pool was! The manager was impressed with 
the amount of information which could be 
obtained with the right image interpreter and a 
little image enhancement. 
3. PHOTO CD - GIS LINK 
Currently, Kodak Shoebox is the 
database software being used to make a ‘crude’ 
geo-link between the scanned aerial photo and 
its location. This geo-link is nothing more 
than connecting user defined fields of section, 
township, range, county, date-of-photography, 
etc., within Shoebox to each unique scanned 
slide number and CD ROM disc identification 
number. Obviously, this is a weak link in 
today’s GIS environment but it is affordable 
and it works. 
Since the Photo CD format is so new, 
only one GIS company (TNTmips) is planning 
to develop the means to read this format 
directly. However, the Photo CD images can 
be translated into TIFF, TGA, Bitmap or 
whatever file format your GIS can read. 
Realistically though, with a million SAC slides 
for Wisconsin alone, Photo CD format 
conversion to another type is not a feasible 
option. 
4. PROGRESS 
The idea of getting better access to 
FSA slides started in the early 1990's with 
Dane County, Wisconsin which acquired a 
video camera based system to 'capture' slides 
onto a large video disc. Columbia County 
followed by getting a digital version with an 
in-house scanner and WORM CD ROM drive 
mated to a 486 computer system. Both 
systems worked quite well and are still in use 
today. 
In 1993, this author was asked to 
review the two existing systems to see if 
NRCS should use one of them for the rest of 
the Wisconsin NRCS offices. After extensive 
research, the newly emerging Photo CD 
system had the best overall features. Six pilot 
34 
counties (Fond Du Lac, Jefferson, Kewaunee, 
La Crosse, Manitowoc, and Rusk) scattered 
throughout Wisconsin were chosen to fully test 
the utility of scanning FSA aerial slides. 
About 10 continuous years of slides for each 
county were scanned over the summer of 1994. 
The total scanning cost for these six counties 
was about $25,000. Half the cost was shared 
by each county Land Conservation 
Department. Another six counties have been 
chosen for 1995 (Pepin, Rock, St Croix, Sauk, 
Shawano and Washington). 
Next door in Michigan, Michigan State 
University has taken a similar approach with 
support from the Michigan NRCS office. 
They are having 60,000 slides covering the 
entire state scanned onto Photo CD’s but just 
for the year 1991 (Michigan State University, 
1995). 
5. CONCLUSION 
The Photo CD system is rapidly 
becoming a standard for photo capture and 
storage due to high resolution scans and 
compression without loss. Here are just a few 
of the advantages: 
fast scan rate 
very high resolution scans 
tv or computer display 
scanning by film shops 
many software tools 
low cost CD ROMs 
easy-to-use database 
fast display time 
multiple resolutions 
portable 
Windows, UNIX, Macintosh compatible 
The GIS link will eventually develop 
because GIS software companies are finding it 
difficult to manage high resolution images. In 
the meantime, the immediate goal of faster 
access to 35mm SAC photos has been met by 
using the Photo CD system. The overall goal 
to allow NRCS and Count Land Conservation 
Departments to do their job faster, more 
efficiently 
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