(Heerbrugg and Calgary/ Canada, 11 July 2008) Leica Geosystems and North West Geomatics Ltd. today jointly announced their formal collaboration to develop an enhanced workflow for airborne digital line sensors such as the Leica ADS. The announcement was made at the XXI Congress of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) in Beijing, China. The workflow is being developed to capitalize on the years of experience and market acceptance of Leica’s GPro line sensor workflow and North West’s proprietary ADS Pixelgrammetry workflow. The new workflow, named Leica XPro, expected to be released this fall, will be an enhanced processing system for pushbroom line scanning airborne sensors.

In making this landmark announcement, North West’s Vice President Development, John Welter, stated, “All digital sensors, line scanners or frame type, have traditionally suffered from limitations resulting from their adaptation from the film world. Our Pixelgrammetry development team has been implementing new line scanning processes into our production workflow over the past 3 years.  Now, this effort is being combined with the depth and experience of Leica Geosystems.”

Juergen Dold, Leica Geosystems’ Sr. Vice President Imaging & Scanning stated, “The development of a specifically designed workflow for our ADS product line and other line sensors is essential to our customers.  We are pleased to combine our years of sensor and software experience with North West’s production experience and development efforts. The resultant products will marry these two essential elements into a revolutionary sensor/workflow system.”

Data Processing at the Speed of Flight
The new Leica XPro line sensor workflow is straightforward to implement and easy to use for those familiar with the traditional analog frame processing. Ground processing with Leica XPro covers the whole line sensor workflow - from data download to image generation. Quality control tools can indicate a successful data capture mission at the earliest stage of processing. Direct georeferencing from Leica IPAS Inertial Position & Attitude System is used and further improved by aerial triangulation, simplified to a “black box” level. Leica XPro generates stereo-viewable images or high resolution orthophotos and is designed to deliver extremely quickly with minimal user interaction. The products are ready for further handling by a wide range of digital photogrammetry software packages.

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About North West
North West Geomatics Ltd. is a leading aerial photography and remote sensing firm based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It owns and operates 7 aircraft, including a Lear 25 and 3 Cessna 441 Conquests.  North West conducts aerial photography and LiDAR operations throughout North and South America. In 2006, North West finalized the migration to a completely digital imagery acquisition process employing the latest Leica ADS40-II digital sensor. It is the owner of the largest private ortho imagery database in Canada. This imagery database is Internet distributed through its Valtus Imagery Services subsidiary which serves approximately 100,000 images per day. North West is an ISO9000 registered firm and employs over 50 staff.

Leica Geosystems – when it has to be right
With close to 200 years of pioneering solutions to measure the world, Leica Geosystems products and services are trusted by professionals worldwide to help them capture, analyze, and present spatial information. Leica Geosystems is best known for its broad array of products that capture accurately, model quickly, analyze easily, and visualize and present spatial information. Those who use Leica Geosystems products every day trust them for their dependability, the value they deliver, and the superior customer support. Based in Heerbrugg, Switzerland, Leica Geosystems is a global company with tens of thousands of customers supported by more than 3’500 employees in 28 countries and hundreds of partners located in more than 120 countries around the world. Leica Geosystems is part of the Hexagon Group, Sweden.