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Tag: LizardTech

  • Extensis and LizardTech unite as one company

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    Extensis and LizardTech are uniting as one global company to help organizations increase their return on investment and the value of their digital assets, fonts and large imagery.

    In 2017, Extensis and LizardTech collaborated on the development of new portfolio asset geo-referencing capabilities for applications in the geospatial, infrastructure, architecture/engineering/construction and building information modeling segments.

    With Extensis’ market leadership in digital asset and font management combined with LizardTech’s expertise in image management and image compression technology, the united company is situated to provide a suite of solutions and support for digital asset challenges.

    “Organizations today are investing in imagery of all kinds, including photography, aerial, and spatial, to name a few,” said Osamu Ikeda, CEO of Extensis. “Fully leveraging these digital files means having an easy and efficient way to organize, store, access and distribute them.”

    Ikeda continued, “Uniting Extensis and LizardTech strengthens our ability to support our customers’ success and give them effective and time-tested solutions for maximizing the value of digital assets of all kinds.”

    The combined company will operate under the Extensis brand, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with an office presence in Seattle.

    Starting now, LizardTech products (GeoExpress, Express Server, GeoViewer) will become part of the Extensis suite of solutions, which spans digital asset management, font asset management, brand asset management, image management and image compression.

  • LizardTech to launch GeoExpress 10 with expanded lidar functionality at GEOINT 2018

    LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial data, will launch Version 10 of its GeoExpress data manipulation and compression software at the 2018 GEOINT Symposium. GeoExpress 10 includes significantly expanded lidar data handling capabilities and improved interface communication.

    LizardTech will demonstrate GeoExpress 10 in booth #1245 at the GEOINT Symposium, which is being held April 22-25, 2018, at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.

    GeoExpress is LizardTech’s flagship software product originally created to enable geospatial professionals to manipulate digital satellite, aerial and UAV images and losslessly compress them to industry-standard MrSID or JPEG2000 files for more efficient use.

    The addition of lidar handling in 2015 and 2016 releases gave GeoExpress the ability to natively compress lidar data to MrSID and LAZ formats with no loss of data content, saving up to 75% on storage and processing time, as well as support for high-density BPF point clouds.

    “Users can do a lot more with their lidar data in GeoExpress 10,” said Toby Martin, LizardTech vice president, Development and Strategy.

    In past versions of the software, GeoExpress performed only basic compression and mosaicking of lidar point clouds. The new version enables users to reproject lidar files into different coordinate systems and crop the data to create smaller files.

    Individual files or single tiles within a mosaic may be cropped to a desired area of interest for easier and faster processing. Additionally, GeoExpress 10 allows the user to crop by elevation, adding a third dimension to spatial image management.

    “You can use the elevation cropping function to create point clouds of just the mountain peaks in an area, for example, if you are planning a high-elevation project,” said Martin.

    In GeoExpress 10, users will also find the overall experience of interacting with their data sets is more intuitive thanks to enhanced information and communication from the software. Users may now select the data sets they want to mosaic together, and the software presents a selection of processing options which may be applied to those files.

    Another general upgrade in the new version is the ability to pause and then re-start a processing task without losing any progress already achieved. In the past, a task could only be stopped and started again from the beginning once it had been initiated, which for extremely large processing jobs may take significant resources to complete.

    Other enhancements to GeoExpress 10 include:

    • compatibility with LZW compressed TIFF files commonly output from Pix4D software.
    • addition of Esri projections to the Reprojection Manager.
    • addition of rectangular cropping around a center point.
    • shape cropping using Google Earth KML files.

    In addition to GeoExpress 10, LizardTech will showcase its complete line of geospatial products at GEOINT 2018:

    • Express Server software for high-performance delivery and publication;
    • the recently updated GeoViewer software, which is the fastest way to view MrSID and JPEG 2000 imagery; and
    • the recently released Portfolio 2017 digital asset management solution, which makes it easy to organize, access and share geospatial imagery alongside associated graphic and digital files.

  • LizardTech granted US patent for lidar point-cloud compression

    LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has been awarded a U.S. patent for the compression of lidar point clouds (US 9753124).

    The patented technology provides lossless compression of point clouds captured by airborne lidar sensors or terrestrial laser scanners for easy and cost-effective processing, storage and transmission of data sets.

