SilviaTerra, a new environmental services startup founded by three Yale affiliates, has won the 2010 Sabin Environmental Venture Prize — awarded by the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale — for a new technology that collects forest data from outer space reports the Yale Daily News.
Parisa, a company founder, invented a satellite image analysis process, now being used by SilviaTerra, to collect forest data from outer space. This technology appears to be more successful than light detection and ranging (LIDAR) methods — which uses lasers to construct a perfect model of every tree in a forest — for collecting forest data, said Uhlenhuth, who is in charge of the company’s business development.
Better than LiDAR yet their minimum mapping unit is 10 acres? Nevertheless, I hope they succeed. A few companies have had a go at this only to fade away.
Sounds interesting, look forward to hearing more about in the future, as well as some example/case studies. Good luck!