Notes from the GIS/RS meeting
Thursday, Dec. 7, 2000
.
- Database server (Matt and Sean) Lengthy discussion on potential for submission of a Reserve
Equipment Research Fund Grant from
OSU where OSU will pay up to 50% on the purchase of equipment. The OSU Research Office asks for
proposals twice a year (November and April). Sean was looking for support/ideas for submitting a proposal
to buy a large database server.
Discussion followed on the need for a plan that outlines the long
term goal and how this initial purchase will fit into the larger scheme
(centralized or decentralized data servers, etc), the identification of
specifications/needs for the server (what database will we want to run,
what level of database administration support will be available, what are
the disk space requirements, security, will it be used for community data
(data/fordata) and will individuals need additional server capability for
their own projects, what are the computing requirements (multi cpu’s) for
GIS in the ArcGIS model, and what level of ArcIMS support will be needed
(seeing how the one application we have running on Sequoia is making a
significant computer resource impact). These were all questions that came
up during the discussion. It was
suggested that the newly forming DBA group (dba@fsl.orst.edu)could help address some of
these, but it was also suggested that the GIS group needed to do some
research and make some recommendations about their needs. This started another discussion on the
decision on what database to use for ArcGIS. The two front runners are SQL
Server and Oracle. Oracle is very
expensive (to buy and to support with a DBA) and it doesn’t look like
there will be a university site license in the near future. Oracle is more robust, however it does
not appear that the business needs for the Forestry Community requires the
robustness that Oracle offers. Don
Henshaw and Theresa Valentine agreed to put together a document that
outlines the differences in the two packages, review this with the DBA
group, and send it out to the GIS group for review. There was discussion that testing of
SDE, ArcGIS, and SqlServer would begin with a project that Theresa and
Dylan Keon are working on and that this test could give us some insight
into the capabilities, problems, and system requirements needed to migrate
to the new data model. This
testing will begin in early January and Theresa will report progress back
to the GIS group. (Note from the
note taker: a group to work on this plan was not identified. I feel
uncomfortable with the DBA group doing it as it is more than a forestry
group…We will identify a group of people to work on this. VOLUNTEERS? )
- forgis/rs mailing lists do we want to keep both? The group agreed to dissolve the forrs mailing list into the
forgis mailing list. There were
only two names on the forrs mailing list that were not on the forgis
list. Both will point to the
forgis list for the present time, but the idea is to discontinue
forrs. REMEMBER: You only need to
mail to one after Terralyn Vandetta makes the change. She will notify the
group when she has changed the lists.
- World
Construction Set follow up: The meeting with Jeff Nighbert from the BLM was very
successful. More than 20 people attended.
He demonstrated three software packages: www.kashmir.com www.terragen.com
and World Construction Set www.3dnature.com
. The first two are free
but are limited in their capability and support. The only program of the three capable
of placing vegetation (tree images) where you specify was world
construction set. Theresa has handouts from the meeting. Attendees of the
meeting will be sent instructions for signing up to the forgis mailing
list for further discussion/information.
An e-mail was sent to forgis about the cost of the program and
Theresa will be organizing a consolidated order.
- Training needs (get a list from folks and get
people to do some in-house training): Ideas
were gathered for training within the Forestry Community.
1.
Class
with ArcIMS (Theresa and Dylan as a possibility). Note: we need a stable,
robust server for this to happen. Class would have folks actually build a web
site.
2.
Site
Map Class: Show people how to build a simple map and add their data to existing
data sets. Theresa will outline what
would be covered, get input from group, and group would develop a tag team to
teach this. Could use arcview, arcmap, and or arcIMS applications for the
class. The class George taught a couple of years ago would be a good starting
point.
3.
ARCGIS
training. The group would like to start a user group to learn and test ArcGIS.
This group will meet every other Thursday in Richardson 203 from 10-12 starting
January 4th. Theresa will lead the first discussion/work session
where we will become familiar with the main modules (arccatalog, arcmap,
arctoolbox) and we will try moving data from coverages to the geodatamodel
using personal sde (access). We will
also determine future subjects/topics and assign session leaders to guide the
training time. Theresa will reserve the
room space.
Other topics:
Sharon thanked everyone for their
participation in GIS Day and asked people to forward any ideas/suggestions for
next year to her. Kelly wants the day
made a national holiday so he gets the day off.
The FSRN spatial database is built
and underutilized. It has great
potential to help people locate in-house data sets, BUT, it needs to be
populated. At next months meeting we
will talk about ways to encourage people to enter information about data sets
they obtain or create.
Theresa volunteered to make cookies
for the next meeting which is scheduled for January 11th at 10:00am.
Theresa suggested that notes be
recorded for each meeting and volunteered to record them for the December
meeting.