
Planet Explorer Beta - natthub
https://www.planet.com/
======
teraflop
The ToS that you're presented with upon signing up is pretty absurd. It
requires you to commit to providing feedback "on a regular basis of not less
than once each week during the Beta term", and to creating "a written
evaluation of the functionality, performance, usability, and stability of the
Beta Site and documentation provided."

It also prohibits you from linking to the site or disclosing any information
about it, including the existence and contents of the ToS. Boy, I sure hope I
don't get sued for posting this comment. /s

~~~
Bjartr
Be a useful beta tester or give up your right to use the beta.

~~~
vm
S/he brings up a useful point of understanding the ToS. What if the next iOS
and Android _require_ my location be constantly shared with third parties? I
would lose privacy or have to go without a smartphone which is freakishly hard
in today's modern world.

Obviously that's a hypothetical but I appreciate anyone who pushes back on
digital rights given how deep we are in the civic/digital rights gray zone.

~~~
tradersam
> have to go without a smartphone which is freakishly hard in today's modern
> world.

Totally off-topic but sometimes I find it unnerving how _hard_ it is to spend
a week without _any_ type of mobile device. People look at you like you're
insane.

~~~
sametmax
Just like saying you don't own a tv in the 90'. It's weird at first but a
fantastic social filter. Saves you so much time to bond with the proper
people, the ones that are ok with people different from them.

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grondilu
Quite off-topic, but that made me think of a project I wish I'll live to see
implemented. I'm sure it will be done by someone eventually, though it's
probably too difficult right now. I'm talking about a whole-world
representation of paleontological knowledge. It'd be a simulation of the world
with all known species. There would be a time slider that would span through
all eons. On large scales we could see continental drift and on short scales
we could see procedurally generated simulations of plants and animals with
basic behavior (like hunting, grazing, circadian rythms, reproduction and so
on...). It would make it possible to see evolution going on, generations after
generations.

I don't think it's totally unfeasible in this century. We already have video
games with procedurally generated planets that include flora and fauna (No
Man's Sky is a famous example, but I believe Elite Dangerous wants to do
something like that eventually). So it will be similar, only it would be based
on actual scientific data.

~~~
jofer
You should have a look at GPlates:
[https://www.gplates.org/](https://www.gplates.org/) It comes with a default
dataset that will get you part way there as far as the raw data goes.

There are also several paid mobile apps that add more "nice-looking" overlays
(e.g. Interactive Earth).

Of course, for the paleogeography, you're referring to something much broader
and more difficult, but somewhat similar things are done to create
paleotopographical reconstructions. I've only seen those sold by vendors,
though, so I don't think any of them are public.

Ron Blakey's paleography is a classic example of something not too dissimilar,
as well:
[https://www2.nau.edu/rcb7/globaltext2.html](https://www2.nau.edu/rcb7/globaltext2.html)
It was made back in the late 90's/early 2000's and has been expanded on since,
but it's something of a manual version.

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alpb
Sidenote: Planet presented on Google Cloud Next 2017 keynote today:
[https://youtu.be/h9FSqVbdHis?t=8109](https://youtu.be/h9FSqVbdHis?t=8109)
They told that they use Google Cloud Platform to store 7+ PB of data and
upload 7 TB daily with a hockey-stick growth trajectory. Personally their mini
satellites were my favorite part. Disclaimer: I work for Google.

~~~
sand500
They just bought Terra Bella too so they have a bunch more data from that.

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JorgeGT
Too bad the resolution outside the US is quite low and the data is closed. If
anyone is interested in a similar web app but without country-based
limitations, you can take a look at Sentinel Playground at:
[http://apps.sentinel-hub.com/sentinel-playground/](http://apps.sentinel-
hub.com/sentinel-playground/) The best part? All Sentinel data is open to
anyone, courtesy of the European Comission. Available at
[https://scihub.esa.int/](https://scihub.esa.int/) or, for those invested in
AWS, directly here at Amazon S3: [http://sentinel-pds.s3-website.eu-
central-1.amazonaws.com/](http://sentinel-pds.s3-website.eu-
central-1.amazonaws.com/)

~~~
mino
This! Sentinel (1 and soon 2, which launched days ago) data is also available
from Google Earth Engine using their API or web UI:
[https://earthengine.google.com/datasets/](https://earthengine.google.com/datasets/)

It is hosted on Google Cloud.

~~~
JorgeGT
Note that Sentinel 2A has been already delivering amazing data, the launch
this month was for his twin (Sentinel 2B) which is meant to reduce in half the
revisiting time!

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thetwentyone
It was inevitable that the tech would progress to this, and continue getting
higher resolution and more frequent.

Account may be required, but here's an excellent example of the use: The
Oroville Dam.

[https://www.planet.com/explorer/#/geometry/POLYGON((-121.518...](https://www.planet.com/explorer/#/geometry/POLYGON\(\(-121.5181+39.5201,-121.4566+39.5201,-121.4566+39.5574,-121.5181+39.5574,-121.5181+39.5201\)\)/items/REOrthoTile%3A20170227_191349_1057320_RapidEye-4/center/-121.504,39.536/zoom/14/interval/1%20day/mosaic/global_monthly_2016_11_mosaic)

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ketralnis
When Google Maps/Earth came out I remember distinctly an immediate sense of
completion at the ability to explore everything instantly.

This is it, this is all of the things. The whole world right there explored
and surveyed and mapped and labeled and catalogued and borders drawn. There's
no mysterious potion shop whose location is whispered and forgotten in time,
no unknown shipwreck full of treasure on an unreachable beach, no secret dark
alley hidden through a hedge that leads to Hogwarts. No Hogwarts at all, we've
already looked everywhere for it.

