Evergreen, Colo. (March 18, 2008) — National Geographic Maps, a leader in topographic map data, and i-cubed, a renowned provider of imagery solutions, announced today an agreement to provide National Geographic’s TOPO! maps and i-cubed’s domestic aerial imagery (USA Nationwide Prime) through i-cubed’s DataDoors imagery services. The agreement signals an important fusion of high-quality topographic maps with one of the world’s most comprehensive and efficient delivery systems.
By way of the National Geographic DataDoors portal (www.natgeodatadoors.com), customers can select the exact area of coverage they want and order National Geographic’s TOPO! maps and i-cubed’s USA Nationwide Prime Imagery on CD-ROM or removable hard drives, or as a download. National Geographic Maps has scanned over 58,000 United States Geological Survey (USGS) quadrangles, color corrected them to create a consistent look and created a seamless map that spans all 50 U.S. states.
The TOPO! map data is available at 1:24,000 scale in the continental United States and Hawaii, 1:63,360 scale in Alaska, and 1:100,000 scale in the continental United States. Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data is also available to help visualize vertical terrain and conduct spatial analysis and modeling.
DataDoors offers TOPO! maps with i-cubed’s USA Nationwide Prime Collection, which is a best-in-class domestic satellite and aerial imagery source. The USA Nationwide Prime Collection provides 1-meter resolution or better and is color-balanced and optimized for continuous coverage. Offering National Geographic TOPO! maps with the USA Nationwide Prime Collection library provides a one-stop resource for high-quality topographic and aerial imagery for analysis, research and reports for land planners, developers, land management agencies, surveyors, utilities and energy firms, homeland defense, emergency response teams, firefighters, realtors and environmental firms.
DataDoors delivers TOPO! maps and i-cubed imagery in many open formats, including TIF, JPEG, SID and ECW, and supports the selection of projection and data.
“We’re now able to deliver National Geographic TOPO! data to the professional GIS and non-GIS user communities within a self-serve, easy-to-use and economical Web portal,” said David Wright, director of professional products for National Geographic Maps. “Users can select their defined area of interest and quickly get the maps and imagery they need in the format they want. This application can generate massive single-image rasters, or user-defined tile structures to create raster catalogs, or even cached tile services for use in ESRI’s ArcGIS Server."
“We are very pleased to be working with National Geographic Maps to deliver topographic maps through DataDoors,” said Russ Cowart, president of i-cubed. “National Geographic TOPO! maps are a perfect match for our USA Prime Collection as they are also widely recognized as best-in-class. This gives our customers a common access point for both maps and imagery in a way that they’ve never been able to get. Whether they want a small area, or all 50 states, our users can now have all the imagery they need in one place.”
Along with the on-demand maps and convenience of customized DataDoors for National Geographic TOPO! maps, i-cubed and National Geographic can now offer seamless TOPO! data “map streaming” for TOPO! maps. This new service is commercially available to organizations wishing to provide hill-shaded topographic imagery online and to add the value of National Geographic TOPO! maps to their Web sites and map applications.
About i-cubed
i-cubed is a geoprocessing service organization that offers complete business solutions based on information and geodata derived from air photos, satellite imagery and other sources of geographic information. Its impressive client base includes many of the world’s largest wireless telecommunications companies, and industry leaders in environmental engineering, land and natural resource management, agriculture and visual simulation applications as well as several progressive government agencies. For more information, visit www.i3.com.
About National Geographic Maps
National Geographic Maps was established as a division of the National Geographic Society in 1915 and has been producing maps for National Geographic magazine and other Society media for more than 90 years.
National Geographic Maps’ professional solutions include TOPO! for ArcGIS, TOPO! data, and Meta Lens, a web-based Geospatial Digital Asset Management solution. National Geographic Maps also produces TOPO! outdoor recreation mapping software, Trails Illustrated maps and Trails Illustrated Explorer 3D software, globes, wall maps, reference maps, state maps, city and recreational destination maps and atlases. For more information, visit www.natgeomaps.com.