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Project archive

BettyBetBet App 2024

The BettyBetBet mobile app is a social betting app that enable communities to raise funds around fun games!

Wild Otter App 2024

The Wild Otter App makes the nation's waterways accessible by displaying a range of routes, points and information users need to know.

Base: Architects and Planning are an ambitious business who came to Shoothill to digitally transform their process of quoting.

Collaborative Conveyancing website 2024

This website and branding package gave a fresh face to an exciting business.

Electric Vehicle Charging for Schools 2024

Business Gym 2024

An advanced website that offers membership benefits to ambitious businesses looking to scale.

Housebuilder Pro 2021

Housebuilder Pro is an industry leading new homes management software. Much more than a CRM it covers the new home sales process from before foundation to beyond completion.

My Flood Insurance

BettyBetBet website 2024

Housebuilder Pro website 2023

Supersocks Online AI

A Life In Pictures, The Queen (2022)

Shoothill released a one million image digital mosaic of Her Majesty The Queen, which utilises Shoothill's Megafiche technology. The piece was released in time for The Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022, celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's 70 year reign.

ARH Group (2021)

Shoothill were tasked with designing, developing and launching a progressive web application. The app allows ARH engineers to record and submit their timesheets, allowing for reporting of labour costs and summaries.

Darwin Group (2021)

Shoothill designed and developed a project management system for Shrewsbury construction firm Darwin Group. The system is designed to facilitate purchase orders, monitor projects, manage budgets and more - adding transparency and streamlining workflow.

Voluntary Bailiff Service

A system for officially appointed river bailiffs to securely share information on suspicious activity from across the UK. Shoothill created and hosted the Voluntary Bailiff Service (VBS) website - link here. VBS allowed bailiffs to upload key evidence about any suspicious and criminal activity they see at fishing venues country wide.

Shoothill Covid Tracer (2020)

‘Covid Tracer’ solves customer data problem for hospitality industry.

Our latest attempt creating a potentially unlimited scale image online celebrating the 50 years since the moon landings. This milestone also marked 10 years since Shoothill’s Deep Moon project in 2009. The end result was 100,000 times larger than our last zoom in honour of this wonderful human achievement. Follow this link to see what the Daily Mail called “A stunning MOSAIC made of 8,000 different images from the iconic landing is made of a TRILLION pixels”

Custom Point of Sale Kiosk application with integrated Artificial Intelligence.

AI Object identification

Artificial intelligence – Object recognition & identification within images, and video

Halford's 'Really Ready for Summer' Discovery Map

Housebuilder Pro

Housebuilder Pro is a full end to end project management software system, supporting new home construction companies from the initial sales enquiry, right through to the end of the 10 year warranty period. Developed by Shoothill in partnership with Shingler Homes.

Shoothill created a bespoke web-based bus tracking and booking system, custom designed to The Green Bus’s exact requirements. An innovative and far-sighted company, The Green Bus is the UK's leader in transport between home and school, as well as work or for ‘days out’. This legacy migration reenergised their activities and opened the door to future collaboration.

Custom Flood Risk Analyser Tool for National Flood Insurance, LLC, based in FL, USA.

During the Covid19 crisis, Shoothill opted to volunteer our skills during this challenging time to make a difference. The solution we worked towards tackled the PPE shortage on the frontlines directly. Working with our partners from the PETO project In 2016 we designed, created, and released PPE Exchange within 7 days. The innovative site was backed by the CBI and the GMB Union and featured on BBC News.

Shoothill designed and developed a gamified app which was central to a marketing campaign for Arla B.O.B Milk. Arla B.O.B Milk is fat free skimmed milk that's as tasty as semi-skimmed. The software gave its audience a fun way to discuss how they liked their milk or cream in their drinks (and how much), whilst also encouraging them to try BOB in their tea and coffee instead.

Custom CRM & Business Management System

OPAL Imperial College London 2017

Imperial College London tasked Shoothill to build an interactive map-based application displaying their vast archive of environmental data. collated from OPAL citizen scientists. This data included over 41,000 environmental records taken from thousands of individual surveys from all over the UK, spread over the previous 8 years. Our challenge was to not only create a way to visualise this data on a google map but also to do so in manageable fashion. Due to the sheer number of records being mapped, we had to take care not to cover the map in 41,000 pins, one for each record. We solved the problem by creating a brand new ‘clustering method’, making each cluster pin a colour coded pie chart in itself.

