Exclusive Features ALAN DORICH *** The word Nearmap is used 33...

Exclusive Features
ALAN DORICH

*** The word Nearmap is used 33 times

Nearmap’s aerial imagery helps its clients save money and time, while improving their performance.
By Alan Dorich, Senior Editor at Knighthouse Media

When construction companies buy a drone to take aerial photos, it requires a substantial commitment. Not only do they have to make the investment in the drone, “They require a specialized skill set,” Tim Frank says. “You have to be able to fly it, and then you have to be able to maintain the imagery.”
Frank is the vice president of marketing for Nearmap US Inc., which takes these responsibilities out of its clients’ hands. The company, which has its U.S. headquarters in South Jordan, Utah, offers high-resolution aerial imagery for multiple sectors, including construction and real estate.
Nearmap started operations 10 years ago in Australia, flying planes equipped with special camera systems at altitudes of up to 18,000 feet. Today, the company regularly captures 430 of the largest urban areas of the United States, in addition to Australia and New Zealand.
That photography is available via the cloud through a subscription service that Nearmap offers its customers. “We’ve found the sweet spot where we capture urbanized areas in the United States that represent over 70 percent of the population,” Frank says.
He notes that this represents a very unique business model, allowing customers not to rely on the use of drones. “We take all that work and we remove those barriers for you,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about capturing it yourself, and you don’t have to worry about hosting it.”
Product Marketer Angela Catalan adds that Nearmap’s model sets it apart from other image providers. “Consumers of imagery are used to receiving imagery on a hard drive,” she says, noting that access to images via the cloud saves time for Nearmap’s clients. “Now they have the choice with no lag time – they can choose to connect to our imagery from their existing workflows, or simply jump on the MapBrowser.”
Nearmap offers orthographic maps, multi-perspective panoramas and oblique aerial views. But all of them, Catalan notes, can be viewed in a seamless mosaic once users subscribe to its site. “You also can move around broad areas of land, and have access to all historic imagery at your fingertip,” she says.
“One pixel on the screen represents three inches of area on the ground,” Catalan continues. “It’s usually several times sharper than most free satellite images.”

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