Ecopia launches self-service platform for high-precision geospatial data downloads

Ecopia AI, the industry-leading artificial intelligence company that specialises in extracting insight from geospatial big data, has announced the launch of its new online data portal - a self-service platform that provides instant access to high-precision mapping data extracted from geospatial imagery.

Ecopia’s online data portal allows users to browse off-the-shelf datasets, download free samples, and make purchases.

The company claims that the portal enables data professionals across a wide range of industries to browse, purchase, and download detailed land cover and transportation datasets, eliminating traditional bottlenecks associated with sourcing, creating, and maintaining up-to-date geospatial datasets.

Built to support diverse applications across transportation planning, stormwater management, permitting, and more, the platform is said to deliver highly detailed vector data derived from high-resolution geospatial imagery. Users can browse and download features such as impervious surfaces, building footprints, road markings, pedestrian access routes, and other critical infrastructure elements with the speed and flexibility required to keep visualizations, analytics, and decision-making current in a dynamically changing world.

Traditionally, organisations requiring mapping data have been forced to make a tough choice: work with inaccurate and incomplete open data and datasets created from low-quality automated solutions or devote months and years of resources to manually digitizing vector features from imagery themselves.

Ecopia, a spin-off from the University of Waterloo, Canada, has eliminated this trade-off with AI-based mapping systems that automatically extract geospatial features from aerial imagery at scale with >95% geometric accuracy, dramatically reducing production time while delivering consistent, up-to-date data that organizations can rely on.

While Ecopia has provided organizations in the public sector, civil engineering, insurance, and telecommunications industries with high-precision mapping data since 2013, the launch of a self-serve portal reflects Ecopia’s continued focus on making high-quality geospatial data more accessible. Users can now browse Ecopia’s entire off-the-shelf data catalogue, designate an area of interest, and place an order for the exact layers they want within that area. Custom orders can also be placed for locations or features not currently available off-the-shelf.

Select government and AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction ) users have been using a beta version of the platform for the past few months to explore and access data, which includes over 75 individual layers of off-the-shelf land cover and transportation vectors extracted from Nearmap’s North American imagery archive.

Now the launch of the online portal allows any user to request access to begin browsing and purchasing data, as well as download free samples. Data can be downloaded in shapefile, geojson, and drawing exchange format for easy integration with GIS and CAD workflows.

Jon Lipinski, president & co-founder at Ecopia, said: “Access to comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date mapping data is a persistent challenge for many organizations, across all levels of government as well as in the private sector.

“Our online data portal puts high-quality, production-ready data directly in users’ hands when they need it, enabling them to operate more efficiently and make informed decisions with a digital representation of reality.”

The development of this platform was supported in part by the Government of Canada, through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).