Government Technology - December 2008 - (Page 42)

geo info Paper Streamlines IT Governments deploying digital pens point out the advantage they provide for emergency operations requiring responders from out of town. Using the digital pen, a government wouldn’t waste time training newcomers on mobile computing devices and applications that are different than what guest responders use at home. “There is very little learning curve to it. It’s a pen and a piece of paper,” said Mike Hoose, captain of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department in California, which recently began using digital pens. He contends that paper is better backup for a fieldworker’s map changes than a tablet or laptop. What if the tablet or laptop breaks in the field? “Let’s say the camera [on the pen] fails. You still have your changes on a piece of paper. That’s different from a tablet or laptop,” Hoose said. “With pen and paper, you can still get back to the unit and manually digitize your changes if you have to. If that happens with a tablet PC, you’re stuck and all your plans are screwed. That’s what happens when people live and die by technology.” The digital pen works even if the user tears up the map or crumples it into ball. “With pen and paper, you can still get back to the unit and manually digitize your changes if you have to. If that happens with a tablet PC, you’re stuck and all your plans are screwed.” Mike Hoose, captain, Santa Barbara County, Calif., Fire Department on the screen in front of the EOC, projected to be 5 feet by 6 feet, and everybody in the room is going to be able to see it,” Marino explained. “I can create a PDF out of it, and if I need to send it to the State Police or the FBI, I can do that immediately without having to worry about how to send that flipchart paper map that he’s marked up with a highlighter.” Marino brought the digital pen to the attention of the director of the Nashua Parks and Recreation Department for planning the agency’s Earth Day garbage pickup activity. THE MAIN PENX COMPONENTS Time Commodity Traditionally technicians manually digitize markings from paper maps into GIS layers, which takes hours. GIS technicians in Nashua, N.H., eliminated that delay by working around their fieldworkers’ preference for pens and paper. After using the digital pen in the field, city employees hand it to GIS technicians who instantly produce GIS layers from it, said Angelo Marino, chief assessor for Nashua. The instruction for using the digital pen takes 10 minutes, Marino said. Marino recently purchased 15 digital pens for roughly $15,000 and plans to use them for an upcoming terrorism drill in conjunction with Nashua’s emergency operations center (EOC). Marino got an idea at the EOC’s last terrorism drill as he watched the police captain mark up a 2-foot by 3-foot flipchart map, giving instructions to a room packed with responders. “I can let him draw on that map, and then when I dock the pen, it’s going to show up Lithium-ion battery “We said, ‘OK, just take the pen and draw on the map where your Dumpster is going to be and where you want to have your flagmen and access for the trucks.’ In five minutes, he had a plan for which we printed maps that he handed to all of his individuals who were going to be in the field that day,” Marino said. Marino is currently using a digital pen to plan for Nashua’s next fireworks display. “We have symbols for where the police are going to be stationed, where the streets are going to be closed, where the fire truck will be, where the emergency aid station is and the detour routes for after the fireworks,” Marino detailed. “It shows where police will hold out cars to turn left and not turn right, and where they’ll forbid parking during and after.” Marino is eager to try a new feature of the Adapx digital pen that lets users write paper notes and later import them to Microsoft Office OneNote by docking the pen. The digital version of the map would then feature tags linking to the field notes written about each GIS layer. “It allows you to deploy the information in a richer sense — not just locations, but descriptions of the actual happenings that are going on in the map,” he said. Low-level LED indicator lights Optical lens and filter assembly How It Works Penx: PCB Main pen and IB image processor, pen memory and Bluetooth Built-in sensor and infrared light Fisher Space-Pen Cartridge with Rite in the Rain weather resistant ink DEC_08 The Adapx digital pen converts handwritten information — forms, ﬁeld journal notes, and sketches and comments on maps and satellite images — into digital data. The device looks and feels like a regular ballpoint pen, but it contains an integrated digital camera, image microprocessor and mobile communications device for wireless connectivity. As the user writes, the pen takes digital snapshots of the writing in conjunction with a printed pattern — called an Anoto pattern — on digital paper. More than 75 snapshots per second are captured and stored in the pen’s memory until the data is downloaded to a PC. 42 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - December 2008

Government Technology - December 2008 Contents Point of View Four Questions for... On the Scene Big Picture Year in Review Who Controls Your Network? Paper Makes a Comeback Halting Meth Abuse Spectrum Up Close signal:noise Digital Communities Contents Becoming a Digital Community Rethinking 700 MHz Smart Grids: Powering the Future Gearing Up for Crime 2.0 Software Predicts Crime Local Portals on the Red Carpet More Than Just a Pretty Face

Government Technology - December 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.