Case Studies on Geodatabase Design
Farallon Helps Caltrans Improve Accuracy of States County Route Postmile System
Challenge
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) wanted to improve the accuracy of the county route postmile system by accurately determining locations where highways cross county lines.
Solution
Farallon helped Caltrans to determine locations of the intersection of highway centerline and county boundary crossings for selected sites, within 5 meters of true, using three different technical approaches to determining highway centerlines. Read more details...
Categories: Geodatabase Design, Transportation & Linear Networks, GPS Field Data Collection
Contra Costa Economic Development website integrates spatially-aware database and MS Virtual Earth
Challenge
To promote economic development, Contra Costa County Community Development Department wanted a website to help real estate professionals and business owners search for properties available for development or new business locations.
Solution
Farallon developed an easy-to-use prototype "GIS Site Locator" website using Microsoft's Virtual Earth that dynamically queries geodata and broker information stored in Oracle Express. Users enter parameters such as price range and square footage to quickly find and display properties on a map along with photos and driving directions. An RSS feed automatically keeps users updated of relevant new properties. Read more details...
Categories: Web Applications, Enterprise Mashups, Property Review, GIS/IT Integration, Business Intelligence Systems, Geodatabase Design, Open Standards Solutions
Integrating MDOT’s business data with its geographic data using Oracle Spatial
Challenge
The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is responsible for planning, designing, building and operating the state's transportation network. MDOT's existing LRS implementation was not geographically referenced . This limited their ability to automate data validation or perform real-time spatial analyses of their network.
Solution
Farallon developed a data model to support MDOT's transportation system workflows and integrated the data with Oracle Spatial. Farallon also developed dynamic segmentation procedures to link tabular data (e.g. traffic reports) to on-the-fly to visualization of road segments. MDOT can now access mapping and business data dynamically. Read more details...
Categories: Geodatabase Design, Transportation & Linear Networks, Planning & Training, GIS Needs Asssessment
Bay Area Geological Hazard Abatement Districts use GIS Mashup to Identify and Manage Critical Data
Challenge
San Francisco Bay Area Geological Hazard Abatement Districts (GHADs) manage risk related to property damage from potential landslides. They needed to analyze 15 years of quarterly data tracking water levels, angles of slopes that have been sliding, and homeowner reported cracks, in order to identify potential at-risk properties and proactively manage landslide risks.
Solution
Farallon created business rules in Oracle Express to determine locations that exceeded threshold levels for risk and then displayed these as markers in Google Earth along with links to supporting details. The GIS mashup provides an intuitive and powerful decision support system with low cost, high speed, and easy scalability. Read more details...
Categories: Web Applications, Enterprise Mashups, Geodatabase Design
Town of Hillsborough Enterprise Geodatabase Development
Challenge
The Town of Hillsborough had devoted time and resources to initiating a GIS on a departmental desktop-level basis. To minimize data duplicities, increase data accessibility, and make data manageable by Town staff, they needed an enterprise GIS implementation.
Solution
Farallon devised a three-part solution that included building a RDBMS- based enterprise GIS, developing two web-based GIS applications (property review and notification) and training Town staff to manage their data and applications. Read more details...
Categories: Web Applications, Notification, Geodatabase Design, Planning & Training, Training & Technology Transfer
City of San Mateo Google Earth integration with OGC compliant data
Challenge
The City of San Mateo uses a suite of GIS applications for staff to access geospatial data. The City wanted to provide more intuitive access to its GIS data and make it accessible to the public using the Google Earth interface. However, the back end GIS was not able to deliver geospatial data directly to Google Earth.
Solution
Farallon built a web service interface using .NET to translate data from the City's Intergraph GeoMedia WebMap server to a format usable by Google Earth. This allows a Google Earth user to view selected City GIS data such as high quality aerial imagery and point, linear, & polygonal features - all in real-time. Read more details...
Categories: Web Applications, Enterprise Mashups, Property Review, Geodatabase Design, Open Standards Solutions
California ISO GIS and Transmission Information Display System
Challenge
The California ISO manages the transmission of electricity through the State's extensive network of high voltage lines. To manage the electrical grid in response to factors such as wild land fires and extreme weather, the ISO needed a complete and positionally accurate accurate representation of the grid from all of the State's primary electricity generators and transmitters.
Solution
Farallon developed a Unified GIS data model that merged the State's major power generators' GIS data into a single, consistent, validated, and audited database. It offers a broad array of online and offline visualization and mapping capabilities and can easily integrate future external databases. Read more details...
Categories: Web Applications, GIS/IT Integration, Geodatabase Design, Network GIS
Bay Area Air Quality Management District ESRI-based Enterprise GIS
Challenge
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District assesses the health risks associated with exposure to high concentrations of toxic air contaminants and comes up with a strategies to reduce risk to residents. They needed an efficient means of analyzing large volumes of data and a way to visually explain these results to policymakers and the public.
Solution
Farallon developed and implemented an enterprise-class GIS that provides BAAQMD with a central data repository to store and share data across the organization as well as perform targeted and visual analyses. Read more details...
Categories: Geodatabase Design, Planning & Training, Training & Technology Transfer
MTC SAFE’s Bay Area Freeway Service Patrol fleet management evaluation
Challenge
MTC SAFE's Freeway Service Patrol Program uses an Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL) system that allows the California Highway Patrol to verify that tow service trucks are at their designated locations. The FSP needed a comprehensive diagnosis of their existing telecommunications network, especially the AVL system.
Solution
Farallon examined the current software, provided diagnosis, made recommendations for technical and logistical improvements, and to develop and implement a fleet management program, as well as integrate with external incident management systems. Read more details...
Categories: Geodatabase Design, GPS Field Data Collection, Planning & Training, GIS Needs Asssessment
Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) Oracle Spatial Transportation Asset Management
Challenge
UDOT maintenance division had developed an Oracle database with tabular reports to track and analyze Utah's 5,900 miles of roads and 250,000+ transportation-related assets. UDOT wanted to integrate this with a web-based map interface to make spatial and business data more accessible and allow for field verification techniques.
Solution
Farallon worked with UDOT to create an enterprise-wide spatial database building on their existing Oracle infrastructure. This allowed UDOT to pilot a spatially enabled transportation asset management system, without having to deploy a new or separate GIS. Read more details...
Categories: Web Applications, GIS/IT Integration, Asset Management Systems, Geodatabase Design, GPS Field Data Collection, Planning & Training, Training & Technology Transfer