July 14, 2000

September 27, 2000

RCAGIS 1.1.0, 9/27/2000

RCAGIS Symbolizer 1.1.0, 9/27/2000

RCAGIS Administrator 1.1.0, 9/27/2000

RCAGIS Importer 1.1.0, 9/27/2000

As of September 30, 2000, the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division GIS staff will be heavily cut back due to budget cuts. RCAGIS development will officially cease at the office and all software should be considered unsupported by the Department of Justice. As with past versions, the final official release of RCAGIS is considered public domain. All source code for the final version will remain available on the US Department of Justice web site. Interested parties are welcome to download the source code and modify as they like with no restrictions beyond those imposed by the copyright holders of components used in RCAGIS such as ESRI’s MapObjects.

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Installation Notes

1.3 Images

1.4 Installation Details

2.1 Printable Documentation

2.2 CrimeStat Distribution

RCAGIS WR ("Wide Release") is an installable version of the RCAGIS crime analysis suite. While the RCAGIS source code is public domain and the application can be freely distributed, its use does require Environmental Systems Research Institute’s (ESRI) MapObjects (MO) 2.0 package to run. MapObjects, a set of ActiveX components is not royalty-free and thus RCAGIS can not be distributed with MapObjects.

In order to use RCAGIS WR, you must have MapObjects 2.0 or 2.0a installed on your machine. Machines running the developer version of MO2 should have no problems running the RCAGIS WR executables. If you do not have MO2 installed on your machine, a 90-day evaluation version is available from the ESRI website at:

http://www.esri.com/software/mapobjects/download.html

Our in-house testing suggests you can install MapObjects either before or after you have installed RCAGIS WR and the software will work.

In order to take full advantage of RCAGIS WR’s capabilities, you may also install the CrimeStat package. CrimeStat provides the statistical engine for many of RCAGIS WR’s analysis routines.

If you are installing RCAGIS WR from the CDROM, the CrimeStat installation files are in the "Crimestat Distribution" directory on the CD. The RCAGIS installer will automatically place CrimeStat in the directory you specify (default: "c:\Program FIles\CrimeStat") and configure RCAGIS to use CrimeStat in that location.

To do this, run RCAGIS in its configuration mode. Double-click the RCAGIS WR configuration item (or select it and then click the "Edit" button) then click the "CrimeStat" tab at the top of the window. Type in or browse to the location of the the crimestat.exe file and finally click the "Apply" button to save the changes to the registry.

To set up RCAGIS, browse on the RCAGIS CD to the folder Setup and run the file "setup.exe."

The InstallShield installation package includes four different types of setup. Two of these install the program and support files but no data. The other two installation types install some or all of the spatial, configuration, and incident data.

It is strongly recommended that for testing purposes, the Standalone installation type is selected. This will help ensure that all of the files are installed correctly. Standalone installation will prompt you for a directory for the program (default: c:\program files\rcagis) and a location for the distribution data directory (default: c:\program files\rcagis\distribution_data). Either of these locations may be changed.

In a Server installation, the user is able to specify which of the different program and data components are installed. The user may specify different locations for the configuration information (\distribution_data\rcagis_home), the incident data (\distribution_data\rcas_data) and the spatial data (\distribution_data\spatial_data). This allows portions of the data to be shared while maintaining individual, local copies of other data.

Finally, the two Client installation options allow the user to install just the program and support files with none of the data. In order to use such an installation, the other data must be installed somewhere on either the target machine or a machine accessible by the target machine on a network. The installation process will prompt the user to locate the directories containing each of the three types of distribution data (rcagis_home, rcas_data, and spatial_data) in order to correctly create registry settings.

Getting through this process could conceivably require that you reboot your machine up to four times while the necessary updates are installed. If you're lucky and have an up-to-date Windows installation, you may not have to reboot at all!

If the machine reboots and does not automatically restart the setup procedure, please do so manually by double-clicking "setup.exe" again.

In certain, rare instances the installation package has occasionally reported that it was unable to register a collection of dynamic link library (DLL) files. If this occurs, please reboot the machine and re-run the installation routine. This problem is caused by minor inconsistencies in some of the Windows base files and is a sign that particular files have been updated to the correct version.

N.B. When installing on Windows NT or Windows 2000, you must be logged in to an account with administrator privileges for the installation to work correctly.

The distribution of RCAGIS WR contains two small image files to demonstrate the image-handling capabilities of the software. These files are located in the subdirectory "\distribution_data\spatial_data\99001\image" which can be found in directory in which you installed RCAGIS WR. Typically, this would be "c:\Program Files\RCAGIS WR" If you install RCAGIS WR in the default location, images will be available within RCAGIS WR. If you choose a different installation directory, images will not work until you have configured the database with the new location.

