Only after sunrise on Saturday, satellite set up its long -range camera to the city of Mandalay in Myanmar, not far from the epicenter ofAn earthquake measuring 7.7 on Fridaywho destroyed the country from Southeast AsiaSecond -largest city.
The mission was to record images that, in combination withTechnology for artificial intelligenceIt can help facilitate organizations quickly assess how many buildings have fallen apart or have been damaged and where they need to go to the helpers.
At first, the high-tech approach to computer vision did not work.
“The biggest challenge in this particular case was the clouds,” said Microsoft’s chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Feres. “There is no way to see through clouds with this technology.”
Clouds eventually moved and needed a few more hours for another satellite of San Francisco -based laboratories to shoot air images and send them to MicrosoftPhilanthropic AI for a good laboratory. Until then, it was already around 11am on Friday at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. A group of Microsoft workers was ready and waited for the data.
AI for a good laboratory made this kind of damage assessment with AI-a-aid, monitoringCatastrophic flooding of Libyain 2023 orThis year’s firesin Los Angeles. But instead of relying on a standard computer vision model for you that can execute any visual data, they had to build a custom -specific Mandalay version.
“The country is too different, the natural disasters are too different, and the pictures we get from satellites are too different to work in every situation,” Lavista Feres said. For example, he said, as fires are spreading in fairly predictable ways, “earthquake touches the whole city” and can be more difficult to know in the immediate effects of help.
OnceAi analysis was completedIt showed 515 buildings in Mandalay with 80% to 100% damage and another 1,524 with damage between 20% and 80%. It showed itThe widespread weight of the disasterBut just as important, it helps to indicate specific locations of damage.
“This is critical information about the teams on the ground,” said Lavista Feres.
Microsoft warned that “it should serve as a preliminary guide and will require verification of the field for full understanding.” But in the meantime, the technology company shared the analysis with assistance groups, such as the Red Cross.
Planet Labs says its satellites – there are 15 of them orbiting the Earth – now about a dozen locations have been photographed in Myanmar and Thailand since the earthquake on Friday.
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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