Compression and Distribution of Snb Softcopy Orthophotomap Database

Service New Brunswick (SNB), a crown corporation operated by the province of New Brunswick, Canada, is at a very advanced stage of constructing a huge orthophotomap database which contains digital color orthophotos covering the coastal zone area of the province at a scale of 1:10,000. Furthermore, SNB’s next step is to extend its efforts to cover the whole province. The size of each orthophoto is 130 MB and the whole database is expected to be approximately 270 GB. SNB is considering distribution of these image files via CD and on-line using its web server allowing its clients to request and download any desired orthophoto(s) through the internet. Image compression is being considered in the interest of more efficient data storage and faster file transfer.