5 ms·

Terrapattern – A visual search tool for satellite imagery

128 points by matthberg 8y ago

bcks 8y ago
The project is more or less abandoned. It was scheduled to shut down last year: https://twitter.com/golan/status/976202325076467712 https://twitter.com/golan/status/976202325076467712 It's also open source, though the code hasn't been touched in a few years: https://github.com/CreativeInquiry/terrapattern https://github.com/CreativeInquiry/terrapattern [edit: noted shutdown year]
- cdurth 8y ago
  This tweet is from 2018, inferring May 2018? Still appears that it was abandoned, just correcting.
  - forgotmysn 8y ago
    2018 was last year?
    - golanlevin 8y ago
      Quick response. Instead of shutting it down, we significantly reduced compute resources for the project (reducing CPU count, RAM, and API request quotas). So now it only costs us about $50/month to maintain, previously it was $200/month. We're maintaining it primarily for historical purposes.
yantrams 8y ago
Nice. Unfortunately it stopped working after a couple of results. I get this google maps error now - https://imgur.com/a/Yf9Bv5l https://imgur.com/a/Yf9Bv5l
chatmasta 8y ago
This is a really cool idea! Looks like it suffers from API limits, though. Would be a cool service to integrate with something like Planet.com.
- subcosmos 8y ago
  I started a project like this with them. Never got around to it :p
scothalverson 8y ago
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a former employee of Descartes Labs. That being said, Descartes Labs has something very similar on a US-wide scale or global scale, depending on the base layer you select. see: https://descarteslabs.com/search https://descarteslabs.com/search
- mediaman 8y ago
  Wow - you guys need to find a way to commercialize this. I manufacture products for an agricultural segment (where limited data exists for sales leads), and was able to focus on one example customer site with some of the unique structures they use. Then it brought me loads of other potential customer sites that matched similarly. You don't have any workflow to help turn this into leads, so then I have to figure out the address, use Google streetview or something to figure out what place it is, and then turn that into a lead I can turn over to salesperson. But if this was made easier, it would be a great lead-gen machine and I'd happily pay for it. My prospects can't hide from satellites!
  - scothalverson 8y ago
    I'm a bit out of touch with plans at this point (left DL in November), but certainly one of the points of this as a demo is to show off a capability that could lead to a number of specific use cases. If your interested in using it as you described, the DL sales team would certainly like to talk with you. Or you could contact me (my username at gmail) and I can point you in the right direction.
    - mediaman 8y ago
      Got it, sorry I missed that you had left. I'll reach out to them to see if they are thinking about the leadgen aspecet of it.
  - csteubs 8y ago
    Curious, would you get any use from a service that updates specific map coordinates (that you, the customer would define) rapidly with a new image? Say 10-20x per day? I'm not a salesperson or anything but I'm working on a prototype for a product idea I have and just started talking to potential customers.
michaelmior 8y ago
This is pretty cool :) Minor nit: the plural of cul-de-sac is culs-de-sac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cWGzd21ENI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cWGzd21ENI
golanlevin 8y ago
Hi folks, I'm one of the creators of Terrapattern. It's correct that the project (created in 2015) is now essentially 'abandoned': we are no longer updating the code and datasets. The project is currently running with a very limited compute instance and (furthermore) it looks like we hit our API limits this morning, possibly as a result of this article :( I'll see if I can get it to open up again.
- subcosmos 8y ago
  This is still one of my favorite deep learning projects, and has inspired a few algorithm ideas in the hospital environment where I work. Great job on this!
  - golanlevin 8y ago
    Thanks much! The goal of our project was to inspire new ways of thinking about images and machine learning. Glad you found our work helpful!
rambojohnson 8y ago
the UX is unbearable.
OisinMoran 8y ago
A similar counterpart tool of matching land imagery (like mountain ranges) could be quite useful too. Especially for investigating things like this https://twitter.com/Europol/status/1051812094214066177 https://twitter.com/Europol/status/1051812094214066177

