In late February 1999, I asked for pointers and references to what the state of the art is using GIS and GPS in operations involving fugitive searches or search and rescue. Thanks to John Brosowsky, Wilson Baker, Alan Clark, Glenn Letham, Spencer Chainey, Brian Webb, Marja Sepp�nen, Bob from John Wall and Asso., Colin Anderson, Bill Gates, Claudia Sitar, Brian Malone, Lori Frank, Ken Johnson, Michelle Cox, Glenn Brooks, Ezra Zubrow, and Steve Sullivan! The following is a summary of responses. At the end I include an annotated list of web sites related to SAR (Search and Rescue), crime mapping, and related sites that I've found so far. I'll also soon post this summary on my "GIS Notebook" site at http://www.ctmap.com/gisnet/notebook/ where I collect GIS-related summaries of interesting stuff. For those of you on MapInfo-L (where I asked first), the place to go to find the crowd who knows public safety, law enforcement, emergency response, etc. is definitely the CRIMEMAP list. Info on how to join this group is at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc/faq/welcome.html. The application of GPS and GIS to Search and Rescue or Fugitive Search is so new it doesn't exist yet. This application seems to be waiting to happen. Ken Johnson of the Seattle Police Dept. says, "...reminds me of one sorely missed GIS application area, at the CMRC conferences the last two years, which is the use of 3 Dimensional maps for a variety of purposes..." Steve Sullivan, Supervising Crime Analyst and Commander S/R, Mountain Rescue Division for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, sums it up: "I have been in the Search & Rescue field for 20 years and have yet to see this technology applied in the field of land-based SAR operations." Steve goes on to mention that he has only seen applications like this applied to moving vehicles in military situations, but implies that even this was still experimental. He also mentioned two other possible sources of info for this: "According to PERF, around 1995, police in Yonkers were using an integrated GPS system to track undercover police. Calgary, British Columbia P.D. has a GIS/GPS system called NavTrax (by PulseSearch Navigation) that they used for coordinating vehicular pursuits and undercover operations." Technical difficulties involving availability of accurate 3D terrain models, GPS equipment cost and portability, SA (Selective Availability -- deliberate attenuating of GPS position signal by the US military), signal shadow and echoes in mountainous terrain, tree cover, lack of integrated mapping software, and so on are getting solved and applications that take advantage of these converging technologies are happening right now. One such system is the SportsTracker, produced by MapTrek (http://www.maptrek.com), which is a GPS position recorder about the size and weight of a pack of cigarettes being used now to track skiers at Vail Ski Resort and produce a 3D "trophy map" of their runs each day. This technology could easily be adapted to search teams or fire fighters in wilderness areas too. Several people mentioned companies that specialize in GPS and mapping. GIS software makers MapInfo, Northwood Geosciences and ESRI are quite active in this area. Wilson Baker suggested I look at Tetrad's site that demonstrates using MapInfo and Vertical Mapper to solve crimes. MapInfo seems to be more focused on crime mapping and emergency response in urban settings, while ESRI appears to be looking at a broader view including SAR applications. Ezra Zubrow of the Intl Crime Mapping Laboratory mentions Fugawi software. Glenn Brooks pointed out the Trimble and Garmin web sites. Michele Cox alerted me to the ESRI ArcNews newsletter, and quick review of this site shows they regularly feature articles on SAR and emergency response applications in the real world. John Brosowsky, of GeoComm Corp mentioned their application for enhanced 911 mapping and dispatch. Finally I had asked for a short review of the book, "Crime Mapping Case Studies: Successes in the Field". Spencer Chainey says it's a good introduction and is a reasonable summary of the "state of the art", but that there are some omissions. Brian Malone says it provides some good examples but is not a comprehensive review of the 'crime mapping industry'. Lori Frank, crime analyst for the Arvada, CO Police Dept. agrees that it provide good descriptions of practical applications for GIS in law enforcement, but that it doesn't cover SAR operations. Both Spencer and Brian mentioned that these papers should become available soon when the conference proceedings are posted at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc/. Thanks again everyone (see web links below)! - Bill Thoen owner, GISnet [EMAIL PROTECTED] 303-786-9961 SAR and Emergency/Disaster Web Sites ------------------------------------ http://www.nasar.org/ National Association for Search and Rescue (NASAR) NASAR home page. Contains info about NASAR, news, conferences, books, search dogs, and various links to resources for SAR (Search and Rescue). Not much on GIS here. http://www.niusr.org/welcome.html Welcome to NI/USR Web Site of the National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue. Good site