Artificial Intelligence Enables Automated Production at Scale

Sophia Antipolis, France – July 13, 2020 – LuxCarta announced today the launch of its BrightEarth™ product line, a series of specialized global geospatial products derived using artificial intelligence algorithms. The initial releases include a global cloud-free mosaic and related 10-class land use/land cover (LULC) based on Sentinel-2 imagery.

“Customers were asking if we could deliver a higher-resolution global cloud-free image mosaic and related classified imagery – or LULC,” said Albéric Maumy, managing director of LuxCarta. “There is a large gap in the market between free imagery at 30m and what the market is demanding. BrightEarth is our answer.”

LuxCarta has applied its tuned artificial intelligence algorithms on a constantly refreshed supply of raw Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to create BrightEarth products. The global mosaic delivers a seamless cloud-free 10-meter resolution image of the entire Earth in bright and natural color. The algorithms select the most recent cloud-free images available, with the current iteration of the BrightEarth globe created using 78% of images from 2019-2020.

The mosaic will be followed by a 10-class LULC that seamlessly integrates with it – even along problematic coastlines – later this year. LuxCarta has specialized in the classification of earth imagery to create LULC for the world’s telecommunications industry for decades, where the product is referred to as “clutter” and is used to aggregate user locations for RF planning purposes. The company’s R&D team is now focused on adapting manual extraction techniques to machine-learning approaches to expand the number of automated classes delivered in BrightEarth.

Ultimately, BrightEarth products will be created in the cloud and delivered via the cloud. The mosaic will be inserted into LuxCarta’s online delivery system later this year, with the LULC to follow. Flexible licensing and purchasing options for use in a customer’s integrated products, as well as delivery through an API, will make this geospatial mapping service an ideal fit for customers requiring consistent, high-quality data for locations around the world. An example of this use case for the Simulation and Training community will be demonstrated with our partner, Bohemia Interactive Simulations, during their Terrain webinars on July 15 and 16th.

“BrightEarth products are ideally suited for VBS4 and its approach to large-scale procedural terrain,” said Earl Laamanen, technical director at TerraSim, a BISim Company. “Our customers are looking for larger and more realistic terrains to support all types of military simulation and training, from high altitude to land and undersea. Having a consistent supply of cloud-free BrightEarth products lets us generate realistic VBS4 terrain for all domains quickly and cost-effectively – anywhere in the world.”