StreetMapper Stateside and Abroad

This past December, Terrametrix returned from the first International StreetMappers Users Conference held in the Netherlands, which 17 countries were represented.  While in The Hague we also attended the European International LiDAR Mapping Forum where an amazing 46 countries attended. It has become increasingly evident that TMLS is no flash in the pan and StreetMapper is our surveyors’ choice.

After we returned to the states Terrametrix ventured out again to the east coast in the cold weather. We put the StreetMapper system to a severe temperature test as it was -1 degree F the morning we started scanning and it only "warmed" up to a balmy 8 degrees. I was very impressed, not to mention happy, that the system performed perfectly in that hostile environment with very little protection from the elements. So if you have some cold weather scanning let us know. Oh by the way, no worries… the temperature inside the truck was 75 degrees plus!  

We spent a little extra time between snowstorms awaiting lake effect snow to blow through Buffalo so I learned a little history about the history of New York and the surveyors role in the Holland Purchase.  Just returning from the Netherlands and finding myself in New York Sate this is the way the universe works for me.

The Holland Land Company was organized by six banking firms in the Netherlands to purchase the unsettled land of western New York State. Their agent , Theophile Cazenove, in 1792-93 bought more than three million acres known as the Holland Purchase.  It included the area west of the “Transit Line,” located 13 miles east from Lake Ontario to Pennsylvania.  The purchase excluded a strip along the Niagara River and six reservations established for Indians.

Joseph Ellicott, the company’s agent for more than 20 years, surveyed towns, planned roads and mill sites.  He laid out the city of Buffalo, promoted canal construction and dominated party politics in the area.

From its main office at Batavia the company sold most of the purchase in 360-acre lots, extracting a small down payment.  Many settlers faced difficulties in completing payments because of the hardships in clearing the land and marketing farm products.  Some disliked company policies and rioted against them in 1836.  By 1837, the company had sold all its property.

From the Holland Purchase have been formed four counties and parts of four others, comprising 129 rural and suburban towns and eleven cities, which this snowy day I found myself in one of them.