This month’s trio of 30-cm WorldView-3 images feature the incredible superbloom happening in California, taken in the Jurupa Hills outside of Pomona. The mountain range gets its name from the Ranch Jurupa Mexican Land Grant that took place in 1838. We’ve already written about the incredible superblooms taking place this year, but now we’re taking a look at them in high resolution. The flowers have drawn thousands of visitors, all in search of the perfect social media portrait. Unfortunately, many of these visitors have strayed off the designated trails and into the carpets of flowers, trampling them and creating “social trails” which are damaging to the flowers reproductive cycle. In fact, the “off roading” has been so bad that certain places, like Lake Elsinore, have banned visitors from areas to prevent them from crushing flowers and disrupting wildlife. It serves as a reminder that while in nature we should be courteous in our explorations of the wild, and strive to observe the seven principles of Leave No Trace. For our 30-cm WorldView-3 imagery this month, we’ve selected three photos of the lush greenery and flowers that are currently so dense they can be viewed from a satellite. All three of these images were captured on March 25, 2023 and in them It is even possible to see the swaths of ‘while’ which dust the hillsides. They almost look like snow drifts, but in fact are cascades of white blossoms. This 30-cm WorldView-3 imagery has been processed by Apollo Mapping for improved perspective, clarity and colors. (Satellite Imagery © 2023 Maxar Technologies)
Every time we look at WorldView-3 and WorldView-4 (WV3/4) imagery, we are blown away. And we hope you are equally impressed with the data! In June, we looked at Yellowstone National Park area in the United States. For this edition of the 30-cm Color WorldView-3/4 Image of the Month we’re skipping over a few states to the west with a stop at the Jurupa Hills of California where we take a peek at the spring superbloom!
WorldView-3 launched in late 2014 and WorldView-4 launched in late 2016; taken together they are the most advanced satellite constellation the commercial marketplace has ever had access to. Here are a few of the features that really set these satellites apart from the competition:
- Improved Resolution
- Higher resolution means you can see more detail in WV3/4 imagery.
- Data collected at nadir will have 31-centimeter (cm) panchromatic, 1.24-meter (m) visible and near infrared, 3.7-m SWIR (WV3 only) and 30-m CAVIS (WV3 only) bands.
- At 20 degrees off-nadir, the resolution is 34-cm panchromatic, 1.38-m visible and near infrared and 4.1-m shortwave infrared.
- Additional Spectral Bands
- If spectral analysis is part of your project, then no other satellite can match WV3 with its: 8 bands of visible and near-infrared data; and 8 shortwave infrared bands which are crucial for geological studies.
- Better Positional Accuracy
- With accuracies of 3.5-m CE90% or better (without ground control even!), WV3/4 has no rivals for its enhanced positional accuracy.
- Daily Revisits
- At 40 degrees latitude, WV3 is able to image every location daily with 1-meter or better resolution and then every 4.5 days at 34-cm resolution or better.
- WV4 is no longer collecting new imagery.
- Increased Collection Capacity
- WV3/4 feature 13.1-km swath widths (at nadir) with the ability to collect up to 680,000 square kilometer (sq km) of high-resolution data per day per satellite (though WV4 is dead now).
- Improved control movement gyros translate into larger maximum contiguous collection areas per pass, with up to ~7,500 sq km of mono imagery and ~3,000 sq km of stereo possible.
If you are interested in WorldView-3 and/or WorldView-4 imagery for your next project, please let us know by phone, 303-993-3863, or by email, sales@apollomapping.com.
You can also find more WV3 samples and technical information on our website here and then WV4 samples and information can be found here.
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