India Launches World's First Stereo Imaging Satellite

sgups writes "India will tomorrow inaugurate a new launch pad at its Satish Dhawan space port near Chennai, on the south-east coast, by putting the world's first stereographic mapping satellite into orbit. The most innovative feature of the 1.6-tonne Cartosat-1 is its pair of cameras, which will give stereo images of the earth's surface that can distinguish features down to 2.5 metres across. They will directly generate three-dimensional maps that have until now been achievable only indirectly, by combining data from a large number of satellite passes over the same place. "Such a stereographic imaging system does not exist in the civil sector anywhere else," says Mr Nair, chairman of the Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). "It will give information about heights that will be very useful in applications such as planning power lines." Cartosat-1 will join what is already the world's largest cluster of non-military remote sensing satellites. Six Indian spacecraft are already observing the earth with a wide range of instruments."

Comments

Re:Imagine the Possibilities

[Nos.]

Well, a lost (most?) of us already can see our homes using Google Maps. 3D images of most popular features already exist in greater detail than this will provide. Not many video games need or use highly accurate 3d graphs of the earths surface. As far as your other points... this isn't going to mean real time imaging of the entire planet. That would take substantially more than ONE setup to do.