SYNOPSIS   

The first high resolution satellite image available commercially was the IKONOS with 1m Ground Sample Distance.  It created a new approach to which the planning and preliminary design engineers work.  Since then, which was the year 1999, the satellite imagery market has been competing fiercely in term of spatial resolution as well as temporal resolution, and of course, pricing.  20 over years have passed and the market trend has somewhat shifted from comparing how high the resolutions are, and how often we can get data over a specific area, to a new approach of how well we can provide the access of these pixels to the end users.

The changes in the access of the data attributed to the improvement of the internet speed and the computing power of the cloud platforms.  With the maturity of the data users, they can now access the satellite imagery, either by just viewing, by streaming to their familiar software or even download to their workstation.  They also can benefit from a vast collection of analytic tools as well as the tasking of the satellites with a few clicks in front of the workstation.

There is another new avenue of data sources which has not been explored for many years.  Besides the big names from the US and European countries, there is a big pool of good data from China which opens up a door of opportunity to data users like the engineers.  This situation is especially helpful in our region where the availability of good data is very much challenged by the weather condition.


BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Gs. Kong Hin Yew

Gs. Kong Hin Yew has been actively serving the infrastructure fraternity with the latest technology such as Satellite Imagery, Aerial Mapping, Lidar and related tools for the past 33 years.  His involvement in providing accurate and reliable data sources for the preliminary design and project planning under Jurukur Perunding Services Sdn Bhd has been extensive.  It ranges from the Besut Flood Mitigation Project in 1992, The Middle Ring Road Project under JKR in 1993, Putrajaya Development Progress Photomosaic in 1996, Petronas Gas Pipeline Route Selection in Sabah in 2000, to the more recent projects such as the Orthorectified Satellite Images for MRT Project, the 650km of ECRL Satellite Image Mapping.

Gs. Kong Hin Yew graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) Degree in Surveying Engineering at California State University Fresno, California in 1991.  He joined Jurukur Perunding Services upon his return from his study in 1992 and is currently the Vice President (Infrastructure Development Services Division).  In year 2000, as the company expanded into the satellite business, he further his study at the Universiti Putra Malaysia and obtained his Master of Science Degree in Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System.  He is the professional member of the Institution of Geospatial and Remote Sensing Malaysia.