Digitizing the World with Ecopia's AI-Based Mapping System & Global Partner Network

The world we live in is complex, full of nuances, and constantly evolving. To inform decision-making within this context, governments, enterprises, and humanitarian organizations must have access to high-precision digital information about the physical world. HD Vector Maps can provide this insight - offering a strong foundation to empower data-driven decision-making around the world.

Over the last nine years, Ecopia has built a global reputation as a leading AI-based mapping solution provider. Our advanced capability to generate HD Vector Maps from high-resolution geospatial imagery at-scale has been leveraged by our customers and partners around the world - we have mapped over 40 million square kilometers throughout over 100 countries. Herein we will discuss Ecopia’s unique capabilities for providing a truly universal and industry-leading global feature extraction solution, including some examples of how our AI-based mapping system can overcome a diverse range of terrain complexities present around the world.‍

Need for HD Vector Maps

HD Vector Maps foundational data to support applications such as: 

• Insurance underwriting and risk management
• Transportation engineering
• Stormwater drainage assessments & taxation
• Broadband infrastructure planning & deployment
• Civil engineering and smart city initiatives
• Climate resilience and public infrastructure planning

To be relied upon for critical decision-making, these HD Vector maps must be accurate, up-to-date, and comprehensive. While GIS professionals around the world are capable of generating high-quality maps, this process is often very manual - resulting in time and cost constraints that make the approach unfeasible at a large-scale. As image-capture technology continues to advance, an increasing amount of high-resolution imagery is being captured every day - resulting in the need for more efficient methods to extract structured information from this imagery (methods to generate HD Vector Maps).

Ecopia’s AI-based mapping system is capable of converting this increasing flood of high-resolution geospatial imagery into HD Vector Maps in a cost- and time-effective manner.

Partnering to Offer a Global Solution

In pursuit of our mission to create a digital twin of the earth, Ecopia has built a global partnership network that includes over 30 leading imagery providers around the world. Collaboration with Ecopia AI is a true win-win proposition for our partners - Ecopia offers partners the ability to leverage our AI-based mapping solutions, resulting in: increased capacity to take on more projects, enhanced ability to compete for larger projects, and access to new markets or applications not previously accessible. All this capability translates into more revenue per pixel.

Overcoming Local Challenges

Ecopia’s AI-based mapping system has a unique ability to account for the world’s diverse range of environments and terrains. This adaptable capability has been developed and refined over the course of a decade of international HD Vector Mapping experience. Below are a few examples of where Ecopia’s AI-based mapping system has been successfully deployed in unique environments.

Montpellier, France

Ecopia’s AI-based mapping system is capable of capturing the curvilinear structure unique to European cities, in addition to capturing the individual row houses that are prominent across the Continent (Figure 1).

Ali Sabieh, Djibouti

Although man-made buildings in Europe and North America tend to contrast well against the natural environment - that is not always the case in other regions of the world. Many buildings in these regions are built from materials that share the same colour as their roads and much of the surrounding environment. However, Ecopia’s system is still able to maintain accuracy even in these complex environments (Figure 2).

Brasilia, Brazil

Ecopia is also experienced in creating HD Vector Maps of buildings constructed from a variety of materials, such as the favelas in Brazil (Figure 3) or the inner-city neighbourhoods of India (Figure 4).

Bengaluru, India

Hong Kong

Tall structures can be particularly challenging to interpret from top-down imagery, due to the “lean” which distorts the appearance of the buildings. However, as is demonstrated in the screenshot below (Figure 5), Ecopia’s AI-based mapping systems can overcome these challenges and effectively map the building footprints despite image distortions caused by capture angle or visual obstructions such as trees.

Bristol, England

Ecopia’s AI-based system is capable of inferring the location of buildings in the event of obstructions caused by trees (Figure 6).

Working with Ecopia

Ecopia’s AI-based mapping systems afford the unique ability to generate the highest-accuracy HD Vector Maps at-scale. Our global partnership networks offers geospatial imagery providers the ability to leverage these powerful AI-based mapping systems, deliver more value to their customers, and generate more revenue per pixel.

To learn more about Ecopia’s products and capabilities, request a demo. If you’re interested in learning how to partner, please reach out through the link here - we’d be excited to hear from you.