Sometimes, naming a subdivision can be easy – for example a subdivision located in a shady grove of oak trees might be called Shady Oaks. But how do developers choose a subdivision name if there isn't an obvious candidate? Last week I was surprised to find out there are online generators designed for the sole…
Category: GIS
Get Your Geospatial Services Here!
The U.S. federal government is continuing in their efforts to deliver data with the launch of the Geospatial Platform. "The Geospatial Platform will be a managed portfolio of common geospatial data, services, and applications contributed and administered by authoritative sources and hosted on a shared infrastructure, for use by government agencies and partners to meet…
The Promise of Data.gov
Last month I had the incredible opportunity to participate in several Gov 2.0 events. One of the greatest take aways for me was finding all the people who are either working directly on the Data.gov project or involved in related initiatives. Data is a big deal for local government – particularly for those of us…
Augmented Reality for Public Works
Augmented reality (AR) has been gaining ground over the last couple years—most likely as a result of an increasing number of applications incorporating AR and an increase in the capabilities of supporting technology. But while the advances have been useful and impressive, I have not seen much related to the public works industry. This surprises…
A GPS Twist on Overweight/Oversize Permits
Each city seems to have set up some form or policy for issuing overweight/oversize permits. But other than filling out the form and securing necessary certificates of insurance, what else should be done to perform a proper review? And how can GPS eventually help improve this process? My thoughts on the overweight loads are that…
Boots on the Ground: Building a GIS, Part 1
The beginning in a series of blog posts focusing on building and implementing a GIS in local government.
Government 2.0 Camp – Geo-Data Catalogue
Government 2.0 Camp – GeoData Catalogue
Institute for Geospatial Analysis & Mapping in SL
The Institute for Geospatial Analysis & Mapping (GEOMAP) showed up in Second Life late last month on Geo Island – a sim set up by Zeppo Romano for the Geography-Geology Department at Illinois State University. The Institute supports research, education, and training, and community outreach activities. This build has also been interesting to me for…
A Little Bit of GIS in My Life
So today Rick Knights, technical service associate, with WTH Engineering stopped by to continue his work on helping us implement our city geographic information system, or GIS. Rick is a certified ENP or emergency number professional who is very familiar with how the 911 system works in the states. We began discussing the many intricacies…
Musings After a Week at AU
I just got back from spending a whole week attending Autodesk University, AU, and as usual have come away with a lot of knowledge, but also a lot of questions about the engineering profession and where it is going. At the opening session, there were presentations related to the future of design which were incredible….