Calibration targets for aerial photos

[ArtMan]

DPReview.com notes the existence of dozens of surviving 1950s-1960s era calibration targets. They were used to assist airplane-based photography using film cameras. They have largely fallen out of use since the introduction of digital cameras. The surviving targets seem concentrated in the sunbelt (California, Arizona, Florida).

 

These are different from the X- or L-shaped targets, painted on pavement or staked out on grass with vinyl or tyvek that you may have seen at some benchmarks. These are used to provide ground truth so points on an aerial photo can be exactly correlated with points on the ground.

 

DPReview refers to the Center for Land use Interpretation, which has additional detail and photos.

 

~ArtMan~

[+frex3wv]

First off (and off topic): Good to see your post Artman - I notice you haven't posted recently. I hope this is just due to being busy with other things/projects/hobbies etc and that all is well otherwise!

(And you have some catching up to do, by the way. See threads below!)

 

Very interesting topic - and since YOU posted it - YOU get to find out where there is a list of these most interesting objects for us! Keep us posted LOL.

 

David

[DaveD]

DPReview.com notes the existence of dozens of surviving 1950s-1960s era calibration targets. They were used to assist airplane-based photography using film cameras. They have largely fallen out of use since the introduction of digital cameras. The surviving targets seem concentrated in the sunbelt (California, Arizona, Florida).

 

These are different from the X- or L-shaped targets, painted on pavement or staked out on grass with vinyl or tyvek that you may have seen at some benchmarks. These are used to provide ground truth so points on an aerial photo can be exactly correlated with points on the ground.

 

DPReview refers to the Center for Land use Interpretation, which has additional detail and photos.

 

~ArtMan~

[DaveD]

Many of the very large, concrete targets you see out in the SW used by DoD (and others) to calibrate pictures taken from very high flying aircraft such as the U2 and early space-based observation platforms.