GIS - Public Works Group Blog

September 16, 2010

Geospatial Resources & Outreach

The rise of mobile devices has allowed everyone to discover what those of us in public works have always known – geospatial technology is cool! Now everyone wants to know where people and things are and how to find them. Games and other applications are being developed based on location-based information. And to meet this increasing interest, Penn State Public Broadcasting has created a media-based outreach initiative. Their mission is "to expand public knowledge about the history, applications, related privacy and legal issues, and the potential future of location-based technologies."

Below is the trailer for the series of episodes produced by Penn State. You can view all the episodes on their site as they are released at: http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/

August 14, 2010August 14, 2010

Using Unity3D to Simulate a City

Most of my exploration of virtual worlds for engineering has been in Second Life and OpenSim. However, this year I have been looking more at Unity3D. Engineers are conservative and seem to dismiss virtual worlds like Second Life and OpenSim. Even though these programs are 3D modeling tools, they don't resemble nor do they use the typical CAD tools engineers are used to working with. Because Unity3D works well with these CAD tools and better resembles modeling programs, I suspect it will find greater acceptance by AEC groups.

As an example of what can be done with Unity3D, I show below a crude example of importing DEM files into Unity3D. While the process is fairly easy, I still have some issues with the elevations looking too exaggerated, and there is an area that does not have contours. I also need to figure out how to apply the aerial images to the ground. So I still have a lot of work to do to refine this, but I thought it was pretty cool to be able to import contours and see the flat land transform immediately to reflect the topology of my city. I put some water in the model to indicate the river which helps to highlight the dam and islands. But I have yet to add any buildings, trees, or other features.

Fox River Valley in Geneva, Ill.

Screenshot from Unity3D of Fox Valley River Valley through Geneva, Ill.

Another cool aspect of Unity3D is it can be embedded in a browser. Below is the static representation of what I created showing a view looking north through the river valley. Eventually I can add the capability for someone to travel through this model of my city with an avatar.

[WP_UnityObject src="http://www.publicworksgroup.com/images/stories/test1.unity3d" /]

June 26, 2010

Get Your Geospatial Services Here!

The U.S. federal government is continuing in their efforts to deliver data with the launch of the Geospatial Platform.

"The Geospatial Platform will be a managed portfolio of common geospatial data, services, and applications contributed and administered by authoritative sources and hosted on a shared infrastructure, for use by government agencies and partners to meet their mission needs and the broader needs of the Nation."

The Surveying, Mapping, and GIS blog written by David G. Smith, PLS PE, offers additional information and insight into this new initiative. Check it out at: http://surveying-mapping-gis.blogspot.com/2010/06/federal-geospatial-platform.html

June 2, 2010June 30, 2010

The Promise of Data.gov

Last month I had the incredible opportunity to participate in several Gov 2.0 events. One of the greatest take aways for me was finding all the people who are either working directly on the Data.gov project or involved in related initiatives. Data is a big deal for local government – particularly for those of us working in engineering and public works. We spend significant amounts of our time developing, finding, analyzing, juggling, and publishing data. We do just about everything to it but eat it!

And while I had been aware of the Data.gov site, it wasn't until I met and talked to all these people that I realized its significance and promise. Today, the front face of the site is a publication platform, but someday it could be leveraged on the back end as a collaborative platform for sharing ideas about data development, priorities, standards, education, and guidance.

Crowdsourcing Data Models

A group of us working for local governments in our region have started trying to crowdsource and standardize our datasets so we all follow one model. But we realize it would be so much better if this could be done on a national scale. We know that ESRI has offered some guidance in this area, but as government agencies, it makes more sense for this direction to come from the federal government. We need to start realizing that data is a national asset. Data not only supports security efforts but it offers tremendous opportunity for economic development. The use of Data is already starting to build a new industry; leveraged, protected, and standardized it will move this growth along and sustain it.

We could use space on the Data.gov site to crowdsource a national data model for all datasets we use. The majority of these datasets are going to be similar for all local governments. Why not get this worked out now? I realize a lot of cities already have their GIS and other data systems established – they do not have to change to a national model if it does not make sense for them at this time. But many local governments still do not have a GIS or other data system in place. Having a data model will at least encourage them to implement a system faster and more efficiently while allowing for standardization.

Prioritizing Data

GIS was recently moved back over to engineering where I work. One of my first challenges in taking on this responsibility was prioritizing development of data. While I had no problem making decisions about developing what I call "foundation data" such as centerlines, I did not want to be the one to determine what datasets were most important to our city – this needed to be an agency decision. So I set up an Ideascale based site and invited our staff to submit and vote on ideas for our GIS. (I also tried using Bubbleideas but just could not get the invite function to work.)

This idea of prioritizing data development could be expanded to a national scale. If certain data sets are necessary for national security or encouraging economic development, we should work on developing them over sets that are interesting but not necessary. But only by asking people and crowdsourcing that information can we learn what matters most.

