PCI Geomatica

PCI Geomatica is a remote sensing desktop software package for processing earth observation data, designed by PCI Geomatics Inc. The latest version of the software is Geomatica 10.3, released in 2010. Geomatica is aimed primarily at raster data processing and allows users to load satellite and aerial imagery where advanced analysis can be performed. Geomatica has been used by many educational institutions and scientific programs throughout the world to analyse satellite imagery and trends, such as the GlobeSAR Program, a program which was carried out by the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing in the 1990s.

A very popular edition of Geomatica is known as Freeview, which permits users to load multiple types of satellite images as well as geospatial data that is stored in different formats. The software is available for download over the web, and has registered several thousands of downloads. CNET Download page for Freeview

Image processing packages

Geomatica is one of several software packages available to the educational, commercial, and military users. Other similar packages include Erdas Imagine, Envi, and SocketSet (or Socket GXP). An independent review of the software and its functionality written by Directions Magazine is included here: http://www.directionsmag.com/articles/product-review-pci146s-geomatica-10/123136. Geomatica has also been compared to Envi and Erdas Imagine as it relates to orthorectification. http://www.isprs.org/proceedings/XXXVII/congress/4_pdf/283.pdf

Educational institutions using Geomatica

Over 2,700 educational institutions worldwide have used Geomatica as part of their Remote Sensing course delivery, some of which are listed here

• University of Calgary, Geomatics Engineering program http://www.ucalgary.ca/it/research/gis/geomatica
• University of New Brunswick, Online Course offered on Radarsat-2 and Polarimetry Online Course @ UNB on Radarsat-2 and Polarimetry
• Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
• British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT)
• Aalto University, Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, http://foto.hut.fi

Open GIS Consortium

Geomatica includes an OGC approved Web Coverage Service (WCS) which is a key area in which PCI Geomatics has contributed. Remote Sensing data providers distribute data in diverse formats, which makes sharing information across many different platforms challenging. WCS seeks to alleviate some of the data sharing challenges by publishing the geographic information and layers openly over the web.

Contributions to open standards

Geomatica adheres to open standards to promote sharing and collaboration of earth observation data. An SDK that makes the PCIDSK file format available to the community is available through the GDAL website here: http://home.gdal.org/projects/pcidsk/