Blog
The latest news from the Terra Bella team
Introducing Terra Bella
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Seven years ago, we started Skybox Imaging with the vision of a new era in space technology. Small satellites with big capabilities are no longer a dream. Today, two years and nearly 100,000 images separate us from the launch of our first satellite, SkySat-1.
As we have engaged with thousands of potential users, we have been struck over and over again by a simple truth. There is an incredible opportunity for geospatial information to transform our ability to meet the economic, societal, and humanitarian challenges of the 21st century, but satellite imagery represents only one part of the puzzle.
As proud as we are to have played a leading role in developing satellite technologies, we have realized that our vision extends far beyond boxes in the sky. As Google revolutionized search for the online world, we have set our eyes on pioneering the search for patterns of change in the physical world. In order to focus firmly on the future, we’re pursuing that vision under a new name –
Terra Bella
.
We will continue building spacecraft. Today, we have more than a dozen satellites under development that will continue to demonstrate state-of-the-art capabilities and are scheduled to launch over the next few years.
However, as a Google company now, we are also now working with a wide array of geospatial data sources, machine learning capabilities, and experts that we could not have imagined as an independent start up company. These resources will give us a unique ability to transform raw imagery into data to help people and organizations make more informed decisions.
In the coming year, we look forward to sharing more about the products we are developing and how users will be able to access them.
In the meantime, join our
mailing list
or follow our
blog
to keep posted about this next chapter of our journey. We’re growing our team in 2016 and are looking for new talent to tackle challenges from machine learning and data science to hardware design and flight operations, so check out our job postings on
Google careers
.
Onwards and upwards!
Posted by Founders—Dan Berkenstock, John Fenwick, and Ching-Yu Hu
Happy Birthday, SkySat-1!
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
It’s hard to believe that just 2 years ago we
launched
our first satellite, SkySat-1. Who would have known such a new technology built by a small team would be able to pioneer the first commercial sub-meter imagery, high-resolution full motion
video
, and nighttime
video
from a small satellite. To us, SkySat-1 will always symbolize the power of camaraderie and perseverance.
To commemorate SkySat-1’s birthday, we created the montage below with over 22,500 downsampled thumbnails of images collected by SkySat-1 during its second year in space. The full, 600 DPI image, is downloadable
here
.
As SkySat-1 and SkySat-2 continue to capture deep stacks of beautiful images and videos across the globe, we have been busy over the last year working to leverage Google’s resources and smarts to lay the foundation to scale. Next year will be a big year for us as we prepare for the launch of 10+ next generation satellites on 3 different rockets from 3 different continents.
Onwards and upwards!
To download the full resolution version of the graphic, click
here
.
Close up view of the SkySat image tiles.
SkySat-1 image of Jubail, Saudi Arabia on SkySat-1’s birthday (November 21, 2015)
MapReduce for C: Run Native Code in Hadoop
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
We are pleased to announce the release of
MapReduce for C
(MR4C), an open source framework that allows you to run native code in
Hadoop.
MR4C was originally developed at Skybox Imaging to facilitate large scale satellite image processing and geospatial data science. We found the job tracking and cluster management capabilities of Hadoop well-suited for scalable data handling, but also wanted to leverage the powerful ecosystem of proven image processing libraries developed in C and C++. While many software companies that deal with large datasets have built proprietary systems to execute native code in MapReduce frameworks, MR4C represents a flexible solution in this space for use and development by the open source community.
MR4C is developed around a few simple concepts that facilitate moving your native code to Hadoop. Algorithms are stored in native shared objects that access data from the local filesystem or any uniform resource identifier (URI), while input/output datasets, runtime parameters, and any external libraries are configured using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) files. Splitting mappers and allocating resources can be configured with Hadoop YARN based tools or at the cluster level for MRv1. Workflows of multiple algorithms can be strung together using an automatically generated configuration. There are callbacks in place for logging and progress reporting which you can view using the Hadoop JobTracker interface. Your workflow can be built and tested on a local machine using exactly the same interface employed on the target cluster.
If this sounds interesting to you, get started with our documentation and source
code
at the
MR4C GitHub page
. The goal of this project is to abstract the important details of the MapReduce framework and allow users to focus on developing valuable algorithms. Let us know how we're doing in our
Google Group
.
