
DigitalGlobe: 30cm satellite imagery - lelf
https://www.digitalglobe.com/30cm/
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frik
These high detail satellite images are really impressive.

As there are several (startup) companies in this field I just looked up who is
still around/got bought and what's there status:

GeoEye was merged into DigitalGlobe. Google had secured exclusive online
mapping use of the GeoEye-1 satellite (Google Maps/Earth). Google bought the
direct competitor Skybox for US$500 million in August 1, 2014.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigitalGlobe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigitalGlobe)
, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoEye](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoEye) ,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skybox_Imaging](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skybox_Imaging)
). There is also "Spot Image" (EADS/Airbus), NASA (and other US agencies),
Sovinformsputnik (the Russian Federal Space Agency) and others.

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jsprogrammer
Planet Labs [0] is currently deploying its 'flock' which will collectively
image the entire planet every day.

[0] [https://www.planet.com/](https://www.planet.com/)

~~~
dplarson
I knew I recognized the name "Planet Labs"; they're the company whose CubeSats
(or at least some of them) were accidentally launched [0]. I wonder how the
accidental launches impacted their timeline (e.g. were they able to retrieve
the CubeSats and re-launch).

[0] [http://news.discovery.com/space/space-stations-cubesat-
canno...](http://news.discovery.com/space/space-stations-cubesat-cannon-has-
mind-of-its-own-140905.htm)

~~~
patrickyeon
Hi, I work for Planet Labs. There was definitely no retrieving those Doves
once they were deployed, even had we wanted to. The good news is that we've
put a lot of effort into automating our systems, so those satellites actually
pinged us shortly after their deploy and were all ready for commissioning!
They're currently a few hundred kilometres up and taking photos for us.

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ChuckMcM
Always fun to count containers to estimate economic activity. Or
cranes/building changes. Would be a fun student project which would take a
picture of the Port of Los Angeles or the Port of Oakland and return a number
of estimated containers. Then run that over a year with once a week sampling
across random days of the week.

~~~
Animats
Those statistics are easily available for US ports.[1][2] Ship tracking data
is available as well.[3]

Counting containers in ports is more of a measure of port congestion than
traffic. Also, a lot of them are empties, which you can't see from orbit.

[1]
[http://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/stats.asp](http://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/stats.asp)
[2]
[http://www.portofoakland.com/maritime/containerstats.aspx](http://www.portofoakland.com/maritime/containerstats.aspx)
[3] [http://www.marinetraffic.com/](http://www.marinetraffic.com/)

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Jamie452
Doesn't Google maps use satellite imagery, they seem a lot more
detailed/closer?

Or do they use arial photography over land?

~~~
Papachooka
That's correct. While 30 cm is a revolution for satellite imagery, it's pretty
common to have 5 cm aerial photos.

~~~
Jamie452
What does the cm measurement actually mean? Is it the number of cm's each
pixel covers?

~~~
jimktrains2
Yes. It's the spatial resolution of each pixel.

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toomuchtodo
Anyone know what pricing is like? Skybox wouldn't return my numerous emails.

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mikeyouse
Their old pricing was something like $30/km2 with a minimum of 25km for
Quickbird and their Standard resolutions.. so I believe the minimum order was
~$750. Not sure if that applies to their 30cm product too.

I had some success with EarthExplorer, finding a high-res 15cm orthoimagery
survey for a waterway that our area of interest happened to be next to. A few
GB of .tiff data later and we had terrific resolution satellite photos of our
entire site.

PR Release about old pricing: [http://www.prnewswire.com/news-
releases/digitalglobe-reduces...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-
releases/digitalglobe-reduces-pricing-for-satellite-imagery-and-unveils-
initial-archive-access-77334662.html)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Thank you! Some of us on /r/teslamotors were talking about putting some cash
together to get gigafactory progress picks via satellite imaging.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Sorry - just checking my understanding. You want to buy satellite images of
the tesla factory to work out how long it will take them to get to your number
in the purchase list?

That is my favourite Ice Station Zebra moment to date!

~~~
toomuchtodo
> You want to buy satellite images of the tesla factory to work out how long
> it will take them to get to your number in the purchase list?

No, satellite images of the gigafactory buildout out progress, because
I'm/we're huge Tesla fans.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Ok. It's still amazing this is available to averge joes. Cheers

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curiously
I wonder what services you could start having access to such fine grain
satellite photos.

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comrade1
What are the limits of resolution based solely on the lens size that a
satellite can carry?

And are they able to get higher resolution using some other tricks?

And are there limits on the size of civilian satellite payloads vs military
payloads? Is there a theoretical limit to resolution that spy satellites have
based on lens size?

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gregsadetsky
Yes, there is a theoretical limit -- the "Rayleigh criterion".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagery_intelligence#Satellite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagery_intelligence#Satellite)

"This means that it would be impossible to take photographs showing objects
smaller than 16 cm with such a telescope at such an altitude. Modern U.S.
IMINT satellites are believed to have around 10 cm resolution; contrary to
references in popular culture, this is sufficient to detect any type of
vehicle, but not to read the headlines of a newspaper."

~~~
rasz_pl
superresolution to the rescue, as long as your lens, or the target is moving
you are golden

