I built a browser-based tool for detecting objects in satellite imagery using vision-language models (VLMs). You draw a polygon on the map and enter a text prompt such as "swimming pools", "oil tanks", or "buses". The system scans the selected area tile-by-tile and returns detections projected back onto the map as GeoJSON.

Pipeline: select area and zoom level, split the region into mercantile tiles, run each tile with the prompt through a VLM, convert predicted bounding boxes to geographic coordinates (WGS84), and render the results back on the map.

It works reasonably well for distinct structures in a zero-shot setting. occluded objects are still better handled by specialized detectors like YOLO models.

There is a public demo and no login required. I am mainly interested in feedback on detection quality, performance tradeoffs between VLMs and specialized detectors, and potential real-world use cases.

very cool

Once I figured out how to use the UI I did 2 scans. first one I had to zoom in before the identification boxes popped up. At first I thought it didnt do anything

Second scan I put over a local aviation museum with a mix of helicopters, unusual planes, cars, buildings, and other equipment. I was surprised to see everything identified correctly, though it missed a single helicopter.

I'd love a little bell or notification when the scan completes, as I hit 'scan', switch to a different tab and then forgot I was waiting

Tangent question, I know of services like Planet Labs, Maxar... is the capability there now assuming you had money, where you could tag a ship from space and watch it travel (I know there is something like ADSB for ships) but would be interesting.

Great idea, almost impossible to use on the mobile due to the mobile UI.

This is cool. I'll give it a go