One of the most startling discoveries made as a result of Landsat images occurred coincidentally, Patrick said. So they went down and looked at it and found out that at one time the Brazilian rain forest had a massive irrigation system in it. At least one commercial cell phone company is using Landsat data to plot construction of communication towers, Patrick said. Once plotted, the firm buys higher resolution data from commercial satellite companies to produce three-dimensional maps detailing heights and altitudes. By agreement with the private sector, Landsat images are limited to a resolution of 99 feet, meaning the smallest discernible image is a baseball infield, Patrick said.
Commercial satellites pull in images with considerably more detail.
If you put in a large housing development, that's going to show up on the Landsat. When city planners study road placements, Landsat images help to pinpoint locations where purchasing greater resolution images from commercial companies might prove useful, or to narrow choices for performing physical surveys, Patrick said. Instead of sending them out to 100 different sites and trying to figure out which one is best, they can narrow it down and send out a survey crew to two or three sites. The education center in part helps regional users find needed data and assists in making the data usable with various software. Most of the university center's base maps come from state agencies, which ultimately obtained the information from USGS, Kost said.