Dotted Eyes releases a free data set of proposed constituency boundaries to support repercussion analysis

21st September 2011 - The biggest shake-up in UK Parliamentary constituencies in modern times has just taken a major leap forward with the publication of the Initial Proposals from the Boundary Commissions for England and Northern Ireland. Those for Scotland and Wales will be following soon.

In his opening keynote address to the AGI GeoCommunity ’11 conference Jamie Justham, the founder and chairman of Dotted Eyes, described the background to the Initial Proposals and discussed the changing landscape of MP constituencies to an audience keen to understand the role of GIS in analysing the potential impact of such changes.  

The Initial Proposals contain images of maps along with the names of wards making up each constituency. The public consultation on these proposals requires in-depth analysis to keep the electorate for all mainland constituencies within 5% of the national average. Political parties and administrators will therefore want to use a GIS.

To meet this need Dotted Eyes has created a set of proposed constituency boundaries for England and Northern Ireland. Shape and Tab formats are supplied, making the data ready for use in almost any GIS application, as well as KML for use in an OGC KML reader, such as Google Earth. These are now available for downloading free of charge from www.dottedeyes.com/boundarymap.

Ben Allan, MD of Dotted Eyes, explains, “We have made this data set available free of charge to illustrate the power of GIS for visualising and analysing data. This new data set will help political parties, lobbyists, councils and the media model the political repercussions of these changes and help to ensure that the public consultation process is well informed.”

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Dotted Eyes pushes the boundaries of web mapping

Mapping experts make data more secure yet more accessible, without compromising on functionality 

A radically different web mapping solution which simplifies and improves data management and security, whilst allowing users to self-serve data, has been launched by Dotted Eyes.  

RMX4 was developed in response to a challenge from Dotted Eyes’ existing customers. Ben Allan, MD of Dotted Eyes, explains, “Too often, the richness of the front-end is the sole focus of web mapping development, but our RMX web mapping customers demanded more. They wanted refinements to the user interface to be coupled with a structured and secure data storage facility, and the ability to share different combinations of datasets with disparate groups of stakeholders. 

We were faced with a seemingly contradictory requirement: How do you make data more secure whilst also making it more accessible?”

The solution lay in open source.

Dotted Eyes’ engineers, inspired by the results already achieved from using open source in large-scale bespoke development projects, rebuilt the entire RMX platform around carefully selected open source components. 

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New appointments at Dotted Eyes

Dotted Eyes is pleased to announce the appointment of two new team members.

Matt Longman joins as Head of Professional Services and has worked in the GI industry for 20 years both within the private and public sectors. He brings a wealth of expertise in delivering high quality services to GIS users both internally and via public facing websites.

Whilst GIS and Land Charges Manager for Ashfield District Council he achieved national recognition by winning the Ordnance Survey Award for Innovation and represented the East Midlands at a national level as a member of LOGGIC.

Matt commented “I’m really excited to be joining Dotted Eyes as the Head of Professional Services, the company has a great track record for supporting the needs of the GI community through software applications, high quality consultancy and data. I have every confidence that we can tailor our services to meet the demands of our customers during these challenging times.”

Also, joining the Professional Services team is Andrew Millard, an experienced GIS Consultant and also a former employee of Dotted Eyes. Andrew has worked for both local government and global enterprises gaining a broad range of GIS knowledge in MapInfo, ESRI, specialist tools and browser based applications along with valuable experience in pre-sales and implementation technical consultancy.

Commenting on his return to Dotted Eyes, Andrew said, “I have always maintained a great respect for Dotted Eyes and with my broad and diverse experience I was thrilled to have the opportunity to rejoin the team. I believe that the open source direction being taken by the company is the way forward and I am looking forward to helping expand its presence in its existing markets and opening new opportunities.”

3 Peaks, 5 Climbers and just 24 hours

Members of Dotted Eyes staff are celebrating after successfully completing the National 3 Peaks Challenge over the weekend. Our 5 climbers: Matt Asbury, James Bowler, David Eagle, Charlie Gilbert and Vickie White, were helped along the way by driver Steve Davies.

The challenge involves climbing the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales within an impressive 24 hours.

Covering a distance of around 24 miles with approximately 10,000 ft of ascent the climb began in Scotland on Friday afternoon. Our climbers started with the mighty Ben Nevis (1,334m), followed by a drive down to the Lake District for an early morning ascent of Scafell Pike (978m) and finally Snowdon (1,085m) in North Wales and by the time they arrived home Steve had driven them over 1,000 miles!

Money raised through donations from colleagues and friends go to the nominated charities Parkinson’s UK and CLIC Sargent, which have special meaning to those taking part. 

See the Dotted Eyes team in action at our 3 peaks gallery

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School garden makeover supported by Bromsgrove MP

Dotted Eyes staff rose to the challenge when tasked to create a new and exciting garden area for the children at a school in Bromsgrove.

Each year the company donates a day to work on a project in the local community and last Friday 20^th May, 30 members of Dotted Eyes’ staff visited Charford 1^st School with gardening tools at the ready.

Taking an unused and overgrown area of the school’s grounds, the challenge was to transform it into an attractive garden, complete with giant chessboard for the children, in just one day.  Among the finishing touches created were new benches, flower beds, a pathway and lawn area.

Bromsgrove’s MP, Sajid Javid visited the site to see the progress being made and show support for this community driven project.

Ben Allan, Managing Director of Dotted Eyes stated, “With funding cuts taking effect throughout the public sector, it was unlikely that this school would have had the opportunity to carry out this work themselves.  We are delighted to be able to offer our help in this way.”

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