FloodCast was software for automated emergency messaging which used social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Initially Shoothill invented and built it for the Environment Agency. However, after months of meetings and discussions we were informed that “the EA does not want innovation”. Since then, we have sold components of the system abroad.

Custom booking & business management system

Water Aware was created to help communities interpret drought and flood conditions through rain and river height data. From company SunWater, the site offers an option to sign up to receive automatically generated Twitter notifications. The information can also be shared on Facebook. Users can access and follow water level gauges that they have a specific interest in, then opt to receive automatic updates as the water levels vary. As the water level gauge information is updated hourly, Water Aware is a particularly useful tool for landholders and residents living near a river or downstream of a dam or weir. As a result, the software can assist with understanding impacts of recent rainfall within the catchment.

Oodls is a tech start up based in Edinburgh who engaged us to build their image sales platform with artificial intelligence powered smart searching and Instragram integration.

Eye on Calderdale

Eye on Calderdale is your one stop website for up to date information about flooding, weather and traffic disruptions in Calderdale valley. Shoothill created a system which end users, flood wardens, and emergency services could use through a map and warning widgets. These allowed the user to check for; current river levels; any flood or traffic alerts; flood risk; reporting a hazard and more.

Open University

Shoothill was engaged to create an ‘Analysis Engine’ (called PANDA) for NHS products finding the best prices available. The software was designed to intercept procurement requests and to look for any price anomalies on non-medical supplies such as gloves, aprons, visors (i.e. Personal Protective equipment), within the NHS.

Part of a wider advertising campaign, this project aimed to raising awareness about possible allergens in the home. J&J wanted to appeal to a younger audience to help brand awareness with millennial users who are much more likely to engage with creative media. J&J also wanted to capture key user metrics so they could measure against the critical success criteria. Shoothill used its experience in targeted online creative digital to deliver key messages about the product and what may cause symptoms to certain conditions and allergies. To achieve this Shoothill gamified the content, asking users to click on items around the house that could be allergens.

Shoothill published the “David Bowie Tribute Mosaic” mere days after the star’s passing, in honour of his memory. The fittingly impressive image was made from 1000 images of Bowie, taken throughout his incredible career

British Airways

Advertising campaign for British Airways comparing travel costs for countries selected from a map by the end user. The system allowed end users to select countries they had visited directly from a map. Then the app calculated how many miles travelled and how many British Airways air miles (and other benefits) that would have been earned if those flights were taken on BA.

MSN asked for a configurable generic picture viewer and timeline that was independent of the CMS and multi-language. To do this we built a system and GUI that allowed MSN to set the time (e.g. year, month, week, century etc.), upload the pictures to a directory and then write the text to go with each picture. Once done, access to the system was allowed to the MSN territories too (so they can translate into their own language)

TVP Bus app provides a convenient way to monitor the overall service status of the Thames Valley Shuttles. Running Windows Phone, IOS and Android, the app informs users on arrival times and routes of the bus services provided between Reading station and Thames Valley Park.

Shoothill won a tender to initiate this West Midlands Fire Service project, mapping and presenting over 40 datasets. West Midlands Fire Service helps to keep 2.8 million people in the West Midlands safe. As part of that task, the Community Safety Strategy means analysing, mapping, and presenting risk across the West Midlands, which then informs how best to distribute fire stations and other assets. Shoothill build phase one of this project, visualising the datasets through mapping software. This system allowed the general public, in an easily understood format, to assess what the service does in their local areas, as well as across the West Midlands Region.

Check my flood risk

A free-to-use site informing the public on the likelihood of flooding from rivers or the sea in England. The user can simply enter any English postcode, and the system will calculate exactly how far that property is from a known Low, Medium or High flood risk area.

Natwest Cricket

An interactive infographic app which housed seven updatable key stats for the T20 tournament all in one place. Designed as a modified cricket scoreboard which each section representing a different stat (Most catches Most wickets, Most runs, Highest score, Most sixes, Wicketkeeper dismissals & highest team score and all with NatWest branding

Space for Giants 2015

Shoothill created an online experience that followed the life of an actual female elephant through a tracking system. Africa’s wild places are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems. Space for Giants works to secure them and demonstrate their worth. Built to further these aims, raising awareness amongst the public, this system tracked the elephant and plotted where she roamed throughout the day.

