Photosat Verifies Accuracy of Digitalglobe's 30 cm Worldview-3 Satellite Elevation Data to Within 15 cm

Vancouver, Canada, May 25, 2015 (Newswire.com) - PhotoSat is pleased to announce that the elevation data processed from DigitalGlobe’s new 30 centimeter resolution satellite, WorldView-3, has been verified as accurate to within 15 centimeters. DigitalGlobe is a leading global provider of commercial high-resolution earth imagery products and services, and is the first company to offer 30 cm resolution satellite imagery commercially.

For the study, PhotoSat produced a 50 cm grid of elevations using its proprietary geophysical processing technology with stereo satellite images taken by WorldView-3. The resulting elevations were then compared to a 50 cm LiDAR elevation grid in Southeast California, accurate to approximately 5 cm in elevation and available on the OpenTopography website. The size of the comparison area was 88 square kilometers. The resulting 15 cm RMSE elevation accuracy was impressively achieved using a single ground reference point. The full WorldView-3 accuracy study is available on the PhotoSat website at www.photosat.ca/pdf/garlock-30cm-wv3-elevation-accuracy-report-mar2015.pdf.

PhotoSat’s highly accurate elevation grids have been used for years by oil and gas and mining engineers as a cost-effective alternative to ground surveying and airborne LiDAR mapping. The satellite imagery from WorldView-3 will allow PhotoSat to deliver the highest quality topographic data yet.

“The DigitalGlobe WorldView-3 satellite data is the highest quality satellite photo data that PhotoSat has ever processed,” said Gerry Mitchell, President of PhotoSat. “In this test, an elevation grid extracted from stereo WorldView-3 satellite photos matches a highly accurate LiDAR elevation grid to better than 15 cm in elevation. This result takes satellite elevation mapping into the engineering design and construction markets and directly competes with LiDAR and high resolution air photo mapping for applications like flood plain monitoring.”

“The fact that PhotoSat has validated our elevation data to within 15 cm is amazing and even exceeds our initial expectations,” said Kenyon Waugh, DigitalGlobe’s senior director of vertical segment products. “With these elevation products, customers in the oil, gas, and mining sectors can leverage our truly global reach and realize cost savings on the order of 50 percent.”

About PhotoSat

PhotoSat has invented a new technology that generates the world’s most accurate satellite topographic mapping.  This engineering quality data shortens timelines and eliminates surveying delays in all phases of resource and engineering projects. We have delivered over 500 highly accurate elevation mapping projects, and have published a number of accuracy studies which are available on our website. For more information please visit www.photosat.ca.

 About DigitalGlobe
DigitalGlobe is a leading provider of commercial high-resolution earth observation and advanced geospatial solutions that help decision makers better understand our changing planet in order to save lives, resources and time. Sourced from the world's leading constellation, our imagery solutions deliver unmatched coverage and capacity to meet our customers' most demanding mission requirements. For more information, visit www.digitalglobe.com.