Volume 18 • No.

1 • 2006
Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association

Contents

Refereed
5 Foreword
Dr. Gary Hunter - Guest Editor
7 Pierce County, Washington
Pierce County Responder System (2000—Enterprise System)
15 Sacramento County, California
WebGIS (2004—Enterprise System)
21 South Florida Water Management District
The Lake Okeechobee Stage-Area-Capacity Lookup Application
(2004—Single Process)
25 Tallahassee–Leon County, Florida
Topographic Partnering Group/LIDAR Project (2003—Single Process)
29 Victoria, Australia
Vicmap Topographic 1:30,000 On Line (2004—Enterprise System)
35 Washoe County, Nevada
Washoe County Map Warehouse (2004—Single Process)
39 City of Brampton, Ontario, Canada
Enabling the Enterprise—Brampton’s Web-Based GIS Solution
(2005—Enterprise System)
49 Clayton County (Georgia) Water Authority
GIS System (2005—Enterprise System)
55 Commonwealth of Massachusetts
MassGIS Web Mapping Services (2005—Enterprise System)
63 Baltimore City, Maryland
U-View (2005—Single Process)

On the Cover:
The Exemplary Systems in Government (ESIG) Award, inaugurated in 1980
by the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, recognizes
extraordinary achievement by government agencies in the use of automated
information systems. This achievement is defined as the effective application of
computer technology that can be measured in terms of improved government
services and increased benefits to citizens. The award competition is open to all
public agencies at the federal, state/provincial, regional and local levels. This
issue showcases some of the most notable submissions from the past five years.
This is part two of the URISA Journal Special Issue set highlighting exemplary
systems. Each application has been edited, reviewed, and updated by the
agency to capture achievements made since the award was bestowed. This
issue will recognize past ESIG winners from Washington, California, Florida,
Australia, Nevada, Ontario, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Maryland.
 Journal

Publisher: Urban and Regional Information Systems Association

Editor-in-Chief: Stephen J. Ventura
Guest Editor: Dr. Gary Hunter
Guest Contributor: Corrie Stokes
Guest Contributor: Ken Sipos
Journal Coordinator: Scott A. Grams
Electronic Journal: http://www.urisa.org/journal.htm

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US ISSN 1045-8077

 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

Editors and Review Board
URISA Journal Editor
Editor-in-Chief
Stephen J. Vent u r a , D epar t ment of
Environmental Studies and Soil Science,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Thematic Editors
Editor-Urban and Regional Information
Science
Vacant
Editor-Applications Research
Lyna Wiggins, Department of Planning,
Rutgers University
Editor-Social, Organizational, Legal,
and Economic Sciences
Ian Masser, Department of Urban Planning
and Management, ITC (Netherlands)
Editor-Geographic Information Science
Mark Harrower, Department of Geography,
University of Wisconsin Madison
Editor-Information and Media Sciences
Michael Shiffer, Department of Planning,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Editor-Spatial Data Acquisition and
Integration
Gary Hunter, Department of Geomatics,
University of Melbourne (Australia)
Editor-Geography, Cartography, and
Cognitive Science
Vacant
Editor-Education
Karen Kemp, Director, International Masters
Program in GIS, University of Redlands
Section Editors
Software Review Editor
Jay Lee, Department of Geography, Kent State
University
Book Review Editor
David Tulloch, Department of Landscape
Architecture, Rutgers University
URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006 
Article Review Board
Peggy Agouris, Department of Spatial
Information Science and Engineering, University
of Maine
Grenville Barnes, Geomatics Program, University
of Florida
Michael Batty, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis,
University College London (United Kingdom)
Kate Beard, Department of Spatial
Information Science and Engineering,
University of Maine
Yvan Bédard, Centre for Research in Geomatics,
Laval University (Canada)  Robert Laurini, Claude Bernard University of
Barbara P. Buttenfield, Department of
Geography, University of Colorado
Keith C. Clarke, Department of Geography,
University of California-Santa Barbara
David Coleman, Department of Geodesy and
Geomatics Engineering, University of New
Brunswick (Canada)
David J. Cowen, Department of Geography,
University of South Carolina
Massimo Craglia, Department of Town &
Regional Planning, University of Sheffield
(United Kingdom)
William J. Craig, Center for Urban and
Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota
Robert G. Cromley, Department of Geography,
University of Connecticut
Kenneth J. Dueker, Urban Studies and
Planning, Portland State University
Geoffrey Dutton, Spatial Effects
Max J. Egenhofer, Department of Spatial
Information Science and Engineering, University
of Maine
Manfred Ehlers, Research Center for
Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing, University of
Osnabrueck (Germany)
Manfred M. Fischer, Economics, Geography &
Geoinformatics, Vienna University of Economics
and Business Administration (Austria)
Myke Gluck, Department of Math and
Computer Science, Virginia Military Institute
Michael Goodchild, Department of Geography,
University of California-Santa Barbara
Michael Gould, Department of Information
Systems Universitat Jaume I (Spain)
Daniel A. Griffith, Department of Geography,
Syracuse University
Francis J. Harvey, Department of Geography,
University of Minnesota
Kingsley E. Haynes, Public Policy and
Geography, George Mason University
Eric J. Heikkila, School of Policy, Planning, and
Development, University of Southern California
Stephen C. Hirtle, Department of Information
Science and Telecommunications, University of
Pittsburgh
Gary Jeffress, Department of Geographical
Information Science, Texas A&M University-
Corpus Christi
Richard E. Klosterman, Department of
Geography and Planning, University of Akron
Lyon (France)
Thomas M. Lillesand, Environmental
Remote Sensing Center, University of Wisconsin-
Madison
Paul Longley, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis,
University College, London (United Kingdom)
Xavier R. Lopez, Oracle Corporation
David Maguire, Environmental Systems Research
Institute
Harvey J. Miller, Department of Geography,
University of Utah
Zorica Nedovic-Budic, Department of Urban
and Regional Planning,University of Illinois-
Champaign/Urbana
Atsuyuki Okabe, Department of Urban
Engineering, University of Tokyo (Japan)
Harlan Onsrud, Spatial Information Science
and Engineering, University of Maine
Jeffrey K. Pinto, School of Business, Penn State Erie
Gerard Rushton, Department of Geography,
University of Iowa
Jie Shan, School of Civil Engineering,
Purdue University
Bruce D. Spear, Federal Highway Administration
Jonathan Sperling, Policy Development &
Research, U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development
David J. Unwin, School of Geography, Birkbeck
College, London (United Kingdom)
Nancy von Meyer, Fairview Industries
Barry Wellar, Department of Geography,
University of Ottawa (Canada)
Michael F. Worboys, Department of Computer
Science, Keele University (United Kingdom)
F. Benjamin Zhan, Department of Geography,
Texas State University-San Marcos
 Foreword
This is the second issue of the Journal in which recent winners of
the URISA Exemplary Systems in Government (ESIG) Award
are showcased as success stories in GIS. As before, the managers
of the systems concerned were contacted and asked if they could
rework their original ESIG applications into short journal articles,
and also provide an update on their latest system developments. In
this issue, previous ESIG prize winning systems from Washington,
California, Florida, Victoria (Australia) and Nevada, plus 2005
winners from Ontario (Canada), Georgia, Massachusetts, and
Maryland are presented for the benefit of Journal readers.
To begin, the Pierce County (Washington) Responder
System was established for use by law enforcement, fire, medical
and emergency management personnel when responding to acts
of school violence. Over 60 agencies use the system and many
other jurisdictions are taking note of its success—with Pierce
County transferring the web-based system to other government
entities as a courtesy to avoid duplication of effort and resources.
The system includes school building information, key contacts,
utilities information, floor plans, site maps and images, videos
and pictures of hallways and entrances, incident plans, situation
reports to manage an incident, the facility to communicate school
actions to responders, and a simple interface so responders can
enter on-the-spot school and incident data. Since September 11,
2001, the system has been enhanced to allow other public build-
ing information to be added to the database, and in effect it has
now been cloned for terrorism response purposes.
Next, the Sacramento County (California) WebGIS was
implemented to provide consistent, accurate and up-to-date
information in a timely manner to its personnel. In particular,
the web has now put GIS on the desktops of county staff, and the
system’s applications are logging approximately 40,000 queries a
month. WebGIS is structured into a series of easy to use viewing
applications such as the Parcel Viewer, General Map Viewer, Ease-
ment Viewer and Transportation Viewer. Importantly, dataset
owners still continue to maintain their data on their own servers,
URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006 
and users are secure in the knowledge that what they are seeing
is coming direct from each custodian’s database.
The Lake Okeechobee Stage-Area-Capacity Lookup Appli-
cation, in the South Florida Water Management District, is an
interactive and dynamic web GIS application that shows histori-
cal, current or hypothetical conditions for Lake Okeechobee to
the many agencies and users that have an impact upon it. The
regularly updated archive of lake information allows users of the
system to playback changes within the lake over time—a feature
that was much needed during the water shortage of 2000-2001.
In effect the system has increased the information user base by
over a thousand times without increasing the resource demands
upon officials, and already the system is being adapted to cover
other important lakes.
The Tallahassee-Leon County (Florida) Topographic Partner-
ing Group LIDAR Project, was initially formed to assess whether
LIDAR technology would be suitable for updating contour data to
the required accuracy of a wide variety of county users—a critical
factor in a jurisdiction where more than 60% is covered by dense
tree canopy. After the initial LIDAR trials showed its feasibility,
a cooperative funding arrangement was essential to achieve full
county coverage since the expected costs of a complete LIDAR
project were high. In the end, not only did the LIDAR survey
meet the contouring accuracy demands of all participants, but
it also showed fine detail that had never been mapped before,
and had the added benefit of improved agency interaction and
cooperation.
The Victoria, Australia, VicMap Topographic 1:30,000
application delivers a standard A4-sized topographic map of
anywhere in Victoria as a PDF file via the web. The maps
depict traditional topographic features such as roads, contours,
rivers, lakes, built-up areas, towers, vegetation and spot heights.
Clients also receive an information sheet containing important
metadata, and each map is directly compiled from the most up-
to-date digital data available. At a cost of a few dollars each and
a file size usually less than 1 Mb, immediate delivery is available
around-the-clock without the need for email. This has meant
that the topographic map update program for the state (which
would have cost $24 million for a new complete coverage), can
now be implemented in a far less costly manner by not having
to print thousands of copies of each map for future sale and
distribution purposes.
The Washoe County (Nevada) Map Warehouse in Nevada
had the motivation for its development in 1997 when a major river
flooded and affected two counties—highlighting many problems
with current data sets and aerial photography. Over the next 5
years $1.5 million was spent developing key digital data sets and
the County GIS. In turn this led to the Map Warehouse concept
and, by using the system’s easy-to-use gateway, inexperienced
users can now easily access and display county data from more
that 60 spatial data sets through one interface. This allows them
to print maps and download pre-made PDF or TIFF files—with
the result that the site receives several thousand hits per week and
is used by many organizations and agencies as the authoritative
source for county data.
Moving onto the 2005 ESIG winners, the development of
web—based GIS has improved to such an extent that the City of
Brampton in Ontario, Canada, had its system “up and running
in only 30 days”! Containing more than 420 layers of spatial in-
formation and over 4,400 tabular fields, the system was designed
to overcome typical problems experienced by municipal govern-
ments such as providing easily accessible, accurate and up to date
information internally and to other agencies, as well as making in-
formation available to the public anytime, anywhere. The system
serves a wide range of clients and already previously unidentified
agencies within the city administration have become strong clients
and supporters of the new web application. Externally, public-
domain clients have even asked if they can pay to gain access to
certain datasets—a nice request for any GIS administrator to be
able to report at monthly management meetings.
Elsewhere, the Clayton County Water Authority in Georgia
had to start from the ground up in constructing its GIS. Faced
with replacing a system of pushpin wall maps and hardcopy plans
 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
with update delays of 2-3 years, the Water Authority has imple-
mented a system over the past 6 years that now boasts 24 hour
update times and an eightfold reduction in personnel managing
the map base. In addition, accessing sewer connection informa-
tion for clients has been reduced from taking 2-4 staff an hour
to assemble, to one person producing the information in a few
seconds—and importantly, new technological components (e.g.
wireless technology) are only added to the system based on their
“return on investment and value to the organization”.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ MassGIS web map-
ping service serves the needs of 14 government agencies. In 2005,
over 1,500,000 map requests were made at an average of over
4,300 per day. A color orthophoto base layer has now been added
to the system, and not only does it support customized map-mak-
ing but also on-line spatial queries. Importantly, participating
agencies do not need to purchase, install and maintain their own
software and hardware, nor do they have to run expensive training
courses for staff as the webGIS facility is quite easy for newcomers
to learn to use. Furthermore the OpenGIS XML language used
for system development overcomes barriers posed by the use of
proprietary software platforms.
Finally, the Baltimore City (Maryland) U-view system is
designed to provide utility-related geographic information to
“maintenance crews, engineers, designers, consultants, contrac-
tors and the public” via the web. In addition to the usual utility
map layers, the system provides access to over 250,000 imaged
documents to support internal and external client query responses
and decision making. An important benefit achieved was the
improvement in staff morale, coupled with the identification of
internal users who were making the most of the new system as
“power users.” They would become the in-house experts used to
train non-experts in the system.
Dr. Gary Hunter
Guest Editor
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
 Pierce County, Washington
Pierce County Responder System
(2000—Enterprise System)
System Summary
The Pierce Responder System qualifies as an exemplary enterprise
system because it is used by law enforcement, fire, medical, and
emergency-management personnel when responding to an act
of school violence, which is the nation’s number one issue in
public schools.
The escalation of school violence has created the need for
expanded school emergency preparedness and a better coordinated
emergency response. As school administrators take steps to prevent
violence, several questions still need to be addressed:
• How do schools inform responders of their emergency
procedures and evacuation plans?
• Where do responders obtain accurate information on school
contacts, utilities, shutoffs, and floor plans to act safely and
efficiently?
• How can multiple responding agencies coordinate and
expedite staff, resources, and actions in the most organized
manner?
• How can all school personnel and responders remain
informed of the incident and plans?
• How can casualties and property destruction be limited and
school safety be improved for 75 junior/senior high schools
and 122 elementary schools in Pierce County?
The Pierce Responder System answers these questions and
increases student safety by:
1. Displaying the key information needed for emergency
management including school emergency plans, school
contacts, utility shutoff, building characteristics, area maps,
floor plans, and digital images of interior and exterior
spaces.
2. Providing interactive tools to develop Incident Action
Plans, Situation Reports, Organization Charts, and
Communications Reports. These allow responders to view
URISA Journal • Pierce County, Washington 
the most current information status on the incident from
on-site, en route, or office locations.
The accomplishments of this exemplary government system
are related to ease of use and the actual utilization of the Pierce
Responder System for school emergencies. More than 60 organi-
zations and agencies use the system in Pierce County and many
jurisdictions in the Puget Sound area are planning on future
implementation.
Pierce Responder’s ease of use starts with the Web-based
application, which uses a central database to store information.
When designing the system, the project team interviewed emer-
gency response and school officials to ensure the correct data
was captured and that the user interface was carefully planned
for casual users. Even though many of the personnel were not
experienced information system users, the emergency-manage-
ment staff taught fire, law enforcement, and school personnel the
database loading and operation of the full system in two hours!
Many officers commented that the intuitive interface was simple
to learn and use, and that is critical during an emergency requiring
assistance from neighboring jurisdictions
The Pierce Responder System was tested during a simulated
school emergency and was recently used for a school violence in-
cident. A student brought a live hand grenade to Mount Tahoma
High School. Officials evacuated the school and police and fire
responders used the system to view floor plans as well as to access
information before sending bomb technicians into the school.
The benefits of the Pierce Responder System are immeasur-
able when lives are at risk. The costs to implement the system are
low. Pierce County nominated this system for the URISA ESIG
award because this model can benefit any jurisdictions across the
country and dramatically improve safety in our communities.
Motivation for System Development
According to national polls, the number one issue in public
schools is student safety. Many schools are taking preventive mea-
sures against violence by establishing policies, increasing student
awareness, and hiring School Resource Officers. These measures
identify and prevent actions but many parents still worry, “Will
my children be safe if something does occur? Will they know
where to go and how will they be protected?”
Even before the Columbine tragedy, Pierce County’s Depart-
ment of Emergency Management was building the foundation for
a new approach to school safety. In reviewing incidents that have
occurred in other parts of the country (Arkansas and Ohio) as well
as locally (Moses Lake, Washington, and Springfield, Oregon), it
became clear that the emergency response was severely impacted
by issues of organization, coordination, and communication.
The reoccurring theme in talking to the public safety com-
munity was one of “ifs”—if we only had better information about
the school, if only we had used a common “incident command
system,” if only we had communicated before the event in a joint
planning mode. To overcome these issues, Pierce County’s school
violence Preparedness Program addresses the key information
needs of law enforcement, fire, emergency, medical, and school
personnel with:
1. The Pierce Responder System, an interactive, online Web-
based school information system.
2. Community partnership building between response agencies
and schools.
The motivation for developing the Pierce Responder Sys-
tem was to enable responders (from any responding agency or
jurisdiction) to see critical school information, coordinate tacti-
cal actions between agencies, and communicate status during a
school emergency. In July of 1999, with the system prototype
completed, Pierce County’s Department of Emergency Manage-
ment sponsored a trip to Littleton, Colorado, where they met
with the local officials who responded to the tragic shooting
at Columbine High School. This visit provided information to
fine-tune the Pierce Responder System and verified the critical
and strategic importance of the system. Since the visit, Littleton
Fire Department has implemented a system similar to the Pierce
Responder System for its schools.
System Benefits Achieved
The Pierce Responder System has achieved the primary benefit
of improving student safety. Many other benefits are listed in
this document. In addition to the expected, several significant
unexpected benefits have occurred.
The first unexpected benefit occurred early in planning
for the system. Building a common database takes cooperation
from all agencies and jurisdictions and, sometimes, politics and
“old history” keep groups from working effectively together.
Implementing the Pierce Responder System inspired agencies
to collaborate as everyone worked together to build the school
 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
database as quickly as possible. The system’s practicality and ease
of use created an urgency to gather the information and make
it available.
The second unexpected benefit came in November of 1999
as Y2K planning was reaching a high point. The county’s major
concern was not about computers but about social reactions. At
this time, an Algerian citizen was caught smuggling explosives
at a border crossing less than 100 miles away. Immediately, law
enforcement was concerned about attacks on government build-
ings and banks in the county. The Pierce Responder System was
quickly modified to allow the entry and display of information
for nonschool buildings.
The third unexpected benefit has been the tremendous inter-
est in the system expressed by other counties and jurisdictions.
Pierce Responder solves many student safety issues faced by all
emergency-response agencies. Because the system can easily be
implemented (Web-based, wireless, and database-driven), it is a
cost-effective solution.
A fourth unexpected use and benefit of the Pierce Responder
System was evident during a planning incident response for a
large protest demonstration. A local high school was selected as
an operations base for law enforcement personnel from Pierce
County and surrounding jurisdictions. The system was used to
view floor plans, area maps, and building information to plan
staging, sleeping, and command areas. This information can be
shared with the responding agencies via wireless network in their
patrol vehicles to improve communication and coordination for
the responders.
The most significant and unexpected benefit occurred in the
first year of deployment. A student brought a live hand grenade
to Mount Tahoma High School. The 11 PM news reported the
incident, stating that the school and emergency personnel had
been working together to prepare for such an unexpected event.
Bomb technicians used the Pierce Responder System to review
the floor plans, maps, and utilities before responders entered the
school.
System Design Issues Encountered
and Overcome
The Pierce Responder System design requirements presented
several unique challenges. The system architecture had to support
a large number of users both in the office (networked) and in the
field (remote). The school database development (75 senior/junior
high schools with 3 to 15 buildings per school) was a large effort
that required precise and accurate information.
Access to a Current Database by All Users
Initially, the project team considered storing and retrieving the
school data on CDs. After reviewing the data volume for each
school and outlining the maintenance and logistical problems of
supplying CDs to 30 fire stations across the county, this approach
was abandoned.
The Pierce County Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
department built Web-based applications including a system to
view crime data and maps across wireless modems. The decision
was made to use Web technology for Pierce Responder that would
enable rapid deployment to a large number of users, access to a
single, secure database source, and low cost implementation.
The Internet Web solution did have one drawback: security.
Extra programming was performed to develop ways to secure the
database and application from any unauthorized personnel.
Building the Large School Database Quickly,
Efficiently, and Accurately
The largest design and implementation concern was how to
input all the needed school information (for each school build-
ing) into a database in the shortest time possible. The county did
not have resources to hire additional staff but relied on the fire,
school facilities staff, and school resource officers to enter the
data, thus allowing the task to be distributed to a large number
of knowledgeable people.
The Pierce Responder System was expanded to include a
Web-based, secured, and authorized data-entry system that was
simple to use.
Each user of the system is assigned a log-in and password
with specific privileges such as editing data. When a user makes
an edit to a database record, the changes are stored in the “list of
changes” page. The changes are added to the system only after the
administrator views and accepts the information. Once accepted,
the change is available to all users on the system. The administrator
also has the option to revert to original values or accept changes
that were originally rejected.
The ability of the administrator to control entries into the
database is not only a security feature but also helps standardize
the database information. With many staff members entering data
at the same time, this feature makes it impossible for two people
to update the same field unknowingly. The administrator’s valida-
tion step ensures that each database record is checked before being
accepted into the database. Because the process is automated in
Pierce Responder, this administration task is not time-consuming
and solved the database construction problem by enabling a large
number of staff to work in a Web environment to enter data.
Access to School Data and Incident Plans from
Anywhere
The Columbine incident clearly showed that large numbers of per-
sonnel (fire, law enforcement, medical, emergency-management,
federal) from multiple jurisdictions can be called on to assist in
an emergency. Providing information to all these agencies across
many types of networks would be impossible or cost-prohibitive
and would not address the needs of responders at the incident.
Because Pierce Responder is Web-based, the latest wireless data
modems can be used. This allows any responder with a laptop and
wireless access to the system (for situation reports, action plans,
floor plans, maps, and images). This approach also saves time
and confusion as responders can view Situation Reports from
URISA Journal • Pierce County, Washington 
their cars or offices and arrive on the scene prepared. During the
Columbine incident, 100 officers “self-dispatched” and clogged
the surrounding streets, making it difficult to get medical teams
to the site. The Pierce Responder System was developed for, and
fully tested in, the wireless (19.2 bps) environment.
What Differentiates This System
from Other Similar Systems
Currently, no comparable systems to Pierce Responder for school
violence preparedness exist. Some fire departments keep floor
plans on CDs, law enforcement agencies have static Web pages,
and schools keep their emergency plans in binders in their offices.
Nowhere has an interactive database and Web-based application
been developed that incorporates:
• Detailed descriptive information about the school building,
contacts, and utilities
• Floor plans of each building
• Maps and images of the school and surrounding area
• Pictures and videos of entrances and hallways
• Incident Action Plans, Situation Reports, and Communications
Plans to manage an incident
• Individual school emergency plans to communciate school
actions to responders
• Simple user interface so responders can easily enter school
and incident data
• Enhancement to allow other public buildings to be added
to the database
Historically, no close working relationships between schools
and public safety agencies have existed. Building partnerships be-
tween responding agencies and schools required holding meetings
at the schools to walk through the facilities and identify hazards,
observation sites, and evacuation routes. In many instances, team
members didn't know one another prior to being brought together
for the Pierce Responder planning effort.
The universal acceptance of the Pierce Responder System
differentiates it from others. There has been support from all
emergency-response agencies and organizations in Pierce County
that includes:
• Pierce County Sheriff and Emergency Management
• Twenty-one (21) city police agencies
• Law Enforcement Support Agency for Tacoma-Pierce
County
• Ten (10) fire dispatch agencies
• Twenty-six (26) fire districts
• Washington State Patrol
• Fifteen (15) school districts
This opportunity to plan and prepare for disasters greatly
enhances the effectiveness of emergency operations. By building
interpersonal relationships between responding agencies and
schools and providing emergency response persons with critical
information needed to protect the students and themselves, the
Pierce Responder System is crucial for making strategic decisions
and preventing further casualties and destruction.
System Hardware, Software, and
Data
Hardware:
Fortunately for users of the Pierce Responder System, the hard-
ware components are very simple. Users need only a browser on
their PC to view the system (assuming responders using the system
have a Pentium-based PC). The following chart summarizes the
hardware components. Costs are for estimating purposes only and
jurisdictions may have existing hardware that can be used or may
be able to purchase hardware at a discounted rate. The hardware
listed in the table is what Pierce County has in operation for the
Pierce Responder System. Note: This is for one server. Systems
operation personnel recommend having an additional redundant
server for critical mission applications.
Software:
The Pierce Responder System can be implemented at relatively
low cost. The work of deciding what information to display about
schools is completed and the database is built. As a result, agen-
cies need only to complete and enter data into the forms for each
school. The floor plans and digital pictures are easily entered into
the system. The following chart lists the core software needed on
the central server to support Pierce Responder.
The Pierce Responder System can easily be implemented
with technical staff who are familiar with relational databases and
10 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
NT servers. The system is built with the previously mentioned
commercial software and is delivered with a database ready for
data entry.
Data:
The Pierce Responder System uses relational database technology
via an SQL Server database. Cold Fusion software connects the
database with the application. Any relational database can be used
with only minor changes to the software system.
Where Are We Now?/Future
Directions
When Pierce County won the 2000 Enterprise System ESIG
award, the use of technology for emergency responders was just
beginning. The Pierce Responder System showcased the concepts
and benefits of Web-based applications, wireless communications,
and GIS for emergency response. Driven by rising incidents of
shootings at schools, the Pierce Responder System was designed
to allow easy access to details about school facilities, scanned floor
plan images, and maps. Through a creative business plan, the
system is now being deployed throughout the State of Washing-
ton and around the United States. One of the largest changes
in the past five short years is the change in focus from schools to
terrorism. Pierce County has adapted the Responder System for
terrorism preparedness. The state-of-the-art concepts, ideas, and
designs developed for school safety in the Pierce Responder System
are now being repeated in information systems designed home-
land security initiatives. URISA initiatives have helped educate
and communicate these important information system concepts
throughout local government through the ESIG program.
Usage
In the past five years, the Pierce Responder school safety system has
been used in several emergencies. In 2000, when it was unknown
to what extent the date change from 1999 to 2000 would affect
computer systems, Pierce County used the Responder System to
help plan for any needed emergency or law enforcement response.
Floor plans in the system were used to plan staging areas at down-
town schools for personnel, equipment, and communications.
As expected, the Responder system was used when sheriff
deputies responded to a grenade brought to school and during a
chemical release in a science lab. Whether for a large or minor
emergency, the Responder system has provided needed contact
information, details about the buildings, floor plans, and maps
to emergency personnel. The local newspaper has praised the
county for creating and maintaining this important information
system that hopefully never is used, but when needed, provides
vital information used to protect students.
System Expansion
After the World Trade Center terrorism event, the federal govern-
ment asked jurisdictions to develop a list of potential terrorism
targets. Pierce County’s list includes a large port with chemical
storage, two strategic military bases, several important commercial
businesses (State Farm headquarters), and an interstate corridor
that, if affected, could cripple the region’s economy. When manag-
ers discussed what would be needed for preparedness, there were
clear similarities between the information and functionality of
the Pierce Responder System and the information that is needed
for terrorism preparedness.
Within three weeks of 9/11, Pierce Responder was “cloned”
and ready for adding information into the new Terrorism Re-
sponse System (TRS). Very quickly, information for major targets
was created and loaded into the database. Emergency responders
from the county, cities, the port, utility companies and commer-
cial business formed a Terrorism Early Warning (TEW) group for
sharing terrorism information and developing plans and training
for terrorism preparedness. The TEW group added information
to TRS and requested additional functionality be added to man-
age folders for incident response procedures (bombs or chemical
releases). Responders have used the system during emergency
training simulations and are prepared with reliable and useful
information if a terrorism event occurs in the county.
reviewed several methods of sharing the county technology or
transferring ownership to other jurisdictions. To protect the
county from third-party tort claims, other agencies would need
to indemnify Pierce County, which was unworkable. To make
the system available to other counties, Pierce County transferred
ownership of the software to a commercial software provider.
The county receives royalties when the product is sold to another
jurisdiction and these revenues enable the county to maintain the
database. The company, Prepared Response, now sells the product
as well as implementation services to jurisdictions nationwide.
In 2000, the Pierce Responder System was one of the first
systems in the country to address the needs of emergency re-
sponders during a school violence incident. The justifications
and benefits of the Responder System have surpassed schools and
now includes the homeland security needs of the county. Steven
Bailey, Director of Emergency Management in Pierce County,
commented, “Our Web-based technology, GIS, and wireless
communications have proven over and over again that reliable
data and communication are essential to successful emergency
response and personal safety.”

