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Geo4i company, specialized in geospatial analysis, is using coherence map to highlight interest activities.

Coherence map is a derived product from radar imagery showing all changes between two radar images in interferometric condition.

This kind of product can be very useful to monitor activities around places of interest.
In this context, a study on refugee camps along the Jordan / Syria border, Handalat and Rukban camps, have been realized with Sentinel-1 radar imagery within the period of April and May 2016.

This monitoring shows a lot of activities around the two camps but reveals that Jordan seems to prefer Rukban camp as entry point into the country.

Indeed, the crossing activity at the border is more important at Rukban camp than Handalat camp during the study period.

(London, United Kingdom, 10 January 2017) New System to help Environment Agency deliver a step change in flood forecasting capability to a simpler, more resilient and more efficient service

CGI (NYSE: GIB) (TSX: GIB.A) announced it has won a new three year, £5 million, contract with England’s Environment Agency to design, deliver and run England’s new Future Flood Forecasting System (FFFS). FFFS will make use of the latest scalable cloud computing, enabling the Environment Agency to produce and share flood forecasts and products with greater efficiency and effectiveness. The new system will also be easier and more cost effective to maintain and develop in light of future needs.

FFFS will also improve the productivity of forecasters, through a more streamlined user experience and less need for manual intervention. Ultimately, the new system will improve the quality and lead time of forecasting products, which increases the likelihood of communities, utilities and flood risk management authorities taking more effective action to reduce the impacts of floods.

The new system will also provide a nationally consistent, single system that is highly resilient and easily configurable. It will be able to quickly scale in times of flood and maximise the use of rich data analysis technologies to improve the quality and accuracy of flood forecasts whilst future proofing the system for years to come. Map-based visualisation will allow multiple sets of data to be overlaid, enhancing the richness of information available to forecasters and improving the accuracy of flood forecasting.

“We are absolutely committed to increasing the timeliness, accuracy and usefulness of our flood forecasts in order to improve our response to flooding, and the Future Flood Forecasting System will play a key role. It will bring together regional systems into a single national system to make it quicker and easier to monitor forecasts and provide our experts with more time to analyse the data and communicate with our teams on the ground,” said Craig Woolhouse, Deputy Director Flood Incident Management at the Environment Agency.

“This is a data-centric, mission-critical system and CGI is proud to have been selected to develop it. We are implementing the very best technologies, and developing using an agile methodology, to ensure that the system evolves regularly and absolutely reflects the needs of users,” added Elwyn Jones, Vice President of UK Central Government and Justice at CGI. “We have married our own capabilities with extensive hydrology expertise from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the latest innovations from British SME, Mapcite. This solution will digitally transform the way floods are forecasted across the country”

The Future Flood Forecasting System is based on CGI’s Digital Insight Platform, blending innovative digital technology with powerful data analytics and data management technologies. Running on Microsoft’s Azure Cloud, it offers levels of scalability including ‘bursting’ for times of peak data processing demand during extreme weather and flood conditions.

Map-based data visualisation technology from Mapcite will enable users to understand forecast outputs and assess the likely impacts on high-risk areas and assets such as hospitals, sub-stations and schools. Mapcite is part of CGI’s SME Accelerate programme designed to help innovative small and medium enterprises gain greater opportunities to access CGI’s government and commercial contracts whilst delivering rapid innovation to CGI clients. The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology will provide the depth and breadth of hydrology and forecast model experience required to ensure that the CGI technology solution has hydrology and forecast modelling at its core.

CGI has a strong heritage in data management and analytics deployments. Recent work includes a programme with UK Sport to help the body use powerful analytics to assign funding to individual sports in line with their chances of Olympics medal success. In addition, the company has experience providing the system for the Radioactive Incident Monitoring Network (RIMNET) that forecasts the impact of potential nuclear incidents. It also has significant Earth Observation experience gained through work with clients including the European Space Agency. Such work is focused on the management and integration of data provided by forecasts and satellites including the creation of valuable applications based on those data streams.

