Customer Profile: H.P. & Associates

HPA Elevation Data Model for Riverside County

H.P. & Associates offers services ranging from high-quality computerized mapping, to full on-site computerized GIS automation solutions. Since the initial design of their geographic database in 1977, H.P. & Associates has compiled one of the most comprehensive and mature systems of its kind in the United States. Through daily client usage, and internal development and enhancements over the past fifteen (15) years, it now encompasses a wealth of intrinsic data layers, and is the most heavily used GIS system in Riverside County. A small sampling of existing layers includes: census tracts, blocks and related aggregates; Riverside County school districts, elementary, middle and high school attendance boundaries; growth monitoring areas; school district study areas; sphere of influence zones; zip codes; assembly, congressional, senatorial, and supervisorial and other political jurisdictions; sheriff districts and sub-stations, and more. 

H.P. & Associates recently completed a new countywide elevation data layer for Riverside County. HPA's 3D Elevation Data Layer was presented to the Sheriff's Department.  With the 3D elevation layer, the Department can illustrate how their countywide radio system has some vulnerable "blind spots" because of the county's terrain.

Riverside County consists of 7,300 sq. miles of extremes in topology ranging from 11,000 feet peaks right next to valleys near the Salton Sea well under sea level. H.P. & Associates "drapped" their countywide Sheriff sub-station and district boundaries over this new layer to create a visual tool that could aide in communicating the logistics of this problem.

Other H.P. & Associates GIS Applications

H.P.A. GeoSense 2000 - Version 1.3 
GeoSense 2000 is a GIS Data Management System with the emphasis on DATA. Its primary function is cleansing, integrity, and maintenance of geographic data elements, from sources such as the Year 2000 U.S. Census Bureau's TIGER file. It comes with a flexible import utility, and includes a database independent table building capability with install.

The U.S. Census Bureau is the nation's largest distributor of low cost geographic data. Inherent with this broad capturing of data from so many diverse repositories is the well-known potential for dated, incomplete and/or inaccurate data. GeoSense 2000 was specifically designed with this in mind. It addresses data integrity and inconsistency problems, and has over 100 built-in error checks for each imported and/or updated record.

GeoSense 2000 record edits validate integrity of addressing, feature names, spellings, blocks, cities, communities and other geographic elements. It handles tentative tracts for growth monitoring, aggregates of territory layers such as school districts/attendance boundaries, and other political and territory jurisdictions. Its table creator includes fields for common misspelling, codes for bridges, over and under passes, and more. It includes numerous integrity reports, and chaining utilities to validate connectivity/breaks and overlaps streets, territories, addressing and other data elements.

GeoSense 2000 is a 32-Bit application and works on any Microsoft Windows platform such as Microsoft Windows 95+, or Microsoft NT 4+. It was written using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, and uses Seagate's Crystal Reports 7 report writer. The product is database independent, and works with Oracle, SQL-Server, Informix, Access, and others. It can be used as a primary geographic data manager, or as a complimentary system for other PC-based GIS packages such as: ESRI's Arc Suite, MapInfo, and the Caliper Suite of products such as Maptitude, GIS+, TransCAD.

GeoSense 2000 is the product we use everyday to maintain one of the most complete and comprehensive geographic databases of its kind for Riverside County, California. GeoSense 2000 now includes CS-Map from Mentor Software, Inc. Mentor's Coordinate System Library works seamlessly with any coordinate projection in the world, thus enabling GeoSense 2000 to work with any projection in the U.S.A., or the world. If you're going to use Census TIGER data, GeoSense 2000 just plain makes Geographic Sense!

H.P.A. CRIS Version 3.3
Integration between GIS and Child Care Referrals

H.P. & Associates was a recent presenter at the 1999 Second Annual ChildCare Conference in San Bernardino County. They discussed the connection between effective and efficient childcare referrals and Geographic Information Systems, and demonstrated Version 3.3 of our H.P.A. CRIS program. This system includes an integrated geographic module.

The CRIS application is used by the Riverside County Office of Education to capture detailed information on Provider addressing, licensing, services and funding. It also captures in depth referral information such as nature of call(s), funding, languages, child schedules and needs, and other pertinent information. Based upon the referral criteria, the geographic module compiles a complex list of referral needs, evaluates the providers that match those needs, and geographically traps those nearest providers based upon proximity from home, school, work, or other care location. What was once a cumbersome and timing consuming process, is reduced to a matter of seconds.

Contact H.P. & Associates for more information:
6960 Magnolia Avenue, Suite 205
Riverside, California  92506-2816
Phone:  (909) 328-1090
Fax:      (909) 328-1098
Web Site:  http://www.hpassoc.com
Info:  alex@hpassoc.com
Sales:  alex@hpassoc.com
Support:  norm@hpassoc.com

©Copyright 1999 Mentor Software, Inc.

Would you like to be featured in our Customer Profile? Contact Ann Forte at 1-303-278-3534 X100 or ann@rockware.com

Back to The Casual Cartographer May 1999