Google Satellite
Posted on August 29, 2008
Google has inked a contract that will find it receiving its imagery for Google Maps and Google Earth supplied from a satellite due to launch in September.
The info will be provided by GeoEye, a firm that specializes in imagery data and who will be launching the satellite, slated to be the highest resolution commercial satellite ever placed in orbit.
Under the deal, Google has purchased exclusive access to the data for online mapping.
GeoEye-1 will orbit 423 miles above Earth, but it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters. Because of limitations imposed on GeoEye by the U.S. Government, Google is only permitted access to data with a resolution of 50cm.
Each day, the satellite will be able to gather a high-resolution “pan-sharpened” format surface area equal to that of about New Mexico, the company said.
Google’s current imagery in Google Earth spans a range of resolution, the coarsest being 15 square meters per pixel, which is only good enough to see larger geographic features.
» Filed Under Google Earth, Google Maps
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[...] Google satellite deal is already bringing home the images. Launched on September 6, the satellite put up by GeoEye began [...]