National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP), Minnesota, 2025, Digital Orthorectified Images (DOQ)
Go to Section:- Overview
- Data Quality
- Data Organization
- Coordinate System
- Attributes
- Distribution - Get Data
- Metadata Reference
Section 1: Overview
Originator:United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Production and Conservation Business Center, Geospatial Enterprise Operations (FPAC-BC-GEO)
Title:
National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP), Minnesota, 2025, Digital Orthorectified Images (DOQ)
Abstract:
This data set contains imagery from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP). The NAIP acquires digital ortho imagery during the agricultural growing seasons in the continental U.S. A primary goal of the NAIP program is to enable availability of ortho imagery within one year of acquisition. The NAIP provides 60 centimeter ground sample distance (GSD) ortho imagery rectified to a horizontal accuracy within +/- 4 meters of reference digital ortho quarter quads (DOQQ's) from the National Digital Ortho Program (NDOP) or from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP).
The tiling format of NAIP imagery is based on a 3.75' x 3.75' quarter quadrangle with a 12m buffer on all four sides. The NAIP imagery is formatted to the UTM coordinate system using the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83). The NAIP imagery may contain as much as 10% cloud cover per tile.
This file was generated by compressing NAIP imagery that cover the county extent. Two types of compression may be used for NAIP imagery: MrSID and JPEG 2000. The target value for the compression ratio is 40:1 for imagery.
Purpose:
The NAIP imagery is typically available for distribution within 60 days of the end of a flying season and is intended to provide current information of agricultural conditions in support of USDA farm programs. For USDA Farm Service Agency, the 60cm GSD product provides an ortho image base for Common Land Unit boundaries and other data sets. The NAIP imagery is generally acquired in projects covering full states in cooperation with state government and other federal agencies who use the imagery for a variety of purposes including land use planning and natural resource assessment. The NAIP is also used for disaster response often providing the most current pre-event imagery.
Time Period of Content Date:
2025
Currentness Reference:
Photography Source Image Dates.
Options to access the dates:
1. A seamline shapefile for Minnesota may be downloaded from NRCS: https://nrcs.app.box.com/v/naip/folder/354291675993
2. The shapefiles are included with the MrSID county mosaics downloadable from NRCS
Progress:
Complete
Maintenance and Update Frequency:
Irregular
Spatial Extent of Data:
Minnesota
Bounding Coordinates:
-97.5
-89.00
49.5
43.0
Place Keywords:
Minnesota, MN
Theme Keywords:
imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, Digital Orthorectified Image, Digital Orthophoto Quad, Ortho, Orthophoto, DOQ, NAIP, Compliance, Air Photo, Air Photography, Aerial Photo, Aerial Photography
Theme Keyword Thesaurus:
ISO 19115 Topic Category
Access Constraints:
None
Use Constraints:
The USDA-FPAC-BC Geospatial Enterprise Operations branch asks to be credited in derived products.
If defects are found in the NAIP imagery during the 1 year warranty period such as horizontal offsets, replacement imagery may be provided. Imagery containing defects that require the acquisition of new imagery, such as excessive cloud cover, specular reflectance, etc., will not be replaced within a NAIP project year.
Contact Person Information:
Supervisor Customer Services Section,
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Production and Conservation Business Center, Geospatial Enterprise Operations (FPAC-BC-GEO)
125 S. State Street Suite 6416
Salt Lake City,
UT
84139
Phone: 801-844-2922
Email: GEO.Sales@usda.gov
Browse Graphic:
None available
Section 2: Data Quality
Attribute Accuracy:
NAIP imagery may contain as much as 10% cloud cover per tile.
Imagery can show marked color differences between areas flown at different dates.
Logical Consistency:
N/A
Completeness:
No report
Horizontal Positional Accuracy:
NAIP Specifications.
The quarter-quad files are 0.6 meter ground sample distance (GSD) ortho imagery rectified within +/- 4 meters to reference digital ortho quarter quads (DOQQ's) from the National Digital Ortho Program (NDOP) or from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP).
