Urban expansion and population growth are transforming our cities at an incredible pace. As populations grow, cities expand outward, often into areas that were once rural, reshaping the environment in the process. Cities often rely on transforming underdeveloped land into commercial or residential properties to provide additional housing and infrastructure for their citizens.

India, for example, is one of the fastest urbanizing countries in the world. Factors like improved infrastructure, economic opportunities and a higher standard of living are driving this growth, causing cities like Delhi, Gurugram and Noida to expand outward rapidly to accommodate the increasing population. This rapid development presents challenges for mapmakers, particularly in maintaining up-to-date maps for services such as emergency response, disaster planning, navigation and everyday services like food deliveries and ride-sharing apps.

India’s unique growth patterns make it even more challenging to keep maps accurate. Dense populations, mixed-use developments and informal settlements mean urban growth doesn't follow predictable patterns. Satellite imagery has traditionally collected data based on defined areas of interest with the goal of covering the entire globe consistently. While this approach addresses many applications, it lacks the insight to proactively collect new areas of urban expansion. As a result, traditional mapping methods lag behind.

Vantor's solution: AI-driven tasking for accurate, high-resolution mapping

By integrating near real-time imagery from our WorldView Legion satellites with software and AI, Vantor is changing the game for mapmaking. Maxar has created an AI-driven mapping technology fueled by imagery from our industry-leading constellation that provides mapmakers with a powerful tool to monitor changes and stay ahead of urban expansion.

Vantor's purpose-built AI algorithm determines where significant changes to buildings and roads occur, and outputs those changes as vector products.

Step 1: Monitoring relevant change at global scale

Vantor is innovating how we understand the world. We use AI-powered analytics specifically tuned for building and road change to detect where urban growth is happening globally and quickly task new collections. This change data feed helps our customers identify where their maps may be falling behind and enables them to task our constellation more intelligently to keep their maps updated at global scale.

Step 2: Quickly collecting very high-resolution satellite imagery

The next step in our change-driven mapping strategy is to task our expanded constellation, which now includes six WorldView Legion satellites, providing unmatched 30 cm-class resolution imaging capacity. This fresh, detailed imagery helps ensure that map updates are precise and accurate, allowing mapmakers to validate inputs from the field promptly, which is critical in urban environments where even small changes can have significant impacts.

In addition, we use proprietary High-Definition (HD) technology to enhance imagery clarity even further. This results in imagery that can go as high as 15 cm resolution, providing even more detail for mapping efforts.

With 15 cm satellite imagery, mapmakers can zoom in closer and catalog details in a way that can be comparable to aerial imagery.

Step 3: Powering customer mapping workflows

Our very high-resolution satellite imagery and imagery basemaps enable mapmakers to build detailed maps and visualize the environment to increase efficiencies, provide better end user experiences, and optimize operations. By streaming up-to-date imagery, customers can automate their workflows, ensuring they always have the freshest, most accurate maps available.

With 15 cm imagery, road signs, lane markings and other subtle features become much clearer, enabling mapmakers to extract more data and create more accurate, comprehensive maps at scale, as demonstrated on this WorldView Legion image of the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Step 4: Streamlining map digitization with on-demand access

The Vantor Hub provides on-demand access to the world’s most recent satellite imagery, analytics and archive, allowing mapmakers to view, stream or download high-accuracy data within hours of collection. This fast access—whether through an API or the Hub user interface—is critical for businesses that rely on real-time data to make decisions.

The Vantor advantage: Unmatched accuracy, detail, consistency and scale

With unrivaled 30 cm-class resolution imaging capacity thanks to WorldView Legion, only Vantor can leverage an AI-driven tasking technique that ensures mapmakers have access to the freshest and highest quality imagery for digitizing at scale. The level of detail and clarity Vantor provides makes it possible to identify features with incredible precision, allowing for accurate, up-to-date maps that reflect the world as it changes.