For five years, responders have designed enhancements to the Examples of System Images and
Pierce Responder and Threat Response systems. New enhance-
ments have included:
Screen Shots
• Adding all elementary and junior high schools to the
Responder database of high schools.
• An interactive GIS map showing aerial photography,
contours, schools, targets, and resources.
• Expanding the searching methods from a drop-down list to
search for schools/targets based on keyword, proximity from
an address, or within a sheriff precinct.
• Linking photos of the building to a location on a map or a
floor plan image.
• Adding “target” folders to the TRS system that include
guidelines and procedures for various incident types.
• An interactive GIS map with a symbol editor that allows
commanders in the field to quickly map locations of the
command, resources, and staging areas and immediately
share this information with responders in the field via the
system.
• An information portal for emergency management that
displays the various emergency management systems and
provides secure access to the applications.

The system is now used by more than 1,700 responders and

school officials in the county and contains detailed and specific
information on 283 schools (high, junior high, and elementary)
and 176 terrorism targets for responders.

The Business of School Safety

After Pierce County won the URISA ESIG award, many jurisdic-
tions across the United States contacted the county about how
they could use the Pierce Responder System. County attorneys

URISA Journal • Pierce County, Washington 11

12 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
 About the Author
Contact person for the system:
Steven Bailey
Director
Emergency Management
2501 S 35th St.
Tacoma, WA 98409
(253) 798-7711
E-mail: sbailey@co.piercewa.us

URISA Journal • Pierce County, Washington 13

 Sacramento County, California
WebGIS
(2004—Enterprise System)
System Summary
Prior to the Sacramento County WebGIS, county departments
have redundantly maintained several databases in hard-copy
and electronic formats. Often the same data was both stored in
both electronic and hard-copy forms on various paper maps and
documents for future reference at public counters or in the field.
Varying data creation and maintenance procedures resulted in data
inconsistencies that both impede interdepartmental coordination
as well as adversely impact decision making. The end result was
less than desirable work efficiency and customer service. With
the development of the WebGIS, the county has begun to em-
bark on a new way of doing business where data sharing, system
integration, and regional collaboration will maximize technology
investments.
Spatial geographic information system (GIS) layers, tabular
data from Property Shared Database (PSD), the Assessor’s Infor-
mation Management System (AIMS), permit data from Building
Inspection’s Advantage Permit System, facility data from three
different Maintenance Management Systems, orthophotos, as
well as FileNET images of subdivision/parcel maps, building
permits, easements, deeds, engineering improvement plans, and
more, are now accessible to the user at his or her desktop. This
aggregation of data from multiple databases into a single window
in the WebGIS has eliminated countless phone calls, staff trips
to file cabinets, storerooms, and/or public counters, as well as
resource-wasting field trips. WebGIS has put GIS capabilities at
every desktop computer attached to the county WAN, in addi-
tion to all wireless devices used in the field. A new level of fiscal
responsibility has been achieved that has increased the GIS user
base without excessively raising the costs for software, software
maintenance, and staff training.
The Sacramento County WebGIS system has quickly become
the most highly used and dominant work tool in the county today.
The applications currently log more than 50,000 queries a month,
averaging almost 2,500 in a typical workday. Queries range from
URISA Journal • Sacramento County, California 15
a basic address, parcel, or owner query, to more specialized uses in
many different departments. County departments have benefited
from WebGIS in ways not envisioned before, such as being able
to identify illegal vineyards, insure rights-of-way are not excavated
right after new pavement overlays, find the address of potential
witnesses prior to trial, as well as early assigning of both parcel
numbers and addresses to expedite the building permit process.
The bottom line is that the WebGIS has now unlocked doors that
many county departments have begun to open in their pursuit
of greater efficiency.
This enterprise look at data has reaped some additional
benefits as well. The combination of a growing user list as well as
integration with other systems and databases has identified many
data inconsistencies that have now been corrected. Several re-
dundant data-maintenance tasks have been eliminated. Efficiency
gains and the ability to make quicker, more informed decisions
based on more accurate data have produced widespread benefits
to several county departments.
Not only are the Sacramento County WebGIS applications
a premier example of enterprise GIS, they are quickly expanding
beyond the county to serve the needs of many other local agencies
in the Sacramento region. Virtual Private Network (VPN) con-
nections provide other local agencies with access to the WebGIS.
This growing user list will ultimately result in more accurate and
timely data for use at every connected desktop or field laptop.
Every participating agency will benefit from data sharing, in-
creased efficiency, improved decision making, and shared funding
of application and data development in the future. The regional
collaboration that has been fostered will benefit the citizens of
Sacramento County for years to come.
Motivation for System Development
Because investments in GIS technology are quite expensive and
uncertain economic times and budget constraints have become an
annual problem, Sacramento County sought to implement GIS
countywide in a manner that would maximize the use and access
of all georeferenced data for the mutual benefit of all users. Driven
by the guiding principle that the most vital corporate asset in the
county is “data,” plus the knowledge that a vast majority of that
data has some type of relationship with geography, Sacramento
County designed, developed, and successfully implemented the
WebGIS system.
In Sacramento County, many departments have struggled
through tight budgets, incorporations (loss of customers and
funding), and staff training and retention issues, making it ex-
tremely difficult to successfully implement GIS technology within
their departments. Additionally, the GIS section observed several
county departments implementing IT systems without perform-
ing a thorough needs analysis that included all affected depart-
ments. Departmental data silos were being created that adversely
impacted the ability for county departments to coordinate their
specific job functions. A true enterprise GIS implementation
could not be attained where redundant databases and depart-
mental data silos are the norm. A way had to be found to expand
GIS functionality and database access to other departments in the
county without the budget becoming the deciding factor.
At Sacramento County GIS, we believed that the majority of
data used by county staff on a daily basis would be most efficiently
and cost-effectively accessed with a Web browser. In the past, that
data has been stored and accessed in several different ways—e.g.,
handwritten notes in several different assessors’ parcel book sets,
paper stored in multiple file cabinets (indexed in several different
ways and many times redundantly), corporate/departmental/sec-
tion/personal spreadsheets or databases, as well as notes and/or
data records in several custom shrink-wrapped systems. Addi-
tionally, several county departments annually purchased licenses
from data providers such as Metroscan, CD Data, and Thomas
Brothers. The challenge of implementing GIS throughout the
county during difficult fiscal times and in an environment of
distributed, disparate databases was successfully overcome by
developing the WebGIS. After agreeing on the following basic
tenets, Sacramento County GIS developed the WebGIS to extend
basic GIS capabilities to every county employee:
• Data is a valuable county-wide asset.
• Redundant data storage and maintenance is not cost-
effective.
• The true data owners should be the responsible data
maintainers.
• County data should be easily accessible to all county staff
who need to use it.
• Decision-making processes are more efficient when there
is easy access to the most accurate, timely, and complete
databases possible.
• Customer service improves when county staff members are
able to utilize tools that maximize job efficiency.
• The spatial component of GIS maximizes flexibility for
users to integrate, access, query, and display geographically
referenced data.
16 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
Figure 1. Parcel Viewer.
Currently numbering seven individual applications, the We-
bGIS system allows users to access, query, display, spatially refer-
ence, and analyze multiple data types (spatial, tabular, image, and
document) even though these databases are managed by multiple
departments on multiple servers. WebGIS has forever changed
how many county employees perform their daily business func-
tions, greatly improved customer service, and eliminated several
archaic databases and licensed vendor systems. The individual
applications are described as follows:
• Parcel Viewer (see Figure 1)—enables a user to search by
Assessor’s Parcel Number, address, owner name, intersection,
and landmark to access property-related data associated with
a parcel (i.e., zoning, land use, tax-rate area, size, value, etc.).
Links to other non-GIS databases are seamless to the user.
All the blue hyperlinks in the Parcel Details Table are links to
additional data and images. Additionally, a comprehensive
buffer/mailing label creation tool is available.
• General Map Viewer—enables a user to query and display
on a very broad set of GIS data. The initial release of this
viewer serves up more than 60 spatial layers of data. This
application also features two of the newest Web GIS tools:
Bookmarks and Redlining, using the Bookmark Drawing
Tools.
• Water Quality Viewer—enables a user to access sewer
infrastructure information. Same functionality as Parcel
Viewer, but it also includes the spatial sewer data and searches
by sewer pipe segment, manhole, and pump station. Each
query provides hyperlinks to several scanned documents that
are indexed to sewer facilities.
• Water Resources–Service Request Tracking System (SRTS)
Viewer—enables a user to access drainage infrastructure
information. Same functionality as Parcel Viewer, but it also
includes the spatial drainage data and searches by drainage
facility and creek segment. The SRTS module enables a
 user to create new records and produce reports initiated by
Water Quality and Water Resources for customer service
requests. These requests are related to flood complaints and
pipes-in-the-ground service requests. Additionally, specific
district information is accessible per parcel as well as Sewer
Response Area Investigator information.
• Transportation Viewer—enables a user to access transportation
infrastructure information. This application enables
a user to search by Streetlight Characteristics, Street
Signal Characteristics, etc., to access county-maintained
transportation infrastructure data. Same functionality as
Parcel Viewer, but it also includes spatial transportation
facility (streetlights, traffic signals, signs, striping, etc.)
data.
• Easement Viewer—same functionality as Parcel Viewer, but
it also includes spatial easement polygons and a hyperlink to
the FileNET database that stores the scanned images of the
originally recorded easement documents. This application
is being used as a tool to validate the spatial accuracy of
easements created by a conversion vendor.
• Project Coordination—facilitates better coordination of
county departments that excavate in county rights-of-way.
In addition to sewer, drainage, water, and transportation
projects, this application tracks newly paved road segments
that are under warranty or still in a three-year or five-year
moratorium, as well as planned overlays. Online e-mail
notifications are sent out to departmental staff where there
are conflicts. This allows departments to better coordinate
excavation projects with future overlays, both saving the
county money and reducing the public nuisance caused by
street-excavation projects.
• Customer Electronic Service Request System (CESR)—went
live in the fall of 2004. All calls for any type of service
including abandoned vehicles, illegal dumping, building-
code infractions, as well as barking dogs within the county
will be logged into CESR. The county’s Board of Supervisors
and all managers will enjoy simple access to a much broader
view of the data than ever before.
System Benefits Achieved
A greater recognition among staff regarding the importance
of data accuracy, integrity, interdependence, accessibility, and
sharing has been achieved. Widespread use of the applications
by multiple county departments has been instrumental in iden-
tifying many data inconsistencies and anomalies that have since
been corrected. Now that users have a single place where they
can go to easily view all the most commonly needed forms of
property data, several hard-copy and electronic databases have
been eliminated. County offices are reducing the amount of
paper records that are kept for reference purposes. Data owners
are more cognizant of their data-maintenance responsibilities.
County departments and outside agencies are collaborating and
sharing the cost burden of implementing technology. In general
terms, the enterprise data infrastructure has drastically improved
URISA Journal • Sacramento County, California 17
and in a large part because of a proven track record of success
using the WebGIS, customers are more willing to upgrade old
systems to new geobased systems.
System Design Issues Encountered
and Overcome
Several issues needed to be dealt with, including:
• Different versions and types of browser software.
• Problems arising from nonstandard third-party software that
users have installed on their desktops.
• The technologically challenged user. Bridging the IT culture
gap can be quite challenging. Newer, younger employees
fresh out of school openly embrace technological change,
while many longtime employees resist.
• The technologically proficient user. Designing a system
that is highly customized to meet unrealistic expectations of
superusers is an enormous challenge as well. The additional
system modifications and enhancements that users request
can adversely affect application development schedules,
and, more important, almost always result in an exponential
decrease in the cost benefit of that requested enhancement.
• The initial versions of the server software (ESRI’s ArcIMS)
had several bugs that would take the application down
and adversely impacted the credibility of the WebGIS for
many users. Diligent face-to-face customer service was
instrumental in keeping users focused on the long-term goal
and now they are reaping the benefits.
What Differentiates This System
from Other Similar Systems
The WebGIS system serves as a user-friendly gateway for accessing
several disparate databases all across the county. Additionally, it
provides GIS capabilities to every wireless or WAN-connected
computer in the county. The intuitiveness of a Web-based GIS
front end gives end users easy access to data that is maintained
by the true data owner. Data replication has been substantially
reduced and in many cases users are now using data that in the
past they never even knew existed. The county’s seamless integra-
tion with FileNET has provided major dividends for staff that
regularly need to access recorded subdivision and parcel maps,
building permits, improvement plans, and more.
Our continued quest to make all geographically referenced
county data (spatial, tabular, or image) available at every county
desktop has made several county work processes more efficient.
As a true “enterprise” system, WebGIS serves the county as a
whole, rather than just a select few departments who have the
funding to purchase custom applications. Many users also find
that the WebGIS is a better way to access and view the data that
they maintain, largely because of the ability to view and/or analyze
the data spatially. Additionally, the WebGIS also contains several
useful tools that have provided efficiency gains for county staff.
A few of these include:

