DecisionTree® is Azavea’s new web-based solution for geographic prioritization. It enables a web site visitor to select a series of ‘decision factors’, assign weights to those factors, and then generate a ‘hot spot’ or ‘heat’ map displaying the locations that best match the visitor’s selected factors and weights. DecisionTree was created to support business siting and real estate decisions, but it can be applied to many types of prioritization, including resource allocation, conservation planning, and risk analysis.

We haven’t written much about our DecisionTree technology yet as it is still a project under active design and development, but the technology is now far enough along that we are able to begin deploying it for our clients. The City of Asheville in North Carolina is the first such implementation. They were seeking to implement a new application, Priority Places, to support economic development and job creation by providing tools and data that could assist businesses with finding the best site, and the DecisionTree solution seemed like it might be good fit.

Asheville took a bit of a risk when they signed on with us. We had completed a first cut of the server software, but it was not a fully functional software package yet – there were no user interface, no administrative tools and so on. However, for us, it has been really terrific to have a real-world set of users who are willing to provide ongoing suggestions and feedback as we are building the software. In many ways, DecisionTree development has been heavily guided and influenced by Asheville, making us more focused and productive as we develop the product and, hopefully, making the final product more useful.

While our work with raster-based geospatial modeling stretches back for several years and the ideas for the DecisionTree software are not new, the underlying server technology is fairly new and is based on an R&D grant we received from the US Department of Agriculture (#2006-33610-16777). I’ve written about Map Algebra and Geospatial Models in previous newsletters, but raster-based weighted overlay applications such as this are a concrete use of this type of technology.

You can check out this early version of the DecisionTree technology at the Priority Places web site. This version of the software uses the Adobe Flex technology for the user interface, so you’ll need to have Flash installed. You can create an account if you want to save your work or click on the ‘Enter Site as Guest’ button if you just want to take it for a test drive.