Your First Question When Accessing Satellite Imagery
“What data do you need?” is probably the first question you'll have when logging onto the EarthCache platform.
The first thing to look at is resolution.
We offer a varying spectrum of resolutions on the EarthCache platform all the way from low to high resolution.
Low resolution is about 10m per pixel where you can see some macro changes at a high level and is actually free on the platform.
Medium resolution is about 3m per pixel and you would be able to see divisions between crops for an example, in an agriculture setting.
50cm data is our highest resolution, and you'll be able to count specific cars in a car parking lot.
Your resolution requirements will dictate what your needs will be from a satellite imagery provider and who you should go with.
Tasking A Satellite
Tasking data is one of the most interesting topics in the satellite industry.
There are two ways of ultimately getting satellite imagery.
- You can either task a satellite to go collect data in the future, or
- You can look in a database of archival imagery or data that has been captured in the past.
Each of these different data segments have different benefits.
And ultimately when thinking about both, you need to consider your business use case.
For example, a tasking use case is best used in a monitoring situation where you might want to see week over week change.
Archival imagery might be really useful in developing artificial intelligence or machine learning algorithms.
No Contract Required
Signing a new contract can always be scary.
But one of the things we believe in at SkyWatch is to never make a customer sign a contract to get onto the platform. Flexibility is ultimately king.
When you sign up for the EarthCache platform, you'll be able to leverage data across varying resolution ranges, all with the easy use of a single credit card.
Often times with other data providers, you'll be locked into a specific data type at a specific price point over a set period of time. Those types of restrictive contractual terms will never be a part of the SkyWatch offering.
Easy Access To The Data - Understand Your Full Workflow
Customers don't realize that they're getting this data to solve a business problem.
And one of the things we really encourage customers to think about is the full workflow of how they're going to use earth observation data in their business.
Ultimately, you're using this data to solve a business need to have a return on investment for your specific industry.
So don't just stop at getting the data.
Think about how you're going to interpret it, use it within a business context and ultimately deliver value to either your internal customers or your end customers as well.
Data delivery is often overlooked, but is actually one of the most important aspects of satellite imagery.
Getting your data delivered in a scalable and repeatable way means that you're able to ultimately focus more on solving your business's problem than trying to download data. Traditionally in the satellite industry, satellite data has been provided via something called file transfer protocol or FTP s.
This is an archaic way of transferring data and frankly results in a really poor customer experience.
On SkyWatch, everything is hosted on AWS.
We provide links to AWS as three buckets for you to easily download your data in a scalable, repeatable and machine to machine way.
Getting Started
There are infinite possibilities with satellite imagery.
Ultimately, it comes down to what satellite imagery will best solve your business use case, how you want to ingest that data and then what the full workflow is within your business to derive the maximum value out of satellite imagery.
If you want to book a consultation with one of our satellite imagery experts feel free to email sales@Skywatch.com