About CGI

Founded in 1976, CGI Group Inc. is the fifth largest independent information technology and business process services firm in the world. Approximately 68,000 professionals serve thousands of global clients from offices and delivery centers across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, leveraging a comprehensive portfolio of services, including high-end business and IT consulting, systems integration, application development and maintenance, and infrastructure management, as well as 150 IP-based services and solutions. With annual revenue in excess of C$10 billion and an order backlog exceeding C$20 billion, CGI shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB). Website: www.cgi.com.
Forward-Looking Statements

For more information:
Investors and media
Lorne Gorber
Executive Vice-President, Global Communications and Investor Relations
lorne.gorber@cgi.com
+1 514-841-3355
Local media
Jenny McGowan
UK External Communications
jenny.mcgowan@cgi.com
+44 (0)7771 815428

All statements in this press release that do not directly and exclusively relate to historical facts constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of that term in Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and are “forward-looking information” within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. These statements and this information represent CGI’s intentions, plans, expectations and beliefs, and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, of which many are beyond the control of the Company. These factors could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. These factors include but are not restricted to: the timing and size of new contracts; acquisitions and other corporate developments; the ability to attract and retain qualified members; market competition in the rapidly evolving IT industry; general economic and business conditions; foreign exchange and other risks identified in the press release, in CGI’s annual and quarterly Management’s Discussion and Analysis (“MD&A”) and in other public disclosure documents filed with the Canadian securities authorities (filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (filed on EDGAR at www.sec.gov), as well as assumptions regarding the foregoing. The words “believe”, “estimate”, “expect”, “intend”, “anticipate”, “foresee”, “plan”, and similar expressions and variations thereof, identify certain of such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. In particular, statements relating to future performance are forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. CGI disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements or on this forward-looking information.

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MARKHAM, Ontario, Canada – January 10, 2017: PCI Geomatics, a world leading developer of remote sensing and photogrammetric software and systems, announced today it will be collaborating closely with Deimos Imaging to support the PanGeo Alliance.

Deimos Imaging is a founding member of the PanGeo Alliance, which is the first global alliance of Earth Observation sensors operators. The PanGeo Alliance is made up of eight member companies, and a fleet of 15 operational Earth Observation sensors, providing multispectral imagery in a wide range of resolutions (from 20 m to 75 cm per pixel), 4k full-color videos, and AIS data.

PCI Geomatics is a recognized global leader in satellite Earth Observation image processing software solutions. We are working closely with PCI Geomatics to ensure our customers have access to software tools that support the imagery from the PanGeo sensor fleet,” said Fabrizio Pirondini, CEO of Deimos Imaging.

PCI Geomatics is working closely with teams from Deimos Imaging to ensure support for pansharpening, atmospheric correction orthorectification, Digital Elevation Model (DEM) extraction and automatic mosaicking and color balancing operations. Support for many of the sensors has already been implemented by PCI Geomatics, including Deimos-1, KazEOSat,-1, Theia, Dubaisat-1, TH-1, Deimos-2, Dubaisat-2, and other sensors that make up the PanGeo Alliance fleet.

“Providing support for the PanGeo sensors is of critical importance to earth observation community, who make operational use of geospatial imagery to deliver products and services to their customers on a daily basis,” said Arnold Hougham, Vice President, Sales and Marketing at PCI Geomatics. “PCI Geomatics develops software that is modular, scalable and flexible. Not only will we provide access to operations for essential image processing steps (ortho-mosaic, DEM extraction), we also plan to deliver application based demonstrations through our marketing channels to help educate customers on what analysis and information can be performed on such a rich multi-sensor data source which is offered through the PanGeo constellation.”

PCI Geomatics will be preparing instructional videos and webinars, and provide documentation on its dedicated customer portal, support.pcigeomatics.com to provide helpful information on working with the imagery from the PanGeo Alliance fleet over the coming months.

About PCI Geomatics
PCI Geomatics is a world-leading developer of software and systems for remote sensing, imagery processing, and photogrammetry. With more than 30 years of experience in the geospatial industry, PCI is recognized globally for its excellence in providing software for accurately and rapidly processing both satellite and aerial imagery. PCI has installed more than 30 thousand licenses, in over 150 countries worldwide. Find out more about PCI Geomatics at www.pcigeomatics.com.