Vertical Positional Accuracy:
N/A
Lineage:
Digital imagery was collected at a nominal GSD of 30cm using one Rockwell AC90, one Piper PAY2 and 4 Cessna 441 aircraft flying at an average flight height of 9409m AGL. Aircraft flew with Leica Geosystem's DMC-4X digital sensors with firmware 6.3. Each sensor collected 4 image bands Red, Green, Blue and Near-infrared in an integrated frame image with an across-track field of view 71 degrees. The DMC-4X spectral ranges are; Red 580-660nm, Green 480-590nm, Blue 420-510nm and Near-infrared at 720-850nm. The BSI CMOS arrays have a pixel size of 3.76 microns and deliver an integrated frame image with 54400x8320 format. The CMOS arrays have a dynamic range of 83db and the A/D converters have a resolution of 14bits. The DMC-4X is a frame-based sensor the ground footprint of the imagery is approximately 13 km wide x 2 km high at a nominal 30cm GSD. The maximum flightline length is limited to approximately 163km. The factory calibrations and IMU alignments for each sensor (Serial Numbers: 48901, 48902, 48903, 48904, 48905, 48906 and 48907) were tested and verified by in-situ test flights before the start of the project. The Leica MissionPro Flight Planning Software is used to develop the flight acquisition plans. Flight acquisition sub blocks are designed first to define the GNSS base station logistics, and to break the project up into manageable acquisition units. The flight acquisition sub blocks are designed based on the specified acquisition season, native UTM zone of the DOQQs, flight line length limitations (to ensure sufficient performance of the IMU solution) as well as air traffic restrictions in the area. Once the sub blocks have been delineated they are brought into MissionPro for flight line design. The design parameters used in MissionPro will be 20% lateral overlap and 30cm resolution. The flight lines have been designed with a north/south orientation or east/west where required for efficiency. The design takes into account the latitude of the state, which affects line spacing due to convergence as well as the terrain. SRTM elevation data is used in the MissionPro design to ensure the 30cm GSD is achieved over all types of terrain. The raw data was downloaded from the sensors after each flight using Leica HxMap software. The imagery was then georeferenced using the 500Hz GPS/INS data creating an exterior orientation for each frame image (x/y/z/o/p/k). Leica HxMap APM software was used to automatically generate tiepoint measurements between the frame images for each line and to tie all flight lines together. The resulting point data and exterior orientation data were used to perform a full bundle adjustment using HxMap Triangulation software. Blunders were removed, and additional tie points measured in weak areas to ensure a robust solution. Once the point data was clean and point coverage was acceptable, photo-identifiable GPS-surveyed ground control points were introduced into the block adjustment. The bundle adjustment process produces revised exterior orientation data for the sensor with GPS/INS, datum, and sensor calibration errors modeled and removed. Using the revised exterior orientation from the bundle adjustment, orthorectified image frames were created with HxMap software and the 2021 HxIP DEM or NED DEM. The HxMap orthorectification software applies an atmospheric-BRDF radiometric correction to the imagery. This correction compensates for atmospheric absorption, solar illumination angle and bi-directional reflectance. The orthorectified frames were then overlaid with each other and the ground control to check accuracy. Once the accuracy of the orthorectified image strips were validated the strips were then imported into the HxMap Mosaic software which was used for the final radiometric balance, mosaic, and DOQQ sheet creation. The final DOQQ sheets, with a 12m buffer and a ground pixel resolution of 60cm were then combined and compressed to create the county wide CCMs.
Section 3: Spatial Data Organization (not used in this metadata)
Section 4: Coordinate System
Horizontal Coordinate Scheme:
Universal Transverse Mercator
UTM Zone Number:
15
Horizontal Datum:
NAD83
Horizontal Units:
meters
Vertical Datum:
not applicable
Vertical Units:
Depth Datum:
not applicable
Depth Units:
Cell Width:
0.6
Cell Height:
0.6
Section 5: Attributes
Overview:
8-bit pixels per band, 0-255, 4-band RGBiR
Detailed Citation:
None
Table Detail:
Section 6: Distribution
Publisher:
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Production and Conservation Business Center, Geospatial Enterprise Operations (FPAC-BC-GEO)
Publication Date:
04/21/2026
Contact Person Information:
MnGeo,
GIS Data Specialist
Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo)
600 Robert Street N
St. Paul,
MN
55146
Phone: 651-201-2499
Email: gisinfo.mngeo@state.mn.us
Distributor's Data Set Identifier:
NAIP 2025
Distribution Liability:
1. FPAC-BC-GEO Liability Statement: In no event shall the creators, custodians, or distributors of this information be liable for any damages arising out of its use (or the inability to use it).
2. MnGeo's disclaimer: https://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/chouse/disclaimer.html
Ordering Instructions:
The imagery is available free online by clicking below after Online Linkage.
1. View the natural color files seamlessly via a WMS service without having to download the files. They are available as two separate layers: a natural color version and a color infrared version.
2. Download each county file in MrSID format (natural color or color infrared) and accompanying seamline shapefile from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service's Geospatial Data Gateway site: https://nrcs.app.box.com/v/naip/folder/354291675993 Online Linkage:
None available
Section 7: Metadata Reference
Metadata Date:
04/21/2026
Contact Person Information:
MnGeo,
GIS Data Specialist
Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo)
600 Robert Street N
St. Paul,
MN
55146
Phone: 651-201-2499
Email: gisinfo.mngeo@state.mn.us
Metadata Standard Name:
Minnesota Geographic Metadata Guidelines
Metadata Standard Version:
1.2