Northwest Indiana GIS Forum
Meeting Notes
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Meeting Location: Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission
Members in Attendance: Jackie Anders, NIRPC; Geoff
Anderson, Calumet College of St. Joseph; Lorraine Bank, City of Hobart;
Darrell Crowell, Town of Schererville; Rick Hammond, Woolpert; Kim
Holmquist, School City of Hammond; Jean Kapala, IUN student; Becky
McKinley, Hammond Sanitary District; Chris McNamara, Indiana Department
of Natural Resources, Law Enforcement; Kevin Miller, Indiana Department
of Environmental Management; Cele Morris, IUN/NWI Center for Data and
Analysis; George Olmsted, IUN; Lauren Rhein, NIRPC; Dan Rieden; Lake
County Parks Dept.; Alan Rosenwinkel, Lake County Parks Dept.; Tim
Sutherland, IUN/NWI Center for Data and Analysis
Local Implementation
The Code Enforcement Department of the City
of Hammond is sponsoring
the Hammer for Hearts program. Citizens in need can apply for assistance
with home improvement projects. ArcPublisher will be used to create
maps geocoding homes chosen for the program to assist the project
workers. A GIS application tool created for the City was presented
at the State GIS Conference earlier this month by Becky and GIS
vendor Greeley and Hanson. The dynamic segmentation tool provides
a link between street segments and related sewer and pavement information.
Data is stored in an Access Database and viewed with ArcReader.
Tool users can click on a street segment and receive information
related to that section. The tool will provide information to keep
track of city street repaving and sewer projects.
The School City of Hammond is using GIS to visualize the demographic
makeup of the district.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources currently has ninety mobile
data units in the field. They plan to load a number of different layers
including the 2003 aerial photography onto the units for use in the
field. The possibity of incorporating hand held units for data input
in the field is being investigated.
With some help from the Girls Scouts and members of the Boys and Girls
Club, the Lake County Parks Department report that their Huck Finn
Project is assembled and waiting for the 2005 orthophotography flyover.
Using 4,500 plastic milk jugs supplied by the Hammond Recycling Center
and banners painted and donated by Gary Art Works, the project is located
in Lake County’s Three Rivers Park in Lake Station and can be
seen from east bound I-94 at the I-65 interchange. The artwork will
remain displayed until the flyover of Northwest Indiana has taken place.
NWI GIS Forum members assisting with the construction included Becky
McKinley, Betty Kiechle and husbands and Cele Morris. Lake County Parks
slowly continues ArcGIS 9.0 implementation.
The Town of Schererville Police Department joins us today on a fact
finding mission. They would like to incorporate GIS with their dispatch
functions.
Lorraine Bank, the newly appointed Stormwater Coordinator with the
City of Hobart, reports that she is currently familiarizing herself
with ArcView 3.3. She anticipates that the City will upgrade shortly
to ArcGIS 9.0. New hardware will be needed for the system. GPS will
also be incorporated into the system when possible.
The Law Enforcement Institute at Calumet College
of St. Joseph has
received funding to help fund GIS work.
Kevin Miller with IDEM is currently working on a feasibility study
with Army Corps of Engineers related to restoration along the Grand
Calumet River. Data is being compiled and categorized in a GIS database.
He is also merging layers to create statewide layers. He is working
with local sources in Hammond, East Chicago, Gary and Whiting to procure
additional data. He has found that entering the data into geodatabase
format has expanded the size of the dataset considerably.
George Olmsted reports the highest enrollment ever for the Intro to
GIS class he is teaching at through the School of Public and Environmental
Affairs at IU Northwest this semester.
NIRPC has been utilizing GIS to finalize its Connections 20/30 transportation
plan. Demographic and transportation data has been used to create maps
for the plan. They also intend to us the Online Metadata Tool to document
the spatial dataset that they are creating. They have received funding
from IDOT to upgrade their GIS system to ArcGIS 9.0. Their environmental
section will also be trained to use the software. It is also expected
that hardware will be upgraded this fall.
IUN’s Data Center projects include: Social Assest Mapping for
Gary and Crown Point, Environmental Database compilation, Basic GIS
Workshop for Save the Dunes, tentative contract with City of Gary/Plangraphics
for metadata creation. The recent Making IT Happen event on campus
included representation from IUB Data Management Support personnel.
They demonstrated some GIS software. They also promoted the following
informational website: GIS
Resources at IU.
