SkyTruth’s latest update to Alerts adds features that allow subscribers to annotate a map view and share it with co-workers, organizations and interested parties. These additions add to a rich set of features that are unique to online mapping and satellite imagery viewing — all available for free to the public.

• Highlight traits found in satellite imagery
• Measure the area of new development or changes in a habitat’s footprint
• Add information to a SkyTruth Alerts incident
• Measure boundary setbacks or the distance between 2 objects
• Add text to the map in preparation for sharing with others

This is accomplished with a set of tools that can annotate by using shapes (rectangles, circles, polygons), lines, text, markers and measurements. A guide to these tools is available here.

New sharing capabilities allow you to save current map views either as a JPG image or a unique URL. Visit here for a  guide to sharing and some of its limitations.

The full online manual is available here.

We’ll be testing and fine-tuning these features throughout the summer. If you run into problems or want to suggest features you’d like to use with Alerts, please contact us at support@skytruth.org. We would also enjoy hearing about how you’re able to make use of these features!