In the world of GIS, there is no doubt that there is a lot of information and data which become available to the professional of today. Much of this resides in powerful databases (such as that of SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, etc.). Combing through all of these massive datasets is a very time-consuming task. It could take hours if not days, thus, there are automated tools that can help this process, such as that of Data Warehousing.
Within minutes, unforeseen trends can be discovered, analyzed, and applied to any research model. But, there is also a need for the GIS professional to be able to access and see these results of different data sets, all in one view.
This is where the concept of the Dashboard comes into use. With this tool, all of the datasets and their corresponding trends can be seen from one interface and can be easily accessed with just a few clicks of the mouse. This is a need that is very strong today, and in fact, a GIS vendor is known as “Esri” is capitalizing on it.
Just last week, they announced the release of a bundled package which combines four of their major offerings into one dashboard:
- The Image Analysis;
- The Image Management;
- The Image Analytics;
- The Ortho Mapping.
All of the information and data which is collected, (this includes Satellite, Aerial, and Drone-based imagery) is available in one snapshot view. Thus, the GIS professional can take the required actions or decisions in real-time.
An example of a customer making use of this new platform is that of the Chesapeake Conservancy. According to Jeff Allenby, a Director there: “The Chesapeake Conservancy needed detailed image analytics capabilities due to the fact that we were undertaking a massive project of locating places along rivers and streams to plant trees as buffers for pollution . . . Esri’s mapping and analytics allowed us to do a localized analysis of high-resolution imagery, which told us exactly where gaps along the water occurred and planting would be most effective. The process was quick and precise and scaled-down our workflow.”
GeoTel is a telecommunications research and GIS mapping firm that researches and provides telecom datasets for more than 7,000 cities in the United States and worldwide. GeoTel’s expertise includes specialists in economic geography, geospatial engineering, web GIS, and telecommunications GIS Data infrastructure.
