Australian Data Hub

A few interesting points from the recent ESA announcement of their collaboration in the formation of a DataHub for Copernicus imagery.

ESA Sentinel 2 image of Lake Amadeus in Australia...

Excluding the obvious good news of more people using ESA data, two points leap out at me:

** The regional data hub will also provide a high-performance environment in which all the data can be analysed and applied at full scale to big regional challenges like the blue economy, sustainable livelihoods and climate change adaptation

I wonder what the high performance hub entails? A cloud-based processing environment? You certainly need a beefy machine to process Sentinel data and I know that from personal experience of the Irish coastline - Australia would really be something else.

** Under the arrangement, GA will also act as a coordinating point for European partners to obtain access to Australian in-situ data, which is made available through the efforts of many Australian government agencies, research partnerships and universities.

That is very useful. One of the great things about EO data is that in theory an Irish company could compete against an Australian project for a project in Australia. The data is there and there are no restrictions for having to be on-site, unless you need ground control or other in-situ datasets for validation/calibration. This will help to a certain extent.

Looking forward to hearing more.

Worlds Oldest Map?

I saw this map mentioned at the OSi launch last week - found in a cave in Spain and approximately 14,000 years old. Shame it has been there all that time and this is the highest res, annotated copy that I could find online!! Still - a very interesting find.

OSi GI Research and Development Initiatives.

Ordnance Survey Ireland launched their new R&D initiatives yesterday - a very welcome addition to the competitive funding pool for Ireland. Some of the info needs clarifying but it looks like

• 2 x 2 year x €50k Postdoc funding.
• 5 x €5k MSc prize

are up for grabs. The priority areas all seem to have a satellite/ remote sensing element to them as well so I may have to look and also get the students to submit their portfolios for the MSc prize.

Their own work really looks good too - linked data, Prime 2 - well done OSi! Full info and launch is scheduled for the 29th of April so hopefully more info available then.

GSI Shortcalls

The GSi Shortcall results and press release are out. 

We were successful in our application and will be designing a short study for developing a rapid, low-cost bathymetric survey methodology using multiresolution imagery. Alot of questions arose from the previous satellite bathymetry study - particularly in relation to the different spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions and their influence on accuracy. The shortcalls will help us to continue the work on it.

 

Real time satellite data?

Interesting article here, 13 minutes to process Sentinel 1a data from time of image capture? Must find out more about this EDRS SpaceDataHighway...

Maps of the Year

I came across some great maps here, on MapsMania - be prepared to lose a few hours...i ordered myself a print of the Roads to Rome one for the wall.

100 Posts

Do I get a cheque from the president? Will I make it to 1000? Anyway I am still struggling on, haven't given up blogging yet and always have a few draft posts in reserve :)

Actually my 'reserves' are getting out of hand - I need to post more.