Last time, we looked at the differences between aerial and satellite data. Today, we'll stick to high resolution aerial data, and track two large construction projects: The LEGO House in Billund and The Port of Aarhus.
By Jacob Høxbroe Jeppesen
June 15, 2023
It is always interesting to follow how things develop, and aerial imagery can show us yearly progress at high resolution. Several people found the LEGO House in Billund fascinating in our last blog post, so let's take a closer look and follow the construction of it:
2008 - No LEGO house yet.
2015 - Construction has started.
2016 - The house is taking form.
2017 - Almost there.
2018 - Success, the LEGO bricks fit together.
The 12,000 m² house contains 25 million actual LEGO pieces today. You can read much more about it at https://legohouse.com/, or you can try downloading your own images for a place you like at https://download.atla.ai using this token: S2gkZQ4a.FMCvuLNu8OM3Z4gG39S7e0gN3l4tm3o6
So, we can follow the progress of individual buildings. But how about following the construction of the largest container port in Denmark? Although I've lived in Aarhus for more than 10 years, I had no idea that Aarhus Ø was the old container port, and that the new container port was actually built in the ocean.
1999 - No container port, just water.
2005 - It looks like something is emerging.
2021 - The largest container port in Denmark.
There we go. Large construction projects are even more fascinating. And again, you are welcome to try downloading your own images at https://download.atla.ai with this token: S2gkZQ4a.FMCvuLNu8OM3Z4gG39S7e0gN3l4tm3o6
Many more possibilities exist beyond just looking at the images. How about using a machine learning algorithm to count the number of solar panels in an area over time? Or survey roads, streams, and lakes? Or perhaps scan an entire country and map all buildings, trees and windmills? We have only just begun to explore all the fascinating opportunities Earth observation brings.