Data Transfer Solutions, LLC Playing Big Role Shaping GIS Technology as an Everyday Household Appliance

Data Transfer Solutions, LLC Playing Big Role Shaping GIS Technology as an Everyday Household Appliance

AVALON PARK, Fla. - Lead GIS software architect Brian Noyle at Data Transfer Solutions, LLC, which provides professional asset management, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software engineering and web development services to local and state government agencies from offices in eight U.S. cities, is playing a leading role in a worldwide effort to reshape GIS technology into a more practical, user-friendly and powerful tool for consumers.

“As web mapping technologies become more ubiquitous through the efforts of vendors like Google and Microsoft,” Noyle said, “it becomes incumbent upon the software development community to satisfy the increasing expectations of users regarding how easily and how fast they get information. Our goal is to produce software systems that are as ubiquitous and easy to use as Google, Twitter, and the iPhone,” he said.

“Put simply, traditional GIS technology has long enabled the user to locate anything with a spatial context on a map, and perform analyses related to the data” Noyle explained. “At first, GIS provided benefits to government agencies, land managers, infrastructure providers and technology specialists who need to know where assets and their customers are located, where impacts to the landscape are occurring, or other specific scientific questions,” Noyle explained.

“Initially, GIS applications were developed from the engineer’s perspective, and it took a fair amount of expertise to utilize the technology.”

Now, Noyle is a leader in a worldwide movement to make GIS mapping technology accessible to a wider audience, including anyone with a cell phone. The potential, Noyle said, is enormous.

When power lines go down during a hurricane, repair crews need to know what has been impacted and how to get there quickly. Both police officers and pizza delivery vans need to know their way around unfamiliar neighborhoods without having to learn GIS technology, Noyle said.

“In the developing world, this new approach to distributed mapping technology can better the lives of millions of people in just a few years,” Noyle explained. “Right now, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a program in Africa that links small plot farmers using cell phones to a data base that collects information on irrigation, fertilizing, planting and harvesting decisions.

The end result will be better productivity and more food for hungry populations. But the key benefit is to achieve these ends at affordable costs, without a huge government bureaucracy, while providing information to users in a paradigm that they already understand” Noyle said.

Data Transfer Solutions engineers have developed a mapping application that tracks the spread of influenza virus. “It’s global in scope, fully internationalized, and highly specialized---it does one thing very, very fast,” Noyle said. “Rather than providing generalized GIS toolsets to our users, we simply ingest data and show disease incidence on map for the individuals around the world who need this information.”

Noyle and Dave Bouwman, chief technology officer at Data Transfer Solutions, lead the DTSAgile division, which focuses on developing cutting-edge geospatial solutions concentrated on usability and performance. (http://dtsagile.com/staff/Dave) and (http://dtsagile.com/staff/Brian).

Noyle and Bouwman made big waves recently when they presented papers during the ESRI 2009 Developer Summit in Palm Springs, Calif. ESRI, Inc., ranks as the world’s foremost developer of GIS software, and conference participants included most of the major corporate and government GIS users. (http://www.dtsagile.com/Media/Presentations)

“Our whole focus was on how to bring GIS mapping into the 21st century and make it accessible to everyone,” Noyle said.
They were a smash hit.

Almost immediately, ARCUser Magazine---a leading U.S. industry journal on GIS mapping technology---commissioned an article outlining Noyle and Bouwman’s design and development philosophies and two additional articles ran in the same issue addressing the summit presentations. Directions Magazine, a leading professional journal in the GIS field, then commissioned a series of articles to expand on Noyle and Bouwman’s usability ideas.

A.M. “Trey” Fragala III, ACP, chief operating officer at Data Transfer Solutions, headquartered at Orlando’s Avalon Park, said Noyle and Bouwman are rising quickly to the top ranks of GIS technologists.

“Dave Bouwman and Brian Noyle are creating a major impact on GIS mapping technology with their developments,” Fragala explained. “The technology revolution under way in the field of GIS mapping will have profound effects on the ability of public agencies to manage public assets efficiently and effectively, and on end users---average citizens---to create new ways to address age-old problems,” Fragala said.

“The solutions we are developing are playing a major role in an important technological evolution,” Fragala said.

For more information, contact:
A.M. “Trey” Fragala, III, AICP, Chief Operating Officer, Data Transfer Solutions, 3680 Avalon Park East Blvd., Suite 200, Orlando, 32828; 407-382-5222; tfragala@edats.com;

Larry Vershel or Beth Payan, Larry Vershel Communications 407-644-4142 lvershelco@aol.com