New Imagery Datasets on the GIS Hub

The elves in the GIS Hub workshop have been busy assembling a number of aerial photography datasets which make great gifts for your favorite GIS person.  Or treat yourself!

Thanks to the generosity of several contributors and data stewards, we have the following new and updated imagery:


Lake Audubon:  New! 2012, 0.5-foot pixel resolution, courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers and the State Water Commission

Garrison Dam:  New! 2012, 0.5-foot pixel resolution, courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers and the State Water Commission

Missouri River corridor:  New! 2012, 0.5-foot pixel resolution, courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers and the State Water Commission 

NAIP: New! 2012, 1-meter pixel resolution, courtesy of the USDA-FSA Aerial Photography Field Office.  Please note that we only have the county MrSID files at this time; we expect to have web services available early next year.

 

Northwestern North Dakota:  New! 2012, 1-meter pixel resolution, includes color infrared, courtesy of Continental Resources and the Game and Fish Department. This covers all or portions of Divide, Williams, Ward, Burke, and Mountrail counties.

City of Grand Forks:  New! 2012, 0.5-foot pixel resolution, courtesy of the City of Grand Forks

Dept. of Emergency Services "Base Map": Updated! 2009-on-going, 1-foot pixel resolution, courtesy of the Department of Emergency Services and the Deptartment of Transportation. 

Historical Aerial Photography Project:  Updated! 1957-1962, 1-meter pixel resolution.  Covers the counties of Burleigh, McKenzie, and Williams.  Courtesy of the USDA-FSA Aerial Photography Field Office and the State Water Commission 

To access this data (web services and for some, data download) from the GIS Hub, visit the Hub Data Portal then either browse within the Imagery category or simply type in 2012 in the What? field and click the Search button.  Click on the More Information button then scroll down to the Transfer Options section and click on one of the links (e.g., the 'Download' link or the 'Esri REST including WMS and WCS').

Is there a relatively quick way to view this data if you don't want to immediately use it?  Yes, there are two options:

GIS Hub Explorer - In there, expand the Imagery folder then expand the Local folder to access the Grand Fork data, expand the Regional folder to access Audubon and the Northwest data for example, or expand the Statewide folder to access the 1957-1962 data.
 
GIS Hub REST - In there, select the item of interest, e.g., Audubon Lake, and then click on one of the links at the top, for example the ArcGIS JavaScript or ArcGIS.com Map link.

And lest we forget, have a Merry Christmas!

Introducing the New GIS Hub Data Downloader

Back in March we wrote here about the improved data downloading capabilities that were being planned.  Those new capabilities are now (and finally) a reality. Houston Engineering was selected from the state's IT Professional Services Contract Pool to develop this new application which uses Safe Software's FME Server.

The old data downloading application has already been replaced in the Hub Data Portal.  In the old and soon to be removed legacy Hub Explorer, the old data downloading application will be removed. At that point, the Hub Data Portal will be THE entry point to GIS Hub data.

Let's have a brief look at this new data downloader using two examples.

First Example - Hub Data Portal (Don't worry, the second example is MUCH shorter!)

In the Hub Data Portal click on the GovtLands_State link under the Categories section:

Now click on the More Information button associated with State Parks:

Of course, carefully read through the data description, then scroll down to the Transfer Options section then click on the Download State Parks link:

Clicking on the download link will bring up the "order form" that you can use to specify the extents of the data, the coordinate system, and the file format:

Two important things to note here:

1. Clipping method - the default is for no clipping to be done. Or, you can draw a boundary or you can select a county.  Data that you select will be clipped to these boundaries.
2. The ability to select additional data layers to download (total limit is 5) - So even though you selected to download State Parks in this example, you now have the option of selecting additional layers to download at the same time.  This will be useful if you know that you have additional layers you have to download and don't desire to select those additional layers via the Hub Data Portal.

