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'Best-kept little business secret'
Friday, March 15, 2002
By Michael Moore
The Missoulian

During Thursday's demonstration, Opitz highlighted several areas of trees -- the program then found and highlighted all the trees in the image, making sure to distinguish between the foliage and the shadows it casts.

A satellite takes a picture of, for instance, a remote corner of Afghanistan.

Armed with the current technology, the American military begins working on the picture, trying to identify trails, caves, people in an effort to root out the last al-Qaida strongholds. It's painstaking work on computers, and the results can be decidedly imperfect.

Interestingly enough, a small Missoula company may have created a project that will make the military's work easier and more precise. The product could also revolutionize the way cities, towns and private companies use satellite and aerial photographs.

The company is called Visual Learning Systems Inc. and the product is Feature Analyst. VLS is the brainchild of David Opitz, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Montana, and Stuart Blundell, a geographic information systems specialist who recently was profiled in the industry journal Space Business International.

The company incorporated in 1999, but has been "the best-kept little business secret around" as it developed its product. The company is small -- waffling between nine and 13 employees -- but stands on the verge of massive potential growth with its new software.

"Once people see the software, the light just goes off," Blundell said Thursday, as the company held a coming-out party.
(More: The Missoulian News Source)
2002 © Missoulian, Missoula, MT.

Dan