The project, which has been made free-to-view, comes from Cambridge University. The process of putting the tool together involved taking a vast array of aerial photographs of Britain, starting with the landscape post-World War II in 1945, and stretching over a 70-year period ending in 2009.
According to The Guardian, viewing the digital images shows considerable change, and the impact of humanity upon both urban and rural landscapes. The earlier images show the bomb-scarred period for the years coming out of wartime, to the creation of the first motorways (freeways) during the 1960s and the rise of skyscrapers, most notably in the City of London.
Each of the images has been taken by former wartime RAF pilots, as required in 1945 by Cambridge archaeologist Kenneth St Joseph. During the first two years, the collection was built up a little haphazardly. In 1947, the taking of photographs from the sky became more structured, ensuring that Britain was mapped and that familiar sites were captured repeatedly over successive years.
Since then, platforms for aerial photography extend to fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), balloons, blimps and dirigibles, rockets, stand-alone telescoping; plus vehicle-mounted poles.
The image collection is called the Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photography. The collection includes obliques (photographs taken at an angle) and verticals (photographs that are taken straight down) in black and white, as well as colour and infra-red images (which is useful for visualizing very dark skies and penetration of atmospheric haze).
The early images are described as being of technical interest to photographers, such as exhibiting early colour aerial photography; and being of great academic value — especially concerning coastal change or the discoveries of archaeological sites.
Other uses of the images could include archaeology, geology, cartography, social history, law (land/border disputes), environmental issues and town planning. A selection of the images will be made available for sale.
To date some 1,500 digital images have been made available, reaching almost every part of the British Isles. On completion, the project could grow to around 500,000 (497,079 in total), if every image from the extensive archive is used.