    Point cloud data goes from staggering to manageable when lidar files are compressed to the MrSID format.
    Point cloud data goes from staggering to manageable when lidar files are compressed to the MrSID format.

    “Lidar systems capture terabytes of data containing rich information that can be difficult to exploit due to the difficulty processing such massive files,” said John Hayes, the LizardTech senior engineer who received the patent. “Our lidar compression technique allows users to maximize their return on investment in point cloud data collection.”

    LizardTech developed the lidar compression technology in 2009 by leveraging the wavelet transformation algorithms used to compress satellite and aerial image data sets into MrSID formats. The point cloud compression technique was first released as a stand-alone LizardTech product called LiDAR Compressor and then integrated into GeoExpress in 2015.

    GeoExpress is LizardTech’s flagship software product originally created to enable geospatial professionals to manipulate digital satellite/aerial image and losslessly compress them to industry-standard MrSID or JPEG2000 files. The addition of lidar handling gave GeoExpress the ability to natively compress lidar data to MrSID and LAZ formats with no loss of data content, saving up to 75% on storage, and time in processing files.

    Lidar systems are flown extensively on aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles to collect highly accurate measurements of terrain elevations for a variety of mapping applications.

    Another form of lidar, known as terrestrial laser scanning, captures point clouds at ground level — both inside and outside of building structures — for visualization of crime scenes, re-creation of accident sites, and 3D modeling of building interiors.

    “Lasers are even being mounted on earth-moving equipment at construction sites for real-time capture of grading progress so that engineering managers can make on-the-spot decisions,” said Toby Martin, vice president of development and strategy at Extensis. “Lidar compression makes this possible and is revolutionizing workflows in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry.”

    The lidar compression algorithms can be licensed via the LizardTech SDK to incorporate the technology into third-party geospatial software solutions. Already, LizardTech is seeing interest in this technology from hardware sensor developers who want to place data compression capabilities at the source of collection.

  • LizardTech optimizes Portfolio 2017 for geospatial data

    LizardTech optimizes Portfolio 2017 for geospatial data

    Image: LizardTech

    LizardTech and Extensis have launched Portfolio 2017, a digital asset management (DAM) solution now optimized for geospatial data. Portfolio 2017 enables users to organize, access and share geospatial datasets – including compressed MrSID files – along with associated graphics and documents.

    Divisions of Celartem Inc., LizardTech and Extensis collaborated in adding geospatial data management capabilities to the new version. The DAM solution indexes and catalogs photographs, videos, maps, audio files, Adobe Creative Cloud applications and Microsoft Office documents.

    “In laying out the vision for Portfolio 2017, we saw a unique opportunity to marry the value of LizardTech and Extensis products and extend the value of DAM to new industries, particularly geospatial,” said Toby Martin, vice president of development and strategy at Extensis and LizardTech. “For geospatial users, having a centralized repository for managing digital files will significantly reduce the time spent looking for datasets and essentially eliminate costly replacement of files that have been misplaced.”

    Portfolio 2017 gives users instant access to imagery, lidar and video data captured by satellite, aircraft and unamanned aerial vehile (UAV) platforms. Geospatial files that have been compressed and saved in MrSID formats with the LizardTech GeoExpress solution can be loaded and viewed into Portfolio without any further data conversion, the companies said.

    The new version extracts embedded metadata from compressed imagery and lidar files saved in MrSID formats – as well as GeoTIFF, JPEG 2000, NITF and LAS. Geospatial data can be indexed and stored alongside associated non-geospatial photographs and documents.

    “Portfolio multiplies the value of geospatial assets by making them easier to share with many end users throughout the organization as well as external partners,” Martin said in a news release.

    Data can be retrieved by geographic coordinates or the metadata tag, such as a name, acquisition date or sensor platform. Users can also search by defining an area of interest on a map interface.

  • LizardTech releases MrSID gen 4 decode SDK version 9.5.4

    Developers can add support for MG4 files created with LizardTech’s GeoExpress Version 9.5.3

    LizardTech, a division of Celartem Inc. and a provider of software solutions for image asset handling, has released MrSID Generation 4 Decode SDK Version 9.5.4 to compliment the release of LizardTech’s GeoExpress Version 9.5.3.

    This latest SDK release includes support to view MrSID compressed Harris Geiger-Mode LIDAR point clouds, paralleling previously incorporated tools for viewing MrSID compressed LAS and LAZ point clouds.