Once you have finished filling out the order form, click the Get Data button which bring up the disclaimer:

Click OK to get a message that you will have to wait a bit to be notified:

Eventually, you'll receive an email that will look something like this:

Important Note: You will want to click that link within a day or so of receiving the email.  Because the server data is automatically cleaned up, if you receive this email on Friday, that link in the email may or may not work on Monday.

Click on the link in the email and then depending on your system, you'll be given the option to download the .zip or open up the .zip.  When the .zip is opened you'll see something like this:

Important Note: You have two folders in the .zip file, one for gasp, metadata and one for the data itself.  You can view the metadata file(s) in a text editor to determine who to call if you have a question. Or, depending on your software and file format, you can import the metadata file(s) into your dataset(s).

Second Example (Hub Explorer)

When viewing data in the Hub Explorer, open up the Table of Contents, browse to a layer, and then click on the text page icon in front of the layer name:

Once you click on that, a new page will pop up, containing the Hub Data Portal but with the page contents being that of the layer that you selected in the Table of Contents.  At this point, you now scroll down to the Transfer Options section just like you did in the previous example.

See, that was easy!

2012 NAIP Aerial Photography

The statewide 2012 imagery from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) is available from the GIS Hub and from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Geospatial Data Gateway. This 1-meter pixel resolution aerial photography is in MrSID format, organized by county. 

 

To download the data from the GIS Hub, visit the Hub Data Portal then either browse within the Imagery category or simply type in 2012 in the What? field and click the Search button.  Click on the More Information button then scroll down to the Transfer Options section and click on the "Download USDA-FSA-APFO Aerial Photography 2012 MrSIDs" link. 

Please note that in early 2013 we plan to receive the 2012 imagery in a format that we can use to build a statewide mosaic that will be available as web services.

Updated Dataset on the GIS Hub

One of the GIS Hub datasets has been updated by a North Dakota GIS Technical Committee data steward:

City and County Roads (NDDOT)

This data has undergone major work.  From the metadata:

"City streets were updated in Bismarck, Dickinson, Minot and Williston. GIS data from the City of Bismarck was used to update Bismarck, GIS data and 2012 aerial photography was used to update the city of Williston, Minot’s city map and the 2010 aerial photography from Ward County was used to update Minot, and 2011 aerial photography and Dickinson’s "working" city map was used to update Dickinson. The counties updated were Williams, Burke, Bottineau, Mountrail, Ward, Wells, Eddy, Foster, Griggs, Steele, and Cass. At the time of this update, approximately 50% of Stutsman and 50% of Traill Counties are updated. Williams, Bottineau, Ward, and Mountrail roads were inspected from the air and the 2009 NAIP photos were also used to assist the updates. The roads in Williams County were also recoded to match Williams County naming conventions. Williams County CADD map which is on the Williams county web site was used in updating the road names. In Ward County, the 2010 image from Ward County was used to assist in updating Ward County. The 2010 NAIP photos were used to update Wells, Eddy, Foster, Griggs and Steele Counties. Cass was updated with the assistance of the Cass County GIS layer and the 2011 Cass county imagery." 

This dataset can be downloaded or delivered via data services.  More information on this dataset can be found on the Hub Data Portal. You may find it convenient to simply browse to the data within the Categories section of the Hub Data Portal. Or in the case of this road data, in the What? field type in:  County and City Roads  After you've located the data of interest, click on the More Information button and then scroll down to the Transfer Options section. In that section, click the Download link to download the data or click the 'Esri REST including WMS' link to obtain the data service information.

Please note that as of November 13, the cached base map, "Basmap_General" has been updated to reflect the updated road data.

Updated Datasets on the GIS Hub

A number of datasets have been updated on the GIS Hub by the North Dakota GIS Technical Committee data stewards.  These are:

Snowmobile Trails 

Scenic Byways

Incorporated City Boundaries

These datasets can be downloaded or delivered via data services.  More information on these datasets can be found on the Hub Data Portal. You may find it convenient to simply browse to the data within the Categories section of the Hub Data Portal. After you've located the data of interest, click on the More Information button and then scroll down to the Transfer Options section. In that section, click the Download link to download the data or click the 'Esri REST including WMS' link to obtain the data service information.

