ESRI Wisconsin User Group

Another Chapter for EWUG

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:17:00 +0000

At some point during a conference, I as EWUG President, ask how many people have never attended an EWUG conference before. Year after year, about third of the hands go up. Looking back our attendance numbers, our attendance has stayed very consistent over the past seven or eight years. This could only mean one thing - about a third of EWUG turns over every year. One out of three people would not return next year, but they would be replaced by someone else. For a long time this really bothered me.

I then remembered with the “UG” stood for – we are a User Group. As GIS professionals, we need to know the nuts and bolts of the machine because we never know what we’ll be asked to do. Our job is to make sure the machine is finely tuned and ready to go. Yet for many of us, GIS is not your primary job. We do GIS for local government, state government, for business, natural resource protection, or even rat control. What I’ve come to realize is that the third of attendance that we “loose” every year is just because we’ve taught the non-GIS people enough GIS so that they can use it in their everyday jobs. And each year there’s a lot of other people that say, “Hey, this GIS thing is important – I gotta learn more about that.” And thus we teach people and they move on.

The need for greater GIS knowledge is not new either, it existed more than ten years ago. Back in 1998-ish a group of ESRI users had an idea after an ESRI technology fair in Madison. They wanted to create an ESRI user group that would help promote GIS concepts throughout the state. And thus EWUG was born. The name and logo choice quickly followed. The first conference was held in Milwaukee in 1999. The first president was Todd Niedermeyer. I, David Haines, somehow became President in 2000 and have remained a benevolent dictator ever since. Last year (2008 conference) I announced at the business meeting that my time as EWUG President would be over after the 2009 conference. Nine years was long enough. At the time, I had no idea I would departure sooner.

I have now left Wisconsin for Colorado, for a great opportunity. I will get to use both my Planning and GIS experience to help plan for unique and special area of the country. If you happen in Boulder, please feel free to stop on by the Boulder County Land Use Department. I’ll be happy to talk about GIS and Planning in the warm sun on Pearl Street.

As for EWUG – it will EWUG on! The organization is well supported, well funded and will continue on. I know that Nedd, Emily, Brian and Bill will finally get to try some things now that I’m gone. I also know you’ll continue to see the user group prosper. I am confident that they continue to grow EWUG. At and at all times, remember, it is a user group.

Checking out the Flat Irons

Website Issues

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:03:00 +0000

Been having trouble with the website the past few days. It should all be fixed now. If you ever have problems with the website be sure to let us know so we can get it fixed.

DevSummit Presentations Online

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:15:00 +0000

Not able to go to the Developer's Summit?

You can still check out the presentations! Just search the sessions. Some of the PowerPoints have already been posted and I expect more to follow.

RIP ArcCatalog and other changes in 9.4

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:07:00 +0000

From mandown

ArcCatalog will no longer be a separate application in ArcGIS Desktop 9.4. It will be integrated as a window within ArcMap. Old-schoolers may remember when ArcToolbox was a seperate application (pre 8.3?), and now it is like a toolbar accessable in ArcMap and ArcCatalog. I expect ArcCatalog will function the same way. I've really never understood the reasoning behind the two applications. Hopefully this will be the end of pointless schema locks. Yes!

I also like the idea that the docability of the toolbars will be improved to Visual Studio's feel. Oh how much time I've wasted trying to get the Tool toolbar and the Layout toolbar positioned exactly where I want them.

"ArcMap will sport a similar feel to Microsoft Visual Studio. Dockable windows and improved toolbars ... ArcCatalog will be built into ArcMap and made available via a dockable window. Drag and drop will be supported as well."

I also love to script in Python, so I'm glad to hear -

"... Python will be integrated within ArcMap. A new Python window will be available directly from ArcMap which will allow you to run and debug Python scripts directly. Python scripts will also run asynchronously so you can continue working while your script is running in the background."

But 9.4 is "quite a while off". By these two changes alone, I think this will be the most significant upgrade at the desktop level (at least for me) since 8.3.

If you have more to add, please comment. As of now I haven't seen this too much covered yet from the DevSummit.

GIS isn't just for Government

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:03:00 +0000

A course on Business Analyst Online will be added to Milwaukee Area Technical College's existing GIS Certificate program. Teaching the power of GIS through government applications is helpful (land use, utilities, law enforcement, etc.) it can be difficult for businesses to see how it will be useful for their day-to-day needs. So I agree that it's great to see the business aspects of GIS being taught and used.

Milwaukee County Web Mapping Is Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:48:00 +0000

To follow up on my January posting, most Wisconsin Counties now have web mapping sites. Most significantly Milwaukee County is finally available. While several municipalities within the County have been online - most notably the City of Milwaukee - its great to see the state's most populated county online.