    LizardTech continues to enhance lidar and raster compression capacity across its image asset handling platform for image compression, management, distribution, integration and deployment. This includes updating compilers, refreshing target computing platforms and improving compression performance.

    Trusted as a raster format by geospatial professionals since 1992 and supported in a broad spectrum of GIS and CAD applications, MrSID is the highest quality file format with the most advanced compression technology available. A no cost download of the MrSID Generation 4 Decode SDK is available at http://developer.lizardtech.com, and enables application developers to add support for viewing and decoding multiple image files and most recently Geiger-mode, LAS and LAZ point clouds compressed into MrSID.

  • LizardTech certified by US Army for GeoExpress and Express Server

    LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has received Certificates of Networthiness (CoN) for GeoExpress 9.x and Express Server 9.x from the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM).

    The CoN signifies that GeoExpress and Express Server are configured to the current Army Golden Master (AGM) baseline and comply with all U.S. Army and Department of Defense (DoD) standards for security, compatibility and sustainability.

    A CoN is required for all enterprise software products in the Army Enterprise Infrastructure Network and applies to the U.S. Army as well as National Guard, Army Reserve and DoD organizations using the Army network.

    GeoExpress is LizardTech’s flagship software product, enabling geospatial professionals to manipulate digital satellite/aerial image and lidar data and compress them to industry-standard MrSID or JPEG2000 files for easy and cost-effective processing, storage and transmission.

    Express Server software is the LizardTech solution for high-performance cataloguing, delivery and publication of geospatial data that lets users access geospatial data on any device with any connection.

    “Receiving Certifications of Networthiness for our most recent geospatial software products is a significant achievement and a testament to LizardTech’s continued engagement with the U.S. Army and other U.S. DoD user communities,” said Terry Ryan, LizardTech federal government sales manager. “These CoNs give our users confidence that LizardTech solutions will meet their IT safety and stability requirements, and we look forward to supporting our users at home and abroad.”

    The current CoN applies to all 9.x releases of the GeoExpress and Express Server software. LizardTech has pursued and received CoNs for earlier versions of GeoExpress and Express Server, demonstrating a long-term commitment to ensuring U.S. Army forward-deployed personnel have rapid access to geospatial imagery and related data when and where they need it.

  • LizardTech’s latest GeoExpress includes Geiger-Mode support

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    LizardTech, the creator of MrSID and provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has released GeoExpress 9.5.3. The company’s flagship image asset handling product to compress, manage, distribute, integrate and deploy geospatial images and lidar point clouds as high-quality MrSID files now has expanded format support and improved capabilities.

    What’s new:

    • BPF Support – GeoExpress now supports Binary Point Files often used in Geiger-Mode lidar data.
    • NAD83(2011) Support – Reprojection tools now support EPSG CRS and Coordinate Transformations in support of NOAA’s NA2011 Project.
    • Better Color Balancing – Now apply correction to each band in the image.
    • Custom Watermarks – No longer be restricted by a size limitation for custom watermark files.
    • Simpler Licensing – Import a license file for single workstation licensing or add License Server Utility to add floating licenses with ease.

    A fully functional free 30-day trial of GeoExpress 9.5.3 is available.

     

  • LizardTech introduces enhanced GeoExpress, version 9.5.1

    GeoExpress 951 LiDAR Compression

    LizardTech, the creator of MrSID and provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has released GeoExpress 9.5.1. The company’s flagship product for compressing geospatial images and lidar data into high-quality MrSID files now has a streamlined interface, faster processing and support for .pix raster files.

    “Last year, we introduced the ability to compress raster and LiDAR imagery to MrSID and LAZ formats,” said Robert Parker, LizardTech product owner. “With GeoExpress 9.5.1, we’re excited to introduce a beautiful new design, seamless mosaicking of LiDAR files and the added choice to compress .pix raster files to MrSID.”

    GeoExpress 9.5.1 features include:

    • Intuitive User Interface (UI): An updated look and streamlined interface make this version more user-friendly while delivering top-quality compressed and manipulated images.
    • Seamless mosaicking of LiDAR files: Seamless mosaicking of LiDAR files supplements lossless compression that uses four times less storage space.
    • Faster default workflow for existing MrSID images: Processing of MrSID files is now faster by default when working with existing MrSID files, with cropping, editing, despeckling, AOI, tiling and more.
    • New Format Support: Compression of PCIs standard .pix raster files to MrSID for greater flexibility.

