Too Much Information!
Introducing the...TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE

Featuring . . .
LizardTech Software • GeoVantage Inc. • PCI Geomatics
LaserMap • Bentley Systems Inc.

Adena Schutzberg

As members of the geospatial community, we rely on a wide variety of sources to keep up with technologies and services that underlie our work. We consume print and electronic publications, examine advertisements, listen to conference presentations live or on the Internet, and talk to peers in our local areas and at national and international events. We also interact with the vendors of products and services. This month’s Technology Showcase offers yet another approach.
In keeping with GIS Monitor’s mission to help you “make sense” of the geospatial marketplace, we’ve taken the “potential customer’s” side of the relationship and asked the vendors to respond to some rather pointed questions in order to put their offerings in context. We offered vendors six questions having to do with technology, misperceptions, user awareness, and so forth—in essence, questions about who, what, when, why and how—and asked them to select three to answer. We asked that they limit hype and focus on education to help their offerings “make sense” to you.
I’m pleased to report that the responses make for interesting reading. They also provide a firm foundation to further explore these organizations, should you be in the market for these products and services. Finally, these Showcase “interviews” are designed to help fill in knowledge gaps we all have in such a broad marketplace.

Trends in Imagery
Earth imaging is becoming a requirement for more and more geospatial projects every day. Those looking for data run into a host of questions at the start: Aerial or satellite? What resolution? What type of sensor? Film or digital? How will topography be included? What delivery format? How will the data be delivered to end-users? How should it be processed?
Being an “educated consumer” in the imagery arena is complicated. Unfortunately, some aspects will not get easier. However, some trends in the industry may make the marketplace appear a bit less intimidating.
Consolidation: There are hundreds of aerial imagery companies in the United States. Can the marketplace sustain them? As technology and digital sensors make turnaround times faster, individual companies will be able to do more work, perhaps squeezing the same amount of imagery delivery into fewer, more efficient players. The other big push factor here, of course, is the challenging economy.
Compression: Compression technologies make it possible for more imagery to make its way to more places inside or outside of an organization via an intranet or the Internet. This should also enhance previewing options for potential buyers, helping insure that the correct imagery, at the correct resolution, is selected for a project. Once the imagery is collected and processed, its delivery should be faster, too. I can imagine situations where specific tiles are delivered electronically, while the “rest” of the database follows in via “snail mail” in DVD format or on an inexpensive hard drive.
New Ways to Share: Just as data services are beginning to pop up that provide “as needed” access to vector data for Web applications, imagery services are growing, too. NASA’s Global Mosaic is under construction and will provide full resolution Landsat 7 from year 2000, for the entire globe. Expect more offerings from both the public and private sector.
More Satellites: Smaller, cheaper satellites may in time mean more imagery for everyone. For example, the Disaster Monitoring Constellation’s four small satellites should all be in orbit as you read this. At 90kg each, the satellites will provide 32-metre multi-spectral imaging, covering 600 x 600km areas.
The bottom line however, is that keeping up with technology means that vendors, technology writers and technology users, all need to do our homework. I’m hopeful that this Technology Showcase will provide an interesting contribution.

Adena Schutzberg is the editor of GIS Monitor, a weekly e-mail newsletter from GITC America. She owns ABS Consulting Group, Inc. in Somerville, Massachusetts.

LIZARD TECH
LizardTech Software creates software solutions and tools that make high-quality digital content easier to capture, store, share and use. The company’s innovative solutions make business-critical information available instantly over any network on any device. LizardTech is a private company, formed in 1992 to build valuable business solutions from technologies created by the world’s leading research organizations including Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and AT&T Labs. LizardTech software is installed on millions of desktops and integrated into a wide variety of platforms and applications. LizardTech has offices in Seattle, London and Tokyo.

What type of problem/need does a typical customer bring to Lizard­Tech?
Users of imagery in geospatial applications have long been familiar with the unique benefits and challenges presented by high-quality aerial imagery. Geospatial imagery tends to be very large in file size—and the better the resolution, the larger the file! Working with and distributing massive raster images efficiently inside of desktop or web-based image analysis and GIS applications can be a data and time management nightmare. In the past, many of our customers got around these issues by resampling the imagery to lower resolutions, breaking mosaics up into smaller more manageable tiles, or simply not distributing the images past a core set of users. LizardTech’s MrSID technology solves all of these problems through industry-leading compression and selective decompression features making massive geographic images instantly useable in virtually any working environment. Our customers can derive more value out of their investment in imagery on each project and share that value with more of their working teams.