2012 NSGIC Conference Summary

There is no way to compress the entire content of a typical National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) conference into a single blog posting, but I thought I’d try to list a few of the highlights from the 2012 annual conference that I attended last week.

Let's start with some information about the conference itself.  It was held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida which is roughly 20 miles southwest of Orlando.  Attendance was slightly down compared to previous conferences but the 38 represented states were an increase over the previous year.  Attendance was likely impacted by a number of Federal and State government representatives who were not able to attend due to travel restrictions. 

We were told that the cost to put on the conference in Florida was less than other locations.  I could see that NSGIC has implemented a number of measures to reduce the cost of the conference.  These include replacing the exhibit area with speed networking sessions (state representatives meet with vendors for about five minutes on a rotating basis) and reducing the number and type of printed conference materials.  Communication during the conference consisted of emails, Twitter, and Google Docs.  Attendees were asked to insert their notes into Google Docs during the conference.  I thought that this was a great way to record the event and it was interesting to watch as others typed their comments.

One of the things that I like about NSGIC is hearing first-hand the many “stories” that are happening at national and state levels.  The national stories are those initiatives and programs that will impact the states as a whole and those that help the federal government improve their programs, using input from the states via NSGIC.  The state stories are initiatives, programs, and technology that impact the individual states and their local governments.  Let’s look at some of these stories beginning with the national ones.

• Landsat – there are about 3.4 million archived images, totaling about 2 petabytes of storage.  If you’d like to look at this imagery then be sure to check out the LandsatLook Viewer.
• FirstNet (First Responder Network Authority) – this is the use of broadband for public safety. $7 billion (yes, billion) is allocated for building this network and $135 million for state, regional, and tribal grants. This ball is already rolling with a board having been appointed and grant guidance developed in August.
• OnTheMap for Emergency Management – who would’ve thought, but the U.S. Census Bureau has released their OnTheMap viewer which can be used for emergency management. Check it out!  it’s a very nice tool that appears to use OpenLayers
• Map-21 – No, it’s not a music group.  Rather, it’s a nationwide “basemap” constructed from state road data. This is part of the U.S. DOT’s “Transportation for the Nation” initiative which originated from NSGIC. Each state has to submit a plan to the Federal Highway Administration by June 15, 2013.
• NG9-1-1 (Next Generation 9-1-1) – This is IP-packet-based technology that will replace the existing circuit-based 9-1-1 systems to allow text, video, and images and other information to be accessed over a common network.  It is GIS-based technology instead of tabular-based technology.  It was stated that governance is critical, the older 9-1-1 has been a local-based service whereas NG9-1-1 needs to be treated from a regional or state level
• Geographic  Support System Initiative – from the U.S. Census Bureau, this is used to support TIGER updates.  They are planning to investigate the use of crowd sourcing which they define as users supplying suggested changes and the use of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) which they define as the user making the changes.
• 3-D Elevation Program – from the U.S.G.S. this program has a goal of creating nation-wide elevation coverage.  States (including North Dakota of course) responded to a survey a year or so ago.  This data has been compiled and there is also a nice Elevation Inventory viewer for displaying the location of elevation data.

And now, a few of the state stories:

• Cloud – Amazon Web Services of course but the majority of the cloud discussion centered around using ArcGIS Online for Organizations (AGOO).  Some folks are wrestling with estimating the use of service credits and others how to integrate AGOO into their existing systems.  Nice examples including those from Washington State and Indiana helped to verify some recent thinking about the use of AGOO here in North Dakota state government.
• Kansas OneMap – I first heard about this at the recent MAGIC Symposium and saw again how this is a very powerful concept.  For example, a  Geo-note (similar to a fiscal note) is attached to a bill.  That Geo-note indicates where and what resources are being allocated. With this in place, alerts to the affected legislative district can be sent to citizens and legislators. In addition, because the bills now have a spatial component, the impact of budget decisions can be displayed on a map.  Propylon is the contractor working with Kansas and has also worked with North Dakota on its bill tracking system, though there is not a spatial component in the North Dakota system – yet. 
• Use URLs – The Utah GIS web site has been redesigned and focuses on simplification. For example, every topic and every data service has its own URL.  These URls are the fabric of the web site.  This approach results in web searches returning these URLs at the very top and can make this much easier for people looking for data and other information.  The presentation from the Geographic Information Office (GIO) for the Federal Communications Commission reinforced what Utah was saying.  The GIO indicated that he believes there is about a 4:1 of API usage over web usage.  URLs are everything!
• GISP – If you are a certified Geographic Information Systems Professional, take note!  The GIS Certification Institute is working on an examination component which will be implemented by 2015.

