UK Perspectives

Colour aerial photography of locations across England.

UK Perspectives (UKP) was a collaboration between Simmons Aerofilms and NRSC Ltd. Started in 1998, it was run in parallel, and in competition with, the Millennium Map project of GetMapping plc.

The product of UKP was the Millennium Aerial Photography Survey (MAPS). Colour photography was acquired at 1:10,000 scale using the two companies' own photographic aircraft equipped with metric cameras. While the photos could be purchased either without rectification or geo-referenced to fit the OS National Grid, the UKP partners also supplied ortho-rectified images. These could be generated either using a lower-accuracy DEM supplied by the Ordnance Survey (Silver Standard) or a more accurate DTM derived photogrammetrically in-house from stereo-pairs of the aerial photographs (Gold Standard). Although the project has UK in its title, in fact, the partnership made no moves to extend its coverage into Scotland or Wales. With so much highland area to cover and relatively small populations in each of these countries, it did not see this as a viable or economic project.

Initially the planned UKP coverage of England was divided into eight regular blocks, with each of the two companies undertaking four specific blocks. It was found that the local authorities of several large counties wanted complete coverage of their county areas, so the project was modified so that coverage was then flown on the basis of county areas. The project ended in 2005.

Standard terms and conditions apply.

UKP imagery flown by Simmons Aerofilms Ltd is owned by HES/NCAP. UKP imagery flown by NRSC Ltd is owned by Airbus Defence & Space.

The rolls of aerial film collected during this project were stored and managed by Bluesky International Ltd until 2015, when they were transferred to NCAP.