3d-mapping
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The Map Is Only the Beginning
GreenValley International sells scanners that see a landscape in millions of points. Its more interesting business begins when those points become a warning about a tree, a measurement of a mine, or a plan for a road.
Nearmap’s billion-dollar view of your roof
The Australian company turned repeat aerial photography into a subscription business. Now it is following the insurance claim from the first overhead picture to the price of replacement materials.
The Fire Chief Had Two Radios and Still Couldn’t See His Crew - 3AM Built the Missing Map
A volunteer firefighter saw crews tracked with magnets and radio calls. The Buffalo company he co-founded spent a decade turning that blind spot into FLORIAN - and learned why emergency technology has to fit the incident, the budget and the procurement system.
Skycatch
Skycatch is a San Francisco drone-data company that turns aerial imagery into centimeter-accurate 3D and 4D models of mines, construction sites, and energy facilities. Founded in 2013 by Christian Sanz and Christopher Bumgardner, it pairs custom DJI-built drones and on-site edge computers with a cloud photogrammetry engine and AI to give industrial operators near-real-time maps of the physical world. Backed by Google Ventures, Komatsu, Autodesk, and others, Skycatch was acquired by Caterpillar in July 2026 to strengthen its data-driven mining technology portfolio.