In the latest edition of WebsitePlanet interviews, we sit down with Rosalie van der Maas, Co-Founder and CEO of Ellipsis Drive, to discuss the revolutionary approach her company is taking to simplify and automate geospatial data management. Rosalie shares the inspiration behind Ellipsis Drive and how it transforms raw geographic data into live, interactive data layers, making it accessible and useful across various industries.

What is the main idea behind Ellipsis Drive and how was the company founded?

Managing geospatial data is complicated and time-consuming. Ellipsis Drive (ED) was founded to be a fully interoperable spatial data management solution that simplifies and automates spatial data ingestion, management, and integration. It takes raw geographic data and converts it into live, interactive data layers that can be accessed quickly and securely from any workflow. This means spatial data can be used seamlessly within any tool of choice, making it very easy to analyze, visualize, and use in projects/products by any audience and industry vertical.

ED democratizes the use of geospatial data.

What are the key features of Ellipsis Drive?

ED offers a set of differentiating features that support the above vision:

  1. We bring ‘the Drive experience’ to spatial data-driven industries by introducing the ability to publish any geospatial data as a live map within minutes through a quick drag-and-drop. This supports real-time collaboration with a simple link share.

  2. We safeguard platform independence by maximizing interoperability. This lies at the center of what we do.

  3. We enable data sharing and collaboration without limits. ED does not impose ‘by seat’ or ‘by action’ fees that make data sharing and using expensive.

What types of data can be stored on Ellipsis Drive and who can benefit from using it?

All types of geospatial data (assets, events, conditions, and real-world phenomena that involve a location on Earth) can be ingested, managed, and used with ED. This data can be 2D data or 3D data. It can be points (with an ‘x’, ‘y’, and also a ‘z’ coordinate), lines and polygons, like a road network or utility infrastructure; raster data, such as aerial imagery or land cover data; or point cloud or mesh data, like a digital elevation model or the 3D rendering of a building. So, there is a lot of variety to deal with!

In terms of industries, you may think of P&C insurance, civil engineering, geodetics, conservation, hydrology, agriculture, renewables, energy, real estate, and the public sector. Location data can greatly enhance our ability to manage risk, allocate resources, and understand our environment. However, doing so in an ROI-positive way requires excellent data management. ED makes it hyper-efficient to empower teams, clients, and products with critical picks of spatial data.

In terms of individual professionals, it benefits anyone leveraging spatial data-driven insights – domain experts, actuaries, risk managers, engineers, developers, data scientists, and GIS experts. For example, Ellipsis Drive is a fitting solution for data scientists who sift through messy data to uncover meaningful intelligence. ED structures spatial data automatically, so you can find treasured insights faster and easier. For a developer (and applications mastermind!) ED helps you to flexibly render vector and raster data in your own software with just a single line of code. For more details on other professions, you can visit ellipsis-drive.com/solution/sales-teams

Is Ellipsis Drive compatible with cloud storage services and what other tools can Ellipsis Drive integrate with?

Ellipsis Drive is compatible with all major and minor public cloud providers. It can even be launched on on-prem servers if security policies require this. ED runs in a stack-independent way and does not chain users to any specific supplier. The founding purpose of Ellipsis Drive is to make spatial data easy to use for everyone. Integrating with our users’ favorite software is a cornerstone of our mission.

For developers, there is a wonderful API and Python package, as well as Leaflet, MapLibre, Mapbox, and React-Leaflet packages (and many others).

For Data Scientists, BI experts, and modelers there is a Python package, Python AI package, R package, PowerBI plugin, pySpark package, and Folium package.

For remote sensing professionals, we have a Google Earth Engine plug-in and integrations with the full Copernicus library for direct search and import of these data assets.

For GIS-ers, we have QGIS and ArcGIS plug-ins, including ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro.

How does Ellipsis Drive handle data updates?

Remember what life was like when you were emailing docx files back and forth with names like ‘v6.3.2_final_final2.0_OneMoreEditByJohn’? That was not a good time. This version management problem still exists for spatial data. But it’s even more complex as this data is not just looked at or manually edited by end users. It also feeds straight into analytics pipelines, workflow automations, and applications that touch the lives of many end users.

Handing data updates in an automated way – that does not disturb workflow and products – is part of the data management challenge that ED solves. We do this in a way that is very similar to the ‘change tracking’ (including the ‘what’, ‘when’, and ‘by who’) that happens in your text docs, spreadsheets, and slide decks with using solutions like Google Drive or Sharepoint.

Creating versions turns into an intuitive exercise. Because all versions are automatically saved, no data gets lost by accident and mistakes are easily tracked down and resolved. Every downstream user will automatically be connected and in sync on the latest version of the data. This is a huge load-off for many professionals collaborating on spatial data in their day-to-day life.

To learn more about Ellipsis Drive, you can visit ellipsis-drive.com