Lakewood, Colo., 3 August 2009 – WhiteStar Corp., a supplier of cartographic data products and services to energy and natural resource industries, has introduced the WhiteStar 10-Meter DEM, the first enterprise digital elevation database delivered in ArcSDE format. The WhiteStar 10-Meter DEM may be purchased as a nationwide product or as individual state or county files.
WhiteStar developed the enterprise 10-Meter DEM product by processing the entire USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) and converting it into the ESRI ArcSDE format, which enables users to make the GIS-compatible elevation data available across their enterprise via the Internet or intranet. The NED is the primary elevation dataset produced by the U.S. Geological Survey at 10-meter resolution.
In the past, energy companies and mapping organizations had to download the thousands of individual NED tiles from the USGS website and assemble them to cover their specific project areas. Due to the enormous size of the files, this was an extremely time-intensive and expensive task for even the most sophisticated users of geospatial technology.
“The two benefits of the WhiteStar 10-Meter DEM product are time-savings and enterprise accessibility,” said WhiteStar CEO Robert White. “We’ve done all the data downloading and processing so that NED users can load the dataset into their GIS and have it ready to serve to their enterprise in a matter of hours, not months.”
WhiteStar developed the 10-Meter DEM product in response to client demand for easier access to high resolution elevation data that is required to improve the accuracy of many types of terrain mapping projects. WhiteStar has already received enthusiastic feedback on the new offering from wind energy companies, which use the terrain data to select the optimal locations for wind turbines. Oil & gas producers rely on elevation data in nearly all of their projects, ranging from seismic surveying and logistics planning to well head mapping and pipeline management.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (ned.usgs.gov), the NED serves as the elevation layer of The National Map and provides basic elevation information for earth science studies and mapping applications in the United States. Scientists and resource managers use NED data for global change research, hydrologic modeling, resource monitoring, mapping and visualization, and many other applications. USGS derives NED from several sources of geospatial information.
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.