ACQUISITION OF COUNTY-WIDE ORTHOIMAGERY AND OBLIQUE IMAGERY

Agency:	Erie County
State:	New York
Type of Government:	State & Local
NAICS Category:	541330 - Engineering Services 541611 - Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
Posted Date:	Dec 5, 2025
Due Date:	Dec 22, 2025
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ERIE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING

OFFICE OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SERVICES

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP)

ACQUISITION OF COUNTY-WIDE ORTHOIMAGERY

AND OBLIQUE IMAGERY

RFP #2025-050VF

RFP Issue Date: December 5, 2025

Due Date: December 22, 2025 at or before 3:00pm

DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING

OFFICE OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SERVICES

EDWARD A. RATH COUNTY OFFICE BUILDING

95 FRANKLIN STREET, 10th FLOOR

BUFFALO, NEW YORK 14202

ERIE COUNTY

OFFICE OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SERVICES

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP)

ACQUISITION OF COUNTY-WIDE ORTHOIMAGERY AND OBLIQUE IMAGERY

1. INTRODUCTION

The Erie County Department of Environment and Planning, Office of Geographic Information

Services (OGIS) is seeking proposals from qualified aerial imagery acquisition firms to collect

and deliver color, high-resolution Erie County-wide orthogonal and oblique digital aerial

imagery over the course of a five-year, three flight contract. Erie County departments and Erie

County municipal offices will use the imagery to support a wide range of planning,

management, and public service functions.

It is the County's intent to select the Proposer that provides the best solution for the County's

needs. The County will only contract with firms that do not discriminate against employees or

applicants for employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, sex, age, disability,

marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship status or any other status protected by New York

State and Federal laws.

This Request for Proposal (RFP) outlines the imagery acquisition project background, and

requirements.

2. PROJECT BACKGROUND

Erie County is located in western New York State with its western border along the Lake Erie

shoreline. Erie County covers approximately 1,060 square miles of land area and consists of 3

cities, 16 villages, and 25 towns. The City of Buffalo is the largest metropolitan area within the

County. Based on 2023 land cover data, approximately 35% of the County is forested, 25% is

rural agricultural, 30% is suburban/urban, and the remainder is wetland or otherwise

undeveloped.

The County is seeking a five-year contract with a three flight orthorectified and oblique

imagery capture to support its aerial imagery users. The most recent flight of county-wide

high resolution orthogonal and oblique aerial imagery was completed in Spring, 2020 at a 3-

inch resolution. Authorized county and municipal users can access the Spring 2020 imagery

and provider-archived historical imagery using a secure online cloud-based platform delivered

with the imagery. Geographic Information System (GIS) users at the County can integrate the

securely hosted imagery into ESRI GIS software.

3. PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The County’s objectives are to:

• Attain a five-year contract to acquire natural color high resolution orthoimagery and

oblique aerial imagery of the Erie County, NY geographic area in two-year increments,

ideally in Spring 2026, Spring 2028, and Spring 2030. Imagery capture should occur in leaf-

off, no or limited snow cover, and minimal cloud cover conditions. It is expected that

vertical imagery will be post-processed to result in a seamless digital orthorectifed product

for use in GIS.

• Provide county and municipal users with a secure web-based aerial imagery viewer

and training on its use.

An imagery viewer that includes tools for high-resolution image visualization, historic

imagery comparison, and basic spatial analysis for use by authorized county and

municipal users, including training on its use, should be provided by the proposer.

• Integrate aerial imagery into GIS applications. ESRI ArcGIS Pro and associated ESRI

products are the main GIS software used by Erie County GIS users. The County is

requesting an add-in tool that integrates the orthogonal and oblique imagery into ESRI

products and programmatic access to view imagery in Open Geospatial Consortium

(OGC) compliant platforms with an Application Programming Interface (API).

4. SCOPE OF SERVICES

a. Professional Standards and Practices

The project will be awarded to a vendor with turnkey services, experience, aircraft,

processing equipment and photogrammetric expertise to ensure the project team can

deliver professional quality products in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Erie County is funding the project and will only pay for data after full quality control and

acceptance by the Erie County Office of Geographic Information Services.

b. Geographic Extent and Ground Resolution

The desired coverage for both orthographic natural color and oblique aerial imagery is the

entirety of Erie County, NY – a land area of approximately 1,060 square miles.

At a minimum, color vertical and oblique aerial imagery will be acquired at a resolution of 3-

inch ground sampling distance (GSD) in largely developed areas and 6-inch GSD in more

rural and forested areas. The County would consider county-wide 3-inch GSD if deemed

cost effective.

