Views of the Earth

Geo-data availability in Europe

Creating the images on this site requires significant amounts of remotely sensed data to accurately model the earth surface geometry and coloring. The data sources used for the images are listed on the credits page. Although a lot of the views on this site feature European regions data collected by European government institutions could not be used for them. The background of this particularity is explained below.

The situation

The collection of geographic information by government institutions has a long tradition in Europe - in a lot of cases dating back at least to the 19th century. This lead to the formation of official mapping agencies in most countries like for example in Great Britain France and Germany. While in the beginning the focus of official mapping lied on gathering accurate geographical information as an infrastructure for public and private use just like for example public road building - a service of the state for its citizen - the situation changed much since the raise of computer based techniques in production and processing of geo-information.

The raise of computers in geo-data processing endangers the monopoly of the mapping agencies on the production of maps. Literally everyone with a computer and some self-acquired knowledge, talent and training can create quality maps these days. Therefore the mapping agencies are more and more trying to ensure their monopoly not only on the production of mapping information but also on providing services and secondary products related to it by restricting the access to the data and its distribution through very limiting license conditions and arbitrary prices for the data.

The exorbitant prices for digital mapping data while printed maps are still (out of tradition) widely available for merely printing and distribution cost compensation has led to the peculiar fact that it is sometimes more efficient to digitize printed maps (despite the work and quality loss) than to obtain the digital data.

Due to the exclusive control the mapping agencies have over the geo-information gathered by official commission most of them can partly or even fully finance their activities themselves. This is one important reason for governments to support the consolidation of the described situation.

Why it should change

As said for creating earth renders like you can see on this site quite large quantities of data are required. From the pricing information of the mapping agencies I can conclude that for example the elevation data for a single view - when obtained from European government institutions - could easily cost several 1000 Euro. In short: If data policies like those of European government agencies existed throughout the world this website would not exist. Furthermore the license conditions of the data would very likely require me to obtain permission for any use of an image created using this data.

But even if you do not care about the images here there are good reasons why you should be interested in a change of this situation. The monopoly-like control the national mapping agencies have on parts of the geo-information market is preventing free competition and innovation in the whole sector of the economy that uses and depends on this information. As several studies confirm open access to officially collected geo-data could much boost private sector activity and thereby create new jobs and economic growth.

The fact that various official mapping institutions provide (more or less usable) public viewing services for maps is by the way no substitute for data access. Apart from the fact that terms of use of such services usually prohibit anything but mere viewing they only offer already assembled maps and no access to the underlying semantic data that would be required for any serious use.