Products
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PRODUCTS
PORTeL is a new technology designed to give mapping and spatial analysis capabilities to existing forestry and land management software systems. Developed by FORCE/Robak Associates Ltd (FRA) to enhance its existing forestry systems, PORTeL goes beyond simply linking applications software to GIS technologies. Instead, it embeds management-oriented GIS functionality directly in forest and land management systems, so that the map interface becomes a new way to interact with applications.
The power of models and decision support systems are greatly enhanced when PORTeL’s data preparation, spatial analysis and results visualization capabilities are introduced. Although designed primarily with the ESRI Shape File format in mind, managers can have access to vector and raster data in other common file formats. Since PORTeL has been designed to be a module in a wide variety of forest and land management systems, we are also able to offer this technology to clients and other developers as a component in their own applications.
PORTeL Current Capabilities
- Within-application visualization, analysis and manipulation of most industry-standard GIS data (vector or raster) from multiple sources simultaneously.
- Use of maps as an integrated user-interface for data entry, scenario design, sensitivity analysis and reporting.
- Spatial analysis oriented to forest land and operations management.
- PORTeL is currently embedded in ForMAX, OperMAX and FIS, and will be incorporated into our other packages in 2003.
- PORTeL screen can be resized, maximized or minimized at any time.
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In ForMAX
In order to facilitate the development of ForMAX model scenarios, PORTeL enables forest managers to work directly with the spatial and attribute data from the GIS to classify forests using a mixture of spatial and non-spatial characteristics. Then, once ForMAX has generated a solution, user-definable reports currently generated by the system can also be viewed as user-definable mapped solutions. Besides making the scenario set-up much easier, the mapping of solutions enhances the ability of the user to visualize their effects and validity, and to formulate better scenarios. For example, a mapped solution might indicate that a particular solution will require significant unforeseen infrastructure costs. |
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In OperMAX
Much of the data required by OperMAX currently resides in the GIS (and GIS-linked) databases of forest products companies. By providing direct access to this data with PORTeL, FRA’s spatial visualization and analyses tool. the amount of time and effort required to formulate scenarios is greatly reduced. PORTeL allows managers to assign spatial constraints on specific systems or for specific seasons or years, design roads, assign road dependencies, calculate distances and determine estimated costs without leaving the map interface. Moreover, solutions can be viewed as both tables and user-definable maps, classified in any way that the manager wishes (by system, by year, by season, by cost, by product destination) to generate new planning ideas and to ensure that plans are truly implementable. |
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In FIS
The Forest Inventory System (FIS) stores and processes forest inventory information and produces estimates of current and projected volume and value estimates of timber and non-timber products. FIS allows managers to view the progress of an individual block, and can produce statistical summaries, stand and stock and market value reports, estimates of future growth and value for individual blocks, districts or for the entire organization. FIS supplies OP-PLAN, OperMAX and ForMAX with the data needed for operational and strategic planning. With PORTeL, managers can access all of the inventory data, undertake spatial analyses and obtain reports (as tables or graphs) using a map interface. |
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In OP-PLAN/CTS
Managers are able to develop operating plans, schedule and budgets for all of their forest operations using the PORTeL map interface to assign systems, design roads and calculate distances while OP-PLAN calculates the resource usage, scheduling and budget implications. Plans can be viewed as user-definable maps and reviewed for their spatial feasibility. Then, during the operating year, actual results can be compared to operating plans and budgets by means of tables, graphs and maps. |
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For Application Developers
PORTeL’s object-oriented and modular design facilitates the integration of PORTeL into your own forestry and land management applications. This means that your own software can now directly connect to and take full advantage of vector and raster data from the most common GIS databases. Please contact us for details… E-mail: ewr@fra.nb.ca
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