[SatNews] When government agencies come calling for timely assistance via a firm's developed product, new — and perhaps unexpected — revenue streams result.

PCI Geomatics joins such a list of companies as they have now been awarded a contract valued at more than $520,000 (CAD) through the Canadian Space Agency's Earth Observation Applications Development Program (EOADP). PCI fulfillment of the contract – which is based upon its GeoImaging Accelerator (GXL) product – has two main objectives. The first is in assisting Parks Canada in meeting its Ecological Integrity initiatives as mandated under the New Parks Act of 2002. The second objective is developing advanced and innovative methodologies, systems, and products for Parks Canada and Environment Canada to increase their use of RADARSAT-2 data to transition its usage into Government of Canada operations and to support the RADARSAT-2 user community at large. This contract allows PCI to build on its existing commercial software by adding the newest leading-edge algorithms and methodologies, including an Image Management System to discover, load, submit, and track processing through an intuitive web based interface. Monitoring Canadian parks will be achieved through the repeat collection and processing of RADARSAT-2 imagery to extract information such as water extents, Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), as well as ice conditions. The project will also provide a new generation of software capabilities, leveraging recent advances in high-speed computing hardware for automating synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite image correction, storage, and information extraction in an ESRI ArcGIS-compatible format.