Why might potential customers be apprehensive about buying LizardTech products? Why shouldn’t they be?
People are apprehensive about anything that may mean a change in workflow or formats, and they sometimes have concern about proprietary file formats. However, proprietary formats are not really the issue: the issue is interoperability. If every software application can seamlessly use a file format, then there is no real difference between a proprietary format and a published format. The MrSID image format is supported in nearly every GIS and CAD package on the market, with the latest generation of MrSID technology rapidly gaining support as well.
The geospatial community as a whole is working towards improved data interoperability for all types of geospatial data through industry groups like the Open GIS Consortium (OGC), which are addressing areas like client/server workflows, and standards groups like the JPEG 2000 committee, which is defining a standards-based wavelet compression technology. As a leader in both of these areas within the Geospatial community, LizardTech is committed to driving further standardization and developing solutions built on these new standards. LizardTech is working with our partners in the industry now to ensure that when the geospatial community is ready to move to JPEG 2000, their applications to create, use and distribute JPEG 2000 files will be fully functional and interoperable.

What one question will help clients determine whether they need LizardTech products?
Would you like to increase your efficiencies in working with and sharing raster imagery, and be able to use more imagery at a given time? If you do, MrSID technology retains the image accuracy both geometrically and radiometrically while dramatically decreasing on-screen rendering time. MrSID files are also read natively by nearly every GIS and imaging software available on the market so you can be up and running immediately. And we are continually improving on our core technology: the latest release—GeoExpress with MrSID—supports lossless encoding and about a 50% decrease in file size for visually lossless compression.

See our ad on page 7.

GEOVANTAGE

GeoVantage Inc. is a private information technology company specializing in digital aerial imagery using GPS, Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) and a 4-band digital camera configuration. Although GeoVantage Inc. is a relatively new company in the world of remote sensing, it was founded by individuals with extensive histories in the remote sensing and computer science fields. This experience is reflected in 22 of the most advanced sensors found in the market today. Extensive geographic coverage and timely delivery makes GeoVantage a universal solution for even the most complex remote sensing needs. GeoVantage imagery is used in agriculture, urban management, forestry, mapping, emergency response and other industries require that accurate, detailed products and quick turnaround.

If you could educate prospective customers about one thing before they contact you, what would it be?
We would emphasize that digital imagery is the way to go. The advantages of digital products are well documented today; there’s no reason to go “back” to film. The advantages of digital imagery include: increased color depth, automated georeferencing of images from data captured by GPS and IMU during flight, and cost-savings because it can be reused and stored on hard drives. The fact that the imagery is collected and delivered digitally plays a key role in our turnaround time. As one of our clients, who previously used conventional film-based aerial photography put stated, “…Since digital imagery can be shared and communicated throughout the organization much easier than hard copy photographs, it has proven to be more expedient and efficient all around.”

Why might potential customers be apprehensive about buying your product/service? Why shouldn’t they be?
GeoVantage is a fairly new player in the digital imagery marketplace, but we are not new to the imagery business. We have solid experience from years of work at TASC (now part of Northrop Grumman), Siemens, and Polaroid. We have Stanford and MIT professors on our board of directors. In fact, GeoVantage was started as the two founders tried to learn from earlier missteps in imagery. They decided that the best way forward was to automate more of the process, keeping costs down and quality up. That’s been our guiding principle and it has served us well.

What one question will help clients determine whether they need GeoVantage services or products?
Do you need cost-effective, de­tailed GIS-ready imagery with quick turnaround? Nearly every type of GIS user can benefit from imagery, whether it’s for delineating areas to increase or decrease fertilizer use or updating infrastructure maps. There is sometimes a concern that a job is too big, or too spread out for aerial imagery. Digital cameras and advanced navigation tools allow us to cost-effectively cover large contiguous areas as well as small distributed “pockets” around a county or state. What’s more, turnaround times are quick be­cause so much of the process is automated.

See our ad on page 15.

