Orthorectified Coastal Imagery Tiles for North Carolina

0.5-meter ground sample distance provides high-resolution detail for each pixel in these true color and infrared image mosaics. NOAA's Remote Sensing Division collected the data in 2008 from an aircraft flying at 5,000 feet above ground level over the Pamlico Sound region. The product supports the Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping program.

Use Cases

• Classifying land cover types like water, vegetation, and urban areas using the true color (RGB) and infrared (IR) bands.
• Monitoring coastal erosion by comparing shoreline features visible in the 0.5 m GSD imagery with newer datasets.
• Training object detection models to identify boats or structures from the orthorectified, seamless mosaic tiles.
• Analyzing vegetation health by leveraging the near-infrared information captured with the 850 nm cut-on filter.

Strengths

• High spatial resolution with a ground sample distance of 0.5 meters per pixel.
• Includes both true color (RGB) and infrared (IR) spectral bands for analysis.
• Imagery has been orthorectified and mosaiced to produce a seamless product.

Limitations

• Data is from a single year (2008), making it temporally stale for change detection without recent comparisons.
• Cloud cover may be present in the imagery, obstructing the view of the land and water surface.
• Minimal color balancing and no histogram stretching were applied, which may affect visual consistency.

Provenance

Source

NOAA Remote Sensing Division, accessed via NASA Earthdata (NCEI Accession 0074382).

Collection Method

Acquired from an aircraft using an Applanix Digital Sensor System (DSS).

Time Range

2008

Freshness

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Geography

Coastal North Carolina, specifically the Pamlico Sound region.