Author:              Sean Colson PCC
Email:                 sean.colson@pcconsultants.co.uk
Date:                  20th Oct 2008
Project:             Varna Plan - Technology Summary
 
 
Brief:
In the late spring of 2008 PCC was asked to examine a project concerning the mapping of “The Varna Plan”¹ and positioning of specific area designates as overlays in order that they could be easily identified and displayed onto a suitable map of the city district in question using the internet as the conduit and display medium.

As secondary facets, we were tasked to include facilities for commercial and residential sales and rental, as well as a tourism guide to promote Varna as a wonderful place to visit with the possibility of purchase were also included in the overall requirements.

Planning and Preparation:
PC Consultants have worked on several large mapping projects during the last twenty years including a specific task for the UK Ordnance Survey as well as a rather unique star mapping project for interstellar travel. Thus we felt confident we could examine all that was required and come up with the best method available within the six month development and delivery window.

Deployed Methodology:
After several weeks of research and prototyping we decided upon developing a simple user interface that in most cases would give the user a three or four click to answer. For the design and display methods we decided upon a Google Mapping API encompassing some integrated layering software with our own bespoke positioning algorithms.
 
A tremendous effort then ensued to create all that was needed to meet the vision and time frame for delivery. One of the major stumbling blocks was when we came to realise we would have a million + records to search every time we needed to work out a positing location when using “The Plan” for a “cross hair” search. This would be ok if all we had was one user, the SQL would return a value in a few seconds, but if we had upward of say 50+ hitting us at once the server would struggle, if not stall.

So with the assistance of PCC’s sister company “TriceUK” we are implementing their hardware accelerator package called “Iceware”; this is capable of filtering 25 million search records a second which will be more than enough to meet the need. Please visit www.triceuk.com for more information on the hardware and its capabilities.
 

Software Packages used in the creation and implementation of The Varna Plan

1.                  DB - MYSql
2.                  PHP Version 5
3.                  Java Script
4.                  Ajax
5.                  Flash
6.                  Bespoke – Icemetrics VHDL
7.                  MS Paint V7
8.                  Adobe PDF Generator
9.                  Adobe Photoshop CS3
10.                Google Mapping API’s
11.                Tele Atlas
12.                GMapCreator from the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London, UK
13.                SAGA the System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses from Institute of Geography at the University of Hamburg, Germany
14.                In-house bespoke programs to aid processing and data transfers between packages used.

Web Marketing and SEO:
MDpromo² have been asked to develop a SEO strategy to raise the awareness of the plan through all of the internet search engines. They will be installing Google Analytics into the system to monitor and record site visitors and their habits while visiting and using the site.
 
Production Team
Mike, Sergey, Sean, Alex, Geo, Mat, Paul, Tonya, Chris, Kosi, Yordan, Alexb, Tim, Jon, Nicola, Tony
 
Technical Contact
Further information concerning the development and technical aspects of The Varna Plan can be obtained from sean.colson@pcconsultants.co.uk 

¹ The Varna Plan is the new long term plan as set out by the local municipality and endorsed by the relative government ministries in Sophia.

² The internet SEO specialists can be found at www.mdpromo.co.uk