Information Technology
GIS Giant Esri Selects NearMap as Its Aerial Imagery Partner
Partnership gives all ArcGIS users access to NearMap data
Esri President Jack Dangermond and Jill Tiefenthaler, CEO of the National Geographic Society, discuss the society's use of Mapmaker, an educational program created for grade school students, at the Esri User Conference in San Diego.
Mapping technology company Esri plans to use aerial imagery from Nearmap as a default source for its ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, the most widely used geographic information system (GIS) technology.
The partnership was announced at Esri's user conference in San Diego. ArcGIS is the most-used GIS platform by cities, municipalities and even state agencies of planning and transportation. It has users across the U.S, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will gain access to Nearmap imagery through the ArcGIS platform's World Imagery basemap.
Nearmap's aerial imagery is captured by low-flying fixed wind aircraft rather than by satellites or drones. The integration features Nearmap 20-cm vertical imagery, expanding access to geospatial content while providing a visual foundation for mapping, planning, and analysis across government, infrastructure, utilities, insurance, AEC and operations, and commercial real estate.
As the default aerial imagery layer in ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro, and ArcGIS Enterprise, the ArcGIS Living Atlas World Imagery basemap serves more than 700,000 organizations worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies, national governments, all 50 U.S. states, more than 20,000 cities, and more than 7,000 universities.
"This agreement represents an important milestone for Nearmap and validates the quality, consistency, and scale of our imagery program," said Ray Savona, chief revenue officer at Nearmap. "Organizations around the world depend on ArcGIS to understand and manage the built environment, and we're proud that Nearmap imagery will help power those decisions. This collaboration introduces hundreds of thousands of organizations to Nearmap imagery—and opens the door to our broader portfolio of premium imagery, AI-powered property intelligence, and enterprise workflows."
New Level of Detail
ArcGIS users will be able to automatically view Nearmap imagery at supported zoom levels in their existing GIS workflows with no additional logins, subscriptions, or configurations.
"Organizations across many industries are increasingly relying on imagery as a critical source of data for their analytic and operational geospatial workflows," said Richard Cooke, corporate director, global business development, of Esri in a statement. "Nearmap's metro imagery is a valued addition for the ArcGIS Living Atlas to deliver users a higher resolution basemap to enhance situational awareness, planning, and operational efficiency."
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Nearmap will provide regular imagery updates every 6 to 12 months throughout the agreement giving ArcGIS users continue to benefit from current, high-quality aerial imagery.
AI-powered property intelligence, APIs, and enterprise workflow integrations can continue to access the capabilities the ArcGIS platform through a direct Nearmap subscription.
Esri founder and president Jack Dangermond said in his annual plenary message at the user conference that he "is now an optimist about AI and its use in connected information making a more connected and sustainable future. A more intelligent world is possible and is exciting," he said.
Dangermond said that most AIs are not yet geospatially aware and users' geographic knowledge needs to be added to agentic AI and standards such as Anthropic's model context protocol allow Esri users to upload and share their geospatial data for that purpose.
Dangermond also announced a new, deep integration with facilities management platform ServiceNow that would give facilities managers a similar workflow that AEC users emjoy between Autodesk and Esri products and all users experience through the company's Microsoft partnership. He also said a Crowdsourced image layer is now available in ArcGIS Pro and the Living Atlas from Meta.
