Earth observation in multi-media age

ABSTRACT

The Earth Observation technology that has started with Landsat-1 launched by United States in 1972, a quarter century ago, is now entering the third generation in conjunction with multi-media technology. Space technology applications with not only space borne remote sensing (RS) but also global positioning system (GPS) and satellite communication is now playing a big role for monitoring the earth environment with support of geographic information system (GIS). Nowadays continuos measurement of a position with a few millimeters accuracy is possible with GPS, while real time positioning with several ten centimeter accuracy becomes available onboard vehicles, boats, airplanes, etc. Within a year, very high resolution satellite imagery with one meter ground resolution will become commercially available. Those data will be transmitted to anywhere in the world through Internet or satellite communication. On the other hand, according to the advancement of digital image processing such as animation and virtual reality, the results obtained from monitoring of the earth environment can be represented into more sensible form which is more understandable. The author reviews in this paper the present and future status of Monitoring Earth Environment in Multi-media Age