Satellite Imagery Solutions

Satellite Imagery Solutions is CompassData's service for turning commercial satellite imagery into survey-grade geospatial products. Imagery from multiple commercial satellite sensors, including optical and multispectral, is sourced from archive (often delivered within hours, depending on the area of interest and image availability) or newly tasked over a customer's area of interest, with customizable resolutions, revisit rates and image formats.

CompassData orthorectifies the imagery against its own certified ground control points, which the company surveys with dual-frequency GPS and GNSS receivers, correcting terrain, sensor-angle and elevation distortions to produce true-to-scale imagery. The provider states that imagery combined with certified ground control can reach submeter positional accuracy. Deliverables include seamless orthomosaics, auto-correlated Digital Elevation Models, Digital Surface Models and Digital Terrain Models generated from the satellite imagery, and feature digitization that converts imagery into GIS-ready data.

The processes are supported by FAA DO-200A certification. CompassData applies them to aviation: its AMDB solution transforms raw satellite imagery into FAA-certified submeter aviation products. The same imagery is the starting point for the company's custom basemaps. CompassData names urban planning, environmental monitoring and infrastructure development among the applications it serves.