Education

There is a lot of discussion online about how important it is to not just publish data but help others use and understand it. This educational component could be added to the Data.gov site allowing others to learn how to develop, use, and publish data. The material can be broken down for citizens, developers, government agencies, students, and businesses.

Delivering the Promise

Over the next few months I hope to continue to be part of the data-related discussions at my local level and at the federal level. Hopefully Data.gov moves to build a collaborative platform so others who are dedicated and passionate about data can join in and work together to create and deliver a national infrastructure of data. And in the meantime, I want to also give a shout out to just of the few awesome data folks I met:

Jeanne Holm (data.gov evangelist), Ethan McMahon, Karen See, Kelly Fahey

July 19, 2009July 2, 2010

Boots on the Ground: Building a GIS, Part 1

Introduction
I started building a GIS for my last employer in 1993. Because it was a part-time endeavor, we did not even get close to what I consider a full implementation by 2009. But I can say we at least had a GIS with some geo-referenced, verified data that could be used by all departments in the city.

Through it all I gained a good, first-hand knowledge of the challenges faced by each community undertaking this journey. So for some time I have wanted to share with you some down-to-earth insights and ideas. If you are an experienced GIS user, I would be very interested in hearing how your ideas or experience compares to mine and in having you share your insights. And if you are just beginning, I hope this helps to encourage you to begin and offers some basic guidance.

A Little GIS History
Even though GIS has been around for decades in one form or another, there still seems to be a general misunderstanding and an awkward handling of this technology. In government and in particular in the engineering field GIS seemed to creep up onto unsuspecting drafting personnel. Just as they were getting used to making the transition from drawing with pen and paper to CAD, this new beast called GIS emerged.

Moving to CAD had really only required the need to learn a new set of tools. And while this did have somewhat of a learning curve, at least the process and product was familiar. The information brought in by the survey crew remained the same: points, elevations, etc. The drawing format remained the same using the typical plan and profile format. Even maps were produced in the same style and format.

GIS on the other hand at first seemed to be from the realm of the planning department with initial uses focusing on zoning, corporate boundaries, land use, and parcel information. Perhaps this is why in many agencies GIS emerged from planning and has even remained under this department’s oversight.

So even though mapping seemed to always be grounded firmly in engineering, staff in some engineering departments did not initially embrace this new method of cranking out maps. A general lack of knowledge and awareness about GIS coupled with the need to learn yet another tool and the added challenge of changing an approach to how information is collected, presented, and maintained created too big of a leap.

However some engineering departments successfully made this transition because they realized early on the benefit of using this technology instead of CAD to represent utility information for water, sewer, electric, etc. And by now most engineering departments share this approach. But, the distinct difference in the drawing styles, delivery, and philosophy behind CAD and GIS remains, and this is where I believe the awkward handling of GIS in an organization begins.

This confusion and misunderstanding affects where GIS is located within an organization. While the engineering department has traditionally been the government office charged with map production, a quick survey of where GIS hangs its hat in each agency will reveal a variety of locations including engineering, planning, community development, IT, emergency response, police, fire, and even in a department completely on its own.

Another aspect of all this is the wide variety of GIS implementation between agencies across the U.S. Some are GIS rich with a wide range of data all geo-referenced, verified, and available to the public while others are GIS poor with little to even no GIS data available, collected, or offered. And there are many that would fit anywhere in between these two extremes.

Why is this important to all of us? The awkward organization of GIS within an agency and the wide disparity of implementation? Because the world is fast moving beyond CAD and GIS into the next phase of information management. Those who haven’t figured GIS out or even worse, those who haven’t even begun are going to fall further behind. This difference in knowledge handling can be compared to one community having all dirt roads and another having interstate highways. And just as road conditions can affect growth and economic development so can the state of a community’s knowledge base.

Look for the next in this series: Starting to Build a Local Government GIS

August 4, 2008August 8, 2010

Institute for Geospatial Analysis & Mapping in SL

The Institute for Geospatial Analysis & Mapping (GEOMAP) showed up in Second Life late last month on Geo Island – a sim set up by Zeppo Romano for the Geography-Geology Department at Illinois State University. The Institute supports research, education, and training, and community outreach activities.

This build has also been interesting to me for reasons other than its GIS-based content. I found it by searching for GIS in the Second Life search function. After stopping by to check it out, I bumped into Zeppo, a professor at ISU who teaches geology classes on the island for the university. After talking for a few minutes we realized that we are both from the same small town community in Illinois and had actually met in real life.

He also told me our local paper was going to publish a story about his Second Life activities and sure enough about a week or so later, he was on the front page of the paper with the title “Second Life.” I have to admit that I thought it would be some time before our paper put Second Life on the front page, but I am happy to say I was wrong. Our paper also did a great job covering Zeppo’s work in Second Life, and the reporter, Matthew Baker, treated the topic with the respect and serious attention that it deserves. (Zeppo has a copy of the article near the GEOMAP building.)

So I like to stop back at Zeppo’s Geo Island. Not only because of the GIS content, but because it is one of the few places in Second Life that has ties to where I live in real life. And for me somehow that makes Second Life even more real to me.