Dotted Eyes News

We’re delighted to announce that Dotted Eyes is again co-hosting the free UK FME User Group. It will be held on 29th April 2010, at Ordnance Survey’s offices in Southampton.

Don Murray, Co-Founder of Safe Software, who was described as ‘fantastic, approachable and enthusiastic’ will be joining us once again to give a lively overview of FME 2010.

Over 100 attendees joined us in 2009, and all of them rated the event as being excellent or very good in terms of usefulness. The event is suited to existing users, and those who want to find out more about FME before purchasing.

This year, the event is flanked by optional training on FME Desktop (£800 ex VAT for 2 days)  and FME Server (£400 ex VAT for 1 day).

To find out more view the invitation. Registration is available online.

We hope to see you there!

Avon IM&T Consortium, who used mapping data from Dotted Eyes to support swine flu pandemic planning, is in the running for PBBI’s Meridian Award for ‘Organizational Impact’ as a result.Trevor Foster, GIS Specialist Team Leader, used MapInfo Professional, RouteFinder, OS and NAVTEQ data, to provide GIS analysis to identify where antiviral drug collection points should be located.

Please read the case study and then vote to support this entry.

ScalerMap Loading Services are now available from Dotted Eyes to translate OS VectorMap™ Local into ESRI, MapInfo or Autodesk files. ScalerMap is ideal for internet mapping, and lightweight mobile applications, overlaid with your own data.

ScalerMap enhances OS VectorMapLocal – a flexible data set based on the most detailed mapping available from Britain’s national mapping agency. This enables precise and rapid location of incidents.

Dotted Eyes converts the data set supplied by Ordnance Survey into popular formats, ready for use in GIS or CAD software. Cartographic styling is provided for widely-used GIS and web mapping systems. This unique approach saves time and money in translation and maintenance.

ScalerMap is designed for use in web mapping and GIS or CAD software. Its styling is consistent throughout a wide range of scales, from 1:1,000 to 1:1,000,000. The cartography displays as much information as possible while ensuring the map is easily legible. Its appearance is readily configurable to suit particular applications.

·         ScalerMap Tiled Service Processes the exact area you require, made up of 5km square tiles. You can benefit from a single point of contact, because Dotted Eyes can supply ScalerMap, with licensing options from a single user to a corporate licence. We’ll obtain OS VectorMap Local data on your behalf and you’ll receive the finished product ready to use. Alternatively if you already have the OS data set, we can load and enhance all your tiles.

·         ScalerMap Custom Service Combines all the tiles covering an area such as the Government Office Regions or Ambulance Services in England. Building numbers are added, based on the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) or the OS MasterMap Address Layer (AL2), using a fle of points provided by the customer. In the custom service we can produce both vector fles and the raster images which are required by certain Command and Control systems for the fastest possible drawing speed.

As part of our loading service, value-added features are created, including cartographic hachures for slopes and colour-coded areas for roads, railway track beds and tunnels.

For more information, view the ScalerMap web page, download the infosheet or contact info@dottedeyes.com

Dotted Eyes are pleased to announce two new training courses to add to our training portfolio - “Introduction to MapInfo for Church of England” and “MapInfo Advanced for Church of England”.

1 day Introduction to MapInfo for Church of England

This one day training course is aimed at staff who are new to using MapInfo Professional. The course data and examples have been specifically designed to easily demonstrate how MapInfo Professional can be used by diocesan staff.  The course covers a range of modules which help a new user of MapInfo get to grips with the suite of functionality offered within this powerful GIS. Using our proven consultative experience and strong partnerships with the CofE we have developed a course which has been tailored to utilise CofE datasets and examples which delegates will find invaluable.

1 day MapInfo Advanced for Church of England

This one day training course builds on the techniques covered within the introductory course,  and helps build your confidence in undertaking more advanced functionality within MapInfo Professional. The course covers a range of modules from advanced digitising and object editing to advanced thematic mapping techniques. Using our proven consultative experience and strong partnerships with the CofE we have developed a course which has been tailored to utilise CofE datasets and examples which staff will find invaluable.

