X marks the spot for aerial photos in Greater Sudbury

If you live in Sudbury, you may have noticed giant X's painted on the a few sidewalks throughout the city.

Morning North host Markus Schwabe recently stumbled across one and didn't know why it was there. He posted a photo on social media, and CBC listeners weighed in — everything from future potholes to aliens.

In the end, it turns it wasn't a drone landing pad, a pirate treasure or a proposed arena site.

The manager of community and strategic planning with the city says they're targets for aerial photography.

"Depending on what part of the city we're doing and how large an area, there are anywhere between 40 to just under 100 targets that are set up for that program," Kris Longston explained.

"What those targets are, is once the photography is taken we use GPS to mark the coordinates of those targets and then we tie in the targets from the photos to our survey control network and that way we can get a very accurate picture of that particular area of the city."

Limited time

Longston says the aerial photography helps creates maps of the city.

"Some of the sub-watersheds studies, they can figure out elevations, where areas might be at risk of flooding," he said.

He says it's a short window of opportunity to do the aerial photography.

"You need to do it after the snow melts but before there's leaves on the trees," he said.

"Our crews were out painting those targets the past few weeks and we actually flew all of our aerial photography last week for this year."

Longston says the city has a five year cycle to get current aerial photographs of different areas of the community.