Featured Stories: Volume 5 No. 3

• Integrating ArcPad into Municipal Services (316KB)
  The Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) is located in south central British Columbia and encompasses the lower Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys, north of the Washington State boundary. The area offers a mild climate, scenic environment, and wide variety of recreational opportunities to its population of approximately 78,000.
  
  
• Managing City Street Signs with GIS/GPS (316KB)
  The City of Thunder Bay is Ontario's tenth largest city, one of Canada's largest ports, and a national centre for the forest and transportation industries. It has a metro population of more than 120,000 and services a regional area with a population of more than 260,000. The City incorporates GIS technology into a wide range of municipal services.
  
  
• La gestion du territoire public avec ArcIMS (182KB)
  En février dernier, le ministère des Ressources naturelles du Québec (MRN) procédait à la mise en ligne d'un nouvel outil d'aide à la gestion du territoire public, le Système d'information et de gestion du territoire public (SIGT). Accessible à l'ensemble de son personnel de toutes les régions du Québec et disponible gratuitement pour ses partenaires de gestion, le SIGT est le premier guichet unique de consultation de l'information géographique pertinente à la gestion du territoire public.
  
  
• Managing Public Land with ArcIMS (163KB)
  Last February, the Ministère des ressources naturelles du Québec (MRN) began work to put a new tool online to help manage public land in Quebec. The Système d'information et de gestion du territoire public (SIGT) (public land management and information system) is accessible by MRN staff throughout Quebec and available free of charge to management partners, and is the first single web application containing geographic information relevant to public land management.
  
  
• Tourism Mapping - A Click Away (540KB)
  Whether purchasing a house, starting a new business, finding the location of a community service, planning your travel itinerary, or figuring out the best route through traffic, thinking and working geographically improves the decision making process. GIS software empowers individuals and organizations to create maps, integrate information, visualize scenarios, present powerful ideas, and develop effective solutions.
  
  
• Surveying: From Pythagoras to GIS (321KB)
  In the age of modern technology, survey work tends to be associated with changes to our landscape and decisions about how and where to build new highways and towers. However, in recent years the word 'survey' has also acquired a different, two-fold meaning in the archaeology of the ancient world. It is linked with fieldwalk surveying and topographic surveying, both of which provide data for understanding the ancient landscape in a more complete way. This year the data acquisition process became more user-friendly when GIS, and in particular ArcPad, was incorporated into survey work in southern Greece. Technical specialists, along with students and volunteers, criss-crossed the countryside using GIS and GPS devices to complement their search for knowledge and meaning in the ancient world.
  
  
• Creating Tactile Maps with GIS (350KB)
  Many people might not think twice about being able to read and use a map, whether it is a street map or a mall directory. Maps are one of the few everyday objects that are almost entirely dependent on the sense of sight and this makes reading conventional maps difficult or often impossible for people who are blind or visually impaired. However, in many situations, people who are blind or visually impaired may also benefit from maps to help them become orientated with their surroundings.
  
  
• Highlights from San Diego (117KB)
  Imagine over 11,000 GIS practitioners and enthusiasts gathered in one place for a full week of sharing ideas, learning about new technology, and hearing about interesting applications. This describes the 22nd International ESRI User Conference, held in San Diego, CA from July 8 to 12, 2002.
  
  
• Have you been to your Map Library Lately? (107KB)
  At the University of Ottawa and Carleton University map libraries, students working on assignments for their geography courses are busy using ArcView, searching and clipping geospatial data from databases supplied by the City of Ottawa, the National Capital Commission (NCC), DMTI Spatial, Statistics Canada, and many others. Census data, street files, and land use information, combined with digital orthophotos help create a detailed site map for a proposed new restaurant or perhaps a tourism atlas for visitors to the area. These two university libraries are fortunate to have one of the largest collections of detailed, local geospatial data in Canadian university libraries. The road to achieving this remarkable situation was a long one.
  
  
• Complete Issue (3.7 MB)