This was a unique use of GIS to create a custom facility data viewer accessible to the clients. While many of the features of this GIS are now considered standard, such as being able to view a site photograph when clicking on a location, this entire GIS was pushing the boundaries of the then available technology. The GIS was built in 2006 by myself while working at Haley & Aldrich to allow for a number of data types to be shown over time. The data shown here is the example data publicly presented at the Eastern Region Association of Physical Plant Administrators conference in 2006. The presentation was made jointly by myself, the sole GIS developer assigned to the project and the principal engineer assigned to the entire scope of the project. The viewer was built using ArcObjects to allow the clients, which included a team of lawyers, to review the data to build their case. The entire GIS needed to be built with extreme precision for defensibility in court. The viewer allowed for clients to view any of the results in a 3D model on demand without needing to understand how to operate GIS software. The comparison units were preselected and written into the code for each compound to ensure the integrity of the visual analysis.
Michelle Toner 