OpenStreetMap are as always rising to the challenge to produce detailed, open and shareable map data for Haiti following the recent earthquake. The community is systematically adding to the data for Haiti in an effort to aid the relief effort.

They are looking for help with digitising and naming. I’ve just georeferenced a few scanned paper maps using the Relief Map Warper which are being used as a base for digitising. More information can be found here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Haiti#Data_collection.

Now’s the time to buy the additional licences you need or upgrade to the latest versions as Dotted Eyes is offering 10% off FME licences and MapInfo Professional purchases until January 25th 2010, even if your current arrangements don’t expire until the end of March 2010! The offer includes:

• New licences
• Upgrades
• Maintenance

And just in case you think you might get a better offer elsewhere, we also guarantee to beat any other offer you’ve had! As long as we can verify it, of course…

To benefit from this offer call 01527 556920 or email us outlining your requirements. Please quote “WEBSEASON” to receive the special pricing. Terms and conditions apply.*

*Terms and Conditions

The customer must quote “WEBSEASON” at the time of placing an order. The promotional code cannot be retrospectively applied. Orders must be received and acknowledged before the closing date of 25/01/2010. Dotted Eyes reserves the right to terminate this offer without notice. This cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer, and only applies to direct sales.

In 2009, we were delighted to welcome David Crowther to Dotted Eyes as our new training manager. He has since developed an expanded training course schedule for Spring 2010, which is now available on our website.

New courses, including Crime Profiler and MapInfo Professional for the Church of England, have been added to our ever popular MapInfo Professional and FME courses.

A recent survey of 2009 training delegates* found that over 98% of delegates would recommend our courses to their colleagues, so there’s never been a better time to join us at our training suite for one of our public courses. We also deliver a range of bespoke courses on a variety of software packages, including MapInfo Professional, FME, RouteFinder and GBM Mobile.

For an informal discussion of your training requirements, call Craig on 01527 556920 or email training@dottedeyes.com.

*April - September 2009

Further to our seminar in September, we have spent lots of time researching the role that mapping can play in supporting World Class Commissioning, and increasing competency scores.

Now we’d like to explain to you how we think mapping can be used to help achieve the higher scores you need to secure additional funding. We are not experts in commissioning per se, but we have real expertise in changing the way organisations engage with public and partners, through data sharing, and this has real relevance to WCC.

We’d appreciate 30 minutes of your time at a webinar on Tuesday 10th November at 11.30 AM to give you an overview of our finding.This is not a product pitch - just us sharing our new understanding, and our expertise. In return we welcome your input to help us tailor a solution, all suggestions are welcome.

I hope you will be able to join us. To do so, simply register here and we’ll send you login instructions a few days prior to the webinar.

PGA members are invited to attend a free workshop run by Dotted Eyes with Landmark Information Group. The session will focus on the use of geographic boundaries for spatial analysis, including MarkerMap REGIONS as supplied to PGA members. The workshop will run from 10:30 to 14:00 on Thursday 26th November at our offices in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. Refreshments and lunch are provided. To sign-up click here or email duncan.hill@dottedeyes.com for more information.

Liverpool Direct, the joint venture company formed by Liverpool City Council and BT, is one of the first customers to sign up for Contractor Portal, the web application for local government organisations that simplifies the distribution of Ordnanace Survey and other datasets to their contractors.

Brian Jones, Geodata Team Manager at Liverpool Direct, said: “Whenever a contractor has to use Ordnance Survey mapping they need to apply for a licence. That requires the contracting body to source and exchange the data and manage the licence application.

“Contractor Portal completely automates that process as it enables the contractor to self-serve.

“We anticipate considerable efficiency savings being generated from this avoidance of contact with contractors. The lighter touch minimises the amount of resource required from my team, freeing us up to do a lot more of our business critical, internally driven GIS work.

“On top of that we will be supplying a much more reliable service that can turn round requests a lot more quickly than before.”

For more information, register for our webinar on 25th September at 10AM or telephone us on 01527 556920.