About Deimos Imaging
Deimos Imaging, a subsidiary of UrtheCast Corp. (Canada), is a private Spanish company headquartered in Tres Cantos (Madrid) and with satellite control and processing facilities in Boecillo (Valladolid) and Puertollano (Ciudad Real). Deimos Imaging provides high-quality services to clients worldwide, including imagery from our own constellation of satellites and from the satellites of our partners like the PanGeo Alliance, and value-added applications in a wide range of fields.

Find out more about Deimos Imaging at www.deimos-imaging.com.
Find out more about the PanGeo Alliance at www.pangeo-alliance.com/.

(05.12.2016) Space Imaging Middle East (SIME) and Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) have joined forces to provide industry leading Maritime Monitoring services to end users in, and around the Arabian Gulf. The combination of 20 years operational experience and unmatched local expertise will be a significant contribution to Maritime Domain Awareness in the region.

KSAT has provided operational oil spill and vessel detections services based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for 20 years and is the only provider in the world that has in-house capacity for planning, ordering, acquisition and processing of all commercial SAR satellites.

SIME has established itself as the most trusted imagery provider in the Arabian Gulf region, consistently delivering customized, cutting-edge geospatial solutions and high-resolution satellite imagery products and services.

The Near-real time aspect will be an important part of the joint service offering to the region, as will also the access to a truly unique portfolio of satellite data sources which will provide users in the region with the best available options.

“We are excited to announce this new partnership agreement with KSAT”, said Mohamad El Kadi, Managing Director of SIME. “We strongly believe that our combined expertise will result in the delivery of highly accurate geospatial intelligence which, given the high maritime traffic density in the region, will greatly improve the early detection of possible anomalies.“

“We are very happy about the signing of this partnership agreement with SIME, being a renowned organization that we have known for many years, and a highly valued provider of best available optical imagery and services. For us, the agreement also signifies an enhancement of our presence in the region.

Our combined service offering represents unmatched maritime domain awareness for early detection of oil spills and vessel-borne risks. Operational delivery of actionable information together with an increased coverage frequency, will have significant impact on oil spill preparedness and response as well as maritime security in the region in the years to come” says KSAT CEO Rolf Skatteboe.

For further information, please contact:
Rasha Hammad, Marketing Coordinator, SIME.
rasha@spaceimagingme.com
Telephone: +9714 2661799
Marte Indregard, Vice President of Energy, Environment and Security, KSAT.
Marte.indregard@ksat.no
Telephone: +47 48196720.

Space Imaging Middle East (SIME), is the leading geospatial and GIS solutions provider in the region. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in the business hub of the Middle East, Dubai, SIME has established itself as the first and leading commercial high-resolution satellite imagery provider in the Middle East.
http://www.spaceimagingme.com/

KSAT, Kongsberg Satellite Services, is a world-leading provider of ground station services for polar orbiting satellites from a uniquely located global ground network, and provides advanced maritime monitoring services with rapid delivery based on multiple satellite missions from its headquarters in Tromsø.
www.ksat.no

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(11/22/2016) Following the 2016 Copernicus Masters competition, GEOMATRIX UAB was selected for the first Copernicus Accelerator Bootcamp event along with the other 40 SMEs developing innovative Gallileo/ Copernicus products and services.

The Bootcamp event took place in Madrid during 24-25 October 2016 organised by the European Commission and the European Space Agency. Personal business coaching programme, funded by the European Commission, will facilitate innovative space applications and products submitted to the 2016 Copernicus Masters competition.

The Copernicus Accelerator personal coaching program will last for 8 months during 2017. GEOMATRIX UAB brought up a concept of innovative Sentilels-based Farmland Monitoring Service primarily targeting the Eastern European medium-size traditional farms and aiming to offer a low-cost operational “smart farming” solution currently under development as a plug-in component to an open source farmOS.org information service.

