|
Geographical User Interface for Decision Enhancement (GUIDE)-A java based software for fast deployment of GIS in Government sector
 A.K.Somasekhar Scientist National Informatics Centre, India Email: som@nic.in Rural Development is directly related to the quality of planning, management of social and physical infrastructure, enhancement and restructuring of existing facilities, facility management and land-use planning. Terra bytes of data is being collected by Government to get proper information regarding facilities, infrastructure and resources in villages by various surveys like census 2001, AISES, Habitation survey, Agricultural census- to name a few. In most of these areas there is a spatial component involved. The data collected for these purposes, can give useful information only when the data is represented on maps in the form of thematic maps. Management Information Systems should be integrated with GIS, which we may call MIS+. But the use of commercial GIS software for this purpose demands cost and expertise, for deployment at thousands of sites. This paper discusses a java-based package, Geographical User Interface for Decision Enhancement (GUIDE) developed at NIC and its deployment for developing GIS for rural department’s scheme monitoring and habitation survey details. GUIDE works both as a stand-alone system and web based on any platform. It takes spatial data at three levels – District, Sub-district and village. Village is taken as the basic unit for giving information in the form of maps. Census 2001 village code has been taken as a mapping key with other external databases. The map specifications are accepted through XML files. Using GUIDE, one can develop a GIS with in few hours time and can deploy at zero cost for purchase of software. Allows storing generated map in PDF and JPEG formats in addition to the general features for zooming, scaling etc. The paper discusses technical features of the software and practical issues involved in deploying GIS. Inroduction GIS is relatively new area of information technology. Even it emerged in mid 90s; still it is in a separate domain or island. GIS is not at fully integrated with other MIS and DSS applications. But the best advantage of GIS can be taken only when it is the integral part of other MIS, DSS applications showing various thematic maps generated after spatial /non-spatial analysis. A number of commercial GIS software packages allow creating thematic maps. But the deployment of the applications developed using the proprietary software involves a cost factor, as it requires some plug-ins or explorers Terra Bytes of data is being collected by Government through various surveys spending chores of rupees. Some of the major survey to talk about include population census (Census), All India School Education Survey (AISES), Agricultural census, habitation survey and minor irrigation survey. Census is a survey, which collects data of individuals, and households every 10 years. Census 2001 is the recent population census. AISES is a survey conducted every 10 years to collect nationwide data about schools, teachers and enrollment etc. 7th AISES is at the wedge of completion to release its reports. Agricultural census is a survey carried out every 5 years that collects data about crop and agricultural land. Habitation survey is conducted every year which collects habitation-wise data regarding drinking water facility for people, cattle etc. Minor irrigation survey is a survey, which collects details about minor irrigation projects. The above-mentioned surveys are some of the important surveys being conducted by various organizations in government sector. The data collected lies in different database formats. No significant effort has been put to combine and verify or analyse the data collected by different surveys. The data collected by these surveys can give useful information only when the data is seen collectively and represented on maps in the form of thematic maps. Management Information Systems should be integrated with GIS, which we may call MIS+. MIS+ applications are nothing but the information system, which generate attribute data reports as well as thematic maps showing the data on maps. Open source base The use of commercial GIS software for this purpose demands cost for deployment at thousands of sites. Expertise is required to use commercial GIS software and at the same time the whole potential of commercial GIS software is not required to develop a simple MIS+ application. Government offices need small GIS software, which can generate thematic maps connecting to their attribute database available in different formats. The GIS software should be based on open source and easy to use with a minimum learning time. Geographical User Interface for Decision Enhancement (GUIDE) is a tool/package to the programmer to generate his own thematic maps representing his own information on maps from any popular languages like Java, VB, VC++, ASP, PHP. GUIDE is developed in Java and hence using GUIDE in java is natural and efficient. GUIDE uses open source package Geotools internally to read spatial data from ESRI shape (*.shp) files. Spatial data In India, a state is divided into districts; district into development blocks and a block into villages. Districts are the center points of administration; village is the base unit having development block in the middle. Almost all the development schemes and fund pass through district administration. Planning and monitoring is done at all these three levels district, block and village. GUIDE takes spatial data in the form .shp files of state with district boundaries and district with village boundaries. The attribute data of district contains village name, block, tahshil, patwari halka,assembly constituency, revenue circle and census 2001 code. Using the spatial data GUIDE can generate state maps with Distrctd boundaries, Districwise maps with block boundaries and Blockwise maps with