Poland National Forest Service uses TatukGIS

Gdansk, Poland, 9 March 2007 - The Gdansk administrative region of the Poland National Forestry Service recently added to its web site a public access web mapping solution developed from the TatukGIS Internet Server product.

The web mapping solution is designed to help the general public better utilize Forest Service lands for recreational activities. A second incidence of this GIS server solution will soon be hosted by the Poznan administrative region of the Poland National Forestry Service covering the Forest Service administered lands in that district.

The Poland National Forest Service manages one of the largest commercial forestry operations in Europe, on approximately 10 million hectors of public lands representing nearly 20% of the land area of Poland. The Forest Service manages this land for forest cultivation, sustainable harvesting of forest products, general ecological practices, and controlled public recreation. Common recreational activities on Forest Service lands include hiking, bicycling, kayaking, mushroom picking, viewing natural monuments, etc.

This GIS web server application incorporates a number of interesting features which expose functionality from the TatukGIS Internet Server product:
- Mini-Map feature. Navigation is possible by clicking on the mini-map.
- Map scale and scale bar.
- Forced scale feature. The exact scale - such as 1:10,000 - of the map view can be specified by the on-line user.
- Map export. Any map view can be exported as a PDF file or a georeferenced TIFF image (GeoTIFF and TIFF with World File), at the same scale as the current map view.
- Local printing. Any map view can be printed at the same scale as the current map view.
- Drawing of custom routes on the map by the on-line user.
- GPX file export. Any points of interest, trails, or custom routes drawn on the map by the on-line user can be exported and downloaded as a GPX file for easy uploading to common GPS devices. The GPX file is automatically converted to the WGS 84 coordinate system used by most GPS devices.
- Distance and area measurements. On-line users can custom draw complex lines or polygons on the map to measure real distances or areas.
- Cartographic symbolgy to represent parcel boundaries, topography lines, trails, points of interest, natural monuments, etc.
- Search tool for tourist objects on the map based on type or name query.
- Queries based on entire map area or limited by current visible map extent.
- Presentation of places of interest as a table. Automatic highlighting of the object on the map when clicked on the table. Automatic zoom adjustment if the selected object is a point feature and the current scale is lower then 1:50,000.
- URL links from points of interest on the map to text and/or photo information about the place contained in a separate database.
- Three map window size possibilities, each one appropriate for one of the three most frequently used screen resolutions (800x600; 1024x768; 1280x1024).

The direct link to this map server application running on the Forest Service (Gdansk Region) web site is: http://195.117.249.125/etur/AppMapa.aspx

The mapping project published in this GIS web server solution was fully prepared using the TatukGIS Editor product. Some of the more important steps in the project preparation included:
- The original background map files were obtained as SHP files from the Gdansk regional government (Urzad Marszalkowki Gdansk). The SHP file layers used in this project total approximately 200 MB. The Editor was used to set up all visual layer properties for each of the map layers.
- Conversion of the background vector map data from the WGS84 geographic coordinate system to the Uklad 1992 projection.
- The tourist oriented information (composed of polygons, lines, and points) representing trails, boundaries, points of interest, etc. is stored in the TatukGIS SQL layer format as a SQL server database file.
- Custom fonts were used for the line and point symbology. All of the fonts were created using FontCreator software.
- The Editor was used to save the whole set-up as a TatukGIS project file which was then opened in the TatukGIS Internet Server.

Source : http://www.tatukgis.com