ROK Blog

 

Client Spotlight: We are pleased to welcome Escambia County, FL as an ArcGIS Server Hosting Client. Escambia County, Florida is presently working on launching ROK GoMaps in the future and is currently utilizing ROK’s address search tool. Residents of Escambia County can utilize the address tool to find information about a property such as County Commission District, water franchise jurisdictions, school zones, voting precinct, emergency management hurricane evacuation zones and more. Residents with questions on how to use this great tool can view a video tutorial here (http://www.myescambia.com/lookup.html ). Don’t forget to check back soon. Once Escambia has launched ROK GoMaps, the public will have access to more searchable data.

“Escambia County Government and Citizens have benefited in many ways as a result [of] ROK Technologies' services.  We have provided GIS web map services to the public for several years and the tools and templates provided through GoMaps and other "ROK" services have pleased internal staff and outside citizen users. The staff at ROK Technologies has introduced several new ideas such as an address reporting tool and a video tutorial to assist users by demonstration.  Their quick delivery on development following our requests has offered a chance to test concepts and enhance the successfulness to our GIS users.  We are looking forward to future advancement through an ongoing partnership with ROK Tech.”

Charlie Gonzalez, GISP, GIS Manager, Escambia County, Florida

Visit the Escambia County, Fl website to see the address search tool in action. Or, feel free to Contact Us  with any questions you may have regarding Geographic Information Systems.

ROK Mobile is pleased to announce the latest regarding GOMaps Mobile.  You can now preview GOMaps Mobile in the Google Play Store and the iTunes Store. This example is for Henderson County, NC. 

Give your citizens/employees on-the-go access to county maps and information via their mobile device with our new GOMaps Mobile Application.    Powered by ArcGIS Server, GOMaps Mobile utilizes the state-of the-art in mobile GIS technology.

Features include:

• Allows access to your GIS maps for any mobile platform
• Custom Searches like Owner Name or PIN
• Bookmarks i.e zoom to a specific town
• Drill Down Identify
• Map Themes, such as Zoning, Aerials, Basemaps, Schools, etc

Benefits of GOMaps for Mobile

• Reduces foot traffic in county offices
• Alleviates phone support to realtors, banks, attorneys, and surveyors.
• Access your GIS maps anytime anywhere
• Potential Revenue Source
• ROK offers deep GIS expertise and  support that extends your ability to leverage Esri technology

Interested in learning more?  Contact us

Client Spotlight: We are pleased to welcome Franklin County, AL as a ArcGIS Server Hosting Client. Franklin County, Alabama is working toward becoming more transparent to the community by launching a Facebook and Twitter account in the coming days. More importantly, they are looking to effectively utilize Geographic Information Systems by launching Virtual Franklin County, a GIS Mapping site, this past February.

Virtual Franklin County was built for the purpose of communicating with the public. By capitalizing on Geographic Information Systems, and coming onto our ArcGIS Server Hosting, we will now be able to show the public property information, voting poll locations, bridges with school bus weight restrictions, road closings, and capital improvements, such as utility enhancements and road resurfacing, among many others. In addition to the “need to know” information, we are including many other helpful resources as a part of our GIS data. These include recreational facilities and events, historical documents and photos, and demographic information, just to name a few of the map layers. We have added widgets, available at the ESRI ArcGIS Viewer for Flex Resource Center, in order to add functionality to the GIS application and allow the user more interaction with the information. This is a very dynamic GIS application, as we will be adding and updating information on a regular basis, to ensure that the citizens of Franklin County are able to receive current, updated GIS data. Click here to see the ArcGIS viewer.

"Our goal at Franklin County was to configure an ArcGIS Viewer for Flex application, design a GIS map for the application, and to have it all published and hosted on a tight deadline. With the help of ROK, we managed to meet the deadline with ease. Their customer service is phenomenal. Always helpful and friendly, and pulled me out of a jam on more than one occasion. They were even there to help late into the evening after normal business hours. Not to mention the fact that we are thoroughly impressed by their technical capabilities in the realm of Geographic Information Systems. We have been told by many users of our GIS application, including seasoned GIS professionals, how impressed they are at the drawing speed of our image cache and map service. For these reasons, we will look to ROK for any additional support needed for our GIS efforts."  Michael Hughes, GIS Manager, Franklin County, AL GIS Consortium

Client Spotlight:  We are pleased to announce that our long time client, Onslow County, NC has upgraded from ArcIMS to ArcGIS Server, allowing them a more broad and effective use of Geographic Information Systems. When visiting the Onslow County, NC website, users now have access to the ROK GoMaps applications, thus giving them the ability to perform powerful GIS analysis, including complex queries, export excel files, and create spatial buffers. It is an exciting time for Geographic Information Systems altogether, and we're very happy that our friends from Onslow County, NC are taking the opportunity to utilize the full potential of ArcGIS. The application utilizes Esri basemap map services along with their own dynamic and cached map services, allowing for all new GIS capabilities. The cached map services utilize ROK Technologies' cloud-based tile hosting service to ensure rapid delivery to the end users. GoMaps is an application developed and hosted by ROK.

“Recently, ROK Technologies updated our website to the ArcGIS server, and implemented the GIS application GoMaps. We have received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback. I had dreaded changing the website, because normally the public is resistant to change. However, with this change to a more effective Geographic Information System, I have been pleasantly surprised with the numerous compliments we have received. Over the past 14 years, we have worked on several projects with ROK, and they always go the extra mile to support us and aid us with all of our GIS needs. The entire ROK staff is knowledgeable, helpful, and easy to work with. It has been a pleasure working with them through the years on various GIS issues, and I look forward to working with them on future projects as well."

