HD Video from Space: An Entirely New Perspective By John Clark, Enterprise Market Manager Maps have drastically evolved from their paper ancestors: Once laid out on tables, rolled into tubes, bound into atlases, and folded under passenger seats, maps now live on the screens around us and in our pockets. They are interactive and immersive, filled with points, lines, symbols, and colors that collectively provide us the context to make informed decisions: Where should I go? How should I get there? Where is the opportunity? Who are the stakeholders? This evolution of maps from the plotter to the Thomas Guide to your smartphone was made possible by the development of new technologies to organize, analyze, and visualize geospatial data. Digital mapping applications like Google Earth and Google Maps have made maps a part of daily life. Open source tools like those being developed at Mapbox promise to accelerate this evolution. While the means for exploiting data have improved, the value of maps to individuals and businesses has largely been driven by the quality and relevance of their content. The value of geospatial information has continued to grow as satellite imagery and GPS data become increasingly timely and accessible. A few months ago, Skybox launched (literally) a new source of geospatial data: high-resolution, high-definition video of any point on Earth. Combined with other geospatial content, Skybox video can create new and exciting value for business users. Businesses can, for the first time, monitor a network of globally distributed assets with full-motion snapshots without needing to deploy an aircraft or field team. The movement captured in these short video windows, up to 90 seconds in length, yields unique insights that improve operational decisions. We recently sent some of this new data over to the team at Mapbox, who is excited about the prospect of working with a new data source. Have a look at the cool demo they put together with a Skybox video of the Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) collected on December 30, 2013.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 08:26:54 +0000
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