New Capabilities Provide Support for Unstructured Data in the ArcGIS Platform
Spatial analytics company Esri has acquired technology from ClearTerra, a company that offers geospatial and activity-based intelligence tools.
The acquisition will provide ArcGIS platform users the ability to easily discover and extract geographic coordinates from unstructured textual data like emails, briefings and reports, instantly generating intelligent map-based information.
This capability will make mapping this elusive information easier across many industries. Defense, intelligence and public safety organizations tend to have massive volumes of unstructured data, as do other fields, such as petroleum, utilities and maritime, where locating information on the Earth is not as easy as searching for a street address.
Esri’s acquisition of ClearTerra technology brings workflow-enhancing software technologies into the ArcGIS platform.
“We have been close partners with Esri for a number of years,” said Jeff Wilson, former vice president of sales for ClearTerra, now an executive for defense and intelligence with Esri. “Esri has the platform and resources to provide a solid path going forward for our technology, allowing us to expand this capability to the global market.”
ClearTerra LocateXT technology allows analysts to rapidly scan through documents without having to spend hours reading, copying, pasting and running spreadsheet formulas, placing the results instantly into geospatial features.
Additionally, ClearTerra FindFZ technology provides enhanced search capabilities for the ArcGIS platform, incorporating the powerful techniques found in internet search engines, including a tolerance for misspelled words, as well as wildcard and Boolean logic searches.
The LocateXT extension for ArcMap is used to extract locations from unstructured data (messages, reports, briefings) into a geodatabase feature class. (Image: ClearTerra)
“We are excited to bring ClearTerra technology into the Esri family,” said Jeff Peters, Esri director of national government. “The unstructured data tools are powerful not only for those who have made use of this technology for a number of years, such as in the military, but it also has useful applications for so many more Esri users.”
ClearTerra has been an active member of the Esri partner program, providing their software to ArcGIS users via desktop, server, and the cloud. Support and maintenance for the software will continue via Esri with no interruption of service, and is readily available for licensing.
ClearTerra specializes in geospatial and activity based intelligence software products, custom solutions, technical services, consulting and training. ClearTerra is a business unit of ClearShark.
