I-CONIC Vision have concluded a 1-year project with the Swedish National Space Agency for development of photogrammetric processing software on real space hardware.
I-CONIC have for a number of years been developing unique software for extremely efficient processing of video and imagery into 3D models and related products. This project included adapting I-CONIC’s existing drone software for satellite data and onboard processing.
Two crucial problems affect time-critical workflows for satellite image analysis: a) too long a time from data capture to analysis and b) too large data sets for efficient download to the ground stations. Therefore, there is a trend in the industry to find ways to start analysing the data already onboard, to minimise amount of data and to minimise time. For most applications correct georeferencing is required, and processing onboard requires a computer platform that is adapted to image data processing. A good example of that is Unibap’s SpaceCloud, which was used in the project.
After the certification process, Oskar Flordal of Unibap stated:
“I-CONIC has showcased their software, which generates point clouds in various scenes using an iX10 development system (ADS). This technology operates at a speed adequate for common scenarios of producing point clouds and height maps. This process is executed over specified areas using high-resolution RGB cameras, considering the need for a wide baseline in Earth observation. Such innovation holds promise for enhancing edge computing in space. Generating point clouds in space could contribute to other applications, such as feeding into neural networks for change detection or enabling compression for ground-based visualization algorithms. Unibap is planning future hardware demonstrations where this technology could be a significant use case and is keen on continuing the collaboration.”