Virgin Holidays Planet Mojo 2015

We developed a series of microsites and apps for Virgin Holidays as part of their “Planet Mojo” campaign. The campaign called for its audience to ‘unleash YOUR Mojo’ and visit some of the most exciting destinations on earth. The app contained videos, holiday destination suggestions (based on your profile), road trips and so much more!

Maritime Security Online 2015

International security firm Control Risks engaged Shoothill to work with them on building its Maritime Security Online system. MSO was created as a dynamic web-based platform designed to assist clients (cargo handlers, insurers, captains of merchant ships etc.) in mitigating key political, operational and security risks, as they happen in the global maritime domain.

Reading Travel Open Data Platform 2015

In 2015 Shoothill won an open tender to build a set of APIs focused around live transport data. This involved manipulating data on traffic, parking, route disruption, live bus locations and so on. We would then provide the API’s as open data on the Open Data Hub for use by other developers in creating apps and other services.

Go Ultra Low 2015

The aim of this informative site was to demonstrate the environmental and personal benefits of low emission vehicles. The site sought to encourage its users to take up using ultra low energy vehicles. The site had all the information you might need about Electric Cars & Vans, UK Government Grants and Incentives, EV charging points and route planners.

Tribute 2015 Private Commission

Fishing Info App

We created a mobile-friendly interactive website for the Angling Trust, helping anglers find the best spot to fish. Fishinginfo.co.uk provides everything needed for a fishing trip. This includes searching for fishing spots, weather conditions, live water levels, and even information on the purchasing of a rod licence. It also assists in finding and buying gear, as well as the locations of tackle shops, angling clubs and coaches.

Shoothill wins Open Data Award 2014

2014 also saw Shoothill enter and win the ODI’s Open Data Innovations awards with Gaugemap, facing stiff competition. The Shoothill team were presented with their award by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt.

Shoothill created the ‘fancy a cuppa?’ app for Unilever, users suggesting what makes the perfect cup of tea. The interactive app could be used to share and compare with their friends via MSN and Facebook.

GaugeMap was the first live river level and tidal map for England and Wales and Scotland ever developed. GaugeMap not only gives end users a holistic view of the live river level situation across the entire country, it also allows them to drill down to the individual gauges in incredible detail, embed them into other web pages, and even follow them individually on Twitter.

An example of a gauge on Twitter

Shoothill worked with Twitter to hook up more than 3000 river gauges to their own individual Twitter accounts. The gauges themselves have gained a collective 150,000 followers on Twitter and published over 10 million automated tweets. The concept of Tweeting river gauges was then expanded to include live flood alerts from each gauge whenever an alert was issued for its location.

BBC Flood Alerts

Shoothill created and hosted a version of FloodAlerts for the BBC, during the severe winter flooding of 2013-14. What was unique (and still is) is that we took the time and effort to also include Scottish flood data, provided by The Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

Bombardier 2008

Bombardier UK commissioned Shoothill to develop graphical software plotting detailed train data to a live BING maps overlay. The system not only displayed the location of rolling stock but also visualised live engineering telemetry data taken from trains; on the move and in real time. Bombardier were delighted with the results and so were Shoothill as this project was the runner-up in the 2009 Microsoft WPC Innovation Awards (or first professional accolade)

Online Digital and Print Portrait Tribute Mosaic (Private Commission)

Exms clock edited

Nissan required a promotion site that would compare the road and track performance of their Nissan GT-R Nismo. Users could examine each version of the car(s) in minute detail, down to engine, handling, breaking and so on, side by side on the same page.

Journalism logo

Environment Agency contracted Shoothill to provide Live UK flood maps to all news outlets

This unique voting tool for the Eurovision song contest linked users across competing European countries through social media. Running simultaneously across the continent, and displayed in different languages across European MSN sites, the web tool allowed people to vote on their favourite act, share their votes with others using social media channels, see the Top 5 acts (by votes) and view which acts were most popular in different countries. In addition to the timeline - showing past winners of the contest - the global Twittersphere was being monitored and the sentiment of Tweets about each act displayed in graphical format across all the sites.

