BlomSTREET is a collection of georeferenced, high-resolution, 360 degree panoramic images that are photographed on street-level. The camera equipment used is mounted on the roof of a specially equipped car taking an image every five meters on average in the collection process.
The technology comes from the Dutch company Cyclomedia. Blom signed a partnership agreement with Cyclomedia in summer 2011 for the exclusive use of this technology in Scandinavia. During the summer, the first cities where captured and the Municipality of Falkenberg is the first in Sweden to use the BlomSTREET technology. The technology is proven and has been used by professionals, such as municipalities, for over 15 years in Holland.
BlomSTREET, powered by Cyclomedia, is delivered as a cloud service where the customer receives images and functionality delivered via a web service. No storage of data is necessary for the client. This also allows functions and data to be continually updated without the customer requiring new installations.
A key feature of BlomSTREET is that compared to other free street services on the web, such as Google Street View, users have the ability to take measurements directly from the imagery. Metadata is also an included feature, meaning it’s possible to know exactly what time and day the images were captured. Customers are also entitled to use and download images within their own operations.
Christopher Enckell, GIS Coordinator at the Municipality of Falkenberg, says “The big advantage for us is time saving, as many shorter trips can be avoided, since much can be solved from the office”.
“Other interesting application areas are fault reports of poor visibility, poor sidewalks and vegetation adjacent to roads. You can quickly form an opinion on the subject, already on the phone with the citizen. The imagery can be useful even in planning permission management “says Enckell.
“We are putting a lot of effort in to making BlomSTREET useful for our clients” says Håkon Andresen, Managing Director at Blom Nordic.
“From October 2011, the first own BlomSTREET car is available in the Nordic countries and from April 2012, we plan to have a further two cars available in the Nordic region” continues Håkon.