Figure 2. Mailing List Generation.
Buffer: In every WebGIS application, the user can interac-
tively select/create a point, line, and/or polygon to be buffered,
choose which spatial layer to be buffered, as well as select the buffer
distance. In addition, the user can select a group of features by
drawing a polygon to get the selected set he or she desires.
Mailing List Generation (see Figure 2): The primary purpose
of most buffers is to generate some type of mailing list. Both
“Resident Address” and “Owner Address” lists are automatically
generated to an Avery label standard. An MS Excel download is
available as well. The entire buffer-mailing list generation process
for a standard 500-foot radius map used for notification of a zon-
ing change takes less than a minute.
Bookmark/Redlining Tool (see Figure 3): The Bookmarking
tool set enhances enterprise-wide communication and collabora-
tion by allowing a user to save a bookmark or snapshot of the
state of the WebGIS application at a point in time. For example,
a bookmark that has been created stores information about layer
visibility, zoom extent, feature selection, buffer results, user-cre-
ated graphics, etc. Staff can communicate better by accessing
shared bookmarks or e-mailing bookmark hyperlinks to other staff
members. Another advantage is that a person can save his or her
work and resume at a later time at the same exact spot he or she
left off. The bookmark drawing tools allow a user to create text
boxes, and draw objects such as text, circles, lines, and polygons
onto the map. These drawing tools have improved staff’s ability
to communicate data errors and inaccuracies to the true data
owners for correction.
Measure tool: The measure tool quickly provides an estimated
distance between two points or an area of a polygon by zooming
in and clicking on the mouse.
Additionally, all the basic tools, including pan, zoom, last
extent, attribute selection, mouse selection, theme display on/off,
and dynamic XY coordinate display, along with basic report and
hard-copy printing capabilities are available.
18 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
Figure 3. Bookmark Drawing Tools.
In summary, based on the impracticality of a single county-
wide enterprise database, GIS has placed much of the burden of
data integration on the WebGIS system. While some of the data
has been centralized, much of it has been made accessible by the
development of commonly understood and standardized database
keys and data formats. This has allowed the successful publica-
tion of the following data sources to every personal computer
connected to the county’s wide area network:
• Land records including ownership
• Assessment data
• Street network with address ranges
• Early entry of new subdivisions with parcel numbers and
addresses prior to recordation
• Building permits
• Zoning and land use
• Facilities (sewer, water, drainage, streetlights, signals, striping,
etc.)
• Easements (spatial and imaged record documents)
• Imagery
• Scanned documents (maps, improvement plans, permits,
deeds, assessor pages, etc.)
• Districts (political, school, park, fire, water, sewer, fee)
• Precincts
• Landmarks (schools, libraries, hospitals, fire stations,
government buildings, etc.)
• Parcel history
County work processes are much more efficient than they
were prior to the WebGIS development. Both interdepartmental
and intra-agency cooperation and coordination have improved
drastically. The growth in volume and accuracy of the data used
on a daily basis for county decision making has enabled the county
to provide a more efficient, superior level of customer service to
its citizenry. The real bottom line is that the taxpayer/ratepayer
in the county is not paying for multiple county departments
and/or regional agencies to build, maintain, and access many of
the similar databases they have had to in the past.
System Hardware, Software, Data
Hardware:
Server Hardware: permit applications, property transfer deeds, and sewer
• Compaq Proliant DL380 G3 P2800 512 KB, 2048 MB
Two Web servers are running in parallel, configured in a
load-balanced environment. The load-balanced environment
includes two Cisco Content Switches that reside in two subnets,
one for normal communications and one for load balancing. The
two servers have two NICs teamed in failover mode connected
to each Content Switch for redundancy and failover capability.
The Content Switches are configured for affinity so that session
states are held to the originally called server to avoid application
conflicts. There is one Virtual IP Address (VIP) that users resolve
to via DNS for all applications.
Software:
Server Software:
• ArcIMS 9.0
• GeoPrise.NET 5.0
ArcIMS is a server-based product from Environmental Sys-
tems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) for distributing GIS maps
over the Web. ArcIMS provides Web publishing of GIS maps,
data, and metadata for access over an intranet or the Internet.
GeoPrise.NET is an ESRI business partner headquartered
in Sacramento, California, that develops basic and advanced
solutions for parcel, economic development, planning, and in-
frastructure information systems. The GeoPrise.NET software
is completely customizable; new themes and data from a variety
of sources, including imagery, documents, file-based and SQL-
based tables, shapefiles, and ArcSDE, can be added easily to meet
business requirements using a wizard-driven interface. GeoPrise.
NET was the first to develop and deploy GIS Web application
products that run over ArcIMS and are built from the ground
up in .NET technology.
Client Software:
• Internet Explorer 5.x - current
Data: fire, water, park, and school districts; an electric utility and the
• SQL Server
• Oracle
• FileNET
• CMMS
Data:
WebGIS Data Sources
• Property-Shared Database (PSD)—An Oracle database
that stores data from many county departments. Data is
continually being posted to the PSD from departmental
URISA Journal • Sacramento County, California 19
servers, including the Assessor, Building Permits, the
Recorders Office, Planning and Finance. Property data
includes elements such as address, zoning, ownership, land
use, valuation, building characteristics, and permits.
• FileNET—Linkage to about a dozen document management
databases, including scanned recorded and parcel maps,
plans.
• GIS attributes—Access to a database repository, based in
SQL Server, for many facility data elements, such as sewer
and drainage features, which are routinely imported from
data sources of various levels of sophistication, ranging
from spreadsheets to Access databases. This repository also
maintains other commonly used data items that have not
found homes in PSD or other departmental servers. These
items include parcel “notes,” problem calls, landmarks, phone
numbers, Thomas Brothers page numbers, utility billing, and
many look-up tables.
• GIS spatial features—Of prime importance to GIS was the
regular publication of the base map layers, including parcels
and centerlines. These layers were used to register nearly all
other GIS items throughout county departments, as well as
provide widely used and needed data elements. These layers
were complemented with several versions of county-wide
orthophotography. The applications draw on a centralized
storage of district boundaries, including school, fire, park,
and water districts, as well as schools, hospitals, and other
places with concerns for public safety. GIS also established
standardized mechanisms for converting departmental files
into publishable GIS themes.
Where Are We Now?/Future
Directions
With the success of the Sacramento Regional GIS Cooperative
(SRGC), a new level of GIS coordination and collaboration has
been spawned in the Sacramento area. Not only are multiple
public agencies standardized on a common landbase, but they
are working together in the creation, ongoing maintenance, and
access of several spatial layers. The use of the Sacramento County
WebGIS applications has now expanded beyond the desktops of
every county employee to more than 15 external organizations.
These organizations include six incorporated cities; air quality,
local Council of Governments. Secure access is provided via VPN
to more than 130 users in these organizations as they pilot the
WebGIS capabilities within their organizations.
The flagship Parcel Viewer application has become a regional
standard for accessing a multitude of property-related informa-
tion. Once the individual organizations complete their pilot
use of the WebGIS applications they will determine how many
more connections are cost-beneficial. Two exciting projects have
spawned out of the success of the previously mentioned efforts.
First, the SRGC has begun a Homeland Security Portal
Project to develop a street address maintenance Web site for ef-
ficient input of address range updates that will enable the SRGC
participants to submit updates into the monthly maintenance
workflow. The portal will improve work efficiency, reduce data-
posting conflicts between agencies, and provide a transaction
journal enabling each agency to determine the outcome of its
individual data submissions. Now that all member agencies
currently use the same street network file for address-matching
applications, as well as public safety dispatch, the integrity and
completeness of the file have drastically improved for the mutual
benefit of all SRGC members.
Lastly, a pilot project has been kicked off to develop a software
solution that will enable two-way access between GIS Web servers
at different agencies. Ultimately, the cities can have their own
version of Parcel Viewer available to their organizational desktops
that will retrieve data from county servers and vice-versa. All
participants will benefit by reducing redundant data storage and
eliminating daily/weekly/monthly data uploads/downloads. In
the future all participants will have ready-access information that
is stored on the true “data owners” servers resulting in a regional
integration of the most up-to-date information possible.

About the Author

Contact person for system:
Roger Exline
GIS Manager
9700 Goethe Road, Suite A
Sacramento, CA 95827
(916) 875-6354
Fax: (916) 875-6213
E-mail: exliner@SacCounty.net

20 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

 South Florida Water Management District
The Lake Okeechobee Stage-Area-Capacity Lookup
Application
(2004—Single Process)

System Summary automates the whole process by integrating Active Server Page
The Lake Okeechobee Stage-Area-Capacity (LOSAC) Lookup (ASP), MS SQL Database, and GIS with a front end built in
Application is an intuitive, interactive, and dynamic Web appli- Dynamic HTML (DHTML), JavaScript, and Visual Basic script,
cation based on HyperGIS. It displays the current, historical, or serving as a one-stop source for the current, historical, and hypo-
hypothetical Lake Okeechobee conditions that include lake stage, thetical lake conditions with dynamic contents by an interactive
area, capacity, and depth information as well as their trends. and fun-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) (see Figure 1).
LOSAC displays the most current Lake Okeechobee condi- The core of LOSAC is an agent capable of collecting real-time
tions obtained from the real-time lake-stage (water-level) reports data from partners’ Web sites without interfering or burdening
on the external Web sites operated by the U.S. Army Corps the information providers, resulting in a more efficient informa-
of Engineers (USACE) and the Operations and Maintenance tion flow. It supports multiple modeling methods to calculate the
Department at the South Florida Water Management District lake conditions in various formats, which is valuable both to the
(SFWMD). The corresponding lake area and capacity are cal- researchers for better understanding of the real-world situation
culated with both geographical information system (GIS) and and to the managers for better decision-making processes. LOSAC
a mathematical method based on a polynomial stage-storage employs reusable modules, which allow easier function expansion,
function. The results are converted to various units to satisfy better background data upgrade, and easier switching between
most users’ needs. Based on a digital elevation model (DEM),
a bathymetry map illustrates the related depths in the lake at
the given stage; while a stage-area-capacity chart presents stage-
area and stage-capacity curves that reveal the changing area and
capacity along with the corresponding stages. Precise readings to
the lake conditions are included in a table. In addition, LOSAC
features a dynamic playback of time series of archived data of the
lake, and direct retrieval of historical data with a calendar. Using
animated buttons, users can browse back and forth through the
stage data in the archive and display associated stage, lake-area,
capacity, and bathymetry data. A rapid-mode playback shows the
changes of the lake over time. The archive is updated regularly.
The interactive Web interface of LOSAC also allows users to look
up the lake-area and capacity data by entering a hypothetical lake
stage or dragging a slider bar.
Prior to its development, the current and historical water-
level data were available only in static text format on separate sites.
Users had to use half a dozen individual GIS and mathematical
tools to build lake-area and capacity information, and manually
assemble them from different departments and agencies. LOSAC Figure 1. LOSAC GUI

