in North Amherst. The imagery can be switched on in the legend tab of most maps in the Amherst GIS Viewer.

Here's an example from the Massachusetts Agricultural College (UMass) which was much different back then:


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Here's a link to it on the Amherst GIS Viewer

First Amherst 2009 Aerial Photo Sample

I mentioned in an earlier post that I like to lay down in my back yard to be photographed by airplanes, right? Crazy stuff, but it pays off sometimes. Our spring 2009 aerial photography was taken on Monday April 13th, which was probably the best day that we had all spring before leaves began budding. Here's our first sample from that flight, in which you'll see yours truly:

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The final result will be available this autumn, with more samples coming this summer.

Tip: Enable Popups to get more out of the Amherst GIS Viewer

Yes, I know that popups can be annoying. The popup blocker on any web browser has become a necessity because of all of the sites out there that will open popup after popup without any prompting by the person browsing the site. I can guarantee you that the Amherst GIS Viewer will never do such an annoying thing as that. However, the Amherst GIS Viewer does use popups to provide the following functionality:

• Using the Identify Tool to click and get information about features on the map creates a popup window to display the results
• Creating a Printable Map creates a popup window for entry of the map title and size, which then displays the output PDF

So, if you would like to take advantage of these two capabilities, you'll want to add gis.amherstma.gov to your list of sites from which popups are always allowed. The easiest way to do this is to go into the Amherst Public GIS Viewer and try using either the Printable Map button or the Identify Tool (click this tool on, then click on the map). If you have your popup blocker enabled, you'll see a bar show up along the top of your web browser telling you that the a popup was blocked. If you click on this bar, you'll have the option of always allowing popups from our site (don't worry, we'll never give you any involuntary popups!). This will be presented differently depending upon which browser you use. You should only need to do this once on any given computer that you use.

Note: If you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer, your map will be replaced with a message saying "application not specified" after you initially allow popups for our site, so make sure you go through this process before you spend too much time crafting a custom map.

It was a perfect day for a flyover

I haven't received official word yet, but it appears that the aerial photography of Amherst occurred today. After spending most of the morning at my desk & realizing that conditions were perfect, I decided to take a walk around the Town Common at about 11:30. Sure enough, within a few minutes I saw a small airplane flying low just to the east of the center of town. I thought, "hmm...if I jump into the car & go right home, I might just have a chance for a back yard photo opp..." I did just that & the timing couldn't have been better. Within seconds of getting to my backyard & laying down in the grass (photo opp for me & biting opp for ticks) an airplane flew directly overhead in the proper flight pattern. If it was indeed the right plane, I'll end up looking something like this:


You can get a closer look by going here:
http://gis.amherstma.gov/public/Viewer.aspx?state=341756594999

Of course, you'll have an even better look at me in a few more months when we publish our new aerial photography.

Amherst Spring Flight, 2009

Any day now we're expecting the 2009 aerial photography of Amherst to take place. The necessary conditions are minimal cloud cover and a minimum sun angle of 45 degrees. That translates to anytime between 11:00am and 3:00pm on the next sunny day that we have. Sunday, April 5th might be the day. I'm planning to hang out in my back yard so I can get my picture taken. You won't be able to tell it's me because the pixels will be 3 inches each, but if I sit in a lounge chair or lay down in the grass, you'll definitely be able to tell that someone is there!

My friend Niels made sure that he was in the picture the last time around, in April of 2004.
Here he is:

If all goes as planned, we're expecting the imagery to be publicly available on http://gis.amherstma.gov/ in the autumn of 2009. The imagery will likely end up on Google Earth and Google Maps at some point as well.