The end of Terraserver …
I remember the days in early 1998 when many of us unhitched our wagons and sat around the campfire and started using Terraserver. Wow – suddenly we had access to georeferenced USGS topo maps and aerial photographs for the whole USA! And while we had to tinker with the header files to get them into a GIS, we now had a wonderfully rich base map for our field studies and other data. (http://www.terraserver-usa.com, later http://msrmaps.com/).
14 years later, Terraserver was recently retired. The text below is currently posted on the National Atlas site: http://nationalatlas.gov: The End of TerraServer. Why? See below. Many wonderful base maps now exist and are available to the GIS user and the general public such as via ArcGIS Online. Times have changed but the need for good base data lives on! While I don’t long for those ‘tinkering’ days, I salute the early pioneers who made it all happen, and look forward to the future. The evolution of data offerings is detailed in the book The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data: http://esripress.esri.com/display/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&websiteID=219&moduleID=0
–Joseph Kerski
At about the same time we started this on-line version of the National Atlas in 1997, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) entered into a cooperative research and development agreement with the Microsoft Corporation to deliver a service that had never been attempted. The result of this partnership was known as TerraServer. This huge database service provided the first Web-based view of USGS topographic maps and aerial photographs covering the whole country. Today using maps, aerial photographs, and satellite images on the Internet is commonplace. Before the millennium, this was revolutionary. Microsoft continued to host the service until May when Terraserver was quietly taken off-line.
Natural color aerial photograph of Guadalupe Peak, Texas (2008)
The National Atlas Map Maker relied on TerraServer to present large-scale maps and aerial photographs for those who wanted more detailed views than we provide. We note its passing and salute all those who developed the service. Many people were involved in this groundbreaking effort. Still, there were three individuals who largely provided the vision and hard work that resulted in this remarkable service: Tom Barclay (Microsoft), Beth Duff (USGS, deceased), and Hedy Rossmeissl (USGS, retired).
We have switched over to services provided by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) so that Atlas users can continue to link from our maps to large-scale topo maps and aerial views. This takes us full circle. The National Atlas Map Maker was the first on-line, interactive mapper offered by the Federal government. It was partially developed under a joint research effort by the USGS and ESRI in 1997.
Joseph J. Kerski, Ph.D.| Education Manager
Esri | 1 International Court | Broomfield CO 80021-3200 | USA
Tel 303-449-7779, ext. 8237 | Fax 303-449-8830
jkerski@esri.com | esri.com
Twitter: @josephkerski
(posted on GISCO Listserve July 13)