If you are interested in reading more and viewing the presentations, be sure to check out the 2012 Annual Conference Archive.

Updated Datasets on the GIS Hub

A number of datasets have been updated on the GIS Hub by the North Dakota GIS Technical Committee data stewards.  These are:

Wellhead Protection Areas - Community (updated)

Wellhead Protection Areas - Non-Community (updated) 

These datasets can be downloaded or delivered via data services.  More information on these datasets can be found on the Hub Data Portal. You may find it convenient to simply browse to the data within the Categories section of the Hub Data Portal. After you've located the data of interest, click on the More Information button and then scroll down to the Transfer Options section. In that section, click the Download link to download the data or click the 'Esri REST including WMS' link to obtain the data service information.

GIS Professional Services Contract Pool

Do you have a need for GIS application developers?  Do you have a need to develop a GIS dataset? If so, do you know that if your organization is an agency, board, bureau, commission, or institution of higher education of the State of North Dakota, or other North Dakota government or education entity, that you can obtain GIS professional services through just a work order?

Multiple vendors have been awarded contracts in the Programmer/Analyst and Technical and Data Services Specialist categories of the Information Technology Professional Services Contract Pool. A primary benefit of using the Contract Pool is to make the procurement process more efficient by leveraging the master contract terms which have already been negotiated with the awarded vendors.

Using the Contract Pool can greatly streamline your procurement process. For more information please visit the GIS Professional Services Contract Pool page.

Notes:

1. Data development that requires engineering or surveying services is not part of the Contract Pool.
2. From the contract language: "Agencies, boards, bureaus, commissions, institutions of higher education of the State of North Dakota, and other North Dakota government and education entities that are authorized to purchase from contracts established for and by the State may procure information technology services under the terms and conditions of this agreement. Each North Dakota procuring agency is responsible for complying with any laws that regulate its individual purchase authority."

Updated Datasets on the GIS Hub

A number of datasets have been updated on the GIS Hub by the North Dakota GIS Technical Committee data stewards.  These are:

Communications

Antenna Structures (updated)

Cellular Sites (updated)

AM Radio (updated)

FM Radio (updated)

Mobile Radio - Broadcast (updated)

Mobile Radio - Commercial (updated)

Television - Digital (updated)

Television - NTSC (updated)

Paging (updated)

Microwave (updated)

These datasets can be downloaded or delivered via data services.  More information on these datasets can be found on the Hub Data Portal. You may find it convenient to simply browse to the data within the Categories section of the Hub Data Portal. After you've located the data of interest, click on the More Information button and then scroll down to the Transfer Options section. In that section, click the Download link to download the data or click the 'Esri REST including WMS' link to obtain the data service information.

Using GIS Hub Data in Google Earth

There may be times when you'd like to display GIS Hub data in Google Earth without first having to download the data. What follows is a brief tutorial.

