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Above: aerial photograph from an InView unmanned aircraft
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Monitor human rights abuses, such as the burning of houses, looting, intimidation
of the local people by gangs of thugs, or, soldiers.
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From BEFORE harare_zimbabwe_april16_2005_dg.jpg
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From AFTER harare_zimbabwe_june4_2005_dg.jpg
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Powerful support for the use of high resolution aerial photography.
Satellite images of an area of Harare before and after “Operation
Murambatsvina”, in which a shanty town has clearly been destroyed, rendering
many people homeless.
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Aerial Photography for Microsoft Maps
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from
http://gadgetshow.five.tv/jsp/5gsmain.jsp?lnk=401& featureid=338& pageid=787&
show=s6e
Five specially developed shutterless cameras are mounted over a hole in the
floor, and they each take an 11 mega pixel photograph to help build up a three
dimensional image of what's below. Last year alone the cameras took over five
million
images
.
This week, Jon took to the skies to find out more about one of
Microsoft's
latest endeavours. Planes like the one he flew in are currently flying over
Europe's cities taking photographs from the skies.
The result of all this work is that if you enter a location into
Microsoft Live Search Maps
you should be able to look at it from at least five different angles in very
high detail, and it looks amazing!
The images are stored on 400Gb hard drive which is enough space for all the
pictures generated on a four hour flight. The hard drive is then couriered to
Microsoft Headquarters in America where they are uploaded onto
the Internet
. By 2008 they aim to have photographed 900 European cities, that's everywhere
with a population greater than 50000. Try it with your own city!It's an exercise
in precision flying with a detailed flight plan. The pilots fly in straight
lines over the city, a quarter of a mile apart - they must keep within 24 metres
of the pre-plotted course, and they have to fly slower than 108 knots or the
pictures become too blurred to use. The
images
are so detailed that every pixel represents just 15cm at ground level.
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