In order to do this, run the Administrator, select the Alpha jurisdiction, then select

the Images menu item under the Jurisdictions menu. The Image Catalog window will open. Click the Add button, enter a name for the catalog (e.g. "Aerial Photos"), select the correct folder (e.g. the image folder listed above where you have installed RCAGIS WR). Select "RCAGIS Sample Projection" for the projection and "0" for the transparency color.

After performing these steps, you will be able to use the "show image" button within RCAGIS WR.

WINDOWS NT Service Pack:

RCAGIS WR requires that a Windows NT 4.0 installation be running at a minimum of Service Pack 3. If you are not running at this minimum level, Setup will detect this and give you a warning. The most recent NT service pack is available for download at:

http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation

INTERNET EXPLORER 4:

Microsoft Distributed COM:

RCAGIS WR requires Microsoft's DCOM be installed, which is only necessary on Win95 machines as Win98 and WinNT include this functionality. If you are running a Win95 and DCOM has not been installed on your machine (it may already be present), Setup will detect this and install the package for you. You will be told to reboot your machine at the end of the install; after the reboot, Setup will automatically restart and pick up where it left off.

Microsoft Data Access Components:

Finally, an installation of Microsoft Data Access Components is required. Setup will determine if you are running the necessary version level and offer to install it if necessary. You will be told to reboot your machine at the end of the install; after the reboot, Setup will automatically restart and pick up where it left off.

The root directory of the RCAGIS CD contains a folder called Documentation. Inside this folder are Portable Document Format (PDF) files which contain printable versions of the RCAGIS, RCAGIS Symbolizer, and RCAGIS Administrator help files, complete with tables of contents and indices. They may be viewed and printed with the Adobe Acrobat reader. If you do not already have this free software installed on your machine, you may install it by running the file InstallAdobeReader.exe, which can also be found in the root directory of the RCAGIS CD.

RCAGIS uses CrimeStat, a software package which performs spatial statistics for crime analysis as its statistics engine. CrimeStat, developed by Ned Levine & Associates, was written under a grant from the National Institutes of Justice and is free for use by law enforcement agencies. The RCAGIS installer will install CrimeStat and create a shortcut for it under the Windows Start menu.

Additionally, all of the documentation (in PDF format) and other distribution files can be found in the directory "CrimeStat Distribution" on the RCAGIS CD.

At the current time, CrimeStat’s official release status is still version 1.0. It is this version which is available online. This version works well with Windows 95 and NT, but may cause freezing problems with Windows 98. These problems have been solved in CrimeStat 1.1. Unfortunately, until the time of 1.1’s official release, versions of it will not run after a certain date. If you require CrimeStat 1.1, the only way to make use of it is to adjust your computer’s date setting.

Analysis Tools

• In the RCAGIS Analysis Tools Select By Distance Tool, occasionally the buffer polygon around the select street does not display properly. Regardless of whether the buffer polygon displays correctly, the select function will still correctly select the points at the desired radius.

Reports

• CrimeStac reports currently do not work with the sample dataset provided with RCAGIS WR.

• Report Information form - Before printing, make sure that the start and end dates on the form correctly reflect the desired reporting period. If they do not, clicking the calendar widget will automatically update the dates to the correct dates.

Department of Justice Criminal Division GIS Staff

criminal.gis@usdoj.gov

RCAGIS 1.1

• Administrator-based setting allows an admin to determine whether the title screen can be minimized. Default is set to "No".

• Crime Alerts can now be assigned names in addition to their identification numbers to make them easier to read/find/edit.

• Improved scratch-file handling for image catalogs

• More Baltimore City data included on distribution

• Improved graphic selection tools

• Fixed bugs in assigning colors when editing graphics

• Automatic updating of ODBC driver when changing databases

• Updated main query SELECT statement to export more attributes into results shapefile

• RCAGIS Importer:
• automatic primary key creation where possible
• suspint table is now provided with a dual-field primary key on bci and cc_number
• fixed bug in default name for base zip file
• In non-quiet mode, now presents a message box when processing is complete
• Added more detail on the quiet mode arguments to the help file
• Added an option for compacting a database

• GeneriCode geocoder:
• support for a command line-based batch mode
• ability to export external reference settings as a "*.reg" file for use on other machines
• numerous bug fixes

RCAGIS 1.0c – 1.0f

• Find Address function: When an external reference theme has been configured via the GeneriCode geocoder application, RCAGIS can find addresses in the reference theme and zoom to them.

• Graphics drop-down menu: The Edit menu has been renamed to Graphics to better represent the functions it contains.

