Hi Richard and Stewart, I run the OSM US server that's serving these tiles for you. Answers are below:
On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Richard Weait <[email protected]> wrote: > We should be asking about this on talk-us. cc'd there. > > On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 8:17 AM, Stewart C. Russell <[email protected]> > wrote: > > While editing near Leamington ON in Potlatch, I clicked by accident on > > the Background -> "OSM US USGS Large Scale Aerial Imagery". It came up > > with really sharp and recent orthoimagery. It's of similar quality to > > the SWOOP images I buy at $50/km^2 for work, and covers some areas that > > Bing doesn't. Images look to be from 2010 or so, guessing from the > > visible wind power projects in SW Ontario. > > > > Trying out several areas near the US border I found: > > * that coverage is seemingly random; some isolated areas have it, > > contiguous areas near the border might not > Coverage should be relatively consistent: when you're over an area that has high resolution imagery it will use it, otherwise it will use the most recent NAIP imagery. I see a relatively consistent image along the entire US/Canada border. > > * it's coming from a very slow server which only works if you're zoomed > > in very close > The URL you're hitting leads to a CDN that has been having a hard time lately. Also, the server simply caches imagery requests to the USGS server which can get busy during the day. > > * it's not seemingly available from a public WMS, as any of the USGS > > servers I tried blank at the Canadian border. > The data comes from here: http://raster.nationalmap.gov/ArcGIS/rest/services/TNM_Large_Scale_Imagery/MapServer > > > > Surprisingly, it seems that not all USGS imagery is public domain > > ( > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/USGS_High_Resolution_Orthoimagery#Data_License > ). > > So, can we use it? All imagery in the list referred to by that page is marked "public domain". Yes you can use it.
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