Geographer wins research award

A Woy Woy geographer has won the inaugural Open Windows "Peninsula Research" competition.

Mr Wieland Kunzel submitted an easy-to-use geographic computer program, which produced maps of the Peninsula.

Wieland said he wrote the program because of his desire to make geographical tools available to the community.

His program, GosfordGIS (geographic information system), covers the whole Gosford local government area.

It allows the user to configure the map to suit his own needs - turning a range of features on or off as required.

The features include roads, contours and allotments.

It allows names to be displayed for a variety of features such as suburbs, vegetation type and community asset.

The program also incorporates aerial photographs and a three-dimensional model of the landscape.

Wieland has placed the software "in the public domain" and is encouraging schools and community groups to make use of it for educational and research purposes.

Proprietor of Open Windows Computer Consultancy, Mr Mark Snell, congratulated Wieland Kunzel on his achievement.

Mr Snell said he was pleased and impressed by the quality of the winning entry.

The competition was designed to encourage research into the Peninsula.

"Very little detailed information is available specifically about the Peninsula. We are usually lumped in with Gosford, which in many respects is different from us.

"The result is that we know very little about our community, and consequently that important decisions about our future are often based on questionable assumptions.

"Even where information is available, it frequently is not accessible to the community."

It was a condition of the competition that research results be made available for publication and distribution throughout the community.

Mr Snell said that, because of the success of the competition, he planned to run it on a regular basis.

Press release, March 7