You can just get on your pocket computer from the couch and pull up the
picture of it taken on June 5th with the reflection of the Google mapping car
in the window and littered with discarded Starbucks cups and some blurred out
licence plates.

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spdy
Someone want to explain? It does not look free what is it useful for? Looks
like Google Maps with a timeslider.

~~~
gkoberger
If I'm not mistaken, the benefit of Planet over Google Maps is that all
imagery on Planet is less than 24 hours old. So, you can see daily snapshots
of different locations.

The time slider is huge (albeit potentially creepy)... you can see before and
afters of a disaster, check if someone's car was parked outside on a certain
day, watch progress of construction, etc.

~~~
zouhair
Sound like some version of Eye In The Sky[0], scary and unsettling.

[0]: [http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye-
sky/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye-sky/)

~~~
computerex
Except Planet's goal is global scale, and I don't think they are aiming to do
anything real-time atm.

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ifdefdebug
Yet another site breaking my back button. No, I DON'T want to have another
fucking back button entry every time I zoom in, zoom out or slide the map.

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euyyn
Why don't I see snow in Boston during the winter months of 2016 and 2017?

EDIT: With access to the daily views via a free account one can indeed see
winter days in which it's all covered in white :)

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garrettrayj
Javascript errors are preventing any interaction with the website for me.

~~~
tschaub
Curious what browser/OS you're on. There is also a form for submitting
feedback here:
[https://planetexplorer.typeform.com/to/frytMa](https://planetexplorer.typeform.com/to/frytMa)

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iheredia
Map projection feels weird. Anyone knows which one are they using?

~~~
pazrul
Looks like Web Mercator.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Mercator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Mercator))

It's the same projection most online maps use, which is a bummer.
Equirectangular
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equirectangular_projection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equirectangular_projection))
is much easier to grok (IMHO) and is supported out of the box by D3.

~~~
jofer
Equirectangular is not a projection. For all of web mercator's faults, it at
least preserves direction, which is nice when you're looking at streets/etc
locally. Regardless, all of the web mapping stuff standardized on web mercator
ages ago. Like it or not, for web mapping, you're stuck with web mercator,
unless you want to serve your own streets/etc.

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tbiteteitb
Do You have pricing info on the different plans?

~~~
alexnewman
I don't represent planet, but you have better luck with a question that's
narrowed a bit. For instance, who are you?

~~~
gjem97
What an odd response. I think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Why
does it matter who the asker is?

~~~
jventura
Maybe planet.com only sell their imagery datasets to companies?! That's what
came to my mind with GP asking "who are you?" probably meaning something like
"who do you represent?"..

~~~
gjem97
Right, the old "how much you got?" pricing scheme.

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dluan
Does anyone know what are the current alternatives to this? Aggregating
various government satellite photos?

~~~
ovis
There are a few (including USGS Earth Explorer and Astro Digital), but
[https://remotepixel.ca/projects/satellitesearch.html](https://remotepixel.ca/projects/satellitesearch.html)
has one of the nicer interfaces.

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mbrookes
Wonder how long they'll get away with using a variation on the lonely planet
logo?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=lonely+planet&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=lonely+planet&tbm=isch)

~~~
personjerry
You mean, how much longer they can have a circle as the main part of their
logo?

~~~
mbrookes
Not everyone has an eye for graphic design, so if you can't see the that the
resemblance is more than just "a circle as part of their logo", that's
understandable.

If you need a tool to help, take a look at the google image search for "lonely
planet". Their image matching algorithm thinks planet's logo is related to
lonely planet's.

~~~
stagbeetle
It's uncannily resemblant.

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kolemcrae
" 2016 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED."

It's 2017, update your website footer!
[http://updateyourfooter.com/](http://updateyourfooter.com/)

~~~
mbrookes
You're probably getting down-voted because (aside from the off-topic comment)
that isn't how copyright works. In most cases copyright starts from the time
the work is created, and lasts for a specific period of time (Disney-style
exceptions notwithstanding), whether copyright is explicitly declared or not.

The copyright notice only serves (informally) to indicate the start-point for
this time.

~~~
JorgeGT
I think the idea is addressing these people (like me) that were used to seeing
those "Last edited on XX-XX-XXXX" notices at the footer of HTML pages and
worry that the project may be dead/outdated if the date is old.

Now that I think about it, is this why people puts "Copyright $initial_year -
$current_year"? Because as you rightly say, only $initial_year is legally
relevant.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Now that I think about it, is this why people puts "Copyright $initial_year
> - $current_year"? Because as you rightly say, only $initial_year is legally
> relevant.

Both are, actually, and $current_year may be the most relevant. That
formulation generally indicates that the current work was created in
$current_year, but is a derivative (possibly through a chain of
intermediaries) of a work created in $initial_year.

Derivatives are independent works with their own copyrights, and copyrights of
works where the author for copyright purposes is a corporation rather than a
natural purpose last a fixed time from the creation of the work in the US,
currently, IIRC, 95 years.

So something that says (assuming accuracy of the notice) Copyright 2001-2017,
with a corporate author, will be out of copyright (barring further extensions)
in 2102, but is ultimately based on an earlier version that will be out of
copyright in 2096.

Of course, a lot of websites use automatically updating and false dates for
copyright notices, and anyhow the usual current advice is not to include a
date at all.

~~~
JorgeGT
Hmmm I see, I didn't assume people meant that the subsequent updates of the
website are intended o be considered derivative works, but for instance by
similarity to different editions of a book, I guess this is actually the case?