Environment Agency Flood Alerts (2013)

The EA asked us host and licence FloodAlerts, for their own use and to display on their website. Apart from updating the software’s ‘look and feel’ to appear that it belonged on the EA site, we also updated the map to include local authority and constituency boundaries. As well as this, we took steps to ensure that no matter how many hits the map got, the system would prove too robust to fall over under any circumstances. It was good that we did, because FloodAlerts was put under the spotlight during the 2013 and 2014 winter floods, with Prime Minister David Cameron tweeting the map on 5th December 2013.

Environment Agency My Flood Plan (2013)

My Flood Plan was an app giving the user a swift means to assess their flood plan options. One in six properties in England is at risk of flooding which lead to the idea behind this app. Within 10 minutes a user could complete the interactive flood plan which would, during a flood, save valuable time and reduce property damage.

Sainsburys Recipe Planner 2014

A web application showcasing various roast recipes, inspired by Sainsbury’s products, for users to browse and choose from. We developed the Sainsbury’s Roast Planner in collaboration with MSN. Once selected, each recipe would generate an ingredients shopping list, offer preparation instructions, as well as detailed time planning for cooking the meal.

Ordinance Survey 2013

The Ordinance Survey wanted to create something original for the opening of its new headquarters building in Southampton. They turned to Shoothill to create a digital Mosaic for them to display in the foyer of the new building, made from every OS employee at the time.

HSBC British and Irish Lions

Shoothill assisted rugby union tour sponsor, HSBC, by composing a digital image from photos of match attendants. British and Irish Lions tour to Australia was a rugby union tour sponsored by HSBC. The British Lions fans normally take a giant Lions shirt with them to display in the stadiums during matches. This year, with Shoothill’s help, HSBC wanted to create one digitally made from pictures of fans attending the matches.

Ford Innovtaion tracker

A tracking tool which searched for tweets containing key words and assessed responses, recording the sentiments behind them. In Ford’s case the key word was “Innovation”, and the software could interpret the responses to provide a contextual analysis. We did this through an algorithm which looks for key words used in a tweet and then assesses the sentiment in the “sentiment gauge”.

We created a ‘Video Map’ for a UN agency who wanted to highlight their work around the world. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is a specialized UN agency that assists countries in economic and industrial development. UNIDO wanted to highlight their work around the world in an innovative way. They commissioned Shoothill to devise a software powered solution, and so we created a ‘Video Map’. Here, when a country was clicked on the map, the end user would see a video of UNIDO’s work in that country. Furthermore, the video was actually played within the international boundary of that country, as in this example from Somalia.

Geo Results 2013

Shoothill designed and developed an online portal for Fibre Planning and Fibre Route Cost Calculation for Geo Results. The system allows any user to map any location in the U.S. using a variety of techniques. Once location and position are correctly established on the map, it takes a simple mouse click to find the nearest fibre splice point in an instant.

Food Standard Agency Windows 8 App

Working for the Food Standards Agency, we created a system mapping 1000’s of establishments based on hygiene ratings. The Agency is a non-ministerial department of the UK Government, and are responsible for protecting public health in relation to food. The Agency had seen what we did for the Environment Agency on Windows 8 and asked us to create a similar system for them. Watch a video

In 2012, Shoothill was chosen by Sciemus to create a comprehensive risk management application tool for insurance companies. Sciemus are a Lloyd’s managing general agent – MGA, and selected us to develop their ‘Pinpoint’ mapping system. This software combined geospatial mapping and geocoding with a peril based rating system to reveal possible exposure to claims during weather related incidents like flooding.

Smurfs Map of the World (2013)

Celebrating The Smurfs 2 movie premier, Yahoo! and Sony Pictures hired Shoothill to create this interactive themed app. The Smurfs Map of the World allowed end users win tickets to the London premiere by simply uploading a picture. The interactive Smurf map looked like a cartoon version of the world, but in reality location geo coding still worked correctly.

FootballPools DeepZoom Map

Content visualised on a clickable zoomable map, where a user could take a deeper dive into individual stories. The accumulations of total amount invested was also displayed through an embedded timeline, which users of the map could cycle to see how investment in UK sport has developed over the last 10 years. As a user slides the timeline, new content is displayed on the map which they can either interrogate via a pop-up or read in a panel / view a video.

