06 Aug, 2021
Aerometrex is pleased to announce that it has formed a research partnership with The University of Melbourne. As a starting point, the partnership will see our MetroMap data used in a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project focused on the impact of urban design on non-communicable disease and road injury risk.
MetroMap is Aerometrex’s aerial imagery data providing service, offering high-quality and accurate imagery to a subscriber base. MetroMap’s underlying ortho imagery is very high-resolution, making it ideal for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications. Aerometrex runs its own AI/ML research and development internally and also partners with multiple external companies and research partners who use MetroMap imagery for their objectives.
Study lead, Dr Jason Thompson from The University of Melbourne’s Transport Health and Urban Design (THUD) Research Laboratory said the partnership heralded a step-change in the ability to understand relationships between urban design, infrastructure and disease across Australia.
“We are very excited to be working so closely with Aerometrex and their extensive imagery catalogue. We will be using advanced machine learning methods to identify urban features across the Australian landscape related to health. We will also be considering how the combination of those features interacts with risk of disease and road injury among Australians. We believe this will create the most comprehensive understanding of urban design and health ever undertaken in Australia and will provide a guide for interventions and improved urban design into the future. This is just the beginning”.
MetroMap's high-resolution imagery is ideal for machine learning applications
Speaking about the partnership, Aerometrex Strategic Partner Manager, Ellie Zoghi adds, "We're very excited to be partnering with Transport, Health, and Urban Design Research Lab with such a large scale study. This will be the first of many collaborations with The University of Melbourne who we've signed as our first partner under our MetroMap Research 'umbrella' program. We see a lot of potential opportunities to partner with the university, using MetroMap high-resolution imagery and we are looking forward to engaging in more research projects with their teams."
Go to the MetroMap Research Data Hub if you’d like to learn more about using MetroMap aerial imagery for research.