| Satellite Remote Sensing: Through the Looking Glass, Part 2
The remote sensing industry is getting in touch with the end user community. If further improvements are made, we should be in good shape to enter the age of high resolution.
By Mary Jo Wagner Much has changed over the past year in the remote sensing industry, which has left end users and vendors alike with questions and concerns. Issues about new companies that have entered the market, new data sets' availability, such as IRS-1C and their potential applications, and the new generation of high-resolution satellites are of particular interest.
The rapid growth and expansion of the market is good news for remote sensing advocates, but with so much happening, it also makes for confusing times, particularly for end users worldwide. Questions such as, Who can work with me?, Who understands the data? and Who can help me develop my end product? are still common.
In a previous article we looked at where the confusion stems from and how the industry is trying to provide the answers that end users and service providers are hungry for. One company whose answers interest the industry is EOSAT, because of their long-standing role in the remote sensing community.
"One of the most important questions is, what do you do to help the market remain as cohesive as possible as opposed to fragmented, which is what has begun to happen," says Dave Edwards, executive vice president of EOSAT. "As an industry leader, we've got to find the right balance."
Indeed, diversity with unity is a positive addition to any industry. That's why EOSAT is focusing on empowering its distributors through education and supplying the right tools to serve the end users, says Edwards.
The industry seems to be more in touch with the end user community. The applications, products and services being developed are evidence of that. And if further improvements are made, the remote sensing community should be in good shape to enter the age of high resolution. EarthWatch
The high-resolution generation of satellites has been an anticipated era ever since the industry was given first wind of it in 1993. With 5-meter panchromatic data from the IRS-1C imagery available now from EOSAT and Euromap, the high-resolution data seems to be what the industry is interested in. That's why EOSAT was one of the first company's to obtain distribution rights in the U.S., says Shawana Johnson, director of worldwide sales and marketing.
The EarlyBird from EarthWatch in Longmont, Colo., will be the first satellite out of the chute to officially begin the new era of commercial remote sensing. Set to launch in December 1996, the EarlyBird satellite will carry a 3-meter resolution panchromatic sensor and a 15-meter resolution multispectral sensor. Higher resolution QuickBird satellites able to collect 1-meter resolution data are scheduled for launch in 1998.
The EarlyBird captures scenes of 36 square kilometers with an accessible swath of 560 km from a 470 km orbit. Its sensor is also designed for 30 degrees fore and aft, as well as side-to-side, enabling the satellite to acquire stereo imagery. Regina Morton, EarthWatch's director of distributor operations, says the quick orbit of the satellite will allow for a repeat coverage of two to three times a day.
The application potential for the EarlyBird imagery is substantial, both in the traditional and newly emerging markets. It could also be the catalyst for vendors to hit markets never before considered, says Morton. The defining end user market may soon change and the industry is preparing for it, says Brenda Burroughs, U.S. director of sales at EOSAT.
"We at EOSAT are really excited about both the EarlyBird and Indian data," she says. "Now we have 5-meter, 3-meter and eventually 1-meter products as additional tools to help our clients solve their problems. We'll really be able to penetrate the markets we've wanted to before, as well as provide our traditional sectors the additional data sets to better carry out projects and develop services."
EOSAT's distributors agree. "The high resolution data is essential to what we're doing," says Donn Walklet, president and CEO of TerraNova in Los Altos, Calif. "The economics of being able to gather data on a global basis anywhere, anytime, and at that resolution, is going to be a key part of what makes this business successful." Greasing The Wheel
But equally important to the commercial success of the industry is the distribution of the data; the efficiency in which data is supplied from the ground station to the image provider and to the client.
"Having an abundance of available data at different resolutions is tremendous, but it's all just data if we can't get it to end users when they need it," says Tony Shupin, international sales director at EOSAT.
Having to sometimes wait long periods for imagery and dealing with international ground stations that acquire and distribute data in a myriad of technical formats, are problems still plaguing the growth of the remote sensing business. Shupin believes a better flow of data can be achieved if the industry begins to look at the community differently and is willing to accept some radical changes.
"The industry has to realize that the needs of the ground stations are not that different from the needs of our distributors, which are being primarily dictated by the needs of our end users," he says. "It's all intertwined.
"The cry is for the integration of all satellite sources," he adds. "Standards that can be adhered to and applied. We are developing specific strategies to help ensure data acquisition and processing standards, consistent quality, rapid turnaround on orders and good customer service are delivered to the end users."
As the possibility to establish additional ground stations in the future, such as those in Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab of Emirates to receive Landsat data become more real, being able to achieve data standards will be important. The Here and Now
End users, however, can already reap the benefits of a more immediate goal to shorten the waiting period for image products. Through a strategic alliance that EOSAT formed with ImageLinks, a satellite and aerial image processing company in Melbourne, Fla., clients can receive orders in as little as 24 hours.
ImageLinks has enhanced existing technology and developed a service that automatically processes, corrects and combines satellite or aerial digital imagery to create customized products. This system can process and mosaic large-scale imagery from a variety of different sources, such as Landsat, IRS-1C, RADARSAT and aerial ADAR data, at any scale and projection the customer needs.
