ATLANTA, GEORGIA, USA - ERDAS, Inc., a strategic business partner of Space Imaging, Inc. (Thornton, CO), announces that Stereo Analyst, the new Windows-based 3-D feature collection and stereo viewing tool for desktop GIS applications, fully supports the display and manipulation of 8- and 11-bit IKONOS stereo image pairs.

“Stereo Analyst provides direct access to IKONOS stereo image data,” said Mladen Stojic, photogrammetric products manager for ERDAS. “Through the use of DLLs [dynamically linked libraries], users can bypass the import step and open a set of stereo pairs with the click of a button.”

Stereo Analyst is the first practical 3-D GIS collection tool that offers a simplified user interface that minimizes the confusion often associated with digital photogrammetry techniques. Semi-automated and automated procedures for feature collection and attribution of spatial and non-spatial information, speed the collection and interpretation process in a desktop GIS environment. The software enables users to simultaneously edit and update a 2-D GIS, with 3-D geographic information derived from high-resolution imagery such as IKONOS stereo image pairs, thereby significantly increasing the accuracy of the information contained within a GIS.

The support of IKONOS stereo imagery is another in a series of technology collaborations between ERDAS and Space Imaging, that began with the integration of ERDAS IMAGINE software into Space Imaging’s CARTERRA Analyst product, to combine GIS, remote sensing, imagery analysis, photogrammetry, and cartography tools, into a single workstation. Recently, Space Imaging incorporated ERDAS’ new free viewer, ViewFinder, into their image data products to support rapid viewing and reprojection on the fly of IKONOS imagery. In October of 1999, ERDAS IMAGINE software was used to process and display the first image collected by IKONOS, following its launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA, on September 24, 1999.

Stereo Analyst is designed to run as a stand-alone product, yet it easily integrates into ERDAS IMAGINE and ArcView GIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA) workflows. Stereo Analyst is suited to a range of GIS and mapping applications and is highly complementary to IMAGINE OrthoBASE and IMAGINE VirtualGIS. For more information about Stereo Analyst and other geographic imaging solutions from ERDAS, contact (tel.: +1 404-248-9000, toll free: +1 877-GO ERDAS (463-7327), or visit www.erdas.com ).