Guided tour to Data East

The tour to geoinformatics guided by the Data East specialists was very informative and interesting. Our visitors could not only see what the daily routine of the Data East's GIS software developers is, but also learn a lot about IT-technologies and some of the Data East's software products. The schoolchildren were told about general aspects of cartography and geodesy, had a look at the oil wellbores in 3D view, and watched the process of printing the thematic atlases and maps with the large-format plotter.

The work of the following well-known Data East projects was demonstrated to schoolchildren - Drive Time Engine, WellTracking, CarryMap, My Novosibirsk, and Business Analyst. The project managers did all the best to be clear and distinct when representing their quite complicated solutions to younger developers. For example, during the Business Analyst presentation they were taught how to set up their own business (a store or a massage parlor), to analyze the competitive environment, to examine the consumer demands in a specified city district, and to build up the SWOT matrix of the company.

The work of CarryMap application was demonstrated on iPad. CarryMap is provided for reproducing ArcGIS projects as distributable electronic maps for desktop computers and mobile devices. It was interesting to browse the map of the Novosibirsk zoo on mobile device as if you go for a virtual run at the zoo territory. With such a guide it's easy to find your current location, to get to the cage of the animal you want to see, and to even review the information about this animal. Besides, there is an option of adding pushpins to the map, thereby marking the most interesting places, zoo amusements, cafes, etc.

During the Drive Time Engine presentation it was shown how to calculate the drive distance matrix to build the drive-time polygon on the map. Such calculations are essential for business analyze, as they allow finding the most optimal place for setting up a new store based on the optimal drive time required to get to the place. The same calculations can be used to find the optimal location for hospitals, kindergartens, emergency and ambulance stations, etc. The most valuable features of the Drive Time Engine solution are its high calculation speed and data accuracy.

In the WellTracking presentation the process of working with spatial well drilling data and managing the oil well operating cycle were demonstrated. The well drilling data were shown in 2D and 3D format to view the wellbore geometry hidden deep under the ground.

When watching My Novosibirsk live demonstration children were taught how to send a message reporting about any problem related to work of municipal services in your city via web portal or using mobile application.

Yuri Tkachov, Chief Software Architect at Data East, told about the company's structure, its departments, eventful corporate life, sport hobbies of the employees (in particular, Data East has its own basketball team), and said that both in work and in everyday life we need to constantly overcome ourselves to achieve set goals.

"Working with upper schoolchildren we want to find the most talented and concerned ones", said Yuri Tkachov. "Being quite incompetent so far, they long to learn new things and we are ready to offer our support to them. The visit to the Data East office is the part of the IT-workshop program. The workshop participants will solve specific tasks that are useful and applicable for our company. They will implement a workable project - develop its library architecture, prepare technical specification, make necessary testing, and defend the resulting project at the end. I would like to wish reasonable patience to all of the participants. We really hope to see some of them as our employees in five or six years ".