The shift from film to digital product : focus on CORONA imagery.

Abstract

This paper discusses the issue of the shift of USGS (United States Geological Survey) in providing a digital instead of a film product for the declassified imagery. The paper focuses on CORONA imagery. With the advent of computers and subsequently the increase of processing power, the sciences of photogrammetry and remote sensing and their respective approaches have evolved into a more interdisciplinary network within which GIS (Geographical Information Science) was a catalyst. The sensor technologies similarly evolved, and the paper discusses potential and trade-offs of this evolution. Applications showed that it is up to the user to select the most appropriate approach and media so as to meet the application's needs.