Bozeman, Mont. - Agri ImaGIS, a Maddock, North Dakota company that specializes in applications of remote sensing for agricultural use, has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), Newport, Rhode Island, to evaluate the effectiveness of the Navy's patented data compression technology on its satellite imagery.

The TechLink center, a technology transfer organization located in Bozeman, and the NUWC Office of Technology Transfer, assisted Agri ImaGIS with obtaining access to the technology and forming a joint partnership for testing.

Agri ImaGIS has developed software that delivers satellite imagery over the Internet to the agricultural industry. This imagery can be used to map patterns of productivity within a given farm field based on variations in soil characteristics, elevation, average yield, and other factors. The maps can then help farmers establish management units for precision farming techniques, such as variable-rate application of fertilizer. Precision farming allows farmers to add fertilizer, pesticides and other chemicals only to areas needing treatment and only in the amounts necessary, providing significant cost savings and increased yields.

The use of satellite imagery is gaining a foothold in precision agriculture in the United States, but the large images that are generated can slow Internet transmissions to a crawl and clog computer memory, making it difficult for the end user to access and view the images. Data compression helps reduce the size of the images, but often at the expense of detail. The Navy's innovative data compression technology can be programmed to reduce file size by specified amounts without sacrificing detail. Agri ImaGIS hopes the technology will make its database more user-friendly by compressing the satellite data so that the highly detailed images may be viewed and downloaded quickly and easily.

Agri ImaGIS has provided satellite images of farmland to agricultural clients throughout the central United States since 1998. In addition, the company provides digital cartographic (GIS) data, such as maps of road networks, topography, soil classification, and agricultural yields. Clients can search the company's database over the Internet and browse through the available images or download them directly. TechLink has helped Agri ImaGIS form partnerships with other federal research laboratories, including NASA, to develop and commercialize its cutting-edge software.

"The Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport is pleased at this opportunity to transition Navy developed technology to agricultural imaging applications," comments Dr. Theresa Baus, NUWC's Technology Transfer Manager. "If successful, the agreement to evaluate the technology will lead to a license agreement for the patented data compression package."

TechLink is located at Montana State University in Bozeman and is funded by the Department of Defense and NASA to link companies in Montana and the surrounding region with federal laboratories for joint research and technology transfer. Its overriding purpose is to contribute to the success of both technology-based companies and key resource-based industries in the state and region.

Contacts:
Will Swearingen
MSU TechLink
(406) 994-7704
wds@montana.edu

Lanny Faleide
Agri ImaGIS
(701) 438-2242
lanny@satshot.com

Theresa Baus
NUWC
(401) 832-8728
bausta@npt.nuwc.navy.mil

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