Dumfries and Galloway Council enhance GIS experience for users by integrating free spatial tools.

Google and Bing spatial tools are now commonplace in a number of commercial websites.  Specifically the aerial photography and Street View bring value to organisations that may not otherwise be able to obtain this information.   

Working with Dumfries and Galloway Council, Forth Valley GIS integrated Bing Maps, Google Maps and Street View with the Council's intranet application, DGi.  Users can now identify a location on the map using their intranet interface to invoke the Google and Bing information.

Barry Young, GIS Officer at Dumfries and Galloway Council, comments,‘These free tools have great value for local authorities when trying to locate customers, services or issues.  These compliment our intranet GIS holdings and make the whole GIS experience more enriched and valuable to our users.’

This solution was rapidly deployed and enabled aerial and street photography information to be provided at low cost before integration with a commercially available data web service.