Texas GIS Community Meeting Recap - 3rd Quarter, 2015

Hosted by: Richard Wade, TNRIS Director/State GIO; Felicia Retiz, Deputy GIO Location: William B. Travis Bldg, 1701 North Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78701 Date Held: Tuesday, July 28, 2015, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.**

The GIO hosted the 3rd GIS Community meeting for calendar year 2015. Approximately 60 guests representing state and local government agencies, as well as universities, were in attendance.

Meeting Slides

Attendee Introductions & Agency Roll Call

Attendees introduced themselves and gave quick updates on GIS related projects underway at their organization. Not a complete list.

Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) – Roger Young

Working on a retail fireworks inspection mobile application. Could use some technical assistance from the Community. TNRIS to follow up with Mr. Young.

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Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) - Chris Bardash, Michael Zuegelder

Currently working on an open portal to share data developed and maintained by TxDOT. Data portal will contain more file types than just GDBs such as spreadsheets, KML, etc.

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University of Texas, Austin (UT-Austin) – Christine Roquet

Working on a multi-county cadastral compilation database across Texas. Surprised at the lack of availability, various formats, and differing models from county to county. Will share with the Community upon completion. Parcels are mainly comprised of university owned lands.

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Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS) - Renae Seely

Developing a SAS database of assets and information to assist with data reporting and analysis.

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Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) – Suzanne Hemphill

Working on a database of affordable housing locations and their proximity to healthcare and other related amenities.

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Office of the State Demographer/Texas State Data Center – Lila Valencia

OSD maintains an inventory database of state data resources as a service for the Texas Legislative Council (TLC). Information is compiled annually via a survey sent to a specific point of contact, generally state agency legislative liaisons. Since 2013, the survey has included questions to determine if the data collected and published by the state agency contains “geographical indicators” or is available in a GIS ready format.

The next survey is expected to go out in October. OSD requests assistance from the GIS Community to be on the lookout for the survey. The GIO will send an announcement to the Community when the survey is released. The database can serve as an important resource for the exchange of geospatial information.

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Texas Historical Commission – Michelle Valek

Working on a re-design of the Texas Historical Site and Archaeological Atlas.

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Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) – Kim Ludeke

Fine tuning the Vegetation Map of Texas, focusing on mapping the Golden Cheeked Warbler habitat. Georeferenced Blanco River imagery, available to share with State agencies.

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Texas Natural Resources Information System - Felicia Retiz

Infogroup business and residential data still under review by State agencies and new sample data is available. Please contact Felicia if you are interested in reviewing the new samples and if you are interested in contributing to a State enterprise license.

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Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS) – Jared Vandenhelvel

Working on a first responder basemap.

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TNRIS Project Updates

Google Imagery Pilot Project Update – Richard Wade

Texas’ size taxed Google’s ability to stand up a dedicated map service using the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) technology. The due date for moving to the GCP is 8/7/15.

AppGeo is developing a tool that will generate unique links, both authenticated (password required) and non-authenticated, and allow for better reporting of usage. The new service will now allow users to direct print and export, zoom to level 20 (true 6-inch resolution), and contain new imagery flown in 2015. A shapefile with acquisition dates will be available from the project page.

Information will be posted to the project page as it becomes available.

Special recognition goes out to TxDOT for assisting with imagery review and making calls for Google to correct.

Read more at the Google Imagery Pilot Project Page.

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2014/2015 Statewide Orthoimagery Project – Gayla Mullins

The acquisition schedule has been affected by the unusually wet spring season and lots of cloud cover. Although a majority of the State has been collected, consideration for collecting the remaining 9% in the next leaf-off period, late 2015, is underway.

Quality control review has begun for Season 1 imagery. All 6-inch buy-up imagery products have been collected and qc is nearly complete. Delivery to partners is expected by end of August.

Upon project completion and delivery, the imagery will be hosted in Esri’s ArcGIS Imagery services.

Read more at the 2014/2015 Statewide Orthoimagery Project.

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2015 Brazos Orthoimagery – Gayla Mullins

6-inch, 4-band imagery was flown this past winter season and delivered to the Brazos partners. Please contact TNRIS if you are interested in obtaining a copy of the data.

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3D Elevation Program (3DEP) Update– Joey Thomas

USGS is administering grants through the 3D Elevation Program to update the National Map Elevation Inventory. Grant pre-proposals are due August 25 and there are two entities in the central Texas area that will submit a proposal. If you are interested in applying for a grant, please contact Joey for more information and assistance with writing the pre-proposal as well as the proposal.

Peer Presentations

Benefits of the Hexagon Geospatial ELA

Ken Hamilton, Regional Sales Manager, Hexagon Geospatial

Center for Geospatial Science, Applications and Technology: Collaboration Opportunities and Geospatial Technology Solutions

Dr. Michael Bishop, Founding Director, GeoSAT

GIS Rule

Felicia Retiz, Deputy Geographic Information Officer, TNRIS

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Next Meeting

4th quarter meeting will not be held due to coincidence with 2015 Texas GIS Forum