ERDAS User Day 2001

ERDAS User Day 2001: A Report
April 23, 2001

Each year, ERDAS hosts a special day that enables the ERDAS user community to meet and exchange ideas and information. This year's ERDAS User Day was held in conjunction with the ASPRS conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The theme for the free, one-day event was entitled, "Your Solution."

Nearly 140 ERDAS, Inc. software users gathered at this year's ERDAS User Day 2001 to witness the unveiling of new and upgraded ERDAS software products, a new and exclusive support program for ERDAS software users, and to learn from fellow ERDAS software users as they featured projects in which they successfully used ERDAS software.

IMAGE: Brian L. Soliday, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Global Products and Services, Space Imaging, speaks at the lunchtime session.

User Day 2001 opened with a fast-paced, dynamic video that featured spectacular and realistic 3D fly-through that rhythmically weaved the ERDAS Solutions story.

The energetic video set the pace for the rest of the day, as ERDAS announced that it would offer ERDAS IMAGINE V8.5 and IMAGINE OrthoBASE Pro in the third quarter, 2001.

ERDAS IMAGINE 8.5 will offer several powerful feature enhancements to the existing ERDAS IMAGINE 8.4, including advanced 3D visualization and scene creation capabilities, new space-saving features using the MrSID compressor (Lizardtech, Inc.), and the standout feature - new upgrades to the mosaicking tool. In addition to the many enhancements that will come with ERDAS IMAGINE 8.5, several add-on modules will be available including a new suite of Spectral Analysis tools, Stereo Analyst® V1.2, and sensor model support for IKONOS stereo imagery.

IMAGINE OrthoBASE Pro is an add-on module for ERDAS IMAGINE 8.5 that automatically extracts DTMs (Digital Terrain Models) from imagery. IMAGINE OrthoBASE Pro is an upgrade to IMAGINE OrthoBAS, a powerful digital photogrammetry system that reduces the time and costs associated with creating ortho-accurate images for a GIS, through increased automation and innovative block triangulation techniques. IMAGINE OrthoBASE Pro is an affordable, production-oriented system designed for GIS professionals who require highly accurate DTMs for hydrology, urban planning, forestry, telecommunications and other GIS analysis.

ERDAS' User Day conference also brought the announcement of the new Professional Services program available to ERDAS software users. Professional Services is a suite of special services designed to ensure that ERDAS customers are successful with their ERDAS software investment. In creating Professional Services, ERDAS will enhance the superior level of services already offered to customers through:

Development - creating specific tools that support the customer's project needs.
Consulting - partnering with the customer to ensure that the software's full potential is utilized.
Education - training the customer to use the software.

During the poster gallery exhibit and reception, Telemorphic, Inc. (Oakland, CA) was recognized as displaying the most creative use of ERDAS IMAGINE. Todd Helt, Telemorphic President, explained that the project demonstrated the many different types of data sets available for St. Louis, Missouri, as well as the company's ability to create compelling image products from geospatial data.

Telemorphic obtained images from NIMA, (St. Louis, MO) and Surdex Corp. (Chesterfield, MO), and used ERDAS IMAGINE to process the data and create custom geographic image merges (15-meter panchromatic and 30-meter multi-spectral Landsat 7 images, merged with .75-meter digital orthophoto data to create colorized, 1-meter data products). The poster also showed how Telemorphic uses ESRI's (Redlands, CA) ArcIMS technology to deploy RS/GIS data on the Internet, as well as Telemorphic's own product, Maplicity, to provide enhanced on-line image analysis functionality, and an intuitive interactive Internet mapping interface to the end-user via standard web-browser clients.

In addition to the announcements and poster gallery, Brian L. Soliday, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Global Products and Services, Space Imaging, was the featured guest speaker at the lunchtime session.

IMAGE: ERDAS software users line up to check-in prior to the annual conference, which drew nearly 140 participants

Contacts:

Press Contact--Not For Publication:
Gayle Ray-Watson
Phone: +1 404-248-9000 ext. 2334
E-mail: gayle.watson@erdas.com

For Publication:
ERDAS
Phone: +1 404-248-9000 or +1 877-GO ERDAS (463-7327)

General Information:
info@erdas.com

ERDAS Inc.
2801 Buford Highway.
Atlanta, Georgia 30329 USA
Phone: +1 404-248-9000, Fax: +1 404-248-9909
Web: www.erdas.com