While many of us cannot be present at the 2010 Olympic Games, we can still participate in an interactive environment using new features from The New York Times and AccuTerra^®.

Two virtual tours from The New York Times – an application for viewing Vancouver’s Olympic sites and a video ‘ski-through’ of the men’s downhill – enable users to experience the Olympics from the comfort of their own home. Using Intermap’s^® elevation data, along with satellite images provided by DigitalGlobe via Google Earth, the application displays a 3D view of all the competition areas in addition to zoomed-in versions of each venue. Users can rotate the maps, allowing for a 360-degree view of the terrain where competitions like moguls, alpine skiing, bobsled, and the biathlon occur. To get even more in on the action, users can watch the ‘ski-through’ video of the men’s downhill course. The video, which uses Intermap data as well as satellite photographs from Terrametrics, explains each section of the course in terms of the skiing mechanics involved to navigate through the tough terrain features to win the race. The men’s downhill is scheduled for February 13 @ 11:45 am PST.

**Click the above images to see how they work.

Additionally, Intermap recently announced the availability of an AccuTerra iPhone App for the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort with which users can navigate upcoming Olympic events with our high-resolution images. For those who are lucky enough to experience the Games in person, users can see where the events are taking place, locate lifts, view trails by difficulty, find lodging, and check the weather. They can even make their friends jealous by recording and sharing their Olympic experience using photos and videos. And the best part? The Whistler-Blackcomb maps can be used year after year, so users can ski the same trails as the Olympic champions.

The AccuTerra App is available at the Apple App Store. Seventy-six other ski resort maps are available including Aspen Mountain, Buttermilk, Heavenly, Jackson Hole, Mammoth, Powderhorn, Squaw Valley, and Telluride, among others. Click here to see which trails we offer.

When planning their next project, engineers have to make some difficult decisions about their data.  They have to ask themselves:

1. Who provides the data?
2. How accurate is it?
3. How soon can we receive it?
4. Is it cost effective?

Those who chose to save money up front by using free, government-supplied data, often receive unreliable datasets, resulting in an inferior project. Usually these free datasets are inaccurate, outdated, and inconsistent, thus causing the project planner to put in more time, effort, and money to obtain better data.  

Let’s say that our engineer (I’ll call him Fred) is planning to build a road through a specific area.  Fred chooses to use USGS data for two reasons: it is readily available, so it will help him stay within the project’s strict timeline, and it’s free, so he can reduce his costs and spend the money he saved on other tasks.

 WRONG!

Fred chose to build the road across what he thought was flat terrain, but once he arrived at the site, he realized the land looked much different than the USGS data showed… back to the drawing board.

Comparison of USGS data and NEXTMap data

Fred had some big decisions to make:

1. He could pay ground survey crews to rework the land where he had initially planned the road, causing a significant delay in the project timeline as well as additional costs that he had not anticipated.
2. He could also find another route for the road, using more reliable data.  Depending on the next data he chooses, he may have to wait a long time to receive it and likely pay for it. Who knows: the next data he chooses could be just as inaccurate, causing him to repeat the cycle.

Fred could have reduced his time, money, and headache by using Intermap Technologies’^® NEXTMap^® high-resolution digital elevation data.  These countrywide datasets are more detailed, homogeneous, and accurate than free, government-supplied data.  Collected at 5-meter post spacings, NEXTMap^® data features a vertical accuracy of 1 meter RMSE.  The data is readily available for all of Western Europe as well as the contiguous United States and Hawaii – all for a reasonable price.

In fact, 11 independent agencies have validated our data, including USGS, NGA, NASA, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers TEC, University of Washington, University of Stuttgart, the Environment Agency of England & Wales, and University College London.

So, what’s the value of free data?  Well, if you ask Fred, he’ll probably tell you that it’s only worth the few painkillers he bought to reduce his headache.

