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EarthImages: a user-oriented web-based image search and
planning service
Founders Kim Partington, Felipe-Martin Crespo, and Thomas Lefort, GeoCento Ltd
GeoCento Ltd
• A new joint venture company established December 2011 and based at Harwell, UK
• Selected as a sponsored incubation company by ESA
• Owners: Kim Partington (Polar Imaging), Felipe-Martin Crespo (Taitus Software), Thomas Lefort (Metaaps)
Company mission to make planning, search and selection of imagery
easier for professional users of satellite imagery
The Background…
“There is connectivity inefficiency between providers and users of Earth observation systems”
Group on Earth Observations Capacity Building Strategy 20
06
Commercial-in-Confidence
Why is there a disconnect between users and suppliers?
Users do not know which images and which suppliers are best for
their applications and find it difficult to keep up to date
Image suppliers talk technology Users talk applications
Why is there a disconnect between users and suppliers?
Commercial-in-Confidence
Users can fail to get what they need
• Unaware of new sources of imagery • Potentially do not use the best imagery for their application • Suboptimal multi-mission image plans (redundancy, gaps..) • Difficult to quickly leverage all imaging opportunities in an emergency
Users can waste money
• Iterating with multiple suppliers and multiple image plans • Failing to make use of growing amount of “free” imagery • Spending too much time on the complexities of the technology
The problem will only get worse...
Result
Commercial-in-Confidence
Solution
An integrated web-based service which addresses user difficulties in planning and ordering satellite
imagery
Application Search Compare and Select Order and Access
Commercial-in-Confidence
• SaVoir: image planning and visualisation technology used by satellite mission planners
• Accurate prediction of image locations and times for very wide range of earth imaging satellites including multiple image modes, etc.
• Excellent visualisation graphics
• Fully commercial but not web-enabled: currently used in 16 countries
Underpinning Technology
Commercial-in-Confidence
• Search
– Low level (conventional) (area, time, image type, etc.)
– High level (by application, e.g. oil slicks)
– By event (tagged images)
• Filter Search
– By technical properties (e.g. resolution, forecast cloud)
– By commercial properties (e.g. price)
• Order Images
– “Free” imagery
– Commercial via agreements with data providers
• Access Images
– Download from third party servers
• Monitor Images
– Be informed when new imagery meeting search criteria becomes available
• Manage Plans
– Share (or edit) image plans among multiple users
– Merge and analyse plans from multiple projects
Technology under development: Image Search Engine
Search Image
Image Order
Image Access
Status
• Underpinning technology now web-enabled
• Search engine partially developed
• Input being solicited from users to validate functional requirements: we are currently focusing on the oil and gas sector
• Prototype launch Q3 2012
• Further input will then be solicited
• Full launch Q1 2013
Relevance to Oil and Gas Hoping to provide support to
OGEO goals in terms of making it easier for O&G users to make use of EO
EarthImages: Making Earth Images Accessible
Kim Partington, Felipe-Martin Crespo and Thomas Lefort
Would be interested in using the OGEO to help optimise the design to implement a useful service
[email protected] +44 7796 956594
www.geocento.com We are on twitter and
