Unfortunately, a survey of these packages reveals shortcomings in filling the stated needs of the Marine Recreational Vessel Reconnaissance sub-project (part of a Geomatics for Informed Decisions (GEOIDE) ) Network of Centres of Excellence research project). In fact, several software packages - ranging from open source to complete commercial solutions - specialize in such predictive scenarios. Using orbital models and using orbital data publicly available, an imagery customer could determine the possible dates of data acquisition of their area of interest. Although the determination of these characteristics is of relative ease for the agencies which control the remote sensing platforms, the current reality of licensing is such that imagery providers are unwilling or unable to guarantee the date/time of data acquisition. Thus, detailed knowledge of satellite overpass characteristics permits ground truthing activities to coincide with imagery acquisition, and also ensures that the deployment of such resources is done in an efficient and cost effective manner. Satellite imagery of dynamic environments can only yield precise ground object positional information if temporally accurate ground truthing occurs.

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