2024 Year in Review

A Busy Year in the Air

It’s that time again when we take a moment to gather our thoughts, connect with our team, and celebrate the milestones and achievements we accomplished in this past year. It’s also a good reminder to us on why we work so hard to deliver the high quality imagery and data we know our customers are looking for to do great things across their projects and on into their communities. So on to celebrating our 2024 milestones!

In 2024, We Collected…

Year-in-Review-Graphics_Global Collection

Year-in-Review-Graphics_Library of Countries

Growing Globally

We are continuously flying with a fleet of more than 100 fixed wing aircraft stationed around the globe. This year we collected more than 5.7 million km².
As the world’s largest aerial imagery program, we are always looking to expand, and this year added SIX new countries to our library: Poland, South Africa, Brazil, and the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
With these additions, our vast imagery library now consists of 40+ countries.

U.S. Collection & Disaster Coverage

In the U.S., we kept up our robust presence of collecting imagery and data in both urban and rural areas, collecting more than 4.9 million km² in 2024. We also kept up our cadence of capturing imagery up to 3x/year in major urban areas providing more views to our customers.
Our Gray Sky team was busy with many disasters this year, including several back-to-back hurricanes, from Francine to Helene to Milton.

In 2024, We Published…

Publishing Imagery Around the Clock

With collection happening nearly nonstop, our publishing of new imagery is always going and growing! On average, we published 150,000 images a day, ready to use in the Vexcel Platform and on select partner sites.
All of these images are published at high resolution, between 7.5-15cm, depending on the Vexcel UltraCam sensor that captured the imagery and geospatial data.
To get this data out, we published imagery constantly across our platform and those of our partners, making frequently refreshed data available for use

Our highly accurate, top quality imagery and data is sent through our world-class processing pipeline, so you get the best-of-the-best imagery and data available to service your project needs.

We Also Launched…

3D Cities: the newest offering in our product suite has taken in customers with its stunning clarity and detail and the ability to immerse users into an environment thanks to the highly detailed textured mesh; check out a short video below featuring just a snippet of some of the cities we provide 3D data in for building your 3D models.
API 2.0: faster and easier ways to access our imagery and data, including streamlined services to extract tile for all data product types (3D, DSM, DTM, Ortho, Oriented) and more.
Elements Roadways: now you can get AI-derived attributes on roadways in more than 3,300 cities in the U.S. to support safer communities, manage assets with ease, and understand roadway inventory.
Multiple updates to Viewer to enhance our customers experience in viewing, accessing, and downloading imagery for project needs
And the Vexcel Imaging team released captivating LiDAR images from the UltraCam Dragon 4.1 (like this recent post) which took its maiden flight earlier this year

The Age—and Explosion—of AI

The proliferation of AI-enabled tools and platforms surged in 2024, transforming nearly every industry and government agency seeking to harness the power and efficiency of advanced algorithms. From extracting features to identifying damage attributes after disasters, AI is revolutionizing GIS and big data workflows—and it all begins with high-resolution imagery and data.

In 2024, our imagery drove innovation across industries and government agencies, enabling safer roadway designs, more accurate property analyses, and optimized AI training and exploration. Organizations relied on our detailed imagery and data to train AI models and enhance their capabilities. Additionally, we provided AI-powered analysis of properties and roadways, leveraging our high-resolution imagery to tackle wide-scale and complex challenges.

Follow Along in 2025

Don’t miss out on all the exciting things ahead as we move on into 2025, whether it be where we’re collecting next, what new products or services are coming soon, which partners and platforms are on the horizon, or just how imagery and data is changing how our customers work. Follow along via our Linkedin channel or through our monthly newsletter to stay informed!

Thank you to all of our customers for your continued support in 2024 as we grew and expanded, and a big heartfelt thanks to our employees for always delivering on our promise of quality. Here’s to a wonderful new year ahead!