Lakewood, Colo., 19 February 2009 – WhiteStar Corp., a supplier of cartographic data products and services to energy and natural resource industries, has introduced WhiteStar OPUS, a turn-key hardware/software solution that provides immediate enterprise access to 18 terabytes of pre-rendered geospatial data. Cached map data includes four WhiteStar Enterprise data sets.
WhiteStar OPUS was developed to meet the enterprise mapping needs of oil & gas, forestry, utility, pipeline and alternate energy companies with assets and operations across the country or around the world. WhiteStar will unveil OPUS at the ESRI Petroleum Users Group (PUG) Conference being held Feb. 23-25 in Houston.
“The main benefit of WhiteStar OPUS is the speed with which it allows enterprise users to make maps containing a variety of feature layers,” said WhiteStar CEO Robert White. “It’s the ideal collaboration tool when multiple departments need to be involved in creating mash-up maps, performing joint geospatial analysis or sharing applications.”
WhiteStar developed OPUS on top of the ESRI ArcGIS Data Appliance Server Bundle, which is a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device pre-loaded with a variety of worldwide best-of-breed geospatial data sets. Designed to plug into existing IT or GIS infrastructure, the appliance has powerful data fusion and viewing software that makes accessing data layers as simple as clicking on a shapefile. It automatically generates the data layers selected by the user in their choice of scale.
“WhiteStar OPUS generates maps in a matter of seconds because every geospatial data set is pre-cached in up to 12 map scales that can be accessed instantly with no rendering time,” said White. “With OPUS, end users just need Internet access to their enterprise server, and they can quickly build sophisticated maps from anywhere in the world.”
In creating OPUS, WhiteStar has augmented the ArcGIS Data Appliance with several WhiteStar Enterprise data layers including Unlimited Grid Access (UGA), Unlimited Well Access (UWA), Unlimited Pipeline Access, and Unlimited DEM Access. These layers are rectified with the core data sets offered in the appliance by ESRI – nationwide and worldwide transportation layers, raster imagery, topographic maps, shaded relief maps, elevation data, place names, and administrative boundaries.
WhiteStar offers a subscription support service for OPUS that provides quarterly updates to all of the WhiteStar data sets. This eliminates data updating issues for the enterprise user and makes WhiteStar OPUS a maintenance-free mapping solution.
The four WhiteStar Enterprise data layers included in OPUS are:
• Enterprise Grid based on the U.S. Public Land Survey data in the WhiteStar Unlimited Grid Access (UGA) product,
• Enterprise Wells including all U.S. oil and gas well locations from the WhiteStar Unlimited Well Access (UWA) product,
• Enterprise DEMs (Digital Elevation Models) created from the latest available 10-meter USGS data, converted to SDE format.
• Enterprise Pipelines including U.S. natural gas, crude, and refined product pipelines.
For a demo of WhiteStar OPUS in action, visit Booth 314 at the ESRI PUG Conference next week in Houston.
About WhiteStar Corp.
Headquartered in Lakewood, Colorado, WhiteStar Corp. has supplied digital cartographic data products, services and consulting since 1990 to the oil and gas, pipeline, natural resource, and engineering industries. As a purveyor of geospatial data products, WhiteStar takes a customized approach to every implementation project. The WhiteStar client base now includes more than 1600 companies ranging in size from local consulting firms to integrated multi-national corporations. Learn more at www.whitestar.com.