Posts Tagged ‘Earth Observation’
State of Earth Imaging Industry
Earth Imaging Journal- “State of the Industry” – May 2009
How has the recent economic downturn affected the remote sensing industry? Can the Obama administration help? To find out, Earth Imaging Journal’s staff asked members of its Editorial Board. In the process, they assessed their own businesses, as well as activities across the globe. Combined, their views provide a unique look at the current state of the industry. Full text of the article may be found at: http://www.eijournal.com/state_of_industry.asp
MORSE Initiative – Earth observation data for Arctic coastal users
Kate Lance passed along the following link:
The MORSE Initiative focuses on the information needs of Arctic coastal users in government, non-governmental, municipal, industrial and scientific organizations. Particular emphasis is on those needs that can be satisfied, in whole or in part, by Earth Observation (EO) data from satellites. This new initiative is jointly managed by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and European Space Agency (ESA). The MORSE consultation workshop opens a dialogue with users and lays the foundation for a subsequent Request for Proposals and Invitation to Tender early in 2009 by CSA and ESA, respectively. The MORSE initiative is summarized in a Concept Paper (in PDF format). http://www.morsearctic.net/docs/concept_paper.pdf
World’s Highest Resolution Commercial Satellite Captures First Image
Launched on September 6th, the world’s highest resolution commercial remote sensing satellite, GeoEye-1 , released its first image today. GeoEye-1 can acquire black-and-white imagery in panchromatic mode* at a 0.41-meter ground resolution and color imagery in the multi-spectral mode* at a 1.65-meter ground resolution. That’s close enough to zoom in on the home plate of a baseball diamond, noted Mark Brender, GeoEye’s vice president of communications and marketing. GeoEye-1 will provide very high resolution imagery to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), but others only will be able to obtain imagery that is processed to half a meter [19.7 inches] ground resolution because of U.S. government restrictions.
According to Brian X. Chen (WIRED Science, 10/8/08), Google has an exclusive relationship with GeoEye, “meaning the search-engine giant will be the only online mapping site using the satellite’s photos.”
- GeoEye Press Release, October 8, 2008
- Google’s Super Satellite Captures First Image, Brian X. Chen, WIRED Science, October 8, 2008
- GeoEye’s Next Generation Color Satellite Imagery, GeoInformatics, October 25, 2007
* “Panchromatic” = a single wide band in the visible part of the spectrum; ”multi-spectral” = the green, red, and infra-red bands of the electromagnetic spectrum; “pansharpening” = a suite of techniques used to fuse/merge panchromatic and multi-spectral imagery to increase the spatial resolution of the multi-spectral images (color), while simultaneously preserving the spectral information contained within the multispectral images.
Next Generation Digital Earth
Next Generation Digital Earth: a position paper from the Vespucci Initiative for the Advancement of Geographic Information Science
This position paper is the outcome of a joint reflection by a group of international geographic and environmental scientists from government, industry, and academia brought together by the Vespucci Initiative for the Advancement of Geographic Information Science, and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. It argues that the vision of Digital Earth put forward by Vice-President Al Gore 10 years ago needs to be re-evaluated in the light of the many developments in the fields of information technology, data infrastructures, and earth observation that have taken place since. It focuses the vision on the next-generation Digital Earth and identifies priority research areas to support this vision. The paper is offered as input for discussion among different stakeholder communities with the aim to shape research and policy over the next 5-10 years.
