2 - Friday, December 26, 1986 ~ North Shore News

NV MAN MARKETS SATELLITE POSTERS Sky’s the limit for local artist

NORTH VANCOUVER'S Robert Stacey is tapping the artistic potential of satel- lites.

By TIMOTHY RENSHAW News Reporter

A full-time self-employed artist since 1983, Stacey found himself suddenly struck with the peculiar beauty of photographs of the earth taken by Landsat 5 satellites.

He subsequently tried for a year to canvince MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. to combine their satellite technology with his artistic sensibilities to tap the commercial potential of bringing satellite earth portraits to the general public.

SEE PHOTO PAGE 3

Stacey finally convinced ex- MacDonald Dettwiler employee Dr. Dale Stevenson to help him create a full-color satellite portrait of the Lower Mainland.

The two formed Advanced Sat- ellite Productions Inc. (ASP) in May to work in association with MacDonald Dettwiler as a market- ing company for their satellite artwork.

“J just don’t have time to paint anymore. I guess you could say I have become a computer painter. But people find technology so fascinating. I get so many calls from people who have seen the Vancouver poster and they say it’s a little jewel.’’ —artist Robert Stacey

“We completed the first poster in June, and already we are into our second printing of 10,000,'’ Stacey said.

Taken from information relayed through the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan from a Landsat 5 satellite orbiting 450 miles above the earth, the ASP’s Vancouver Satellite Poster provides a remarkably detailed 22 X 28 inch bird’s eye view of Vancouver, its suburbs and the glorious greens and blues of surrounding West Coast waters and Coast Mown- tains.

The posters, Stacey said, have applications far beyond their deco- rative appeal, ‘‘They’re perfect for illustrating geography for schools.”’

Technology to turn satellite signals into photographs is ex- tremely complex.

Rather than sending back ex- posed film, satellites break the earth’s surface into narrow slices

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or scan lines, which in turn are subdivided into individual seg- ments.

Numbers from the satellite’s scan lines are then relayed to earth. In order to make one colored view from the original Landsat 1 satel- lite, more than six million pieces of the satellite’s data had to be assembled.

Stacey said the process of color- ing satellite photographs is ‘ta

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tremendous undertaking’’ that re- quires painstakingly programming a computer so that it becomes, in effect, the artist's paint brush.

In addition to the technical complexities of adding color to the satellite image, Stacey said weather conditions over Vancouver had to be perfect in order to get the data needed for ASP’s first poster.

The satellite used by ASP, he added, is in the precise position

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over the Lower Mainland only once every 16 days.

‘‘And ‘or our purposes, we must have an absolutely cloudless day. So it can be a real problem.""

ASP has followed its Vancouver poster with Victoria/Bellingham from Space, and, according to Stacey, will do satellite portraits of Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and San Francisco.

Stacey, whose last painting sold

for $10,000, has been overwhelmed with the success of his new under- taking: ‘I just don’t have time to paint anymore. | guess you could say I have become a computer painter. But people find techno- logy so fascinating. I get so many calls from people who have seen the Vancouver poster and they say it’s a little jewel.”

For information call Advanced Satellite Productions at 682-5740.

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