URISA Journal • South Florida Water Management District 21

external information providers in case of system downtime or
a network outage. Such an object-oriented approach can save
time and money in developing, maintaining, and upgrading the
system, and in improving the system’s reliability. It is also easy to
customize information for different users, enrich static contents
with multimedia or animation, and expand contents into other
formats for mobile devices for more effective communications.
The browser-detection technique can serve customized contents
tailored for a particular browser. The result is an integrated system
that can provide an intuitive, dynamic, and interactive visualiza-
tion tool for restoration scientists, water-supply planners, emer-
gency managers, and anyone else who needs to access the current,
historical, or hypothetical Lake Okeechobee conditions.
Motivation for System Development
LOSAC grew out of popular demand for water-level, lake-area, and
potential water-supply-capacity information in Lake Okeechobee
during the unusual water shortage period in 2000–2001.
During this water shortage period, water managers in charge
of the water supply needed to know the water-supply capacity
of the lake. By calculating the volume between the current water
level and the bottom of the irrigation gates, and comparing it
with the current water usage, water managers would know how
long the outflow by gravity could last, and how soon and how
many pumps would be needed to boost water supply. For the
general public, a major interest was the information on acces-
sibility to the lake. Some docks and ramps were located on dry
lake beds for quite a few months, which made launching a boat
for bass fishing impossible. Meanwhile, researchers were busy
feeding data to their models simulating various lake-management
scenarios to predict future water conditions. At the time, the task
of providing lake information was less coordinated and usually
resulted in redundancy and inconsistency. Many departments
relied on static maps to respond to public inquiry. Exchanging
data between models was a highly specialized chore because of
the variety of data formats involved in the models and the lack
of a method to describe data meaningfully. The field data were
heterogeneous and distributed in nature, owned and managed by
different departments or even different agencies.
Given the competing demands and the complexity involved,
a more efficient and effective GIS approach, which would result
in reducing redundant development efforts, reusing resources,
simplifying maintenance efforts, and functioning dynamically
in real time, was urgently needed.
System Benefits Achieved
LOSAC brought the following major system benefits:
1. Improved the decision-making process by reducing the delay
in accessing information, by making otherwise unavailable
information accessible, by making information more
comprehensible and thus more effective, and by providing
information in alternative methods and units.
2. Improved productivity by eliminating the needs to visit
22 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
multiple sites and send requests to multiple departments to
get all the information, by eliminating the redundancy of
re-creating similar information by multiple departments, by
providing users with instant results rather than taking days
to produce similar information with traditional methods,
and by requiring less staff time and resources to develop and
maintain such a system.
3. Potentially increased user base by more than a thousand times
without incurring additional costs to the SFWMD and the
users.
Some unexpected benefits also occurred. First, because
reusable modules and objects were employed, we were able
to easily add a second modeling method of polynomial
equation in addition to the original GIS method by DEM.
Next, with the existing data in the SQL server, it was very
easy to add extra queries to answer additional questions about
the historical lake conditions such as the highest, lowest, and
average lake levels during a given time period. Moreover, we
were able to reuse those modules later in a new geographical
region—Lake Istokpoga—for a study of potential restorable
wetlands.
Overall, LOSAC showcased an integrated GIS method
that can save time and money, improve the effectiveness
and the efficiency of information flows, and consequently
improve the decision-making process.
System Design Issues Encountered
and Overcome
Developing LOSAC involved four phases: inception, elaboration,
construction, and transition. The inception phase was directly
motivated by the needs to respond to the distinctive requests for
the basic lake conditions about Lake Okeechobee during the water
shortage period. The objectives were to present the current lake
status including water level, lake area, and potential capacity of
water supply in a timely manner, and to provide a more efficient
and effective way in delivering such spatial information. Elabora-
tion led to a better understanding of the problems. After analyzing
the system requirements, case diagrams were used to sort out all
required system functions so that all the potential scenarios for
the system uses were discovered and documented. During the
elaboration, we kept a conceptual perspective in outlining the
domain analysis of the lake conditions. Understanding the in-
teraction between the objects such as controls, bathymetry map,
and stage-level-capacity chart was beneficial in exploring how
various system components would interact within the system.
Further elaboration, investigating the resources and constrains
in technology, skills, and time, paved the way for an iterative
construction, which was a series of iterations for construction,
defining the functionality to be delivered in each of the iterations.
Compared to a one-time release near the delivery date, which may
pose a risk should there be a failure, an iterative construction has
frequent and smaller releases that are based on previous successful
releases. Thus, its incremental implementation is more predictable
and manageable with more control of risks. For example, we built
a GIS method for calculating the lake area and capacity first, then
added polynomial function in the next iteration. In the transition
phase, there was no development to add functionality but to fix
bugs and optimize performances.
In particular, the system was at first designed as a desktop
application that was built with ArcObjects and relied on a full
ArcGIS license for each desktop client. Thus, it limited the user
base because of the cost and complexity in deployment. Later, a
modified desktop application was developed using a GIS agent
to generate maps and output data in XML, thus requiring no
ArcGIS license to run. It expanded the user base because of its
reduced cost. However, it still inherited complexity from the
desktop application deployment. We redesigned the system as
a Web-based application so that more users can be served. The
new design uses an ASP-based Web agent to process information
from external http servers and an internal SQL server to produce
dynamic and interactive presentation, with an ArcObjects-based
desktop application as an additional agent for back-end support
and update of base maps.
What Differentiates This System
from Other Similar Systems
1. Real-time capacity and balanced client-server function loads.
The core of LOSAC is a HyperGIS agent capable of collecting
real-time data from partners’ Web sites without interfering
or burdening the information providers, resulting in a more
efficient information flow. LOSAC used optimized function
allocation between the server side and the client side. While
the server side provides up-to-date information, the client
side handles local interactivity with users. This approach
results in a system that runs very fast with full interactivity.
2. Multiple modeling methods. LOSAC supports multiple
modeling methods to calculate the lake conditions in various
formats, which is valuable both to the researchers for better
understanding the real-world situation and to the managers
for making better decisions.
3. Reusable modules and objects. LOSAC employs reusable
modules, which allow easier function expansion, better
background data upgrade, and easier switching between
external information providers in case of system downtime
or network outage. Such an object-oriented approach saves
time and money in developing, maintaining, upgrading,
and expanding the system, and improving system reliability.
Also it can be configured for use in another geographical
region.
4. Customizable and expandable interface. It is also easy to
customize information for different users, enrich static
contents with multimedia or animation, and expand contents
into other formats for mobile devices for more effective
communications. The browser-detection technique can serve
customized contents tailored for a particular browser.
URISA Journal • South Florida Water Management District 23
5. Improved user-friendly interface and greater error tolerance.
LOSAC uses smart browser-type and screen-resolution
detection techniques to maximize users’ online experiences.
When an incompatible browser or screen resolution is used,
warning messages will be displayed and corrective actions are
suggested. LOSAC implements extensive DHTML controls
to aid user navigation. In addition to traditional command
buttons and an input box, a slider bar and a set of animated
buttons provide users with total control and make the
application fun to use. LOSAC also uses extensive tool tips
to give users additional information when they move the
cursor over to an object such as a control button or a map.
Users will be given correct ranges if their inputs are out of
boundary.
6. Expanded user base. LOSAC fundamentally changed how the
information on Lake Okeechobee conditions was delivered.
Because of staff and resources limitation, only a tiny portion
of potential users could be supported by making paper maps
and reports. The original desktop version by ArcObjects
automated the process, but it still limited the user base to
those who were proficient in GIS use and had the luxury
of accessing expansive GIS software. The modified desktop
version helped increase the user base by reducing the reliance
on the special GIS software. However, only the Web-based
LOSAC enables the user base to expand exponentially
without incurring additional costs to the SFWMD or to the
taxpayers. Also, the visual-pleasing interface helps attract new
users as well as old users who were discouraged by previous
hard-to-use interfaces.
System Hardware, Software, and
Data
Hardware:
Hardware configuration supporting the system includes: a
Windows Server to host MSSQL and IIS Web Server
with ASP agent, a Windows workstation to host the VB/
ArcObjects desktop agent, and external HTTP servers from
other departments or outside agencies.
Software:
Primary software components include: ASP 3.0, MS SQL Server
2000, IIS Web Server 5.0, VB/ArcObjects, andXML/
DHTML.
Data:
Databases used by the system include:real-time lake-stage data
from external http servers, lake-bottom elevation data in
shapefile, stage-area-capacity table derived from elevation
data in XML/SQL, SPOT image as background, bathymetry
maps generated by the VB/ArcObjects desktop agent, and
stage-area-capacity charts generated by the VB/ArcObjects
desktop agent.
Where Are We Now?/Future Another exciting feature would be implementing Really
Simple Syndication (RSS) feed. Until now, uses of RSS are lim-
Directions ited to news organizations and Web blogs for syndication where
Modularized development used in LOSAC allows easy expansion
a portion of their contents are made available for others to use.
of the data and functions, even porting the whole application to
An RSS feed is a set of XML files that provides a short summary
a new geographical region with minimal modifications. Since
along with a universal resource locator (URL) to the full contents.
LOSAC was submitted to the ESIG award review in 2004, it had
An RSS feed reader or aggregator can check RSS-enabled Web
been successfully modified and reconfigured for use in another
pages on behalf of a user and display any updated contents that
geographical region as the Lake Istokpoga Stage-Area-Capacity
it finds. Thus, by providing an RSS feed, LOSAC allows users to
(LISAC) Lookup Application for a study of potential restorable
set up certain criteria for notification of the updates of the lake
wetlands, because of the reusable modules and objects. Also
conditions via e-mail or mobile device when certain user-speci-
notable was that LOSAC had been online and performed well
fied thresholds are exceeded, thereby saving users from having to
during the 2004 hurricane season when three major hurricanes
repeatedly visit LOSAC to check for new updates. Users can also
directly impacted the Lake Okeechobee watershed.
take the RSS feed from LOSAC as an input for building their
The current update is due to the vertical datum conversion
own models or customized Web pages.
from the National Geodetic Vertical Datum 1929 (NGVD 29)
Future integration to real-time rainfall radar NEXRAD data
to the North American Vertical Datum 1988 (NAVD 88) at
and ArcHydro watershed models will truly open the door for
SFWMD. We currently register water elevations including lake
a realistic lake dynamic simulation under various given water-
stages relative to NGVD 29. The conversion to NAVD 88 will
management scenarios.
allow us to align our data standard with other federal agencies
and provide a consistent vertical elevation base for scientific data
analysis and modeling. Background data in LOSAC can be eas-
ily upgraded to NAVD 88 after applying an offset grid onto the About the Author
original grid in NGVD 29. The VB/ArcObjects desktop agent
will then generate a new set of XML data and maps for use in Contact person for system:
LOSAC. While the upgrading process is transparent to users and Frank Chang, Ph.D.
requires no users’ action, users will notice and appreciate the im- Senior Geographer
mediate improvement. To ease the transition for users, we plan to P.O. Box 20304
add a dual-view panel that displays bathymetry maps and related West Palm Beach, FL 33416
vertical data in both NGVD 29 and NAVD 88. (561) 687-8111
The other updates under consideration are based on survey Fax: (561) 640-6815
feedback from users on what additional features they wish to E-mail: frank.chang@gmx.net
have. Among them are: support for more browsers such as Firefox;
function to plot time series of water level, lake area, and capac-
ity; zoom and pan functions to the bathymetry map; output in
PDF; direct download of time series data and GIS data; selectable
background thematic layers such as roads, county boundaries,
public-use facilities, etc.

24 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

 Tallahassee–Leon County, Florida
Topographic Partnering Group/LIDAR Project
(2003—Single Process)
System Summary
In 2001, when the Tallahassee–Leon County GIS (TLCGIS)
Interlocal Project was implementing the 2001 Flyover Project to
update orthophotography and planimetric data sets previously
gathered in 1996, concerns were voiced about the accuracy of
contour data initially captured in 1996, especially in those areas
of the county that had heavy tree canopy. Some users preferred
contour data created in 1988 rather than the 1996 data. Users
were concerned that if the same photogrammetric methods used
in 1996 to collect data were used again in 2001, the accuracy of
the new data would not meet their needs.
Rather than simply moving forward with the 2001 Flyover
Project, the TLCGIS staff called together all the potential users
of the data and formed the Topographic Partnering Group to
discuss accuracy issues, and the pros and cons of available methods
used to collect data and create contour data sets. The Partnering
Group decided to have a prototype study of LIDAR-based terrain
mapping conducted in four pilot test areas. The Tallahassee–Leon
County GIS Interlocal Project diverted funds from the 2001
Flyover Project to complete the prototype study. Thus, a Digital
Terrain Model (DTM), vector contour data, and vector spot eleva-
tion data were delivered and evaluated. Based on these results, the
LIDAR DTM data and derived contour data had accuracy levels
of +/-1.5 feet in heavily wooded areas, in comparison to 1996
contour data accuracy levels of +/-30 feet in heavily wooded areas.
The group determined that the prototype study was a success and
recommended LIDAR data be acquired countywide.
The Topographic Partnering Group/LIDAR Project is
exemplary for several reasons. First, it brought together critical
users from multiple agencies—many of whom had never worked
together before—to discuss their concerns and needs about data
accuracy. Second, users learned about LIDAR, a cutting-edge
technique for mapping terrain data in heavily vegetated areas with
high accuracy. Third, the Tallahassee–Leon County GIS Interlo-
cal Project diverted funds from an existing project to acquire
URISA Journal • Tallahassee–Leon County , Florida 25
LIDAR data. Finally, because some members of the Partnering
Group required a turnaround time of one year for finished data
sets, members assisted in securing funding for the project, and,
therefore, ensured that more accurate data would be developed
so that every user’s needs would be met.
Motivation for System Development
The Tallahassee–Leon County GIS is an Interlocal Project funded
by three local governments: the city of Tallahassee, Leon County,
and the Leon County Property Appraiser’s Office. One of the
duties of the Interlocal GIS is to maintain GIS data, including
orthophotos and planimetric data, for use by staff in these three
governments. As such, every five years, the Interlocal GIS arranges
for a flyover of the entire county, to acquire orthophotos from
which data sets, including contours, are derived using photogram-
metric techniques.
In the course of the 2001 Flyover Project, however, it came
to the attention of project personnel that some of the critical
users of the data from city and county local governments, espe-
cially engineers who rely on data for infrastructure projects, had
concerns about the accuracy of contour data initially captured in
1996, especially in those areas of the county that had heavy tree
canopy. Because Leon County has such a dense tree canopy—
more than 60 percent of the county is covered by a heavy tree
canopy—traditional photogrammetric techniques cannot provide
accurate elevation information for the ground underneath the tree
canopy. This often resulted in inaccurate elevation data in those
obscured areas. Additionally, the finished data required extensive
field surveys to verify elevation to facilitate preplanning for large
community improvement projects. Based on these factors, users
were concerned that if the same photogrammetric methods used
in 1996 to collect data were again used in 2001, then the accuracy
of the new data would not meet their needs.
The TLCGIS organized a Topographic Partnering Group
consisting of critical users from various departments. Based on

Figure 1. LIDAR Surface-Derived Contours Versus Photogrammetric-
Derived Contours.
members’ discussions, it appeared that the finished data sets that
would result from the 2001 Flyover Project would fall short of the
needs of all users. In addition, the users expressed diverse views
about the value of past efforts of obtaining finished contour data
sets completed in 1988 and 1996. Although each data set was
dated, each had pros and cons relating to their effectiveness in
the members’ business processes.
Specialists presented a seminar for the Partnering Group
describing the methods used to produce the 1988 and 1996
topographic data sets and comparing the photogrammetric
method with a new technique using Light Detection And Rang-
ing (LIDAR) for mapping terrain. LIDAR is similar to radar but
uses a laser instead of microwaves, and it can “see” gaps through
heavy tree canopy to the ground below. The LIDAR technique
proved that not only can it penetrate the tree canopy, but it also
can provide accurate elevation information of the ground below.
With LIDAR, accuracy levels of +/-1.5 feet in heavily wooded
areas were obtained for contour data.
System Benefits Achieved
This project brought about several unexpected benefits, includ-
ing:
• Higher-than-expected data accuracies and greater detail of
the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in heavily vegetated
areas; also higher accuracy than photogrammetric methods
at scales of 1:1,200 or smaller.
• Amazing detail in microterrain features (e.g., small ravines,
roadside swales, karst depressions, etc., that had never been
mapped before).
• Better working relationships among different governmental
departments.
• Cost sharing by the different departments.
• First customer to retain access to Merrick and Company’s
proprietary software used to capture and create data. TLCGIS
used this software to conduct quality control on the data.
26 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
• A “National Recognition Award” from the American Council
of Engineering Companies.
The overwhelming benefit of using the LIDAR technology
to acquire data is the higher level of accuracy it provides. For
example, the 1996 contour data, which was derived using tradi-
tional photogrammetric mapping techniques, could have a level
of accuracy of +/-30 feet in heavily wooded areas. In comparison,
contour data derived from LIDAR had an accuracy of +/-1.5
feet in heavily wooded areas. This information was field-verified
by staff. Figure 1 illustrates the differences that are apparent in
the two data sets. The brown lines are LIDAR Digital Surface
Model (DSM) with surface-derived contours. The blue lines are
the photogrammetric-derived contours. The four-foot interval
contours are shown at a scale of 1:2,400.
Because of this higher accuracy, local government staff are
able to minimize the time they spend in the field collecting data
to verify elevations. Users can have confidence in the data when
they use it to complete their projects.
Also, as part of the group’s discussions, the group determined
that this highly accurate data could be used as part of the plan-
ning and preplanning for Blueprint 2000 Projects. Blueprint
2000 is a public/private partnership to direct additional sales
tax revenue to infrastructure improvement and environmental
protection projects. The high accuracy of the data can help speed
up the planning stages for these projects by eliminating predesign
field surveys.
This project has also resulted in better working relationships
among different governmental departments. Some of the mem-
bers had never worked together before. They now have become
better acquainted with each other and are comfortable working
together as needed.
Additionally, the different departments shared the costs of
this project, with each department assisting in securing funding
for the project. Each department, therefore, ensured that more
accurate data would be developed so that every user’s needs
would be met.
A final unexpected benefit is the national recognition this
project has received. The TLCGIS Topographic Data Partnering
and LIDAR Project was a finalist in the American Council of
Engineering Companies/Colorado 2003 Engineering Excellence
Awards and received an ACEC National Recognition Award.
System Design Issues Encountered
and Overcome
The Topographic Partnering Group effort had to overcome the
typical “turf ” issues that occur in many areas of local government.
The group’s decision about how to proceed had to meet a variety
of needs for a variety of users (stormwater engineers, public-works
engineers, land-use planners, permitting reviewers, environmental
planners, emergency-management planners, and GIS users) from
two government agencies, and they all had expectations defined by
the various business processes they use in their work. Eventually,
the Partnering Group reached consensus on issues and solutions Alternative C: New Flyover Project
so that everyone’s needs would be met. The final alternative was to complete the current effort and
pursue the LIDAR Acquisition Project later in FY 02/03. The
What Differentiates This System final products from the project would meet the accuracy needs
of the Topographic Partnering Group, but the completion of
from Other Similar Systems the project would have been delayed until March of 2004. The
The Topographic Partnering Group united a variety of partici-
initial data acquisition could not have occurred prior to January
pants from different governments, with the group establishing a
of 2003 and, therefore, would have required additional funding
comprehensive approach to resolving concerns and issues. The
of approximately $110,000.
group determined common needs and goals, which provided for
common oversight and resulted in a formula for success for all.
Additionally, by pooling financial resources, a solution was System Hardware, Software, and
obtained that otherwise no one or two participants could have Data
afforded. The following are alternatives that were considered by
the Topographic Partnering Group before it decided on Alterna- Hardware:
tive B. Common GIS Server
• IBM RS/6000 S70
Alternative A: 2001 Flyover Project • AIX 4.3.3 operating system
Alternative A was based on completing the 2001 Flyover Project • 8 CPUs (64 bit, 330 MHz)
under the original scope of the project for updating the 1996 DTM • 10 GB memory
and planimetric data using traditional photogrammetric techniques. • 400 GB disk storage (fiber channel/RAID)
If the 2001 Flyover Project was pursued to completion, then fin- • GB network adapter
ished contour data would still have been needed in FY 02/03 to
complete the effort. Therefore, GIS Central would have requested Seven Web and Map Servers (for deployment of Internet and
an additional $100,000 in the FY 02/03 budget cycle for acquisi- intranet GIS Web sites)
tion of the finished contour data. However, this option did not • All have similar configurations
resolve the issue of higher accuracy, which LIDAR data would have • Dual Intel Pentium 900+ MHz CPUs (server-class)
provided, as discussed by the Topographic Partnering Group. • 1 to 2 GB memory
• 50 GB disk storage (SCSI/RAID)
Alternative B: Diversion Plan • 100 MB network adapters
Alternative B was to suspend the current updating efforts of the • Windows NT/2000
2001 Flyover Project and divert the remaining funds to the LI- • Microsoft IIS Web Server
DAR Acquisition Project. This alternative effectively met both the
timing and improved accuracy needs of the Topographic Partner- Plotters
ing Group. It would have allowed for the acquisition of more ac- • Large Format (HP650C and HP1055cm Plus)
curate finished data by March of 2003. Under this alternative, the
initial acquisition of the LIDAR data and the required supporting PCs
aerial photography would have been captured by mid-February • Intel Pentium IV 2.0 GHz
of 2002. A prototype project would then have been completed • 1 GB memory
to define the final deliverable procedures. • 36 GB disk storage
To fund the effort under this plan, GIS Central would have • 100 MB network adapter
recommended suspending all further updating of the 1996 DTM • Windows 2000
and planimetric data. The unused funds budgeted for these up-
dates ($208,951) could have been added to other diverted GIS Software:
funds ($41,750). This would have resulted in a total of $250,701 Merrick and Company Product
available to fund the initial LIDAR acquisition and prototype MARS (proprietary software) used to capture and create data,
project. The remaining funds required to complete the analysis to process Leica Geosystems LIDAR files directly, and to export
and establishment of a new DSM, to replace the 1996 DTM, the data into various file formats (such as shapefiles and grids).
would have been pursued through the CIP budget process at As part of the contract with Merrick and Company, Tallahas-
both the city and the county levels during the FY 02/03 budget see–Leon County GIS became the company’s first customer to
cycle. Under the separate CIPs, each jurisdiction would have been retain access to this software; TLCGIS used it to conduct quality
required to fund $375,992 in FY 02/03 for the final completion control on the data.
of the LIDAR Acquisition Project and restore the initial funding
for the 2001 Flyover Project.

