[talk-au] NearMap PhotoMap imagery for OSM

[James Andrewartha]

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009, John Smith wrote:

> 2009/11/4 James Andrewartha <trs80 at tartarus.uwa.edu.au>:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > NearMap is a company that's going to do monthly or more often flights over
> > the major cities, and license their images so that derivative works are
> > CC-BY-SA, ie for OSM. They're also using OSM for their map layer.
> > http://www.nearmap.com/ is their website but it's currently in stealth
> > mode - see [1] for the username/password.
> 
> Do you know if they use multiple aircraft in the different cities, or
> do they fly the same air craft around the country?

I think they use multiple aircraft - the cameras are housed in something 
they call the HyperPod that looks like it just attaches to a regular light 
airplane. They're not going to sell the HyperPod, just use it themselves.

> If it's the same aircraft do they plan to take imagery between cities too?
> 
> At $5/sq km, would it be possible to pay to get towns photographed
> that might be out of the way?

I couldn't say, but they might do it once for free (vs the regular updates 
planned for cities). For example, the WA coverage currently goes from 
Lancelin to New Norcia down to Northam, across to Kelleberrin, down to 
Quairading, back to Kalamunda, down to Dwellingup and across to Preston 
Beach, but the outlying areas are flown much less often than the Perth 
metro area.

The other cities are only just being flown (they're a Perth-based 
company), so it's hard to say how much coverage they'll have in the long 
term. For SA, the initial coverage around Adelaide is all the land west of 
a line from just southeast of Gawler through Meadows to a point due east 
of Sellicks Beach.

James Andrewartha