Sainsburys TU Promotion

An online app serving as a tool to create and outfit mood board from various categorised Sainsbury’s clothes. Products ranging from tops, skirts, dresses, swimsuits, shoes and accessories, which a user could filter through, then select, drag, and drop the item onto their mood board to create their outfit. Each item selected linked to a store locator so users can see where to go to purchase them at their nearest Sainsburys Store.

Miss Universe Pivot Table 2013

Produced for MSN South America, this pivot table showcased the entrants and winners of the Miss Universe contest. Once a contestant was selected the pivot would also refence Bing Search to bring up more information about them for the end user.

UN Building 2012

Produced for MSN South America, this pivot table showcased the entrants and winners of the Miss Universe contest. Once a contestant was selected the pivot would also refence Bing Search to bring up more information about them for the end user.

Shoothill F1 montage

Sutton Images and Shoothill, world leaders in Deep Zoom mosaics, announce a collection depicting Formula One World Champions. The seven unique individual mosaics used MegaFiche technology. Featured were James Hunt, Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. Each unique limited-edition mosaic features tens of thousands of smaller images sourced from the extensive archives of Sutton Images. Learn more

Prime number challenge

Using our trademarked Deep Zoom MegaFiche technology, Shoothill visualised a prime number of over 17 million decimal digits. In 2013 it was the largest prime number ever discovered. It’s equivalent to having 1,584,106 contacts in your phone's address book. That’s a lot of digits, but with our amazing deep zoom graphic you can see them all. The Deep Zoom, created using Shoothill’s Megafiche® technology, highlights the sheer scale of this prime number, which if it were to be printed out to scale, would cover 6 acres of paper. Read the Press Release

United Nations 2011

The UNHCR approached Shoothill to develop an online platform, raising public awareness of humanitarian displacement, an international crisis. This software solution allowed the public to see the scale of the disaster, highlighting the hardships faced by refugees. The software was syndicated on Facebook and later utilised as an exhibit in the UN Headquarters in New York.

Warhorse Film Promotion 2012

Disney and Microsoft asked Shoothill to create an online promotion for the release of Stephen Spielberg’s epic movie. The website was split in two parts. First, a gallery featuring Deep Zoom technology to deliver stills from the film, complemented by historical images and maps. Secondly, a ‘TimeMap’ to display the WW1 battle areas, using a combination of modern & authentic army maps and aerial imagery used by the British Army at the time. The site even included John William’s haunting soundtrack. Read the press release and watch a short video on the project.

Shoothill Floodalerts app

Microsoft asked Shoothill to port the FloodAlerts system to the Windows 8 app store prior to the OS launch. Microsoft were keen to include as many useful apps as possible on this new operating system. They kindly invited Shoothill to make our FloodAlerts software readily available to users through the Windows 8 app store.

A live Deep Zoom mosaic created by taking pictures of attending fans and projected onto a giant screen. Filmed at the Westfield Shopping Centre - White City, we created the graphic live, by taking pictures of people there and projected it onto a giant digital screen. The finished ‘poster’ was later printed by the Sun newspaper as a centre page pull-out.

By mid-summer 2012 the country was experiencing massive flooding and so Shoothill released FloodAlerts as a standalone app. The site was funded and hosted by Shoothill and launched on 6 July 2012. Within three hours the app was featured on the BBC website’s frontpage as seen here. The software went truly viral, with approx. 3 million hits a day, due to its unique nature at the time; another ‘first’ for Shoothill. Learn more by wtaching this video

Floodalerts on Facebook

FloodAlerts was the UK’s first live and interactive flood warning map, provided to the general public through Facebook. Facebook FloodAlerts went on to win the 2012 Guardian innovation Nation Awards.

London Olympics 2012

Working with a trusted partner, Shoothill created the official torch relay map for the London Olympics in 2012. The UK torch relay lasted 70 days, with 66 evening celebrations. About 8,000 people carried the torch a total distance of about 8,000 miles (12,800 km), starting from Land's End in Cornwall. The route was widely reported as designed in such a way as to ensure that the Torch came within 10 miles of 95% of the UK population. Created months in advance of the Olympic games themselves, the map was on the BBC, MSN and other news sites, showing the daily route of the torch live as it travelled and receiving around many millions of views.

