News

GeoSage Releases a Single Global Satellite Imagery Mosaic of 2.29 Terabytes

Sydney, Australia – 28 July 2010: GeoSage is pleased to announce the release of Earth Land Surface (ELS) 2000 Version 2, consisting of (1) natural-color, near-global satellite imagery tiles at 15/30/60/90m resolutions, and (2) a unique, seamless, global satellite imagery mosaic at 30m-resolution with the file size of 2.29 Terabytes or 2,290 Gigabytes (image size: 1,296,000 by 648,000 pixel).

High Quality

ELS2000 Version 2 takes advantage of lossless, ortho-rectified NASA Landsat ETM+ GeoCover 2000 imagery from USGS (file size ~4.1TB), and has been developed with new, robust spectral transformation algorithms. The result is a consistent, realistic and visually-appealing representation of global land surfaces. Many regional samples can be evaluated at http://www.GeoSage.com/. Users are encouraged to compare this new imagery source with those similar images on major web mapping portals such as Bing Maps and Google Maps.

Easy to Use

ELS2000 Version 2 can be obtained at various GIS-ready formats and projections. Large-sized global mosaics at 30/60/90m-resolutions have also been produced, therefore users can avoid extremely tedious and meticulous post-processing, which could take many months and cost tens of thousands of dollars. Single-file mosaics, provided in raw binary and efficient ECW or JPEG2000 formats, are easy to use and ideal for rapid deployment and system integration. Those multi-resolution mosaics can offer at least four zooming levels under web mapping environments.

Mosaics for Individual Countries and Continents

With ELS2000 Version 2, GeoSage is also offering image mosaicking service aiming to produce 15/30/60/90m-resolution, seamless, high-quality imagery mosaics for any country or region of interest.

Numerous Applications

ELS2000 Version 2 provides a remarkably cost-effective solution to a wide range of visualisation-related applications, be they locally hosted or under cloud mapping environment. Two flexible license types – Company-wide License and Integration/Internet License, are offered.

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, near-global imagery 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.

April 2009

GeoSage Releases Unique, Medium-resolution, Near-global Mosaics on Shaded Relief and Satellite Imagery

Sydney, Australia - 15 April 2009: GeoSage is pleased to announce the release of unique, near-global imagery mosaics on shaded relief and natural-colour satellite imagery. Each mosaic map is a single large-sized, GIS-ready JPEG2000 file, and it can be obtained on DVDs or external hard drives.

Seamless 90m-resolution hillshading maps are derived from the popular USGS SRTM data set. More than 14,000 raw SRTM tiles are first stitched into a single large mosaic (image size 432,000 by 139,200 pixels) with elevation gaps filled, and then a series of beautiful shaded-relief maps are cartographically designed and produced under various colour schemes and different hillshading settings.

Seamless 60m- and 90m-resolution satellite imagery mosaics are derived from the 30m-resolution Earth Land Surface 2000 imagery product, which consists of more than 880 regional tiles for the globe. These two imagery mosaics have the image sizes of 648,000 by 270,000 pixels and 432,000 by 180,000 pixels, respectively. Raw mosaics with the file sizes of a few hundreds of gigabytes are compressed into efficient and accessible JPEG2000 format.

The above mosaics are ideal for GIS baseline mapping and provide great context for vector data layers. They can be of significant use in regional and global environmental studies and landscape simulations. For example, since the 90m-resolution, shaded-relief map is 100 times more detailed than the widely-used SRTM30 or GTOPO30 global mosaics, geological and geomorphologic features such as seismic faults and coastal fluvial plains can be much more clearly visualized and identified. For evaluation purposes, full-resolution samples for regions such as Tokyo and Los Angeles can be downloaded at http://www.geosage.com/.

Now users can gain fast access to near-global imagery mosaics conveniently and manipulate them dynamically and locally, not necessarily relying on imagery tiles from virtual globes such as Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth.
 
Also produced is a 1km-resolution shaded-relief map for the popular global elevation and bathymetry data set SRTM30_PLUS, which was recently released by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, at University of California, San Diego. A free copy of hillshading map (image size of 43,200 by 21,600 pixels) is downloadable at http://www.geosage.com/.

