Wednesday, October 27, 2010

GTViewer Shows Real Time Trouble Status

from Charlie Marlin, Systems Analyst at Huntsville Utilities

Huntsville Utilities provides electricity, gas, and water to Madison County, Alabama. We have implemented a GTViewer application in our Dispatch center that was used during a storm on October 26, 2010.

The application sets up a connection to a table in an Oracle database at the heart of our “Trouble System”. If a trouble call (a “ticket”) has been received but not dispatched, a red disk shows up at the address of the ticket. When the database shows that a truck has been dispatched, the disk turns yellow. Once the call is completed, the disk goes green. The disk size grows and shrinks dynamically as you zoom out or in.

At any point, you can hover the cursor over a disk and get a ToolTip with the ticket number, the truck (if one has been dispatched), and the name of the substation that feeds that address.

The GTViewer application also shows how many tickets are on the screen. (This can be useful, because when you are zoomed out, several disks may overlap, and it’s not apparent how many there are. Of course, if you hover, you see each one in a list on the ToolTip.)

Today, October 27, 2010, at 9:18 am, the GTViewer application gave this view of the Huntsville Utilities service area:





Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Using the LoadSupplementalFile Entry in your .GTM File

As many of you have probably noticed, the [Additional Properties] section of the .GTM file has an ever growing list of entries that it will support. Some of these entries, such as Custom Attribute Tab definitions, Feature Tooltip definitions, Dynamic Graphics definitions, non-Category Raster definitions, and Custom Raster file definitions, can even dwarf the rest of the .GTM file’s content with their bulk.

Since version 8.0.x.29 of GTViewer, there has been a special entry in the [Additional Properties] section called LoadSupplementalFile. This entry defines a path to a file (which can either be an absolute path or a path relative to the .GTM file). As the .GTM file is processed and a LoadSupplementalFile entry is encounter, the contents of the file it points to will be inserted into the [Additional Properties] section at the entry’s position. Using the LoadSupplementalFile entry has two major benefits: 1) bulky entries like Custom Attribute Tab definitions and Feature Tooltip definitions can be stored in a separate file making a .GTM file without a lot of verbose entries that can logically be grouped together elsewhere, and 2) separating entries like non-Category Raster definition and Custom Raster Definitions into separate files makes them easier to update since the .GTM file itself doesn’t have to be edited when changes are needed.

The Supplemental Files are required when using the .GTM file since they are referenced by the entry, but they are embedded into Extract Files (.GTX) and are, therefore, not needed when using this file type.

[Attribute Info]
LoadSupplementalFile=CustomAttrTab.ini
LoadSupplementalFile=DynamicGraphics.ini
LoadSupplementalFile=FeatureTooltips.ini
LoadSupplementalFile=CustomRaster.ini

GTV .NET Control for Windows version 9.0.0.14 is Available





The GTViewer .NET Control for Windows version 9.0.0.14 is Available.

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09.00.00.14 - 10/13/10
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- FIX - #6506 - GTFieldClean data property was not working.

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09.00.00.12 - 09/21/10
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- FIX - #6480 - DM_HighlightItem was not highlighting the correct item.

- NEW - #6482 - DM_GetList method added to return all items in a specified list.

- NEW - #6484 - When using ProcessFeatureSelectionAtPoint, the AttributeInfoFilterString can be set to "" and only Data Monitor Items will be processed.

Monday, October 04, 2010

GT/Field Pro version 9.0.0.3 is Available



GT/Field Pro version 9.0.0.3 is available.
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09.00.00.03 - 10/04/10
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- FIX - #6461 - If you use Point from Attribute and you don't have the XY attributes, you got an error. A more graceful error message now is displayed.
- NEW - #6464 - Command-line will now accept a file to open when GTField Pro is started.

- NEW - #6475 - Edit Mode will now support the "

- FIX - #6486 - Report would show Default notation if the there was not value for the attribute.