First, visit the GIS Hub REST page and click on the "Features" folder:

Next, select the data set of interest. In this tutorial, we'll select state lands by clicking on the "Features/GovtLands_State" item:

Now scroll to the bottom of the page and locate the "Generate KML" link and click on that:

OK, we are almost there.  Specify the Document Name you wish to give for the one or more layers you will select and then select the layer(s) you wish to display in Google Earth.  Select the "Vector layers as vectors and raster layers as images" option.  Your screen may look similar to this when done:

Finally, click on the Generate KML button and select to open the file with Google Earth:

 

You should now see the data on Google Earth. For most data you can click on a feature to get more information about it:

If you wish to change display characteristics of the data within Google Earth, click the layer name and select Properties then click the "Style, Color" tab to make the adjustments:

Updated & New Data Sets on the GIS Hub

A number of datasets have been updated on the GIS Hub by the North Dakota GIS Technical Committee data stewards.  These include:

Transportation

TIGER Roads (updated to 2011)

Boundaries

Incorporated City Boundaries (updated)

Locations

Wellhead Protection Areas - Community (new)

Wellhead Protection Areas - Non-Community (new)

Imagery

Cass 2011 (new - Thank You Cass County!)

Fargo 2011 (new - Thank You City of Fargo!)

Emergency Services

Ambulance Service Areas (updated)

These datasets can be downloaded or delivered via data services.  More information on these datasets can be found on the Hub Data Portal. You may find it convenient to simply browse to the data within the Categories section of the Hub Data Portal. After you've located the data of interest, click on the More Information button and then scroll down to the Transfer Options section. In that section, click the Download link to download the data or click the 'Esri REST including WMS' link to obtain the data service information.

From Battlefield to Farm Field

"From Battlefield to Farm Field" was the theme of the 2012 Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Action Summit held in Grand Forks, North Dakota, May 22 & 23.  Sponsored by the Red River Valley Research Corridor, this was the 6th such conference that focuses on the development and use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). 

Out of the 350 or so people there, I was probably the only one that needed to learn that we don't call these flying things drones, they are UAVs. I don't believe the term "UAV" is necessarily reflecting the military's love of acronyms but is rather distinguishing the less sophisticated unmanned aircraft that would fly a preset route, collect imagery, then land. Today's unmanned aircraft are extremely sophisticated craft that have a crew of "2 to 800" reflecting the pilot on the ground who can be 1000s of miles away, the sensor operator, data analysts processing the information being collected by the UAV, communication specialists who connect the UAV to ground-based and airborne assets, maintenance crews, and other support teams.  So the "S" in UAS describes a SYSTEM or SYSTEMS of multiple components working together, just like the "S" in GIS.

This was my first time being exposed to so much UAS information. It was at times a daunting task to fully understand what was being said.  There were more acronyms on some of the slides than real words. But I did manage to come away from the Summit with a number of concepts:

• This is a rapidly growing industry. There are more people involved with UAS than with any other facet in the Air Force.
• The biggest challenge at the moment is the integration of UAVs into the National Airspace System (NAS), so that those UAVs can be used for training, emergency response, and homeland security. In response to this issue, the Federal Aviation Adminstration Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (scroll to the bottom and click on Subtitle B of Title III) includes language to create six test sites around the country.  These test sites will be used to test reliability of UAVs, develop certification standards, test sense and avoid capabilities, develop pilot qualification standards, and a number of other key issues.
• Our state may become the host of one of the possible test sites.  Grand Forks is well-positioned due to the relatively uncrowded air space, proximity to the Grand Forks Air Force Base, the University of North Dakota, and Northland Community & Technical College in Minnesota.
• Northland Community & Technical College is the first school in the country to offer a UAS maintenance program.
• I've previously heard of terms like "firehose of pixels" and "tsunami of data."  At this Summit I heard a new term, "Niagra Falls of information."  In the military, 1.3 pedabytes of data is being collected every day which gets turned into 1400 intelligence reports every day.  And even so, the existing UAS resources are not meeting the demand for those types of services.
• UAS aircraft account for 1/3 of all military aircraft.  There has been a 4300% increase in hours flown by UAVs since 2001.
• Ready for another acronym? We were told that we are seeing the dawn of real time ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconaissance).  For example, Gorgon Stare is a wide area sensor that can watch an entire city by using a few frames of imagery and just enough resolution to see vehicles. It was described as being like a moving Google Earth.
• There are many different sizes and types of UAVs and multiple models of UAVs.  For example, there are 39 versions of the Global Hawk around the world.
• Attention gamers! I sat in on a session in which gaming technology is being utilized in training pilots and in testing UAVs. An example was given in which the test environment is based on CalamityVille.
• So what are some of the uses of UAVs?  Here are some I saw and heard: Oil/gas pipeline monitoring, traffic accidents/monitoring, real estate, law enforcement, wind turbine monitoring, public safety, monitoring crimes in progress, responding to alarm calls, missing person searches, crime scene photos, crowd and traffic control, pre-raid recon and intel, marijuana searches, delivery of small items such as cell phone and medications, disaster assessments, hazmat and radiological sampling, and fire monitoring.
• What are some of the agriculture/ranching applications of UAVs? Here are a few: estimation of citrus yield, mapping of pest and weed infestations, monitoring livestock, monitoring pasture conditions (we heard about a rancher in Wyoming using Landsat to determine when the snow was gone from his summer pasture in the mountains), monitoring crop growth, determining soil moisture, mapping herbicide overspray, and integration into existing precision agriculture systems.
• One of the last presenters we heard from is the CEO of Field of View, LLC who said that small UAVs should be good for up to 30mph wind and be able to carry payloads up to four pounds.  Some of the cameras are capable of capturing 5cm-pixel imagery. He said that a camera such as the Tetracam Lightweight Agriculture Digital Camera fits in a small UAV and costs around $5000.