About GeoSage

GeoSage 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, near-global imagery 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.

July 2008

GeoSage Releases New Version of Image Fusion and Pan-Sharpening Software: Rediscovering High-Resolution Satellite Imagery

Sydney, Australia - 1 July 2008: GeoSage is pleased to announce the release of new version of advanced image fusion and pan-sharpening software: DOS-based HighView (Version 3.0). This latest version is specifically designed to rapidly process a large volume of the recent generation of high-resolution satellite imagery (QuickBird and IKONOS) and the future GeoEye-1 and WorldView-2 imagery.

A fully-functional trial version is available at http://www.geosage.com/. Anyone with QuickBird and IKONOS imagery in GeoTIFF format directly from DigitalGlobe and GeoEye data vendors is invited to evaluate the whole range of image pan-sharpening methods and enhancement options included in the software. With this utility program users now are able to conveniently process full scenes of QuickBird and IKONOS imagery to explore superior fused results.   

Features include:

• Both local and global image fusion optimization methods

• Selection of true- or false-color composite

• Two spatial enhancement options – detailed and sharper

• Spectral enhancement option to show vegetation greener

• Feature enhancement option to highlight urban vegetation in total green based on user-defined NDVI thresholds

• Pixel offset adjustment option for both panchromatic and multispectral inputs in X/Y directions

• Adaptive image stretching - a hybrid of linear and non-linear image stretching

• Low memory usage and very fast in running

Pan-sharpened color composites in popular GeoTIFF format can be readily digested by mainstream GIS software such as ArcGIS and MapInfo and general image manipulation software such as PhotoShop and IrfanView.

The release of this software also comes with another two handy utility programs: RGB Image Stretching Tool and RGB Image Composition Tool. All these can be easily embedded within customer’s image processing workflow and system.

Besides, a fully-functional trial version of GUI-based HighView (Version 2.5.3) is also available for download. It features a free utility of band combination and image stretching with 8- and 16-bit inputs, and is capable of processing full scenes of QuickBird and IKONOS imagery as well.

About GeoSage

GeoSage is an enthusiastic leading developer in image fusion and spectral transformation analysis. Through continued research and development of advanced image processing techniques, GeoSage is committed to promoting high-quality satellite imagery in the geospatial community as well as the public.

May 2008

GeoSage Releases RGB Image Stretching Tool - A Time-Saving Utility Program for Versatile Image Stretching

Sydney, Australia - 17 May 2008: GeoSage is pleased to release RGB Image Stretching Tool, a time-saving utility program for versatile image stretching.

Image stretching is arguably the most common task in remote sensing image analysis. Almost all remote sensing software programs contain a suite of well-known stretching methods such as histogram stretching, Gaussian, Equalization, and Square Root. So, why another tool on the topic?

As an experienced image analyst would tell, to produce a visually-appealing RGB composite from raw imagery with true radiometric reflectance is often tedious, involving the trials of many image stretching options available. Choosing a suitable method and related parameters is highly unpredictable, and it is fairly common to take dozens of minutes or even hours to produce a desirable result.

RGB Image Stretching Tool is an efficient DOS-based utility program and contains both linear and non-linear stretching options. Users can define a set of band-specific, adaptable parameters for both options in a single run.

RGB Image Stretching Tool analyzes 8- or 16-bit multiple-band GeoTIFF inputs, and outputs 3-band, 8-bit RGB composite in GeoTIFF format with a single image planar configuration.

RGB Image Stretching Tool runs super-fast. Processing 8,500+ Landsat ETM+ scenes with a global coverage would take less than 24 hours on a typical office PC.

A numbers of useful tips and a set of default parameters are also provided for advanced image stretching.

Users of mainstream GIS software such as MapInfo and ArcGIS and general image manipulation software such as PhotoShop and ACDsee will find this tool very useful and handy too. The processed RGB composite can be directly displayed within applications, no hassles.

A fully-functional trial version is available at GeoSage website http://www.geosage.com/. Also included is a free band combination utility program called RGB Image Composition Tool.