IWM Churchill Deep Zoom

Our online version of the War Rooms exhibit included additional content donated by the IWM and Curtis Brown. The site provided an extraordinary overview of the subject’s life in images as well as featured private letters, audio files and video footage. The library included pictures of Churchill inspecting bomb damage during the Blitz, to holiday snaps in Monte Carlo, and letters from his wife Clementine.

For the “Microsoft tag $10,000 challenge” Shoothill designed and developed a Facebook App for the movie “Source Code”. This project had Shoothill working with Microsoft Tag, E-prise, and Summit Entertainment. Within a deep zoom of a still from the film (made by 1million Microsoft tag bar codes that all worked) the user used their Tag app on their phone to register with any of the tags within the image, and then were taken to the e-Prize portal pages to register their name for the draw for the $10,000.

MSN-USA-Rosie-Show-2011

We created this online experience for The Rosie Show showcasing their content in a fresh and innovative format. The group turned to Shoothill to develop software for their fan base that contained video content from the shows, such as “where’s Rosie?” and fan segments. Here users could leave comments, upload images from their own lives, and even make suggestions as to how the show could be improved.

Microsoft Partner Connctor app for Windows Phone 2010

Microsoft commissioned us to develop an app adaptation of our successful online partner connector from the previous summer. This version of the connector served as a platform for partners to register and meet each other available on windows phone, android, and IOS.

Simultaneously hosted worldwide, this was our first user upload deep zoom created in celebration of the Royal Wedding. End users could wish the happy couple well by uploading their own picture and be added to the mosaic in real time. Hosted in the USA, UK and Australia, well over 40,000 people took part on the wedding day alone!

Boston Museum of Science 2011

This digital exhibit using a myriad of different data sets showed the US’s pursuit of sustainable energy sources. We built the software for the prestigious Boston Museum of Science, who wanted something new and innovative to highlight alternative energy supplies (e.g. thermal, wind, solar etc) available on the US eastern seaboard on a daily basis.

Megafiche DeepZoom Creator 2011

This tool allowed users to search their image archive’s ‘master’ deep zoom for individual content using a ‘pivot’. A research project led us to build this ‘deep zoom creator’ tool. The software would allow end users to archive vast numbers of pictures into one ‘master’ deep zoom. Individual content was then searchable via a ‘pivot’. Once a subject was chosen, the zoom would animate and create a new deep zoom of that content on-the-fly.

MSN Flood Risk Analyser

As part of the MSN local project, Shoothill worked on software mapping ‘flood risk’ publicly on Bing Maps. Our objective was to improve on the existing online outputs from the Environment Agency and SEPA. This was not open data at the time and it took months of wrangling with the EA and OS (and £30,000 to the EA) but once complete the system was the first of it’s kind in the UK. After seeing the results, the EA were very keen to talk to us.

This interactive mosaic of Churchill could be zoomed into to see hundreds of photographs of Britain’s wartime leader. The giant image of the historic figure was featured at the Churchill War Rooms. Initially planned for a one-year engagement, the exhibit was live in the War Rooms until 2018.

Software combining our data and mapping skills with powerful datasets to automatically assess the value of any house. Property Check was funded by Experian who provided the necessary data through their ‘Mosaic’ data collection service. The aim of the project was targeted at using data to automatically and accurately assess the value of any house. This based, not only on its location, but also other socio-economic factors such life expectancy, crime, flooding, and more.

Timemap Berlin 2011

We developed this app across mobile device operating systems to assist an advertising firm in showcasing their billboards. Part of WPP Group, Kinetic is the world’s largest planner and digital innovator of Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising. They wanted an ‘app’ that showcased all their advertising boards all over the walls and live retail status on the fly. Not a simple project to start with and made more complicated because Kinetic needed their app to work on Symbian OS, Blackberry OS, IOS, Android and Windows - 5 operating systems). Yet we rose to the challenge and delivered a streamlined system.

Black and Decker 2010

Shoothill developed this software which makes personalised recommendations on lawnmower products based on each customer’s specific garden dimensions. It’s important when buying a lawnmower to match the right machine to the right sized lawn (e.g. petrol, electric or battery). So Shoothill developed the ‘lawn calculator’ tool that allowed the end user to ‘draw’ their lawn space directly on to a map. Then the tool would calculate its area, recommending the most suitable option.