Following the Copernicus Accelerator Bootcamp event in Madrid, GEOMATRIX UAB finalised the H2020 SME Instrument Phase-1 application for Farmland Monitoring Service feasibility study and business deelopment plan. If successful, this project will use professional coaching offered by Copernicus Accelerator to develop a solid busines development and service implementation plan for it’s Farmland Monitoring Service.

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The NextGEOSS project has been selected by the European Commission to provide the European hub for EO data distribution. NextGEOSS (Next Generation GEOSS for Business & Innovation) will be the European contribution to the global system being put in place by GEO, providing access to a large number of data sources, including the Sentinel satellites, Copernicus core services and others. It will implement a federated data hub for access and exploitation of Earth Observation data, including tools for data-mining, discovery and exploitation. The NextGEOSS concept revolves around providing the data and resources to the users’ communities, together with Cloud resources, seamlessly connected to provide an integrated ecosystem for supporting applications.

SUMMARY

Running from the end of 2016 until mid 2020, NextGEOSS provides a streamlined, European hub for Earth Observation data discovery and retrieval, catering for European institutions as well as private sector needs in terms of Earth Observation data, ICT and services. It will engage global communities of data providers and GEOSS users, promoting pilot activities towards innovative GEOSS powered applications using GEOSS.

BACKGROUND

Earth Observation (EO) from satellites produce vast amounts of data and is playing an increasingly important role as a regular and reliable high-quality data source for scientific, public sector and commercial activities. However, the unprecedented large amount of data available for research and operational use is creating new challenges to GEOSS.

The resulting explosive growth of data poses far-reaching dilemmas regarding the fragmentation of data infrastructures at the international level. The time is for expanding the operational capability of global monitoring from space, and this opens a unique opportunity to build sustainable hubs that support user services exploiting archived and newly acquired EO derived datasets. The new data scientists, universities and research institutions, as well as the private commercial sector and value adding institutions in general, now expect easy access to EO data sources and tools enabling efficient exploitation of multidisciplinary data for advancing research, developing value-added products and contrive downstream services.

SOLUTION

In order to support the creation and deployment of EO-based innovative research activities and commercial services, the project will rely on three main pillars: engaging communities, delivering technological developments and advocating the use of GEOSS.

Engaging Communities: NextGEOSS has a focus on engaging a strong community of not only of providers of Earth Observation data, but also of current and potential system users. It will actively involve the main operational actors from the Land Monitoring, Marine Environment Monitoring and Security Copernicus services, the lead institutions for the Copernicus Processing and Archiving Centres for Sentinel satellites, an ESA Data Hub, the Global Atmosphere Watch, as well commercial providers of satellite imagery. It will provide a framework to ease the discovery and retrieval of this data (satellite-based remote sensing and in situ measurements) using best practices for search services, including standardized and harmonized access to the metadata and data coming from earth observation providers worldwide. Through the promotion of pilot activities, NextGEOSS will directly engage researchers and developers in creating new applications and services, by providing them with specific tools and scalable Cloud appliances, covering their user requirements.

Technological Concept and Approach: NextGEOSS will facilitate the connectivity to the European and global data centres with new discovery and processing methods. It exploits the latest advances in EO data management, leveraging Web and Cloud technologies, offering seamless access to all the relevant data repositories, as well as providing efficient operations for search, retrieval, processing/re-processing, visualization, analysis and combination of products from federated data sources, all this delivered on user demand, as a Service. NextGEOSS will create a data hub that demonstrates the potential of new advances in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to help develop and deploy new GEOSS powered applications, and strengthen existing ones with additional data access and tools, therefore creating a solid foundation for capacity building through community platforms. NextGEOSS will deploy new data exploitation capabilities brought by Cloud technologies that automate and ease the access and processing of data, and support scaling up the storage and processing capabilities without the cost rocketing. It will provide virtualized work environments and the necessary interfaces to leverage the storage and computing resources of private and commercial providers. NextGEOSS will also support the optimization of the connectivity between the data centers involved in multi-stakeholder operations.

