With the increase in political debates, campaign rallies and attack ads, it is clear that we have entered a new election year.  What you may not know is that the elections this year will be completely different from those of the past.  The 2012 elections will be the first to be held on new political boundaries that have resulted from redistricting.  While I won’t go into a lot of detail on what Redistricting is, the process involves adjusting political boundaries/districts (U.S. Congressional, State Senate, State House, County Commission, etc.) to account for population changes that have taken place over the past decade.  Politics is of course a part of this process which means that decisions are not strictly made based on population counts.  Redistricting officials also use this process as an opportunity to shift the political makeup of districts and put their party in a better position to gain or retain control moving forward.

While gaining political power might be important to you, for me, the most exciting thing about redistricting is that it is exposing very powerful people to the power of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  GIS is the analytical engine that powers the redistricting process.  It provides the ability to overlay relevant information (streets, population counts, demographics, political boundaries, past voting results, etc.) on an interactive map for officials to spatially analyze and base decisions.  More politicians than ever are seeing, firsthand, the value of leveraging GIS to gain a more thorough understanding of information which ultimately translates to more informed decision making (political strategizing in this case).  What these elected officials need to know is that the value of GIS is not isolated to redistricting and it definitely doesn’t stop when the Governor signs these new political boundaries into law.

The U.S. Department of Labor has identified geospatial technologies, which GIS is part of, as one of the fastest growing industries.  This rapid expansion is driven by the fact that the value GIS brought to redistricting is also brought to nearly every sector of the economy.  This is especially the case in the public sector.  By visiting the Esri industries page, you can see the vast array of government agencies that can benefit from GIS.  Below is a small sample:

• Public Safety
•  Property Assessment
• Public Works
• Environmental Management
• Planning & Economic Development
• Education (Geospatial Learning)

The good news is that government is already a big user of GIS, but we are just scratching the surface.  What this means is that there are real opportunities to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government through the increased use of GIS.  With the explosion of cloud based capabilities and widespread Internet connectivity, we find ourselves in a perfect position to deliver targeted, lighter weight, more cost effective GIS solutions these new users.  This ability, in combination with support from our elected officials, can set us on a path to creating an efficient and effective government that we can all agree on.

In conclusion, I am someone that truly believes in the power of GIS.   I believe that it can play a key role in creating a more efficient public sector, a more competitive private sector and ultimately a more competitive nation as a whole.  My hope is that the exposure to GIS that has resulted from redistricting will trigger a sequence of events:  Increased use of GIS in campaigning  ->  The election (or re-election) of pro-GIS public officials  ->  Increased support for the use of GIS within government  ->  A more efficient and effective public sector.

If “GIS in campaigning” caught your eye, check out GIS: The Secret to 2012 Campaign Success

Mt. Juliet Recycling Survey

The City of Mt Juliet, TN  government, in coordination with GEO-Jobe GIS, has released an online resource for collecting citizen interest in a city-wide recycling program. The online mapping site allows for the public to find their location on a map while answering a few questions dealing with how they would use the program if it were implemented. Locations are then recorded on the map showing the citizens interest in the program.  Capturing the locations on a map will not only build an interactive map showing program interest but will also assist the city in the planning processes, such as the best locations for recycle bins. The goal is to have a very detailed map showing all the interest while allowing the Mt. Juliet citizens a way to assist city officials in the planning process.  Even better for citizens, there is a feature on the map that allows people to make comments. Accepting citizen comments might necessitate some changes to procedures, and so it is proposing a 120-day pilot to test the processes and monitor results.

The site is created with ArcGIS Server and hosted on the geopowered.com network at the GEO-Jobe GIS data center. The geopowered.com service was created so that organizations can easily create fast and flexible GIS web mapping applications without the hassle of expensive software costs, hardware, and technical expertise. For more information on this service give us a call @615-883-0085.

ArcGIS Server allows you to create folders for organizing map services.  More information on this topic can be found here.

