Aerial imagery is an essential tool for planning and analysis. It presents a comprehensive view of regional conditions. Having access to aerial imagery from various years provides the user with a chronological record of land use patterns. Aerials have been an important component of DVRPC's planning efforts for many years. They are also a popular source of information for consultants, developers, engineers, realtors, and the general public.
DVRPC offers two types of aerial imagery; orthoimagery and traditional or "historical" aerial imagery. The historical aerials are scans of DVRPC's mylar aerial photo enlargements. The orthoimagery consists of rectified or geometrically corrected aerial images. Unlike the traditional or "historical" aerials, the orthoimagery has been processed so that any distortions stemming from topographic relief and camera position are removed. This results in an accurate representation of the Earth's surface. Due to its uniform scale, distances between features can be measured on an orthoimage. Where these features touch the ground, they are shown in their true x and y map position.
Orthoimagery
Available for the years 2000 through 2020 in five-year increments
- Covers the entire 3,833 square mile DVRPC 9-county region (Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Mercer counties in New Jersey)
- The 2000 orthoimagery is grayscale with a 1.5 sq. ft. pixel resolution, a horizontal positional accuracy of +/-5', and a design scale of 1" = 200'
- The 2005 and 2010 orthoimagery is 3-band, natural color, with a 1 sq. ft. pixel resolution, a horizontal positional accuracy of +/-5', and a design scale of 1" = 200'
- The 2015 orthoimagery is 4-band (allows for display in either natural color or color infrared) with a 1 sq. ft. pixel resolution, a horizontal positional accuracy of +/-5', and a design scale of 1" = 200'
- The 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 orthoimagery tiles are referenced to their respective State Plane map coordinate system (either NJ State Plane NAD83 or PA State Plane South Zone NAD83)
- Each orthoimagery tile covers approximately 1.6 square miles of land area; Using Geographic Information System (GIS) software, individual tiles can be viewed together as a seamless mosaic of a larger area
- The 2020 orthoimagery is 3-band, natural color with a 1 sq. ft. pixel resolution, a horizontal positional accuracy of +/-5', and a design scale of 1" = 200'; Available as county mosaics in JPEG 2000 format referenced to UTM Zone 18N - NAD83 (2011)
DVRPC’s 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 orthoimagery for Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties and 2020 orthoimagery for the 9-county region can be downloaded free of charge via the Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA) website.
DVRPC’s 2015 orthoimagery for Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Mercer counties can be downloaded free of charge via the New Jersey Geographic Information Network (NJGIN) website. Although the imagery available via NJGIN is the same as the DVRPC 2015 imagery, individual tiles are based on the New Jersey High Resolution Orthophotography 5,000 foot Tile Index.
Historical Aerial Imagery
Available for the years 1959, and 1965 through 1995 in five-year increments
- Covers the entire 3,833 square mile DVRPC 9-county region (partial coverage in 1959 & 1965)
- The historical aerial imagery scans are non-orthorectified, grayscale images that have no spatial reference; Each scan covers approximately 3 square miles of land area
- Scans are in TIFF format (files average 33MB in size)
- DVRPC's historical aerial imagery can be downloaded free of charge via the Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA) website.
Please refer to DVRPC's Data Disclaimer when using these or any other DVRPC-sourced digital files.