Advocating the Use of GEOSS: In addition to participating in international Conferences and Workshops, NextGEOSS will advocate the use of GEOSS by organising a number of regular events, including annual high-profile summits taking place in Geneva. The NextGEOSS Summit will gather worldwide stakeholders in Earth Observation data provision and services, relying on several of the project’s partners and recognised international experts for significant project and generic GEOSS relevant announcements, as well as for showcasing the project’s achievements. Intertwined with the annual summit, the NextGEOSS Online Courses and Learning Kit will support the adoption of GEOSS technologies, through worldwide web-based events, supported by dedicated learning material focused on empowering communities to use GEOSS data sources.

The NextGEOSS project exploits the latest advances in scientific data management in leveraging Web and Cloud technologies, offering easy and seamless access to all relevant data repositories as well as efficient operations (search, retrieval, processing/re-processing, visualization and analysis), for example to extract and distribute single parameters, or to combine products on user demand from federated infrastructures. NextGEOSS will create a data hub that demonstrates the potential of new advances in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to help develop and deploy new services requiring a wide variety of data sources and creating a solid foundation for capacity building through GEOSS community platforms.

TEAM

The NextGEOSS consortium is composed of 27 institutions in total, including leading European companies and institutions, active in many GEO-related activities and many other European, ESA and international projects. The consortium covers 13 European countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The Project Coordinator is DEIMOS Engenharia and includes the participation of the German Space Agency (DLR), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the Open Geospatial Consortium(OGC) and the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC), among others.

For more information, visit

(Munich, 16/11/16) European Space Imaging (EUSI) completed the 2015 Controls with Remote Sensing (CwRS) program for the European Commission (EC) with 100 % success rate. The Munich-based company collected and supplied very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery over nearly half a million square kilometers and demonstrated again its capacity and reliability as Europe’s leading VHR data provider.

Since 2003, EUSI has been the major provider of VHR satellite data to the European Commission’s Controls with Remote Sensing (CwRS) program to control agricultural subsidies granted under the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The CwRS program requires the timely and reliable provision of high resolution and high quality imagery over control zones in Europe.

In 2015, the demand under the new CAP has significantly grown by more than 40% reaching 497,000 km² spread over 952 control sites. More than half of the sites were collected within 14 days of the window opening and about one third within 7 days. All collections were made accessing the DigitalGlobe constellation of satellites (WorldView-1, WorldView-2, WorldView-3 and GeoEye-1) and in close cooperation with DigitalGlobe.

“With the growing number of areas to be covered and the ever demanding specifications we are extremely proud to continually achieve 100% success in this challenging and important campaign. Through leveraging our global team, between European Space Imaging and DigitalGlobe, our staff worked around the clock to achieve this goal.” says Adrian Zevenbergen, Managing Director of European Space Imaging.

European Space Imaging has the benefit of operating their own ground station which, in combination with direct satellite tasking and taking real-time weather conditions into account, leads to the speedy delivery of data for distribution to European Union Member State administrations.

In 2016, the demand for VHR imagery is expected to grow further to accommodate the requirements of the CAP of the European Union. European Space Imaging is looking forward to continuing its role as dependable imagery partner and to supporting the EU Commission and EU Member States with data supply into the future.

About CwRS

Since 1993, the European Commission (EC) has promoted the use of “Controls with Remote Sensing” (CwRS) as a system to control agricultural subsidies granted under the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy. Following the real time evaluation in 2003 and the successful operational application since 2004, the EC’s Joint Research Centre (Director General (DG) JRC), in agreement with DG AGRI, provides VHR satellite remote sensing data to the EU Member States (MS) administrations for their CwRS area-based subsidies.

Since 2010, VHR Imagery acquired under the CwRS campaign has also been used for the quality assessment of the Land Parcel Identification System – which is the main geo-database in the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS – the main administration tool for managing of farmers’ applications).

