A GIS Solution

Aerospace and Telecommunications Engineering Support Squadron

The Aerospace and Telecommunications Engineering Support Squadron (ATESS), based at Canadian Forces Base Trenton (Ontario), recently fielded an ArcView 3.0 based application for use in Canadian Rescue Coordination Centres (RCC). The development team produced a comprehensive suite of scripts to allow the RCC operators to quickly and easily use map data in the prosecution of Search and Rescue (SAR) cases.

For several years, the project remained in a research mode. The cost of the projected product continued to be extreme and the functionality did not meet user requirements. However, the IT staff at Air Command were able to implement a dedicated WAN using Cisco routers and dedicated digital circuits in a ring topology. This feature is still in use today!

In September 1996, Air Command down-sized and devolved responsibility to other units. The RCC Automation Project was transferred to ATESS. One of the things that became immediately apparent was that the R&D had developed a momentum that was moving it away from the users’ requirements. It was, in some aspects, a solution looking for a problem. Air Command was convinced that the solution would require SunSparc stations running Intergraph software. Air Command was unaware of two very recent developments that would dramatically change the feasibility of the project: ArcView 3.0 and Windows NT dual screen capability. The project team went to work and quickly came up with a much less expensive solution that would meet more of the users requirements without customizations using exclusively "Off the Shelf" software and hardware. With only minor modifications we were able to create the 80% solution.

After close discussions with the user community, the team began to understand exactly what the users were looking for. Although an excellent Statement of Requirement (SOR) existed, we found that there is no substitute for close dialogue with the user community. We adopted the motto "Build what they want, not only what they have specified." The next step was to establish a test-bed facility at ATESS to provide a development platform, proving ground and training facility.

The team also decided to approach the project in two phases; the first would place LAN’s in five locations complete with a suite of office automation software and a basic GIS and Case Management tool. Phase II would add links between the GIS and case management tool, diversified data resources (such as Jane’s, ship registries, police, fire, ambulance, et cetera), resource tracking capabilities (plotting moving aircraft), Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), and improved WAN services.

The test bed consists of six workstations, two servers, one colour plotter and one colour laser. The Network Operating System is NT 4.0.

The workstations are Pentium Pro 200's with 64Meg RAM, two 3.2 Gig hard drives, one 21" Monitor, one 17" monitor, and Matrox Millenium graphics cards (with 4Meg RAM). The operating system is Windows NT 4.0 which provides an easy solution for dual screen display (actually one virtual screen split into two monitors). This is an important requirement for the users since they like to work with a map on one screen and utilities on the other.

We chose to use two servers (Primary and Secondary Domain) to improve performance, provide redundancy and increase data storage capacity. These servers are also Pentium Pro 200's with 64Meg RAM, two 3.2 Gig hard drives, one 17" monitor, and one Matrox Millenium graphics cards (with 4Meg RAM). In addition, one of the servers has a SCSI card controlling seven CD ROMs in a separate chassis. This last item provides multiple CD ROMS for the LAN without the high cost of a CD Carousel.

To settle on this hardware configuration, our system engineer, Lieutenant Ashby trialed numerous systems and then put together a small assembly line to build the 40 units required. This allowed us to produce the hardware at half the cost of procuring these systems. A bigger plus was that every single machine was exactly the same. 

The Geographic Information System is ArcView 3.0, the data base is Oracle 7.3, and the data base front end application was developed with Power Builder. The workstations also carry MS Office 97, LAN Source WINport, and various other miscellaneous applications.

The LAN’s are protected by a NEC Privatenet firewall and managed by Loran-Plaintree’s "Kinnetics" system.

After analysis of the SOR, careful discussion with the users, and a pinch of common sense, the team concluded that it would be best to develop two basic applications: a GIS that met the users mapping requirements, and a data base system that would manage the case information. One of the criteria used in picking the development tools was that the applications had to be Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) compliant. In other words, they had to be able to share data. The decided approach was to produce two applications that worked independently, and then in Phase II integrate the two applications together. Once the GIS had been chosen, we hired a brilliant young contractor named Steve Edgett who got to work immediately on implementing the user requirements. At the same time, our PowerBuilder expert, Ms Jackie Collins, was hard at work turning the users’ data entry forms into PowerBuilder digital forms.

In April, after a flurry of last minute requests from the operators, the two major applications were frozen and polished for roll-out. They were named "SearchMaster" and "CaseMaster". They are both currently in use at RCC Trenton, the Canadian Coast Guard College in Sydney Nova Scotia, and Marine Rescue Sub Centres in St-Johns Newfoundland and Quebec City. Systems for RCC Halifax and RCC Victoria will be delivered later this summer.

The military and civilian teams are hard at work on Phase II requirements right now. We expect to roll-out the next version this fall, after the summer silly season ends and the RCC operators get a chance to catch their breath.

As mentioned previously, case information is stored in an Oracle DBMS. In addition to case information, SAR operations make use of a wide variety of data sets including: Canadian Gazetteer, aircraft and vessel registrations, a crash registry, Canada Pro Phone directory listing, SAR resource database, Janes Aircraft, Emergency Locater Transmitter (ELT) Registry, emergency services locations and others. Acquisition and integration of all of this data is complex and still on going.

We have now completed Phase I and are currently developing Phase II features. The Phase I product was rolled out in April and contains almost all of the user requested functions. It provides Canadian Gazetteer, airports, known crash sites, highways, and many other useful themes. In addition, it provides raster and vector map viewing, a variety of user definable search areas, projection toggling, additional map manipulation utilities and many other features. It must be said that ArcView 3.0 met many of the users’ requirements "right out of the box", thus the 80% solution.

Never ask a developer to list the high lights. We’re very proud of our product and it’s difficult to keep the list short.