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GIS Cooperative Meeting Notes

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

In Attendance: Ron Platt, Daniel Casey, Chris Mack, Manny Rosas, Andrew Acuff, Fran LaSala, Raul Duato, Leticia Bermudez, Teri Schultz, Steve Whitney, Larry Cassen, Chris Kelleher, Steve Smith, Jim Ebert, Linda Carrillo, Bryn Enright, Rich Foitik, Frank Sousa, Michael Liberti, Cheryl Van De Beuken and Dave Hochede.

Ron Platt presiding.

ESRI Maintenance Contracts

Russ Riblett had previously indicated he had a Coop sponsored copy of ArcView GIS 8.2 and wanted to upgrade to 8.3. Fran LaSala in Environmental Management indicated a need for 3 upgrades, and Larry Cassen at Solid Waste indicated a need for 4 upgrades. At the time of the meeting, we did not know if these licenses were under maintenance of not. Dave Hochede, subsequent to the meeting, informed me there are 12 total upgrades available.

ESRI Conference Attendance

Requests to attend the ESRI conference in July 2003 received at the meeting were; Solid Waste (3), Information Technology (1), Environmental Management (1), DNR (1). Since the meeting one (1) additional requests from Tucson Fire has been submitted. The Water Department indicated they have a budget for their staff. Therefore the total wishing to go with GIS Coop funds is seven (7). Transportation and IT will find out how many complimentary registrations we are allotted. Also Steve Whitney indicated a "possibility" the County may have unused registrations we might use.

Automated Shapefile Maintenance

We briefly discussed an "automated" way to maintain the Wards shapefile. This would require "someone" to create 6 Ward polygons with "extended" lines, per city code, to anticipate new annexations. The automation process would create the new shapefile upon adding of the new annexation to the City Limits layer via a batch run each night. Larry Cassen in Solid Waste agreed to assist with the project.

Regional Orthophoto Cost-Benefit Study

Manny Rosas with the Pima Association of Governments (PAG) discussed the Cost - Benefit Study recently completed by PAG through an outside consultant. The study demonstrates an average "bang for the buck" return of 34:1. This study serves as a model for cost justification of orthophoto projects, but must be put into perspective:

    1. Ortho photos have driven other GIS development via web applications, data layers, hydrological model program automation, parcel base rectification, etc.

    2. The study did not query and analyze specific GIS use other than the orthophotography.

    3. In reality, we cannot separate digital orthophotography and the terrain models from other GIS data layers. Our data are so nicely integrated that loss of any critical data layer would be costly.

Imagine having orthos available with no parcel map and vise versa. Both scenarios would affect GIS clients. As such it is safe to assume that the orthos are here to stay for at least the next few years and we should view our "overall" GIS data availability as one. Using the study then one might safely say that GIS "in general" is also the recipient of a 34:1 cost benefit ration. It may in fact be more.

Manny also informed us that the September 2002 ortho photography will be arriving shortly. It is one foot color resolution at a horizontal accuracy of plus/minus 4 feet. The images will likely be stored on MARS\MOJO until such time TDOT can obtain an additional SANS server. I will notify the Coop as images arrive.

** Please note that the Houghton Road Corridor has been on the image server for the past few weeks. A previous email documented this. For those who may have missed that please call me at 791-4001 x122.

Lastly Manny indicated PAG is seeking grant funding to provide regional GIS/IT training to jurisdictional members. More on this in the future.

Other Business - Round table

I took a few notes on our round table so please excuse me if you are missed.

  • Tucson Fire Department has been more active in the area of getting management interested in GIS. Exploration of 3D modeling and point dispersion for HazMat purposes are under investigation.
  • The Town of Oro Valley is continuing work on a geodatabase for water facilities with mentoring from Tucson Water. ** This is a great example of the "regional cooperation" the Tucson Valley and Pima County are famous for!
  • Environmental Management indicated a surge in management "buy-ins" for GIS and GIS products.
  • The Town of Marana has acquired new satellite imagery covering nearly 600 square miles. Chris Mack said previous satellite imagery was aligning well with previous high accuracy images. **As an addition to this note, I spoke with Kevin Sweeney at the Town of Marana and he sent me shapefiles showing the coverage of the 2 high orbit flights. He has negotiated use by the local jurisdictions provided we DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE the data. More to come on this.
  • TDOT Stormwater Management, along with Consultant design, is nearly complete with hydrological modeling software extension for ArcView 3.2x. This should be finished within 6 six months. Frank Sousa indicated the savings they are beginning to realize are in the area of calculation and delineation of watershed models. These would have taken several weeks in the past can now be accomplished in a matter of hours.

Next Meeting:

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 / 3:00 P.M / City I.T. Pueblo Room