If you get a chance in the future to learn more about UAS and UAVs, it would be time well spent as I believe this is an industry in the early stages of growth.

MidAmerica GIS Consortium: Symposium Wrap-Up

Back in August 2011 I wrote about the MidAmerica GIS Consortium (MAGIC). Well, another excellent MAGIC Symposium was held just last week in Kansas City, Missouri. I thoroughly enjoy the MAGIC Symposium as it provides something for everyone, with a blend ranging from coordination/oversight issues to detailed, dirt-under-your-fingernails topics. Approximately 500 attendees had the opportunity to choose from over 100 presentations and 22 workshops.  Attendees had the opportunity to listen to excellent keynote addresses and 11 ignite sessions and to visit with over 50 exhibitors.

The opening keynote was Sean McGrath, CTO of Propylon. He spoke about e-Democracy and the role maps and geography have historically played when developing and enacting law, with examples going back to the 4th century and earlier. Despite all of our advances, we have more paper than ever with an estimated 16 trees needed to generate an average 130,000 papers for one budget bill, or 17 tons for one legislative session based on a study commissioned by Indiana. Sean noted that with mobile devices and spatial data, a "Dome 2.0" can and should now be utilized to ensure two-way communication between legislators and the public whom they serve.  For example, as as bill changes, alerts can be sent out based on geographic impact.

I soon discovered that one couldn't go to any of the sessions without hearing about LiDAR. Software is finally beginning to catch up and in doing so, is making it much easier for folks to actually use the data and its derivatives in their project work. In a workshop we heard about using LASzip for compressing .las files into .laz files that are usable as is by several software tools (Esri has this logged as an enhancement request). I ran a quick test on a .las file:  Original .las: 158mb; .zip: 78mb; .laz: 15mb.  Wow!

Esri provided two sessions on the ArcGIS 10.1 and for those who haven't been to the dev summit or won't be able to attend the Esri conference this summer, these sessions from Esri were an excellent way of learning about the new version.  Desktop has many new features including much improved LiDAR data capacities, dynamic legends, and updates to Maplex which is now core.  Server finally has a publisher role in addition to the user and administrator roles and will have improved printing.  And of course, ArcGIS Online continues to expand its capabilities including the new subscription-based ArcGIS Online for Organizations.

We had excellent weather at the Symposium but there were some clouds at the conference.  GIS in the cloud that is.  There was at least one cloud vendor on the exhibit floor (Valtus) and @MikeSchonlau from Douglas County, Nebraska provided a 90-minute presentation (seemed like it only lasted 20 minutes) on his department's transition from physical servers to using Amazon servers and storage. In doing so, his department has realized a very significant cost savings and much improved infrastructure. Mike's presentation was one of my favorite and provided some very good information and food for thought.

