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Successes in using mobile GIS solutions in communities
For some time now, GLOBUS Informationssysteme GmbH has been offering special GeoMedia-based solutions for community tasks. This includes such features as the complex green management system InfraGreen, a solution for surface usage and landscape planning InfraPlanF, and a solution for street management within communities, InfraTraffic.In addition to data inventory management, the solutions to green management and street management contain
modules for displaying topic cards, a query module and an evaluation, cost performance calculation and statistics package, as well as monitoring of the status of trees and inventory. The monitoring of Street surfaces and street
inventory is also included. The company has been offering the mobile GIS-supported monitoring system InfraMobil
for about a year. It is currently in use in the cities of Giessen, Ludwigsburg and Bietigheim-Bissingen for mobile tree monitoring. The mobile solution currently runs on pentops manufactured by Fujitsu with the
Windows operating system, but will also run on all portable computers that have MS Windows. GeoMedia by Intergraph and the monitoring module Infra
GreenMobile are also installed on the pentop.The mobile solution receives its data from the green management system Infra Green
(PC), in which inventory data for trees covering the entire area of the city is managed. The user combines the trees to be monitored together for a monitoring crew or a company by using queries or a graphical selection process and then retrieves the data on the trees as well as the last monitoring record set to an ACCESS monitoring database. A background map is also extracted from the
InfraGreen
database. This monitoring database and the background map are then transferred to the pentop.The user can identify the trees to be monitored on-site by using a map, check related inventory data and create a new control sequence
for each tree. The user is supported in this process by a topic map that indicates the interval at which the trees are to be monitored and which trees have already been monitored. Of course it is possible to include new trees,
correct location information or delete trees. All relevant details on the tree and tree monitoring can be filled in by using a selection (code) list that has been read out of the green management system. Input screens are designed
to allow for optimal user interface with a pen. After on-site monitoring has been completed, the control database is transferred from the pentop to the PC and is loaded into the green management system Infra
Green. An automatic comparison and adjustment with error protocoling ensures
that inventory and control data are updated and that cards are corrected in InfraGreen. The newly acquired control data is available for immediate evaluations of the control results, the urgency of measures and an analysis of specific damages. In actual practice, this
GIS-supported solution, the first one to be so thorough, has resulted in astonishing savings of cost and time. For inventories in the range of 30,000 trees, eliminating all written documents and maps serving a similar purpose
during pre-processing and post-processing of an entire tree monitoring sequence has made it possible to save about 80 man days. The company will also be supporting mobile monitoring of green and recreation area inventories with
software before the end of this year. There are also plans to provide similar programs for mobile street surface and street inventory monitoring. |
