Vancouver City

Conversion to MapGuide® Enterprise
 
Using VanMap, Vancouver had become a leader in the geospatial community. VanMap had been used daily by the City’s staff and the public (including developers, real estate agents, architects and engineers and others interested in seeing current data in a map setting). However, this public geospatial system needed an upgrade and so the City chose Pacific Alliance Technologies to upgrade it to MapGuide Enterprise.

Challenge

The City of Vancouver’s in-house team developed a highly customized geospatial site called VanMap. A strike in 2007 interrupted their MapGuide Enterprise migration plans, so they initiated a competitive bid process to keep the migration moving forward. The City chose Pacific Alliance, deciding they offered the best value based on their expertise in MapGuide Enterprise and Autodesk products.

Solution

Pacific Alliance Technologies reorganized the spatial source data to facilitate database integration. Leveraging their expertise, they recommended building functionality for multiple browsers, and an automated commercial update function. Layering data over Google Maps, Pacific Alliance Technologies built an application for downloading tourism routes with descriptions in mp3 and text formats to commercial GPS units.

Results

VanMap’s public site was migrated to the MapGuide Enterprise platform, delivering much of the same functionality. Pacific Alliance’s staff worked closely with the client’s technical team so they could make changes in preparation for the move.

“We chose Pacific Alliance for its expertise in MapGuide Enterprise. There were many complex and subtle functionality challenges but Pacific Alliance met them and delivered a migrated, fully func- tional site. We’re very pleased with the results and the support we’ve received,” said Jonathan Mark, GIS Manager, City of Vancouver. “I was also impressed by how well and closely the Pacific Alliance team worked with the City’s.”

“Leveraging their expertise, Pacific Alliance migrated our VanMap public site to Autodesk’s MapGuide Enterprise and did a great job.” – Jonathan Mark, GIS Manager, City of Vancouver