Posted by Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin, Platform Processing Product Manager
Nighttime HD Satellite Video
Friday, November 21, 2014
People and global businesses work day and night: so, too do Skybox Imaging satellites. Today we are pleased to showcase
nighttime HD video
from our first satellite, SkySat-1.
*Click on the 1080p HD toggle to see this video in full resolution* Bright lights, big city: the famous Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada at night as seen by Skybox Imaging’s SkySat-1 satellite from low Earth orbit on Thursday, March 27, 2014 at 10:42 p.m. local time, complete with flashing lights and moving cars. Notable sites visible in the scene include the Bellagio Hotel and its renowned fountain lake, and Paris Las Vegas’ brightly-illuminated model of the Eiffel Tower, located near the center of the video.
At Skybox, we're busy building out pixel and information services to help individuals and companies better understand our world and make better-informed, data-driven decisions. The polar orbiting imaging satellites that power our business spend about 40% of their time in the dark, so the ability to capture video at night means we can offer our users and customers insights into change occurring around the clock.
As seen in
Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) imagery from NASA’s Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) mission
and
EROS-B night imagery from ImageSat
, the signatures of economic activity are readily observable after dark in the form of nighttime lights. The presence and time-dependent changes of these can provide insight for a wide spectrum of civil, commercial, and humanitarian use cases.
Applications of nighttime satellite imagery and video include:
Energy production and consumption estimation
Coastal and maritime domain awareness for shipping, fishing and trade
Industrial facility utilization and infrastructure assessment
Trade and transport traffic pattern analysis
Humanitarian crisis support
We are excited to share this announcement today and continue working with Skybox customers and partners to advance development of this and other innovative solutions using Skybox imagery and video.
Posted by Niko Milonopoulos, Skybox Data Analyst
Introducing Skybox for Good
Thursday, October 23, 2014
When we started Skybox in 2009 we knew that we had a tremendous opportunity to leverage our imaging capability for positive change in the world. We would be capturing the world at high resolution and with unmatched frequency. As soon as SkySat-1 was in orbit we began monitoring sites critical to our understanding of global climate change, such as the Helheim Glacier in Greenland.
18 August, 2014 | Helheim Glacier, Greenland | SkySat-1
We also partnered with organizations like the
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative’s Signal Program
, who used our imagery to help develop tools for
Internally Displaced Persons
camp management in Africa and the Middle East.
16 March 2014 | Yida, South Sudan | SkySat-1
I’ve always been impressed by how access to global satellite imagery through Google Earth and Maps has changed the way people see their world - from the cities they live in to faraway places. In my new role on the
Google Earth Outreach
team, I have been astounded by the way these tools have changed how
our partners
do their work and tell their amazing stories. I have also learned that one of the most frequent questions is “Can you get us newer images of this place?”
And I’m excited to say that now the answer is “YES, we can get new satellite imagery for you!” Today, at our annual
Geo for Good User Summit
, we announced the Skybox for Good program, under which we will contribute fresh satellite imagery to projects that save lives, protect the environment, promote education, and positively impact humanity. We’ve captured some images of Nagarkovil village in Northern Sri Lanka.
HALO Trust
previously cleared landmines in this area and used updated imagery to help verify that people are returning, having built 84 houses and cultivating over 40 hectares of agricultural land.
3 October, 2014 | Nagarkovil, Sri Lanka | SkySat-1
View
full image
in Google Maps
In this beta phase of the program, we will select a small group of organizations and provide the imagery they need to accelerate their work. The images collected for these partners are being made available publicly, under a Creative Commons By Attribution license (
CC BY 4.0
), for everyone to see and use. We’ve already started collecting a few images, which you can see on
this map
. Check out the images in West Virginia, where
SkyTruth
and
Appalachian Voices
are monitoring and measuring the rapid expansion of mountaintop-removal (
MTR
) mining which is devastating forests and communities across Appalachia, visible in the image below, right next to the popular hiking trails of Kanawha State Forest.
2 October, 2014 | KD-2 Mine, West Virginia | SkySat-2
View
full image
in Google Maps
Google Earth Outreach gives nonprofits and public benefit organizations the knowledge and resources they need to visualize their cause and tell their story. In the future, we hope to expand the Skybox for Good program to allow many more non-profit organizations and public interest groups to benefit from the use of Skybox data.