Madison Gets Photographed by Kite

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:33:00 +0000

I have a thing for this sort of aerial photography. There is a great article from the Wisconsin State Journal about it.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Loves GIS

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:42:00 +0000

That's not sarcastic, I really think the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has found the power of GIS for telling a story. It seems like more and more of their "Watchdog" reports are using GIS. Most recently they looked at pavement conditions by Aldermanic district. What's really neat, is they actually try to describe the methodology they use. They've done this in the past with potholes, and their "Wasted in Wisconsin" series. Its more than showing a pretty map, its actually doing some geographic analysis to make a point.

ESRI Server Contest

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:51:00 +0000

Hopefully you received the email for voting for the ArcGIS Server Mashup and ArcGIS Mobile code challenges. There is real money involved.

Vote for ArcGIS Server Mashup Code Challenge
First prize - $7,000
Second prize - $3,000

Vote for ArcGIS Mobile Code Challenge
First prize - $4,000
Second prize - $2,000

Unfortunately, you have to receive the email to vote. I think that's a bad idea. Wouldn't non-GIS types be a better judge of the best application? Doing GIS f0r GIS's sake seems kind of silly in the day of Web 2.0. Otherwise it's kind of like the Oscars where the winner isn't always the most popular.

ArcPad 8 and Maintenance

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:44:00 +0000

ArcPad 8 will be released soon. While it contains many new features and enhancements, the most significant change viewed by many will be its change to a maintenance-based application.

Previously ArcPad was sold without 'free' software upgrades. If you wanted a upgrade to the next version, you had to buy the next version complete. Now with version 8, you can put ArcPad on maintenance - complete with regular updates and technical support just like many of the other 'Arc' products. This is likely to be a welcome change, as it may bring about much more frequent software updates to the fast changing world of mobile GIS.

Wisconsin GISPs

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:56:00 +0000

In the latest GISC-Eye newsletter a fellow EWUGer is profiled.

The list of GISPs keeps growing. Last time I looked, Wisconsin has a good share of them too. If you run the numbers, I think Wisconsin would be at the top of a ranking of GISPs per capita.

T-Shirts

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:46:00 +0000

Did you know you can see all the T-Shirt photos that have every appeared in ArcNews?

While getting your picture in ArcNews is pretty neat, getting your own design printed on a T-Shirt is even better.

For the 2009 EWUG conference, we're having a T-shirt design contest. The winner gets their design - go figure- printed on this year's conference T-shirt! The only rule - the design must be created with ESRI software. Just think of the cool stuff you can do with ArcMap or ArcGIS Explorer. Deadlines and other submittion stuff will be posted later in the year on the webpage. But start thinking about what you want to do.

If you can do this with GE, just think of what you could do with some real cartography:

Fame and Glory

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:34:00 +0000

There's two days left to submit an entry for the ArcGIS Server Mashup Challenge and the ArcGIS Mobile Challenge. If your planning to submit, why don't you just comment below what your submitting? At least you'll have some recognition in case you don't win. Or does anyone take these contest seriously?

New Deal Mapping

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:12:00 +0000

The Wisconsin State Journal has a great article about the lasting effects of the New Deal. I found one example very interesting. I hope that money spent in today's projects will still be valuable seventy years later.

"In 1940, for example, $17,922 was budgeted to "modernize records in the city engineering office." And in 1939, workers were hired to locate and map all the city's stormwater catch basins.

Nelson, the city engineer, is more than familiar with this mapping work because over the years he has continued to rely on those maps to find out everything from the location of sewers and water mains to the building materials used in old streets. Though most of the information has been transferred to computer, one large map is still used regularly, he added. It's a map that shows different street surfaces at the time. Nelson still has staff drag the map out to check what might be in store for workers demolishing and replacing streets."

Finding Missing People

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:28:00 +0000

As has been well reported, USA Today had an article about the search for bin Laden. While the techniques described are mostly used to find criminals, I wonder if similar techniques could be used to find missing kids, elderly or mentally disabled persons.

While I'm not suggesting these populations act the same as criminals, I think its fairly reasonable that kids for instance might be attracted to certain areas (trees, creeks, etc.) where they could get lost. Same might be true for elderly or mentally disabled persons. It would be interesting to generate a missing person heat map to help aid in search efforts.

Cost Recovery

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:04:00 +0000

Its been widely reported that the California Appeals Court has ruled again Santa Clara's GIS data selling practices. I've mentioned the case several times before. More locally, Wisconsin has the WIREdata case, which has also been previously discussed. Just this month the State Cartographer's Office issued an analysis of the case. While the WIREdata case is not as clear-cut as the Santa Clara case, it does seem lean away from cost recovery practices (selling data for more than strict cost of reproduction).

Now may be a good time to shift away from charging people who use and benefit from the data, and start charging people who cause the data to change in the first place.

