Blom brings oblique aerial imaging to navigation and LBS

location based services
portable navigation devices

Pictometry on PND and Smartphones
At the Canalys Navigation Forum this week in Barcelona Blom ASA, a listed Norwegian company did a demonstration of its oblique aerial imaging for personal navigation devices, called Pictometry, (see exclusive video below) and announced a first customer, I-Joy S.A., a Spanish PND manufacturer. Blom, which specializes in geographic information databases, was established in 1954 and has subsidiaries in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Poland in addition to approximately 200 people at own production units in Romania and Indonesia. Its expected revenue for 2007 should exceed US$128 million, said the company in its latest financial guidelines. In 2005 Blom signed a 10 years agreement for the marketing and sales of Pictometry in 23 countries throughout Europe. Pictometry, a new digital photo and software technology, was patented in 1993 by a US-based company called Pictometry International. This technology enables the users to view high-resolution digital color images (aerial photographs) of selected areas from optional angles.