URISA Journal • Tallahassee–Leon County , Florida 27

SocetSet Product
Softcopy photogrammetric package used to view LIDAR data in a
stereo model and to conduct statistical accuracy assessments (“soft
copy” means everything is viewed digitally in 3-D—using special
glasses—on-screen versus “hard copy,” which relies on two printed
copies of orthophotos viewed with stereoscopic glasses).
ESRI Products
• ArcSDE 8.3 (Unix)
• ArcGIS 8.3 (Windows 2000)
• ArcInfo 8.1 (Unix)
• Grid, TIN, COGO, and ArcPress Extensions
• ArcView 3.x (Unix and Windows)
• Network, Spatial, and 3-D Analyst Extensions
• Map Objects 2.1
• Map Objects IMS 1.x and 2.x (Windows NT and IIS 4.0)
• ArcIMS 4.0.1 (Windows 2000, IIS 5.0, and Servlet Exec
4.2)
Oracle Products
• Standard Server, Version 8.1.7 (Unix)
• WebDB Web Interface (Unix)
Data:
The topographic data (contour lines and spot elevations) are
distributed in ESRI software–supported coverage and shapefile
format. TLCGIS additionally has the capability to create DXF
files of the data set for external CAD users. Also, TLCGIS has the
ability to export the LIDAR data in a variety of file formats using
the MARS software package. Additionally, the digital orthophotos
flown in 2001 are at 0.5-foot resolution and are available in TIFF,
JPG, and MrSID formats.
Where Are We Now?/Future
Direction
Since 2003, when the “Tallahassee–Leon County GIS Topo-
graphic Partnering Group/LIDAR Project” won the ESIG Single
Process Award, the Partnering Group has continued to be a user-
driven group devising the overall direction of and implementation
strategy for affected base map data sets. The group is now working
on three new primary projects:
Incremental Update Process
In the past, TLCGIS would hire a contractor to produce digital
orthophotography and planimetric data (road edges, building
footprints, hydrography) for the entire county every five years
(e.g., in 1996, in 2001). The problem with the five-year schedule
is that the data sets become outdated and do not meet the needs
of GIS users who want to see current data in areas of the county
28 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
that have experienced high growth. In response, the Topographic
Partnering Group has implemented the Incremental Update Pro-
cess. Now, photography, planimetric, and LIDAR data will be
collected simultaneously on a three-year basis for the urban areas
of the county (where most of the growth is occurring) and on a
six-year basis for the rural parts of the county, with TLCGIS hav-
ing the option to request data for ten “hot-spot” areas of growth
that are outside of the regularly scheduled area.
Environmentally Sensitive Areas Refinement
Using contour data collected in 1996, GIS staff members from
TLCGIS and other departments created data sets pertaining to
Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs). These data sets include
severe and significant slopes, drainage basins, watersheds, and
catchments. Engineers in the stormwater-management depart-
ments and planners in the growth-management departments use
these data sets in their daily tasks. With the availability of more
current, more accurate contour data (derived from LIDAR),
members of the Partnering Group are now updating these ESA
data sets.
Coordinating with the Northwest Florida Water
Management District, the Local Coordinating
Technical Partner (CTP) for FEMA’s Map
Modernization Project
According to its Web site, FEMA has “developed the Cooperating
Technical Partners (CTP) Program as an approach to creating
partnerships between FEMA and participating National Flood
Insurance Program communities, regional agencies, and state
agencies that have the interest and capability to become more ac-
tive participants in the FEMA Flood Hazard Mapping Program.”
For northwest Florida, the CTP is the Northwest Florida Water
Management District. Because of the high quality and high
accuracy of the GIS data produced and maintained by Tallahas-
see–Leon County GIS, the Topographic Partnering Group is
working with the water-management district to provide it with
information to be utilized in updating the local Flood Insurance
Rate Maps.
About the Author
Contact person for the system:
Lee Hartsfield
GIS Coordinator
Tallahassee–Leon County GIS
301 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32301
(850) 606-5504
Fax: (850) 606-5501
E-mail: leeh@leoncountyfl.gov
 Victoria, Australia
Vicmap Topographic 1:30,000 On Line
(2004—Enterprise System)
System Summary
Vicmap Topographic 1:30,000 is an initiative of Spatial Infor-
mation Infrastructure (SII) of the Victorian State Government,
Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), in the
state of Victoria, Australia. It is an online topographic mapping
system that delivers an A4 size standard topographic map of
anywhere in Victoria. These topographic maps are compiled from
the most up-to-date Vicmap Digital data.
Vicmap Digital is the authoritative spatial framework data
for the State of Victoria. It is the foundation of Victoria’s primary
mapping and geographic information systems. Spatial Informa-
tion Infrastructure is responsible for the development and main-
tenance of Victorian spatial information policy and infrastructure
and is the custodian for Vicmap Digital.
The 1:30,000 scale Vicmap topographic maps cover all of
Victoria and are provided on a predetermined A4 grid. The maps
are based on and aligned to the existing 1:25,000 scale mapsheet
grid across the state and have been designed so that four of the
1:30,000 scale maps will fit into a single existing 1:25,000 scale
topographic map.
The Vicmap A4 topographic maps are created using the most
current and accurate information from Victoria’s spatial frame-
work databases, which are maintained by the State Government
and users. These depict the standard topographic map features
such as roads, contours, rivers, lakes, built-up areas, towers, spot
heights, etc.
Each sheet can be identified by its tile number (for example
T8124-3-2-3) and referenced to the existing 1:25,000, 1:50,000,
and 1:100,000 index systems. The map series uses the GDA94
datum and the Transverse Mercator Projection. The 1:30,000
scale A4 maps each cover an area five kilometers east to west and
seven kilometers north to south.
Customers who obtain a topographic map online also receive
a technical information sheet that includes standard information
relevant to all mapsheets. This includes standard legend, generic
URISA Journal • Victoria, Australia 29
grid reference sample, projection, datum, compilation dates, and
accuracy statements.
Accessed via the Internet, file sizes are predominantly small
(under 1 megabyte) to enable immediate download. Delivery is
easy—the user simply purchases his or her selection through the
online Vicmap Topographic maps service, accessible from SII’s
Land Channel home page, http://www.land.vic.gov.au, and pays
online using his or her credit card. The cost is minimal, with each
A4 map costing $1.50 plus administration fees. A PDF file of the
purchased map is immediately available for the user to save to
his or her computer for viewing and printing. There is no e-mail
delivery involved.
Motivation for System Development
Victoria’s most important topographic hard-copy mapping prod-
uct is the state’s 1:25,000 published topographic maps that cover
85 percent of the state. In total, there are 1,600 maps (not all of
which are published). The majority of these maps were produced
in the 1970s and 1980s using manual mapping processes. Since
completion of this program, only a handful of maps have been
updated. Of the total published maps, 50 percent are between 10
and 20 years old and 40 percent are more than 20 years old.
It has been estimated that it would cost the State of Victo-
ria $48 million to re-create a state-wide hard-copy topographic
mapping program using the traditional manual methods. This is
clearly cost-prohibitive.
Spatial Information Infrastructure (SII) is the custodian for
1:25,000 hard-copy mapping. It has been in a process of con-
verting much of its analog data into digital data for almost two
decades. This digital data, known as Vicmap, is current, accurate
at 1:25,000 and state-wide.
A recommendation in the Review of the Regulatory and
Administrative Framework for Survey and Spatial Information
in Victoria, released in March of 2003, called for the state’s map-
ping program to be “. . . reconstituted due to the prevalence of
out-of-date maps and emerging Government liabilities.”
A Geospatial Information Reference Group (GIRG) Forum
was held in July of 2003 in Melbourne. This group consists of
relevant stakeholders in the areas of government, recreation,
professional industry, emergency services, the education sector,
and map retailers. The forum topic was “Hard-copy Topographic
Maps” and was convened due to the concern raised by the lack
of currency of hard-copy mapping.
In response to the recommendation and the GIRG forum,
the Secretary of the Department of Sustainability and Environ-
ment asked SII (then known as the Land Information Group) to
develop a strategy for the production and development of hard-
copy topographic mapping for Victoria.
This request was incorporated in the SII business plan
2003–2004: “Develop multipurpose published mapping series
with stakeholders by June of 2004.”
Vicmap Online Topographic 1:30,000 is the first product of
the multipurpose published mapping series to be implemented.
System Benefits Achieved
Following are some significant benefits and impacts of Vicmap
topographic 1:30,000:
• SII is now seen as the authoritative source of not only
framework data sets but also standard topographic map
symbolization and specifications for statewide topographic
mapping.
• It has created enthusiastic response and stimulated discussions
among state, national, and international map users and
government agencies.
• Reinvigorated the hard-copy mapping program.
• Placed Spatial Information Infrastructure at the forefront of
online topographic mapping technology.
• SII, DSE, and other government users no longer need to
create their own topographic maps, therefore freeing up time
and dollar resources for other activities.
• Vicmap Topographic is now used as a quality assurance tool
as it enables SII to validate data not only in isolation but also
in relation to other topographic data.
• Victoria now has a proven process of automated topographic
mapping with high-quality cartographic outputs.
• As it uses digital data, this system is very cost-effective, at
only a fraction of the cost of traditional hard-copy maps.
• The topographic map content can be duplicated over a range
of further topographic products at various scales, sizes, and
file outputs.
• Vicmap Topographic A4 1:30,000 accesses the most
current data live from the source database so that any
updates performed in the data will be reflected on the map
product.
• For the first time the entire state of Victoria is covered by
large-scale topographic mapping. Previously mapping for
the northwest of the state, covering 15 percent in area, was
only available at 1:100,000 scale.
30 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
• Vicmap Topographic 1:30,000 supersedes the currently
available hard-copy 1:25,000 topographic maps that may
be up to 30 years out-of-date.
• A statewide topographic map series is available for the first
time in the new GDA94 datum.
• Anyone in Victoria (or the world!) who has Internet access
and an A4 printer can immediately access and print an A4
topographic map. There is no dependency on being able to
locate the nearest opened map store, which may or may not
stock the user’s required map.
• A key result of the topographic digital data audit is that the
status of the data has been evaluated for mapping purposes.
Data problems have been identified and recommendations
made to resolve these issues.
• In an Australian and maybe world version first, a topographic
map series is available as an A4 size product. Each of the
6,350 A4 maps that make up this series is uniquely identified
by a numbering system that links this product to other
existing Victorian map series products.
System Design Issues Encountered
and Overcome
Part of the evaluation exercise was to identify all the features
depicted on a hard-copy topographic map. The corresponding
digital data was then sourced, identified, and evaluated as part
of an audit process. The digital data was audited according to
mapping criteria that consisted of:
• Availability
The data required to duplicate on a map a feature on the
ground must be available in digital form.
• Currency
The data set is current and up-to-date (all known updates
incorporated into the data set).
• Accuracy
The digital data must be at least accurate at 1:25,000.
• Correct
The information depicted in the digital data is a true
representation of the features on the ground.
• Completeness
The data set is available state-wide.
• Topological structure
The digital data must conform to digital data standards, i.e.,
no label errors, dangles, offshoots, multiple labels, etc.
• Cartographic structure
The digital data is captured and stored in such a way that
no further processing is required to symbolize it on a map
output.
• Consistency
The digital data must be consistent in terms of datum,
projection, file type, and location.
 Even though the majority of data meet most of the criteria, GIS server
significant amounts of data were lacking in one or more criteria. Solaris/System
A decision had to be made whether to portray the information on OS version SunOS 5.6
the map as it was, while identifying the problem, and resolve it Hardware type SUN4M sunw, SPARCstation 20
later, or to remove it completely until the data was robust enough Memory size 512 MB
for portrayal on the map. CPU 2 x SUNW, SPARCstation 20 sparc
For instance, mangroves were identified as a fundamental 200 MHz
feature but were available only as uncoded line work. Thus, in their
present state they were unable to be portrayed on the map, but Web Server
have been identified as needing to be topologically structured. Sun Java Development Kit 1.4.0
The digital line work for cliffs, also a fundamental feature, Apache HTTP Server 2.0.42
was inconsistent in its topological structure so that in some cases Apache Tomcat 4.1.12 (Java servlet container)
the strokes of the cliff symbology pointed upslope instead of
downslope. Even though this was not cartographically correct, it PC Configuration
was decided to retain this feature on the map, while also identify- Intel Pentium 4
ing the need to address this problem. 0.5 GB RAM
40 GB HDD
What Differentiates This System Windows 2000

from Other Similar Systems Software:
Online topographic mapping is a relatively new development in
The primary software components used to develop this system
GIS that is becoming more prevalent with advances in hardware
were:
and software and the availability of georeferenced digital data.
• ArcIMS 4.01
State, national, and international government and private
Customized for new interface specifically for Vicmap
mapping agencies offer online topographic mapping, but Vicmap
Topographic 1:30,000
Topographic 1:30,000 is unique in that the user can access a cur-
• ArcSDE 8.2
rent, high-quality topographic map immediately from the comfort
• Oracle 8.17
of his or her home or office. And because it is A4 size, the user
• ArcGIS 8.3 ArcMap
can then immediately print the map output onto a home or office
Customization for Vicmap Topographic 1:30,000, including
printer. There is no delay involved in shipping the product to the
product layout, data content, and cartographic rules.
user nor is there a requirement for the user to locate the nearest
• Microsoft Access 2000
map shop or map kiosk for map access.
Customized for digital audit database
Vicmap Topographic 1:30,000 is regenerated every four
• Adobe Acrobat Reader 5 and 6
months using the latest available digital information from
Victoria’s maintained data. This means that any changes in the
Data:
data—for instance, road additions, road deletions, or road-name
The data utilized for this system is sourced from Spatial Informa-
edits—will be dynamically reflected in the mapping product. The
tion Infrastructure’s Vicmap suite of data and from the Depart-
user can be confident that the information depicted on the map
mental Corporate Geospatial Data Library (CGDL).
product is from the most current available data.
The following list contains the framework themes:
• Vicmap Elevation
System Hardware, Software, and Includes contours, spot heights, rocky outcrops
Data • Vicmap Features
Includes built-up areas, fences, landmark areas
Hardware: • Vicmap Hydro
ArcSDE Server Includes watercourses, water bodies, waterfalls
Solaris system • Vicmap Transport
OS version SunOS 5.8 Includes primary roads, railways, gates
Hardware type SUN4U sunw, Sun-Fire-280r • Vicmap Vegetation
Memory size 2048 MB Includes, tree cover, orchards, vineyards
CPU 2 x SUNW, sunw, Sun-Fire-280r • Vicmap Admin
sparc 1200 MHz Includes local government areas
• CGDL data
Includes national park boundaries, homestead names,
mountain names

URISA Journal • Victoria, Australia 31

Where Are We Now?/Future
Directions
At the time of this writing, Vicmap Topographic 1:30,000 is
approaching its one-year anniversary. During the preceding 12
months, more than 7,000 A4 maps have been purchased online.
SII has revised this series on average once every three months,
with a view to rationalizing this process by regenerating the
mapsheets only where updates have occurred or only where sales
have occurred.
During the preceding 12 months, SII has focused on 4 main
areas: partnerships with government and industry, data improve-
ment, content improvement, and product creation.
Partnership
Spatial Information Infrastructure has a continuing relationship
with the Australian federal mapping agency, Geoscience Aus-
tralia. This relationship provides SII with a number of potential
partnership opportunities, including cost sharing in data acquisi-
tion, improvement of existing data sets, acquiring new data, and
establishing external custodial relationships.
Partnerships are also being developed between SII, Emer-
gency Services, and private industry to facilitate the delivery of
the most current topographic mapping for emergency services
use and for the general public.
Data Improvement
Data quality issues identified in the digital data audit report 2004
are being resolved using three different models:
1. Problems identified in data currently under a maintenance
agreement are being sent back to the contractors for
correction.
2. Problems identified in data not currently under maintenance
are being referred to possible external custodians.
3. Problems identified in data not currently under maintenance
and not sourced externally are being resolved internally by
SII.
Product Creation
Additional state-wide products created using Vicmap Topographic
content in the past 12 months are:
• Vicmap Topographic 1:25,000 mapping created to meet the
needs of Victoria’s emergency management services.
• Vicmap Topographic 1:25,000 georeferenced. This
product will enable GIS users to place thematic data over a
backdrop of topographic information. It can also be used
for customized topographic maps centered over a point of
interest. It also has potential for use with GPS units, portable
handheld devices, and mobile navigation systems.
Future Directions
The Department of Sustainability and Environment through
Spatial Information Infrastructure has an ongoing commitment to
providing the most current topographic mapping to all Victorian
users. To that end, SII will continue to focus on the following
four key areas:
• Partnerships with government and industry
• Data improvement
• Content improvement
• Product creation
Potential Vicmap Topographic products to be produced in
the future include:
• Vicmap Topographic custom map print on demand using
centroid
• Vicmap Topographic 1:50,000 double format
Evaluation is also progressing on the feasibility of map
publishing for commercial purposes, thus physically replacing
the existing 1:25,000 hard-copy topographic map stock with
1:25,000 and 1:50,000 digital topographic maps.
A new hard-copy mapping program will commence by the
end of 2005.

For instance, using model 1, roads with an “unknown”

classification are being evaluated by SII and updated by the road
maintenance contractor. Using model 2, SII has established
custodial arrangements with the Department of Justice for state
emergency offices, courts, etc. And using model 3, SII has created
a mangrove layer.

Content Improvement
SII is continually improving the Vicmap Topographic content (see
Figures 1, 2, and 3). Some enhancements incorporated include:
• Implementation of an automated cartographic text-placement
tool.
• Extraction of map label information from digital data for
map display purposes.
• Improvements to map symbology.

