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This web page was written by Seth Price.
At a global scale, NASA's original imagery has several problems. Look at Greenland's ice. The ice should be white, not blue. NASA's deserts are an unnatural magenta, and the vegetation is an unnatural green and washed out. Look at the clouds around the South Pacific islands in NASA's image, they stand out against the sea. True Marble™ keeps the globe looking natural. Read below for a comparison at a higher level of detail.
Look below at True Marble™ on the left and NASA on the right. In the bottom of each image is the Grand Canyon's South Rim visitor center. Notice the differences in coloring and detail. Compare the ability to pick out distinct features. Look at the vegetation hue.
| True Marble™ | NASA Coloring |
|---|---|
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The canyon photo was taken by the National Park Service. You can clearly see the coloring of each geologic strata in the canyon. It is clear that NASA's coloring is very poor, and the contrast is low.
Other imagery datasets exist. At first glance Competitor X may look more detailed, but look closer; those details are simply over-sharpening (you can tell from the 'halo' artifacts). While it looks like white snow and turquoise ponds cover the canyon floor, it isn't. The imagery was captured at the same time of year in all examples, there is no snow and those 'ponds' would have to be attached to the walls of the canyon. Competitor X is deceptive. Competitor Y also has severe problems with false colors. None of the green in Competitor Y exists in the NPS photo while very little of the red soil from the photo exist in Competitor Y.
True Marble™ is the only imagery which contains both natural coloring and feature definition. All of the colors are a natural earth tone, and they match the strata in the NPS image. The image file size is small, which is an important advantage for bandwidth sensitive applications. These characteristics hold true even in the free global resolution.