SPATIAL DATA
CD Technology Has Vendors Selling More and Customers
Using More Spatial Data
By Kevin P. Corbley

Product turnaround time has been a thorn in the side of the remote sensing business and the number one complaint of spatial data customers for as long as the industry has been commercial. Despite recent advancements in electronic data transmission, spatial data vendors still haven't been able to put products in the hands of customers as quickly as either would like. The days of waiting, however, may be over. Paradata Systems Inc., a firm which specializes in creating delivery and distribution tools for spatial data, has developed a technology that can actually get data onto customers' desks before they even need it.
    The CD-ROM product, called RIPnCRYPT, combines a variety of data compression, browsing, encryption, and decryption code generation technologies. It gives users the leisure of previewing data and selecting small subsets directly from the CD, paying only for the data they intend to use. "We designed this product as an inexpensive means of distributing large spatial data sets in a locked CD-ROM format so that customers can purchase just the data they want, when they want it," said Dan Tatham, president of the four-year-old Vancouver, Canada, firm. The technologies integrated into RIPnCRYPT are all industry standards. The wavelet compression algorithms used to cram huge volumes of digital data onto a CD were developed by LizardTech of Seattle, Washington, and the encryption routines are products of RSA Data Security in California. At the heart of the technology is a decryption code management system devised by Paradata to provide data security unlike any other currently used to lock information on CDs. This makes the technology very attractive to data sellers who want to distribute their data widely but who also want to make sure they get paid for it.
    Each data set on the CD is divided into small subsets called tiles. For each tile, the system creates a machine-dependent product code based on the operating system of the computer running the CD. Order fulfillment software developed by Paradata contains a database of keys that can take the product code and generate a unique decryption code capable of unlocking the tile only on that computer.
    "This means one CD can be shared among several users but the decryption code cannot be passed along with it," said Tatham. "From the perspective of the data vendor, this greatly enhances the security of the data." Paradata developed RIPnCRYPT as a purely speculative venture because its principals saw numerous valuable spatial datasets languishing in the databases of government agencies, value-added companies and engineering firms who had no practical, organized means of distributing and making money from them. "This technology is as much a marketing tool as it is a delivery medium," said Tatham. "It's going to raise awareness of the availability and value of spatial data by enabling vendors to inexpensively seed the marketplace of real estate agents, engineers and business people whether they use GIS or not."

Turning Archives in Off-the-shelf Products
McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd., a Vancouver land information and survey firm, is one of those companies that realized it was sitting on a potential data goldmine without any way to sell it. "We had never been in the business of selling off-the-shelf products before," said Dan Tresa, McElhanney's business development manager. The firm wanted to create a series of 1- and 4-meter resolution orthorectified aerial photos for the entire lower British Columbia mainland from its photo archive and sell them to municipalities and engineering companies. However, the problem was that no organization would need to purchase the entire data set, and marketing the orthophotos piecemeal would have been impractical.
    Working with McElhanney, Paradata created a 3-CD set to market the products. One CD held all of the 4-meter resolution orthophotos in a non- encrypted format, which meant anyone buying the $100 set received unlimited access to them. The 1-meter products - far more valuable for engineering purposes - were divided into 4 sq. km tiles and encrypted on the two other CDs.
    RIPnCRYPT includes a navigator interface, written in C++ and using ESRI's MapObjects software, which enables the user to browse a subsampled preview of the encrypted data. McElhanney's clients can scroll around the mosaicked orthophoto tiles, zoom in for a closer look on any one and select a tile of interest. Once a tile is chosen, another interface screen provides details on the acquisition date, resolution, size, price and product code for that tile. The user simply places a toll-free call to McElhanney's Customer Service department, supplies the product code and provides a charge card number to cover the $50 per tile payment. Order fulfillment software containing the database of key codes, installed by Paradata when the CDs were created, then generates a decryption code for the tile.
    Once the customer enters the decryption code supplied by the McElhanney representative, the purchased orthophoto tiles are downloaded directly to their computer. The selection and ordering takes a matter of minutes, and McElhanney customers are impressed with the ease of the entire transaction. "This is less expensive and more convenient than other methods of ordering orthophotos," said Brian Huculak, an associate with Durante Kreuk, a Vancouver landscape architecture firm. "Turnaround time is reduced to a phone call." Huculak downloaded the McElhanney tiles directly into Adobe PhotoShop on a Macintosh. After some contrast stretching, he transferred the files to PowerCAD, the program Durante Kreuk uses for designing new housing subdivisions, condominium developments, and movie studio lots. "We compile survey information and perform site design right on top of the airphoto and then take it to our clients for presentations," he said. "Having the photos already available on our desk saves us days in the design process." McElhanney sold 100 of the orthophoto CD sets in the first six months by offering them through an established aerial photo vendor in Vancouver. The firm plans wider distribution in 1998 through the GEMI Store in Aurora, Colorado, and sees opportunities for distributing other data as well.
    "We've just reached an agreement with the British Columbia provincial government to market a set of 1:20,000 digital ortho maps," said Tresa. "Those files are huge, and we plan to sell them the same way."