PCI Geomatics

PCI Geomatics is a developer of Geomatics software (geographic mod­­eling, measurement, an­alysis, and output) and solutions based on its remote sensing, digital photogrammetry, spatial analysis, and cartographic editing programs. The privately held Canadian Corporation has headquarters in the Toronto area with second facility in the National Capital Region of Ottawa. PCI software products and solutions are distributed through a direct sales force, international resellers, and third party developers. Founded in 1982, PCI Geomatics began building and shipping geomatics software when the industry was still young. Today, with Geomatica 9, PCI Geomatics provides all the imagery-centric geomatics solutions necessary to meet the expectations of a large and expanding industry. PCI Geomatics is continuously driven to make new and better applications for the geomatics world. We know that this is something that the industry needs. But more importantly, we also know that this is something that today’s customers want.

What type of problem/need does a typical customer bring to PCI Geomatics?
Customers who approach PCI Geomatics typically present three main issues. First, they identify that they are using digital satellite imagery, aerial photos, and/or digital spatial data, and need to work with this data in a more productive and professional manner. Second, they require geoprocessing capabilities that produce highly accurate results—results that can be used to accurately represent the world for planning, development, or for other purposes. Finally, customers need to be able to extract and apply the necessary information from their imagery, either to use directly for decision-making or to transfer to a GIS for analysis and action support. Given these practical work needs and the diversified range of user types who are rapidly adopting geomatics technology solutions for their geospatial purposes, the biggest challenge facing R&D departments is how to make the newest geospatial software flexible as well as capable and complete—for remote sensing, GIS, photogrammetry, and cartography.

What is the most common question prospective clients ask? What’s the answer?
PCI Geomatics customer representatives are frequently asked whether we support a particular satellite or work with a particular data type. “Can PCI Geomatics software read/write my Arc/Info data?” “Does Geomatica 9 support JPEG 2000?” “I use Hyperspectral Image Data—does PCI Geomatics software accept this?” “Can your software perform rigorous model corrections for IKONOS, SPOT, EROS, and QuickBird sat­ellite data?” The answer is always ‘Yes we do.’
All of our products open and work with more than 100 file formats, and PCI Geomatics clients in most disciplines appreciate the built-in data source flexibility for their work. Efforts to anticipate, plan, and maintain this advantage have required resources, but have created an encouraging reputation and a long-term competitive advantage. Broader use of geospatial technology and the market’s growing interest in single-load software solutions like Geomatica indicate that diversified format support will continue to be an important consideration for developers and customers.

What is the biggest misconception about your product or service?
Occasionally we meet a customer who thinks PCI Geomatics only develops remote sensing solutions. Although PCI Geomatics has a history of providing leading remote sensing software, this is only one of the areas we serve. The geomatic sciences engage disciplines beyond remote sensing, and so do we.
Our software development initiatives include products and services that support remote sensing, GIS, photogrammetric, and cartographic accomplishments within a single environment. Our geomatics solutions provide a complete process: starting from raw imagery, performing refinements, extracting information, and then presenting results online, on a map, or exporting to a GIS database.
The advantages of combining the whole process in one environment (versus multiple commercial applications) extend beyond real cost savings. Interoperability efficiency, rapid file sharing between sister applications, programming (a relative impossibility across multiple products), design compatibility, higher performance standards, and the avoidance of proprietary formats are just a few PCI Geomatics’ advantages.

See our ad on page 13.

LASER MAP

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Lasermap Image Plus has been a LiDAR service provider since 1997. With years of operational experience in a wide variety of conditions—from the tropics to the Arctic, and deserts to rain forests—Lasermap can guarantee clients a realistic cost estimate with no surprises. The company has recently acquired one of the latest Optech LiDAR sensors: an Optech 2050, one of the most efficient LiDAR systems available. Lasermap also has a digital frame camera, capable of capturing full color imagery along with the LiDAR data. While the frame camera is not necessarily suitable for very large area projects, it can be efficient for smaller areas or corridor projects. Lasermap's home base is located in the north east of North America, and their work has taken them all over the continent as well as to Africa, Asia, Central America, and South America.
If you could educate prospective customers about one thing before they contact you, what would it be?
The best suggestion to clients contacting a LiDAR service contractor is to provide us with as much information about their project and project area as possible. This allows the estimator to make a reliable financial estimate for the project. If some of the information is not available, then the estimator has to make assumptions which might not be correct. Clients looking for LiDAR pricing should explain where their project is located, as well as its approximate size and shape. (Shape can be very important when designing flight lines—for example,”Northwest of Dallas” is rather a large area!) Ideally, of course, the client could indicate approximately how much of the area is urban, farmland, or forest and, if possible, provide an estimate of the overall change in elevation over the project area. It also helps if the client knows of any ground control points close by or in the project area. If the area is a corridor project (compared to an area survey) then the number of changes of direction is very significant. For example, many clients do not consider that 100 miles of corridor mapping with twenty changes of direction takes more than five times longer to survey than 100 miles of corridor mapping in a straight line. (This is because it takes several minutes for the aircraft to turn at each change of direction and then align for the next segment.)

