Already widely used by the Intelligence Community and in Federal agencies, MetaCarta GTS Analyst bridges the gap between GIS and text search by using natural language processing (NLP) to identify geographic references within structured and unstructured documents. The results of a text search are literally viewed as icons on a map. The location of each document icon coincides with the geographic locations mentioned within the document.
By clicking on a document icon, a user gains direct access to the original document. The user is able to narrow or broaden the search area by zooming in or out on the map. By displaying the geographic location within documents in a traditional GIS environment, important relationships and patterns can be visualized.
"State and local agencies are inundated with digital text documents of all types, an estimated 80 percent of which contain geospatial references," said Randy Ridley, VP and general manager, public sector for MetaCarta. "We're looking forward to helping these agencies better exploit their information to rapidly create actionable intelligence to support their missions and serve their constituents."
The Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center (ACJIC) is the state agency responsible for providing accurate and timely critical information to the criminal justice and homeland security community. The center is implementing MetaCarta's technology to exploit the geospatial references contained in police reports, criminal justice databases and other crime-related documents.
"Location is incredibly important in combating crime," said Maury Mitchell, director of ACJIC. "By using MetaCarta GTS Analyst, we will provide law enforcement with a new perspective on criminal activity. The local agency will now be able to visualize where crime is occurring and allocate their limited resources more effectively to better protect the citizens of Alabama."
The county of Collin, Texas is home to the North Central Texas Fusion Center, which supports emergency response, field personnel, and investigations enhancing local law enforcement's ability to implement intelligence-led policing. Operations focus on the prevention and early warning of natural, accidental and intentional disasters. Information is disseminated in the form of alerts and actionable reports, including radicalization detection reports and situation analysis reports.
"MetaCarta's geo-referencing capabilities, along with its intuitive, high-capacity, multi-lingual ability to ingest large amounts of data and provide much needed locational meaning to our analytical products will prove invaluable to our Center and to the security of our region's citizens," said Kelley Stone, director of the Collin, Texas Department of Homeland Security.
The Public Works Department in the city of Norwalk, Conn. oversees engineering, sewers, recycling, traffic, parking, garbage and construction for a city of 83,000 residents. The documents collected by the department include a wealth of geospatial references, and the city is considering using MetaCarta GTS Analyst enterprise-wide to link the documents to a larger geographic information system.
"Almost everything our department does -- wastewater management, construction, road maintenance -- is tied to a geographic location," said Michael Yeosock, P.E., senior engineer for the Norwalk Department of Public Works. "We have documents about public works infrastructure dating back to the late 1800s. With that kind of history, we've got a wealth of knowledge, but we needed a more efficient way to manage that information. GTS Analyst provides that for us."