32 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

Examples of System Images and
Screen Shots

Figure 3. A Sample from the Vicmap Topographic A4 1:30,000 8121-

Figure 1. The Evolution of Victorian Topographic Mapping. A Portion
of the Mirboo 8121-3-2 1:25,000 Topographic Hard-Copy Map.
Compiled from 1982 aerial photography, field revision in 1986,
printed in 1987.
3-2-4 Sheet Created in January of 2005 with Enhanced Cartographic
Text Placement. Some changes to note in comparison with Figure 2:
• More roads labeled especially in the Mirboo North township.
• Rail trail to the east of Mirboo North labeled.
• The employment of dynamic road suffix abbreviations, i.e.,
CT., RD., ST.
• Text curved around linear features.
• Stacking of public land names.
• Road aliases labeled.

About the Author

Contact person for system:
George Mifsud
Mapping/GIS Analyst
Spatial Information Infrastructure
13/570 Bourke Street
Melbourne, Australia 3000
61 3 8636 2361
E-mail: george.mifsud@dse.vic.gov.au

Figure 2. A Sample from the Digital Vicmap Topographic 1:30,000

8121-3-2-4 Sheet created in July of 2004.
Some changes to note in comparison with Figure 1:
• Mirboo North Thorpdale Road heading northeast out of
Mirboo North has been upgraded and renamed Strzelecki
Highway.
• New block of public land (Bushland Reserve) north of
Mirboo North.
• Dismantled railway to the east of Mirboo North has been
converted into a walking trail.
• New road network to the east of Mirboo North, south of
Galvins Road.
• New spot heights to the northwest of Mirboo North.

URISA Journal • Victoria, Australia 33

 Washoe County, Nevada
Washoe County Map Warehouse
(2004—Single Process)
System Summary
Quite often a catastrophic event is the forerunner in the develop-
ment of more accurate and detailed spatial data sets. This was
the case in Washoe County when a 1997 flood inundated the
cities of Reno and Sparks along the Truckee River. The flood of
1997 highlighted the deficiencies and shortcoming of current
spatial data sets and the lack of current aerial photography. Ob-
taining a highly accurate parcel database was the main impetus
behind the creation of a regional base map committee in 1998.
Coincidentally, the development of other spatial data sets oc-
curred at the same time, e.g., land use, elevation data, city and
county boundaries. Creating all those new data sets was costly:
Over the next five years, approximately $1.5 million was spent
developing the capabilities of the county’s geographic informa-
tion system (GIS).
The cost of developing and maintaining a robust GIS data-
base makes the task of delivering and presenting that data even
more important. In reality, the value of data, GIS or other, can
really be measured only in terms of data efficiency or how the
data is used and delivered to solve everyday questions and prob-
lems. Certainly, we cannot justify that the data be used only in
times of disaster or catastrophes or only by those proficient in
complicated GIS software. Instead, methods and means must be
made available to ensure that even the most inexperienced user
can consume GIS data.
A plethora of Internet mapping sites exist today. Most are
highly focused towards a particular user, e.g., assessor departments
publishing parcel data and community development departments
providing land-use data. In addition, most are map-driven, i.e.,
they require users to turn layers on and off and to use an identify
tool to answer questions about a particular feature. Washoe
County’s Internet Map Warehouse is an exemplary system because
it provides an alternative to the map-driven Internet sites. With
the Map Warehouse, spatial data is broken down by areas of
interest, e.g., administrative, land use, census, etc. Furthermore,
URISA Journal • Washoe County, Nevada 35
within an area of interest, users are able to step through a series
of questions that will produce a map with data of precisely what
they are interested in, such as: What schools are zoned for my
neighborhood? or Who is my county commissioner? or What is
the land-use designation for a parcel? Additionally, users are still
able to interact with the map interface using the conventional
suite of map tools and buttons.
By utilizing the Map Warehouse gateway, even the most
inexperienced user can consume Washoe County’s GIS data. The
Map Warehouse provides a single source where county employees,
private businesses, and the public can query and interact with
more than 60 spatial data sets with one easy-to-use interface.
Additionally, users can print letter or tabloid-size maps, download
premade PDF or TIFF maps such as road atlases, parcel maps,
and Census 2000 maps, or visit links to other data sources. The
Map Warehouse complements the county’s GIS division by
providing easy access to expensive GIS data in a simple-to-use
Internet browser and by providing answers to what are often very
simple questions.
Motivation for System Development
The Washoe County GIS division supports effective decision
making in Washoe County government by providing high-quality,
current, relevant, and well-documented geographic information
in digital and hard-copy formats. The division’s primary activity
is the development of an enterprise spatial database that is ac-
curate and current.
In 2001, the Washoe County GIS division launched an in-
teractive mapping Web site for the county assessor using ESRI’s
ArcIMS technology. The primary function of this Web site is the
dissemination of parcel and associated ownership data to internal
and public users. The data that was published was compiled
and released twice a year at the close of each tax role. The site is
extremely popular; it receives several thousand hits a week. In
2002, the site was aesthetically remodeled. Following the release
of the assessor’s ArcIMS Internet site, the public works depart-
ment and the sheriff’s department approached the GIS division
concerning developing interactive mapping Web sites for their
departments. The public works GPS control point ArcIMS site
came online in 2001, followed by the sheriff’s ArcIMS tier 3 sex-
offender site in 2002.
In 2003, the GIS division was approached once again and
asked to develop an ArcIMS site for the community development
department. However, several factors motivate the develop-
ment of a different system. First, the overhead in man-hours to
maintain not only the different data sources but also the Web
interfaces for many departments was becoming unmanageable.
Second, in 2002, the county’s enterprise GIS database, developed
with ESRI’s spatial database engine (SDE) technology and MS
SQL Server, came online to serve both vector and raster data to
ArcView, MapObjects, and ArcIMS clients. The deployment
of an enterprise spatial database allowed for the consolidation
of data found throughout the different departments, as well as
a generalization of different data formats. Third, the number of
SDE licenses that individual ArcIMS services were consuming
was unacceptable. Finally, but most important, county staff and
the public had to visit multiple Internet sites to answer their
questions. This inconvenience was confusing, time-consuming,
and costly.
Systems Benefits Achieved
The Map Warehouse improved the process of delivering parcel
and GPS data to staff and to the public, and was also the first
Washoe County system with the ability to deliver larger and
more defined spatial data sets, which until now were too large
and complex for anyone to easily use except for experienced GIS
users running high-end personal computers. For example, more
than 300 gigabytes of 6-inch rectified color aerial photography
and 700 megabytes of 2-foot elevation contours were loaded
into the enterprise GIS database running ESRI’s SDE. The new
technology found in SDE permitted this highly detailed data to
be delivered to anyone’s desktop via the Map Warehouse.
With the improved performance of an SDE-enabled en-
terprise GIS database back end, the Map Warehouse front end
efficiently delivers more than 60 different spatial data sets for the
staff and the public to query. Now with three clicks of a mouse and
an Internet browser, building and safety-plan examiners can easily
view elevation data when analyzing roof snow loads; community-
development planners can examine land use for any parcel in the
county; the Registrar of Voters office staff can perform spatial
queries to locate voter precincts; and real estate offices can find
school zones for individual properties. The list goes on and on
and is only limited by the users’ imagination. The Map Warehouse
has helped improve effective decision making in Washoe County
government and improved some of the ways in which the public
interacts with county departments via the Internet.
36 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
Unexpected benefits
Some of the unexpected benefits achieved with the Map Ware-
house include:
• The popularity of the system within other businesses, e.g.,
real estate, utility, surveying, and engineering companies.
• Use by staff GIS professionals for the simple questions, as
an alternative to the more complex slower GIS software.
• The ability to edit data while the system is in use, with the
resulting edits automatically displayed in the system. No
copying data outside of firewalls; no starting and stopping
services for changes to be reflected.
• The performance and clarity of the six-inch resolution aerial
photography and other complex data sets when viewed
through the Map Warehouse.
System Design Issues Encountered
and Overcome
Designing the system was very challenging and several problems
had to be overcome. The enterprise GIS database had to be
standardized, analyzed, and tuned. Moving ArcIMS and Inter-
net services to a Linux 9.0 platform while maintaining the SQL
enterprise GIS database on a Windows platform was untested
and unsupported by the county’s GIS software vendor. However,
most of the design problems occurred while developing the Map
Warehouse interface. Differences in Web browsers, computer
monitor sizes, and resolutions created many interface design
problems that were overcome by using MS Internet Explorer
with 96 dpi font size as the standard.
What Differentiates This System
from Other Similar Systems
A survey of the Internet will show that a multitude of Internet
mapping sites exist today. The Map Warehouse distinguishes
itself from these other sites by combining a wide array of data
sources into one location. No longer will users have to visit the
Assessor’s Office Web site for parcel information; the community-
development department’s Web site for land-use information; or
the public-works department’s Web site for GPS control-point
information. Now users can visit one location and completely
access all the published GIS data sets of Washoe County. From an
interface approach, the Map Warehouse differs because it works
in coordination with a variety of data sources via a question or
query-related approach over the usual point-and-click on a map
approach.
At the same time the Map Warehouse maximizes the map
interface portion for those more graphically enthused users.
The Map Warehouse hardware platform and the supporting
enterprise GIS database also differentiate from most other similar
systems. A Linux 9.0 operating system running Apache Web
server linked to the enterprise GIS database running SDE deliver
a secure, reliable, scalable, and efficient system.
System Hardware, Software, and • Assessors property data
• Survey control points
Data • Transportation
Hardware:
Database server Where Are We Now?/Future
• Dell PowerEdge 6400/700 Directions
• MS Windows 2000 Advanced Server The overall design of the system has changed very little since
• 700 MHz Processors its inception with the exception of colors and inclusion into
• 2 GB memory the Washoe County Internet scheme. What has changed is the
• 750 GB storage (RAID 5) amount of data being made available. FEMA Flood Insurance
• 1 GB network adapter Rate Maps (FIRM) images and Letters of Map Revision (LOMR)
documents were rectified and added as data layers to the Map
Web server Warehouse. Now anyone, such as an engineer in the public-works
• Dell PowerEdge 1750 server department or a title loan officer, can query and view flood data
• Linux Red Hat 9.0 for a parcel or geographic area.
• 2-2.8 GHz Xeon processors A new map tool has been added to the Map Warehouse.
• 1 GB memory This tool allows a user to draw an area (polygon) on the map;
• 70 GB disk space (RAID 5) the area will be labeled on the map with dimension and area
• 1 GB network adapter calculations. This tool allows for quick area estimations on house
size or lot size, or even for estimation of paving materials need
Software: for a given street.
• MS SQL Server 2000 Plans for future modifications to the Map Warehouse in-
• Apache 2.48 Web server clude:
• Apache Tomcat 4.1.29 servlet 1. Methods to bookmark a map or save a map for later retrieval.
• ESRI ArcIMS 4.0.1 This would save time and prove very convenient for users
• ESRI SDE 8.3 who often return to a specific area. Or for those who build
more sophisticated maps. Bookmarking would include the
The Map Warehouse Internet browser interface is a cus- ability to e-mail a bookmark that would take you directly to
tomized, lightweight HTML viewer. The Internet interface a preconceived map.
was customized using a combination of dynamic HTML and 2. The ability to change symbolization and the drawing order of
JavaScript. To minimize client difficulties with downloading and layers in the Map Warehouse would also be advantageous in
installation problems, the lightweight HTML viewer interface producing added varieties and personalization of individual
was chosen over other Java applications and plug-in orientated maps, as will the ability to label layers with the fields selected
viewers. ESRI’s spatial database engine (SDE) service running by the user.
on MS SQL server 2000 provides the data source for the Map 3. Because Washoe County is viewed as a recreational
Warehouse. destination, new recreational data layers such as bike paths,
hiking trails, kayaking courses, and scenic overlooks will be
Data added in the near future. This information will help local and
At the heart of the Map Warehouse is MS SQL Server 2000 and out-of-state outdoors enthusiasts map out their recreational
ESRI’s SDE 8.3 software serving two databases that include more activities in advance.
than 60 spatial layers. The image database contains more than 300 4. Attaching permit information to the parcel data is another
gigabytes of 6-inch resolution color aerial photography, 15-meter immediate goal that would greatly benefit the departments
Landsat satellite imagery, and a variety of other raster data layers. that use permit information in their work flow. Additionally,
The SDE database provides access to a wide assortment of vector utility data layers, such as water and sewer lines, fire hydrants,
data layers: Most important is Washoe County’s parcel data, which wells and septic tanks, and other data sets when once
consists of more than 140,000 parcels. The parcel feature data set completed, will offer added benefits for the users of the Map
is joined with the assessor’s attribute data, and both are updated Warehouse.
on a nightly basis. The Map Warehouse interface groups all the 5. Washoe County’s GIS division is working toward expanding
data sets into coherent groups that consists of: the Map Warehouse information beyond the county
• Administrative boundaries boundaries. To foster regional cooperation in economic
• Census block and tract boundaries development and coordinated disaster response, it plans to
• Facility locations include orthophotography, street and facility layers such
• Imagery, aerial photography, and satellite as hospitals, police, and fire stations of areas surrounding
• Land use\zoning for unincorporated Washoe County Washoe County. To further homeland security and disaster

URISA Journal • Washoe County, Nevada 37

 response, Washoe County is also examining the possibility Figure 3. Map Warehouse Map Setup and Layout Screen.
of including facility information such as floor plans and
building blueprints of public and critical facilities. This
confidential information would only be accessible to
authorized personnel.

Figure 1. Parcel Building-Permit Review with Associated Two-Foot

Contour Data.

Figure 4. Printable Map Warehouse Layout.

Figure 2. Querying Polling-Place Locations.

About the Author

Contact person for the system:
Thomas Lo, Ph.D.
GIS Manager, Washoe County
1001 East Ninth Street
Reno, Nevada 89520
(775) 328-3614
Fax: (775) 328-3648
E-mail: tlo@mail.co.washoe.nv.us

38 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

 City of Brampton, Ontario, Canada
Enabling the Enterprise—
Brampton’s Web-Based GIS Solution
(2005—Enterprise System)
System Summary
Brampton’s Web-based Geographic Information System (GIS)
solution provides seamless access to key land-based information.
The award-winning enterprise GIS site, http://www.bramp-
tonmaps.ca, offers citizens, businesses, and other government
agencies access to current maps and detailed data for municipal
property and facilities, economic development activity, political
boundaries, heritage sites, transit services, recreational services,
and more.
The solution is exemplary because it leverages the central-
ized, maintained information in the enterprise GIS system and
distributes this information to all city staff and to the public.
The Web-based solution is delivered to internal staff via what
Brampton calls Accessible Interactive Maps (AIMs). Externally,
the general public has access via http://www.bramptonmaps.ca,
the mapping component of the city’s Web site.
Both AIM and http://www.bramptonmaps.ca disseminate
the appropriate information to the targeted users. Within city hall,
each employee of the corporation has access to the entire database
of information managed by the GIS program. Through AIM, all
staff members and city councillors have access to the latest infor-
mation available to the city. A subset of this information is then
disseminated to the general public via the http://www.brampton-
maps.ca Web site. This ensures the applicable privacy legislation
is upheld and no inappropriate information is distributed.
By distributing the information in this way, all parties can
retrieve and rely on the most up-to-date spatial information avail-
able. City staff and the public understand that current information
is available through the enterprise GIS solution.
The http://www.bramptonmaps.ca Web site was featured in
an article published by Intergraph Canada. See http://www.inter-
graph.ca. . The story is on the GeoMedia WebMap Feature Site
and references Brampton’s achievement: “The City of Brampton’s
is the first site in North America to publish a public facing site
administered using this technology. . . . Brampton was able to
URISA Journal • City of Brampton, Ontario 39
get this Web site up and running in only 30 days.”
Visit our public Internet site: http://www.bramptonmaps.ca.
Visit our intranet (AIM) site: Please contact Bill Latchford
(bill.latchford@brampton.ca) and we can provide a secure vpn
tunnel into the city’s intranet to access the AIM solution.
Motivation for System Development
Brampton is the fastest-growing municipality in Canada and
this rapid pace means constantly changing data. There was no
standardized method of capturing, recording, and maintaining
land-related data changes as the city grew.
The challenge was to provide staff with easy access to consis-
tent, accurate, up-to-date mapping information in a cost-effective
manner. In the past, mapping information available to decision
makers, executives, and technical staff originated from many dif-
ferent sources. There was duplication among departments and
across corporate functions. The information was sometimes obso-
lete, so decisions risked being based on incorrect information.
The need was to establish centralized, map-related applica-
tions for internal staff, covering specific programs such as the
Official Plan Review, Growth Management, Fire & Emergency
Services Management, Property Lookup and Notifications, Street-
light Inventory Management, taxation system, tree inventory
control, burns permits, and bylaw enforcement, to list a few
examples. The Economic Development Office needed to field
foreign inquiries regarding Brampton’s land availability, available
business locations, commercial/industrial buy/lease options for
property, transportation options, labor pool, and surrounding
businesses.
The solution had to be intuitive and uncomplicated so
that any employee would be able to access and understand the
information. GIS Services created the Web-based application to
achieve this. Now staff no longer need continuous GIS training
to create value-added, map-based information from the Web
application.
 Previous labor-intensive manual processes contained a greater System Hardware, Software, and
risk for human error. GIS Services reduced or eliminated this risk
by providing a solution that included an automated index used
Data
to pull geographic information from the database.
Hardware
GIS data is maintained centrally on a HP RISC-based server.
System Benefits Achieved This data is then called via Web servers that are Compaq, Win-
Unexpected benefits are the many uses of the information
dows-based (Intel) servers. The information is then disseminated
throughout city hall, and how frequently GIS Services receives
to the client.
requests to sell the data.
The extent to which city staff gathers and uses the spatial
information to make key decisions has exceeded original expecta- Software
tions. We had not identified groups such as Bylaw Enforcement, Brampton’s GIS solution is Intergraph-based. Software com-
Forestry, and Recreation departments to benefit from the infor- ponents used to deliver the Web sites are Geomedia Webmap
mation until later in the solution’s rollout. Instead, these groups Professional (the Web engine) and Geomedia Webmap Publisher.
have adopted the technology earlier than anticipated and are The GIS section has established a standard framework using
taking advantage of the information to make their operations these software packages to provide Web-based GIS tools to the
more efficient. appropriate client. The GIS data is maintained using Geomedia
Consultants, developers, and data resellers have called the Professional.
city to request that the GIS data be made available to them at
a nominal cost. (This is in addition to the information already Data
available at http://www.bramptonmaps.ca.) The GIS database is 100 percent Oracle-based, specifically Oracle
9i Spatial. (Oracle is the city of Brampton’s standard database
System Design Issues Encountered environment.) This database environment is used to store, main-
tain, and deliver more than 420 layers of GIS information for
and Overcome the city, with more than 4,400 columns of tabular information
Insufficient memory: The most significant issue to date has been
referenced to those layers. Oracle is maintained in an HP-UX
undersizing the Web application servers in terms of memory.
11 environment with the database residing on an IBM Storage
To achieve the required throughput, we had to add memory
Area Network (SAN).
to the Web servers (both internal and external) to ensure faster
response times.
Examples of System Images and
What Differentiates This System Screen Shots
from Other Similar Systems?
This system feeds information to the city’s Web environment
directly from a central, corporate database server. The informa-
tion is maintained 100 percent centrally—with no file sharing
or extraneous databases. As quickly as data maintainers update
the information, the data is published to the Web (either AIM
or http://www.bramptonmaps.ca). City staff and the public have
accurate information upon which to base decisions.

