SpatialNews Press Release

IN THE PIPELINE - SATELLITES WILL CHECK GAS TRANSMISSION INFRASTRUCTURE FROM SPACE

www.definiens.com

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DEFINIENS eCOGNITION WAS SELECTED FOR PROJECT FEATURE RECOGNITION

Munich, Loughborough (UK), December 01. Definiens Imaging GmbH, leading supplier of object oriented Image Analysis Technologies announces, that its innovative eCognition technology was selected for feature recognition within the European Commission PRESENSE project.

A 4 million Euro, remote sensing, pipeline monitoring project, headed by Advantica Technologies Ltd and the European Gas Research Group GERG with 17 collaborating partners, has gained approval for funding from the European Commission 5th Framework Research and Technology Development programme, FP5.

PRESENSE - Pipeline REmote SENsing for Safety and the Environment - aims to further improve the safe and secure transmission of gas in Europe's extensive high pressure gas mains transmission systems, by assessing the potential benefits of remote monitoring techniques and processes.

The project will involve the development of mathematical modelling software, image processing software and the evaluation of detector instrumentation. A satellite remote monitoring system will beam images to earth from satellites in space, mapping the route of a pipeline and identifying key threats to pipeline safety and security.

Definiens Imaging will coordinate the "feature recognition" workpackage in this project and will use its innovative object oriented eCognition technology to automatically find potential targets, which might compromise pipeline security.

eCognition has been selected due to its unparalleled capabilities to fuse vector and raster information, to identify objects and to put these objects into a spatial context.

"We are excited to provide eCognition to the PRESENSE Consortium and being selected as a key technology provider in this project" says Gunter Schreier, Definiens´ Vice President. "Beyond the standard environmental applications of earth observation, the new series of high resolution satellites open new opportunities for monitoring facilities; and eCognition is ready to support this" he adds.

Russ Pride, project manager, at Advantica, says: "Current pipeline monitoring is undertaken routinely using a number of techniques, the most common being "flying-the-line" in helicopters or fixed wing aircraft with trained observers on board. This happens with regular frequency but is expensive and has the inherent safety concerns of all helicopter flights."

PRESENSE brings together several of the major European gas utilities and expertise from a number of the European space research agencies, together with organisations with specialist capabilities in information computing technologies such as image analysis, data management and dissemination. This provides a unique forum where new approaches to pipeline monitoring and the resulting benefits can be fully explored.

The two and a half year programme will commence on the 1st January 2002. Several of the partners will provide state-of-the-art monitoring equipment that will be flown over pipeline test sites to assess the performance of new techniques and the processing of multi-sensor data sets.

Results will be compared with imagery collected from current satellite instrumentation to enable the technology limits of the various approaches to be compared. The pipeline operator companies will provide access to their pipeline right-of-ways and will develop models for the risk and cost benefits of the various approaches considered.

"By the end of the project, we are confident that we'll be able to demonstrate the capabilities of remote monitoring from space and the huge benefits of the system for the European gas utilities as compared to current methods of network monitoring," concludes Russ Pride.

About eCognition:

eCognition software provides object oriented multi-scale satellite image analysis capabilities, and classifies an image based on attributes of the image objects rather than on the attributes of individual pixels. This classification process allows users to collect a large range of statistical parameters and detailed information from any Earth-observation data and any raster or vector based information tailored specifically to their information needs. Definiens just released its new eCognition 2.0.

About Definiens Imaging GmbH: www.definiens-imaging.com

Definiens Imaging GmbH was established in 2001 and incorporates all Geomatics and Imaging technologies and products of Definiens AG (www.definiens.com). Definiens AG evolved in September 2000 from Delphi2 Creative Technologies GmbH. The company was founded in 1994 by Nobel Laureate Professor Gerd Binnig and science journalist Dieter Herold. Definiens AG develops decentralized communication platforms as well as software for knowledge management and image analysis. Definiens AG's solutions are based on the "Cognition Network" model invented by Prof. Dr. Gerd Binnig and his team. The "Cognition Network" uses technology that closely emulates human thought patterns. Scientific activities are coordinated by Prof. Dr. Gerd Binnig. Business activities are run by Thomas D. Grevel. Definiens AG and Definiens Imaging GmbH are based in Munich, Germany. eCognition was awarded the European Information Society Technology prize in 2001.

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