GeoGraphs and Urban Explorer announce CensusTrax

Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - Vancouver, B.C. & San Francisco, CA. Géographs Corporation and Urban Explorer are proud to announce the release of CensusTrax. CensusTrax is an on-line interactive web GIS service to quickly retrieve, map and export US Census data. It will be available as an inexpensive on-line subscription service in the near future. For now, while it is still in this beta version, it is freely available to anyone who wants to use it.

For this Beta version, detailed statistics (SF1 Tables) are available for California, but will soon have a Nationwide coverage.  SF2, SF3, and SF4 Tables will follow in subsequent releases of the software.

The géoflash Explorer CensusTrax system is a hybrid (or Mashup) of Google Maps, the géoflash Explorer system (an Open Source Flash web GIS), YaHoo's National Geocoding service, and the entire block level US Census. The system seamlessly overlays translucent, interactive géoflash demographic maps on top of a Google map. The overlaying “intelligent” géoflash maps can perform thematic analysis, be clicked-on for information retrieval, display mouse-over tool tips and query a dynamic geo-relational database. The Google base map, in turn, provides seamless national coverage and smooth dynamic panning and zooming. YaHoo's geocoding service provides accurate and lightening-fast address location.

The system can also be customized for unique needs and sold as a “turn-key” solution. The underlying block-level Census MySQL geo-relational database can be supplemented by any number of layers and the Flash Interface can be completely re-configured based on a user’s needs.  Bundling development costs and software together reduces both development time and cost relative to other commercially available web GIS systems.

CensusTrax brings the full power of GIS, a Nationwide geo-relational database, and YaHoo’s National geocoding service to Google Maps, enhancing a very popular web service with powerful functionality and customizability.  Yosri Diab of Géographs and Cheryl Parker of Urban Explorer believe strongly that software has to be easy to use and not geared towards GIS professionals, but to a broad community of users.

Please join us in Booth 24 at Direction Magazine’s “Location Intelligence” Conference in San Francisco, CA April 4 and 5, 2006.