Huge promotional online mosaic fan engagement campaign

While experimenting with Deep Zoom technology we were lucky enough to work with Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. We were looking for a customer with a wide fan base, to show the power of this technology to the world. In honour of the great man we created the world’s first one million image online Deep Zoom mosaic and demoed it personally at Microsoft’s Reading UK Campus.

World War Two Battle of Britian

Based on our TimeMap concept, this exhibit displayed images of WW2 era artefacts, courtesy the Imperial War Museum. These included original WW2 maps, reconnaissance imagery, and target documents of London and Coventry from the German Luftwaffe. We also included the Photosynth’s of the Heinkel He 111, Supermarine Spitfire and the Hawker Hurricane we took earlier in the year in the ‘Hanger’ area of the site. Exhibited on MSN, this project remains one of favourites over the years, and was nominated for the AOP Awards shortlist in 2011

Geoliath - A tool which could precisely establish an address and then work out its likelihood to flood. Partnered with the Ordinance Survey we were given access to super accurate postcode addresses for this project. We developed an experimental flood risk analyser with pinpoint accuracy. Although never released publicly (address point is not open data) it taught us a lot of lessons on how to map flooding in new ways.Geoliath - A tool which could precisely establish an address and then work out its likelihood to flood. Partnered with the Ordinance Survey we were given access to super accurate postcode addresses for this project. We developed an experimental flood risk analyser with pinpoint accuracy. Although never released publicly (address point is not open data) it taught us a lot of lessons on how to map flooding in new ways.

Flora and Fauna

In support of a conservation charity, our DeepZoom image of over ten thousand images was showcased on MSN. International charity FFI are a non-governmental organisation that aims to preserve natural animal habitats around the world. Sponsored by Microsoft, Shoothill created a this stunning image of a Sumatran Tiger, compiling over 10,000 images of endangered species into one digital mosaic. Showcased on MSN in the UK, USA, and Maghreb regions, this was the first multiple and simultaneous regional hosted project we undertook, and Stephen Fry kindly helped promote it.

Always searching for innovative applications of new and disruptive technology, Shoothill began experimenting with BING maps on Silverlight. Some of the results we achieved by utilising these emergent technologies as they became available were amazing. This example shows how railway data could be visualised in a new way. Next, we decided to see what we could do in Flood Mapping.

Back the bid 2010

Shoothill assisted in backing the bid for the 2018 World Cup with a publicly displayed digital flag mosaic. Not only did we create the image from 1000s of fan pictures and host it, we also took part in projecting it onto both the Wembley Stadium and Manchester Town Hall. This was all part of the 2010 British Telecom sponsored campaign for England to host the event. Alas, England were not successful in that bid of course, but the campaign itself was well received and a huge success.

Fuel Cells 2008

Shoothill contributed this state-of-the-art online monitoring system to a project developing a range of Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles. Our software not only mapped the location of each vehicle on the streets of Coventry, but also the live telemetry information from the Fuel Cells themselves.

Michael Jackson

Shoothill created this digital mosaic tribute to Michael Jackson from more than 5000 images over a single weekend. Following the pop star’s death, Microsoft asked Shoothill to create a fitting tribute for his fans and to do so very fast. Soon enough we had developed this interactive mosaic of the superstar. Upon launch it was our second project to go viral, generating over 2 million hits within just a week.

Store Locator Wizard 2009

In 2009 if you wanted an interactive map on your business website it was no simple task putting multiple locations on a Bing or Google Map and allowing users to plan a route of how to get there. To help simplify all this Shoothill created the ‘Store Locator Wizard’ where end users could upload their locations in bulk and the system would create a custom BING map for their site in seconds.

Intelligent Cities 2009

This project, worked with Birmingham city council and Microsoft, focused on intelligent city mapping for early mobile devices. We worked with these groups to develop a demonstrator concept – you can watch a movie about the project here.

This 3 year project from Microsoft involved sourcing and visualising divergent geo-referenced datasets relating to the property market. Locational data such as standard of living, property types, crime rates, flood risk, property value and so on. We then displayed this information to be easily understood by prospective house-buyers through thematic, heat-mapped, clustered, and other styles of mapping. This work for the Microsoft Network (MSN) was the start of our interest in flood mapping.

Apollo 11 Deep Moon

Celebrating 40 years since the moon landings, this was our first attempt at creating unlimited sized mosaics online. At the time, this was the largest image ever created (approx. 50,000 images) within Deep Zoom. In fact, the platform could not support images that large and so we had to create our own code to be able to do this.