The DG JRC provides technical guidance regarding the CwRS strategy as well as managing the image acquisition, ordering and communication with the MS administrations and image providers. Also, in close cooperation with the MS, it supports the definition of the imagery required. Satellite imagery is acquired through third party suppliers selected by the DG JRC like European Space Imaging who has been a key third party imagery supplier to these campaigns since the programs’ inception.

About European Space Imaging
European Space Imaging (EUSI) is a leading supplier of global very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery, direct satellite tasking and derived services to customers in Europe, North Africa and CIS countries. They offer customers access to the highest resolution imagery (50-30 cm) from the largest constellation of sub-meter satellites and to the most extensive worldwide VHR data archive. With a reputation for expert and personalized customer service they have been providing tailored VHR imagery solutions to meet their customers’ diverse project requirements since 2002.For more information, visit www.euspaceimaging.com.

For more information please contact:
Penelope Richardson, Marketing Manager
European Space Imaging
Arnulfstrasse 199, Munich 80634
Tel: +49 (0) 89 1301420
Fax: +49 (0) 89 13014222
marketing@euspaceimaging.com
www.euspaceimaging.com
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(Munich, October 31, 2016) GAF AG is pleased to announce the award of a contract to support the Ministry of Mines and Industry in Niamey in establishing a new computerised mining cadastre and registry system in Niger.

The overall project objective is to improve governance in the mining sector by establishing a modern, web-based system for granting and managing mineral rights. The efficient, transparent, and reliable administration of such titles is a key factor in increasing growth and investment in the mining sector in Niger.

In practical terms, the project aims to:

  • Improve the performance and transparency of mineral rights management, in accordance with the Mining Code and its implementation regulations as well as other legislation and regulations in Niger.
  • Carry out the design, architectural specification and implementation of a centralised database for the mining cadastre.
  • Provide effective and user-friendly software for managing the cadastral information.
  • Provide capacity building with regard to the management of mineral rights.

The rollout of the eMC+ cadastre solution will increase the institutional capacity and efficiency of the ministry by providing comprehensive mineral tenure management. The contract has a duration of four months and is embedded in the “PROJET D’APPUI A LA COMPETITIVITE ET A LA CROISSANCE (PRACC)”, which is being funded by the World Bank (IDA). GAF has more than 20 years of worldwide experience in the institutional and technical establishment and reorganisation of mining cadastre authorities. This includes the provision of associated consultancy services and customised software solutions.

About eMC+

eMC+ is GAF’s framework of choice for providing mining cadastre authorities worldwide with a complete package of services for the management of mineral titles. The software platform is web-based and its responsive design supports a wide variety of devices, including mobile appliances. It is based on FOSS (free and open-source software), which ensures that no additional costs are incurred for third party licenses and associated maintenance. Thus, the total cost of ownership is fully transparent and there is no vendor lock-in.

About GAF

GAF AG is a leading solutions-provider with an international reputation for the skilled provision of data, products and services in the fields of geo-information, spatial IT and consulting for private and public clients. Over the past 30 years, the company has been active in more than 1000 projects in over 100 countries throughout Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. The company is part of the Telespazio Group, which belongs to Leonardo and Thales, two European technology leaders. GAF is currently performing mining governance and consulting projects in Burkina Faso, Morocco, Sudan, Gabon, Malawi, Mongolia, and Tajikistan.

To obtain more information, please contact:
GAF AG
Daniela Miller
Arnulfstr.199, 80634 Munich
Tel. +49 89 12 15 28-0
Fax. +49 89 12 15 28-79
info@gaf.de | https://emcplus.gaf.de
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An important task for Geocento in acting as an independent provider of satellite imagery has been in helping users to navigate some of the complexities of ordering imagery. The good news is that competition within the market is putting pressure on suppliers to make ordering and access much easier, and the benefits of this are starting to be seen, but in the meantime, it is worthwhile explaining some of the requirements that must be addressed by you, as a user, particularly in relation to the more traditional suppliers. Here are some of the key ones:

Being ready to provide your identity and affiliation. If you are a new client coming into the market for the first time, then it is necessary to provide your affiliation and contact details including location. This is formally required in order to ensure that there are no export controls to your country, to ensure that you have the appropriate license for your type of organisation, and to make sure that there are reselling rights for your location.

