The design goals for OnScene Xplorer 4.0 remain largely the same as the first version: easy to use emergency responder software with all data local on the device to ensure availability.

Since we released OSX 1 in spring of 2003, one of our goals was to have the data local on the device that responders are using. Back then, mobile computers either didn’t have an internet connection, or the connection really didn’t support mapping. OSX used Esri’s Shapefiles for the mapping data and Microsoft Access to store tabular data like preplans.

The downside of OSX 1x and 2x data storage was that updates had to be snail mailed to users on CD-ROMs. Then the users had to often copy the update to a USB drive to move to the computer to apply the update.

When we release OSX 3.x in the fall of 2011, the entire software was essentially new. We left behind the Shapefiles and moved all the mapping and tabular data into Microsoft SQL Server’s Express edition. This gave us some horsepower to play with. And, we had engineered a system that allowed us to make updates to the underlying mapping data and push only those changes to our users. Therefore, if a new development was built, we could add it to our master database and post a small update file to our server. The users never had to do anything to get the update. OSX would check for updates, download the updates and apply it locally on the users’ computers.

We also did this with the OSX software too. When a user exits OSX, it checks the “mother ship” and if there is a software update, it downloads it and installs the update. Finally we didn’t have to mail CD-ROMs with updates for mapping data or software to users.

OSX 4.0 will follow a similar model, but with some significant improvements. Since internet bandwidth can accommodate much larger files, we can package all of the base mapping data into a map package with a vector tile cache. This will make the map display very fast and responsive. The packages are relatively small and will be downloaded as one complete file. As we update the base maps at Iron Compass, we’ll make another package and OSX will download it automatically.

Another big change will be the move to SQLite as the local storage database for preplans, map markers, hydrants, documents, and other user data. There are some very cool tools that will allow SQLite to sync between computers in a department. This will come built-in to OSX 4.0, something we know our users will like.

Lastly, we want to enable our users to “share” their local data, like hydrants, with neighboring users. This features, when ready, allows a department to focus on it’s first due while getting the latest updates from mutual aid departments nearby,