Projects

VESTRA has worked with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to incorporate a mapping component into their existing Pest Disease Record (PDR) application. The application collects pest and damage records from a large and geographically diverse audience that includes internal staff, local authorities, individual farmers, other state agencies, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The purpose of this project is to extend the current Pest and Damage Record (PDR) system to include Internet-based GIS components that will allow treatment/eradication areas and quarantine boundaries to be quickly established.

 

The primary GIS application called “PDR Mapping” will enhance the current Pest Disease Control Program (PDCP-GIS) application and will supply basic mapping functions for an estimated 1,200 users.    A secondary application launched from the first, called “Quarantine Boundary Editor”, will support initial quarantine boundary generation, quarantine boundary (polygon) editing, and quarantine boundary (polygon) merge functions.   The PDR Mapping application is being developed on VESTRA’s ArcIMS technology, whereas the Quarantine Boundary Editor (see below) is being developed based on VESTRA’s ArcGIS Server technology. Both applications are being developed using ASP.NET. 

 

The Quarantine Boundary Editor was one of the first applications to support hosted simultaneous multi-user GIS editing over the Internet. The tool will be used in a pest / disease outbreak situation by local and state officials to quickly establish workable eradication and quarantine boundaries based upon local knowledge of the area. Using the advanced capabilities of ArcGIS Server, the application will generate a preliminary set of boundaries from major roads, county boundaries, secondary streets, and so forth. Each participant in the editing session will be able to review the generated boundaries and, if desired, request control of the editing session to move lines (vertices) to change the boundaries.

 

The process of sending markups of maps back and forth between state and local officials is tedious, taking hours to accomplish. The new system required only minutes to collaborate and agree upon a set of boundaries.    The new system will be entirely browser-based, meaning that anyone from 1,200 anticipated users can participate without specialized software or training.