Satellite Imagery Analysis with Python
Data is the new oil today but what if that data was actually being used to monitor the oil around the world?
Update 2021: This article was published a long time ago. Some of the details and features of the libraries might have changed. It is advised to look at the documentation for relevant details
Oil is an area that concerns many nations and has been at the center of the storm for quite a long time. It isn’t easy to monitor the oil inventory around the world since nobody has a clear idea about the amount of oil left on the planet.
Orbital Insight, a Geospatial Big Data company, analyses vast amounts of photos of oil tanks with floating lids. When the level of oil goes down in these tanks, the lid also sinks, and the shadows cast by the sun on the inside of the tank also change. By detecting patterns in how those shadows change, analysts can estimate how much oil is available in all the tanks it monitors. The company uses techniques like Computer vision and Deep learning to do the analysis which in turn helps to discover information that affects the global economy, like oil surpluses or shortages.