Rick Hammond with Woolpert is involved in the statewide orthophotography
project. Jets are very quickly flying the 1 foot resolution photography – Propeller
plans will fly the 6” resolution counties more slowly. Another
round of presentations to explain the program will begin around the
state in April. The series will begin April 15 with 10 presentations
being held around the state. There should be information shortly about
a Northwest Indiana presentation on April 25. Location to be announced.
There is a 3rd
fact sheet detailing project deliverables.
NWI GIS Forum Activities
Metadata Tool
Becky and Cele gave a presentation of the Online
Metadata Tool at
the annual Indiana GIS Conference held March 9-10, 2005, in Indianapolis.
The Indiana Geological Survey expects that the tool will be in
final form by Mid April. The INGISI Education Committee has expressed
interest in promoting the tool statewide.
Training
Becky will hold an ArcGIS 9.0 training session on Thursday and Friday,
April 14-15, 2005. The session will be held in the IUN GIS lab – Room
230, 2nd floor of the library. IDEM will contribute the training
materials. Students will be considered on a first come, first served
basis. All students must have immediate access to the software to
be eligible for the free training. Contact
to reserve
a space in the class.
Administration
Meeting notes will be posted to the NWI
GIS Forum website
as soon as possible after meetings. (click on
Minutes)
ESRI Midwest Regional Users Group Conference
Look for more information about an ESRI Midwest Regional Users Group
conference to be held this fall in Bloomington. The Indiana Geological
Survey will host this activity.
INGISI/IGIC Report
2005
Orthophotography Project update – EarthData was selected
as the vendor for the project. Aerial photography has commenced in
the southern part of the state. A March 2006 completion date has been
set for the project. Dissemination of the data is expected to be tricky
due to its large size.Visit the following website regularly
to keep track of program updates.
To track
the progress of the project link to the following EarthData
Project Tracker website. Username:
indiana1 - Password:
hoosier
To see status of 6” project choose: Indiana 15
To see status of 1’ project choose: Indiana 30
Huck Finn Project – This
project being sponsored by GENI and IGIC coincides with the 2005 orthophotography
flyover. Educational materials to introduce geographical ideas to K-12
students will be created based on the ortho project. K-12 institutions
are encouraged to create simple art work covering a large area of a
property (such as a parking lot, etc.) that may be viewed via the 2005
orthophotography.
The “Keep
Track” link on the website will provide postings of vendor status
to show areas of the state that have been flown. Flights will occur
primarily during March and April of 2005. Lake County Parks has participated
in the program by creating a display at Three Rivers Park in Lake Station.
See a description of their project under local implementation section.
Annual Conference – The annual state GIS conference
sponsored by INGISI was held March 9-10, 2005, at the Crowne Plaza
Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. Presentations by NWI GIS Forum members
included: Martin Brown, Gary Sanitary District, and Annie Metcalf,
Plangraphics; Cele Morris, IUN Data Center and Becky McKinley, Hammond
Sanitary District; Betty Kiechle, Lake County Surveyor’s Office
and Joyce West, Sidwell; and Becky McKinley and Steve Stricklen, Greeley & Hansen;
Congratulations to the Town of Munster for receiving the smaller municipality
award for use of GIS to justify storm water analysis.
Senate Bill 493 – Legislation to create a state office of GIS.
This legislation formalizes GIS possibilities for the state. (standards,
etc.) In an attempt to focus their efforts, INGISI has developed a
strategy document to outline legislative goals to be achieved during
this upcoming session. The following four items will be stressed:
- Framework data program to create a basemap for Indiana
- Development of GIS Office and GIS advisory board
- Emphasize University participation in statewide GIS coordination
- Create local government GIS technology grant.\
A bill to establish the above goals is currently under review.
The bill is called SB493 and you can read the text and follow its
progress.
This bill has been passed through the Senate and is now in the House.
Contact your local representative to express your support for this
legislation.
INGISI
Committees Local
participation in the following INGISI committees is highly encouraged:
Data Sharing, Education, Standards and Recommendations, Conference,
Networking and Web Development. You may contact any Council member
or see the INGISI website for more information.
Other Business
A statewide economic development website is being developed and is
sponsored by the Indiana Department of Commerce with input from economic
development personnel from utilities NIPSCO and Cinergy. Local planning
departments have been contacted to provide available site information.
A GIS component to the site reminiscent of Map Quest is being planned
for the site. It will be up to local entities to add any detail to
the site that they would like. Local planners should be aware of this
project. The site is currently being tested. Becky will forward a URL
when it becomes available.
Next Meeting: Thursday, June 2, 2005, Northwest Indiana Regional Planning
Commission, Portage, IN – 9:00 –11:00 am
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