Assess past & PLAN FOR TOMORROW
The National Survey Authority (NSA), as the national reference authority concerned with everything related to geospatial in the Sultanate of Oman, hold the National Archive of Aerial Photos, which contains black and white and color aerial photographs dating back to the period from 1957 to 2012. These photos are available in the following formats:
- Films
- Cut Frames
- Contact Prints
- Scanned Frames
The total number of photos is over 196,519 photos, but approximately 20% of them are available in digital form. NSA is currently working on the following procedures to obtain a digital archive that can be used to support national geospatial requirements in the next stage:
- Scanning (including cleaning)
- Photo indexing and attribution
- Image enhancement and correction for distortion (if any)
- Georeferencing of scanned aerial photos
The process of converting aerial photos from the traditional format (negative films) to the digital format is the first step to fully utilize these photos, so they must be converted into orthophoto to be used in data extraction and analysis in the GIS environment.