• Buffering: Buffers of a user-defined size can be created for selected points from any point theme and added to a map. Additionally, buffers used by the Select By Distance tool will now appear on the map. Buffers may be exported as shapefiles and may be used for selecting points in other themes. For instance, an analyst could select a single liquor store, buffer a half-mile around it, then select all incidents within that half-mile.

• Reports on pre-selected items: In previous versions of RCAGIS, to report on a selection set , a user had to go to the Miscellaneous Reports menu, select "Point" or "Polygon" select the desired subset, and then create the report. Users may now create a selection set and then run a report for "Existing Selection." This should help with such things as ensuring that the same selection set is used in a CrimeStat analysis and printing of a report to go along with a map of the results of the analysis.

• Added three new Zoom To functions: Zoom to Geographic Area, Zoom to Selected Set, and Zoom to Previous Extent.

• Improved selection tools allow selection of points by individual polygon.

• Added to the Administrator an option for specifying default jurisdiction to the configuration database; this is used in reporting functions.

• Made numerous fixes and improvements to the Importer:

• Added command line arguments.

• Added quiet mode.

• Added log file.

• Added a help file.

• Fixed bug in conversion of MapInfo integer coordinates to floats in cleaning function.

• Updated Identify tool so that on proportional symbol themes the underlying data would be identified with full attributes rather than just the couple of attributes stored in the proportional theme’s temp database.

• Now includes and installs the release version of CrimeStat 1.1.

Full RCAGIS source code is available for free downloads at http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/gis

• Graphics drop-down menu: The Edit menu has been renamed to Graphics to better represent the functions it contains.

• Buffering: Buffers of a user-defined size can be created for selected points from any point theme and added to a map. Additionally, buffers used by the Select By Distance tool will now appear on the map. Buffers may be exported as shapefiles and may be used for selecting points in other themes. For instance, an analyst could select a single liquor store, buffer a half-mile around it, then select all incidents within that half-mile.

• Reports on pre-selected items: In previous versions of RCAGIS, to report on a selection set , a user had to go to the Miscellaneous Reports menu, select "Point" or "Polygon" select the desired subset, and then create the report. Users may now create a selection set and then run a report for "Existing Selection." This should help with such things as ensuring that the same selection set is used in a CrimeStat analysis and printing of a report to go along with a map of the results of the analysis.

• Added three new Zoom To functions: Zoom to Geographic Area, Zoom to Selected Set, and Zoom to Previous Extent.

• Improved selection tools allow selection of points by individual polygon.

• Added to the Administrator an option for specifying default jurisdiction to the configuration database; this is used in reporting functions.

• Made numerous fixes and improvements to the Importer:

• Added command line arguments.

• Added quiet mode.

• Added log file.

• Added a help file.

• Fixed bug in conversion of MapInfo integer coordinates to floats in cleaning function.

• Updated Identify tool so that on proportional symbol themes the underlying data would be identified with full attributes rather than just the couple of attributes stored in the proportional theme’s temp database.

• A Point Count tool is now available which will produce a graduated symbol map of incidents at a specific address. A corresponding tool is also available to permit adding a proportional symbol item to a layout.

• Automatic labelling of features such as streets.

• Ad-Hoc Labels for adding text labels containing user-entered text.

• Linked Identify Tool. When the identify tool is used with any linked layer such as stolen vehicles with recovered vehicles and their linkages drawn, attributes will be displayed for both features.

• Creating maps based on incident CC numbers. Useful for creating maps containing the specific incidents listed in a corresponding crime alert.

• Display of information from the Parolee theme can be restricted by attributes such as height, weight, hair color, etc. using a wizard-like form.

• Utility for editing and Importing attribute look up tables for the RCAGIS Query Wizards. To be used if attributes have been added or code definitions have changed.

• The RCAGIS Administrator now supports editing the specific strings which define the projections being used by map layers in RCAGIS.

• The SQL strings that constitute the basic incident queries in RCAGIS can now be edited in the RCAGIS Administrator.

• A utility has been created which permits importing an existing FoxPro RCAS database into a Microsoft Access database. This is useful when performance is a problem as RCAGIS under Access is much faster.

• Using the Administrator, one may edit the range of dates allowable for querying.

• There is a new Parole query panel that allows the user to limit the records displayed from the Department of Corrections layer. Wildcard text queries on the Other tab must be in all caps.

• The ability to assign custom class breaks in the legend editor has been added.

• The Administrator and Symbolizer in the last CD had an error which caused them to not find the current configuration; this has been corrected.

• Scrolling of the legend has been improved so that the user can slowly scroll through by holding the mouse button down over the inner arrows at the top and bottom right of the legend.

• Numerous fatal errors have been fixed.

Printing and Layouts

• A draft mode option has been created for the layout design tool. The entire layout can now be drafted in design mode, which represents graphics with a crossed box. These simple boxes are much quicker to move and resize than the actual graphics. When the layout design is complete, draft mode can be turned off to draw the actual graphics.

