ESRI’s new MapShop helps media show story graphically

BROOMFIELD — This spring, when war erupted in Iraq, Los Angeles Times graphics designers needed an efficient way to create maps illustrating troop movements and bombings.

That’s when the Times began using geographic information systems market-leader ESRI’s MapShop for Media on a trial basis. The newspaper has since subscribed to the online map-making tool.

“We looked at the demo a year ago,´ said Les Dunseith, the acting graphics editor for the Times. “At that time, we didn’t think the data was comprehensive enough. When the war started, we decided we needed to take another look at MapShop.”

SPONSORED CONTENT

The many benefits of simple, coordinated healthcare

Kaiser Permanente combines health care and coverage in one connected system to maximize employee health and minimize employer costs.

Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc., a GIS software company based in Redlands, Calif., in October released MapShop for Media version 3 along with a new application of MapShop, MapShop for Homeland Security.

ESRI specializes in GIS software, which maps data to geography to help government and commercial entities better evaluate information and solve problems.

“We provide the tools to build the analysis,´ said Carl Sylvester, the regional manager for ESRI-Denver in Broomfield.

Sylvester’s regional office, which has 50 employees, is responsible for sales and marketing of ESRI products for an area that covers the four-corner states and Wyoming. ESRI-Denver also provides services and training.

“I have a services staff that can meet with customers to find out what they need and create specialized applications of the software for them,” Sylvester said.

There are two classrooms at ESRI’s 40,000-square-foot Broomfield facility in which ESRI staff lead hands-on labs 45 to 50 weeks out of the year, Sylvester said.

ESRI staff often are on the road with such a large coverage area. In Colorado alone, 62 of the state’s 64 counties use ESRI software for planning, zoning and various other purposes.

Colorado’s Department of Transportation uses the software in transportation planning and maintenance of geographical information on its Web site.

Several educational and health-care agencies also use ESRI software. The University of Colorado uses the software for facilities maintenance. CU can map out its entire infrastructure, and, in the case of a problem such as a leaky pipe, can decide what valves need to be shut off to make repairs.

MapShop for Media is a Web application for creating customized maps for media professionals without GIS experience. It is similar to ESRI’s desktop software, ArcView, only less complex with a simplified user interface.

“MapShop gives them a tiny window into the function ArcView has,´ said Kris Goodfellow, ESRI’s manager for business development for ArcWeb services. MapShop is simpler for those in an organization to share information, she said, since it is online and not on a desktop like ArcView. Plus, it is much easier to learn.

MapShop is served over the Internet so an organization does not have to maintain a GIS database of its own but is able to share maps and design styles. Maps are stored in a database in a password-protected site.

MapShop allowed staff members at the Times to layer several types of information on satellite images of Baghdad to show roads and troop locations when U.S. troops began entering the city. “We were able to turn maps around faster,” Dunseith said.

Times staff also was able to edit the text and format of maps to make them consistent with its paper’s style.

“I think time is why we’ve been using it quite a bit,” Dunseith said. “We use ArcView for certain types of projects, but we’ve found MapShop to be more efficient in everyday projects.”

ESRI has 30 subscribers to MapShop for Media, which was first released for the 2000 elections. None are in Colorado.

One-year subscriptions cost between $2,000 and $13,500 depending on a newspaper’s circulation and whether or not it uses satellite imagery. Goodfellow said she hopes ESRI will have 100 subscriptions sold by the end of next year.

Meanwhile, the company has not yet sold subscriptions of MapShop for Homeland Security. Goodfellow said about 150 free month-long online trials, however, have been started by various agencies.

“That’s a tremendously large sample in a short time from one press release,´ said Goodfellow. She sees the homeland security version of MapShop, which has more satellite images and enhanced weather and terrain data, surpassing the media version in sales.

She said it can be useful for all types and levels of government agencies.

“They need to be able to share information across many levels of government when an emergency happens to protect critical infrastructure,” Goodfellow said. “It may be a terrorist attack, but it’s more likely to be a fire or a flood.”

“The people in Homeland Security see the value from other agencies in what we do,” Sylvester said.

So far, MapShop accounts for only a small portion of what ESRI does, Goodfellow said. More than 500,000 copies of ArcView are in use.

The privately held company, which has 2,750 employees worldwide, had 2002 revenues of $469 million, up from $427 million in 2001 and $370 million in 2000.

In 2002, ESRI had 29 percent market share in the $1.63 billion a year GIS industry, according to Daratech Inc., an IT market research and technology assessment firm in Cambridge, Mass. Its closest competitor, Intergraph Corp., held 16 percent of the market.