For isolated or risky areas I agree, nothing can replace high altitude views. But for lively places ... are you sure ? millions of cellphones, a few snapshots with geoloc and orientation, that amount to a lot of data.
I wish for drone imaging too, but automated cars aren't legal, and I think drones won't be for even longer (unless Amazon unlesh some nice lobby-fu).
About crowdfunding satellite licensing.. I just remember a lot of people are sending high altitude balloons, maybe that would be a cheap middle ground.
> About crowdfunding satellite licensing.. I just remember a lot of people are sending high altitude balloons, maybe that would be a cheap middle ground.
Want to work on an autonomous dirigible project? I'm up for it. We could build a home made Argus for image collection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS
"The three principal components of the ARGUS-IS are a 1.8 Gigapixels video system plus two processing subsystems, one in the air and the other located on the ground.[17]
The sensor uses four lenses and 368 cell phone cameras, 5 megapixels each.[18]"
I wish for drone imaging too, but automated cars aren't legal, and I think drones won't be for even longer (unless Amazon unlesh some nice lobby-fu).
About crowdfunding satellite licensing.. I just remember a lot of people are sending high altitude balloons, maybe that would be a cheap middle ground.