NJDEP iMAP 1930 Aerial Photobase Now Available

[RednekF350]

For those who have toyed with the DEP iMap system it now has a base map layer of 1930 aerial photographs available. I posted this information in another thread but I wanted to do a separate post on the subject.
I use the system almost daily in work and the layer just became available.
Once you find your point of interest, de-select the 2002 aerial base and select the 1930 base.
It's cool stuff and something I used to have to go to Trenton to inspect (for a fee) .
For those not familiar with the Imap system, here is the link.
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/gis/depsplash.htm#
Launch Imap and then fumble through.
It's a little burdensome but most will figure it out. Eventually.
Enjoy.
Scott

 

[james ungehajer]

Thank you for the link Scott, what a helpful site, i really am enjoying it.

 

[Boyd]

As discussed in the other thread, one of the confusing things which isn't immediately obvious is that the availabiliy of the layers (in the list on the left) is related to how far you are zoomed in/out. The layers which appear in grey are not available at your current zoom level. Try zooming either in or out until the layer you want is displayed in blue type. Then you can refresh the map and the desired layer will appear.

The 1930 ariel photos are fantastic and give you a whole different perspective on things! The 2002 photos are pretty similar to Google Earth/Google Maps... probably from the same source since Google lists a copyright for the State of NJ when you look at their maps. But the i-Maps have different coloring than Google. The 1995/97 ariel photos are also interesting but are lower resolution so you can't zoom in as far as you might like.

 

[RednekF350]

The Google aerials are taken from NJDEP 2002 Digital Orthos which are the latest availble.
If you go to the NJDEP GIS website here, http://www.nj.gov/dep/gis/ and then go to data, downloads, aerial photography you can download the individual high res tiles.
You will need a Mr SID viewer to work with the pics.
Scott

 

[Buck]

It is great.
I notice that my house, built in 2003, is not on Google maps or the i-map. Not that I am complaining.

 

[amf]

I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. This is truly one of the best things to come out of DEP, imho! I frequently need access to old a.p.'s, & the oldest I can reliably get a hold of easily are from the '40s.

A few interesting things I came across:

- Mannington Meadows in Salem County (Salem River flows - or used to until diverted by DuPont - thru it). This was all diked farmland in the 30's. I kayaked it last weekend, & it was amazing to think I was paddling above farmland! This is a common occurrence along the Delaware bayshore area - I think Salem & Cumberland Counties are one of the few areas in the state that have more tidal wetland now than in 1930. Look at the northern shore region (Monmouth & Ocean counties) to see the opposite extreme.
- Maurice River Cove on the Delaware Bay in Cumberland County. If you look at the political boundaries & compare 1930 with the present, you will notice an impressive amount of shoreline (up to 1000') has been eroded away.
- The old railroad spur on the south side of Atsion Lake. Never knew it was there, but the sand road I got stuck on some years back was probably where it ran.

 

[relayer]

Great site. Thanks for posting the link. The 31 flyowers are a great resource. When teamed up with the other layers you can see all sorts of things (such as how bogus the current state boundaries for the Pine Barrens are). Also you can flip back and forth between 1931 and 2003 to get a really good understanding of the impact of development. My favorite thing though is that these are the closest thing we have to a snapshot of the vanished worlds of 18th and 19th century New Jersey. They were still burning charcol in 31 and somewhere in the Cumberland County(or was it Atlantic - ask Mark Demitroff) Pines you can see them doing it. So much more...

Best

relayer

 

[pinelandpaddler]

Well, this website is now taking up all of my free time. I think I'm going blind too. Thanks, Rednek350!

I once read that the lower Mullica river above Lower Bank has shoaled and widened significantly over the years as a result of the wake of boats and jet skis destroying the banks. This would make fine sense, but these 1930 photos have me second-guessing the veracity of this claim. Perhaps these photos are not good indicators, but it certainly appears that the river has not widened and that there are no new shoals. Hmmmmm.......

 

[pinelandpaddler]

Well, an old-timer verified that the river has shallowed considerably over the decades. I guess the 1930 photographs just don't show it.

 

[pinelandpaddler]

Check out the 1930 images of Atsion. Just southwest of Atsion pond is a series of dark lines of some sort. What are they?

