Atlas Overlay — NASA SpaceApps Challenge
Construction planning tool leveraging NASA satellite imagery, terrain segmentation, and CV-based analysis. Awarded 1st Place — Galactic Impact at NASA SpaceApps Cleveland 2021 and Best Trine Research Project (Engineering Multi-Departmental) at Trine University's STEM Symposium.
Overview
Atlas Overlay is a construction planning tool that combines NASA satellite imagery with terrain segmentation and CV-based site analysis to give pre-build engineering teams a richer, automated view of any candidate construction site. Submitted to the NASA SpaceApps Challenge 2021 in Cleveland, OH and recognized at Trine University’s STEM Symposium.
Awards
- 1st Place — Galactic Impact, NASA SpaceApps Challenge (Cleveland, OH, 2021)
- Best Trine Research Project — Engineering Multi-Departmental, Trine University STEM Symposium
Role
Led a cross-disciplinary team across CS, Civil Engineering, and Geosciences. Owned the technical architecture, CV pipeline, and demo integration.
Key Features
- NASA Satellite Imagery Ingest: Pulled multi-band satellite tiles for any candidate site and aligned them with local terrain data.
- Terrain Segmentation: CV-based analysis of overlay gradients, slope, and surface composition to flag risk zones.
- ArcGIS Visualization: Layered the segmentation outputs onto interactive ArcGIS maps for site planners.
- Autodesk Revit Integration: Generated realistic building data and structures from the overlay analysis to support reliable pre-planning.
Tech Stack
- GIS: NASA satellite imagery datasets, ArcGIS
- CAD: Autodesk Revit (parametric building generation)
- Computer Vision: Terrain segmentation, gradient analysis
- Tooling: Python, image processing libraries