I find this Symposium to be remarkably productive when I attend with a shopping list of things I want to ask people about. There were ample networking opportunities to visit with representatives from the companies and with folks from other states and provinces.

These have been just some of the highlights from the Symposium. There were of course, other excellent presentations, keynotes, and workshops.  As they become available, the presentations will get posted on the MAGIC web site.

If you haven't had a chance to be a part of MAGIC, please consider doing so, there are lots of opportunities, just visit the web site or contact me.  And be sure to put April 27-May 1, 2014 on your calendar, that's the date of the next MAGIC Symposium. 

Updated Cached Map Services

As noted in the previous blog posting, the GIS Hub currently has two cached map services:  Basemap_General (hillshade, roads, boundaries, water) and Basemap_Imagery (statewide, county, and city aerial photography). Cached map services can be used in ArcMap and in web applications as base maps that redraw very quickly.

Both of these services have been rebuilt and are now available from the GIS Hub REST and are already included on the Hub Explorer.

Also as previously noted, we plan to build additional cached map services.  If you have suggestions of what you'd like please let us know (comment in this blog or via the Feedback Form).

Updating the Cached Map Services

The GIS Hub currently has two cached map services:  Basemap_General (hillshade, roads, boundaries, water) and Basemap_Imagery (statewide, county, and city aerial photography). Cached map services can be used in ArcMap and in web applications as base maps that redraw very quickly.

The two cached map services are currently being rebuilt and will have the following modifications:

1. New and updated data - new City of Fargo aerial photography; updated city boundaries and roads
2. Transparency outside of the state border - this will enable overlaying the GIS Hub base map on top of other base maps without masking the other base map outside of the state border
3. File format - unless we find a show-stopper, we are switching to the "compact" format which results in less files and smaller storage needs.  As an example, for one scale level:

In the future, we plan to build additional cached map services.  If you have suggestions of what you'd like please let us know (comment in this blog or via the Feedback Form).

Improved Data Downloading is Coming

For about a decade the North Dakota GIS Hub has been making geospatial data available for download. Users download vector data in the file format and coordinate system of their choosing.  Raster data is downloaded in the file format and coordinate system native to each particular data set.  Vector and raster data discovery is done through the Hub Data Portal. Once a dataset of interest is found, one clicks on the More Information button, carefully reads the descriptive information of course, and then in the Transfer Options section, selects the Download link to begin the download process.

We are now in the early stages of upgrading the GIS Hub's data download system.  The first steps include upgrading the vector data download system which is based on Safe Software's FME Server and deploying that to multiple servers.  In addition, the interface that is used to specify the file format, coordinate system, and email address will be upgraded to accommodate the new version of FME Server and if all goes as planned, provide the ability to clip by polygon, selected or sketched.

Planned future work includes upgrading the data download system to allow downloading of raster data in a chosen file format and coordinate system. This could be a challenge due to the size of the data but we are optimistic that it can be done.

Announcing the New ND GIS Hub Explorer

We are in the process of slowly rolling out the latest version of the GIS Hub Explorer, which is a mapping application that allows one to view data that reside on the ND GIS Hub. Both of our loyal readers of this blog are some of the first to hear of this new version.  In the very near future, the news of this new Hub Explorer will be posted on the ND GIS listserv and on the ND GIS website.


The Hub Explorer goes back almost a decade.  The first version relied on Esri's ArcIMS for the map service and used a modified version of Esri's HTML Viewer for the interface.  The second and current version relied on ArcIMS for the map service and Latitude Geographic's IMF for the interface.


As many of you know, ArcIMS is no longer provided by Esri and has been replaced by ArcGIS Server.  This newest version of the Hub Explorer uses map services powered by ArcGIS Server and the interface uses a modified version of Esri's JavaScript API.  Houston Engineering was selected from the state's IT Professional Services Contract Pool to customize the JavaScript API.  North Dakota state agencies have the option of using the Hub Explorer as a template to develop their own mapping applications.


