A series of stunning new images created for a new TV show America’s transport and communication infrastructure in breath-taking detail.
The pictures were taken for PBS show ‘America Revealed’ using satellite technology, including GPS and innovations in aerial photography.
This allowed the creators of the show to reveal the different sorts of journeys taken across the US in graphic detail, with each image showing the routes of different modes of transport or infrastructure networks.
One image, for instance, shows the remarkable distance covered by one family-run combine harvesting business, while another highlights the blue grid pattern of New York’s bus services surrounded by the further-reaching commuter rail services and combined pathways ferries.
For the more morbidly inclined, there is a map of the unpublicised transportation of dead bodies, many of which seem to be being repatriated to the states they grew up in from the retirement mecca of Florida.
There is even a GPS trail detailing routes ridden by cycling pizza delivery riders on a single Friday night in Manhattan. Judging by the distances covered, we wouldn’t be surprised if they helped themselves to one of those pizzas at the end of the night.
The same aerial photography, CGI and data visualisation techniques that were used to create the BBC’s ‘Britain from Above’ were used, except ramped up to the next level (as is usually the case when home-grown exports go stateside).
Executive producer Nick Catliff had this to say: “I think the result is a series that explores and explains the vast systems that keep America running and does so on an epic scale.”
The four-part series will also be aired in the UK for those lucky enough to have a Sky or Virgin Media subscription.