Colour InfraRed (CIR) imagery for most of England and Wales collected between 2004 to 2010 at up to 50cm resolution by Bluesky and then acquired by the Landmap project. The data were collected using digital cameras mounted underneath planes. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded Landmap service which ran from 2001 to July 2014 collected and hosted Earth Observation satellite data for the majority of the UK, part of which was CIR data. After removal of JISC funding in 2013, the Landmap service is no longer operational, with the data now held at the NEODC.

The data are split into 100x100km regions that correspond to Ordnance Survey (OS) national grid, and are available in GeoTiff format. Some regions are also available in ecw (Enhanced Compression Wavelet) format.

Colour InfraRed imagery consists of imagery in three bands – Near InfraRed (NIR), red and green. CIR can be used study the health and variation of vegetation coverage as NIR rays are reflected at the bottom of leaves rather than the top, as with green. To aid with this, images were captured at times when plants were expected to be in full leaf. The invisible near infrared light of CIR can be "seen" by shifting it and the primary colours over so that near infrared wavelengths become visible as red while red wavelengths appear as green and green as blue. Blue wavelengths are shifted out of the visible portion of the spectrum and so they appear as black. On CIR imagery vegetation appears red while water generally appears black with artificial structures like buildings and roads showing as a light blue-green.

The CIR data is available to UK academics and students. To apply for access, please

• 1) Register as a NEODC user. If you already are a NEODC registered user, skip this step. If you have forgotten your NEODC user ID and/or password, please contact the NEODC helpdesk at support@ceda.ac.uk.
• 2) Apply for access to the Landmap data. Application involves the agreement with the Landmap terms of use.

The data are split into 100x100km regions that correspond to Ordnance Survey (OS) national grid squares and archived in the directory structure of region/year/format/data. The data are available in GeoTiff format (with GeoTiff world files (.tfw) which are data files that are used to geo-reference images to an appropriate projection scheme), with some regions also available in ecw (Enhanced Compression Wavelet) format. Geotiff files are TIFF files which have geographic metadata embedded as tags within the TIFF file. The geographic metadata can then be used to position the image in the correct location and geometry on the screen of a geographic information display, and ECW (Enhanced Compression Wavelet) files are compressed images. Most filenames start with the OS grid reference of the area covered by the file, in the format AA0000. GeoTiff files can be opened by most Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Image Processors (IP) such as the freely available Basic ERS & Envisat (A)ATSR and Meris Toolbox (BEAM). The ecw (Enhanced Compression Wavelet) files can also be opened in most image viewing/editing software, including open/free software such as Erdas ER viewer.

Software

Basic ERS & Envisat (A) ATSR and Meris Toolbox (BEAM): BEAM is an open-source toolbox and development platform for viewing, analysing and processing of remote sensing raster data. Originally developed to facilitate the utilisation of image data from Envisat's optical instruments, BEAM now supports a growing number of other raster data formats such as GeoTIFF and NetCDF as well as data formats of other Earth Observation (EO) sensors such as Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), AVNIR, Polarised Radiation Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (PRISM) and Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS). Various data and algorithms are supported by dedicated extension plug-ins.

Erdas ER viewer, available free of charge, can be used to open raster image formats such as TIFF, GeoTiff, IMG, ECW, ERS, ALG, DAT and many more, and is capable of handling large file sizes.

Links to further information

More informaion is available from the following websites:

• The Landmap project CIR website - this site wmay be offline after 1st August 2014 due to a withdrawal of JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) funding, see below for an archived version of the site
• An archived version of the Landmap project CIR website, hosted by the Internet Archive project
• Bluesky page on aerial photography (scroll down to reach information on colour infrared)
• Bluesky press release on uses and applications of CIR imagery
• More information on CIR imagery

If you have queries about these pages or about obtaining the Landmap CIR data from the NEODC then you should contact the NEODC Support team. Your query should be answered within one working day. When follow-up work is required, the NEODC support team will carry out the work as quickly and efficiently as possible.