 

[Teegate]

Check out the 1930 images of Atsion. Just southwest of Atsion pond is a series of dark lines of some sort. What are they?

Someone drew on these maps sometime in the past, and you can tell that because the Burlington County line is drawn on the map in the middle of those lines. Take notice of the straight line heading SE and NW. I think the lines you are referring to are pencil or a marker of some kind. I see them all over the map. At first I though it was development, but now I think differently.

Guy

 

[pinelandpaddler]

Ah, yes. Thank you!

 

[pinelandpaddler]

Reviving this thread....

Quote:
Originally Posted by pinelandpaddler
Check out the 1930 images of Atsion. Just southwest of Atsion pond is a series of dark lines of some sort. What are they?

Someone drew on these maps sometime in the past, and you can tell that because the Burlington County line is drawn on the map in the middle of those lines. Take notice of the straight line heading SE and NW. I think the lines you are referring to are pencil or a marker of some kind. I see them all over the map. At first I though it was development, but now I think differently.

Very interesting. Today I was looking at the fly-over photos of NJ on Bob Bruneau's website. Take a look: http://www.bobanddusty.com/northamerica/unitedstates/airphotos/102202/at2394.jpg

 

[Teegate]

The line on the right is the old RR bed to Atco, and the line in the distance in the top middle of the photo is the road from 206 to Hampton. The photo is taken from the Maple Island area.

Guy

 

[bobpbx]

Does the state still maintain the campground on Atsion Lake?

 

[Ben Ruset]

The cabins? As far as I know, yes.

 

[pinelandpaddler]

The line on the right is the old RR bed to Atco, and the line in the distance in the top middle of the photo is the road from 206 to Hampton. The photo is taken from the Maple Island area.

Right, but I was thinking of the grayish streaks at the bottom right corner of the photo which seem(?) to correspond with the dark lines in the 1930 fly-over.

 

[Teegate]

Here is the late Bob Bruneau's photo beside the 1930 aerial. The lines in Bob's plane photo to not cross the tracks and reach the lake. To me the lines in Bob's photo are reflections of some sort from his plane. Many of his other photo's have them also. I may be completely wrong and if anyone thinks differently please say so.

http://teegate.njpinebarrens.com/06142008/at2394.jpg


Guy

 

[LARGO]

Does the state still maintain the campground on Atsion Lake?

If you mean the campsites up above the cabins, yes. The entrance is on the left up from 206, not real obvious. There are a labrynth of sites there and a state building I guess they keep equipment in. The sites are numbered and such. The pic in my gallery of my canoe on the S-10 was taken right from a put in spot by a campsite. Many of the sites were occupied and active on that second Monday in September.

g.

 

[Jerseyman]

Folks:

In the course of conducting research for the Davis Grove mystery, I used the DVD set in my collection of the 1931 flyover photographs—the same ones offered through the state’s iMap website. The poor quality of the images makes it very frustrating as it is extremely difficult to zoom in close. And it is NOT just because the state scanned the images at 400 d.p.i. Here is the rest of story. When the state contracted with either Victor Dallin or Aero Services to complete an aerial photo mosiac of the entire state, the contractor used glass-plate negatives to shoot each original photograph. You cannot find a better image than the one produced from a glass plate! However, at some point in time, the state had the images half-toned or screened for making lithographic reproduction easy. Unfortunately, by screening the image, it changes the continuous tone of the photographs into small dots and as you enlarge the image more and more, the image just blows apart into a state of pixelation.

Back in the late 1990s, when Mark Demitroff (a.k.a. Spungman) first introduced the aerial photos to me and a group of other local historians, I first noticed the screening problem and I told Mark he should go back to DEP and request photographic prints from the original glass-plate negatives instead of the negatives featuring the screening. He did so and the image quality improved dramatically. Whether by design or by stupidity, the state has chosen to use the screened images on the iMap website and also on the DVD set I have here. Perhaps we should consider starting an email campaign to ask DEP to scan the original negatives instead of the screened ones. You would really be surprised at the difference! Of course, we are talking about asking a state agency to change something they have already completed once—yeah, right! igfly:

Best regards,
Jerseyman