The enterprise ExploStat and its history

History

ExploStat was borne in 2000. The development of the program ExploStat was started in the autumn of 1996 (with former names as ISDD and ESDAT). The development started at the University of Utrecht and later it was continued at the Department of Public Roads and Water Ways. Unfortunately there was not much time to make the program fully accessible for other users, though it was available on the internet. Since the company ExploStat exists this shortcoming has been fullfilled.
The main steering project for developing ExploStat is the remidiation of Lake Ketelmeer. For this project the current director of the company Explostat was hired from the University of Utrecht to map the polluted layer in the Lake. The client asked for a map with uncertainty and the most economical sample schema. This implied the use of geostatistical analysis The relation between the percentage removed polluted sediment with sample density and the amount of clean removed sediment had to be established. The result appears to be astonishing for the client: at least 7000 drills was not yet the economic optimum, but it is close. There was a very important fact that emerges during the project: exploratory analysis is the most delicate and time consuming step in the project. Due to a strong inhomogenious area and human errors (in the field and laboratory) made during collecting and pre processing the data the spatial exploratory stage is inevitable. To optimize this stage of the project, the program ExploStat has been extended.

The company

There are two commercial activities of the company:

1) Developing extra functions for the program ExploStat on request
2) Projects for mapping attributes and statistical analysis on attributes

The program Explostat is developed for applications in the field of polluted soils, but of course the same software can be used for mapping other attributes. There are two type of functions that available scattered over GIS and statistical program:

1) Visualize map objects and their attributes
2) Linking map objects and (derived) attributes

To my best knowledge there is not a program that offers a full combination of this functions. Therefore ExploStat has been developed.