Issue link: https://geospatial.trimble.com/en/resources/i/1397854
SOLUTION With geographic targets in mind, Geostellar began scouring available data repositories for high-resolution spatial imagery such as satellite data and LiDAR point clouds, together with ancillary information such as local tax rates, utility rates, precipitation and temperature and zoning regulations. To address the issue of automatically creating building vectors, Geostellar chose Trimble® eCognition® object-based image analysis software. "With eCognition, I can quickly asses the quality of the datasets that I'm working with, tweak the rule sets accordingly, and the software does the rest," said Dan Koopman, a spatial analyst with Geostellar. "And it's fast–depending on county size, it can take one minute to three hours on average to produce a building layer. That's about 90 minutes of manual time for every one minute of eCognition time, which is significant time savings." Although the process changes with the geography, once the available data is integrated, eCognition typically analyzes the information to first separate vegetation from impermeable surfaces. Then, based on height, it determines which vegetation is grass and which are trees, and identifies rooftops and roads. It also delineates building footprints and maps them. Those vector maps are then used by Geostellar's proprietary solar simulation engine to create and provide on-demand rooftop assessments. Needing only a user's address and average cost of their monthly electricity bill, Geostellar's geomatics platform runs a 3D simulation to compute how much sun hits their roof annually. It then automatically layers in other data such as local utility rates, property values and incentives programs and calculates the property owner's financial prospects for transitioning to solar. In addition to the real-time assessment, it also provides a list of financing options, and vetted manufacturers and installers for consideration. Users then simply click on the most favorable offering. Geostella solar potential view. Geostellar's Search showing high-resolution solar simulations derived from LiDAR surface models and building footprints generated by eCognition. LiDAR surface models. Geostellar models a neighborhood structure with trees, utility poles and other objects and creates a virtual world of shadows, slopes and solar hot spots. A mix of large commercial buildings and smaller residential buildings (shown in red) after analysis in eCognition