USAGE TIPS: Hover over the green line on the viewer and click and hold down on the mouse once you see the arrow appear. Then, while holding down on the mouse, move the line to the left or the right in order to see how Natural Color and False Color Imagery compare for a given area of interest. Click, hold down, and drag in order to reposition the map.

INFORMATION: Today’s aerial, digital mapping cameras routinely capture electromagnetic radiation in four bands of the spectrum: blue, green, red and near infrared. When displaying the image as “true” or “natural” color, the software matches the red, green and blue bands to these channels in the computer display. The same image can be displayed as “false color infrared” by changing the band combination so that the near infrared, red and green bands are output to the red, green and blue channels. Thus, in a false color infrared image, one can distinguish vegetated surfaces with ease – as they show in varying hues and intensities of red. By contrast, impervious surfaces and bare soil tend to show in different shades of blue or gray, while deep, sediment and vegetation-free water shows dark.