Remote sensing is the process of acquiring information about objects or areas from a distance.

In broad terms, as you read this sentence, you are performing a type of remote sensing. Your eyes collect visible light waves reflected by the dark and light shapes in front of you, and your brain analyzes this information, assigning letters, words and meanings to the patterns. 

In a geospatial context, remote sensing is defined as the collection of information about the Earth using satellites, aircraft, or drones.

Over the years, we have discussed how synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can provide valuable ground-truth information not available elsewhere.

In this blog, we provide a list of examples drawn from our previous work. For a refresher on SAR basics, check out this quick guide.

A picture is worth a thousand words. We’re all familiar with this phrase used to capture the essence of a photograph. How much more would a picture be worth if it not only showed the presence of an object, but also contained information on its precise location, distance, speed and direction of movement? This is exactly what is captured through synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

There are a number of geospatial alt data resources out there today.

The one we use for the majority of our data is Synthetic Aperture Radar (radar satellites), or SAR for short. If you're not familiar with the technology, though, it might not be intuitive how we go from a radar satellite image to an answer used in business decision making.

This infographic offers a quick step-by-step overview of how this process works.