Andrew Halliday wrote:
Or, has anyone here done anything with GIS in the environmental/ecosystem management space (rather than marketing/socio-economic profiling analysis)?
I worked on a GIS system in 2000/01 that used maps for thematic mapping (i.e. marketing analysis. ;) and at the time we were using MapInfo's MapX-based products (but there's been *huge* developments in GIS since then, and I haven't been keeping up). The data cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and frankly by today's standards it was pretty basic (basically street-level data but w/o meta-data).
My responsibilities were pretty small (some Map Basic scripting, pulling lat-longs out of our database, converting mid-mif data to/from ADG66/AGD84, etc.), but I was working with a contractor who knew quite a lot about all that stuff.
That guy wrote and sells (and supports) software that automatically drives tractors and other industrial equipment around massive farming estates in Queensland and western NSW. I know a little bit about the product, because I sub-contracted him at one point to help me with a system I was working on a few years back, and we spoke about it a bit.
A few interesting 'tid bits' that I recall are that they used solid-state devices (i.e. RAM disks, pretty low-tech), because they had a problem with equipment failure due to all the 'rattling', etc. Another thing I remember is that if you get a 'known point' from a surveyor, you can put some sort of a relay on that point, and get GIS triangulation down to crazy levels of precision.
...but that's really all I know. I haven't spoken with that guy for a while, but if you're interested I can track him down and put you in touch. He's based in Newcastle, and as far as I know still working on that kind of stuff.
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