Pima Association of Governments Selects Ecopia AI to Provide High-Precision Mapping Data for Regional Orthophoto Feature Extraction Project

September 23, 2024 -- Toronto -- Ecopia AI (Ecopia) today announces the company was selected by the Pima Association of Governments (PAG) to extract high-precision mapping data from imagery to support carbon reduction, active transportation, and multimodal planning goals. 

Funded through the Carbon Reduction Program (CRP), PAG’s Orthophoto Feature Extraction Project aims to produce comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date mapping data across the greater Tucson region. This data will be used to advance community planning and sustainability initiatives with carbon reduction benefits, such as active transportation planning efforts that expand safe access and connectivity across the region using bicycle and pedestrian routes. 

Upon completion, the Ecopia data will be used by consultants from Alta Planning + Design to perform geospatial analytics related to active transportation planning and carbon reduction. The insights derived from this analysis will then inform the development of PAG’s Regional Active Transportation Plan, a project supported by consultants from Kimley-Horn. For example, the data provided by Ecopia will power gap analyses of existing active transportation infrastructure and serve as a guide for future investments and improvements. Among other applications of this data are understanding the impact of tree canopy and shade on pedestrian comfort, measuring the level of traffic stress for existing active transportation users, and overall connectivity between the region’s different transportation modes, such as from bus stops to the walk to work.

To create this data, Ecopia’s AI-based mapping systems will extract planimetric-level vector layers from 6-inch resolution orthoimagery covering an area of 1,408 square miles in urban, eastern Pima County. This area of interest includes the densely developed areas of Tucson, South Tucson, and the Pasqua Yaqui Tribe. Also included in the project area are the surrounding towns of Sahuarita, Oro Valley, and Marana, as well as the Tohono O’odham Nation’s San Xavier District, and several urbanized areas surrounding cities and towns in unincorporated Pima County. 

Traditional geospatial data creation methods across such an expansive area of interest would require trained geographic information systems (GIS) professionals to devote months to manual digitization, a resource-intensive process that involves digitally tracing individual map features from aerial images. Ecopia’s AI-powered technology efficiently extracts map features with the accuracy of a trained GIS professional but in much shorter timelines. This efficiency ensures PAG will have mapping data that truly reflects real-world conditions as landscapes rapidly change, providing a source of truth for planning and sustainability decision-making.

In just a matter of weeks, Ecopia’s AI-based systems will extract the following features across the Orthophoto Feature Extraction project area as centerlines and/or polygons for full coverage of the project area:

• Arrow pavement markings and message bounding boxes
• Bareland
• Bridges (2D and 3D)
• Buildings (2D and 3D)
• Crosswalk centerlines (standard, continental, ladder, and other)
• Driveways (paved and unpaved)
• Grass
• Intersections (uncontrolled, stop controlled, and signal controlled)
• Lane centerlines (shoulder, middle, slip, through, left, right, and bike)
• Medians (painted,paved, and pervious)
• Parking areas (paved, unpaved, and street)
• Paths (paved and unpaved)
• Pavement
• Railways (traditional and street car)
• River washes
• Road centerlines
• Roads (paved and unpaved)
• Shrubs
• Sidewalk centerlines
• Sidewalks (paved and unpaved)
• Solar panels
• Stop lines
• Swimming pools
• Tree canopy (2D overlapping polygons and 3D)
• Truncated domes for ADA compliance at crosswalks
• Yield lines

A sample of data in the City of Tucson extracted by Ecopia to help drive the project mapping requirements can be seen below:

Stakeholders provided feedback on the features needed and will be offered a quality control platform to review the data. Feedback thus far has revealed excitement for many urban planning uses.

This data will also be made available to PAG partners. Stakeholders may also view the data through the Arizona Sun Cloud, an open data portal launched in 2023 for the Sun Corridor megaregion. From a previous project, Ecopia median, sidewalk, and bike lane data is currently available for the entire Sun Corridor megaregion via the Sun Cloud Explorer.  

“Partnering with Ecopia has enabled us to efficiently develop an authoritative database of critical land cover and infrastructure across the greater Tucson region,” said Mead Mier-Welborn, Planning Manager at Pima Association of Governments. “Ecopia’s AI-based systems are able to produce the data we need at an unprecedented scale, empowering PAG to meet our project timelines while providing critical insights for our Regional Active Transportation Plan that will improve the accessibility, safety, and usability of our bicycle and pedestrian networks.”

“Ecopia is excited to continue our collaboration with PAG through the Orthophoto Feature Extraction project,” said Sean Lowery, Senior Director of Business and Product Development at Ecopia. “Our AI-based systems are building the foundation for digital twins across the country, and it’s great to see how PAG is leveraging this technology to advance important initiatives related to carbon reduction and active transportation planning.”

For more information on Ecopia, click here. To view our HD map samples, click here.

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About the Pima Association of Governments (PAG)
PAG is a federally required and state-designated metropolitan planning organization (MPO) serving greater Tucson, Ariz. Representing local governments in the region, PAG secures federal funding for transportation improvements through long-range planning activities and short-range transportation improvement programming. PAG is also federally designated to conduct regional air quality, water quality and solid waste planning. PAG is governed by a nine-member Regional Council, made up of the chief elected or appointed official from each of the member governments: Pima County, Tucson, South Tucson, Marana, Oro Valley, Sahuarita, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and Tohono O’odham Nation, and the Arizona State Transportation Board. These governments pool resources and provide the best data possible for leaders to make regionally collaborative decisions that support economic vitality in the region for years to come. Learn more at pagregion.com

About Ecopia AI
Ecopia is on a mission to create a digital twin of the Earth. We leverage artificial intelligence to convert high-resolution imagery into high-definition (HD) vector maps. These maps form a digital representation of reality and are embedded into decision-making applications, offering unique insight at scale. Ecopia’s HD vector maps are leveraged for hundreds of commercial and government applications across over 100 countries around the world.