Separate Price Sheets can be submitted by the

proposer for 3-inch and 6-inch resolution imagery

combination and a complete 3-inch resolution

flight. The County welcomes offers for options

better than the minimum requirements in terms of

area coverage and ground resolution.

For this project, the County has delineated a

generalized developed area of approximately 554

square miles to highlight where 3-inch imagery is

requested. A shapefile of the delineation is

available by request at gis@erie.gov

c. Aerial Imagery Collection

Imagery flight(s) should not occur before award of

a contract. Cloud free imagery is required.

Imagery should be captured at an altitude of

10,000 feet or less above ground level and during ideal ground conditions including leaf-off,

cloud-free, minimal haze, free of snow, ice, or flooding.

The successful firm shall obtain all necessary clearances, including military and government

(Air Route Traffic Control Center) clearances to conduct the flights.

All aerial photography collection conducted for this project should conform to specifications

established by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS)

Positional Accuracy Standards for Digital Geospatial Data, Edition 2, Version 2.0. The

successful firm shall be liable for ensuring that all photography complies with industry

standard tolerances.

As solely determined by Erie County, images must be free of significant defects or

inconsistencies in tone, contrast or color within an individual tile and/or between adjacent

image tiles; color and contrast shall be natural. In the case that Erie County determines that

the aerial imagery does not comply with the agreed specifications, the vendor will be

required to take immediate action and bring all existing and future imagery up to standards,

by re-flying these areas, upgrading equipment, enhancing post processing etc.

d. Orthorectified Imagery

Aerial imagery collection and post processing should ultimately result in a seamless digital

orthorectified natural color imagery product suitable for visualization and analytical

purposes in a geographic information system (GIS). It is expected that the orthorectififed

imagery will be created using a combination of automated and manual tools and inspected

by the successful firm for image quality and consistent radiometric quality.

Erie County’s standard data projection is the New York State Plane West Coordinate System,

US feet, Datum NAD83. The vertical datum standard is North American Vertical Datum of

1988 (NAVD88), US Feet. Imagery georeferenced to this projection is preferable.

The successful firm will provide orthoimagery metadata following FGDC metadata standards

that describes flight date, time, resolution, geographic projection, horizontal and vertical

datum accuracy, photographic equipment, and post-processing details.

It is expected that orthoimagery and associated raw imagery will be available to Erie County

via the proposer’s cloud infrastructure within 8-weeks from the imagery capture and by

portable external hard drive (USB2 or USB3) delivered within 12-weeks from the imagery

capture.

e. Oblique Imagery

The successful firm will obtain low oblique aerial photography in Spring 2026, Spring 2028,

and Spring 2030. Photography shall be acquired when skies are clear, free from turbulence,

wind shear, and excessive smoke or haze. The ground shall be free from standing water.

Photography shall not be flown during overcast sky conditions, nor shall photography

contain objectionable shadows caused by clouds, relief, or low solar altitude. Submittals

shall include sun angle, weather conditions, ground conditions and any other parameters

that will be used as constraints to ensure high quality data is acquired. Resulting oblique

images should be georeferenced and post-processed for accurate measurements.

The successful firm will provide oblique imagery metadata following FGDC metadata

standards that includes flight date, time, resolution, geographic projection, horizontal and

vertical datum accuracy, photographic equipment, and post-processing details.

It is expected that oblique imagery deliverable will be available to Erie County via the

proposer’s cloud infrastructure within 8-weeks from the imagery capture and by portable

external hard drive (USB2 or USB3) delivered within 12-weeks from the imagery capture.

f. Imagery Hosting and Delivery

It is expected that for each of the three flight years, orthoimagery and oblique imagery will

be hosted by the proposer within secure, cloud-based infrastructure for the duration of the

contract.

Raw imagery is required to also be provided to the County via data download or an external

hard drive.

In addition, within 4-6 weeks of the aerial flight, the Contractor shall deliver the raw images

of the aerial flight for initial photo checking on portable (USB2 or USB3) external hard

drives. Unacceptable aerial imagery shall be corrected at no additional cost

g. Imagery Viewer

Authorized county and municipal users presently have access to a secure web-based

application to view and compare current and provider-archived historical ortho and

oblique imagery, overlay other spatial data layers, perform spatial searches and

This page summarizes the opportunity, including an overview and a preview of the attached documents.

Department	Title	Submission Deadline	Additional files
ENVIRONMENT & PLANNING	ACQUISITION OF COUNTY-WIDE ORTHOIMAGERY AND OBLIQUE IMAGERY	Monday, December 22, 2025

ACQUISITION OF COUNTY-WIDE ORTHOIMAGERY AND OBLIQUE IMAGERY

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