The TimeMap system was an internal self-funded project aiming to overlay historical Ordinance Survey maps over Google Maps. Shoothill were looking for new and exciting ways to achieve this objective. We came up with the ‘TimeScope’ concept, where users could use a slider tool to literally see how an area changed through time by viewing overlaid historic maps ordered by date.

Spitfire Photosynth

Shoothill was one of the first developers in the UK to work with Microsoft Labs in the US. Our early work with the tech giant related particularly to Deep Zoom and Silverlight. As an experiment we worked with the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, and the RAF Museum in London, to take 100’s of pictures of a Supermarine Spitfire, a Hawker Hurricane, and a Heinkel He 111. These were later digitally synchronised into a MS Photosynth Collection.

Shoothill created a user-friendly way for people to explore pages from Charles Darwin’s ‘The origin of the species’. The esteemed revolutionary scientist was born in our hometown of Shrewsbury, UK, and so we were excited to tackle this challenge. We designed and developed a large deep zoom mosaic of Charles Darwin himself, made from scans of the actual pages from the book, provided to us by Cambridge University.

VE Locity Screenshot

Buy A Piece Of was an early interactive web-based map for the property market, built with emergent technology. Shoothill MD, Rod Plummer, was inspired by the then newly emerging aerial imagery mapping technology from Google Earth and Bing Maps. He came up with the concept of buying and selling land or property directly from an online map, by either simply drawing out the property area or clicking a pin on the map to reveal details of the house for sale. Though common enough on sites like Rightmove today, in 2006 it was pretty amazing just to be able see a house from the ‘sky’, let alone buy one.

LMS Home Navigator 2007

Working with customer LMS saw Buy A Piece Of developed into a fully-fledged property portal centralised around mapping. LMS was Shoothill’s first customer and as such bought the rights for Buyapieceof.co.uk. Following the successful launch, the system was active between 2007 and 2010.

VE-locity was an original set of ASP.NET tools created by Shoothill, specifically for Virtual Earth™ (Bing Maps Platform). The software enabled IT Professionals to quickly unlock the commercial power of mapping data. This allowed them to solve real business issues and improve geospatial data analysis tasks (map sales performance, assess location-based assets or geo-code location intelligence). With powerful visualisation tools built-in to display any GEO/GIS data, VE-locity also simplified data binding in easy steps (without detailed knowledge of JavaScript). It allowed developers to effortlessly ‘drag and drop' datasets from multiple database formats onto any Virtual Earth map.

Shoothill created a system for West Midlands Police that uses data to pinpoint areas of crime, in order to identify trends and work out the root cause of criminal activity

Bombardier 2008

Bombardier UK commissioned Shoothill to develop graphical software plotting detailed train data to a live BING maps overlay. The system not only displayed the location of rolling stock but also visualised live engineering telemetry data taken from trains; on the move and in real time. Bombardier were delighted with the results and so were Shoothill as this project was the runner-up in the 2009 Microsoft WPC Innovation Awards (or first professional accolade)

Virtually Earthy

Based on MS Virtual Earth, this concept site used logistics and mapping to encourage users to shop locally. On ‘Virtually Earthy’ someone could check where the food they buy in their local supermarket actually came from, as well as the distance it had travelled to get there. Ultimately the aim was to highlight and help people reduce their carbon footprint.

Political Expences 2009

Our thematic map allowed the public to see with ease how MP’s expenses claims varied across UK constituencies. When the expenses furore was at its height, we approached MSN with an idea to visualise the MP’s publicly available expenses data on a Bing Map. As well as at a glance comparison, users could drill down further to get more granularity on any individual MP’s spending. As this was breaking news, and with no time to spare, we had a deadline to produce it within 24 hours. The project was a massive success for both Shoothill and MSN, was re-tweeted by Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC, and was our first project to go truly viral.

A major reseller of SIM-only mobile phone top-ups needed a dynamic system mapping their growing number of outlets. Lebara were expanding rapidly, both nationally and overseas. They needed a fast and easy solution, showing the location of their 1000’s of outlets, with more opening daily. Shoothill created a custom World-Wide Store Locator and wizard to allow Lebara to add new stores to it on the fly.

Parallel Universe