Pixxures provides diverse digital satellite mapping

ARVADA — If a picture is worth a thousand words, the image library at Pixxures may be priceless. With more than 30 terabytes of imagery available through its Internet portal, the Arvada-based company has become one of the largest providers of digital mapping data in the world. That isn’t bad for a company less than two years old.

?This company started with an idea that was too good not to pursue,? said Brian Webster, president and chief executive officer of Pixxures (www.pixxures.com). That idea evolved into the pixMap software, the core of Pixxures’ business. The software allows for the processing of aerial or digital satellite photography into pixels. It then moves those pixels to their correct location on the photograph, correcting for inaccuracies in topography, curvature of the Warth, and other potential errors. The final product is called an orthoimage.

?When we finish processing a photo in the pixMap process, we end up with something that can be used for measurements as would a map, to very high levels of accuracy,? said Webster. It also allows for very broad applications by such diverse industries as state and federal government, oil and gas, and insurance and telecommunications. Whether it’s a city doing emergency planning or an oil company that needs to integrate 300 layers of data onto an image, Pixxures can help.

This process has traditionally been done by a more expensive and time-consuming process that took an average of one year from the time the film was produced. Pixxures has dramatically reduced the time and cost of projects, which has allowed the company to pursue a number of extremely large contracts.

?Owning our own software gives us the ability to go after projects that we would consider non-traditional mapping projects,? said Webster of his company’s strategy. ?We can do the orthoimage for a customer, but we can also do the services they need after they have the image. There’s more value in the downstream business than there is in the orthoimage to begin with.

?Because we have our proprietary technology, we’ve been able to perform some unique approaches to very beefy state and federal contracts that are likely to lead to enormous revenue streams down the road,? said Webster.

The other element that separates Pixxures from the competition is the robust Internet platform it uses to serve data to clients. Shortly after its first round of financing closed, Pixxures purchased Boyd Geomatics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which added a significant piece to the picture. Boyd had built, on demand from customers, a significant data delivery system using the Internet as a channel.

?They had a great capability but a limited market, and they needed to get into the United States,? said Webster. ?We had the content generation capability with pixMap, but we needed the online channel. It was a perfect match.? Portal subscriptions to the online library now generate a significant portion of the company’s revenue.

Following its first round of $8.1 million in financing, Pixxures has partnered with some of the biggest names in the mapping industry such as Kodak, ESRI and the United States Geological Survey, and is quickly creating international partnerships as well. With $5 million in revenue during its first full year, Pixxures is on track to double its revenue as well as its size in the next year.

?There is more mapping involved in this universe than anyone is aware of,? said Webster. ?I think there is a growing appreciation worldwide of the importance of mapping not only for mapping professionals but in industry as a whole. That’s the kernel that is driving the growth of our business.?

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