Terralink Newsletter - August 2007
 Property Guru - A Saviour
Faster access to information has changed business for the better for RE/MAX Absolute Realty, Whangarei.
Warrick Harkness, Company Director & Licensee, installed Terralink's comprehensive real estate resource package, Property Guru six months ago. "It's brilliant," he says.
Warrick says, "We've got a busy office and to have easily accessible accurate and comprehensive information whenever any of our sales team want it is superb. Property Guru saves us time. We really appreciate what it is doing for us."
Are there any particular standout features?
" We love the 'one-stop-shop' convenience," Warrick says. "We no longer have to visit a whole lot of different areas to get what we need. It's all here within one or two simple clicks - documents (select, order and pay), past sales, zoning information, direct links to the White Pages for owners' phone numbers, maps - the lot!"
Aside from its ease of use Warrick and his team value the simultaneous multi-user access. He says "Up to 5 people can use the system at the same time without problem. The frustration of getting heaved off the system, losing your data and having to start again is a thing of the past."
And most importantly, Warrick says "help and support" really lives up to the name. "Any query we've had has been answered thoroughly and promptly."
Would he recommend Property Guru to others?
"Yes. We're in our early days with the system and very happy. I anticipate as our sales people become more familiar with it we'll find even more benefits."
To find out more about Property Guru, call our free helpdesk on 0508 483 772 to have one of our mobile Property Guru Team visit your office. Or visit www.property-guru.co.nz
Property Guru is only available to registered Real Estate Agents and Valuers.
 Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry
New Zealand Land Use Mapping - following on from Terralink's successful work with MFE, MAF and DOC in regard to LCDB2, we are delighted to announce that we have been awarded further land use mapping work.
Over the next 14 months, we will be helping to build up a unique snapshot of New Zealand land use at 1990. This will ultimately enable monitoring of carbon stock change within the New Zealand environment.
Within LULUCF, six land-use categories define all classes of land. These categories are forest land, cropland, grassland, wetlands, settlements, and other land. The categories are defined and required by international inventory guidance.
Ongoing improvement is a requirement of reporting under the Kyoto Protocol and New Zealand is currently improving it's estimates for the LULUCF sector.
 Mapping Solutions - LINZ 50k Topographic Map Update
Mapping Solutions has recently completed the last LINZ 50K topographic map update in the NZMS260 Series.
The country was mapped at 1:50K scale using the NZMG projection and Terralink has significantly contributed to the map production over the years. LINZ is planning to replace the NZMS 260 Series by a new NZTM map series. Terralink now has a complete set of rasters covering the NZMS 260 series on offer.
Please contact us for the latest update of your raster set. Phone 0508 483 772 or email sales@terralink.co.nz
NZ MasterMap - Keeping our Database Accurate and Complete
The general thinking about databases is that they are inert beasts, fat, slow to change, and lacking forward momentum. Not NZ MasterMap! Now, with its newly redeveloped structure, NZ MasterMap is a very dynamic animal, being fed monthly from over 40 disparate data sources. Looking at the last quarter alone, we have added in 17,000 new addresses. That's a fair few.
These are NEW addresses, i.e. they have been created for the first time, and entered into NZ MasterMap. The most common source is Local Authorities, and these can be sub divisions, in fill housing, flats etc. In addition to this, we have created many more alias addresses which assist us with geo-coding, and searching for addresses. An example of an alias address is 274 Main Highway East, may also be held as 274 State Highway 1.
Roads also don't stand still, with additions and changes occurring monthly. Each additional segment is created, traced, lined up, and annotated. We add road surface type, number of lanes, speed, class, etc. so that they can form part of the navigational layers increasingly required.
In our role as the major provider to the emergency services authorities, Telecom, and other utilities, we receive and scan scheme plans or building sites, so that our customers can get the most accurate and up-to-date information of the developing nature of New Zealand's infrastructure. In July alone, the team scanned 227 plans, and aligned them to the real world.
 The Wellington based team of NZ MasterMap is comprised of 16 full time GIS maintenance technicians, developers, and Geo-spatial consultants, dedicated to growing and focusing on the quality of NZ MasterMap, New Zealand's most accurate and complete data source.
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