Is IKONOS imagery a replacement for conventional aerial photography?
Yes and no. Some GIS databases require accuracies commensurate with 1″ = 100′ mapping or better, and digital orthophoto pixel resolutions of 2′, 1′, and even ‘ (6″) are fairly common. IKONOS cannot match these specifications. Also, the digitization of vector data is generally more easily accomplished in a production photogrammetric environment. IKONOS can be an alternative when lower accuracy and/or resolution is acceptable.
