Satellite Vegetation Images Prove Earth Still Green — For Now [Video]

Vegetation satellite images and video were released by NASA and NOAA last week to reveal the greener side of earth. The beautiful green images were created from a year’s worth of satellite data collected by a Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite.
Check out the video for a time-release look at a whole year’s worth of contrast between green and dry regions of our still-thriving planet.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6gUnXpBMfyI

A NASA press statement that came with the new video said that the vegetation data has many practical uses.
After the recent severe droughts in the United States, it’s worth noting that a particularly important purpose will be to provide data to the US Drought Monitor service operated by the National Drought Mitigation Center.
However, the vegetation satellite images can actually provide worldwide information about the greening — or the desertification — of the earth.
NOAA’s Environmental Visualization Laboratory pointed out while “75% of the planet is a relatively unchanging ocean of blue, the remaining 25% of Earth’s surface is a dynamic green.” That’s why the satellite data from April 2012 through April 2013 can create the changing video animation.

Rapidly Making Colorful Landsat-8 Composite with Free Advanced Image Analysis Tools from GeoSage

Monday, June 17th 2013

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Sydney, Australia - 17 June 2013:

Latest high-quality Landsat-8 satellite imagery freely available from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides enormous potential for innovation and applications. There is a great demand for new software tools that can analyze the imagery in a straightforward way.

Currently, while there are many image processing software tools on the market, very few can quickly make beautiful, detail-rich imagery composites with adaptive image stretching and advanced image pan-sharpening. One may spend hours to produce something that ought to be handy in the first place. For many GIS users, it is often hard to find right capable tools (i.e. band combination, image stretching and pan-sharpening) in GIS packages. And for casual users and the general public, dedicated tools to process the vast Landsat imagery archive are lacking.

GeoSage is pleased to release Spectral Transformer tool sets for Landsat-8 imagery to fill in this gap.

Astrium and CNES to improve Pléiades images quality

• Astrium Services will use a new algorithm developed by the French Space Agency (CNES) to automatically sharpen Pléiades’ satellite imagery

• All data, archived or newly acquired when processed now will automatically feature this upgrade

26 June 2013 – Astrium, Europe’s leading space technology company, and CNES, have achieved a major improvement in Pléiades image quality, including sharper products and enhanced geometry.
A new algorithm, developed by the French Space Agency, provides images with better-drawn, neater contours, with a better understanding of the surface texture. These improvements greatly facilitate the analysis of the image (photo-interpretation) and also improve the accuracy of 3D models resulting from stereo taken images.
These gains encompass:

• Better pan-sharpening (see examples below)
• More accurate RPCs (Rational Polynomial Coefficient) improving ortho-rectification and stereoscopic quality
• An almost perfect focal plane characterization

These modifications have been achieved by upgrading the Pléiades Ground Segment. All Pléiades 1A and 1B images processed now will be of better quality including archived data that is reprocessed.
Astrium Services and CNES work in a continuous partnership to improve the quality of images available. This collaborative approach will continue in order to track possible further improvements, throughout the life of the satellites.

source:  http://www.astrium-geo.com/en/4915-astrium-and-cnes-to-improve-pleiades-images-quality