Posted on February 4th, 2025

30-cm Color WorldView Image of the Month – Seoul, South Korea


Seoul, the capital of South Korea, is a huge metropolis where modern skyscrapers, high-tech subways and pop culture meet Buddhist temples, palaces and street markets. Seoul’s history traces back to 18 BC when it was founded by the people of Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Seoul is geographically set in mountainous and hilly terrain. Seoul has embraced a surge in modern architectural development, with iconic landmarks including the N Seoul Tower, the 63 Building, the Lotte World Tower, the Dongdaemun Design PlazaLotte World, the Trade TowerCOEXIFC Seoul, and Parc1. Seoul was named the World Design Capital in 2010 and has served as the national hub for the music, entertainment, and cultural industries that propelled K-pop and the Korean Wave to international prominence. The 30-cm WorldView Legion image featured here was collected on October 4, 2024, and has custom processing and color balance applied by Apollo Mapping. (Satellite Imagery © 2025 Maxar Technologies)

In this monthly article, we travel the world to check out unique, fun and sometimes a bit weird 30-centimeter (cm) color imagery samples from the WorldView constellation. In January, we marveled over images of Chalet Zermatt Peak in Switzerland. For this edition of the 30-cm Color WorldView Image of the Month, we feature our first Legion images in this series from Seoul, South Korea.

30-cm WorldView-3 (WV3) launched in late 2014, WorldView-4 (WV4) launched in late 2016 and then the first WorldView Legion satellites launched in 2024. Taken together, this is 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 WorldView 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.
  • Additional Spectral Bands
    • If spectral analysis is part of your project, then no other satellite can match WorldView-3 and WorldView Legion with their 8 bands of visible and near-infrared data; and then 8 shortwave infrared bands (WV3 only) which are crucial for geological studies.
  • Better Positional Accuracy
    • With accuracies of 3.5-m CE90% or better (without ground control even!), the 30-cm WorldView constellation has no rivals for its enhanced positional accuracy.
  • Daily Revisits
    • With multiple WorldView-3 and WorldView Legion satellites orbiting our planet, daily revisits are available for most locations.
    • 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 kilometers (sq km) of high-resolution data per day per satellite (though WV4 is dead now).
    • When fully launched, WorldView Legion will feature six 30-cm satellites, significantly boosting the collection capacity of this leading high-resolution constellation.

If you are interested in WorldView-3, WorldView-4 and/or WorldView Legion 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; WV4 samples and information can be found here; and then finally here is more information about WorldView Legion.

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