Anyone here have any experience with a firm known as Pictometry Intelligent Images based out of Rochester, NY?
I had the pleasure of witnessing a 45-minute presentation at a County Commission meeting earlier today highlighting what they do that would be of service to the County. Generally, they are producing oblique and ortho photography plus massaging that data every way imaginable. They have some patented measuring software that works with the data to provide all sorts of potential extra help to various County departments, but primarily the GIS and Appraiser offices. The standard pixel size for general use is nine inches while specific areas can be even sharper with a pixel size of three inches.
Extra help in what way?
I have been involved in patent litigation against them as an expert for a couple years.
I think that is the underlying data source in Bing Maps for their "Birds Eye" view.
:good:
Why was your presentation 45min? I sat through an two hours of it yesterday. Yawn. I'll give my presenter some credit. When he showed the first measuring tool and it gave distances to the hundredths he said, "The distances are not that accurate. This is not a survey." and I said "Amen".
In my area the pixels are the same 9x9 inches rural and 3x3 inches in town. I'm always looking at it through my cell phone to get close. Kinda nice.
The county, however, uses it mostly for law enforcement. If they have a warrant on a drug house they can see all the escape routes and make a quick plan.
Our area was flown.
Steve
> I think that is the underlying data source in Bing Maps for their "Birds Eye" view.
That's Pictometry International Corp. Zoom way down and see the bottom right corner. Probably a competitor.
This is a rural county with very limited tax dollars available. Nearly all of the GIS is being overlaid over free aerial imagery. Most of that is free FSA (USDA Farm Service Agency) views taken when everything is growing and all the trees are loaded with leaves. Much of what you really need to see is obscured. Virtually everything is ortho only. That gray square area might be concrete or it might be a roof or it might be something else entirely.
The current work is very crude compared to what would be available with the data generated by Pictometry. One of their sales pitches involves a "change finder". With the first flight you pretty well establish the locations and shapes of the various structures on a specific tax parcel. With a later flight they then have the ability to compare what was there before with what is there now and flag additions and subtractions. Ninety percent of the county area does not require building permits and such so people can add structures that aren't taxed until they are discovered by the Appraiser's Office, which could be a few years. Finding those sooner would be a good thing. They ran through potential uses by law enforcement rather quickly, but there are a number of things that would definitely be handy.
They have become rather popular in certain States. I probably have this a bit wrong but I think they said they have already done something like 87 out of 99 counties in Iowa.
This presentation was the quickie whizbang variety just to make the County Commission aware of the basics of what Pictometry could do for $xx,xxx to vastly improve a number of County functions. It was not anywhere close to being a true training presentation.
Pictometry International Corp. is the company name and their tag line is Intelligent Images. It wouldn't surprise me if they have flow the majority of Iowa. They have been around for over ten years and providing services in Iowa shortly after their technology hit the industry.
Being from Rochester, we have and use Pictometry Online (access of their aerial data). We find it to be a great tool for many areas that we work in (utility design). They also have available property line data (GIS/Tax Map based) and LiDAR contours, which is an amazing tool when trying to put estimates together for large scale jobs.
Most areas we work in (higher populated areas) have both the "Birds Eye View" as well as overhead shots which can be downloaded as jpegs or geo tiffs.
I was very impressed with the Bing/Pictometry oblique images when I first saw them.
There images here are a little dated where Google Earth are updated and fairly current.
As a side note, we were contacted by SadaSystems recently about purchasing the Google high resolution imagery at a reduced price.
The images were 15cm resolution with an accuracy of 1 meter.
I did not know these existed for our rural county.
Well...
... If you've used any of the online stuff counties have you could be "trained" in 45min of less. They took their sweet time. In my area what they really have to offer is recent flights, without leaves, and a parcel overlay.
When in ortho if your zoomed way out its whatever flight bing has. At some point in the zoom process it changes to their more detailed/recent images.
Steve
