SDMG Notes for 27 March 2008

In attendance:

Terralyn Vandetta, Kelly Christiansen, Matt Gregory, Theresa Valentine, Heather May, Dave Hockman-Wert

Notes: Heather

Treats: Terralyn

Speaker: Marc Rempel, Valley Library

Marc talked about the recent tools in the Oregon Explorer looking at the Measure 37, Wildlife and Measure 49 viewers. He discussed how they integrate with Virtual Earth with ArcIMS and some of the new directions they are looking at with spatial geoprocessing through SQL Server 2008 and the ArcGIS 9.3 rest API.

Oregon Explorer and Virtual Earth:

Oregon Explorer’s goal is to give the public easy access to mapping tools and data, and it uses mashups to accomplish this goal. They chose Virtual Earth (VE) over Google Earth (GE) for two reasons: GE had certain use restrictions (these have now been removed so this is not an issue anymore); GE has to be run as a separate application so you can’t wrap a website around it, but you can embed VE into a website. The client doesn’t have to install anything to use the 2D features in VE, but must install the app to use the 3D features. VE is free and is built on the Javascript API and you can view the source code for VE websites. 3D performance depends on the client machine’s hardware.

Measure 37 viewer

Measure 37 claims are a part of the land use explorer – you can view claims in relation to other variables such as urban growth boundaries, groundwater, etc. The claims are implemented as active objects, so you can click on the polygon claim to get information about that claim. Uses WMS overlays for soils, forest land, etc. Has transparency sliders for the various layers.

Wildlife viewer:

Supported by ODFW and ORNHIC. Users can search for specific species, or can get a list of species by county, ecoregion, basin or watershed. They didn’t have a good image database so they use a google search to get pictures of the species. People have expressed interest in being able to load local species data, which is not available now but will be in the future.

Measure 49 viewer:

They are still having issues getting tax lot data released so that part is not available to the public yet. Users can see the percentage of a certain tax lot under certain constraints (highly productive farmland, forest land, etc.)

Random Tech comments:

  • WMS outputs images in PNG format, whereas KMZ outputs active objects that are selectable so you can get attribute info by clicking on them.
  • Arc 9.3 will have API for online mapping services.
  • Silverlight – is map centric and makes website interface slicker.

    Agenda:

    1. Meetings:

  • ASPRS National Conference in Portland: Aptil 28 to May 2nd. GIS in Action will be on one of the conference days.
  • ESRI User Conference: August 4-8, San Diego. Ray has a brochure for this conference. Marc Rempel is planning on attending.
  • NW ESRI User Group: October 23-24 Sun Valley, ID: Kelly plans on attending
  • Mid Willamette GIS Users Group Spring Meeting? May 14th 1-4pm Eugene Water & Electric Board, Eugene.

    2. Training:

    Heather wanted training on database performance tuning, and Terralyn suggested contacting Denise Steigerwald or Hans Luh.

    Geoprogramming meeting: The next meeting will be about a C# open source mapping tool. Meeting date not yet scheduled.

    3. Data:

  • Some people were wondering if/when COF will be installing SQL Server 2008. Terralyn said that Sean has looked into it, but there were some issues so there’s no set timeline for installing it at this point.
  • Update of SDMG GIS/Remote Sensing Helpdesk: Theresa asked that we look at the list of people available to help and update it by adding and removing people available and updating their areas of expertise.

    • 4. Software

  • Service Pac 5 is now out. Check the support page on esri.com
  • The rumor from the developer’s conference is that ArcGIS 9.3 will be out in June.

    5. Round Table:

  • Matt: Will be presenting a poster about GNNViz at USIALE conference in April in Madison, WI. He also will be doing a presentation on GNNViz for the Nature Conservancy in Portland. Matt mentioned a python tool called reportlab that allows for programmatic pdf generation.
  • Terralyn: Working on ArcGIS server issues – changed local accounts to global accounts so reboots start ArcGIS server automatically. Working on getting production stuff off of Rubble. She mentioned that lab machines will be available for purchase soon for $120 or $180.
  • Dave: Patti Haggerty will be the new George, except without the metadata duties. She will be involved with GIS project work and she starts on Monday 3/31. Dave got a new term position (congratulations, Dave!). Both Dave and Patti will be attending the USGS meeting in Denver in May.
  • Theresa: Working with Arc server.

    • Next Meeting:

    April 19th
  • Notes: Dave
  • Treats: Theresa
  • Facilitator: Matt
  • Speaker: Kelly C.