Geomatics Consulting Projects

North Fraser Harbour Commission

1989 -1999 GIS Implementation, Database Design, Data Maintenance and Application Development

Underhill has been working with the NFHC since the early 1920's. In 1959 the Commission contracted U&U to establish it's first harbour control. In 1978, Underhill was contracted to provide control for new orthophotography being prepared by Triathlon Mapping Corp. Then in 1989, Underhill was contracted to densify the existing harbour control and provide photocontrol for new orthophotography and digital mapping, again prepared by Triathlon Mapping Corp.

In 1989, following an information system consultants report showed that the majority of the commission's data was spatially based, and therefore the logical solution for their information management was GIS, the North Fraser Harbour Commission came to Underhill. Considering the working relationship, and the fact that Underhill knew the North Fraser nearly as well as the Commission, combined with their diversification into the GIS realm, Underhill was naturally the company to lead the NFHC into the GIS world.

Our involvement in this project has included: Project management, Source data analysis and evaluation, Conversion program planning, Conceptual and physical database design, Pilot project design validation, GIS (Terrasoft) implementation, Data, capture (aerial photography, GPS, site survey), loading, conversion, maintenance, Application development, System maintenance, Software design and development, Development of project specifications and documentation, Training/education and users documentation.

Currently the system contains over one hundred viewable features. These include: NFHC river channel features (such as buoys, pilings, harbour headlines, and channel lines), Cadastral features within a 200m buffer of the river banks, FREMP (Fraser River Estuary Management Program) data and other environmental and shoreline habitat data, NFHC leasing information (ie. water lots, log storage areas and rights of way), Planimetric mapping features, Municipal zoning districts, BC Assessment Authority data.

Nine individual themes have been developed and linked to external attribute databases for query and analysis purposes. A customized menu system has been developed to provide exceptional user ‘friendliness'. Output capabilities includes vector pen plotting and digital output includes DGN and DXF file formats.

Stanley Associates Engineering Ltd.

1996-1997 Agricultural Land Use GIS in Barbados, by Catchment

Preparation and translation of digital land use data for utilization with existing catchment data for sewerage design project.

Klohn-Crippen Consultants Ltd.

1995-1997 Barbados Water Resources Management Project

This assignment involved the identification and conversion of the most suitable data base sources for use within ArcCAD GIS. The identification of the most suitable data base to be used for the study taking into account the data requirements for the various models and technical analyses to be carried out. Training of Water Board personnel in the entry, conversion, and operation of ArcCAD GIS.

Greater Vancouver Regional District

1994 Preliminary GIS System Configuration Cost Estimates

This study formed a portion of an overall Needs Assessment Document for the Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District's (GVS&DD) Sewerage and Drainage Department (S&DD) GIS implementation. The scope of this project included the: assessment of data standards; data inventory, availability, and accessibility from member Municipalities; assessment and detailed data evaluation of sources; reporting of results of detailed data evaluation and translation cost estimates; recommendations on preliminary GIS hardware and software requirements.

The City of Whitehorse / Sorrento Systems Inc.

1994 Corporate Land & Infrastructure Information Management System

This project was a joint effort between Underhill Engineering Ltd. and Sorrento Systems Inc. Underhill provided GIS analysis expertise while Sorrento provided project management and general systems analysis expertise. The project involved the design of a Corporate Land and Infrastructure Information Management System. Specifically this entailed the design of: a high level conceptual business model; a land and infrastructure data model; and an implementation strategy. A process of individual interviews and group sessions was employed to gather the information required to prepare the models. An oral presentation was made to the steering Committee of the project findings. This project is scheduled for completion in September 1994.

Kilborn Engineering Pacific Ltd./Grant County Public Utility District

1993 Electrical Utilities Facilities Modelling and Conversion Specifications

Underhill provided Kilborn Engineering Pacific Ltd. with electrical facilities expertise for their conversion project with Grant County Public Utility District (Washington State, USA). Underhill participated in the user needs study and from that, developed a electrical facilities modelling schema and the facilities conversion specifications. These specifications were used by Kilborn to develop conversion software and quality control systems.

Columbia Shuswap Regional District

1990 GIS Pilot Study

User needs analysis, GIS design and pilot project implementation of a GIS in Terrasoft. Digital scanning, as well as automated vectorizing and topology correcting processes were employed in producing the cadastral base. British Columbia Assessment Authority (BCAA) data was loaded into the database from our mainframe in Vernon and the data linked to the scanned cadastral base.

Northwestel Inc.

1990 Visual Impact Assessment for Proposed Microwave Sites along Dempster Highway - Yukon and Northwest Territories

This project involved the preparation of a report detailing the visual impact of proposed microwave sites along the Dempster Highway corridor as part of an environmental evaluation of the project. Underhill in conjunction with J.S. Peeper & Associates (of Whitehorse, Y.T.) jointly conducted the study. Underhill managed and coordinated the digital GIS mapping and analysis work. J.S. Peeper & Associates were the principal environmental researchers. GIS analysis included: view-shed analysis, and generation of perspective views for 14 sites.

Natural Resources Canada

1990 Yukon Minfile Data Conversion

Underhill in a joint venture with Aurum Geological Consultants Ltd. of Whitehorse, were contracted to convert the Exploration and Geological Services Division of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada hard copy mineral occurrence records to their new data base system (Minfile). Approximately 2,600 records were converted. The team was awarded the contract solely on technical merit. It is interesting to note that the only other serious bid on the project was one that teamed the producers of the original hard copy records with the data base designers. Underhill's solution was an innovative one incorporating OCR scanning of documents, development of digital QC procedures, creation of a digital map base, linking of the Minfile data to the map base in PAMAP GIS, and demonstration of the fully operational system at the B.C. and Yukon Chamber of Mines Cordilleran Roundup in Vancouver.

Fletcher Challenge Canada Ltd.

1990 Digital Map Production

Development and implementation of procedures to automate forest data conversion for an area of approximately 5.5 million hectares (21,000 square miles). The solution involved the high contrast scanning of orthophotos on which the forest cover polygons were marked. The scanned polygons were "lifted" from the noise of the orthophotos then vectorized, edited, and edge matched to produce a mosaic covering a BCGS 1:20,000 map sheet. The final product was a clean, seamless data-set of forest cover boundaries referenced to a database file for GIS analysis. A paper was presented at GIS'91 Symposium, in Vancouver, February 1991.