Digital orthophotographs (DOPs) have become easier and less costly to produce in recent years. However, the various production steps --- including taking and processing aerial photographs and creating the ortho images --- are often too expensive for government agencies to undertake on their own. Public and private partnerships have been developed in order to pool resources and attain the economies of scale that make ortho development projects more affordable.
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Federal Agencies
The National Digital Orthophoto Program (NDOP) is funded by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), with additional funds provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The USGS offers several partnering arrangements for governments or businesses to participate in, and share in the costs of, orthophoto development. These include (1)Conventional Partnerships, (2) Innovative Partnerships, (3) Framework Partnerships, and (4) Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA).
The USGS "Innovative Partnership" program offers federal funds and assistance (including materials, services, training, or software) to businesses, schools, public utilities, and government agencies for the production of orthoimages and other mapping products (such as digital elevation or digital line data). The USGS incorporates these products into the Natinal Mapping Program and they become part of the public domain (as part of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI).
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State and Local Governments
Most orthophoto production in Wisconsin has been financed by local governments and regional agencies or consortiums, with additional funds provided by private companies.
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Historical (Project-based) and Site-Specific Orthophoto Production
The cost of producing DOPs will of course vary depending on the requirements of a project. These variables include the size of the photographed area (and number of DOPs needed to cover it), whether or not new photos need to be obtained, the level of precision required, and the time period being studied (which will determine how many historical orthos may be required.)