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The Sharpest Ever Global Earth Map

Posted by Zonk on from the globcover-plus-google-maps-equals-bliss dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "The GLOBCOVER project, started by the European Space Agency (ESA), has a very simple goal. It will create the most detailed portrait of the Earth's land surface with a resolution three times sharper than any previous satellite map. The image acquisition will be done throughout 2005 and use the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument of the Envisat environmental satellite. To create this sharp map, the GLOBCOVER project will analyze about 20 terabytes of data gathered by the European satellite. When it's completed, the map will have numerous uses, 'including plotting worldwide land use trends, studying natural and managed ecosystems and modelling climate change extent and impacts.'"

7 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. I don't understand by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 4, Informative
    The image data for World Wind is based on a publicly-available global 30 meter resolution mosaic made from Landsat imagery. This satellite making this map is said to have 300 meter resolution. Wouldn't that make it much worse?

    (BTW, I *highly* recommend checking out World Wind if you haven't seen it. It is one of the most awesome programs ever to exist, bar none.)

    --
    main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    1. Re:I don't understand by Kphrak · · Score: 4, Informative

      (BTW, I *highly* recommend checking out World Wind if you haven't seen it. It is one of the most awesome programs ever to exist, bar none.)

      Unless you're running a non-Microsoft operating system. Guess I'll have to wait until I get home.

      --

      There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
  2. I want my planet! by Renegade+Lisp · · Score: 5, Informative
    That looks all very well, but if you dig a little deeper into that site, you'll come across the page where ESA describes its licensing terms. This data is only gonna be given to (a) scientists who are deemed serious by ESA, and who will report twice a year about their findings, and (b) to commercial users at "market rates".

    Well but isn't this data for which I've paid with my tax euros already? Why does the public who financed it not get free access to that data?

    While we're at it, can other Slashdotters perhaps point to links of freely available satellite imagery? Is there any kind of systematic coverage of the planet we live on which is freely available to everyone who does happen to live here?

  3. Get Nasa WorldWind by quark007 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You could download Nasa Worldwind software for free.
    There are some issues with Landsat7 data, but hopefully they will get fixed soon.
    Its awsome piece of software! offers 7m resolution globally and offers 1m resolution for USA.
    On the other hand, ESA has always been stingy in giving access to data. It took them a while to release Titan images; as opposed to Nasa who makes them available almost instanteneously.
    I guess thats the difference between the cultures!

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    - Sh!t
    1. Re:Get Nasa WorldWind by mav[LAG] · · Score: 4, Informative

      Doesn't let you even look at the source code.

      No, you'll have to download it yourself and fire up your favourite text editor to do that.

      --
      --- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
  4. Re:Typo? by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Informative

    You are missing something.

    The resolution of this bird is 300 meters, in many more wavelengths than just visible - multiple longband IR, optical, synthetic apeture millimeter radar.

    It's like the difference between a 1920x1080 one bit per pixel image and a 640x480 Truecolor image.

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    www.eFax.com are spammers
  5. 300m 15-bands... great for analysis, not pictures by PenguinOpus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Reading the article, it really is 300m/pixel. This is 400x lower resolution than the 15m Landsat data that is available as a basemap in Keyhole, Google Maps, and other providers.

    The reason this data is interesting is its 15-band nature and the amount of analysis and extraction that can be done from it.

    For pretty pictures, there are plenty of better sources.