Intouch Insight Ltd., a leader in customer experience measurement solutions based in the Kanata North Technology Park, announced a $7-million contract to provide geolocation data capture services across the United States for an unnamed NASDAQ-100 American technology company.
Expected to last five months, the contract is a new project from an existing client who has been purchasing data capture services from SeeLevelHX — a market research firm and one of Intouch’s recently-acquired entities — for the past four years. Intouch plans to use its network of North American resources to collect data in various locations required by the client in their efforts to configure a new global augmented-reality mobile game.
“The acquisition of SeeLevelHX last fall was the catalyst for this growth and shows the power of combining Intouch’s unique capabilities and technologies with the expanded customer base from the acquisition,” said Cameron Watt, Intouch president and CEO.
Geospatial data capture has been a prominent part of video game development in the past decade, allowing developers to integrate more authentic scenery and physics into the game design process. Within the sphere of augmented reality, using real-world data to create realistic 3D maps has become an integral part of ensuring an immersive experience for gamers.
The company intends to use LIDAR remote sensing technology for this project, said Watt, which determines ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It is especially useful for creating 3D representations of particular locations, including the Earth’s surface and ocean bottom.
“What makes this opportunity particularly exciting, besides its size, is that it illustrates how our core capabilities can extend beyond our current service offerings,” Watt added.
“More and more companies are looking to have the real world represented accurately in their virtual world and we have the capabilities to help them make this happen.”