Sydney Storm Fly Over, page-45

Satellite imagery is suitable for a different market segment, it is and IMO due to real world physical limitations, will never be suitable unless you have between 60 and 150 satellites in very low orbit (100 to 200KM a;titude)  for full earth coverage. That would cost tens of billions I expect for current tech.  When someone launches such a system I would be worried, but that may be a long way off. Even then the atmospheric disturbance over 100 - 200km is still challenging. I know from engaging in some pro-photography, that much shorter distances, result in the loss of a lot of image resolution, distortion due to refraction from variable gas pressure in the path which results in a variable velocity factor, loss of dynamic range and colour information as well as artifacts. The loss of colour is a big issue, and the quoted best satellite figures below 1M I understand are monochrome only.

Nearmap customers pay to see accurate detail, satellite customers are looking at crops, mining/geology, military sites etc. Each have their place and market. No company is without risk and nearmap is no exception. But I think they are safe from having most of their customers bail in preference of a satellite based service for the forseeable future.


Katoom wrote:

'While you are quick to point out NEA higher res for select number of customers and market there are even more customers which NEA can't sell to because they don't have any coverage at all, unlike satellite companies which provide global frequent coverage at high enough resolutions for their requirements .'

Simple fact is more customers use Google Maps than NEA because it's resolution is enough for their purposes and is an excellent free service. If even a fraction of the number of companies used NEA instead of Google Maps it's MC wouldn't be sub 200m.

The people that use google earth are not customers because it's a free service. They are users. Again, Nearmap is servicing a different market. It's a niche market, but one that will pay for the information. Again I say I think you have got it mixed up here, satellites are not relevant to this discussion involving nearmap, nor are google earth users.