The METRUM airplane is a make of the Switzerland factory «Pilatus», while its special equipment was purchased from the world leader in positioning and geomatics technologies – the manufacturing company «Leica Geosystems», which is also located in Switzerland. The total amount of METRUM investment was in excess of 2.5 million lats.«Our airplane and special equipment currently ensure the highest data precision in Latvia for services connected with aerophotography and laser-scanning. A particularity of this area – the slower and more stable the plane, the more exact data can be obtained. The airplane is equipped both with a digital aerocamera and a laser scanner, which together allow obtaining the broadest cartographic and topographic information, the maximum amount of data,» emphasizes METRUM marketing manager Aivars Gontarevs.Up until now, the providers of such services in Latvia used faster airplanes or helicopters, which do not allow obtaining such broad and exact data, equipped with either a scanner or a camera, but not with both, as is the case with the METRUM plane. METRUM in Latvia will offer services equal to those available elsewhere in the world in this field – orthophoto, digital terrain models, topographic plans and three-dimensional terrain models.METRUM is specializing in three branches – territorial planning, land surveying and digital information processing. Using the newest equipment in the field of land surveying, it is possible to obtain surface topographic information of 100 square-kilometers per hour. A similar amount of work can be done by 250 land surveyors in a month.Since the restoration of the state independence, most local governments have not developed territorial plans. One of the reasons for this – there was no current cartographic material; METRUM can now offer local governments the possibility of developing both orthophoto and territorial planning at short notice. At present, in many places of Latvia territorial planning is done based on simplified topography, which is not of sufficiently high quality for development of territorial plans, and does not match the contemporary standards.The potential clients of METRUM services are designers and maintainers of infrastructures, farmers, real estate developers, construction companies, as well as state and local government agencies. The services offered by METRUM can be used in territory monitoring, especially concerning coastal and flooded territories.As METRUM will soon have access to regularly updated geospatial information covering the whole territory of the country, the company is offering services at prices significantly lower than those currently seen in this specific market. METRUM will not apply all costs to the particular order.
