GeoExpress Case Study – British National Space Centre
LizardTech Provides British National Space Centre with Cutting-Edge Imaging Technology.
Bringing Next-Generation Technology to the Public Today
Much of the mainstream public is unaware of recent strides in technologies that study and monitor changes in the earth’s geologic cycles. However, LizardTech and the British National Space Centre (BNSC) BNSC.gov.uk are attempting to change that. LizardTech and the BNSC have brought the latest in GIS imaging technologies to the public to strengthen their connection to the earth with the Windows on the UK 2000 (WOUK 2000) CD BNSC.gov.uk. The BNSC’s interactive CD was distributed in every London Sunday Times newspaper to over 1.5 million readers and their families totally free of charge. Users of the CD are able to “fly” over Great Britain and zoom in to see the topography, buildings and, in some cases, traffic on the streets. In addition, those who received the CD have access to topographic images that can be located by postal code, keyword, and data type or by clicking on a map. LizardTech’s MrSID made it possible to include more than 7GB of imagery on a single CD, along with a screen saver, image calendar and a game.
Windows on the UK 2000 (WOUK 2000) CD
This interactive CD was developed to increase public knowledge and awareness of earth processes and how natural resources are managed in the United Kingdom. WOUK 2000, developed through the BNSC, was a collaboration of leading imagery providers throughout the UK, with the CD geared towards business users, the education sector and interested members of the general public. “At BNSC, our roles are to keep the public informed, not only about advances in space and earth science technologies, but how all the new technologies can apply to real-life experiences,” said Dr Richard Saull, BNSC’s head of applications market development.
The CD contained a wide variety of image formats including satellite, aerial and oblique imagery, remote sensing and LIDAR, among others. Images were organized by geographic area using the UK Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Map series. This allowed access to a specific geographical area via the CD’s image database. The pages, developed in HTML format, had the appearance of a Web page but didn’t require Internet connection. For each image provided, the WOUK 2000 CD featured full-text descriptions plus links to the specific data provider for additional information.
Gigabytes of UK Imagery on One CD
The success of WOUK 2000 CD stemmed from the ability to deliver the massive amount of aerial imagery onto the limited space of a single 650MB CD-ROM. Utilizing LizardTech’s MrSID imaging platform, the total image file content far exceeded that of the Windows on the World CD developed in 1998 using another image format. MrSID, the standard image format for all the geospatial images represented on the WOUK 2000 CD, encodes large, high-resolution images to a fraction of their original file size while maintaining the original image quality. Using MrSID technology, BNSC acquired over 7GB (7,000MB) worth of UK imagery and reduced the total to just 400MB in MrSID format-easily fitting onto a single CD.
Great Feedback
In April 2000, BNSC mailed out 1.5 million copies of the Windows on the UK 2000 CD to subscribers of the London Sunday Times. Since that time, BNSC has received enormous amounts of feedback from businesses and the general public inquiring about the images and increased interest in Earth Sciences. “Information from space is regularly featured in the media, but usually has no intimate connection to readers’ lives,” said Dr. Saull. “By making satellite images available in a mass-media publication such as The Sunday Times, everyone saw that information from space is pertinent-and also functional-to them. We couldn’t have done this without using such state-of-the-art technology as LizardTech’s MrSID.”
