Wayne County (Michigan) Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA) developed the Polyplot© Mapping System, a client server application for school district administrative planning which is implemented in over 100 school districts throughout Michigan and Ohio. Polyplot is a unique, powerful tool designed for school districts to analyze student information interactively and graphically on a computerized map. RESA developed the Polyplot Mapping System using the TatukGIS Developer Kernel (for VCL edition) with the Embarcadero Delphi development platform.
Polyplot provides a broad range of formats for displaying school district information. The transportation office can develop and maintain complete, detailed route schedule information. For school district administrative planning, Polyplot can be used in building/classroom utilization studies, boundary analysis, voting precinct information or any other map-oriented study. Program features include:
- Multiple day-of-week routing
- Student daily schedule
- Track students on shuttle/transfer stops
- Comprehensive student selection criteria including school, grade, ethnic code, busing eligibility
- A wide variety of graphic display formats
- Route schedule time graph analysis
- Detail route/run/bus stop development tools
- Distance measurement
- Flexible map presentation—any map view can be shown from 50 feet to 50 miles
- Satellite image overlay
- Ability to build and store customized boundaries or “polygons”
- Comprehensive polygon tools such as union, intersection, inside/outside processing
- Complete reporting facility
- Dynamic find feature
Polyplot developer Larry Wall explains: “We originally drew all of our map points and symbols ourselves in a canvas layer and had various procedures to handle map drawing. After switching to TatukGIS Developer Kernel (DK) VCL object, the time we saved in not keeping up with all the map functionality design has proven invaluable. The DK component really let’s you design your map the way you want. It has been enhanced over the years and continues to provide new functionality. We would not have some of the functionality if we were still doing all the map coding ourselves. If you need to work with a map for your clients or projects, the TatukGIS DK is the way to go. We spent much time researching ArcGIS and other products. The TatukGIS DK gave us the most bang for our buck, especially for designing within the Delphi environment. We now look forward to using the upcoming DK for FireMonkey edition to develop a mobile app for our clients in the near future.”
The RESA Administrative Technologies division serves 72 school districts, public school academies and other intermediate districts throughout the State of Michigan that are members of the Wayne RESA Computer Consortium. More information about RESA and the Polyplot Mapping System is available from www.resa.net.
More about the TatukGIS Developer Kernel product is available from www.tatukgis.com.