40 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

URISA Journal • City of Brampton, Ontario 41
42 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
URISA Journal • City of Brampton, Ontario 43
44 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
URISA Journal • City of Brampton, Ontario 45
46 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
URISA Journal • City of Brampton, Ontario 47
About the Author
Bill Latchford
Manager, GIS Services
2 Wellington Street West
Brampton, Ontario, Canada L6Y 4R2
(905) 874-3710
Fax: (905) 874-3953
E-mail: bill.latchford@brampton.ca

48 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

 Clayton County (Georgia) Water Authority
GIS System
(2005—Enterprise System)
System Summary
In less than six years, the Clayton County Water Authority
(CCWA) has developed an innovative and cost-effective Geo-
graphic Information System (GIS) program that is integrated
into the work processes of each department, and empowers us-
ers from frontline fieldworkers to upper management. Used as
a stand-alone application, the GIS provides users with a tool for
analyzing, locating, and querying the hundreds of thousands of
assets. The GIS has provided even greater benefit to the organi-
zation and its customers as a tool that is tightly integrated with
other corporate information systems such as the computerized
maintenance management system (CMMS), where all work is
performed against a GIS asset, and a detailed maintenance his-
tory is developed. Through such tools as well as the custom-built
LandMan application used to manage the application of treated
wastewater on the 24,000 head spray irrigation facility, GIS is a
key component in all work performed at CCWA.
A central feature of the program is the automated processes
used to update the system with new data. Using detailed submittal
standards and commercial GIS data conversion software, additions
to the water and wastewater systems are seamlessly incorporated
into the GIS in a hands-free process that results in new data that
is available to all users the following day. This process has greatly
streamlined the data development process, and enabled our staff
to focus on end users, applications, and analysis. It has reduced
an update cycle of 2 to 3 years to less than 24 hours, and reduced
the labor hours by eightfold.
Another hallmark of the system is the use of “right tech,”
in which technology is used appropriately, depending on need.
Although leading-edge tools, such wireless technology, and data
transformation tools are important components of the system,
each one is chosen on the basis of its return on investment and its
value to the organization. More simple and elegant applications
and integrations are often used where “high-tech” solutions would
add undue complexity and cost.
URISA Journal • Clayton County (Georgia) Water Authority 49
Finally, the successes of our program are the result of team-
work across the organization. We never lose sight of the fact that
we serve the needs of the rest of the organization: CCWA sells
water not GIS. As such, our data and applications are all created
with direct input from our end users, and their successful use of
the system is a testament to the effectiveness of the program.
Motivation for System Development
The CCWA GIS was developed in response to a need for accurate
and timely facility and maintenance information at all levels of the
organization. The legacy paper maps were updated infrequently
(three to five years), and the process for capturing changes to the
system frequently broke down. In addition, the CCWA staff was
aging, and a system for capturing system assets was needed to
“institutionalize” this critical asset data. Because Clayton County
government did not have a GIS program, CCWA had to build
not only the data sets specific to water and wastewater, but also
a significant portion of the basemap, including streets, edge-of-
pavement, building footprints, political boundaries, orthophotos,
and parcels (a partial data set only).
GIS was identified as a key component of the year 2000
Master Plan, and development proceeded rapidly as the water
distribution and wastewater collection systems were being mod-
eled also as part of the 2000 Master Plan. In addition, a legacy
pushpin wall map depicting the 24,000 sprinkler land application
facility was rapidly deteriorating. This map was the only updated
information on this large facility.
System Benefits Achieved
Without doubt, the GIS has greatly improved the speed and
quality of data that is provided to the end users. The update
cycle, it was anticipated, would be improved to within several
months, but the next-day data updates, to all users, whether on
or off the network, have exceeded all expectations. Many data
sets that had been previously inaccessible or difficult to access are
now instantly accessible to all users. The old process for access-
ing sewer customer connections required two to four people and
approximately one hour to complete. This information is now
accessible in seconds by any individual. Quality has improved
because of both the enhanced editing environment provided by
GIS and the phenomenon of pushing data production “upstream.”
Our system emphasizes one-time data capture and as such puts
the responsibility for quality data in the hands of the contractors,
surveyors, and field crews, allowing GIS staff to concentrate on
data review and analysis.
In addition to the GIS exceeding expectations, it also has
created a number of unanticipated peripheral benefits. One of
these benefits is that it has placed technology in the hands of
field users. Each of our field crews has a laptop computer in the
crew’s truck, specifically for accessing GIS data. Many of these
users were previously computer-illiterate, and the GIS has enabled
these users to apply technology to their daily activities. Now field
users download data to their trucks in the morning and refer to
specific assets as they perform their work.
Another peripheral benefit is that GIS has been a driver for
open databases and other information systems. Previously, the
organization’s data was “locked” in a legacy AS/400 computer
system. The only method for end users to access it was through the
inflexible “Green Screen” GUI, or via custom reports prepared by
programmers. GIS has driven the use of Client Access and other
ODBC connections to the AS/400 data, as well as interfaces for
pulling and pushing the data between the AS/400 and the GIS
suite of applications.
System Design Issues Encountered
and Overcome
The CCWA GIS system design consists of two parts: geodatabase
design and system configuration. The geodatabase design was
developed during a weeklong database modeling workshop, which
involved personnel from every department in the company. Once
the final design was put into production, there have been very
few design changes (approximately 15 fields have been modi-
fied or added in 5 years), indicating that the original design was
successful. The only major issues encountered were linking the
assets to other enterprise systems and propagating changes across
databases. These issues were handled by an “infrastructure ID,”
which is owned by the GIS system and fed to other enterprise
systems.
The system configuration includes the hardware and software
installations, both on the client and server sides. Because CCWA
has many field personnel who do not have access to the Internet,
a primary constraint is data distribution. Internet-based appli-
cations are not suitable for at least half of our users, and thus a
simple, reliable, and cost-effective field application was essential.
Our first attempt was to use ESRI’s ArcExplorer. This application
did not meet our needs, because of reliability, limited graphics,
and the need for constant GIS staff support. This system was
replaced with the greatly improved ArcReader, which featured
50 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
ease of use, foolproof operation, excellent graphics, and ease of
distribution.
The other main system configuration challenge was the
deployment of the ArcGIS/Cityworks application to office-based
staff. Fifteen ArcView 9.1/Cityworks licenses are shared among
approximately 45 end users, who access the system at various
times of the day from any number of computers. To simplify
the deployment of this combined application, it was published
using Citrix technology. Although Citrix made certain aspects
of rollout and upgrades much easier, it introduced some unfore-
seen complexities in user profiles, the display of event themes,
and database permissions. These challenges were overcome with
the combined problem-solving skills of several IT and GIS staff
members, and the resulting solutions were documented to ensure
future success.
What Differentiates This System
from Other Similar Systems?
A number of significant differences exist between our system and
other similar systems. The first difference is the as-built conversion
process used for converting new assets into the GIS. While a grow-
ing number of organizations are requiring electronic as-builts to be
submitted, CCWA’s program is extremely streamlined and exact-
ing. To obtain final approval on a construction project, contractors
are required to submit their as-built drawings in one of several
computer-aided design (CAD) formats, exactly in compliance
with the CCWA As-Built CAD standards. These standards specify
the format of the entire drawing, from file name to layers and
layer names, to topology and coordinate system. Once accepted,
the drawings are converted (usually within 15 seconds or less) to
GIS format, with no further modification. Using Safe Software’s
Feature Manipulation Engine (FME) software, topology is veri-
fied, attributes are created, and layers are mapped to the proper
ESRI feature classes with no manual intervention. This process
changes a five-step, multihour conversion to a single-step process
and changes GIS data creators to GIS data reviewers and analysts.
The end result is that data that was submitted and approved one
day is processed, verified, and incorporated in our central geoda-
tabase and accessed by all end users the next day (or instantly if
the user is accessing the central geodatabase directly).
A second difference is our extensive use of GIS by field staff.
This is accomplished by intensive collaboration and training.
Every part of our system has been developed with the input of
end users. From the look and feel of maps (appearance, layering,
scale ranges, data, labels, etc.) to the design of every geodatabase
feature class to the details of custom application development,
every GIS product is codesigned by end users and GIS staff. As
a result, very few changes are needed after deployment, and end
users actually use the products. Thus, GIS is fully integrated into
the work processes.
Our training program has two elements that ensure end-user
success. The first is that testing is mandatory for all training. If a
user fails the timed test, he or she must retake the course. If the
user fails again, he or she receives personalized remedial training
until the user is able to pass. The second element is monthly train-
ing courses, which enable us to constantly reinforce GIS skills and
knowledge, and eliminate excuses that training is unavailable.
The third difference is our strategic use of technology to
maximize the return on investment. Some systems are so enam-
ored with technology that technology becomes an end in and of
itself. This overengineering can result in unreliable systems that
are prone to failure and do not meet the needs of end users. In our
system, we use an approach we refer to as “right tech.” With this
approach, some problems are solved using leading-edge technol-
ogy, such as wireless updates to field user computers via 802.11
g wireless communications (this has been in place nearly two
years), and SQL Server’s Data Transformation Services to move
data from the AS/400 database to the Cityworks database and to
the ArcReader applications as event themes. Other problems are
solved with out-of-the-box solutions such as ArcReader, which
has been enhanced to allow for locating addresses. Although
ArcReader does not come with the ability to locate addresses, by
writing a custom application to generate a file with all possible
addresses for our street network and then geocoding the resultant
addresses, we were able to give ArcReader this capability and
greatly stretch our GIS budget.
Other problems are solved using the “80 percent solution.”
An example of this is our use of palm pilots for data collection.
Rather than using a GIS-based field application, asset identifiers
(e.g., Hydrant IDs) were pulled from paper or laptop-based GIS
maps and entered into the palm-pilot applications. Data was cap-
tured (the asset IDs were reentered at the end of each inspection
to ensure data quality) and downloaded at the end of each data
to a central database, where it was linked live to the GIS system.
This system is reliable, easy to use, and approximately five times
as cost-effective as using a comparable GIS/GPS-based PDA.
One more example would be the use of office-grade hardware
for GIS computers used in the field. Despite a great deal of debate
on the merits of ruggedized versus office-grade laptops, we have
experienced great success with the office-grade laptops, with only
one failing in three years. We estimate that we have saved nearly
$45,000 with this strategy. The GIS team was key in advocating
this cost-effective solution for the dissemination of GIS data.
System Hardware, Software, and
Data
Hardware
• A GIS server (IBM Netfinity with two processors and RAID
5 array)
• Two Citrix servers (for ArcView 9.1 and Cityworks)
• The Cityworks database server
• Three “power users” high-end GIS workstations
• Three engineering technician workstations (used part-time
for some GIS work)
URISA Journal • Clayton County (Georgia) Water Authority 51
• End-user computers (approximately 150) consisting of office-
grade desktop computers or laptops, including approximately
30 field-application laptops
• Approximately five ruggedized laptops
Software
• Two ESRI ArcInfo 9.1 seats
• Three ESRI ArcEditor 9.1 seats
• ESRI ArcSDE 9.0 running on SQL Server 2000
• 20 ESRI ArcView 9.1 seats
• Safe Software Feature Manipulation Engine (FME)
• ESRI Spatial Analyst, GRID, Publisher
• Visual Basic 6.0, Visio 2000
Custom applications
• LandMan GIS
• SDE to Personal GeoDB export Utility
• Infrastructure ID/Date-User Stamp
• AS/400 to Cityworks data pump
• Automatic Map production tools, including an automatic
frame-resizing utility
Data
• Water distribution network (water mains, hydrants, valves,
tanks, etc.)
• Wastewater collection network (gravity lines, manholes, force
mains, lift stations, etc.)
• Raw water network (water mains, valves, intakes, etc.)
• Land application (treated effluent lines, sprinklers, valves,
etc.)
• Constructed wetlands (intakes, connections, cells, etc.)
• Hydrology (streams, lakes)
• Basemap (streets, building footprints, edge-of-pavement,
parcels [partial], political boundaries, railroads, etc.)
In addition to this data, CCWA maintains a host of data
sets, which are used for special projects or are under development.
These include elevation contours, DEM data, stormwater features,
watershed boundaries, land use, etc.).
Where Are We Now? Future
Directions
Current program
There have been few major structural changes to our program
during the past year. Instead, we have implemented several en-
hancements. These include:
• An updated download tool for end users to obtain GIS
data and projects from the server. This tool includes a
configuration utility for rapidly changing the files that are
copied to the end user’s system, a message system for sending
questions and comments to the GIS section without the use
 of e-mail (this system is used because most end users work in The future will entail additional services and streamlining exist-
the field and are disconnected from the network), a tracking ing systems.
function to record the user and the time and the date the user • We are currently implementing a CIS system, which will
performed a download, and a browser window for viewing involve integrating GIS more directly with the customer-
a GIS home page in the field. service work flow. Users will be able to view customer data,
• The collection of water meters using mapping-grade service requests, and outage information directly in GIS.
(submeter) GPS. This enhancement will support the • In 2007, CCWA will implement a Stormwater Utility. This
integration with the new Customer Information System utility will be an additional service both for our company
(CIS), scheduled for implementation in 2006. and for our GIS section. We will increase every aspect of
• Additional data-checking tools to increase the efficiency of our system by approximately one-quarter—including end
our reviews of as-built drawings submitted by contractors. users, data sets, and service requests—while maintaining
These include functions to flag and annotate errors to the current staff size. This will be accomplished through
decrease the amount of time needed to review each as-built increased automation and economies of scale (i.e., we will
drawing. use existing systems such as Cityworks and simply add
additional modules).
The main challenges that we face are training issues and IT
infrastructure issues.
• The training issues involve outside contractors changing
personnel. It takes several submittals before contractors
fully grasp the as-built CAD standards. Once they do, they
usually can obtain a drawing approval after two rounds of
submissions. Unfortunately, there is frequent turnover among
these technicians, and we have to spend time reeducating each
new technician, as he or she begins submitting drawings.
• Internally, many of our end users require remedial training.
As a result, we have implemented tiered, exam-based training,
which helps to determine which individuals are experiencing
ongoing problems.
• The IT infrastructure issues involve the upgrade of systems.
We are continually challenged by new operating system,
server upgrades, and connectivity issues. Our wireless WAN
has been down for much of 2005, which means that data
downloads to some of our treatment plants have been run
over DSL connections—a slow process. Fortunately, new
radios for the wireless WAN and some redundancy should
solve this problem.

52 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

Examples of System Images and
Screen Shots

Figure 3. The Message Sending Tool for end users.

Figure 1. The configuration utility for the user download application.

About the Author
Bruce B. Taylor
Engineering Services Supervisor
1600 Battle Creek Road
Morrow, GA 30260
(770) 960-3614
Fax: (770) 960-5229
E-mail: btaylor@ccwa1.com

Figure 2. The GIS Home Page for end users.

