Tanveer Aslam

With far reaching geospatial applications in use, organizations worldwide are using this technology to transform manually generated maps and its descriptive information into digital databases which can be used in applications to manage utility distribution networks, track agricultural drought conditions, conduct census, create floodplain maps, monitor pollution, plan alternative traffic patterns, redraw voter districts.

The growing demand for Geographic Information System (GIS) has widened its application to data conversion, application development, web application development, mobile applications, data mining and data migration. The GIS Application Development services serves various industries like Forestry, Electric and Gas, Retail, Mobile mapping, Mining, Pipeline, Agriculture, Defense, Hospitality and Tourism, Water Resource, Education, Emergency Disaster Management, Logistics, Insurance, Real estate, Public Safety , Telecommunication, Banking and Finance Services, etc. The technically skilled and experienced software developers create customized applications to meet the requirements of these diverse industries. They optimize multipurpose software procedure, including customized programming codes.

Custom GIS applications are developed based on specific needs and requirements of the clients, regardless of the type of intricacies involved. Based on the requirements and an outright analysis of the core problem, the software developers create solutions with the functionality specified. These solutions are based on commercial or open source programs. Most of the application developers function according to a work flow, which generally consists of eight main modules. They are:
1. Business Modeling
2. Specification and Requirements
3. Analysis and Design
4. Coding and Implementation
5. Testing
6. Deployment
7. Project Management
8. Configuration and Change Management

GIS Application Development services are deployed by users belonging to government agencies, research institutions, businesses, health institutions, land use planning organizations, and environmental study institutions. They create customized software applications to provide solutions on information storage, remote sensing, spatial pattern identification, and visual presentation of spatial data. The data is made available to a large number of users, data collectors, surveyors and community participants, via web interface.

GIS Applications are tailored to implement thematic information systems that collect, cite, visualize, exchange and propagate statistical report using survey and indicator data. Accurate visualization of data through tables, maps, raster images and graphs is provided.

Various state-of-the-art technologies have been identified, designed, and implemented for use in diverse GIS applications. The multiple tools utilized for the application development generally includes Arcserver, Geoserver, Mapserver, penLayers, GoogleMap API, Arc SDE, Arc Objects, Map Objects, Flex API, Mapfish, MapNik, Ka Map, MapWindow GIS with visual studio.net, Arc Object , Map Object in visual studio.net, C # .net, VB.net, etc.

In conclusion, GIS tools that were once affordable only to the largest organizations, have now become a cost-effective option for even the smallest organizations. Efforts are being made by the global GIS application developers to build newer and advanced applications that can bring major enhancements to existing application systems. Major developmental techniques are also being formulated to optimize the spatial data sharing framework and to make it more accessible to a wide range of users in the near future.

Source by Gayathri L