A New Marketing Paradigm
Space Imaging EOSAT, the Thornton, Colorado, firm that markets image data products from a variety of satellites and aerial platforms, is the second firm to utilize the RIPnCRYPT technology. Company representatives say there is no exaggeration in Paradata's claims the technology will change both the distribution and the marketing of spatial data. Space Imaging EOSAT has built an entire product line, called CD CARTERRA, around the new technology. "It's like putting a vending machine in our customers' offices for free," said Eric Waldman, U.S. western regional manager for Space Imaging EOSAT. Since its inception, the satellite operator has maintained that one of the keys to long-term commercial success would be selling images many times at low prices rather than just once at a high price. The company believes Paradata makes this possible.
    To quickly build a market for its new 1-meter satellite imagery, Space Imaging EOSAT is borrowing concepts from the marketing plan of America Online (AOL), a U.S. Internet service provider. In marketing circles, AOL is famous for building its customer base by sending its software unsolicited on CDs and disks to millions of people, whether they owned computers or not. Not nearly as random, Space Imaging EOSAT is initially distributing CD image products for free to existing clients. Using Paradata technology, the satellite operator created a series of CDs containing aerial photos acquired by Hammon, Jenson, Wallen & Associates of Oakland, California, to simulate the 1-meter imagery that will be available this year after the launch of its IKONOS satellite.
    The simulated images cover five counties in the San Francisco Bay area. The first CDs were shipped in October 1997 to commercial real estate, architectural, engineering and insurance companies located in that geographic region. Space Imaging EOSAT says it will expand the marketing plan next year and begin sending free CDs containing satellite imagery to targeted mailing lists of potential clients in those same industries. "We know the marketing paradigm works because people are buying from the CDs," said Ron Elsis, program manager for real estate and insurance at Space Imaging EOSAT. "Once the CD is in their hands, people can't help but look at it and buy from it."
    Paradata modified the customer interface for the CD CARTERRA product. It included TIGER files in the navigator tool so that customers have a choice of scrolling around the mosaicked scene to find the 1-sq km tile they want or they can enter an address, zip code or cross streets and the system will automatically zoom to the right tile. Customers also are given a choice in the type of image file to purchase. For $39.95, the client may download a TIFF file suitable for use in PhotoShop, Paint Shop Pro, Microsoft Word and other simple presentation programs. A GIS-ready file containing coordinate information can be purchased for $179.90. In both cases, the user obtains a decryption code by calling Space Imaging EOSAT Customer Service.
    The CDs must be hitting the right markets. Space Imaging EOSAT reports many of its sales coming from the commercial real estate and engineering planning firms. Primary uses of the images include creating real estate portfolios, mapping utility corridors, planning site developments and even for environmental presentations in court.
    At least one customer drove home the point of just how important product access really is in data sales. "I'm probably using 10 times more photos now than before because [the data] is on my desk," said John Thomson of Thomson Transportation Engineers in Alameda, California. "If I had to wait a day to get it, I probably wouldn't use it." Thomson has been using the images to get an overview of road segments and freeway interchanges so he can begin the planning phases of route improvements. High resolution images are critical for transportation planners to see road configurations prior to designing changes, he said.
    Doug Donaldson, an environmental planning consultant in Albany, California., has been attracted to the CD data because of its relatively low price. He has already used it in several studies prepared for public agencies, including one in which he counted houses in a neighborhood to quantify the impact of a proposed road closure.
    "I wouldn't have purchased an aerial photo otherwise to count houses because it would have been too expensive," said Donaldson.

Tapping into the Internet
Paradata's Tatham doesn't see the future of data distribution limited to CDs, but he expects use of the Internet will continue to grow, especially once rapid electronic transmission of digital files has been improved. Toward this end, the next revision of RIPnCRYPT will feature a built-in Web server and embedded Web site addresses, or URLs.
    "If the CD doesn't contain the exact image or vector data the customer wants, the embedded URL will take them directly to the company's Web site for further product searching," said Tatham, who also envisions his clients selling Web site links on their CDs just like advertising.
    The built-in server will essentially transform the Web site into a direct sale venue similar to the CD. For instance, when a customer finds the right data product on the Web site instead of the CD, RIPnCRYPT will still generate a product code for it and allow the customer to purchase it using the same transaction procedures as if the data were on the CD.
    "The idea here is simply to get products directly in front of customers so they can buy on the spot," said Tatham. "Product access is the key to raising awareness of spatial data among non-users and selling more data to existing customers."

About the Author:
Kevin Corbley is a freelance writer specializing in remote sensing, GIS and GPS. He is located in Denver and may be reached at a new phone number, 303-722-0312, or by e-mail at [email protected]

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