Pictometry International Corp., the worldwide leader in digital, aerial oblique imagery and measuring software systems, has provided San Diego County with online oblique aerial images of 1,486 square miles of the urban I-5 and I-15 corridors affected by the recent wildfires. The images were made accessible at no cost to the County and emergency responders in the field via the Internet, using a web browser. Secure access to the service was enabled shortly after the fires started in Southern California on October 22. This “thin-client” option called Pictometry Online™ is part of Pictometry’s new Web Services.
The images, which were captured one year prior, gave emergency responders a critical point of comparison and reference during times of compromised visibility during the fire and put easy-to-use addressing, location and measuring tools at their fingertips to assist with resource allocation — all with the speed of a wireless Internet connection.
“We are pleased to provide San Diego County with our imagery and new online service free of charge. Our Economic Alliance Program allows Pictometry Users to deploy Pictometry technologies quickly and easily at no additional charge in many emergency situations,” said Dante Pennacchia, Pictometry’s Chief Marketing Officer. “Our new Web Services promise to make day-to-day access to Pictometry faster and easier as well – It’s simply an enabler that provides our users with access to the Pictometry imagery and tools they need in any given situation.”
Technical assistance and a hard drive of images were also provided to assist with property damage assessments and to determine valuations as recovery and clean up efforts continue. The provided images represent nearly a full terabyte of information and were pulled from the company’s vast image library of more than 50 million high resolution ortho and oblique images covering most of the populated United States.
Pictometry uses a patented oblique image capture process to produce oblique images (images taken an angle) as opposed to traditional overhead aerial images. As a result, these oblique images enable emergency responders to see all sides of a structure, revealing important visual information including entrances, escapes, windows and more. Pictometry’s integrated visual information systems are used in county 911 and assessing departments in 46 states across the U.S. and in a growing number of commercial industries. The company’s new web service offers users a valuable “thin client” means for increasing efficiencies as well as increasing ease of use and cost savings in deployment, training and maintenance.
