If you’re reading our blog, you are probably in the roofing industry. Even if you’re not a RoofSnap subscriber, you’ve definitely encountered a product that uses aerial imagery or sells that imagery directly to you. The market for aerial imagery has exploded since the turn of the century. All signs point to continued growth into the next decade and that’s just for imagery suppliers! One thing they all have in common is that you usually don’t get to see the imagery before your purchase.
Now, there is good reason for your average imagery company to keep their goods “behind the counter.” It’s painfully easy for any user on any device to take a high-quality screenshot at a moments notice. This means that if an imagery company allowed you to see their imagery options up front, they would run the risk of you “screen capturing” their product and running off without making a purchase. We understand that they need to protect their investment but when we’re looking for imagery, we need it to meet certain criteria!
If you’ve read our previous blogs, you’ll know that we’re always looking for the best imagery available to clearly view the roof and the best way to present that imagery to you. Our favorite imagery provider is Nearmap. They offer high resolution images and multiple capture dates for about 70% of the US population. This aligns well with the needs of the roofing industry. We’re proud to offer Nearmap to you and now we’re excited to announce imagery thumbnails!
This feature is live in the RoofSnap Web App and will be rolling out to our iOS and Android platforms soon.
Now when you enter the sketch screen, you’ll confirm your project’s location and then be offered thumbnails of your available imagery.
When you confirm the location of your project address, you will be taken to a screen that displays all of the imagery available for that location. This will include the standard imagery options as well as many recent captures of Nearmap. From these thumbnail options, you’ll be able to choose the best image for sketching the roof. Choose the most recent photo when it contains a new addition or select a photo taken in the Winter/Spring months to get a clear view without the leaves. You have many imagery options in order to obtain the most accurate measurements using RoofSnap.
From many thumbnails, you’ll be able to see which date offers the best view.
As with any change to our software, we realize this new workflow will take some getting used to and we are confident that this change will alleviate any apprehension you might feel when purchasing an image that you’ve never seen before. We are proud in our partnership with Nearmap to provide high resolution images to our subscribers.
If you have any questions about this new workflow, feel free to contact our Support Team. We’ve got even more exciting updates coming in the near future! If you’re an iOS or Android user, keep your RoofSnap app up-to-date to access new features as they are released. If you’d like to try out this feature before it is available on your platform, head over to app.roofsnap.com and log in with your credentials. Finally, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to access the latest training and walk-through videos for all of our features and platforms.
That’s all for this week. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
And as always, be careful up on those roofs.
