Limitless Uses for Panoramic Images

Visual Databases 

CycloMedia is the Dutch leader in large-scale, systematic visualizations of environments. CycloMedia creates visual databases from public roads using 360° panoramic images known as cycloramas. Every 10 meters a geometrically correct picture is taken by a camera system mounted on the roof of a car. A high-quality positioning system provides the exact geo-reference and orientation for each panoramic image.

The exact geo-reference (location) and orientation allow cycloramas to be easily integrated into GIS systems.

Cycloramas give an immediate view of the surroundings. With a cyclorama you can quickly and easily collect information on surroundings (objects, street furniture): everything situated within the environment.

Cycloramas

A cyclorama is more than just a 360° panoramic image. Due to the geo-referencing component, precise positioning and viewing direction are known. In addition, the images are also geometrically correct, which means the exact location of each pixel within the image is known.  Because of this functionality, it is simple to connect the images to a number of different systems.

Integration into GIS

The exact geo-reference (location) and orientation allow cycloramas to be easily integrated into GIS systems such as those of ESRI and Bentley. The imagery is presented as an extra data layer, enabling the user to see all objects and their environment from a human perspective.

Users and Usage Possibilities

Visual databases are well known in the Netherlands. Municipalities, counties and central government organizations, as well as real estate agencies, insurance companies and construction companies use the images on a daily basis.

The usage possibilities for CycloMedia’s 360º panoramic images are diverse. More and more companies are asking for visual information in various work processes. The user instantly gets a complete and realistic visualization of the area of interest on his computer.

Some examples: taking stock of public green space and the environment, visual support for the valuation of real estate and (building) license applications, formulating development plans, assessing insurance applications and estimating insurance risks.

Benefits

The recording vehicle captures geometrically correct 360º panoramic images at 5-meter intervals at high speeds.

In-house Development of Technology

The technology is an in-house development, which makes CycloMedia unique. Our technology is a spinoff from research that began in the early eighties at Delft University of Technology. Current state-of-the-art technology for geometrically correct imagery requires the recording vehicle to stop at each recording location. We are, however, on the verge of releasing a revolutionary new system that allows the recording vehicle to capture geometrically correct 360º panoramic images at five-meter intervals at high speeds. This technological breakthrough, called DCR (Digital Cyclorama Recorder) 7, has patents pending worldwide.

Using DCR7, CycloMedia will record cycloramas more efficiently and with better geo-referencing, allowing customers to benefit from the visual information they need much more quickly than ever before. DCR 7 not only offers efficiency and productivity advantages, but also contributes to traffic safety: by moving with normal traffic it is now possible to make recordings of places which could not be visualized before, such as state roads and highways. This revolutionary system will be released in early 2008.

International Expansion

CycloMedia will have visualized the whole of the Netherlands by the end of October 2007. A yearly update cycle guarantees that the image database is always up to date.

CycloMedia has also been used to visually capture cities in Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates this year. In 2008 the company will open branch offices in at least four countries, allowing complete visual databases to be created for these countries. It will also be operating in 10 additional countries on a project basis.

By expanding internationally, CycloMedia has introduced 360° panoramic image databases as an alternative or supplementary source of information to the much more familiar aerial pictures and laser scanning data.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Ghent, Belgium

Caroline Mönking-van Hasselt (info@cyclomedia.com) is Communication Manager at Cyclomedia. For additional information: www.cyclomedia.com.