Patricia Pike, GIS Manager  

Visit the Onslow County, NC web site to see the GIS application GoMaps in action. Or, feel free to Contact Us with any questions you may have regarding Geographic Information Systems.

 

 

 

Client Spotlight:  After months of testing, design, and preparation, Davie County GIS is pleased to announce that the new GoMaps site is now available.  The new GoMaps has plenty of new features to  display Davie County’s GIS data.  Users will also find more tools for searching and displaying property information, so that you get the most out of your GIS operation.  The site now  includes Google Street View, layer transparency for aerial imagery, enhanced property reports, and much more.  Users can also place graphics on the map for printing.  Bookmarks allow the user  to return to a saved location at a later time.  Instructional videos are available under the help section to assist in learning these fantastic new GIS features.

“We recently completed the transition from our old GoMaps ArcIMS-based site to the new GoMaps Advanced site built on ArcGIS Server with the Flex API.  A tremendous improvement in the user experience!  ROK did a great job helping us upgrade the site and move to hosted and cached map services.  The performance and new features of GoMaps Advanced have made the change well worth the investment and the transition has been nearly effortless.  Feedback has been very positive and our users have readily made the switch to the new site.  Davie County has been a customer of ROK since 1998 and we have been very pleased with the service ROK provides.  Many thanks to Jason, Cotter, Jay and the whole team at ROK.”  John Gallimore, GIS Manager, Davie County, NC

In the GIS industry, mobile applications are becoming more of a need than a wish list item.  Here are a few interesting facts about Mobile:

90% of phones today can browse the web

• By 2014, Mobile Internet Usage will overtake Desktop Usage
• Half of all searches are done from a mobile device

Check out this application designed specifically for iPad/iPhone.  You can search for parcels by either entering an Owner Name or Parcel ID. This will result in highlighted properties on the map and a list of results that displays information about that particular property.  It also gives you a link to either zoom to the parcel or go directly to a more detailed tax information page. If you choose the zoom in option, an information window will pop up with more information about that property and also a link to the more detailed tax site. Users are also able to click on any parcel to retrieve the information window. The application also includes a geo location function, which displays your current location on the map.  iPad Version and iPhone Version (You will need an iPad or an iPhone in order to view these links correctly)

Interested in developing a mobile application?  Contact us today to get started. 

Our recent HivAtlas application (ArcGIS Server Javascript API site) was just highlighted in the latest issue of GeoWorld. Its on page 9 - "Resource Of The Month". I always find it strange when the folks who publish these articles never give you a heads up. Anyway, its nice to be recognized. Lots and lots of work went into that application. And - its one of the many ArcGIS Server sites that are hosted here at ROK...If you would like any information on our ArcGIS Server hosting services, drop us a line


Jason Harris

Hey folks...Just wanted to share a site that is now using our remote cache hosting service to serve cached tiles.

I previously showed several Javascript API sites uing this service, but this one is using Flex api for ArcGIS Server.

This really frees up bandwidth to let the dynamic layers be served quickly. Those aerial images can be very bandwidth intensive, so hosting these remotely them makes a lot of sense when bandwidth is limited, or you have a high volume site.

Here is is: Santa Rosa Planning and Zoning Viewer. The layer that is being served remotely is the 'Aerial Photos' layer. If you are a developer geek like me, check out the site with firebug enabled so that you can see the Aerial imagery being served remotely - meaning a different location that the ArcGIS server itself. Cool stuff.

Jason Harris

Here is a updated list of sites that we have just recently released. All of them are Coldfusion 7 / ArcIMS based sites. Each one is a little different that the other. Everyone has specific tools they like.

The list is growing everyday. Below are the ones that we have officially 'released' There are are also many currently in beta. I must tell you, I have been very pleased with the number of deployments. From all the feedback from the counties/cities themselves, it sounds like they are happy too. Thanks to everyone (especially Cotter) for making it a success.

For the future, I really cant wait for CF 8. It will make some of the ajax based interaction even easier. Also, the slow migration to ArcGIS server has begun. However, I'd really like to see to better support from ESRI on the Coldfusion front. I plan to post a 'call to arms' for all of us Coldfusion / ESRI folks soon...But for now, check out the sites!

Durham County, NC
City Of West Palm Beach, FL
Davie County, NC
Alexander County, NC
Henderson County, NC
Hertford County, NC
Warren County, NC
Union County, NC
Onslow County, NC
Santa Rosa County, FL


Jason Harris

Jack of all, master of none fits me like a glove. I'll be the first to admit it, I am lousy with javascript. Always have been. I can muck my way around and do some simple stuff, and integrate other folks scripts into my apps, but thats about it.

Anyway, I have been droolling over the Windows Live Local drawing tools (scrath pad). If you havent seen them, they are quite amazing. I have done simple VML drawings with some of my apps to create user-savable redlines, but as you already may know VML is IE only. Believe it or not, Microsoft has taken the time to make it Firefox compatible...actually, it reacts better in Firefox vs IE.

So, if you havent seen it, by all means, go check it out right now. Even better, if you know of some existing librabries to emulate it, let me know.

Jason Harris