Bohannan Huston Awarded Extensive Denver Region Aerial Photography Project

Professional engineering and mapping services firm Bohannan Huston. (BHI) has been selected by the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) to produce high-quality digital aerial photography for the Denver Regional Aerial Photography Project (DRAPP). BHI will conduct multifaceted aerial photography of approximately 7,000 square miles of the Denver metropolitan area, including Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Clear Creek, Denver, Douglas, Gilpin and Jefferson counties, and parts of Weld, Grand and Park counties. The resulting aerial imagery will be used for regional planning, evaluating and mitigating natural hazards, transportation and land use planning, natural resource management, and water resource planning.

BHI will partner with aerial mapping provider Surdex Corporation to acquire the aerial photography and processing of the aerial imagery will occur in BHI's Albuquerque office. The combined resources of Surdex and BHI will shorten production time, ensuring delivery within the complex project's aggressive 12-month timeframe. In addition, the DRCOG specification requires a 60-day "interim" imagery deliverable that will be provided to DRAPP consortium members via an online Web Mapping Service (WMS) to get imagery into the consortium members' software applications early in the project.

Matthew Krusemark, DRCOG's geospatial team manager, stated, "Bohannan Huston's Spatial Data group offers the experience and expertise needed to provide high-quality aerial imagery required by our consortium members."

According to Dennis Sandin, senior vice president and managing principal of BHI, the project "represents an opportunity to use our combined expertise in surveying, photogrammetric mapping, aerial acquisition, and GIS services to deliver the advanced mapping services sought by DRCOG." Sandin continued, "Our strategic approach includes four-band image delivery, which is a newer delivery format that is taking hold in the geospatial community. The results are highly detailed images that enable extremely accurate aerial maps."

Through DRAPP, municipal, county, state and federal agencies, private utilities, and special districts save money by pooling their financial resources to acquire the extensive aerial photography, rather than purchasing the imagery separately.