Thermal imagery for selected areas of England was taken by a FLIR SC 6000 HS thermal camera mounted on a specially designed survey aircraft over the course of 2009 and 2010 by The GeoInformation Group (TGG) as part of the Cities Revealed project. The data were then acquired by the Landmap project. Positioning data were also recorded so that the thermal data could be accurately geolocated in post-processing. The thermal data were captured between 7pm to 11pm to avoid solar activity which would produce false readings and when most houses would be heated, in cold (less than 10C) dry weather so that the temperature differential between indoors and outdoors was maximum. The thermal camera has a resolution of <0.02C.

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded Landmap service which ran from 2001 to July 2014 collected and hosted a large amount of earth observation data, such as thermal imagery, for the majority of the UK. After removal of JISC funding in 2013, the Landmap service is no longer operational, with the data now held at the NEODC.

The thermal data are available to all UK academics and students. To apply for access, please

• 1) Register as a CEDA user. If you already are a CEDA (or NEODC or BADC) registered user, skip this step. If you have forgotten your CEDA user ID and/or password, please contact the 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 thermal imagery is available as mosaiced img, geotiff or jpeg files for the following areas: Bournemouth, Bradford, Braintree, Coventry, Eastleigh, Gateshead, Gloucester, Gosport, Lewisham, Newcastle, Newcaste-under-lyme, North Tyneside, Poole, Southampton, Southwark, Surrey Heath and Wolverhampton. img and geotiff files can be opened by most Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Image Processors (IP) such as the freely available Erdas ER viewer and Basic ERS & Envisat (A)ATSR and Meris Toolbox (BEAM) for geotiff files, whilst JPEG images can be opened in any basic image viewing software.

Software

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.

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.

Documentation

• Cities revealed thermal mapping information

Links to further information

• The Landmap project thermal website, this website may 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 radar collection website, hosted by the Internet Archive project
• The GeoInformation Group (TGG) homepage
• TGG page on thermal imaging

Landmap, The GeoInformation Group. Thermal imagery of England, [Internet]. NERC Earth Observation Data Centre, 2014, Date of citation. Available from http://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/b099e8b9b3ffc6e9d9f3bc0ff75006b1

Please also add the following copyright statement: Cities Revealed © The GeoInformation Group yyyy

If you have queries about these pages or about obtaining the Landmap thermal 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.