I created a new folder through Server Manager yesterday called tn.Sumner for map services for Sumner County, Tennessee.  After the folder was created I added a new map service and went to the Rest services directory to check it out.  When I went to the services page the folder was there, but clicking on the folder name produced an error:

Oh boy.

After a little head scratching I went back and created a new folder, this time changing the folder name from tn.Sumner to SumnerTN and published a map service.  When I went to the services page I could open the folder and view the new map service.  Success!

I’m not sure if this is a feature, bug, or something else, but there was something about the dot ‘ . ‘ in tn.Sumner that the server didn’t like.  I looked in the \Server10.0\server\user\cfg folder and the tn.Sumner folder was there, along with the configuration files for the service.  The strange part is that there was no indication that the naming wouldn’t work, no errors, etc., and I didn’t find anything in the documentation about folder naming conventions.  Hopefully this saves someone a few minutes of stress if they encounter the same thing.

Richard Duncan, GEO-Jobe GIS’s Vice President, was explaining the Trimble Yuma to K-Towns finest! 

We would like to thank everyone for coming!

We just completed our first stop on our #techroadshow

The staff at Middle Tennessee State University have started collecting and updating data for the campus GIS system using the latest technologies from ESRI and Trimble.  In the field, staff will be using Trible Yuma tablet computers paired with Pathfinder ProXRT receivers that provide real-time 10 cm. accuracies.  ArcPad 8 is installed on each of the Yuma tablets and provides the user interface for the staff to add, update, and delete features.

On the server side, ArcPad is communicating with ArcGIS Server through the ArcGIS Server for ArcPad extension.  This extension allows services that are published through ArcGIS Server to be consumed by ArcPad clients.  Using a custom map service containing campus infrastructure layers, MTSU staff are collecting and editing data in the field and using ArcPad and synchronizing these edits with ArcGIS Server – all in real time.

Back at the office, users that don’t have access to ArcGIS Desktop can view the campus utility system  from a custom web application based on the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex. 

This viewer brings together ESRI basemaps and MTSU’s campus utility data, allowing users in the office to see changes in campus infrastructure as soon as the data in the database is updated.

For more information on this project or other GIS Implementations for Universities contact GEO-Jobe GIS.

On a recent project we have been using the ESRI JavaScript Attribute Inspector as the interface for users to edit attributes of a feature service.  By default, the attribute inspector is supposed to display field aliases in the form that is displayed.  Our attribute inspector, however, was displaying the actual field names and not the aliases.  What could be going on?

Attribute inspector showing field names, not aliases.

I tested a few differnt workflows to try to determine what could be happening.  Here is what our original process had been:
1.  Create a new feature class in ArcCatalog.  Register as versioned and set permissions.
2.  Create an .mxd with the new feature class, and publish to ArcGIS Server.
3.  Stop the map service from ArcCatalog.  Go to the feature class properties and modify the field aliases.
4.  Start service, clear REST cache.  View REST endpoint for the map service.

In this scenario the field aliases do not change for the map service, even though the alias changes are visible in the feature properties and in ArcMap.  I then tested a different process:

The main difference in this workflow is that I specified the aliases before creating the map service.  This was successful – the field aliases were visible in the REST endpoint of the map service.  I thought I might have found a bug in ArcGIS Server, but an ESRI support analyst set me straight:

There are couple of ways to modify the alias names, either through arcmap mxd or in the geodatabase.

1) To modify the alias names from mxd,

- Right click on the layer and click on properties

- Go to fields tab and modify the alias names there

2) To modify in the geodatabase (the one you tried). This will not reflect the changes to the mxd.

The REST gets the alias field names from the mxd so for the REST to show the modified alias names, you may need to modify the alias names through the mxd or you can remove and add the modified layer from the geodatabase and save the mxd.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

So there you have it – the REST service will not pick up changes to field alias names unless you change the aliases from within the .mxd the service is based on, or you remove and re-add the modified layer the .mxd.  I recreated the service, and now the attribute inspector is displaying the correct field aliases:

Attribute inspector displaying field aliases.