As part of Google, we are inspired by the opportunity to up our game and make a difference at a much larger scale.
Follow us
@earthoutreach
for updates as we expand the program.
Posted by Julian Mann, Skybox Co-Founder and Developer Advocate, Google Earth Outreach
The Transformation of Burning Man
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Burning Man takes place at the end of August every year in the barren and remote Black Rock Desert of Nevada. The weeklong festival is described by its organization as “an experiment in community, art, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.” Earth-bound photographers have chronicled the legacy of art, technology, design, and fashion at the event over the years, but we at Skybox wanted to know if we could capture the transformation of the city from space, with our constellation of SkySats.
This is the result: A full-fledged city of population 70,000, “Black Rock City” is built up in a matter of days, experienced for a single week, and disassembled just as quickly, leaving no trace. It has an airport, a DMV, a hospital, newspapers, and a Department of Public Works.
The titular event is the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy (“the man”), which was set alight on the evening of Saturday, August 30th:
Photo: David Randall
“Theme camps” are participant-built villages that vary greatly in scale and concept - the realization of the creators’ whims and creativity:
The Burning Man organization (Black Rock City LLC) creates the infrastructure of Black Rock City, including the round Center Camp, which serves as a city center and town hall plaza of sorts. First to be set up and last to be taken down, the infrastructure of Black Rock City provides the services and structure to the event that keep it organized and safe.
“The Temple of Grace is intended to be a spiritual and sacred space for memorials, reflection, celebration, and to commemorate life transitions...The community comes to write their memorials and place tokens of their transitions, and it is burned at the end of the festival in a tradition of releasing them by the immolation of the temple.” (The Temple Crew)
Caption
Photo: David Randall
Photo: John Curley
Burning Man attracts artists, amateur and professional, who build installations at great scale and with fleeting lifespan:
Add caption
Photo: David Randall
Black Rock City is built around a unique, and trademarked, radial design:
Explore the transformation of Burning Man yourself in Google Maps Engine
(Hint: Try the layers)
Jon Zemel, Product Manager, Analytics and Ground Software
IDP Camp Development in Juba, South Sudan
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Amid the flurry of excitement that has come with the
launch of SkySat-2
, we’ve been continuing to observe interesting sites around the world with SkySat-1, noting signatures of economic, environmental and geopolitical activity in some rapidly-changing areas of the world. One such location of interest is Juba, South Sudan.
This capital city of conflict-affected South Sudan has been home to thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) seeking safety from internal violence, which has persisted since the South Sudanese Civil War began on December 15, 2013. The Tomping base of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (
UNMISS
) at the Juba International Airport has provided shelter and safety to IDPs since the war’s outbreak. Using SkySat-1 data from December 2013 to July 2014, we’ve been able to observe recent changes in the IDP camp area and shelter density as populations and resources continue to evolve.
Fig. 1: IDP camp development in Juba, South Sudan from December 28, 2013 to July 12, 2014. Color-coded overlays defined in the legend depict camp aerial extent defined by the presence of temporary shelters and related camp infrastructure observed in the imagery. Pre-SkySat-1 measurements from the first three dates were acquired from the United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Program (UNITAR/UNOSAT).
The ability to take imagery of the same area over a short period of time illustrates that while the overall camp area has continued to expand, shelter densities in some areas have declined. After the initial influx, UNMISS was able to spread the IDPs out and start moving them to the nearby UN House to the south. According to Brittany Card at the
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
(HHI),“Remote sensing analysis of IDP and refugee camps is not only useful for those utilizing satellite imagery to monitor complex humanitarian disasters, but also for ground responders assisting vulnerable populations.”
Fig. 2: Time-dependent IDP camp development in Juba, South Sudan. See Fig. 1 for context description and key.
The animation and accompanying graph above show the growth of the camp over a period of seven months, portraying how the IDP shelters have been organized and rearranged over time. Note that the top left-hand corner only has developed during the last month or so.
At Skybox, we aim to empower decision makers - from first responders to soy bean farmers - with timely information derived from our growing constellation of highly capable small satellites. With our imagery, the possibilities are endless.
Sources:
UNITAR/UNOSAT UNMISS IDP Camp Expansion Map
Move to new UN IDP camp
UNMISS Homepage
Posted by Christina Krawec, Geointelligence Analysis Intern
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