Northwest Indiana
GIS Forum
Meeting Notes
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Meeting Location: Indiana University Northwest
Members in
Attendance:
Joe Alamillo, City of Hammond; Rex Burton, Highland Redevelopment
Commission; Roy Evans, Purdue University Calumet; Chip Farrell, LFA;
Jeanne Hansen; LFA; Todd Kesselring, Elkhart County GIS; Betty Kiechle
Lake County Surveyor's Office; Brian Lane, Town of Dyer; Naida Lehmann,
EcoNatives; Carmen Maso, US EPA; Becky McKinley, Hammond Sanitary
District; Kathy Molke, DLZ; Cele Morris, IUN/NWI Center for Data &
Analysis;
David Nail, USGS;
Dan Niksch, City of Crown Point Engineering; Lauren Rhein,
NIRPC; Dan Rieden, Lake County Parks; Lucy Stanfield,
US EPA; Steve Sticklen, Greeley & Hansen; Tim Sutherland, IUN/NWI Center
for Data & Analysis;
Local Implementation
Becky McKinley
reports that there has been a big demand within Hammond city offices
for the 2005 orthophotography. She has been rolling out the free AccuGlobe
application to interested departments. Response within the city has been
great since an initial presentation. She will hold a training session for
all City Departments. The next step is to create a "User's Group" within
the City. Becky has hired Sandra Wilmore as an assistant. Sandra will
start working with Becky after the first of the year.
Introduction to
Computer Methods in Geography is being taught by Cele and Tim through the
Geosciences Department this Fall semester at
IU
Northwest.
Nine students were enrolled in the course. Use of ESRI Virtual Campus
exercises through the Indiana University License agreement provided good
hands on experience with ArcGIS 9.1. The Data Center has also been involved
in some GIS work associated with grant projects endowed by the campus Center
for Regional Excellence. Working with the Non Profit Institute, Cele is
geocoding locations of nonprofit organizations in Northwest Indiana. Other
geocoding projects by the Data Center included plotting locations of
companies in Northwest Indiana currently exporting their products and
locations of conservation/restoration projects in the region. Cele recently
participated in a conference call related to the Data Center's FGDC category
1 grant (Metadata Outreach and Training). Information relayed during the
call included:
-
The 2007
FGDC CAP
grant announcement has been presented. There are five funding
categories available. Deadline for proposal submission is January 26,
2007.
-
The North American Profile NAP (metadata standard)
based on ISO 11915 (international standard) will be under review
shortly by the Canadian Standard Board and ANSI. A workbook is being
created for the NAP.
-
Train the Trainer materials (metadata) are being
developed and will be available through the FGDC website in the future.
-
A metadata profile is
being created for use in emergency response situations. It will
include a core set of elements to collect in the field to aid office
personnel.
There are many
GIS projects currently underway in Elkhart County. Large editing
projects have been completed for their address point and zoning layers. GIS
use within the county has grown considerably over the last year. ArcReader
has been rolled out to a number of departments within the county. Several
specific applications have been created based on department needs.
The Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC) has
been involved in a Train the Trainer program to promote the IndianaMap
Economic Development Tool associated with the 2005 Aerial Photography
project. The program is based on using the photography in an AccuGlobe
project. A presentation to the Northwest Indiana Forum has resulted in
their request for a second presentation using the Economic Development
Tool. NIRPC is also using the 2005 aerial photography as they begin work on
their 20/40 Plan. As partners with the US Census Bureau, NIRPC will host a
presentation in the future.
We welcome David
Nail, US Geological Survey, new liaison for Indiana. David has been
with the USGS for 18 years and has just moved to Indiana.
The City of Crown Point is working on many small projects using GIS.
They are near completion on their zoning project. Data associated with
fire hydrants are being assembled for emergency response situations. "As
built" information is being scanned to attach to the GIS. Plowing routes
are being created. A grid system for the city is being created for
water/sewer issues.
Lake County
continues work on the seven base layers for the county. Funding for a 2008
update to aerial photography is presently on a wish list. Lake county
municipalities that would like to contribute to funding for updated
photography should contact the Lake County Surveyor's Office. Data forwarded to
the US Census Bureau by Lake County is one of only 13 Indiana counties
accepted. Distribution of First Responders software and data are currently
underway. They Surveyor's Office is personally installing and training each
of the ~40 county organizations eligible for the datasets. Contact
to request 2005 aerial photography download service. A small fee is charged
for the service. Requestors furnish a hard drive for download. The County
will take care of saving the data to the drive with a quick turn around
time.
US EPA Region 5
has a
project mapping the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal for a risk management plan.
