Pictometry

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Pictometry International is a Rochester, New York-based company that provides detailed aerial photography. Its images are taken at a 40 degree angle using a patented process. Its Electronic Field Study software allows a variety of measurements to be taken directly from the image, including height, distance and area as well as elevation and bearing. Contour lines can be dynamically created by the user. Its images can be overlayed with shapefiles and GIS information can be exported from the images as well.

The oblique photographs shows buildings, infrastructure, land from all sides. Pictometry also shoots directly overhead. In general, this results in much more detail than using satellite photography, because there are multiple perspectives, with overlap resulting in as many as 12 to 30 images of the same location.

The company's most numerous customers are state and local governments, which use images of cities, counties and entire states for such things as planning and development, emergency response (police, fire and 9-1-1) and property assessment. It also has applications in insurance, real estate, AVM, civil engineering, and utilities.^[1]^[2]^[3]

The company estimates that 70% of the U.S. population is covered by a Pictometry image. These images may be licensed by Pictometry directly.