March 21, 2011 -- AeroGRID has signed a data distribution  agreement to distribute the aerial imagery of the National Land Survey of Finland (NLS) via its WMS server. NLS Finland is the third government organisation to join the AeroGRID partnership after IGN France and CNIG Spain. The growing AeroGRID library of highly accurate aerial imagery is being made available via WMS, the standard protocol for streaming georeferenced map imagery over the Internet to web based applications, GIS and CAD software.

“The National Land Survey of Finland is delighted to join the AeroGRID partnership,” said Kari-Pekka Karlsson, Product Group Manager. “We hope that by joining AeroGRID we will extend NLS aerial imagery to a much wider audience. This is particularly well timed because 2010 saw the aerial survey activities of NLS and the Agency for Rural Affairs in Finland, combined. This provides imagery  for  over 100,000 km² of the country with an agreed update programme that will provide new imagery for up to a third of the country every year.”

“Welcoming NLS to AeroGRID gives me special pleasure, not only because they’ve shown how pragmatic our European government organisations can be, but also because they are the first aerial provider to join us from the Scandinavian Peninsula, said Miles Taylor, AeroGRID General Manager.  “Their data has special value because, in these Northern latitudes, satellite imagery is scarce. I feel confident that it is only a matter of time before we are able to provide access to the whole of this vast area of over 1 million km², which is playing an increasingly important role in the European economy.”