In the future I would like to see the map service honor changes to the feature class properties without having to modify the underlying .mxd, but for now I’m happy that I have an explanation of what is going on.

Ran across an interesting site today for those LinkedIn users out there. This beta application will allow anyone with a LinkedIn account to login and map their connections on a world map. It actually gives you a different perspective on the reach of your connections by having the option to see the lines, on the map, in which they are connected. From testing the site myself, before blogging, I noticed that some connections were misplaced, but for the most part the site did a pretty good job. Of course the application is still in beta mode so we have to give the developers a break here. The site is using ESRI basemaps service and the Flex api to plot the locations of the connections on the map.  You can start mapping your connections now by clicking the link. I am interested to see if someone will develop a similar application for facebook users. Now that would be an even more interesting map to me.  If anyone knows of an application that will do this,  please post in the comments section below.

]]> http://www.geo-jobe.com/blog/2010/09/21/map-your-linkedin-connections/feed/ 4 http://www.geo-jobe.com/blog/2010/01/28/arcgis-online-map-improvements/ http://www.geo-jobe.com/blog/2010/01/28/arcgis-online-map-improvements/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:21:56 +0000 Eric Edmonds http://www.geo-jobe.com/blog/2010/01/28/arcgis-online-map-improvements/

ESRI recently enhanced the ArcGIS Online map service!

The World Imagery Map has blended together USA Prime Imagery, World IKONOS Cities Imagery, and World Imagery with new high-resolution imagery for various countries providing the most optimal vintage, resolution, and coverage available.

The World Street Map contains improved cartography and building footprints.  It was updated with 2009 data from Tele Atlas and Automotive Navigation Data.  Several country street maps  were added including; Columbia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand.

The World Topographic Map was compiled from public domain, user-contributed, and commercial datasets from the U.S. Geological Survey. DeLorme, etc.  Coverage for the world scale is down to 1:150,000 and the United States scale is down to 1:20,000.  It also includes detailed maps for select U.S. cities.

We found a great article, from Spatially Adjusted, explaining the future of ArcSDE at the ArcGIS Server 9.3 release. There is also great information on how ArcGIS Server will integrate with new Spatial Databases as well as connect to and create older versions of the GEOdatabase. Here are the bullet points listed below.

1. ArcSDE at 9.3 will become fully integrated into ArcGIS Server. ArcGIS Server Enterprise will be the “traditional” ArcSDE level where ArcGIS Server supports an unlimited number of users via either direct connect or connection to an application server. It offers DBMS support for IBM DB2, IBM Informix, all editions of Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and PostgreSQL. It has no data or memory limits.
2. ArcGIS will connect to Microsoft SQL Server via direct connect. Out of the box ArcGIS application will be able to connect to Microsoft SQL Server Express Spatial, but if you want unlimited users, you’ll need to purchase ArcGIS Server Enterprise.
3. ArcGIS supports older versions of the Geodatabase. At 9.3, ArcGIS can connect and create geodatabases (personal, file) back to 9.0. This means you won’t need to keep older versions of the geodatabase around to share with others. You also won’t have to upgrade your geodatabases just because ArcGIS went to a new release. If you wish, you can keep your older geodatabases running at whatever release you wish (back to 9.0).
4. SQL Server 2008 Spatial will be fully supported when Microsoft releases final version of SQL Server 2008. This might mean that SQL Server 2008 support might not show up until SP1 or SP2 for 9.3. It all depends on Microsoft’s release schedule.
5. PostgreSQL support will be available at 9.3 as has been reported. There will be support for both the PostGIS and ESRI data types.
6. ArcGIS Engine will allow developing with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express so you can scale down your enterprise applications to the workgroup level. You’ll no longer be limited to working with personal for file geodatabases.
7. ArcGIS Server Enterprise will support 64bit processors. This is only the spatial database application server and not the AGS Basic, Standard and Advanced product.

HT: Spatially Adjusted