Mapbox, a location data platform for mobile and web applications, is uploading 135 million sq km of Maxar’s Vivid Basic basemap into its mapping platform this week under a new agreement with Maxar. This is Mapbox’s largest imagery purchase to date and marks a major advancement in how recent and consistent their satellite image layer is, as Maxar is now the platform’s sole provider of commercial satellite imagery.
A flagship Maxar product, Vivid Basic is a global imagery basemap that offers 50 cm resolution with an optimal balance of image currency and visual aesthetics for applications and devices requiring a map layer for geographic context.
“By integrating Maxar’s Vivid Basic basemap into our mapping platform, we’re able to transform the interactive map experience for our customers,” said Eric Gundersen, Mapbox’s CEO. “The resolution and visual quality of Vivid Basic enables a variety of use cases for our customers, like reading runway markings, counting cars and shipping containers, peering inside buildings under construction, navigating on a drive and even planning a hike or ride.”
Mapbox is already rolling this imagery out to all its users, and the upgrades will be complete within a couple of weeks. To put into perspective how big Mapbox’s addition of Vivid Basic is, check out these past announcements:
- Updating 8.2 million km² of high-resolution satellite imagery (Jul 14, 2017)
- Three million km2 of super high resolution imagery (Oct 27, 2015)
For more details about how Vivid Basic is improving Mapbox’s map, check out their blog post. Maxar also continues to advance our Vivid product line with a tiered set of Vivid basemaps providing the quality and accuracy necessary to power many use cases. Together with our 3D capabilities, Maxar continues to lead the industry with the highest quality and largest scale satellite imagery products.