ESRI, the leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, announced today that PLTS for ArcGIS 9-Mapping Agency Solution is now shipping. Mapping Agency Solution provides tools to reduce cost and improve the efficiency of creating and maintaining high-quality topographic databases for publishing professional map products and data analysis. PLTS for ArcGIS leverages the object-relational ArcGIS technology to streamline production in a consistent process, enabling national, regional, provincial, and natural resource mapping agencies to do more with fewer resources. Mapping Agency Solution allows for rapid creation and maintenance of topographic datasets ranging from large scale to small scale. It uses topographic geodatabase models, a user-definable knowledge base, single- click editing, attribution, and quality assurance/quality control tools, which combine to offer a tightly integrated production flow. Included in this release is the EuroRegionalMap geodatabase model, which enables European mapping agencies to create and maintain data that meets European Spatial Data Infrastructure specifications. "With Mapping Agency Solution, our users can achieve significant time savings when performing large-scale database production and maintenance projects that meet mapping agency specifications," says Daryl Smith, PLTS product manager. With Mapping Agency Solution, users can: - Produce topographic basemap products. - Use the EuroRegionalMap geodatabase model for 1:250K data and cartographic production. - Make edits more efficiently with single-click editing tools. - Batch export and print map sheets. - Coordinate the data review effort by logging error information easily and accurately. - Organize, standardize, and streamline project work flows to provide a consistent user experience, reduce repetitive setup tasks, and automate key processes. Mapping Agency Solution also includes PLTS for ArcGIS 9-Foundation, a suite of PLTS components for quality control, cartographic product generation, single-click editing, and workflow management. Users can leverage Foundation to create their own customized solution by implementing their own business rules in data modeling, attribution, validation, and output.