GIS Project Proposal #2 MSGIS

Why do this project?
The City of Redlands is an average-sized city that is rapidly becoming a representative example of ESRI’s market base. For this reason, Redlands stands to be the model city for the adoption of GIS technology. GIS has been a part of the police department’s regular business process since the mid 90’s, and there are two crime analysts and a database technician that will be available to facilitate your success with this project.

The City of Redlands holds an enterprise GIS license and is also a user of the Omega Group’s CrimeView, one of ESRI’s most active business partners. There is an explicit need for this project, and there is a culture of acceptance and data sharing with the Redlands Police Department and the City of Redlands. Here is your chance to work with an emerging field of GIS.

There are two very attractive features to partnering with us:
1. We are close enough to meet with frequently.
2. Your client has been through the U of Redlands MSGIS program, and understands what
the MIP process entails. Scope creep will be minimized and we’ll tailor your project to suit
your needs and interests.

20 Years of Crime
Crime analysis units work with pieces of data at a time.
Windows of time. Some procedures group incidents by the
most recent set of a week; some procedures compare one
month to the previous month; some compare 3 recent
months to the previous 3 months. This is a different
approach.

The Redlands Police Department has 20 years of geocoded crime
data, and there have been some changes over the
years. There are 2 sets of Census data available to correlate
values to (1990 and 2000). There may also be a possible
preliminary 2010 Census data set available.
Population has changed. Landuse has changed.
The infinite set of human variables are constantly changing what
is the effect?

Product
There is flexibility for what the data-product will entail.
The MIP and presentation will be the final deliverable, and
ideally we would like to see animations that depict the
changes that have occured over time. We can assist in the
development of these animations.
Support for your MIP will include regular access to our
network and our staff. For this reason, a light background
check will be necessary.

Flash for Animated Crime Maps

This is a earlier example (much earlier- 2002) of using animation to tell a story within a mapping environment. This is a gallery of animated maps showing burglary, assaults, all incidents, and vehicle thefts year-by-year. Also included is an example of an hour-by-hour analysis of traffic collisions.

Methodology
This is completed by exporting individual layers into Macromedia (Now Adobe) Flash. Flash is a perfect medium for this because it is able to handle raster and vectors with different levels of compression. In these (old...) examples, the densities(rasters) are vectorized, reducing the size substantially. What would be a 30-100MB avi file exported from ArcScene is an 80kb swf file.
I teach a class about this, and have since (2005) developed a way to incorporate Modelbuilder to create and symbolize the densities automatically.

Geography & Public Safety: Creating Base Maps and Layer Files for Cartographic Consistency

Crime analysts create maps that focus on a specific problem. An analyst’s goal in creating a map should be to show how the data that matter to the audience are significant. He or she accomplishes this by establishing cartographic standards that officers can follow to understand the geographic elements of the problem in question.

As time passes, data will change. Consequently, a geographic representation of the problem will change. The way the problem is represented should be consistent. This article will discuss how to create consistent standards when making a map. It includes instructions for creating layer files,
describes base map production, and provides useful tips for making maps.
More here...