Installation

• A completely automated RCAGIS installer has been created. The installer will completely install all RCAGIS components, all operating system requirements (such as Internet Explorer 4), and configure RCAGIS for use.

General

• Updated mapping engine to Map Objects 2 final release.

• RCAGIS now supports projected geographic data.

• Many wizard improvements. Advanced query wizard panels (crime type, MO, Method of Attack, Point of Attack, Property, Suspect attributes), Wizard panels now support essentially limitless numbers of options, using scroll bar.

• Edit symbol of graphic items, including link lines between arrestee/incident and recovery/incident.

• Select all link lines for mass symbol change.

• Improved the Edit Theme so users can modify the legend of a single shapefile within a theme (e.g. modify the symbology of the Baltimore City streets which appears in the legend as part of the Streets theme)

Printing and Layouts

• A graphical layout designer has been added. Printable map layouts can be created by using tools to manipulate map items in the print preview window.

Report Generation

• Produce reports with the proper police jurisdiction logo in the header.

• Ability to select individual and multiple police jurisdictions for selected reports.

• Multiple year CrimeStac report for a selected jurisdiction.

Analysis Tools

• Historical analysis charts and thematic maps.

(Administrator)

• Assign default input.

• Assign default to each jurisdiction.

• Assign optional to each Geographic Area/Theme.

• Import/Export from the configuration database.

• Project shapefiles/coverages to shapefiles in another projection.

(Symbolizer/RCAGIS)

• Displays layers properly projected

• Queries users for projections of loaded themes

Symbolizer

• Resize map/locator

Administrator

• When adding a theme for a jurisdiction, select the shapefile before specifying the theme type; the software will attempt to determine the theme type on its own and only asks the user to assign one if it can not make the determination.

Data

• The only jurisdictions visible in the locator map are those that have contributed data to the Department of Justice, Criminal Division GIS Staff.

General

• An administration tool has been created which allows editing the RCAGIS administration database which stores the specifications for loaded RCAGIS themes and query types.

Printing and Layouts

• A reference grid can now be optionally printed on layouts and print previews.

• A map scale (in text) can be printed on the map.

• A choice of 2 North arrows is available for printing on the map.

• Unnecessary layout refreshes have been eliminated.

Analysis

• Select By Distance: This allows a user to select entire streets or segments of streets for which buffers can be created from 1 foot to 1 mile. The purpose of the tool is to allow a user to see what will fall inside the buffer as a particular distance. Once the user has determined how far a search is to be done from the street(s) all points inside the buffer will be selected.

• Difference Thematic Maps: This allows a user to thematic a map based for a raw deviation from a particular threshold/limit for each polygon in the layer to be thematically mapped. A layer is selected to thematic and a field is chosen that contains the numbers for the threshold/limit for each polygon. A point-in-polygon summarization for the polygon layer with a point layer will be done. A comparison of that summarization with the thresholds/limits for each polygon reflection how far below or above the summarization is from the threshold/limit.

Report Generation

• Reports can now be generated based on a selected set of incident points. The points can be selected either by drawing a box, or selecting a polygon from a theme.

Crime Alerts

• Ability to draw polygon to select incidents for the crime alert.

Data

• The sample incident database distributed with this version of RCAGIS covers the date range of 1/1/98 through 1/31/99. Incident queries outside this range will produce incorrect results.

• New base files (Charles County; updated Baltimore City).

• Improved database - more suspects/recovered vehicles.

General

• Built using MapObjects 2 Beta IV.

Printing and Layouts

• Printing with pre-defined layout files is now supported. See the Creating and Editing Layout Templates topic for more information.

• The PrintLegend and PrintLocatorIndex commands are now supported in layout files.

• The Print Preview window is now resizable.

• Layout editing sessions can be started from within the Map Options window.

• Layout font characteristics (typeface, size, style, weight) can be specified.

Analysis

• Thematic map creation capability.

Report Generation

• A day/time cross tabulation report has been added.

• A CompStat-style report has been added.

• Motor Vehicle Theft Reports. Shows the motor vehicles that have been stolen/recovered within the given date period.

• New report title data entry form

Crime Alerts

• The ability to edit an existing crime alert report

• The ability to add more crime incidents to an existing crime alert report.

• Add property information field to the RCAGIS Results Report.

Environment

• Map panning is enabled by clicking and dragging the locator box in the locator view.

• The ability to add and delete external shapefiles as themes.

• The ability to edit legends (for themes based on single shapefiles).

• Improved legend display (labels, auto-updating display to center-most shapefile in multi-shapefile themes).

• Much more stable/powerful Symbolizer (legend editor).