"Our technology has removed virtually all of the manual labor in the process," says Dan DuPont, president of ImageLinks. "This significantly reduces the time that was previously required for manual fusing, mosaicking and referencing, and also results in a dramatic reduction in errors."
And the system can process the products with amazing speed. For example, a Landsat TM mosaic comprised of 14 full scenes was processed in less than two hours with ImageLinks' service, says DuPont. That same product would take weeks of labor to produce using comparable systems, he adds.
In addition, ImageLinks plans to make their value-added imagery available on Core Software's ImageNet network.
Through another joint marketing and business development EOSAT established with Core Software in Pasadena, Calif., users can bring the immediacy of more than just data to the desktop.
Core has been steadily building a unique virtual image database of geospatial imagery through its ImageNet service. Through its affiliation of service providers worldwide, ImageNet allows anyone with Internet access the ability to search distributed archives of satellite imagery, browse through thumbnails and order needed data sets directly on-line.
Recent developments of the ImageNet Service Provider Program and Core's new product ImageNet v2.0, Raptor, will provide users even easier access to more data and information, says Ted Arden, director of customer service at Core.
"Through Raptor, users need only one search screen to access a multitude of archives globally," says Arden. "And with the INSP, users can now tap into a global network of service providers as well. Growth of this program continues through agreements with global partners not yet accessible through our Primary Service Providers, including CSRSR Taiwan and SAC South Africa. Both will be operating ImageNet servers in the coming months extending services to two new continents."
Using Raptor, clients can search much more than just imagery. Raptor has the ability to access different types of databases and extract information from any number of distributed archives, both locally as well as around the world. A land developer, for example, could create a multi-resolution view of a desired area directly from ImageNet, by selecting both aerial photography and satellite imagery available in the archives.
"People now have a global store front for a multitude of data," says Arden. "We're not only providing the industry the tools to carry out an on-line distribution system, but we're also providing a worldwide forum for them to do so. We've made a quantum leap from a standard database access method to a completely distributed database query system for information retrieval in a multimedia format."
Using this kind of technology allows end users to search for needed data, 24 hours a day, directly from their desktop computer. And cloud cover or other critical considerations of the data are no longer a concern because users know exactly what they'll receive.
"EOSAT has long seen the need for improved imagery access from the ground stations with greater quality assurance improvements," says Johnson. "And Core's system makes huge strides toward this."
Another remote sensing company in EOSAT's distributor network is also going multimedia. Integrated Information Systems Ltd. in Athens, Greece is first and foremost an image provider, but their services expand far beyond the single Landsat scene. IIS has established a separate division of their company dedicated to the production, training and research of multimedia applications for remote sensing and other industries as well.
The Multimedia & Virtual Reality Center of Studies, or MuViRex, has developed a variety of remote sensing multimedia projects for the European Commission, as well as for regional public and private sector agencies. For example, the Telemachus project is a training program for how remote sensing can be applied to detect archeological sites. Another program, called Demarrage, introduces participants to the world of remote sensing, explaining the process of acquiring satellite data, processing the data and how the data can be used. Yannis Cobopoulous, president of IIS, believes educational, multimedia projects in remote sensing will be an important wave of the future. Other Innovations
The Remote Sensing Information Ltd., in Nariobi, Kenya is also hard at work to develop unique applications. Says RSI's director, Keziah Nganga, there is a tremendous amount of interest in remote sensing in Kenya and the end user community is growing rapidly. Nganga says they export data products and expertise to surrounding countries frequently.
One particular application of interest that RSI has played a key role in developing is using Landsat, coupled with other data sets, to monitor and map the wildlife in the region. Nganga says the movements of elephants are of particular concern as they are prone to destroy large portions of farmers' crops so RSI provides maps to aid the farmers in protecting their crops from massive damage.
This application is also useful for Kenya's tourism industry, which is a very important part of the country's economy. By monitoring and producing maps showing the movements of the most popular wild animals, such as the lion, tour operators can better plan safaris. Using the maps supplied by RSI, tourists can be taken to the areas where the probability of seeing lions is greatest. Putting it into Perspective
We've seen a range of examples of how the remote sensing industry is applying education, innovation and motivation to enhance the growth and knowledge of the end user community. Standardization may be added to the list in the future.
The industry is beginning to redefine roles and change the way it does business. Education and providing total solutions instead of individual pieces has become the service providers' focus and it seems the end users will be better for it. Indeed much has changed over the past year, and indeed much will change in the near future. But it will be a welcome change, say vendors and users alike. With a dedicated focus and a drive for unity, it seems the remote sensing community is poised for new commercial heights on the eve of the high resolution era and is finally headed in the right direction: up. About the Author:
Mary Jo Wagner is a freelance writer, specializing in the GeoTechnologies, who moves a lot. She can now be reached by phone or fax at: 715-235-7422; or e-mail: [email protected] Back |
