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Maps · head to head

Correlator3D vs Foursquare Spatial Studio

Correlator3D logo

Correlator3D

Maps

SimActive photogrammetry with a published price list and a perpetual licence still on sale

From
$295/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Foursquare Spatial Studio logo

Foursquare Spatial Studio

Maps

The product formerly sold as Unfolded, now a Foursquare platform rather than a standalone company

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Correlator3D the standard licence caps at 61 megapixel sensors, so an operator moving to a medium or large format camera has to buy a different and separately quoted licence rather than paying an upgrade fee.; Foursquare Spatial Studio unfolded no longer exists as a product or a contracting entity, so buyers researching under that name find documentation, pricing discussion and comparison material that no longer applies to what Foursquare sells
  • They diverge on capability: Correlator3D covers Aerial triangulation, Foursquare Spatial Studio covers Browser rendering at scale.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Correlator3D and Foursquare Spatial Studio actually diverge.

Attributes where Correlator3D and Foursquare Spatial Studio differ
AttributeCorrelator3DFoursquare Spatial Studio
Starting price$295/monthOn request
Pricing modelOne-time purchasequote
PlatformsWindowsWeb

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Maps).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Correlator3D

  • Aerial triangulation
  • DSM and DTM generation
  • Orthomosaic production
  • Point cloud and 3D mesh output
  • Feature extraction
  • GPU acceleration
  • Satellite imagery support
  • Batch and unattended processing

Only in Foursquare Spatial Studio

  • Browser rendering at scale
  • H3 spatial indexing
  • Data joins
  • Time animation
  • Map sharing and embedding
  • Cloud data connections
  • Foursquare data access

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Correlator3D

  • An aerial survey company processing large photographic blocks where per-project cloud credits would be more expensive than owning a licencenot Foursquare Spatial Studio
  • A national or regional mapping agency that needs software it can run offline on classified or restricted imagerynot Foursquare Spatial Studio
  • A drone service provider producing bare-earth terrain models for volumetrics and corridor mapping at high throughputnot Foursquare Spatial Studio
  • An organisation that wants a perpetual licence because a multi-year subscription cannot be justified against its capital budgeting rulesnot Foursquare Spatial Studio

Foursquare Spatial Studio

  • A retail property team comparing catchment overlap between candidate sites using hexagonal aggregation rather than drive-time polygonsnot Correlator3D
  • A telecommunications planner visualising a national dataset of measurements in the browser without building a tile pipelinenot Correlator3D
  • An analytics team that already writes deck.gl in-house and wants a hosted environment so non-developers can explore the same datanot Correlator3D
  • A marketing group that wants Foursquare places and movement data joined to its own customer geography in one toolnot Correlator3D

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Correlator3D

  • The standard licence caps at 61 megapixel sensors, so an operator moving to a medium or large format camera has to buy a different and separately quoted licence rather than paying an upgrade fee.
  • It is Windows desktop only with no cloud processing option, so throughput is bounded by the workstation and GPU you buy, and there is no way to burst capacity for one large job.
  • There is no collaboration layer, client portal or field application, so deliverable sharing, review and version control all have to be handled by other software.
  • The interface and workflow are built for photogrammetry specialists; an occasional drone operator will find the learning curve steeper than a consumer-oriented mapping package.
  • The perpetual licence includes only one year of support and updates, and staying current afterwards means paying maintenance, so the headline $5,900 is not the whole long-term cost.

