[SatNews] CompassData has announced that its archive of commercial Ground Control Points (GCPs) now exceeds 26,000 points—the archived GCPs have been collected in 100 countries across North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
 
CompassData makes the GCP data and metadata available for viewing and direct download in a reduced-accuracy format from its website to enable clients to review points and license details before ordering the final data in the accuracy level required.
 
Established in 2003 as a woman-owned small business, CompassData specializes in collecting spatially accurate data for geospatial applications. The CompassData archive is the largest commercially available database of photo-identifiable GCPs in the world available off the shelf for immediate delivery and consistent quality to five accuracy levels as a product offering. However, CompassData also performs custom ground control collection for clients, usually capturing and delivering points of guaranteed quality anywhere in the world within two to four weeks of order placement. Used extensively to orthorectify or correct satellite, aerial, and UAS imagery, as well as LiDAR data, CompassData GCPs are also used to verify the accuracy of imagery, LiDAR and GIS datasets. Remote sensing satellite operators also use GCPs to calibrate newly deployed sensors.
 
CompassData routinely provides archived and new GCPs to gas and electric utilities, energy exploration companies, government agencies, geospatial product vendors, and telecommunications organizations. Each GCP is processed to CompassData accuracy specifications and delivered with accompanying metadata and station diagram describing how it was acquired. CompassData’s archived GCPs are especially appealing to defense and intelligence organizations as the GCPs are globally consistent and meet defined standards, yet they are unclassified. This means the GCPs can be freely shared along with commercial imagery among coalition partners. Also important, CompassData can transform the points into future epochs to support present and planned missions anywhere on Earth.
 
CompassData maintains multiple in-house teams of highly trained field data collection crews that are supplemented worldwide by 30 international business partners with identical GPS surveying capabilities. In 2013 alone, CompassData teams collected GCPs in 71 countries. Crews can be dispatched for custom point collection anywhere in as little as 48 hours at premium rates. GCP accuracy and quality are guaranteed to meet the products accuracy specification or CompassData performs a re-collect at no charge.
 
For more information, access:http://www.compassdatainc.com/.