LizardTech Inc Information

LizardTech Information

Company Profile

Since 1992, LizardTech has brought highly efficient image compression solutions to mainstream businesses and government agencies based on technologies created by the world's leading research organizations, including Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and AT&T Labs. The company pioneered MrSID (Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database), a powerful wavelet-based image encoder, viewer and file format designed specifically for geospatial professionals to enable portability of massive imagery without compromising image quality.

With the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as one of the early adaptors, government agencies such as National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), have since embraced the MrSID format. Quickly adopted by the geospatial community, MrSID became the de facto standard for creating, viewing and publishing geospatial imagery. It is now supported by more than 300 GIS applications including those of leaders such as ESRI, Leica Geosystems, Autodesk and Intergraph.

Pioneering Wavelet-Based Imaging Technologies
GeoExpress software, LizardTech's flagship product, which originally leveraged the MrSID technology and now also supports the ISO standard JPEG 2000 technology, is relied on by government agencies, utilities, oil and gas, mapping data providers, and state and local municipalities around the globe who make critical decisions involving everything from optimizing agriculture yields to national security.

A leader in wavelet image compression technologies and the first company to offer a commercial wavelet-based image compression product, LizardTech sits on the Technical Committee of the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) and has been a chief contributor in extending the capabilities of JPEG 2000 to geospatial applications. The lack of a geospatial metadata standard has meant that applications and viewers may or may not be able to read geospatial metadata in JPEG 2000 files. Together with Galdos Systems, also an OGC member, LizardTech developed a geography markup language (GML) implementation of JPEG 2000 that was ratified by the OGC in February 2006. Called GMLJP2, this implementation furthers the interoperability of JPEG 2000 as a geospatial image format and help customers disseminate and maximize return on investment from geospatial imagery by providing a consistent, vendor-independent image format.

Making Geospatial Imagery More Manageable
Compression to MrSID or JPEG 2000 format enables instantaneous viewing and manipulation of massive imagery locally and over networks while preserving the high resolution that gives images their value.

With typical compression ratios between 2:1 and 50:1, bandwidth costs and electronic storage requirements are greatly reduced without compromising the visual integrity of the original image.

LizardTech provides a complete suite of software solutions that simplify the management, distribution, access and viewing of digital imagery such as aerial photography and satellite imagery.

Delivering Information Where It's Needed
To quickly and efficiently distribute massive datasets of raster imagery in MrSID and JPEG 2000, LizardTech introduced an add-on application for Web servers called Express Server. Express Server can be configured to distribute imagery via open standards such as the Open Geospatial Consortium's Web Mapping Service (WMS) protocols; via plug-ins for proprietary applications such as ArcIMS; or via a Web interface for use with standard browsers or customized viewing applications. Express Server delivers user-defined image data catalogs to any device over any connection, so whether you're in the office or out in the field, you can view your raster datasets quickly and easily.

Facilitating Better Geospatial Workflows
With the introduction of Spatial Express, LizardTech made it possible to store MrSID and JPEG 2000 images natively in an Oracle Spatial database, not only reducing the storage requirements for massive geospatial imagery but also making raster data available to users of mapping and other GIS applications in the same way as vector data.

LizardTech's range of geospatial imaging solutions gives organizations immediate access to their geospatial images, whether locally or over networks - even in the field. All products use highly efficient image compression technology to reduce storage requirements and bandwidth costs without compromising the visual integrity of original images.