Press Release - December 7 2005

Spatial Vision has released the first of a series of five topographical map books for use by emergency service organisations, state government agencies and local governments throughout Victoria. These books will replace the map books previously produced by the Country Fire Authority that were used widely as regional directories.

Spatial Vision’s Vicmap Book series will provide, for the first time, a single, common topographic mapping resource available to all Victorian emergency service organisations, including the computer-aided-dispatch services. Bruce Esplin, Emergency Services Commissioner is particularly pleased to see this new mapping initiative, stating “the new map books will allow the emergency services to make use of a common topographic base produced from the latest State information. This is a tremendous step towards enhanced collaboration and coordination.”

The new map book series has been developed by Spatial Vision in partnership with the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment in an initiative to make state-wide topographic mapping more widely available throughout Victoria. This public-private partnership will create a number of opportunities to further rationalise and consolidate maintenance and update processes and functions for topographic mapping data in the State.

The area covered by each book will be aligned to Victorian Government regions and local government boundaries and include the latest 1:25,000 Victorian Government topographic information (Vicmap).

Detailed township maps will show all road names plus emergency services depots and infrastructure, traffic lights and other barriers, municipal offices, churches, schools, post offices and other key community infrastructure as well dominant land uses.

In rural areas, a series of 1:100 000 scale maps will show the latest rural addressing information provided by local government authorities and identify public land. Selected rural areas will also be shown at 1:50,000.

Bruce Thompson, Director of DSE’s Spatial Information Infrastructure says: “Spatial Vision is to be congratulated on bringing this high quality product to the market. The State will be well served by the Spatial Vision map books. The map book series provides a comprehensive and authoritative publishing channel for Vicmap, Victoria’s mapping and spatial base.”

The first book in the series, Outer Metro, covers the region outside the Melbourne metropolitan area and is available by contacting Spatial Vision at info@spatialvision.com.au. This map book covers an expanded area, particularly to the west of Melbourne including the city of Ballarat, to that covered by the ESMAP book produced in the early 1990s.

Four more books covering the State’s northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast regions will be released progressively over the next 18 months. Each book will be updated every two years.

A range of complementary products such as wall maps and digital “backdrop” images will also be available progressively from early 2006.

The books are a cooperative effort between Spatial Vision, the Country Fire Authority and the Spatial Information Infrastructure Branch of the Department of Sustainability and Environment.

Craig Lapsley, the CFA’s Deputy Chief Officer, said: “Spatial Vision has done an excellent job with our three last map books. However, the CFA has come to recognise that we are not well placed to meet the needs of all ESOs in Victoria. The CFA will be using the new Spatial Vision Vicmap Book in future.”

Although the primary users will be emergency services organisations, state government agencies, local governments and utilities, the books will also be available to the general public. According to Glenn Cockerton, Managing Director of Spatial Vision, “we expect that our Vicmap Books will provide a valuable reference for people travelling in regional Victoria for a range of recreational and business purposes”.

Copyright © Spatial Vision, Tuesday, 6-December-2005