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Garmin BirdsEye Aerial Imagery Announced

Navigation addicts now have yet another gadget to play with, after satellite navigation solutions provider Garmin released the BirdsEye and Aerial Imagery subscription yesterday. The new tools use highly-detailed photo-based maps to guide users through Garmin handheld navigators.

"Without a doubt, BirdsEye Satellite Imagery reinforces Garmin as the leader in outdoor cartography,” Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales said. “Whatever the occasion, outdoor explorers can find the ideal Garmin handheld and accompanying maps to complement their specific requirements.”

BirdsEye Imagery is raster-based, which uses actual aerial photos and images that are scanned, geo-referenced and overlaid onto the handheld GPS receiver’s display.

This means that, unlike vector cartography, BirdsEye depicts actual buildings, vehicles, roads, trails, and land features. The highly detailed images provide 0.5 meter per pixel resolution for the US, while the zoom level ranges from 12 miles to 20 feet.

“With today’s innovations in geospatial technology, having a true sense of ‘place’ is no longer a guessing game but a reality,” said Jill Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of DigitalGlobe, provider of commercial high-resolution world-imagery products and services.

“Our industry-leading satellite constellation and aerial network allow us to collect the most current imagery that, when combined with Garmin’s devices, offers users an accurate picture of their environment wherever they are. We are excited about the possibilities that this opens up for users.”

BirdsEye can be displayed on Garmin’s Oregon, Dakota, and Colorado series of outdoor navigators. The annual subscription is $29.99 and allows for nlimited downloads for a single Garmin device. It will be launched in March 2010, with more information available at this link.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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