Buy a photograph from the Earth taken by satellite

SPOTGallery Gadget

Now that a new version of SPOTGallery is available, I would like to remind you of a Google Gadget that is available. It displays the wonderful images of the gallery right on your iGoogle home page or on your personal website.

The gadget can be find on Google's Gadget Library : http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open&q=SPOTGallery and http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open&num=24&url=http://gallery.spotimage.com/gadgets/earth.xml&output=html

New features in Spot Image Gallery

The updated version of the SPOT Gallery proposing posters of wonderful pictures of Earth taken by SPOT satellites propose two new features :

A interactive photo album : http://gallery.spotimage.com/gallery.html

and an interactive map : http://gallery.spotimage.com/kml/gmap.htm

The later is obtained by requesting GoogleMaps to display a KML file that presents all the pictures as a GoogleEarth layer. The KML file is available here : http://gallery.spotimage.com/kml/gallery.kml It is very similar to the GoogleEarth version that you can still find here : http://gallery.spotimage.com/kml/googleearth_english.kml Nevertheless, there are some small real-estate differences between GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth that forced us to slightly rewrite the KML content. In particular, it is not possible to have big bubbles in GoogleMaps so we had to use smaller bubbles.

Download SPOT archives in shapefile

Since several weeks the SPOT archive is available for download in shapefile from our online catalog : SIRIUS Online. Several files have been created to cover the various continents : Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, Middle East, North America and South America. They can be find in the "My searches" menu or directly here : http://sirius.spotimage.fr/PageDownload.aspx

Here are the parameters that are exported in the shapefile :

A21 : A21 code
SC_NUM : Scene number
SEG_NUM : Segment number
SATEL : Satellite number (2, 4, 5)
ANG_INC : Incidence angle
ANG_ACQ : Acquisition angle
DATE_ACQ : Acquisition date (DD/MM/YYYY)
MONTH_ACQ : Month number (01,02,…)
TIME_ACQ : Time of acquisition (HH:MI:SS)
CLOUD_QUOT : Cloud quotation
CLOUD_PER : Percentage of clouds on the image
SNOW_QUOT : Snow quotation
LAT_CEN : Latitude of center
LON_CEN : Latitude of center
LAT_UP_L : Latitude of upper left corner
LON_UP_L : Longitude of upper left corner
LAT_UP_R : Latitude of upper right corner
LON_UP_R : Longitude of upper right corner
LAT_LO_L : Latitude of lower left corner
LON_LO_L : Longitude of lower left corner
LAT_LO_R : Latitude of lower right corner
LON_LO_R : Longitude of lower right corner
RESOL : Resolution of product (2.5, 5, 10, 20)
MODE : BW or COLOR
TYPE : Alphanumeric code for the type (P,X,M,I,A,B,J,THR,HMX,THX)
URL_QL : URL to access to the quicklook of the scene

The files are bundled by year since 2002 which is the launch of SPOT5. They are refreshed every month and the shape file for the current year is refreshed every week.

They can be used on any GIS software like ArcView, GlobalMapper (shareware), ArcExplorer (free) or MapWindow (free).

Display a SPOT satellite image in your web pages

Using GoogleMaps Static API, you can easily display a satellite image from SPOT in your web pages. Actually, when using zoom factor 14 over France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and several other countries, you always get a SPOT satellite image. For exemple, here is a SPOT5 view of the city of Auch in France :



Here is the corresponding HTML code :

<img width="320" height="320" src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=43.643902,0.590429&zoom=14&size=320x320&maptype=satellite&key=API_KEY" />

You can easily get an API_KEY from Google by registering on http://code.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html

SPOTMaps now directly available online

Spot Image has launched a new online service that lets you view, order, receive your SPOTMaps on line in minutes: SPOTMaps Online

To discover SPOTMaps Online, go to http://spotmaps.spotimage.com

What are SPOTMaps?
- Uniform 2.5-metre colour mosaics
- High location accuracy of an orthorectified product
- Already available for 30 countries with many more coming
- Framed per sq.km to match your area of interest (country, region or zone)
- List price: €2 per sq.km

SPOTMaps are easy to use, providing current and accurate imagery of your area of interest that integrates directly into your GIS and complements any kind of georeferenced database.
SPOTMaps is the ideal geographic reference for your visualization, mapping, planning and communication needs.

More information about SPOTMaps products: http://www.spotimage.com/en/spotmaps

Astrium purchases majority share in Spot Image

Press release:
Infoterra Group & Spot Image to work together as the Earth Observation Division of Astrium Services

Astrium, Europe’s leading space company, has announced the purchase of further shares in Spot Image from the French Space Agency (CNES). This is a significant deal resulting in Astrium holding 81% of Spot Image and therefore becoming the majority shareholder.

Read more on Spot Image's website : http://www.spotimage.fr/web/en/1822-astrium-purchases-majority-share-in-spot-image.php

RSS feed for Spot Image's website

Keep in touch with Spot Image by subscribing to our RSS news feed :
http://www.spotimage.fr/rss/rss.php?id=2

Olympic Games facilities in Beijing viewed from space

See a sneak preview of the Olympic Games facilities and urban infrastructure in Beijing viewed from space on Spot Image's website : http://www.spotimage.fr/swf/Pekin/JO-2008-EN.html

Imagery was taken by SPOT and Kompsat-2 satellites.

New Spot Image webservice : SPOTOrtho Online

With SPOTOrtho Online, you have instant access to an orthorectification service for your satellite data directly online.

Spot Image lets you access the most extensive and most accurate georeferenced database in the world. - currently more than 50 million sq.km., to be extended to 100 million sq.km. by the end of this year.—You can also obtain very high quality orthoimagery with location accuracy of 10 metres rms, without having to supply DEMs or ground control points.

More: http://www.spotimage.fr/web/en/1644-spotortho-online-orthorectification-service-online.php

Spot Image and CNES aiding glaciologists for International Polar Year

For the 4th International Polar Year (IPY)—which started in 2007, 50 years after the last one, and runs until March 2009—the global scientific community is focusing on the polar regions in an effort to answer the questions everyone is asking about environmental change. To this end, new space technologies are giving scientists a head start in understanding the key role of the polar regions in shaping environmental and climate change.

Spot Image and CNES are taking an active interest in these issues and supplying satellite data for IPY research programmes. Earth-observing satellites are mapping the poles to provide scientists with a more precise picture of how glaciers are changing and to help them understand the impacts of climate change on our planet. Spot Image and CNES have joined the SPIRIT project (SPOT 5 stereoscopic survey of Polar Ice: Reference Images and Topographies) in partnership with French survey and mapping agency IGN and the LEGOS space geophysics and oceanography research laboratory.

More information on Spot Image's website : http://www.spotimage.fr/web/en/1587-international-polar-year.php