Shoji Okumura (JICA )

Development of a Position Retrieving Program

National Disaster Management Office

Ministry for Provincial Development and Disaster Management

Suva, Fiji

1

Background of the Project

When we want to plot objects on a map, we have to know their exact locations on the map.

In many cases we refer the map objects on documents and we have to find their locations usually with their addresses.

We wanted to have some tools which assist us to find the absolute locations of the object with their names and additional information given by addresses.

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We frequently encounter difficulties in these processes especially for Fiji.

Outline of Location Retrieving System

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Server Machine

Server Computer

Computer System 　：　 HP Z400 Workstation Processor : Intel Xeon W3520, @2.66 GHZ Memory : 5GB Storage : 500 GB Hard Disk Monitor : HP LP 2475w Operating System : Windows 7 Standard → 　 Windows XP, SP3

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Software on the Server Computer

GIS 　 MapInfo: Professional Version 10.0

MapBasic : Version 9.5

Database and Programming 　 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional

( Internet Information System )

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Overview of Programs developed

1. A Windows Application: Used on the Server Computer.

2. A Windows Application: Used on client computers on the

network.

3. A Web Application: Used on the Internet Browsers.

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Starting View(Windows Application -1)

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Starting View(Findlocation_win)

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Starting View(Findlocation_win)

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View for DropdownList of Category(Windows Application)

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View for DropdownMenu for Category(Findlocation_win)

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View for DropdownList of Tikina(Windows Application)

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View for DropdownMenu for Tikina(Findlocation_win)

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Search by Name(Windows Application)

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To Find Map, “Where” or “which Map” Button is clicked(Windows Application)

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View for drawing the Map

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View for Name Search and “which Map”(Findlocation_win)

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Popped upMapInfo Map

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Starting Screen ofWindows Application -2

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View for Initial Screen ofweb version

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Index Map Popped up

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CombinedSearch

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Preparation of Location Database -1

Database Management System : Microsoft SQL server 2008

Source of Location Data : About 15 GIS Tables from FLIS

Tables used : Coast_Fiji.tab (Islands)(461), VilagePoint.tab(111), VillageBoundary.tab(1067), TownBoundary.tab(13), OldTikina.tab(197), NewTikina.tab(62), Settlements.tab(1159), Province.tab(15), Province_All.tab(17), Places.tab(3656), Trigs.tab(635), VRC_ElectionsFJ.tab(934) , etc.

Total number of rows in Locations database is approximately 8300.

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Preparation of Location Database -2

Structure of the Location Table :

Column Name Data Type Allow NullNameID Int

Name nvarchar(40) √

CategoryID smallint √

TikinaID smallint √

ProvinceID smallint √

Longitude float √

Latitude float √

Comments nvarchar(50) √

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OutputfromSQL Server(LocationTable)

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Comments for making the Location Database

There are many cases where the different places have the same name. It usually needs for us to have additional information to identify them.

The source databases we have used have missing or error data for positions and names. The missing and error data are inherited into our location database, although we have corrected those which we could find. We want to have some open system to share the corrections of GIS data in Fiji.

The set of areas Tikina ( called as “District” in the governmental administration.) is desirable as an intermediate size of areas which cover the whole Fiji. But it’s not a unique set of definition. There are other sets for Tikina (For an example, Oldtikina). I hope they should be standardized to have a unique set of definition.

In Suva city the sub-divisional area names are commonly used (For examples, Tamavua, Nabua,Toorak, ..). But the maps which show their definite boundaries have never been published from the Min. of Lands.

As my opinion, such kinds of database as those which I have made should be developed, maintained and opened to public use by some adequate governmental agency .

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Conclusion

The design and implementation of the program to find the absolute locations of

places in Fiji have successfully completed. I believe that it’s very useful for

creating new maps to show the various kinds of map objects.

I think our system will assist for people in Fiji to get their good common practices

in writing addresses in documents .

The position database should be further developed and updated to be error-free

and to have no missing data.

We want to implement the program as a service program on the Internet.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge many helps which have been given in the course of this work by the staff in NDMO. I would like to express my gratitude to Litea Buikoto of SOPAC for her pertinent cooperation in this work and Rashmi Rita of FLIS for providing us with the Fiji GIS baseline data.

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Errors in Data

Caast_Fiji / Island name: Tavu Na Siga (position :180.909,-18.724), where In 1/50000map, name is Tabunasisi.Coast_Fiji / Cikobia Island : shifts by about 5 km in the northeast direction.Coast_Fiji / Name of two islands pair in the south edge of Fiji territory: Tabana-i-Colo, Tabana-i-Ra, These are spelling errors?Coast_Fiji/ Batiki Island : shifts by a few km in the north direction.Village_Boundaries/ 36 villages have the coordinates of positions near the Antarctic land.Census_2007/ Several Islands in Southern Lau Group are shifted in random directions by from 1 to 10 km.Places/ Name of Places: Korovou Town, Veileka Town; wrong types of names.