  • Esri UC: LizardTech Launches GeoExpress 9.5

    LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, launched GeoExpress 9.5 at this week’s Esri International User Conference. The conference is taking place in San Diego, Calif., and LizardTech is exhibiting in booth number 2310.

    GeoExpress enables geospatial professionals to compress and manipulate satellite and aerial imagery. In addition to compressing raster data, GeoExpress 9.5 now features the ability to natively compress LiDAR data to MrSID and LAZ formats, saving up to 75 percent on storage space.

    GeoExpress 9.5 also includes batch color balancing, multipolygon cropping and exporting images to custom dimensions and tiles. Esri UC attendees can see demonstrations of the new features of GeoExpress 9.5 at booth 2310.

    “The launch of GeoExpress 9.5 is particularly exciting because of the many benefits this latest version brings not only to our raster image collection customers, but also LiDAR data collection customers,” said Jeff Young, LizardTech global business development manager. “GeoExpress 9.5 is now your one-stop shop to compress raster and LiDAR imagery to MrSID and LAZ formats.”

    LizardTech will also showcase the rest of the company’s line of geospatial products: Express Server software for high-performance delivery and publication; LiDAR Compressor software, which turns giant point cloud datasets into efficient MrSID files; and the recently updated GeoViewer software, which a fast way to view MrSID and JPEG 2000 imagery.

  • LizardTech Extends Global Reach with Partnerships

    LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has expanded its global presence with several new business partnerships and product purchases during the first half of 2015.

    During the last six months, national governments, energy organizations and infrastructure owners and operators have all bought LizardTech software in countries such as Canada, Sweden, Norway, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Oman, Australia and the Philippines.

    New partnerships established this year include EMi Grup in Turkey, Beijing Space Eye Innovation Technology Co. in China, Esri Muscat in Oman, and the Cuminas Corporation in Japan. Additionally, Sani International of Canada re-committed to LizardTech product distribution in Canada and the Caribbean. LizardTech’s international relationships outside of the Americas are managed by the geospatial sales and marketing agency, Quarry One Eleven, based in Guildford, UK.

    “We are delighted with the progress we have made in promoting LizardTech’s remarkable MrSID-based software throughout the European, African and Middle Eastern market places and beyond into Asia Pacific,” said Quarry One Eleven Founder Alistair Maclenan. “LizardTech is a great client that understands the power of marketing and in-region representation. Their support has been a huge factor in the partnership and sales successes we have seen for their image compression, preparation and distribution products.”

    “We have had an exciting first half of the year which illustrates that our products are in demand all over the world,” said Jeff Young, who directs Global Business Development at LizardTech. “These sales validate the sustainability of LizardTech over the last 23 years through partnerships in multiple continents. We take pride in our customer’s loyalty and continued commitment to our MrSID image compression format.”

  • LizardTech Updates GeoViewer Imagery Viewer for Windows

    LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has released an updated version of its GeoViewer and GeoViewer Pro for Windows application.

    The application allows users to view MrSID and JPEG 2000 imagery and includes broad file format support.

    GeoViewer is available as a free application enabling users to display raster imagery, LiDAR point clouds and vector overlays. New features include the ability to connect to online base maps, combine local data with web map service (WMS) and JPIP sources, export imagery, save projects, and includes advanced display options such as dynamic range adjustment.

    GeoViewer Pro is available for $50 and allows access to additional functionality, including support for printing, additional projection systems and advanced area measurement tools.

  • LizardTech Releases GeoViewer iOS at Esri Federal GIS Conference

    LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has released an update to its free iOS GeoViewer application for viewing geospatial imagery and vector overlays. The release was announced at the Esri Fed GIS Conference, being held this week at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

    GeoViewer for iOS enables iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch users to view MrSID and JPEG 2000 imagery on their mobile devices. GeoViewer includes measurement tools, image band selection, and more.

    The latest release includes free support for bookmarks and base maps. Users can purchase additional functionality such as displaying web map service (WMS) imagery, area measurement, and address search via a single in-app purchase of $4.99, which includes support for additional projection systems and tracking a user’s current location for measurement purposes.

    To download GeoViewer for iOS, visit the LizardTech website or the iTunes Store.

    Attendees at the conference can learn more at LizardTech’s booth, number 619.