SpatialData Announces New PARCEL Software for Property Assessors; Tailored GIS Solution Matches Workflow of Tax Assessment and Appraisal Agencies.

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 23, 1997--SpatialData, Inc., a Bentley Strategic Affiliate and San Antonio, Texas-based provider of focused end-user software applications for municipalities and local governments, today announced the release of its new SpatialData(R) PARCEL software.

SpatialData PARCEL helps appraisal districts provide higher quality property maps for appraisers and better serve the range of the district's customers: taxpayers, oil purveyors in search of mineral right ownership, school districts, and electric companies seeking easements for a new power line.

SpatialData PARCEL is uniquely designed to match the day-to-day workflow of parcel mappers and parcel assessors, with powerful geographic information systems (GIS) and mapping capabilities and an intuitive graphical user interface. An object-oriented parcel management system enhances mapping by allowing users to work with parcels as entities, for more accurate parcel splits, joins, and merges. PARCEL helps mappers maintaining accurate records of tax and property ownership and makes more comprehensive ownership information available to the appraiser.

"Previously, a lot of our work was done through heads-up digitizing," says Mike Shannon, a mapper in Fannin County Appraisal District, in Bonham, Texas. "Now, we take the polar coordinates from the survey field notes or from the deed, and place the coordinates onto a quad sheet in the database. SpatialData PARCEL automatically draws a parcel from these coordinates. Then, I can pick up the parcel with my cursor and put it where I want. It becomes an entire graphic group -- an object. In essence, I am moving a piece of property, where before I was moving a bunch of lines."

"Unlike many GIS toolboxes that require a lot of user configuration, SpatialData PARCEL is a focused application that matches the end user workflow to help appraisers and mappers with day-to-day tasks," says Rick Alexander, president of SpatialData. "The graphical user interface of SpatialData combined with the power of Bentley's MicroStation(R) and GeoGraphics(TM) products creates an ideal GIS technology platform for municipalities and local governments." As a Bentley Strategic Affiliate, SpatialData's products for 911 mapping, data viewing, electric utilities, and the new PARCEL round out Bentley geoengineering solutions for municipal level planning and engineering.

PARCEL used by Texas District, Turns Weeks of Work into Days

Henderson County Appraisal District in Athens, Texas, has used SpatialData products with MicroStation for eight years. The function of the Henderson County office is making property ownership changes and performing splits and joins to keep the district accurate relative to land ownership. The updated maps are used as a tax tool and assessment guide for tax assessors visiting a property. Where once all such transactions were handled as updates to drawings on mylar or sepia, now all changes are made to the district's MicroStation-based GIS landbase. New deeds are entered directly on the digital drawings. When tax time rolls around, Henderson County generates notices to taxpayers based on ownership information. Then, new maps are drawn and revised in the GIS database.

"Using SpatialData software, we can go through the entire content of a large stack of deeds and update maps in two or three days. The same process would have taken a month or two to complete when we worked using drawings," said Hector Castaneda, a mapper at Henderson County Appraisal District. By incorporating MicroStation-based maps provided by the Tyler District Highway Department as reference files, Castaneda's mapping department provides appraisers with a better picture of a property's features, creeks, rivers, and roads.

PARCEL addresses creation, maintenance, and access of both graphic and tabular data about a parcel. Parcel creation is performed quickly and easily through metes and bounds input, U.S. Land Survey input, bulk data input, or heads-up digitizing from plats. Splits and joins are performed in a smooth workflow, and tabular data and graphical data in the database are simultaneously updated when changes are made to a parcel or its related information. SpatialData's familiar MicroStation and Windows user interface makes it easy to query and update the database, as well as train new operators to be productive quickly.

For municipalities that manage land using U.S. Land Survey standards, a unique interactive parcel builder supports section, township, and range legal descriptions. Maintenance of specific tax information such as RLV (raw land value) is simplified with automated "parcel- aware" functions. Each parcel can have multiple data linkages to tabular data, digital aerial photographs, and raster images of deeds. With PARCEL object technology, parcels seek their own fit to existing parcel objects, speeding mapping and increasing accuracy.

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Note to Editors: SpatialData is a regi are trademarks of their respective owners. LECTRONICS COMED PRODUCT

URL: http://www.spatialdata.com

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