Corporate site evaluators may consider satellite imagery an unnecessary extravagance in routine site searches, a nice-to-have tool but not a need-to-have one. But Space Imaging (www.spaceimaging.com), a Denver, Colo.-based provider of satellite imagery and aerial photography, hopes to change that perception.
ABOVE: an IKONOS image of Thornton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver.
In September 1999, Space Imaging launched an Earth imaging satellite, IKONOS, that makes available one-meter resolution black-and-white satellite imagery and four-meter “multi-spectral” (color) imagery for commercial applications. The latter permits more detailed analysis, and the two can be blended to create a one-meter color image.
IKONOS digital image products are sold under the CARTERRA brand name; several previously launched satellites provide additional images for the CARTERRA product line.
Commercial real estate is one of a half-dozen target markets in which Space Imaging hopes to develop new applications or significantly improve existing ones. Others include government agencies, utilities, telecommunications, agriculture and forestry. Real estate customers can use the images to prospect and plan new properties or development opportunities, show potential purchasers the location of new properties, show areas suitable for development to companies interested in expansion or relocation, monitor new construction at distant sites, evaluate commercial zoning projects and monitor and measure urban sprawl. The technology enables highly detailed “fly throughs” that provide far more information on a site and its surroundings than is possible from computer-animated models.
ABOVE: Corporate site seekers can analyze different locations in an urban area, such as suburban
San Diego, Calif., (left) and downtown, with IKONOS satellite images from spaceimaging.com.
The technology played a particularly useful role during the summer, when forest fires plagued much of the western United States. Firefighters in Idaho and Colorado used Space Imaging pictures to plot their strategy, and property owners in Colorado were able to view images of their homes from a Red Cross shelter to determine the extent of damage.
Value-added Pictures
“We see a lot of opportunity in commercial real estate,” says Brian Soliday, Space Imaging’s vice president of sales and marketing. “The value Space Imaging brings to the market is the analysis we add to a picture, other themes of data we fuse with the imagery to provide a fuller product.” Soliday says a typical site selection application might involve overlaying an IKONOS image with census information, existing streets and forecasted infrastructure improvements. That way, before the site location decision is made, actual costs associated with bringing the infrastructure to a new facility can be more accurately ascertained. Retail developers can easily determine whether existing roads near a potential site can support a major increase in traffic volume.
IKONOS images are shot “in stereo,” Soliday notes, meaning from two angles. “From that image, we can extract a very accurate elevation model, which lets the user look at expected water flows and do cut-fill analysis to determine how much land must be moved to accommodate a facility.”
Satellite imaging also makes detailed vegetation analysis possible, says Soliday. “Different types of trees have different signatures we can define,” he explains. “We would know whether the ground cover is short brush or 80-foot-tall loblolly pines. There is a completely different cost structure associated with clearing that property.”
Soliday stresses that the value of satellite imaging as prepared by his firm lies more in the analytical possibilities than in the image itself. “We have access to a wide variety of data products for analysis we do in-house,” he notes, which helps most projects end up being cost-effective. Image costs range from US$30 to $40 per sq. mile ($12 to $17 per sq. km.) for North American images with a minimum order of $1,000. Images of regions outside North America generally cost from $75 to $112 per sq. mile ($29 to $44 per sq. km.) with a minimum order of $2,000.
On average, projects generally cost from $30,000 to $50,000, which usually includes a GeoBook, a tool developed in conjunction with a Space Imaging subsidiary, Pacific Meridian Resources. GeoBook organizes the geo-spatial information into a user-friendly format, such as a CD that can be accessed by key managers in an organization. An entire site-selection-analysis project might be executed in this way, Soliday suggests. “If you can flip the pages of a book, then you can use the GeoBook,” he says.
Power Up Your Portal
In August, Space Imaging signed an image distribution agreement with GlobeXplorer (www.globexplorer.com), of Walnut Creek, Calif. GlobeXplorer, founded in 1999, is a Web-based reservoir of information of interest to the commercial real estate industry.
Operators of Web sites geared to the industry can subscribe to GlobeXplorer and access data they need, which may include views of a property or area taken by Space Imaging satellites. An online commercial property listing service might want to include thumbnail images in its service, for example. A user of the listing service could click on the picture and view a larger image, which is actually stored at GlobeXplorer.
“We host all the images at our location and provide Web sites the protocols to access them in real time, and the protocols are fairly simple to implement,” says Paul E. Smith, executive vice president of content at GlobeXplorer. The service is a transaction-based subscription model where the user site pays an annual fee based on usage. Sites that subscribe can add layers of data to the images, such as demographics, that end users would find helpful.
“We are a piece of the solution,” says Smith. “Distributing these huge image files over the Internet is a difficult technical challenge, so we are focusing at this point on delivering vertical images — or those taken from straight overhead — and oblique photography — or side shots — in the not too-distant-future.”
One commercial real estate site under development at press time planned to use GlobeXplorer images with population information to provide real estate agents with a PDF file report on specific locations. Smith anticipates other sites using the images to add value to other applications in due course. Besides commercial real estate, Smith sees applications of the imaging content in local governments and in the travel and tourism, outdoor recreation and media and entertainment industries.
