TerraServer was a commercial website specializing in aerial and

satellite imagery Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell im ...

which was originally launched in 1997. It is owned and operated by TerraServer.com, Inc. in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

. The company was previously named Aerial Images until May 2002 when the assets of Aerial Images were sold and the company renamed itself TerraServer.com, Inc.

History

Aerial Images was a part of the original project that involved

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

and

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation was an American information technology, information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compati ...

as a demonstration of the real-world scalability of SQL Server and Microsoft's

Windows NT Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...

Server. Aerial Images brought in satellite imagery from Sovinformsputnik (the Russian Federal Space Agency) and Orbital Imaging Corporation (later renamed

GeoEye GeoEye Inc. (formerly Orbital Imaging Corporation, or ORBIMAGE) was an American commercial satellite imagery company based in Herndon, Virginia. GeoEye was merged into the DigitalGlobe corporation on January 29, 2013. The company was founded i ...

). TerraServer expanded its partnerships and became an image provider for LandVoyage and the

DigitalGlobe DigitalGlobe was an American commercial vendor of space imagery and geospatial content, and operator of civilian remote sensing spacecraft. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange on 14 May 2009, selling 14.7 million shares at U ...

family of companies:

GlobeXplorer GlobeXplorer was an online spatial data company that compiled and distributed aerial photos, satellite imagery, and map data from their online spatial archives. GlobeXplorer has been credited as the first company to establish a business around com ...

and AirPhotoUSA, as well as imagery from the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

and

USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commerc ...

. After an agreement that ended in January 2000, the operations split into two pieces. Aerial Images kept the TerraServer.com domain name to create a commercial site selling custom selected imagery. Microsoft went forward with their own imagery project, which provides access to

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

imagery. The Microsoft project used the TerraServer brand name in a variety of ways including terraserver.homeadvisor.com, terraserver.microsoft.com, and terraserver.msn.com. In 2003, Microsoft

rebranded Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors ...

its research service as

TerraServer-USA Microsoft Research Maps (MSR Maps) was a free online repository of public domain aerial imagery and topographic maps provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The site was a collaboration between Microsoft Research (MSR), Bing Maps, ...

, and then

Microsoft Research Maps Microsoft Research Maps (MSR Maps) was a free online repository of public domain aerial imagery and topographic maps provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The site was a collaboration between Microsoft Research (MSR), Bing Maps, ...

. There may exist confusion between the two sites, because of the name similarity. However, TerraServer.com, Inc. is the sole owner of the registered trademark TerraServer. The "TerraServer" name is a reference to 'Terra', which is Latin for 'earth' or 'land'. TerraServer.com, Inc. was acquired by

PrecisionHawk PrecisionHawk was a commercial drone and data company. Founded in 2010, PrecisionHawk is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina with another global office in Toronto, Canada and satellite offices around the world. PrecisionHawk is a manufactur ...

in March 2015 and its site is currentlyAs of May 2023 down.

Website

The TerraServer viewer allows users to select imagery from different dates and of different resolutions. While most of the TerraServer imagery is focused on high resolution, color, satellite and aerial imagery, TerraServer.com also offers Color Infrared Imagery, Panchromatic Imagery, Low Resolution Satellite Imagery, and

topographic map In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but histori ...

s. Subscribers to TerraServer.com gain access to a drawing and measuring tool that can measure surface distance and area on the images. TerraServer also makes a number of image overlays available, including road names, FEMA flood data, earthquake data, landslide data, real estate parcels, parks, schools, hospitals, airports, and zip codes.

References

External links

* {{Dead Link, date=May 2023, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190426001223/https://www.terraserver.com/ Geographical technology Satellite imagery Internet properties established in 1997 Aerial photography American photography websites