UK:-ย DigitalGlobe,ย a Maxar Technologies company (NYSE:ย MAXR) (TSX:ย MAXR),announced that they produced the first precision, GIS-ready building footprints dataset of the entireย United Statesย in partnership withย Ecopia Tech Corporationย (“Ecopia.ai”).ย Ecopia U.S. Building Footprints powered by DigitalGlobe, available for order today, includes more than 169 million building footprints created by proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms in combination with DigitalGlobe’s high-resolution, high-accuracy satellite imagery. The detailed dataset helps customers save time and money by knowing exactly what the built environment looks like in their area of interest, allowing them to make decisions with confidence.
Ecopia U.S. Building Footprints powered by DigitalGlobe is a semi-automated solution produced with a speed, consistency and scale that no other commercial or open data product on the market can match. The 2D vector polygon dataset has a greater than 95% accuracy rating, a uniquely high percentage in the industry, and will be refreshed every six months based on new DigitalGlobe imagery received through the company’s Geospatial Big Data platform (GBDX), ensuring the most current foundational information is available to inform customer decisions on projects like mapping, insurance risk assessment, disaster management and land administration.
Ecopia U.S. Building Footprints powered by DigitalGlobe have already enabled a number of projects:
- Natural gas pipeline operatorsย are federally required to annually locate, count and classify every building within a specific distance of their pipeline. One of the largest pipeline operators in the U.S. streamlined a traditionally manual and time-consuming workflow for locating and digitizing building footprints by using more than 700,000 building footprints, which were produced in a matter of days instead of the traditional months-long timeframe.
- One of the largest global development organizations commissioned DigitalGlobe and Ecopia.ai to use their innovative process to createย building footprints for the entire country ofย Tanzaniaย for use in settlement mapping analysisย because a current map did not exist for much of this country. The partnership created 18 million building footprints in three weeks, supporting public health campaigns, sustainability initiatives, and risk reduction.
“The combination of Ecopia.ai’s algorithms and DigitalGlobe’s high-resolution satellite imagery accessed through GBDX creates reliable, game-changing solutions for many industries. Ecopia U.S. Building Footprints powered by DigitalGlobe puts readily available data in customers’ hands to make timely business decisions and eliminates the need for manual, slow and expensive on-the-ground surveys,” saidย Bill Singleton, Ecopia Tech Corporation Vice President. “We are proud to bring a product to market that has the potential to transform many applications, such as reducing the time between census data collection from once per decade to once per year for civil governments.”
“DigitalGlobe is proud to offer a product of unmatched quality, accuracy and completeness that is quickly produced and easy to access,” saidย Amy Minnick, DigitalGlobe Senior Vice President and General Manager of Commercial. “We see great potential for Ecopia Building Footprints powered by DigitalGlobe to be used as a foundational data source in a wide variety of commercial and global development applications. Creating high-quality building footprints with Ecopia.ai will help Build A Better World.”