Visualization with High-resolution Aerial Photography in Planning-related Property Research - Geographic Visualization: Concepts, Tools and Applications - page 156

principally due to an increasing availability of high-resolution images. This is partly due
to falling costs and increasing competition from commercial companies using aircraft as
platforms for collecting aerial photographs and also from the growth in high-resolution
images from satellite platforms. The most important development, however, has been the
release of Google Earth in 2005, which provides free public access to worldwide images, some
at very high resolutions. The immediate impact of Google Earth on the internet community
and beyond has shown that many people and organizations are interested in using aerial
photography either in their own work, or as a source of information to help in making
personal decisions. In terms of planning and property research, Google Earth has certain
flaws that can limit its usefulness. The photographs come from different sources and are of
different ages and hence Google Earth does not provide a snap-shot of an area at a particular
point in time. It varies in its resolution and this is especially significant in rural and sparsely
populated regions in which the resolution is often too low for meaningful visual analysis.
There are also problems with regard to using Google Earth in constructing photogrammetric
measurements.
This is not to say the Google Earth has not had an impact on the planning community.
It is arguable that it has encouraged planners to reconsider the utility of aerial photography
in their own area of work, with commercial companies providing the images (Jones, 2003).
Google Earth is also an important source of information in parts of the world where access
to cartographic and socio-economic information is limited. In terms of property research,
there would appear to be a growth in the uses of aerial photographs, particularly in terms
of property attribute collection, property valuation and local taxation. Whilst aerial pho-
tographs are currently enhancing existing data sets and data collection methods, the growth
in computing power and automatic photogrammetric techniques points the way to a more
comprehensive and systematic approach to constructing property databases. These devel-
opments have not gone unnoticed and there is a general negative feeling, in the media at
least, against local and national governments using high-resolution aerial photographs in
collecting information on property. Indeed, their use has been couched in terms of spying
and surveillance, whereas other more comprehensive and exhausting social surveys, such as
the Census of Population, tend not to be. The personal use of aerial photographs has not
been seen in a bad light and in a lot of cases has been received positively. This is despite
the fact that the impact of internet portals such as Google Earth on how people view the
world and make decisions based on this view is poorly understood. As a GIS commentator
in the US stated: '[w]e are starting to rely on Google and Microsoft for our view of the
world' (cited in Biever, 2005, p. 29). When integrated with other data on the internet, aerial
photographs have the potential to present images of places that are digital simulations rather
than true reflections and this can have important implications when people, planners and
policy makers use these images to help make decisions.
References
Biever, C. (2005) Will Google Earth help save the planet? New Scientist 187: 29.
Bird, R. M. and Slack, E. (eds) (2004) International Handbook of Land and Property Taxation .
Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.
Burchfield, M., Overman, H. G., Puga, D. and Turner, M. A. (2006) Causes of sprawl: a portrait
from space. Quarterly Journal of Economics 121(2): 587-633.