128 points by matthberg 8y ago

bcks 8y ago

The project is more or less abandoned. It was scheduled to shut down last year: https://twitter.com/golan/status/976202325076467712 https://twitter.com/golan/status/976202325076467712 It's also open source, though the code hasn't been touched in a few years: https://github.com/CreativeInquiry/terrapattern https://github.com/CreativeInquiry/terrapattern [edit: noted shutdown year]

cdurth 8y ago
This tweet is from 2018, inferring May 2018? Still appears that it was abandoned, just correcting.
- forgotmysn 8y ago
  2018 was last year?
  - golanlevin 8y ago
    Quick response. Instead of shutting it down, we significantly reduced compute resources for the project (reducing CPU count, RAM, and API request quotas). So now it only costs us about $50/month to maintain, previously it was $200/month. We're maintaining it primarily for historical purposes.

yantrams 8y ago

Nice. Unfortunately it stopped working after a couple of results. I get this google maps error now - https://imgur.com/a/Yf9Bv5l https://imgur.com/a/Yf9Bv5l

chatmasta 8y ago

This is a really cool idea! Looks like it suffers from API limits, though. Would be a cool service to integrate with something like Planet.com.

subcosmos 8y ago
I started a project like this with them. Never got around to it :p

scothalverson 8y ago

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a former employee of Descartes Labs. That being said, Descartes Labs has something very similar on a US-wide scale or global scale, depending on the base layer you select. see: https://descarteslabs.com/search https://descarteslabs.com/search

mediaman 8y ago
Wow - you guys need to find a way to commercialize this. I manufacture products for an agricultural segment (where limited data exists for sales leads), and was able to focus on one example customer site with some of the unique structures they use. Then it brought me loads of other potential customer sites that matched similarly. You don't have any workflow to help turn this into leads, so then I have to figure out the address, use Google streetview or something to figure out what place it is, and then turn that into a lead I can turn over to salesperson. But if this was made easier, it would be a great lead-gen machine and I'd happily pay for it. My prospects can't hide from satellites!
- scothalverson 8y ago
  I'm a bit out of touch with plans at this point (left DL in November), but certainly one of the points of this as a demo is to show off a capability that could lead to a number of specific use cases. If your interested in using it as you described, the DL sales team would certainly like to talk with you. Or you could contact me (my username at gmail) and I can point you in the right direction.
  - mediaman 8y ago
    Got it, sorry I missed that you had left. I'll reach out to them to see if they are thinking about the leadgen aspecet of it.
- csteubs 8y ago
  Curious, would you get any use from a service that updates specific map coordinates (that you, the customer would define) rapidly with a new image? Say 10-20x per day? I'm not a salesperson or anything but I'm working on a prototype for a product idea I have and just started talking to potential customers.

michaelmior 8y ago

This is pretty cool :) Minor nit: the plural of cul-de-sac is culs-de-sac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cWGzd21ENI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cWGzd21ENI

golanlevin 8y ago

Hi folks, I'm one of the creators of Terrapattern. It's correct that the project (created in 2015) is now essentially 'abandoned': we are no longer updating the code and datasets. The project is currently running with a very limited compute instance and (furthermore) it looks like we hit our API limits this morning, possibly as a result of this article :( I'll see if I can get it to open up again.

subcosmos 8y ago
This is still one of my favorite deep learning projects, and has inspired a few algorithm ideas in the hospital environment where I work. Great job on this!
- golanlevin 8y ago
  Thanks much! The goal of our project was to inspire new ways of thinking about images and machine learning. Glad you found our work helpful!

rambojohnson 8y ago

the UX is unbearable.

OisinMoran 8y ago

A similar counterpart tool of matching land imagery (like mountain ranges) could be quite useful too. Especially for investigating things like this https://twitter.com/Europol/status/1051812094214066177 https://twitter.com/Europol/status/1051812094214066177