Matrimogis S.Raghavendran Asst. Product Manager - GIS Pixel Infotek PVT. LTD. # 318, IIIRD Floor Plaza Centre # 129 GN Chetty Road Chennai – 600 006 srg.gis@gmail.com raghavendran@pixelinfotek.com It is a saying that perfect “Marriages are made in heaven” or the so called “made for each other” couples. Marriages of different kind: arranged marriages, love marriages, inter-religious marriages, inter-racial marriages etc. But to a GIS professional a perfect marriage of spatial and aspatial data is what a good GIS is. Within the GIS domain there have been marriages of different kind: marriage of internet and GIS: WebGIS, marriage of mobile technology and GIS: Mobile GIS and many more. With human beings, since marriage is one of the most important decisions a person will ever make, it is imperative that the marriage choice is carefully thought out and planned. In a country like India, where arranged marriages are still prevalent, marriages are a complex process and no doubt a Herculean task to both families. The family (usually the parents) looks for certain traits in a marriage partner. Some desirable traits looked for in both male and female are: matching levels of education, matching cultures, close parental cities, matching religions, and matching vegetarians/non-vegetarians just to name a few. To a certain extent is many of the arranged marriages spatial disposition of the parental cities do have a say. The Indian marriage process does not end with the search for a suitable partner, and is not just the matter of one day. It is an elaborate process requiring lot of preparation. Before the wedding, the areas which are to be looked after are like deciding on the wedding hall, wedding chef, flower decorator, car decorator, invitation printer, wedding dress, wedding music party, honeymoon trip etc. The logic behind this PoC is: If GIS as a tool could help you find a suitable place to live, it could also help you with a suitable partner to live with! ABOUT MATRIMOGIS This paper is a proof-of-concept for the City of Chennai, to show how GIS can be used to not only locate the prospective life partner on a GIS based map but also aid in the wedding day preparations like deciding on the wedding hall, wedding chef, flower decorator, car decorator, invitation printer, wedding dress, wedding music party, honeymoon trip etc. There are already several websites and portals catering to such requirements, but what they all lack are a G-component or in other words they are not G-enabled. Since all of these have a GIS component, a GIS map based interface to quickly locate them will be of immense help to both families in conducting the marriage function with ease. The objectives of this paper are:
WHY A GIS BASED MATRIMONY INFORMATION SYSTEM? – A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE Wedding sites are some of the fastest growing on the Internet and there is almost nothing you can't do there. Marriages are made in heaven is now rewritten as marriages are made in cyberspace. A newspaper source states that the Indian matrimony industry is estimated to be about $10 billion, but is fragmented with a number of small players operating in every region. If not all, atleast many of the activities related to a marriage event have a geographical component (“g-component”) attached to them. Also this geographical component in many cases has a say in prioritizing and deciding the best out of the available choices. From a business perspective, such a MATRIMOGIS will be quite acceptable and a readily welcome application with the NRIs (Non Resident Indians) abroad as they are more attached and exposed to maps (thanks to their extensive usage in countries like U.S.A, U.K and many more). It is this NRI group who look for a proper source of information to conduct a marriage function in their home town. In short MATRIMOGIS is a ‘g-enabled’ application.  Image courtesy: www.bharatmatrimony.com THE SITUATION: WHO NEEDS MATRIMOGIS? Planning a wedding takes time, energy, patience and careful thought. There are so many choices to be made. Options to be considered. Traditions to be preserved. Just imagine organizing a wedding with a world of possibilities at your fingertips. Well needless to stress any more, Pick out a mehandi pattern. Tour a honeymoon location. Select invitations. Choose the rings. Announce your engagement. Find the place to shop for your wedding day dress. There is a lot of information out there already in the cyber space. With a g-component added to this and when the spatial disposition have a say in various choices they make, the potential users of MATRIMOGIS could be from parents of bride/bride groom to the bride and bride groom themselves. Needless to emphasis and not to be left out are the NRIs living abroad and wanting to organize the wedding function of their daughter or son in their homeland. PROOF OF CONCEPT (POC) FOR CHENNAI CITY The proof-of-concept is a GIS map based interface, a linkage of database of the prospective brides/bride grooms along with the information on wedding halls, wedding chefs, flower decorators, invitation printers etc. in Chennai City, thereby creating a searchable interface for those in search of such information to narrow down to a list of suitable life partners and also for prioritizing and deciding on the best choice out of the available choices with respect to the wedding function service providers. In brevity: Right information, at the Right time, in the Right form. BASE MAP CREATION & GEOCODING To begin with a 1:25,000 scale TTK map of Chennai City was used for creating the digital base map of the study area, through onscreen digitizing techniques. This is very much essential for accurately locating the position of various point features on the base map to the possible extent. The partial list of various features that have been included in the base map are: Roads, Railway lines, Water Bodies, Railway Stations, Bus Terminus, Hospitals, Educational Institutions, wedding halls, wedding chefs, flower decorators, car decorators, invitation printers, wedding dress, wedding music party etc. and all these along with the location of prospective brides and bride grooms. The other base map features are essential, as they will serve as landmarks and as an aid in quickly locating the wedding halls, invitation printers and other such features. In this context, it would be worthwhile discussing the issues with geocoding in India. Geocoding is the process that assigns a latitude-longitude/ geographical coordinates to an address. Once a latitude-longitude coordinate is assigned, the address can be displayed on a map or used in a spatial search. This means locating any geographical feature on the earth could be done instantly. There are three basic methods of calculating a geocode:
 DATA COLLECTION & SAMPLING Collection of relevant and accurate data is very essential for building a good database, which is supposed to be the backbone of any DSS (Decision Support System). Data on features of wedding event related interest as listed earlier in this paper and located within Chennai City have been obtained from various sources like Yellow pages, Newspaper advertisements, matrimonial bureaus etc. The following information is available inside matrimogis:
 Random sampling has been done to select the sample from the population for this POC. The data was made available in MS Excel and this was later linked/migrated to GIS format using Safe Software’s FME (Feature Manipulation Engine). GIS QUERIES AND ANALYSIS The true strength of any GIS is its ability to perform two functions, spatial query and spatial analysis and it is only on this fundamental principle that this MATRIMOGIS application has been ‘g-enabled’. MATRIMOGIS is no exception to this. Once could run a spatial query to search for a bride/ bride groom of their spatial choice (place of stay) to wedding halls, florists, music party etc. Once could also go about doing a spatial search for wedding halls and other wedding related services like florist, music party, furniture etc closer to the wedding hall or place where they stay or intend to conduct the wedding. FUTURE DIRECTIONS
CONCLUSION MATRIMOGIS is and will be a one-stop space for all your wedding needs. Once on a web based interface it will be a place to look out for the latest trends in wedding and to make one’s wedding a memorable occasion. Of all creatures, humans are the only ones who can ponder over and understand a situation and the only ones who can think up ways of doing something about a problem in a rational and logical way. This paper is not to state that GIS is the paragon of all virtues, but to show that it could be important as a tool in many such unexplored IT mainstream application areas. It is also to showcase how ‘g-enabling’ an IT application could make it more interesting and useful to the community. Believe me: When I got married my wife was not a GIS selection, but the day is not far when GIS would name who one’s better half would be? ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author expresses his gratitude to Mr. P V Rai, Managing Director, PIXEL INFOTEK PVT. LTD., who has been a source of encouragement in such activities. Special mention to his tutors at the Division of Urban Systems Development, Anna University, Chennai, for being responsible for his first step into the world of GIS. REFERENCES
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