GISc
Version 1

Midterm Status

Version 1 Web site

Implementation Objectives:

    Visually Display Geographic Relationships of Registered Sex Offenders to Area Schools via Map Driven Web Site. This project is to obtain public data on the location of registered sex offenders located in and around the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and create maps that illustrate the proximity of registered sex offenders to local schools using the  buffer capabilities of GIS software.  The maps created will then be published as an interactive web site that will enable users to navigate to an area of interest and view the map file associated with their search.

System specification:

  • Computer hardware used, Dual 400 MHz Pentium 2 CPU, 512 MB RAM, Dual 18 GB SCSI 2 HS/HD, NAS 80 GB (On-site Backup), CI Host Web site hosting service (Web server & Off-site Backup).
     
  • Software applications include, Windows XP Pro, ESRI ArcGIS/ArcView 8.2 GIS, NetObjects Fusion 7 Web site toolbox, CompuPic Pro 6.2 image editor, Internet Explorer 6 Web browser, Access database, CuteFTP Pro ftp data transfer, Adobe Photoshop 7.

Application development:

  • Database design and manipulation:
    • Data sources include; Texas Department of Public Safety  (DPS) Sex Offender Registration (SOR) Database for offenders located within 16 county area. (8,076 records with SIS as unique key field) , Texas Education Agency (TEA) Database for school location shapefile (8,164 records) and DFWinfo.com Data Clearinghouse for County boundaries, landmark points, city limits, road lines, unified school districts, zip codes and hydrology shapefiles.
    • Acquire permissions and download SOR data from DPS & School data from TEA.
    • To maintain the County centric design and improve geocoding accuracy, create Geocoding services and subdirectories for each County and populate with unique County boundary data. Including, SOR dBASE Table, schools, roads, place, water and zip code shapefiles for each Member County.
  • Spatial analysis:
    • Create geodatabase and import table and shape files for each County.
    • Use ArcMap to create a three layer project with a uniform page layout for each County, including standardized map elements, Texas reference, NCTCOG reference and a primary area of study. Geocode SOR dBASE Table using County roads file as reference data and include results. Use buffer tool to create 500 FT boundary for each school.  Export several relevant map views of each county as Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) image.
  • Cartographic production:
    • Use CompuPic Pro 6.2 to resize JPEG’s to Web site frames, resulting in uniform image display throughout the Web site.
    • Use NetObjects Fusion 7 to create and maintain Web site content, style, navigation and remote publishing to host server.

Issues:

  • Data acquired for offender and school locations is dynamic in nature; people move, schools open/close & time flies! And, Web sites are living electronic documents requiring a constant flow of interesting content to remain productive! Therefore, static maps that display static data are trivial. 
     
  • Additionally, data manipulation and management, accurate geocoding and physical hardware constraints made project management a challenge.  Attempting to design and maintain file structures to logically represent data, documents & maps for each County proved over-complicated.  File size became large, redundancy flourished and the project became a rote regurgitation of a repetitive process.

Solution:

  • From a user’s prospective, interesting content provides the ability to ask and then answers questions about the here and now.  Therefore, version 2 will use ArcWeb for Developers to perform real-time processing on ESRI computers where Web services are located and return the results to my local application on the Internet.

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Web site contains over 100 pages of custom maps and geocoded data created for my use as a UTDallas/GISc student.

Objectives: This project is to obtain public data on the location of registered sex offenders located in and around the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and create maps that illustrate the proximity of registered sex offenders to local schools using the buffer capabilities of GIS software.

Content provided by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Sex Offender Registration (SOR) Database, Texas Education Agency (TEA) Database for school locations and DFWinfo.com Data Clearinghouse for base shapefiles.

Summer Project Web site, online version for your perusal. http://www.infojack.com/sor/index.html
UTD/GISc curriculum Web site, provides curriculum information created for my use as a 2003 UTD/GISc student. http://www.infojack.com/utd_gis_website/index.html

INFOJACK