The View From Above

Glastonbury becomes more high-tech each year, and an interesting new example of the onward march of technology has been premiered in 2002 by West Country outfit Simmons Aerofilms. The company has developed an aerial photographic map of the festival site - accurate to within 25cm, believe it or not - as well as a stunning 3D computer graphic model of Glastonbury. What, you may ask, is the point of that, other than providing nice-looking imagery? Simmons Aerofilms' Stuart Simmons explains: "It's being used by the police, ambulance service and fire brigade to provide security for the site. They have the imagery in their command and control vehicles. For example, if it's pitch-black and a fireman says he's at the Acoustic Stage, it gives a great on-the-ground reference of where he is." With the high-resolution image giving a theoretical resolution of 25cm per pixel, you could easily see individual tents. But, Simmons explains, "As soon as you capture aerial photographs, they become out of date. So we worked on 2000 aerial photography and Photoshopped in the New Bands tent and things that had moved since then." Simmons Aerofilms' 3D model of the site, which includes relief information, is set to star in the BBC's Glastonbury coverage, according to Simmons: "The BBC has been having trouble relaying to its viewers exactly where everything is. At the moment, it's using a papier-mache model and drawing pins. But tonight, they'll start using our 3D model, which I'll have to drive."

You can get a more detailed look at these aerial images. But be warned the files are a bit large! If you are not on a fast internet connection it could take a little bit of time to download... 143KB Image estimate time to download on 56k modem is 20 sec. 1.5MB Image estimate time to download on 56k modem is 3 min 42 sec.