Self-Service System for Instant Document RetrievalNew Capabilities for Drainage Information KioskTaj Pirani, GIS Survey Project
Manager, GIS Section, Drainage Division |
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Not too long ago, the main office at Drainage
Division had its corridors lined with huge, steel filing
cabinets in which drawings were (or were supposed to be!)
stored and maintained. Acquiring a drawing from one of these
cabinets was a cumbersome task. And, returning the drawing
to its original place was an even more demanding job! This
led to drawings being damaged, misplaced and even
disappearing.
Keeping in line with its Mission Statement ".... to be an organized and efficient source of drainage information, the GIS Section at Drainage Division proposed that all these engineering drawings (As Built and Standard) be converted to a digital format through the processes of scanning and vectorizing.
After scanning approximately 3,500 drawings at two different resolutions of 100 dpi (for viewing) and 400 dpi (for printing), a database was set up to facilitate the retrieval of these images. The database stored information such as the type of drawing, project number, project title, drawing number, etc. A front-end application known as Document Archival & Retrieval System (DARS) was developed so that users could easily access these drawings. Since the drawings were also being used by external agencies and other departments, it was necessary to make the drawings available to these users. The idea of a self-serve kiosk was born. The rest, as they say, is history.
This novel idea has grown into bigger and better things, and today there are 3 different applications that can be conveniently and easily accessible through the kiosk, which operates in a manner similar to that of a bank's automated teller machine. By following simple instructions and clicking on the right buttons, a user is able to acquire the information he requires in a matter of seconds.
The first of these applications is known as Design Inquiry. It allows the user to produce a map showing all the proposed and existing drainage features in any user defined area. Building design consultants frequently use this application to determine if a sewer line exists or is scheduled to be built in the area in which they are erecting a home or other building. Before this application existed, the consultant followed a circuitous, time consuming, procedure of writing a letter to request a plan be produced, waiting until the plan was prepared and approved for his perusal and then making a trip to the Drainage Division to pick it up. Now he can have the plan produced at the kiosk in seconds. The user simply types in a street address, selects a landmark from a prepared list displayed on the screen, or creates a rectangle on the screen surrounding the area of interest to him and a view of the selected area immediately appears. The user can then view the drainage features of his choice simply with the click of a button. Depending on the scale required, the drainage features may be overlaid on either a line map or an orthoimage. With yet another click of a button the user directs the map to be printed on either A0, A1 or A3 size paper.
The second application is the successor to DARS and is known as the Spatial Index for Document Encoding and Retrieval or SPIDER. It has been developed by CGIS in conjunction with the GIS agencies at the Drainage and Roads Divisions and the CGIS Mapping & Positioning Services Section. SPIDER is used for project drawings, maps, photographs, and other documents in digital form. Users can quickly retrieve and view any existing drawing or document in the system by either a spatial or tabular index and can zoom in or out, pan or select a full view of any document before printing it on A0, A1, A2, or A3 size paper, or having it down loaded onto a floppy diskette. And, if the document is not yet available in digital form, SPIDER will inform the user where the hard copy is located.
The third application has also been developed by CGIS and has appropriately been called InstaMap, since it is capable of producing a map in less than a minute. With a few clicks of a button, the user can get a map displaying data from any of the 16 agencies contributing to Qatar's communal GIS database overlaid onto vector data or orthoimagery in a selected area of interest.
These user-friendly applications on the kiosk have gone a long way to improving public relations as well as providing users with the information they want in seconds.