They are also pleased to be using the Indiana 2005 aerial photography for
hazardous waste sites assessment.
The Town of
Dyer has been using the new aerial photography for work on their utility
layers. They are involved with GPS work locating and describing trees and signs for
inventory purposes. Town personnel recently attended HAZUS training.
Lake County
Parks
has upgraded hardware suitable for GIS. They have created a Taskforce of
"Feature Class Teams" for inventory purposes. They intent to keep track of
burn sites, restoration projects and utilities. Data will be collected
using GPS.
Naida Lehmann
has been working with the National Park Service and Chicago Wilderness
pursuing plant community mapping by identifying species of plants in
Northwest Indiana. She advises that USGS mappers have been using infrared
photograpy to identify plant species. Rare plant species sites are being
monitored annually to determine their status. She would like to include
additional species in her work as well locate high quality sites for
protection. The projects she is working on include a web based product of plant communities.
She intends to study GIS to include mapping as well.
Working with the Housing Task
Force for the City of Hammond,
students and faculty of
Purdue Calumet
Department of Construction Management and Engineering Technologies have
conducted a study of housing stock in the city. A pilot study that
included two Hammond neighborhoods was launched. Houses were visually ranked using
a number of criteria. The data collected was generalized then coded and
presented to the neighborhoods and Task Forces. Information will be used to
seek solutions for problems that were identified. Citizens will be involved
in the process. Partnerships between City Departments and Purdue University
created for this project were highly positive. GIS mapping continues to be
a very important part of projects, particularly for public presentation.
Kevin Mickey of
the POLIS Center at IUPUI, will conduct an HAZUS - MH Advanced Flood
training session at Purdue Calumet, on January 3, 4 and 5, 2007. Sessions
each day will run from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. Register for the workshop by
sending and email to the following stating your interest:
hazusgis@yahoo.com
NWI GIS Forum Activities
Training
An ArcGIS 9.1 training
session is scheduled for January 11-12, 2007, at Indiana University
Northwest, GIS lab. There is currently a waiting list for the session.
Becky will contact those currently on the list to determine if there will be
any slots available. Contact
for additional information.
Due to the popularity of this training, a waiting list has been started from
those not able to participate in the last session.
Administration
Meeting notes will continue to be posted to
the NWI GIS Forum website as soon as possible after meetings (click on
Minutes).
Resource links were recently checked and updated/removed where necessary.
Please contact with any comments or input on the website.
The Data Center at IU Northwest has received an
extension from the Federal Geographic Data Committee to continue using up
their funding to support metadata outreach and training in Northwest
Indiana. Cele participated in the IGIC Road Shows this spring and
summer by introducing the Online Metadata Tool through presentations around
the state as part of the activities associated with this grant. Cele
has submitted an abstract to the Indiana GIS Conference to give a
presentation on the Online Metadata Tool at the state conference next year.
INGISI/IGIC Report
IGIC has changed to a fee based membership
organization. The fees will be used to support overhead. Members will now participate in the election process
for the organization. Information about membership fees can be found at:
http://www.in.gov/ingisi/member/membership.html Nominations for
new Board Members are currently being requested.
The annual Indiana
State GIS Conference
will be held March 13 - 14, 2007. The conference will be held at the
Crowne Plaza Hotel and Conference Center in Indianapolis. Click on the
link above for more information.
The IGIC Education Committee is scheduling a number of
presentations for next year. In January the Indiana Department of
Transportation will provide a speaker to discuss GIS and transportation
issues.
Other future topics include GIS topics for K-12 educators and methodology
for metadata compilation. Send
any GIS topics that you would like to
see included in the schedule. Presentations will likely take place at
the State Library in Indianapolis.
A traveling presentation has been created to showcase
the IndianaMap project. The presentation shows layers of Indiana data.
It will be primarily set up at the Children's Museum in Indianapolis.
Additional future locations are being investigated.
Other Business
Indiana University Information Technology Services (UITS)
has partnered with the Indiana Geologic Information Council to host an
enterprise geodatabase service for the Statewide Digital Orthophotography
Program. Be sure to periodically check the progress the the program by
visiting the
Indiana Spatial Data Service.
Next Meeting: A
meeting will be scheduled for February, 2007, in the future.
Presentation by Steve Sticklen, Greeley and Hansen:
Impervious Area Analysis
Some useful links:
Digital Data Technologies (DDTI) (for download of free AccuGlobe
2007 software) http://ddti.net/
Indiana Spatial Data Portal (for 2005 aerial photography download)
http://www.indiana.edu/~gisdata/05orthos.html
Online Metadata Tool
POLIS Center Emergency Management Seminars:
http://www.in.gov/dhs/
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