We deliberately chose to use the Esri JavaScript API over the other two APIs offered by Esri to better prepare for the future in which we see HTML5 becoming dominant. Although typically not a huge burden for most users, we also did not want users to have to download a browser plugin in order to use the Hub Explorer.


The new Hub Explorer has been tested on a number of browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and with limited testing on Opera and Safari.  Please note that if you use Internet Explorer we highly recommend that you use version 9 as there are performance and other issues with versions prior to 9.


We plan to transition from the current version of the Hub Explorer to the new version over the next couple of months.


If you get a chance, please have a look at the new Hub Explorer !

Updated Data Sets on the GIS Hub

Continuing a great tradition, a number of datasets have been updated on the GIS Hub by the North Dakota GIS Technical Committee data stewards.  These include:

Locations
School Locations (updated)

Boundaries
School Districts (updated)

Hydrography
Watershed Boundary Dataset (updated)
WBD_SubbasinBoundary (new)
Watershed250k (gone, replaced by WBD_SubbasinBoundary)

Landuse/Landcover
National Landcover 2006 (new)

Communications
Antenna_Structures (updated)
Microwave (updated)
Paging (updated)
PhoneCellMarket (updated)
PhoneCellular (updated)
Radio_AM (updated)
Radio_FM (updated)
Radio_Mobile_Broadcast (updated)
Radio_Mobile_Commercial (updated)
Television-Digital (updated)
Television-NTSC (updated)

These datasets can be downloaded or delivered via data services.  More information on these datasets can be found on the Hub Data Portal. You may find it convenient to simply browse to the data within the Categories section of the Hub Data Portal. After you've located the data of interest, click on the More Information button and then scroll down to the Transfer Options section. In that section, click the Download link to download the data or click the the 'Esri REST including WMS' link to obtain the data service information.

K-12 School Location Data Now Available

The North Dakota K-12 school location data is now available from the GIS Hub.


Similar to school districts, this dataset has become available through a partnership of the GIS Technical Committee (GISTC), the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), and Applied Data Consultants (ADC).  The GISTC identified this as a dataset that needed to be on the GIS Hub and provided the funding.  DPI supplied the source data and associated knowledge. ADC was selected from the Technical and Data Services category of the Information Technology Professional Services Contract Pool. ADC compiled various datasets from DPI and then using multiple methods improved the accuracy of the school locations.


This school location data is available for download and as web services.  More information can be found in the data description.  Links to the download and web services are found in in the Distribution Information section of the data description.

Flood Applications and Data

We've been doing some work to organize data from past-flood events and prepare for future events.

First, we now have a "Flood" folder on the GIS Hub's REST page.  The data in this folder can be used in ArcGIS Desktop.  If you have a requirement to have these data available in other web service formats, please let us know.  We plan to post past and new flood data here as it becomes available and/or is needed.  Eventually, older datasets may be removed.

Second, we've taken some of this data and created applications that allow side-by-side viewing of rivers impacted by flooding.  The Missouri River flood application shows the Missouri River cooridor before, during, and after the 2011 flooding.  The Mouse River flood application shows the Mouse (Souris) River corridor before and during the 2011 flooding.  We plan to build similar applications for other areas as data become available.

School District Data Now Available

The North Dakota school district dataset is now available from the GIS Hub.

This dataset has become available through a partnership of the GIS Technical Committee (GISTC), the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), and Applied Data Consultants (ADC).  The GISTC identified this as a dataset that needed to be on the GIS Hub and provided the funding.  DPI supplied the source data and associated knowledge. ADC was selected from the Technical and Data Services category of the Information Technology Professional Services Contract Pool. ADC identified and resolved topological problems, delivering a cleansed dataset with improved accuracy.

The school district data is available for download and as web services.  More information can be found in the data description.  Links to the download and web services are found in in the Distribution Information section.