Being able to specify what you want to use the imagery for. Experienced users may know exactly what they want and be able to specify this very quickly, understanding which satellites they would like to use. For them, Geocento’s EarthImages Pro offers real flexibility in terms of image planning, specification of imaging configurations, etc. Others have simple requirements in terms of obtaining a recent cloud-free image of an area of interest and so can use our simpler EarthImages platform. Many clients, however, have sophisticated requirements but they do not have the time or confidence to identify the most appropriate imagery themselves. In these cases, by describing their application, Geocento can customise a plan to meet the client’ needs, making use of their supplier networks and their impartiality as an independent broker and helping with other requirements, such as providing sample imagery.

Understanding license conditions. If you simply want to use the imagery for your own purposes, then the license is normally straightforward. If you want to convert the imagery into other geospatial products and sell these on, or you wish to share the imagery with other organisations, then it is important to make sure that the license is able to support this. Some suppliers are much more flexible than others, but all suppliers support a range of different user cases through different licensing options. However, do bear in mind that licenses place a restriction of what can be done with the imagery.

Understanding impacts on pricing. As you would expect, higher resolution imagery is more expensive than coarser resolution imagery per sq km, but pricing is also dependent on a number of other factors such as the type of license (whether you are from an academic institution for example), urgency of the image order, number of users to be included in the license and how “old” the imagery is (particularly whether it is “new” imagery or existing imagery). Geocento’s EarthImage platform accounts for these various pricing rules in the ordering tool, and so take care of this complexity.

Being aware of how quickly imagery can be acquired and delivered. If you need the imagery urgently, then it is important to specify the appropriate options in the order, recognise that there is extra cost, and also take into consideration that even emergency orders are subject to constraints on how quickly the satellite can be tasked to collect more imagery, how long it takes to process the data, whether there are conflicts with other users and whether the satellite imaging capacity is available. Some suppliers are moving the paradigm towards routine data ordering and access so that there is less reliance on on-demand tasking which is time consuming and complex. If your needs are for imagery acquired at short notice, the best idea is to plan for this in advance so that arrangements are established in advance of needing the imagery rather than at the time of ordering, and we can help with this.

Being prepared for the impact of cloud. Cloud is always an issue for visible imagery, unless you are interested in a very dry region of the Earth, or you are prepared to accept imagery that is not “fresh”. There are alternatives, though. You can order radar imagery that “sees” through cloud (as well as day and night), or you could “look” from under the clouds, by ordering airborne imagery such as from drones, if either is compatible with your application. However, even cloud is going to become a lesser problem for visible imagery as the much increased temporal sampling of the new satellite constellations provide more opportunities to “catch” cloud-free moments in the day. We can keep you informed as these new capabilities become available.

Our image ordering platform, EarthImages, takes account of these requirements and allows the information to be provided at the time of ordering, and we fully expect the process to become simplified as competition starts to be felt across the market. In the meantime, we are here to help contact us to start the ball rolling.

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On the occasion of the visit of a Ukrainian delegation to Elecnor Deimos facilities in Spain last week, the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) and Elecnor Deimos signed a Memorandum of Understanding intended to promote cooperation in space projects. The Ukrainian delegation, including representatives from SSAU, the company Yuzhnoye SDO and the State Foreign Trade Enterprise (STE), was led by the Deputy Chairman of SSAU, Mr. Volodymyr Mikheiev.

SSAU and Deimos collaboration will focus on Earth Observation space and ground systems, as well as on the exploitation of remote sensing data and the development of space-based applications. Additionally, other fields of cooperation have been identified in the areas of launch systems, space situational awareness, satellite navigation and communications, and applied research.

The main competences of the State Space Agency of Ukraine include the development of state policy concepts in the sphere of research, peaceful uses of space and national security; organization and development of space activities in Ukraine and under its jurisdiction abroad; contributing to state national security and defense capability; and organization and development of Ukraine’s cooperation with other states and international space organizations.

More information about SSAU can be found at their official website
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