Washington - US satellite imagery provider DigitalGlobe and Sweden’s Saab yesterday announced a new joint venture aimed at building an accurate 3-D model of the earth and capturing billions of dollars in new business.
Tony Frazier, senior vice president at DigitalGlobe, said the two companies had been working together for two years, but were now creating a separate US-based venture, Vricon, to accelerate the work and team up on distribution.
“We feel this is a multibillion-dollar opportunity,” Frazier said, noting the venture would initially focus on customers in the defence, security and infrastructure markets. “We’re going to literally produce the entire globe at unmatched accuracy.” Frazier said the new venture would use Saab’s 3-D computer processing technology and DigitalGlobe’s vast archive of billions of square kilometres of high-quality satellite imagery to create realistic 3-D models of huge parts of the globe.
The US military has long used 3-D modelling and aerial imagery for planning tactical missions, but the work often relied on classified data and focused on smaller areas.
Vricon will produce quicker models that can be more easily shared with allies and others, since they are based on commercial imagery. The move will further expand the US footprint of Saab, which is already teamed with Boeing to compete for a new US Air Force training plane.
Reuters