Westport, CT’s new TaxMap App and other Government GIS News

Westport, CT has a new Esri-based map viewer. The city is offering several 90 and 150 minute classes on using it. Good thing  - since I oculd not get the help to work. The old intro page says you must use IE not AOL or another browser. Safari worked fine.

- CT

The Franklin County, AL Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Consortium officially lauched its “virtual Franklin County,” also known as its public facing GIS. It's built on ArcGIS Viewer for Flex 2.

- Franklin County Times

The city of Southfield [MI] recently launched Destination Southfield, a collection of Geographic Information System -based sites that provide up-to-date interactive maps and information about city services, parks and polling locations. The information can be found at http://maps.cityofsouthfield.com/destinationsouthfield.

With Destination Southfield, the city has become one of the first communities in the country to take advantage of Environmental Systems Research Institute's local government common information model. ArcGIS for Local Government includes a series of maps and apps that are designed to work together across various city departments.

Silverlight. Interesting "hide and seek" menus.

- Hometown Life

Manitoba Child Care Registry/Map Places 1000 Children and other Government GIS News

Launched a year ago, the website allows parents to view day care options and put their kids on waiting lists for all centres that meet their needs.

The new map, worth $231,000, will let parents look for licenced child-care providers along their route to work, for example, or near their home.

The website has placed more than 1,000 kids in child care in the five months since it's been fully implemented province-wide.

I wonder if the new map will encourage more placements. I wonder how much the original registry cost to put online. You must register to see the registry/map.

- Winnepeg Sun

A remarkable new online map lets people see hyperlocal U.S. Census information about Boston down to individual streets.

The “myNeighborhood Census Viewer” will soon include a vast amount of other info, ranging from police districts to the location of libraries, according to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), which created the map.

The map requires virtually no technical know-how. Users simply drag the mouse on an area—anything from a street to a block to the entire city—and the site instantly provides detailed Census data for it. The data is clearly presented as a pie chart.

I wish I agreed with the "requires virutally no technical know-how" part. I continue to find the Flex interface for ArcGIS Server apps hard to navigate. In particular, I don't find it follows the priciple of simplicity key to good user interfaces. Why all the different selection tools? Provide a default and hide the rest, please!

- Jamaica Plain Gazette

If you are sex offender in Springfield, IL and you are homeless, you won't be on the offender map. You will have to report where you live while not not in jail, but those locations are not on the map. Why not? Per  Greene County Sex Offender Registrar Lisa Simmons:

Simmons said the computer database doesn't allow for those locations to be entered. Only numbered street addresses can be entered, she said.

Morover, per state law a list of locations is required, but a map of them is not.

- Springfield News Leader

Using GIS to Identify Volunteer Fire Fighters and other Government GIS News

I've noted the federally funded study to determine the best way to find volunteer firefighters before (APB coverage). Here's how one county involved in the GIS study is doing.

The study is designed to help departments reach that goal [having enough paid and volunteer firefighters]. Of the 20 departments taking part, 10 participated in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Segmentation study, and the other 10 are in a control group engaging in a traditional recruitment campaign, according to a news release.

 

The Martinsville [VA] department was part of the GIS study, which was based on the premise that studying demographic data about current firefighters will help the department target its recruitment efforts, Shrader said.

 

“They looked at all demographic data for current employees and volunteers to see what we were made of ... that way they provide us with a plan of targeted areas to explore for volunteers,” he said.

 

The VFCA enlisted two firms, Esri and Intterra, to perform the detailed analysis, the release said. Shrader said the analysis looked at everything from where firefighters like eat to what they enjoy doing in their free time.

 

The idea was to identify the types of people who would be the best candidates for volunteer fire service, where they can be found and how best to communicate with them, the release said.

 

With the GIS study complete, Shrader is planning several recruitment events at local venues that potential volunteers likely visit. An example might be a restaurant the firefighters consider a favorite or a store where many of them shop, he said.

DeLorme, Merrick, Home Use License, Mobile Development (#esriuc)

I took a walk through the exhibit hall to find the answer to one question and of course got "grabbed" to get updates on several fronts.

DeLorme is reorganizing as many know (APB coverage) and Mike Gerling (once of Tele Atlas/TomTom) who is now on the board explained, explain the current vision. While DeLorme has a great base in consumer products the idea now is to look more toward complete solutions for business and consumers. For example, last year the company offered the SPOT locator, which allowed those in the wilds to send a "help" message via satellite. But it was only one way...so authorities had to answer and often found (after much effort) a not so life threatening emergency.

The new solution, the DeLorme inReach (press release) slated for this fall, is a two way communicator build to work with the Iridium constellation. So now recreational hikers and weekend worriers can track their adventures and ensure simple chats with loved ones and have real time communications if there is indeed an emergency. For business workers, say lone workers in the wilds, the solution means an extra layer of safety. I like that the device is really simple - it has basically a GPS and the chip for the Iridium network - there's no screen. Why? So you can use it with your own personal or corporate cell phone (via Bluetooth) or with a ruggedized data collection device (with buttons for those use gloves). The devices is in the hundreds of dollars with data plans from about $10 making it reasonable for consumers and business users.

Merrick continues to be LiDAR central. New federal regulation require airports to have obstruction mapping completed by 2015 and the technology is far faster and more accurate that having suveyors walk the large areas that need to be covered. Further, the 3D models LiDAR enables are more meaningful than a single point identifying, say, a tree. More and more jurisdictions are including LiDAR with their aerial imagery capture and it's likely LiDAR will be on a several year cycle especially in high growth areas.

I wanted to get some more information about the new home use license program which went live yesterday, once Jack Dangermond announced it. I found a page where those with codes from employers can sign up, and this page seems to be for those without such a code. I met with the marketing manager for the program and hope to get more information on the license.

I ran into my former Esri-Boston colleague Mansour Raad, one of the lead folks involved in development platforms. While he's very excited about what can be done with Flex, he's also excited about what's possible with node.js and Javascript. He did confirm what I'd heard elsewhere regarding mobile development in general: that  in time HTML5 will be the way to go for mobile devices. He did note that Esri has some work to do to remove some of its existing dependancies and rejig its interfaces, but that the future looks bright for mobile. And, he made clear, such APIs are no longer optional; mobile developer tools and apps are a must have for all the mobile platforms.

USDA Announces Atlas of Rural and Small Town America

The Atlas of Rural and Small-Town America, developed by USDA’s Economic Research Service, provides county-level mapping of over 60 statistical indicators depicting conditions and trends across different types of nonmetro regions.

It was launched Feb 18 and includes data from the American Community Survey, and you can download any of the data. Tech: ArcGIS API for Flex.

- Ag Journal

- press release