Science! By Ryan Whitwam Mar. 19, 2014 11:38 am
Simply having access to satellite imagery of Earth is pretty amazing. Just think — there are thousands of little robots whipping around the planet, snapping photos from a perspective humanity had never seen until just a few decades ago. As with all technology, satellite imagery is getting better all the time. A new wave of civilian satellites are are now in orbit with 50 cm image resolution, but cameras that are twice as powerful should be up there by year’s end. Basically, Google Maps is about to get a lot more cool.
Most of the satellite images we regular folks have access to are 70-100 cm resolutions. That means each pixel represents an object between 70 and 100 cm in size, depending on the power of the camera. Google Maps, Bing, Apple, and others all go to a company called DigitalGlobe for satellite imagery, and that company has recently started offering 50 cm images from space. The picture above is a 50 cm satellite image — it captures about 4 megapixels per square kilometer. Below is an example of 70 cm, which is what most of Google Maps still looks like.
DigitalGlobe is on track to have the Worldview-3 satellite in orbit by the end of the year, and it will carry a much more powerful camera capable of 25 cm image resolution. That’s an unheard of level of detail for civilian mapping technology. It will be nice eye candy, but it still doesn’t compete with the technology the military and intelligence agencies have. Government satellites are known to have 10 cm capabilities — enough to see individual people in a crowd.
There are already 700 million square kilometers of truly 50 cm satellite imagery available from DigitalGlobe, and more is coming in with each orbit. The Worldview-3 will only be able to pull in a fraction of that working all by itself, but more high-resolution orbiters will join it in time.
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Most of the satellite images we regular folks have access to are 70-100 cm resolutions. That means each pixel represents an object between 70 and 100 cm in size, depending on the power of the camera. Google Maps, Bing, Apple, and others all go to a company called DigitalGlobe for satellite imagery, and that company has recently started offering 50 cm images from space. The picture above is a 50 cm satellite image — it captures about 4 megapixels per square kilometer. Below is an example of 70 cm, which is what most of Google Maps still looks like.
DigitalGlobe is on track to have the Worldview-3 satellite in orbit by the end of the year, and it will carry a much more powerful camera capable of 25 cm image resolution. That’s an unheard of level of detail for civilian mapping technology. It will be nice eye candy, but it still doesn’t compete with the technology the military and intelligence agencies have. Government satellites are known to have 10 cm capabilities — enough to see individual people in a crowd.
There are already 700 million square kilometers of truly 50 cm satellite imagery available from DigitalGlobe, and more is coming in with each orbit. The Worldview-3 will only be able to pull in a fraction of that working all by itself, but more high-resolution orbiters will join it in time.
More...
