Aerial mapping company Bluesky is working with Dutch company Cyclomedia to bring together imagery and height data, captured from the air and at street level, to fuel virtual city applications in the UK.

Cyclomedia captures and processes around 600,000km of 360-degree panoramic street level images and lidar data worldwide, the equivalent to 30 million recordings a year. Enhanced by artificial intelligence powered analytics, these data provide large scale systematic visualisations of physical environments, using technology from moving vehicles.

Using its hybrid airborne sensors, UK-based Bluesky has already flown many cities. Simultaneously capturing high-resolution oblique and vertical aerial photography together with accurate lidar data, these Bluesky MetroVista products can provide large area aerial context for Cyclomedia’s street level detail.

“By bringing together two best of breed solutions in a single platform, we are ever closer to fulfilling the growing demand for true virtual cities available from the desktop,” said Rachel Tidmarsh, managing director of Bluesky. “Cyclomedia has been a pioneer in the field of mobile mapping for 40 years and has completed projects around the world so was a perfect fit for Bluesky.”

Bluesky provides a range of aerial imaging and remote sensing collection and processing services and has current, high-resolution, full coverage of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, which it maintains on a rolling, three-year update cycle. Bluesky has also upgraded its national flying programme to a minimum 12.5cm resolution with urban areas now being captured at 5cm resolution simultaneously with lidar and oblique imagery.

“Working with Bluesky we can ensure that users are getting the best of both worlds,” said Duncan Guthrie, vice president at Cyclomedia. “We now have city-wide coverages achieved through aerial acquisition complementing street-level fidelity from our vehicle mounted sensors. Accessible through a single platform, this will enhance a host of customer applications that require up-to-date, accurate, photo-realistic 3D city models.”