What is the biggest misconception about your product or service?
Possibly the biggest client misconception lies in scheduling. LiDAR data can be provided very quickly, much more quickly than most other technologies, and consequently clients come to expect this. On the other hand, from a business point of view, the service provider hopes that he is not just sitting on the ground waiting for you to phone! While many projects can be completed in a remarkably short time period, there are times of the year—such as spring, when firms tend to be their busiest—when next day service is usually not feasible. A bit of planning ahead can ensure everyone remains happy.

Why might potential customers be apprehensive about buying your product or service?
Some potential clients are apprehensive that LiDAR is “a relatively new technology” and are not sure if they should “trust it.” In reality, the concepts and individual technologies which make up a LiDAR system are all well-developed and mature. Lasers, inertial systems and even GPS have been around for years, and LiDAR systems have be­come very robust over the last few years. LiDAR systems today are as accurate as the components they contain, which, with the off-the-shelf systems developed by the major manufacturers, generally means (with attention to proper operation and local control stations) accuracies of six inches or better can be obtained in open, clear areas.

See our ad on page 30.

BENTLEY

Bentley, a global software vendor founded in 1984, provides software solutions to create, manage, and publish architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) content. Bentley enables leading AEC firms and owners to design, build, and operate facilities, industrial plants, roadways, and other essential infrastructure assets. Bentley delivers integrated building design, plant design, civil engineering, and geospatial solutions for transportation, process and discrete manufacturing, government and public works, building, and utilities. Bentley’s 2002 revenues reached $230 million. Bentley software plays a mission-critical role in over two-thirds of the work of the Engineering News-Record Top 500 Design Firms.
What type of problem/need does a typical customer bring to you?
Our users build and operate the world’s infrastructure: highways, airports, industrial plants, utility networks, and buildings. Our users require an integrated, multi-disciplinary solution that helps them to design, build, and operate this infrastructure. Yet, the common universal requirement is interoperability between interdependent systems. Our AEC GIS Interoperability Initiative with ESRI is the most compelling example of our commitment to address this requirement.
While Bentley and ESRI applications manage data in a common coordinate space, our respective applications are designed for unique purposes and used by individuals with distinct organizational functions. ESRI users are analysts and planners, while Bentley’s are engineers and architects. The planning role requires a broad view of spatial information, while engineers and architects create detailed geometric drawings and models. Interoperability will unify previously compartmentalized workflows. AEC work will benefit from the spatial context that GIS can provide. And planners will benefit from an updated record of constructed infrastructure.

If you could educate prospective customers about one thing BEFORE they contact you, what would it be?
It would be the value of a Managed Environment for AEC Content. AEC Content comprises the design work of engineering disciplines, architects, and mapping professionals, and includes vector files, models, images, specifications, and more. AEC professionals cannot operate without the context of what has been built. As they extend and operate infrastructure, they rely upon the documents of record. This information is the basis for everything new. And effective management of such information is critical to efficient operations.
A managed environment helps participants find information quickly, share it, and make quick, effective decisions. Bentley believes a managed environment requires three critical capabilities. 1) Change Management to determine who has access to what, and when; 2) Intellectual Property Management to verify the author, and track and seal changes; and 3) Information Query and Retrieval to easily and efficiently locate content.

What’s the biggest misconception about your product or service?
The biggest misconception is the relationship between GIS and AEC. A GIS is a self-contained, consistent, and rigidly defined index of assets. The strength of GIS is the analytical capabilities that such a paradigm enables. AEC work is conducted by a multitude of collaborating players, typified by perpetual work in progress. And AEC relies heavily upon document-based workflows.
In AEC, the map is not a navigational construct, but a highly precise spatial setting, in 3 dimensions, for the scaled geometry of physical infrastructure. It is large scale to reflect the scope of this setting, yet must be very accurate at any given point. A spatial context for AEC is critical and distinct from GIS. While each leverages a spatial index, the information indexed and the way that information is used is very different. Ironically, however, a spatial index provides the appropriate medium to support exchange of information and the foundation for AEC GIS Interoperability.

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