So far three styles of global imagery mosaics are available:
• Global mosaic Style 1 (ocean area: uniform colour, e.g. black)
• Global mosaic Style 2 (ocean area: bathymetric shaded relief)
• Global mosaic Style 3 (land area: 3D texture; ocean area: shaded relief)
The new imagery style with 3D texture is not seen on major mapping portals such as Google Maps, Nokia Maps, Bing maps, Apple Maps and ArcGIS Online. More than a dozen samples are available at GeoSage website (www.GeoSage.com) for evaluation.
In addition to the release of imagery mosaics, GeoSage has also developed 30m-resolution shaded-relief global base maps with various cartographic styles.
Major processing steps include meticulous selection of raw imagery tiles and scenes, reducing cloud covers, adaptive buffering over the nearshore boundary and global colour balancing. More than 100 terabytes of intermediate data files have been generated. The carefully-processed global mosaics can serve as excellent base maps for numerous mapping applications across a range of spatial scales.
Satellite imagery and shaded relief are arguably the most relevant base maps. Large and easy-to-use mosaics containingtrillions of pixels will redefine and be the norm of future digital mapping. They are available now and provide new opportunities for mapping integration, customisation and insights. The global mosaic at 30m-resolution is 1,000 more detailed than that at 1km-resolution. One would be surprised to find out how easy, effective and productive it is to use the assiduously-prepared global mosaics that are close to 1,000,000 X 1,000,000 pixels in standard GIS. Expect change and progress by orders of magnitude (in terms of computing time, quality improvement, data size, cost decrease and so on) and take the opportunity.
About GeoSage
GeoSage (http://www.GeoSage.com/) is an enthusiastic leading developer in image fusion and spectral transformation analysis. It has developed a few key technologies and software tools able to enhance imagery interpretation and visualisation, and produced some unique, large-sized, global satellite imagery and shaded-relief mosaics. GeoSage offers innovative, advanced and cost-effective image/spatial analysis products and solutions for the growing geospatial community as well as the general public.
