Unmanned Was the Requirement

Thematic Maps on Request

The (Department of Public Development and Maintenance) Dienst Ruimtelijke Ontwikkeling en Beheer of the municipality of Gouda has been using an Océ TCS500 large format colour-system (printer with scanner) for the past six months. Geo-information employee Ben van Eijk, CAD-GIS- employee Jeroen Rijkse, and data manager for road and water works Lex Rietbroek, tell us more.

By Job van Haaften

From left to right: Lex Rietbroek, Ben van Eijk and Jeroen Rijkse next to a recently printed city map.

”One of the parts of this branch is the department of construction and housing supervision”, continues Rietbroek. “Drawings often have to be printed in multiples of six. This is a legal requirement. One copy goes to the archive and the others go to various specific people and departments. We still receive many drawings on paper, analogue therefore, which are then scanned in order to be digitally manipulated and saved.”

Rietbroek: ”Another department, for example Area-development, has to prepare a new watercourse. The design is scanned and saved but each participant will eventually still want a copy on A0 or A1. That means that the printer can get to work. In the future we will receive all drawings digitally, even notes and changes. The ability to properly file away all documents is now possible with this Océ printer and scanner. The only thing that is not yet possible with this device is the ability to scan a page from a book.”

Archive Scanned

Ben van Eijk: “For GIS-activities we also use Cyclomedia. This company produces 360 degree panoramic photographs. We already have photographs of every other twenty metres of the municipality. This will now become of every 10 metres. Together that is around 24,000 files. In addition we have digital aerial photographs, which are for example used to place a design on top of an aerial photograph. The result is printed and creates a good idea of what the design will look like in its actual environment. Moreover it is very detailed, allowing you to see actual cables and connections. Jeroen Rijkse: “Aerial photographs are also made for the provinces, Ministry of Defence and other government agencies. Dis­cussions are already underway between the various agencies to cooperate in this. When each invests for himself you have less possibilities and it is unnecessarily expensive than when you do it together.”

Van Eijk: “Right now we want to move away from our analogue maps. They will be scanned and stored. All provisional designs (V.O.’s) and definitive designs (D.O.’s) made now are already digital. All old drawings that need to remain available are currently being scanned and digitally stored.”

The Océ TCS500 with scanner.

Integration CAD and GIS

Rijkse: “The integration of CAD and GIS keeps developing further and is an important development for us. Also in 3D for construction projects and all civil engineering work A drawing begins with a level interpretation and then you can add and build anything onto it. With IGOS you can link with anything, such as for example Excel.” IGOS is a Dutch language CAD-system that has been specially designed for Dutch local authorities. It therefore connects well to the design, management and analysis activities of municipalities. It was developed in 1982 by the Dutch firm NedGraphics in cooperation with, and under assignment by, the Netherlands Land Registry. “In addition we use Microstation V8 from Bentley as CAD-application.”

Van Eijk: “The metadata, all alterations and the history of a drawing can now be accessed, all within one single GIS environment.”

Complaints Check Point

Rietbroek: “700 people work at the municipality of Gouda. A lot of data is available to everyone via the intranet, also for example for the complaints check point, where many complaints of citizens come in. Processed complaints can be checked geographically by the complaints check point itself. Is the greenbelt in question actually part of the municipality?”

Rijkse: “Via Cyclomedia photographs it can immediately be checked whether something is part of the municipality and whether the complaint has come to the right place to be dealt with. There are increasingly more possibilities with GIS to improve the service to citizens, also for example via the internet, where citizens can access data.”

Van Eijk: "Citizens already know the possibilities well, via Google they can access information about their own street, almost down to the tiles of the pavement."

Rietbroek: “The registration of a complaint, such as for small maintenance, can be processed directly via the complaints check point. If it is a matter of a larger issue then it goes to one of three area managers, who work on a supra-district level. They can see whether maintenance has been planned and if it is too big for regular maintenance then it goes to large maintenance. The printer goes to work as soon as all data are processed into a starting memo and the large maintenance has been scheduled. The printing begins when the starting memo is ready and is distributed with maps. It is then outsourced and maps have to go to contractors. The actual specifications are printed, and of course the occasional alterations are made, necessitating the re-printing of the series. The same process applies to civil engineering and construction and housing supervision.”

Section and Thematic Maps

Rietbroek: "City maps are also printed with the Océ TCS500. Anyone who wants part of a map or the entire picture can have it printed. There are many employees who have 36 inch-format maps hanging in their workplace. Section maps and thematic maps are easy to print, as the data are often readily available; many special requests can be processed. This applies to public information nights such as that of the redevelopment of the industrial estate Goudse Poort as well. These public information meetings require visual material, preferably large enough to see it from anywhere in the room.” Van Eijk: “We are now able to produce that in no time at all, even on A0-format.”

Rijkse: ”For the legibility of a map an A4 or an A3 will not suffice. People prefer to see the entire city on one A4 and that with legible street names. This is of course not possible. Details are inevitably omitted and whether a road passes by or in fact through a house is of course rather important to the inhabitant.”

Relieving the Network

There are many important trends to discern in the field of ICT. The amount of files is increasing as is the size of these files, and software is also getting heavier. It is important that the printer is able to process these files smoothly and reliably. The combination of cache memory and disk memory must therefore be large enough. Rietbroek: “The Océ TCS500 stores scans that are made separate from the server in order to put as little burden as possible on the network. These files go straight to a controller which is regularly sorted and cleaned. The automation department is very pleased with this. If I make a scan now I have to deliberately save it with a specific project, otherwise it will be removed after some time. By doing so we prevent cluttering the system with vast amounts of scans that will not be used by anyone anymore anyway.” All preparation material for projects is saved in its own, project specific folder. All measurements, drawings and other information can be found in the same place.

Authorized Personnel

Rietbroek: “The printer cannot be used by everyone. All ‘users’ of the departments Beheer Openbare Ruimte (Public Space Management),  Projectbureau Openbare Ruimte (Project Office Public Spaces), staff of Project-Management and the like, are authorized to use the printer. This is to prevent that the report for a board meeting is accidentally printed in A4 format. The scanner can however be used by all members of staff. A recent assignment can easily be printed again from the controller situated next to the printer,  which stores recent printing assignments for some time. Océ has programmed this type of thing completely according to our wishes.”

Job van Haaften (jvanhaaften@geoinformatics.com)  is editor of GeoInformatics. For additional information: www.oce.com and www.gouda.nl.