Favorite Non-GIS Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:39:00 +0000

Here's some of my favorite blogs that are not specifically about GIS, but touch on related stuff (and sometimes even GIS) often enough to keep me coming back for more:

(In no particular order)
Digital Urban - Visualizing city environments
Flowing Data - Turning data into art
Community Indicators - All about measuring what makes places great
Microsoft Live Labs - See what the big Gorilla is cooking up
O'Reilly Radar - Watching IT trends
EveryBlock - Public data for the masses
Where - Urban life, infrastructure and visualization
IT Survivor - Planning and Managing IT

Got you own favorites? Add them as a comment.

EWUG 2009 Conference

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:29:00 +0000

The date and location for EWUG 2009 has been selected!

We'll be at the Paper Valley Conference Center in Appleton on Thursday Oct 29th and Friday Oct 30th. (This is the same place and dates as last year).

Paper Valley is such a great conference center in the heart of downtown Appleton. It is hard to find another place that is as affordable with all the amenities. I know many were interested in a Madison location. We looked at several options, but they all would have required a substantial increase in registration fees. Given what's going on with conference and training budgets, we thought it would be best to try to hold the line as much as possible on registration fees.

The 2009 conference also represents a major milestone for us. It is the 10th EWUG conference. I think it would be a great time to do something special to mark the occasion. If you an idea on what we should do, let me know.

Last, many people really liked last year's T-Shirt. So we thought it might be a good idea to have a contest for this year's T-Shirt design. The hitch - it must be designed using ESRI software. (Last year's was done completely with ArcMap, perhaps I'll get around to upload the MXD and GDB to prove it). More on this to come!

See in you in October!

Wisconsin County Web Mapping Sites Updated

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:42:00 +0000

The list of Wisconsin County web mapping sites has recently been updated. Its a great resource if Googling "[county name] wisconsin gis" fails or the link is buried on the county website. There's also a link to how to stream many of these websites directly into your ArcMap session.

Counties with web mapping

Getting Your Road Data Online

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:27:00 +0000

A while back it was posted on LIO-tech how to contact NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas and get your local road data updated to their databases. This is especially helpful if you live in a non-major metro area that they may drive infrequently. But don't feel too left-out if they haven't updated your new street - even metro-Chicago had trouble getting a new freeway to show up.

TeleAtlas: http://mapinsight.teleatlas.com/mapfeedback/index.php
NAVTEQ: http://mapreporter.navteq.com/dur-web-external/secured/submitDur.do?userType=CONSUMER&language=en

Thanks Bill for the info!

ESRI and Facebook?

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 02:51:00 +0000

The ESRI UC conference blog is now on Facebook. There's a long list of comments about this running on James Fee. Most think its a strange move by ESRI, me included. Many corporate sites block Facebook. So your stuck doing work from home. Plus not everyone wants to mix their professional online with personal online lives.

Not being a Facebook user nor much of a social networking enthusist, I'm still trying to figure out the advantage of doing this. My guess is it helps ESRI better track who's reading their info (part of the group), but it seems to do it at a heavy price. I've thought about creating a EWUG group on LinkedIn, but didn't see a real advantage to it (is there now, and if so would I be better off doing it on Facebook now?)

Anyone know if the other official ESRI blogs are headed down the same route? If not, why is the UC blog different?

Tips for Excel in ArcGIS

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:30:00 +0000

The new ESRI Training Matters blog had a recent post about Excel. Since 9.2 (and 9.1 for those with the Business Analyst Extension), you've been able to use Excel tables in ArcGIS. However, it isn't always easy. The article describes some common problems and how to work it out. I know I've made used Excel tables to have non-GIS people populate GIS data in the past. This should help make this a bit simpler and with fewer suprises.

What EWUGers want for Christmas?

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0000

You can now update your GIS using hardcopy. From the ADAPX website:

Capturx for ArcGIS Desktop enables you to print out any ArcGIS map and feature legend on standard paper, and then make changes and annotations to the map in ArcGIS by simply writing on the printed map.

Seems to me like old-school digitizing with out the digitizing board.

Its a niche tool, but if you have the need why not? Could be really useful for public-participation GIS.

Source Digital Urban

EWUG 2008 Presentations

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:19:00 +0000

Several presentations are now available on the previous conference page. (Presentations for past years are also available.) This year's presentations are now embedded directly into the webpage, so you don't need to download the entire file to view it. Hopefully, I'll get around to embedding the other presentations. Here's a sample:

Floodmap Desktop for ArcGIS

View SlideShare presentation

ESRI MPA Signed

noreply@blogger.com (EWUG) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:38:00 +0000

As noted last spring, the State of Wisconsin has been negotiating a Master Purchasing Agreement for ESRI software. The WIGCC, Wisconsin Mapping Bulletin, and LIO-Tech have reported that it has been finalized.