village boundaries. A click in any district in a state map shall bring District map and a click in any block shall bring block map with village boundaries. Using the attribute data associated with villages tahshil, block, patwari halka, assembly constituency map with village boundaries can be generated. External Data The major issue in generating thematic maps with the spatial data and external data collected by different surveys is the mapping of the features and corresponding attribute data. Census 2001 code of a village is found to be right candidate to act as a linking field for mapping. Every village in a state has an eight digit unique code. The databases that have village wise data should also have a field containing census 2001 code of the village. The database shall be connected through DSN and rowset obtained shall be mapped with the village polygons using the census 2001 code as link field. The details of the external database are accepted in an XML file in the following format.  In the above XML tag EXTERNAL Dsn – data source name to establish connection Sqlstring – sql statement to fetch the records from the database. Linkfield – the field no in the DBF file associated with .shp file having census 2001 code. Extfield _ the field no in the rowset retrieved having census 2001 code of the village Types of thematic maps The whole objective of GUIDE is that a desired thematic map should be generated without writing a single line of code in any language. GUIDE takes details of maps in the form of XML tags. There are 5 different types of maps that can be generated by specifying different parameters. It takes ‘symbolid’, ‘color’, ‘lwoerM’, ‘upperM’ and a ‘value’ as XML attributes. Type 0: - Type 0 map is to place symbol or fill a colour in a polygon feature without any condition. i.e. the given symbol or color is used to draw all the features on the map. It is generally used to write feature number or name in the polygon. Type 1: - Type 1 map is to place symbol or fill a colour in a polygon feature based on equality condition. It places symbol type symbolid in a color color (fills Area Feature with the color equal to the variable color ) by equating given field value to the lowerM value .i.e. if value of the field equals the lowerM value symbol equal to the symbolid in color equal to the variable color is placed in a area. If upperM value is equal to 1 the field value is compared with lowerM value for >= condition. If value of the upperM value is 2 the field value is compared with lowerM value for <= condition.If UpperM is 0 the value of the field is compared with lowerM value for = condition. Type 2: - Type 2 map is to place a symbol or fill a colour in a polygon feature based on equality to string ‘value’. If the given field value is exactly equal to the string value the specified symbol in specified color is placed (filled with specified colour). Type 3: - Type 3 map is to place the symbol or fill a colour in a polygon feature based on a range comparison, where both lowerM and upperM are included. If value of the field given is >= LowerM & <= upperM , the specified symbol in specified colour is placed ( filled with specified colour) Type 4:- Type 4 map is to place the symbol or fill a colour in a polygon feature based on a range comparison where both lowerM and upperM are excluded. If value of the field given is > LowerM & < upperM , the specified symbol in specified colour is placed ( filled with specified colour )  Fig 1.0 GUIDE is developed in Java and hence is platform independent. It can be used for web based GIS as well as a stand-alone system. Web based GIS is highly preferable to keep the spatial data (which has some restrictions for dissemination) and attribute data on web server and client can have a interactive GIS through an applet. The client machine should have JRE and sufficient bandwidth. Even though the web based systems are preferable the requirement of stand alone GIS exists keeping in view the low bandwidth availability in most of the areas. In that case, application developed using GUIDE can be loaded on the system along with spatial data. GUIDE can be customised for generating different thematic maps by including necessary XML tags in a text file. The maps can be generated in standard A4 and A3 size with a choice to view the map in any custom size. GUIDE has a provision to print the output on printer as well as to a PDF file for electronic storage. Colourful map is really good to see on monitor. But if the same thing is printed on black&white printer (colour printing is costly and colour printers are not available everywhere) the output is not readable. GUIDE provides an option to print the coloured map in black and white by checking a checkbox. GUIDE automatically converts hatching patterns and symbols to better readable format in black and white. GUIDE has been used to develop GIS connecting 7th AISES data and PHED Habitation survey data to generate different thematic maps. A GIS for monitoring rural scheme implementation has been developed. A sample screen output is shown in Fig 1.0. Conclusion It is impossible to study and analyse the terra bytes of data collected through different surveys unless the data is represented on maps. Informed decisions can be taken from the thematic maps based on combined alphanumeric data collected through different surveys. GUIDE is a step towards providing an easy-to-use solution for the same. Open source technologies should further be explored to provide cost-effective GIS solutions. Acknowledgement The authors are thankful to Dr. N.Vijayaditya, Director General, National Informatics Centre, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India for his constant support. The authors are thankful to Sri. M.K.Mishra, Technical Director & State Informatics Officer, Chhattisgarh State Centre, Raipur for his valuable suggestions. Authors offer special thanks to Mrs.Vandana Sharma Sr. Technical Director, GIS division, NIC. |