Email: info@geosage.com

Sydney, Australia - 2 May 2007: GeoSage is pleased to release Spectral Transformer B742B321, a powerful utility tool for producing high-quality, natural-color imagery (equivalent to Landsat bands 3/2/1) from pan-sharpened, false-color Landsat bands 7/4/2 at 14.25m resolution in NASA GeoCover series. Medium-resolution, natural-color Landsat imagery is an excellent and indispensable mapping layer for observing land covers in major virtual globes such as Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth. The input for such global Landsat imagery is the enduring GeoCover Landsat series, which is now publicly available in many forms.

Spectral Transformer B742B321 uses pan-sharpened, false-color Landsat bands 7/4/2 as inputs. Both individual scenes and mosaic tiles are acceptable. For un-stretched individual scenes with full dynamic ranges, Spectral Transformer B742B321 includes an intelligent and highly-efficient image stretching option; for mosaic tiles with color balancing already applied, B742B321 is equipped with a number of color templates during false-to-true colour simulations. Processed natural color, full-scene images at 14.25m resolution for the following ten worldwide cities are available at GeoSage website, for evaluation and non-commercial uses:

Vancouver: Image size 17738 x 15966 pixels, zipped JPEG file size 24.8Mb
San Francisco: 17254 x 15490 pixels, 32.6Mb
New Orleans: 16956 x 15136 pixels, 26.2Mb
New York: 17480 x 15488 pixels, 14.5Mb
Washington, D.C.: 18058 x 15986 pixels, 35.8Mb
Paris: 18114 x 16232 pixels, 32.7Mb
Jerusalem: 17154 x 15146 pixels, 29.6Mb
Kuala Lumpur: 17276 x 15096 pixels, 25.1Mb
Seoul: 18086 x 15978 pixels, 29.4Mb
Tokyo: 17982 x 15980 pixels, 30.2Mb

This tool is of great potential use since 14.25m-resolution, false-color Landsat bands 7/4/2 imagery is now widely available in the public domain. It can be licensed separately or as an add-on of HighView software. Detailed features and a three-step tutorial are available at GeoSage website http://www.geosage.com

Email: info@geosage.com

About GeoSage

GeoSage is an enthusiastic leading developer in image fusion and spectral transformation analysis. Its advanced and easy-to-use image pan-sharpening software HighView has been licensed by companies, agencies and universities in more than 20 countries. Through the continued research and development of its advanced and proprietary image processing techniques, GeoSage is committed to promoting higher-quality satellite imagery and its wider usage among the geospatial community as well as the public.

June 2006

GeoSage releases medium-resolution global satellite imagery in simulated true colour

Sydney, Australia - 26 June 2006: GeoSage is pleased to announce the availability of true-colour, medium-resolution global satellite imagery, offering a very low cost solution to a wide range of visualisation-related applications.

This dataset is based on NASA's orthorectified Landsat ETM+ GeoCover 2000, which consists of 880+ mosaic tiles covering the entire earth land surface except Antarctica. Each mosaic in a compressed form contains three pan-sharpened, false-colour bands at a spatial resolution of 14.25 m: Band 7 (mid-infrared), Band 4 (near-infrared), and Band 2 (visible green).

Original mosaics are successfully converted into natural- or true-colour composites at a re-sampled resolution of 28.5 m, after applying GeoSage's spectral analysis techniques and leveraging between spatial details and the total file size of images. True-colour outputs still retain the specifications of GeoCover 2000, such as minimised cloud covers and high positional accuracy.

Since a robust spectral transformation and colour balancing scheme is developed and applied across all individual mosaics, the result is a consistent and visually-appealing representation of global land surfaces circa 2000. This dataset can offer numerous applications. For system integrators, it can be readily combined with other highly popular global data layers such as VMAP and SRTM elevation, to build a global data warehouse or virtual exploration platform, similar to those from major web portals.

For more information about this true-colour global satellite imagery dataset and samples, please visit http://www.geosage.com

Email: info@geosage.com

GeoSage is a leading developer in image fusion and spectral transformation analysis. Its advanced and easy-to-use image fusion software HighView has been licensed by companies and institutes in more than 20 countries. Through the continued research and development of its advanced and proprietary image processing techniques, GeoSage is committed to promoting higher-quality satellite imagery and its wider usage among the geospatial community as well as the public.