for ideas on handling extreme and/or widespread disaster situations. Topics include coordination between Urban SAR and Federal Heavy Rescue Task Force in situations from earthquake, large floods, Y2K infrastructure meltdowns, terrorist attacks, and probably all the way up to Armageddon. http://hoshi.cic.sfu.ca/~anderson/ EPIX Home Page Emergency Preparedness Information eXchange. General resource guide for emergency management focused primarily on Canadian issues and organizations. http://www.state.fl.us/comaff/DEM/BPR/EMTOOLS/esf.htm Emergency Management Related Sites by ESF Large list of links to resources on all sorts of Internet Emergency Support sites. Crime Mapping ------------- http://www.salinaspd.com/gis_vb.html Law Enforcement use of GIS Salinas, CA Police Dept. description of an ArcView application for mapping and analyzing youth/firearms/violence problems. Includes downloadable PDF. http://www.ih2000.net/ira/ira1a.htm LAW ENFORCEMENT SITES ON THE WEB - Part 1-A - Previous new Sites, 1997 Large resource guide for law enforcement sites online. Last updated Aug 1998. Topics include Missing persons, Campus/University police, city police, county sheriffs' depts., State, Federal law enforcement, Canadian and international law enforcement resources. Also topics on prisons, terrorism, forensics, cults, narcotics, and many more. http://www.co.pinellas.fl.us/bcc/juscoord/egis.htm Geographic Information System Criminal Justice Links Resource site of police depts with active GIS/Crime mapping programs. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc/ Crime Mapping Research Center Homepage Crime Mapping Research Center at the National Institute of Justice. Focused on promotion, research, evaluation, development, and dissemination of GIS (geographic information systems) technology and the spatial analysis of crime. http://www.policeforum.org/home/public/flyer.html Crime Mapping Case Studies Description and info on how to purchase 1998 book edited by Nancy La Vigne and Julie Wartell, "Crime Mapping Case Studies: Successes in the Field". http://everest.hunter.cuny.edu/capse/projects/nij/crime.html CAPSE: Crime Mapping and Analysis "Dedicated to the collection and dissemination of information pertaining to crime mapping and analysis." Contains extensive general resources on Crime Mapping, journals, papers, projects, maps, GIS software info, conferences, and more. http://everest.hunter.cuny.edu/capse/projects/nij/links.html Useful Links Related to Crime Mapping http://everest.hunter.cuny.edu/capse/projects/nij/crime_bib1.html Mapping & Crime Analysis Bibliography "The final goal of the project is review the literature in the fields of Crime Analysis, GIS, Epidemiology and other Social Sciences to find useful applications and/or possible directions for future research in this field." Pretty good collection. http://www.ecricanada.com/ Welcome to Environmental Criminology Research Inc. Focused on Criminal Geographic Profiling Systems with emphasis on marketing their application. (interesting stuff nevertheless.) http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/police/structure/op-support/geo/geo.html VPD - Geographic Profiling Section Vancouver Police Dept.'s page on Geographic Profiling. http://www.ualberta.ca/~crimgrp/INDEX.HTM Crime Spots: GIS Applications in Crime Analysis Online slide show of 1996 presentation: "Crime Spots: GIS Applications in Crime Analysis" by Les Kennedy and John Hodgson. http://www.geo-comm.com/ Welcome to GeoComm! GeoComm sells software that unites "state-of-the-art communications and geographic information technologies". Focuses on GPS/Vehical tracking and GIS. http://www.tetrad.com/new/crime.html Crime Analysis Tetrad Computer Applications Inc's web page describing the use of MapInfo and Vertical Mapper to solve crimes. http://www.geog.le.ac.uk/jad7/Statistician/ Cartographic Visualization: ESDA with LISA using Tcl/Tk and cdv Jason Dyke's dissertation for an MSc in GIS, demonstrates a free tool (Tcl/Tk). Describes techniques for building "a dynamic and interactive time series animation of burglary data but it could be applied to any such crime data." http://www.esri.com/industries/public_safety/safe.html ESRI - GIS for Your Industry -- Public Safety ESRI's page describing their software and its use in public safety applications. Includes topics on rescue, emergency response, E911, Crime mapping, etc. http://www.mapinfo.com/solutions_and_services/interest_areas/government/government_solutions.html MapInfo Application Areas MapInfo links to Law Enforcement and Emergency Response topics. http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/arcnews.html Welcome to ArcNews ESRI's newsletter, ArcNews often contains articles related to emergency response, crime mapping, search and rescue and similar public safety topics. http://www.trimble.com/ Trimble Navigation Trimble manufactures GPS equipment and applications. http://www.garmin.com/ Welcome to the GARMIN International Web site! Garmin manufactures GPS equipment. http://www.Fugawi.com/ Fugawi Moving Map Navigation Software for GPS Receivers - Main Page Fugawi specializes in moving map software for GPS. - end - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
