Slashgeo

Very Spatial links to a BBC article on how aerial photography has become crucial to everyone from firefighters to real estate tax assessors. From the short article: "It was acts of terrorism and natural disasters that highlighted the usefulness of aerial imagery, along with increased research and spending in the name of Homeland Security. [...] The next generation of aerial photography provides 3D fly-throughs. It is enough to make even the new version of Flight Simulator seem old."

The preliminary report to the Future Land Imaging Working Group on The American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Survey on the Future of Land Imaging is now available (via the Applied-GIS-RS mailing list). From the presentation: "Goals of the survey: - To estimate the societal benefits of US moderate resolution data. - To better understand current operational and research uses of moderate resolution data. - To identify user requirements in moderate resolution technology and data policy" There is a clear focus on the Landsat satellite in the survey.

The Google Earth Blog links to an interesting new small unmanned remote control aerial vehicle with a digital camera used to capture images and then show the images in Google Earth. The short video clearly explains the power and simplicity of this new device. From the blog: "This technology could be a much less expensive way to acquire very-high-res data for certain situations - particularly for special events." Related, All Points Blog links to a story on GeoCam: "High altitude balloons can be deployed in a matter of hours and provide emergency remote sensing thereby enabling first responder's situational awareness and give adequate trajectories to rescuers."

GeoCarta links to a paying report which has a positive summary on the future of remote sensing. From the summary: "The total global market expenditures for remote sensing products were more than $7 billion in 2006 and should reach almost $7.3 billion in 2007. At a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3%, the market will reach more than $9.9 billion by 2012"

This is a useful list of SAR (synthetic aperture radar) systems for reference. It covers airborne commercial and research SAR systems and spaceborne systems, those currently in orbit and those to be launched. The blog author shares his opinion on many of the systems. See also these previous stories on RADAR.

The NASA Earth Observatory runs a long article names "An era of earth observations: looking back at 50 years". From the introduction: "Where will a developing hurricane make landfall? What is the status of the ozone layer? How much will sea level rise? No other single measurement platform has revolutionized the ability to address these and other fundamental Earth science questions as much as satellites orbiting the Earth. From weather forecasting to high-tech navigation systems to answering fundamental questions about the Earth’s climate, satellites have become a crucial part of a wide variety of scientific endeavors and practical applications over the past 50 years."

It seems Google's Ed Parsons does not read Slashgeo, otherwise he would have discovered about OpenAerialMap last August, here's his thoughts on the project. There's also an interesting recent entry on the O'Reilly Radar about OpenAerialMap: "Anyone can register as a datasource. You can then upload and geoposition your imagery using the site's tools. Though the project idea has been around for a while it was only recently put together by Chris Schmidt, an OpenLayers (Radar post) contributor and MetaCarta (Radar post) employee. Chris has made the site's code available."

The Applied-GIS-RS mailing list informs us with the following: "ASPRS [American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing], in cooperation with NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey, is continuing to update and expand the Ten-Year Remote Sensing Industry Forecast. The focus of Phase V of the Forecast is to refine and revalidate earlier findings and to obtain more specific information concerning sources and applications for a wide variety of users but with special emphasis on those working with international sources or on non-US applications. We would sincerely appreciate it if you would help us to help the profession by taking approximately 15 minutes of your time to complete the Phase V survey at http://www.asprs.org/phaseVsurvey. All survey data is confidential in that you are not required to identify yourself or your organization at any point during the survey. Additional information about the ASPRS Forecast, including the report of phase IV, is available at http://www.asprs.org/news/forecast/. Questions or comments regarding this survey should be addressed to Charles Mondello, Project Team Chair, at forecastATATasprsDOTDOTorg." See also results from previous survey below.