DigitalGlobe
DigitalGlobe is a commercial company based in Longmont, Colorado that sells satellite imagery and other geospatial information [1]. It was founded in 1993 as WorldView Imaging Corporation and changed its name to EarthWatch Incorporated in 1995. In 2002 the company acquired its current name, DigitalGlobe.
Since its establishment in 1993, DigitalGlobe has launched several satellites to obtain its high-quality image data. In 1993 DigitalGlobe (or WorldView) received from the United States Department of Commerce the first license allowing a private company to build and operate a satellite system for obtaining high-resolution earth imagery to sell commercially. The company's merge with Ball Aerospace a year later further aided the development and construction of the Quickbird satellites which were launched in 2001 [2]. At the time Quickbird, with 62 cm resolution [3]., was the world's highest resolution commercial satellite. Following Quickbird, the WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 satellites were launched in 2007 and 2009 respectively.
In 2008 and 2009 DigitalGlobe partnered with Google and other companies to broaden the availability of high-resolution satellite imagery to online sites and various software applications. The first of these partnerships was with Google to provide imagery for Google Earth and Google Maps. Another later partnership was with Oracle, to provide satellite imagery to Oracle Database customers. Yet another agreement was with Nokia for their use of DigitalGlobe's imagery on certain compatible Nokia devices.
Most of the data is available for a fee and can be ordered online from their website, www.digitalglobe.com. They also have an online mapping tool, ImageFinder, to help the user search for imagery data from their satellites. Shapefiles can be downloaded or uploaded using this tool.
DigitalGlobe also offers ImageScape, a free 3-D imagery viewer, that can be downloaded from their website. DigitalGlobe imagery can be ordered and converted into a terrain model for use with this software. ImageScape provides many of the same capabilities as that of very expensive commercial software [4].
Sources
- ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigitalGlobe
- ↑ http://www.digitalglobe.com/index.php/112/History
- ↑ Longley, Paul A. (2005) 'Geographic Information Systems and Science, Second Edition'
- ↑ http://www.digitalglobe.com/index.php/48/Products?product_id=24
| Authors | Chris Maderia |
|---|---|
| Editors | Andrew Keske |
| BoK Topics | OI6-6 |
| 311 Weeks | 6 |
| Tags | imagery data source, Earth imagery vendor |