Digital elevation models (DEMs), also known as digital terrain models (DTM) or digital surface models, are digital maps of surface area or terrain data. These digital images are represented as either a raster graphic or a triangular irregular network (TIN). The pixels show precise measurement of the land coordinates (longitude and latitude) and variables (foot, meter, mile, etc.). DEMs are created through remote sensing or land surveying, and are often used in geographic information systems or in digital relief maps.

Difference between Digital Terrain Models and Digital Surface Models
DTMs and DSMs are often mistaken for each other – while they do have many similarities, they are different. A DTM is a representation of the Earth’s surface without manmade landscape features or vegetation, while a DSM, on the other hand, will include features such as buildings, roads, and vegetation in addition to the earth’s surface. DTMs are often used for land use studies, flood or drainage modeling and planning, and other geological applications, while DSMs are commonly used for city and landscape modeling and planning.

Uses of Digital Elevation Models
There are many uses for DEMs, including:

• Surface analysis
• Flood modeling, including ground water flow patterns and drainage analysis
• New venture planning
• Seismic planning
• Creation of raised relief maps and other physical models
• 3D visualization rendering
• Extraction of terrain parameters
• Rectification of aerial photography or satellite imagery
• Geographic information systems (GIS)
• Global positioning systems (GPS)
• Intelligent transportation systems (ITS)
• Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)
• Flight simulation
• Farming and forestry

Sources for Digital Elevation Models
There are many places to acquire DEM data. Data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) includes DEMs of most of the Earth (excluding the polar regions and some mountains and deserts) with 1 arc-second (around 90 meters) elevation for free. The U.S. Geological Survey generates the National Elevation Dataset (NED) with DEM data for the United States and Puerto Rico. There are also a number of mapping companies that offer DEMs at varying degrees of accuracy and resolution, primarily used by public agencies and larger corporations.

Quality plays a key role in the source of DEM data. The quality of a DEM is appraised by the absolute accuracy (the accuracy of the measurement at each pixel) and the relative accuracy (the accuracy of the morphology that is presented). There are several key aspects that affect the quality, including  terrain roughness, sampling density, grid resolution, interpolation algorithm, vertical resolution, and terrain analysis algorithm.

Intermap will be providing their complete line of highly accurate digital elevation models (DEM) and precise orthorectified radar images (ORI) via a Small Municipal and County Government Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) in concert with the highly successful ESRI program of the same name.

The ESRI Small Municipal and County Government ELA program helps local governments better serve their citizens with functionality to perform emergency response and preparedness, permitting and inspection, incident/crime analysis, hazardous materials inventory, planning, and many other vital government functions and services.

Many smaller governments do not have the financial resources or personnel to leverage the GIS software and data that could protect lives and property, while saving time and money. Through the ELA program, local governments gain access to a central, enterprise-wide resource that can provide seamless geocoding, mapping, and routing functionality across all of the local government’s departments and agencies.

Intermap’s rollout of a parallel licensing package allows enterprise-wide access to Intermap’s uniformly accurate 3D digital elevation models and orthorectified radar images for a period of three years.

The launch of Intermap’s ELA package using NEXTMap datasets gives small city and county geospatial professionals immediate access to consistently reliable 3D NEXTMap data, thereby allowing them to perform wide area spatial analysis in a more timely and cost efficient manner.

“Intermap and ESRI continue to work together to bring geospatial solutions to governments when they need it most,” said Kevin Thomas, vice president of marketing for Intermap. “The most exciting aspect of this collaboration is the ability to quickly, easily, and affordably provide local governments with highly accurate and up-to-date terrain models, which enables better overall community planning and preparedness in the event of a crisis.”

The combined ELA efforts provide access to the spatial technology that local governments need with a straightforward three-tiered pricing schedule. The program is designed for governments in the United States that serve populations of 100,000 or less.

For information related to Intermap’s ELA package, contact Karl Johnson at kjohnson@intermap.com or call 1-858-205-8439.

For more information concerning ESRI’s Small Municipal and County Government ELA Program, contact your U.S. regional office (contact information is available at www.esri.com/usalocations) or call 1-800-447-9778.