Frederick, MD and Toronto, ON – January 20, 2010 – Fugro EarthData and ESRI Canada today announced a strategic partnership and global distribution agreement that will allow Fugro EarthData to deliver PurVIEW worldwide.  PurVIEW is a powerful stereoscopic image viewing and feature extraction extension for ESRI ArcGIS, the world’s leading geographic information system (GIS) technology.

“This partnership is significant because it marks the first global distribution agreement for PurVIEW,” said Alex Miller, President, ESRI Canada.  “Fugro EarthData’s broad industry expertise and strong international presence will help expand our coverage and enable us to provide more customers with the superior image viewing environment PurVIEW delivers.”

Headquartered in Maryland, USA, Fugro EarthData has provided remote sensing, mapping and GIS services to public and private sector organizations worldwide for more than 50 years.  Through its partnership with ESRI Canada, Fugro EarthData will offer PurVIEW as part of its exclusive GeoSAR mapping solution that delivers high-accuracy topographic mapping through clouds and dense vegetation.

“PurVIEW is an excellent addition to our offerings,” said Ed Saade, President of Fugro EarthData.  “With its powerful 3D capabilities for capturing, viewing and editing geospatial information from GeoSAR data, our customers will benefit from enhanced data quality and a more reliable and effective GIS.”

PurVIEW transforms ArcGIS Desktop into a precise stereo-viewing environment, where geodatabase feature objects can be superimposed with terrain data to reveal natural changes in data or mapping errors and omissions.  The extension simplifies the process of extracting features and reduces the cost of editing data.  It also eliminates the need for an external imaging engine or photogrammetric interface, as it interacts directly with the geodatabase, digital elevation models and georeferenced imagery data.  By integrating stereoscopic viewing in ArcGIS, users can create a rich environment for various GIS applications including environmental assessments, facility management and earth sciences.

PurVIEW is developed by I.S.M. International Systemap Corp. and marketed globally through ESRI Canada.  For more information about PurVIEW, visit esricanada.com/purview.   

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About Fugro EarthData
Fugro EarthData is a global remote sensing, mapping and GIS services organization that provides customized products and solutions to support a wide range of land-use and natural resource management activities.  Equipped with state-of-the-art technologies, Fugro EarthData collects and transforms information about the earth's surface into spatially accurate mapping and GIS products for use in GIS, engineering design and other land and information management environments.  For more information, visit: www.fugroearthdata.com.

Fugro EartData is a member of the Fugro group of companies. Fugro is listed on Euronext Amsterdam and is included in the AEX-index. Fugro has about 13,500 employees in more than fifty countries. For more information visit www.fugro.com

About ESRI Canada
Founded in 1984, ESRI Canada provides enterprise geographic information system (GIS) solutions that empower businesses, governments and educational institutions to make timely, informed and mission critical decisions by leveraging the power of geography.  The company distributes the world's leading GIS software from ESRI, Telvent Miner & Miner, Azteca Systems and other technology partners.  Headquartered in Toronto, the company serves over 10,000 customers from 16 regional offices across Canada. Information about ESRI Canada can be found at esricanada.com.   

Media contacts:
Joy Chan
PR Specialist
ESRI Canada
+1 (416) 386-6488
Email Contact
www.esricanada.com  

Louis Demargne
VP, Marketing
Fugro EarthData, Inc.
+1 (301) 948-8550
Email Contact
www.geosar.com