February 2006

GeoSage introduces advanced image fusion software HighView version 2.5

Sydney, Australia - 2 February 2006: GeoSage, a leading developer for advanced image fusion and spectral transformation analysis, announced the release of HighView version 2.5.

This latest version incorporates a series of exciting new features to meet the increasingly popular demand for natural-colour and fine-resolution satellite imagery. These new features include:

- Two new local optimisation approaches capable of achieving objective spectral consistency and finer spatial details. These methods are nicely complementary to the two global optimisations included in HighView previous versions, and provide additional options to explore the full information content of the recent generation of satellite imagery.

- A new function for pan-sharpening SPOT-5 imagery series, with options of outputting either false- or simulated "natural"-colour composites. Thanks to its full range of spatial resolutions, very large swathes (60km by 60km), and relatively low cost, SPOT-5 imagery has been widely used in natural resources, environment and other sectors. Now with the advanced spectral simulation techniques in HighView, common false-colour composites can be readily turned into eye-catching "natural"-colour scenes. This function offers a very cost-effective alternative for producing regional-level, natural-colour mosaics favourably used by land managers.

- An option for either intensive or low memory usage during pan-sharpening large-size inputs (e.g., image size of 30,000 by 30,000 pixels). As a result, now users with low hardware configurations can process a standard, full scene of QuickBird, IKONOS, SPOT-5 or Landsat ETM+ imagery.

- An option for pan-sharpening high-resolution imagery data in 8-bit. Previous versions only absorb 16-bit data directly supplied by image vendors such as DigitalGlobe and Space Imaging.

- An option for improved outputs. If the file size of fused output is close to or larger than 2GB, HighView automatically produces output with separate bands, rather than a single, multi-band file.

- And other features such as spectral transformations for Landsat and ASTER's Green/Red/NIR false-colour composites, and a green-colour adjustment factor in pan-sharpening Landsat ETM+ imagery.

Through the continued research and development of its advanced and proprietary image processing techniques, GeoSage is committed to promoting higher-quality satellite imagery and its wider usage among the geospatial community and the public.

For more information about HighView, please visit http://www.geosage.com

Email: info@geosage.com

April 2005

HighView Version 2.0 released

This new version

- Includes an easy-to-use batch processing function for image pan-sharpening and band combination, in response to the overwhelming demand of users. This facility can be easily integrated into enterprise workflows and enables users to process hundreds or thousands of images overnight.

- Enhances image stretching options. Now users can specify any R/G/B band for a combined use of both linear and nonlinear image stretches.

- Adds a new section about batch processing in HighView User Guide.

August 2004

GeoSage released its advanced image fusion and pan-sharpening software HighView
28 August, 2004

Sydney, Australia - GeoSage has launched its advanced image fusion and pan-sharpening software HighView.

With GeoSage's state-of-the-art and highly efficient image fusion algorithms that have been developed over years, HighView successfully merges low-resolution colour bands with high-resolution black/white band of recent satellite images (e.g., QuickBird, IKONOS, and Landsat 7 ETM+). The result is information rich high-resolution colour imagery with strong visual appeal.

HighView can be widely applied in a variety of image application fields, such as defense intelligence, urban planning, 3-D visualization, environmental impact assessment, and land cover/use changes.

A comprehensive image fusion workflow is adopted in HighView including three steps - band combination, pan-sharpening, and assessment. HighView has been extensively tested with various image sources. It reads 8- or 16-bit raster data, including ENVI's *.img/*.hdr format and Idrisi32's *.rst/*.rdc format. Images in GeoTIFF format from major image vendors are also supported.

As the first of its kind in the market, HighView offers a dedicated solution to image fusion and pan-sharpening. It can be used as a stand-alone program, or as a complementary tool to your existing image analysis software.

HighView is compact, easy-to-use, and affordable. With its full set of spectral and spatial optimization and enhancement options, users now have more flexibility and control in producing ideal image fusion and pan-sharpening results best suited to their needs and taste.

Not only geospatial analysts but also novice users will find HighView an essential tool for exploring image intelligence.

For more information about HighView, or to download a free trial version including an informative user guide, please visit http://www.geosage.com

Email: info@geosage.com