I certainly did check out GlobeExplorer, the Hawaii State GIS site,
TerraServer, and every other source of Hawaiian geodata. In fact,
i've been
studying the subject for 8 years, http://vterrain.org/Hawaii/ in
case you're
curious.
Nice site, BTW.
It's frustrating, as virtually every other part of the USA
has at least something. Apparently, it's really hard to capture
cloud-free
imagery here.
That's quite the understatement, isn't it... Cloud-free mosaics are
the holy grail, aren't they? They suck for any sort of temporal
analysis (e.g. "real" GIS work), but they sure make for purty base
layers. Right before I left DG, we were trying to commercialize this
notion in the CitySphere product line ( http://www.digitalglobe.com/
product/citysphere.shtml ) -- off the shelf cloud-free mosaics. But
what most people want to do is turn around a serve the bits up via
HTTP. I was hoping for a DG-branded OGC solution, but we ended up
ceding that market to Google. Shrug.
Satellites excel at shooting remote areas, but aerial usually eats
their lunch in domestic markets where it is cheap and easy to fly a
Cessna. Cloud free, temporal, and cost are usual three areas where
aerial has an advantage -- I'm surprised that hasn't come to be in
Hawaii. I'd be happy to get my pilot's license if you have the
funding... I see a market opportunity, don't you? (grin)
LIDAR can bust through those clouds for DEMs and the like, but that
doesn't exactly help the "show me the pixels" mentality of the
general public.
Cheers,
s
Scott Davis
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Aug 6, 2006, at 12:55 AM, Ben Discoe wrote:
Scott,
First, thanks for a long detailed message, and for filling in the
story
about what happened with Google and DigitalGlobe. It's fascinating to
learn.
I certainly did check out GlobeExplorer, the Hawaii State GIS site,
TerraServer, and every other source of Hawaiian geodata. In fact,
i've been
studying the subject for 8 years, http://vterrain.org/Hawaii/ in
case you're
curious.
In this case, there are no truecolor aerial orthophotos available
for this
island, at all. It's frustrating, as virtually every other part of
the USA
has at least something. Apparently, it's really hard to capture
cloud-free
imagery here. Multiple government contracts with large firms have
failed to
produce complete aerial coverage. (Gory details on my site). USGS
has
tried. USDA has tried.
That's why it was so exciting to learn that DigitalGlobe just made
available
really great-looking, crisp 60cm pan-merge ... and so frustrating
to learn
that it's tied up in a Google exclusive license.
The '1m AirPhotoUSA pixels from 2000', i can tell from a glance, are
actually the color-shifted CIR Emerge data, commisioned by USDA
AFPO. There
were actually captured from 2001-2003, and as CIR they are public
data.
AirPhotoUSA apparently ran them through an algorithm to (poorly)
approximate
truecolor, then licensed the derived product with their copyright.
The 1m
on the Emerge is nominal, as they are very blurry, usable
resolution is much
lower. It's also got a big missing chunk for 1/4 of the
neighborhood here.
Thanks,
Ben
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Davis
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 9:27 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Geowanking] FW: Licensing image catalog ID
10100100018E8E01
I'm former DG, and there were *endless* debates internally
about where DG saw itself in the marketplace. The eventual
consensus was that DG would focus on producing raw materials
(pixels), and cede the "value-add" market (like
consumer-focused web consumption) to those that were
interested. Google was the first one to step up, and
exclusivity was a big part of the contract negotiations.
GlobeXplorer (http://www.globexplorer.com/) is another
commercial provider that you might want to look into. They
really seem to "get it" when it comes to rasters via the web.
They offer OGC/WMS access to their catalog on a metered basis
(in addition to more traditional discrete purchase/download),
and resell pixels from many other producers (GeoEye,
AirPhotoUSA, et al) in addition to DG. From what I can see,
they have 1m AirPhotoUSA pixels from 2000. I don't know about
the size of your budget, but you can always contract with
these companies directly to fly specific AOIs for you if they
don't have it in their catalog.
It sounds like you are interested in hi res stuff, but there
is always medium res LandSat to fall back on --
http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/gis/data/landsat_meta.htm .
Terraserver-usa (http://www.terraserver-usa.com/) has hi res
of only the continental US, but at least they have topos of
Hawaii. I don't know if USGS flew Hawaii, but if they did the
imagery should be free, albeit a bit dated (late 1990s, early 2000s).
If you haven't already, I'd start looking into
state/city/county gov't sources (Department of
Transportation, Department of Agriculture, local USGS
offices) or University departments (GIS/Civil Engineering/Ag)
to see if they have any offerings. If so, they might actually
be gratis. NASA might have some hidden gems as well.
http://goes.higp.hawaii.edu/hawaii/
http://satftp.soest.hawaii.edu/space/hawaii/navnew/navigator.html
http://satftp.soest.hawaii.edu/space/hawaii/index_orig.html
HTH,
s
Scott Davis
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Aug 1, 2006, at 12:48 PM, Ben Discoe wrote:
FYI..
It appears that Google licensed ALL of DigitalGlobe's imagery on an
_exclusive_ basis for online presentation. So if i wanted to do
something on a website, with DigitalGlobe's hi-res imagery, for
example if the Google Maps framework isn't flexible enough,
i cannot
legally go around Google to license the image myself! I
can imagine
why Google did this - to prevent Microsoft,Mapquest etc. from
licensing the same imagery in their webmapping frameworks - but the
net effect is that ordinary people, NGOs and small
companies are also
cut off.
This seems to skirt the edge of 'do no evil'.
I thought it was interesting and friendly, that DigitalGlobe openly
referred me to their competitor GeoEye (Space Imaging
Ikonos/OrbImage
OrbView).
In this particular case, DigitalGlobe (QuickBird) has the
only hi-res
cloud-free image in existence for my part of the world
(Hawaii). So i
cannot go to any other source.
-Ben
-----Original Message-----
From: DigitalGlobe Customer Service [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 5:13 AM
To: Ben Discoe
Subject: RE: Licensing image catalog ID 10100100018E8E01
Hi Ben,
You are correct in what you say below. Google has signed
an exclusive
agreement with us to display our full-resolution imagery on the web.
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