Foursquare Spatial Studio

  • Unfolded no longer exists as a product or a contracting entity, so buyers researching under that name find documentation, pricing discussion and comparison material that no longer applies to what Foursquare sells
  • Pricing is not published at all, and because access to Foursquare datasets can be bundled into the same agreement, separating the cost of the software from the cost of the data requires explicitly asking for a split quote
  • Much of the visualisation capability exists in kepler.gl and deck.gl, which are free and open source, so the paid product must justify itself on hosting, collaboration and data rather than on rendering
  • Foursquare's core business is selling location data, which means the analytics roadmap follows what makes that data sell, and a customer using only its own data is not the priority segment
  • It is analysis and visualisation, not a spatial database or an editing environment, so organisations still need PostGIS, a warehouse or a GIS for the authoritative data and its maintenance

Pricing, plan by plan

Correlator3D

$295/month
  • Monthly subscription$295/month
    • Unlimited images
    • Sensors up to 61 megapixels
    • All modules and tools
  • Yearly subscription$2950/year
    • Unlimited images
    • Sensors up to 61 megapixels
    • All modules and tools
  • Permanent licence$5900/one-time
    • Perpetual licence
    • Unlimited images up to 61 megapixels
    • All modules and tools
  • Permanent floating licence$6400/one-time
    • Perpetual floating licence shared across machines
    • Unlimited images up to 61 megapixels
    • One year of support and updates included

Foursquare Spatial Studio

On request
  • Foursquare Spatial Studio$undefined/year
    • Quoted by users, data volume and which Foursquare datasets you take
    • Cloud warehouse connections on the higher tier
    • Not published

Which should you pick?

Choose Correlator3D if

  • You need aerial triangulation.
  • You work on Windows.
  • You also want dsm and dtm generation.
Correlator3D review

Choose Foursquare Spatial Studio if

  • You need browser rendering at scale.
  • You also want h3 spatial indexing.
Foursquare Spatial Studio review

Questions people ask

Is Correlator3D or Foursquare Spatial Studio better?
Neither clearly leads. Correlator3D starts at $295/month and Foursquare Spatial Studio at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Correlator3D or Foursquare Spatial Studio?
Correlator3D starts at $295/month and Foursquare Spatial Studio at On request.
Does Correlator3D or Foursquare Spatial Studio run on more platforms?
Correlator3D runs on Windows. Foursquare Spatial Studio runs on Web.
What is Correlator3D best used for?
Correlator3D is most often used for an aerial survey company processing large photographic blocks where per-project cloud credits would be more expensive than owning a licence, a national or regional mapping agency that needs software it can run offline on classified or restricted imagery, a drone service provider producing bare-earth terrain models for volumetrics and corridor mapping at high throughput, an organisation that wants a perpetual licence because a multi-year subscription cannot be justified against its capital budgeting rules. Of those, an aerial survey company processing large photographic blocks where per-project cloud credits would be more expensive than owning a licence and a national or regional mapping agency that needs software it can run offline on classified or restricted imagery are not what Foursquare Spatial Studio is typically brought in for.
What can Correlator3D do that Foursquare Spatial Studio cannot?
Correlator3D covers Aerial triangulation, DSM and DTM generation, Orthomosaic production, Point cloud and 3D mesh output. Foursquare Spatial Studio covers Browser rendering at scale, H3 spatial indexing, Data joins, Time animation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Correlator3D: Can I still buy a perpetual licence?

Yes. $5,900 for a permanent licence and $6,400 for a permanent floating licence, each including a year of support and updates.

Foursquare Spatial Studio: Can I still buy Unfolded?

No. Foursquare acquired Unfolded in 2021 and sells the product as Foursquare Spatial Studio. There is no Unfolded contract.

Correlator3D: What limits the standard licence?

Sensor resolution, up to 61 megapixels. Medium format, large format and satellite imagery need separately priced licences.

Foursquare Spatial Studio: Is kepler.gl the same thing?

No. kepler.gl is the free open source visualisation library from the same original team. Spatial Studio is the hosted commercial platform built around it.

Correlator3D: Is there a cloud version?

No. Processing runs on your own Windows workstation. SimActive offers a data processing service as an alternative to buying the software.

Foursquare Spatial Studio: What does it cost?

Foursquare does not publish pricing. Ask for the software and the data licences to be quoted separately.

Correlator3D: Does it handle satellite imagery?

Yes, under a separate satellite licence class quoted on request.

Foursquare Spatial Studio: Do I need Foursquare's data to use it?

No, you can load your own, but the commercial proposition is strongest for customers who also want the places and movement datasets.

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