The basic Map program is designed to be used in the apparatus so you can see the progress of the vehicle towards an incident. First Look Pro Map has a number of features for zooming in and out on the map and for communicating with the GPS. Click the FLP button in the upper-left of the screen when you are ready to return to the First Look Pro preplan information screens.
Other than zooming, there is really not much to do in First Look Pro Map on the mobile computers. Everything is set up ahead of time using the Map Designer program. All you do on the vehicle is select your record in First Look Pro and switch to Map.
The Auto Zoom button is a toggle that enables and disables the Auto Zoom feature of First Look Pro Map. When Auto Zoom is enabled, the map will automatically zoom in or out, as needed, to display both the occupant address and the response vehicle’s location. As the vehicle moves closer to the occupant address, the map is zoomed in and more details are displayed, such as the street names. Disable Auto Zoom if you want to manually Zoom or Pan around the map.
The 10 Closest button displays the 10 buildings in the First Look Pro database that are closest to the occupancy that was displayed in First Look Pro when you switched to Map. If you have a densely populated First Look Pro database, you can use this feature to locate exposures near the incident. Return to First Look Pro (using the FLP button) to review any pre-incident information about those occupancies.
Use the GPS On/Off button to activate the GPS so it can start receiving satellite data. The GPS Status light is green when the program is receiving valid data from the GPS. If the light is red, no data is being received and the vehicle’s location can not be validated. This could be because the GPS has not been turned on or because something is blocking it from receiving data, such as a tunnel, overhanging trees, or an overhead structure. If something is blocking reception, as you move the vehicle into a clear area, you should begin to receive data again.
The Map Legend button displays a Legend of the layers used to construct the map. From the legend, the map layers are identifiable and you can hide or display layers by clicking in the Display checkbox on the left-hand side of the layer list. Normally the options for the map layers are established in the Map Designer program, then the single settings file, flpmap_data.mdb, is copied to each mobile computer. This ensures all the computers have their maps set up the same way.
