The police department in the city of Lincoln, Nebraska (pop. 232,000) has selected the TatukGIS Free Viewer for deployment in the mobile computers in each of the department's police cars, making the TatukGIS Viewer part of the standard selection of software in the vehicle fleet. In the words of Tom Casady, the Lincoln Chief of Police:
"The Lincoln Police Department equips all of its 125 police cars with computers for wireless access to databases, messaging, and dispatching. The department has been interested in deploying a GIS application to provide officers with an electronic map of the City. After working with a number of viewers, we found TatukGIS Viewer to be the best choice, due to its very straightforward user interface, and its ability to smoothly handle our compressed aerial orthophotos. We developed a TatukGIS Viewer project that uses layers of the city limits, streets, parks, schools, waterways, and parcels, with an increasing level of detail as the user zooms to smaller scales. At a scale of 1:7500, color aerial photos are added to the view. As a result, officers can quickly pull up a detailed map and photo. The extended zoom tool has proven to be particularly popular for quickly navigating to the area of interest. Another feature that we appreciate is the ability to customize panels and toolbars. For in-vehicle use, eliminating panels and removing some of the toolbars simplifies the interface and reduces distraction. But panels such as attributes, legend and the mini-map can be immediately added if needed, along with additional toolbars.
In police work, getting a sense of the geographic lay of the land is often quite important. Whether establishing up a perimeter around a crime scene, organizing a search for evidence, evacuating homes in a danger area, or planning traffic control around a traffic accident, officers can now immediately access a precise map and image of the area. A software application in these circumstances must be simple, intuitive, and fast - all criteria that are met very well by TatukGIS Viewer. Training officers to use Tatuk is simply a matter of loading the application. Officers can use the project immediately, and will usually discover additional features on their own with little or no instruction. The TatukGIS Viewer is an ideal compliment to the more advanced GIS applications the police department uses for geographic crime analysis, and is a great introductory application for some police officers who will graduate to more sophisticated GIS work."