URISA Journal • Clayton County (Georgia) Water Authority 53

 Commonwealth of Massachusetts
MassGIS Web Mapping Services
(2005—Enterprise System)
System Summary
The value of data that government agencies collect and manage
is only fully realized when applications are built to provide ac-
cess to the data. Applications that are universally available (e.g.,
Internet-based) and inexpensive or free multiply the value of the
data accordingly. The MassGIS Web Mapping Services provide
access to a wealth of digital mapping for Massachusetts. Not only
have the Web Mapping Services improved data access for custom-
ers coming to MassGIS’s own Web site, but they have made the
same online, live Web-mapping capability (including attributes
and spatial-query functionality) available to other government
Web sites through an open XML interface. This greatly leverages
investments in data, hardware, software, and skills at MassGIS.
The Web service approach has added value to existing state agency
Web-based interactions with the public. Agencies can include
maps on their Web sites without having to build or maintain
the supporting infrastructure. The services also interoperate with
other server map data so data from different servers can be com-
bined and presented in a single view. A total of 14 Massachusetts
government entities have developed Web applications that use
the MassGIS Web Mapping Services (screen shots and URLs are
included later in this document). While we did not initially have
the tools to adequately track usage, we do now. The services are
experiencing high usage. In 2005, some 1,581,924 requests were
logged, an average of 4,334 per day. Use of the services has also
been accelerating. In the remaining months of 2004, an average
of 2,389 per day was seen (an increase of 81 percent average daily
requests for the second period over the first).
The services are exemplary because they:
• Improve service delivery and solve online data collection
problems. State and local government agencies have
improved the quality of data collected and services delivered
on their Web sites by adding GIS maps as a new feature
to Web applications without investing in the GIS back
end. State and local government agencies can also use the
URISA Journal • MassGIS 55
services to augment their existing Web-mapping capabilities
by adding MassGIS data (e.g., color orthophoto basemap).
Because the Web-mapping services can interoperate with
other Web-mapping capabilities, agency data layers can be
combined with MassGIS layers even though they are in
different physical locations. MassGIS Web Mapping Services
offer a standardized way of integrating mapping into Web
sites, avoiding a possible proliferation of nonstandard Web-
mapping systems across agencies that do not communicate
well. MassGIS is creating a central registry of map layers
from various agencies that will serve as a common repository
of Massachusetts data served from remote as well as local
servers.
• Make MassGIS data more accessible. MassGIS is the
place to go for high-quality statewide GIS data. Before the
Web-mapping services were available, data was distributed
through CDs or by downloading through various tiling
schemes. Now, hundreds of data layers and symbolizations
of them can be used in any public agency Web site. These
data layers not only create map images but also provide
information in response to spatial queries such as: “What
vernal pools are within this bounding box?” or “What is
a list of the verified market sales points that were sold for
greater than $300,000 and were sold before June 1, 2000?” In
addition, the Web-mapping services enabled the creation of
the general-purpose application OLIVER (OnLIne ViewER)
that provides mixing and matching of layers and intuitive
data download.
• Save public agency money and reduce duplicate efforts.
Spatial information resources can be centralized at MassGIS
and served to government entities. These entities do not
need to purchase or install hardware, spatial databases, and
Web-mapping software, or train staff on these systems.
Web application developers do not need to understand the
underlying database and Web-map creation software to
 create maps in their applications. They use the standard,
documented XML Application Programming Interface
(API). Publicity about the services means that agencies have
avoided redundant efforts because they know they can use
MassGIS services.
Motivation for System Development
MassGIS was tasked with creating Web-mapping services by the
central information technology office under the Commonwealth’s
CIO. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts embarked on an ag-
gressive e‑government initiative entitled “Mass.Gov” in March of
2001. The commonwealth’s consultant, Accenture, completed a
strategic plan for the commonwealth’s Information Technology
Division (ITD) and laid out a conceptual architecture for a Mass.
Gov portal. GIS was identified as one of four common statewide
“shared services” that should be provided to e-application develop-
ers to create the content to be offered through the portal. (The
other three services were E-Payments, Customer Relationship
Management, and Security.) The Accenture report stated: “Creat-
ing shared services . . . helps avoid the costs of agencies duplicating
the development of these services at additional costs. And it helps
all agencies more quickly implement new services because these
components . . . will be readily available to plug in. The shared
services should actually speed the rate of implementation of new
robust interactions and transactions.” Also, “ . . . smaller agencies
may not have been able to provide key mapped services because
of the prohibitive expense of GIS. If the application component
is already available it could spur the development of a host of
new geographic services.”
A vision and high-level design for the GIS-shared service
was subsequently developed by Applied Geographics, Inc., in a
June 2001 report, “The Shared Geographic Information System
(GIS) Service of Mass.Gov.” (This report was prepared for the
Massachusetts Executive Office of Administration and Finance
Information Technology Division (EOAF-ITD) and the Execu-
tive Office of Environmental Affairs-MassGIS.) The following is
taken from the Executive Summary:
“What is the Shared GIS Service?
Once developed, the shared GIS service will be data and
technology that allow Mass.Gov E-Application developers
to easily include maps or spatial analysis products (e.g., driv-
ing directions, or a list of nearest entities) in Mass.Gov Web
pages. Rather than having to build a mapping functionality
as part of their E-Application, the shared GIS service will
allow state agencies to use an existing, high-performance
resource. The shared GIS service will be composed of three
main pieces of technology:
56 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
In many ways, the new shared GIS service is analogous
to MapQuest.com [or now Maps.Google.com – ed.]
Whereas MapQuest or Vicinity serve a limited quantity
of general purpose data on a nationwide basis, the shared
GIS service will deliver highly detailed spatial data, specific
to Massachusetts.”
System Benefits Achieved
• Providing map information to enhance state agency Web
sites
MassGIS has invested and maintains the hardware and
software necessary to warehouse and serve the data layers and
spatial information through the Web services. Developing
the Web services capabilities made sharing this centralized
resource possible, thus realizing an efficient use of financial
and human resources and a significant cost savings for many
government entities. Agencies could focus on improving
core services rather than developing a new capability.
Furthermore, Massachusetts government entities can add
maps to Web sites within their own programming language
and server environment. The open source OpenGIS XML
API is the only restriction. This flexibility was critical because
various government agencies have investment in different
types of servers, operating systems, and staff skills.
• Easier access to the MassGIS database of statewide GIS
information
The Web services enhanced access to the MassGIS large
database of statewide GIS data, creating a new ability to mix
and match layers, and offering more convenient extraction
of data. OLIVER can download data as shapefiles for any
area of interest. Previously, download of MassGIS data was
based on tiles. The user had to figure out which tiles were
appropriate, download multiple files, and more data than
needed (a slower download). With OLIVER, the user can
get just what he or she needs.
• Improved data collection and display capabilities
Several state agencies have improved data collection or the
usefulness of data they display by deploying the Web services.
The Department of Environmental Protection collects
information about regulated facilities through a Web-based
application; previously, the coordinate information provided
by users of the application was notoriously unreliable. By
incorporating a map from the MassGIS Services into the
 application, users are able to provide a correct coordinate by
selecting the correct location on a map. The Department of
Revenue has for some time posted a tabular listing of market
sales information on its Web site. This site enables assessors
to search for comparable sales for unusual properties (e.g., gas
stations, bowling alleys). However, a key missing component
was the location of these sales. The application now is built
around the MassGIS Web Mapping Services and enables
users to see a map showing sales locations. The Division of
Capital Asset Management (DCAM) had very poor records
for the locations of state-owned buildings and facilities. It
recently deployed a Web-based application that displays the
existing locations developed using an address. DCAM staff
who manage buildings and facilities use a mapping capability
developed using the Web services to move points representing
buildings or facilities to their correct locations; they orient
themselves using the orthophoto basemap.
• The capability of connecting isolated islands of data at
agencies in a central registry
State and local government agencies can combine MassGIS
data with their own data in Web applications without having
to acquire and serve the MassGIS data themselves. Thus,
updates are transparently and automatically provided instead
of having to be tediously downloaded. If agencies have their
own specialized data and serve it over the Web, because of
the interoperability of the services, their data layers can be
combined with MassGIS layers even though they are in
different physical locations. The Web services provide a
“glue” for connecting data sets. MassGIS is in the process of
creating a searchable registry (cascading Web service) that will
contain not only MassGIS-served data but also data served
from local communities or other government agencies.
Unexpected benefits
• Data contributions to MassGIS increased.
The “carrot” of being able to have their data layers in the
Web services for display and download has been an incentive
for data contribution.
• Limitations of proprietary systems overcome.
The Department of Conservation and Recreation was
able to purchase a facility management system from a
third-party vendor without being concerned that it would
not interoperate with MassGIS’s current spatial database
format.
• Funding was attracted from outside agencies to extend the
capabilities of the Web-mapping services.
System Design Issues Encountered and Overcome
• MassGIS could not rely solely on ArcIMS.
While ArcIMS provided many of the capabilities MassGIS
was looking for, it did not provide all the needed capabilities.
Specifically, it was not appropriate for all tasks and content
types, its interface was not so stable as required, it could
URISA Journal • MassGIS 57
not support simple applications (e.g., URLs in Web pages),
and it could not integrate sufficiently with other services
implemented on other platforms (for example, a Web-based
facility management application sold by FAMIS). The
solution to these problems was building the MapAccess
middleware. MapAccess provided separation between client
application design and the specifics of service provision
through ArcIMS.
• Some standards were not sufficiently developed.
The original vision included the use of Simple Object
Access Protocol (SOAP), Universal Description, Discovery,
and Integration (UDDI), and Web Services Description
Language (WSDL). However, these technologies were not
developed enough when our system was being created for
use in the Web-mapping services. In the past few years, they
have since matured and eventually they will be incorporated
in the MassGIS Web Mapping Services.
• Additional servers were needed.
ESRI, the company that makes both the ArcSDE and
ArcIMS products, recommends that the two products
reside on separate servers for performance reasons. At first,
MassGIS had all software components on a single system.
Once ArcIMS was moved onto its own server, MassGIS saw a
large increase in performance (maps were served about twice
as fast).
What Differentiates This System
from Other Similar Systems?
Differences from ArcIMS as a stand-alone Web-mapping sys-
tem:
• OGC compliancy
The MassGIS Web Mapping Services implement many of
the OpenGIS Consortium standards and specifications,
such as WMS (map creation), Geocoder, Gazetteer (spatial
information), and WFS-T (online data editing). MassGIS
Web Mapping Services also support different versions of
WMS, for example, 1.1.0 and 1.1.1. OGC interfaces enable
the idea of a data portal.
• More flexibility in data presentation and organization
ArcIMS serves one map service at a time to a client, while
the MassGIS Web Mapping Services allow layers to be mixed
and matched from multiple map services. With the Web-
mapping services, each layer or style needs to be represented
only once in the configuration files.
• Ability to add non-ESRI components
With ArcIMS alone, other brands of Web-mapping
functionality could not easily be added. But because of the
XML to AXL translator, additional service components can
be added to the back end or components can be switched
out. As long as the XML API remains the same, the client
applications won't be affected.
• Easier data organization
In the MassGIS Web Mapping Services system, there
 is a structure of layers and styles. Each layer has one or Internet. Each set consists of a UNIX machine running Solaris and
more styles. Each style points to a certain server, a certain a Windows server. Each UNIX server runs the database software
ArcIMS map service, and a certain layer ID within that map (Oracle and ArcSDE), the Web server (Apache), the servlet engine
service. (Tomcat), and the application server (JBoss). Each Windows
• Ability to add layers from various agencies into one server runs ArcIMS and creates output images (maps and legend
registry—cascading Web-map service files) that are copied to the UNIX machine to be served out to
Layers from other agencies can be added to the MassGIS applications. The internal setup is used by state agencies. State
Web Mapping Services registry. MassGIS does not need agencies develop new applications and maps for internal use only,
to know the data storage and presentation details. A town or for eventual deployment to the external server and the public.
can serve data from its server, in a different projection, and The public and some agency staff in regional offices are off the
the MassGIS server will combine the layers into one map state network and use the external setup. For performance reasons,
image. ArcIMS is separate from SDE. The external servers are connected
to the Internet through a switch by way of two wireless 4 Mbps
Differences from commercial Web-mapping services (such as (megabits per second) antennas.
ESRI’s ArcWeb Services): The MassGIS Web Mapping Services require many layers
• Up-to-date local Massachusetts data served of software. The software stores geographic data, produces map
While ESRI and other companies offer Web-mapping images, and communicates with client applications. End users of
services, the data served is not MassGIS data. The MassGIS the applications need only have a Web browser.
services can provide data with more detail than those available
commercially. Software
Software Purpose Approximate
• MassGIS Web Mapping Services offer extra functionality Name Cost
1. Nearest Euclidean function. The application sends a Oracle 9.2 Database—stores geographic $40,000
point and a data layer such as MBTA subway stations data in seamless layers
and the MassGIS Web Mapping Services return the ArcSDE 9.1 Spatial connection to Oracle $16,000
nearest subway station to the given point. database—allows ArcIMS to
2. Server-based image compositing. Compositing on talk to Oracle using spatial
the server allows flexibility in creating images and is language
necessary to mix and match layers within one WMS. ArcIMS 9.0 Produces Web maps, answers $20,000
This allows OLIVER to create a map with layers from spatial questions about data
different underlying ArcIMS map services. MapAccess1 Web Mapping Services core $300,000
3. Additional optional vendor-specific tags for highlighting server code—takes XML re-
features available in the MassGIS WMS GetMap quest sent by an application
request: hiliteLayer, hiliteColor, and hiliteXY. and translates it into AXL
4. A Web Security Service (WSS) enables different user for ArcIMS; translates AXL
accounts. Applications using the Web services can serve responses from ArcIMS into
custom content to specific users or groups of users. XML response for the appli-
5. An XML interface for custom data extract. cation; determines the least
6. Generalized Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) number of ArcIMS map ser-
implementation onto both raster and vector images. vices needed to create a map;
• NamedLayer/NamedStyle—Web services administrator sets composites resulting ArcIMS
up layers and styles. images
• NamedLayer/UserStyle—The user can dynamically change JBoss 2.4.1a Application server—runs free (open
the symbolization. applications source)
• UserLayer/UserStyle—The user can create entirely new Tomcat 3.2.3 Servlet engine—communi- free (open
“graphics” and style them. cates between applications source)
and Web services
Apache 1.3.20 Web server—serves images, free (open
System Hardware, Software, and
XML, HTML pages source)
Data

Hardware
The MassGIS Web Mapping Services currently use four servers:
two servers on the state network and two servers available to the

58 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

AWStats 5.5 Web server log analyzer— free (open
generates statistics nightly source)
on patterns of use such
as browser and operating
system types and versions,
screen resolutions, counts
amount of GB of XML, im-
ages, HTML
Shell scripts2 Restart system components free (written by
on a schedule, and if errors MassGIS staff)
count number of images
generated daily
1 custom-built by consultants to OpenGIS standards
2 custom-built by MassGIS staff
Data
The MassGIS Web Mapping Services provide access to a large
GIS data warehouse. The warehouse contains data developed
for or by MassGIS as well as data from many different organiza-
tions and agencies. Data layers are both vector and raster. Raster
images include TIF and MrSID types, and some images are in
SDE. All vector data reside in SDE, which runs on top of Oracle.
Therefore, most data layers reside fundamentally in the Oracle
database. The site http://www.state.ma.us/mgis/laylist.htm lists all
available MassGIS data layers. Examples of layers include: color
orthophotos (1/2-meter pixel resolution), USGS topographic
maps, land use (1:25,000 scale), wetlands (1:12,000 scale), soils,
open space, zoning, and roads (1:5,000 scale). There are more
than 100 data layers. In addition, MassGIS has created hundreds
of “themes” or symbolizations of these data layers. Land use can
be viewed as 1951, 1971, 1985, or 1999 land use. The Web
Mapping Services create layer names and styles that are associated
with these symbolizations and each is associated with a particular
layer paragraph in an ArcIMS map service (AXL configuration
file). Links to metadata are also associated with each layer/style
combination, providing extensive information about the data
layers such as date of last update, attributes, production method,
and a maintenance schedule.
Where Are We Now? Future
Directions
The MassGIS Web Mapping Services have undergone or are
undergoing several upgrades and enhancements in these areas:
Hardware
New, faster servers have been purchased and are being set up for
both the database function and the application serving function.
This should boost the speed of the services, for the current servers
are seven years old—that’s about 70 years in human years!
URISA Journal • MassGIS 59
Software
Oracle, SDE, and ArcIMS are in the process of being upgraded
to more current versions.
A number of improvements have been made to the Web Services
MapAccess code, including:
• Use of ImageMagick for image compositing, speeding up
compositing
• WFS-T code improved and bugs fixed
• A faster operational metadata system implemented
• Interoperability with different WMS versions improved
Data
New data layers have been added as they have become avail-
able.
Additional applications using the Web services
An OLIVER clone was built, called SPOLIVER (State Police
OLIVER), with a slightly different look and feel and containing
primarily crime and police employment data. A similar concept
clone was MOLIVER, for viewing marine and ocean resources.
OLIVER can be customized in many ways—by personalizing
the menus (which is very easy to do) and by adding or deleting
tools.
Future directions
These include the addition of open-source GeoServer (http://docs.
codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Home) as another WMS/WFS-T.
GeoServer is a collaborative Web mapping services project that
has many of the MassGIS Web Mapping Services features and
additional ones as well. MassGIS would like to transition into a
community-supported system and contribute to its development.
GeoServer will be installed on three additional external servers
with a load balancer. Some layer caching will be put into place
for certain applications that are high use with little data change.
GeoServer will allow the use of applications such as MapBuilder
(http://mapbuilder.sourceforge.net/) to create lightweight data-
editing applications. These types of applications are currently
very much in demand. MassGIS also hopes to create a “toolkit”
to give to state agencies for their use in serving data and creating
applications.
At the current time, MassGIS is negotiating with a number
of other state agencies to set up a simple, self-sufficient platform
for serving their own GIS data to clients who will be able to access
the MassGIS services as well. Finally, the dream of distributed
GIS access will be realized.
Examples of System Images and
Screen Shots
The MassGIS Web Mapping Services have been used for many
purposes, including:
• MassGIS OLIVER—data view, data download, map
printing
• Department of Revenue—real estate sales analysis
• Town of Douglas Online Maps—buildings, aerial photos,
parcel information for residents
• Department of Agricultural Resources—animal disease
reporting and analysis
• Department of Environmental Protection—regulated
entities; locational information capture
• Executive Office of Environmental Affairs—land-use
planning
• Information Technology Division—assistance to public in
locating legislators, demographic information
• Coastal Zone Management—historic shoreline change
• Division of Capital Asset Management—update location of
state-owned buildings
• Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions—
biodiversity education

OLIVER (OnLIne ViewER) (written in Java). OLIVER

allows users to view all the MassGIS data layers and their sym-
bolizations. The user can browse data through a set of hierarchical
folders, organizing content into useful categories. The user can
zoom in to an extent chosen from a list of places, organized into
categories. OLIVER allows the user to enter an address. Data
extraction is perhaps the most useful feature. http://maps.massgis.
state.ma.us/massgis_viewer/index.htm
Department of Revenue (DOR) LA3 Recent Sales Applica-
tion (written in JSP and Java Beans) Helps the public find recent
sales of residential and commercial properties. Augments a similar

60 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006

preexisting tabular Web application by providing a map view.
The user can search by type of sale and/or a date range and/or
a price range. The number of matches is displayed with brief
information about the matches appearing in a table at the bot-
tom of the application. More information can be obtained from
a point by using the information tool. The dots, match number,
and table are updated as the user zooms. http://maps.massgis.
state.ma.us:8080/LA3/pages/main.jsp
Information Technology Division (ITD)
Legislative District Viewer (written in JSP and
Java Beans)
Helps the public identify their state legislators. The user can
zoom to a city or town (including partial strings and fuzzy spell-
ing) by zip code, by legislator name (including partial strings
or fuzzy spelling), or by the name of the district. If the query
produces more than one result, a list is provided on the right
side. Links to legislators’ Web sites are provided. The user can
URISA Journal • MassGIS 61
also use the Show Information tool to click to any part of the
map (for example, his or her street) and see legislators. Additional
MassGIS-specific highlighting parameters are used in the GetMap
request to highlight the district orange. http://maps.massgis.state.
ma.us/legisdistrict/pages/main.jsp
About the Author
Christian Jacqz, Director and Aleda Freeman, Web Mapping Lead
MassGIS
Executive Office of Environmental Affairs
251 Causeway Street, 5th Floor
Boston, MA 02114
(617) 626-1193
Fax (617) 626-1249
E-mail: Christian.Jacqz@state.ma.us
 Baltimore City, Maryland
U-View
(2005—Single Process)
System Summary
Baltimore is an old East Coast city that is diverse not only in its
population but also in its infrastructure. The Department of Pub-
lic Works—Bureau of Water and Wastewater Bureau is responsible
for maintaining three of the four city-owned and city-operated
utilities. These include the water distribution, storm water, and
wastewater collection systems. While the storm water and waste-
water collection systems are confined to the city’s corporate limits,
the water distribution system extends well beyond and services a
large portion of neighboring Baltimore County.
With systems as complex and extensive as Baltimore’s, there
is a continuous need to provide large amounts of information to
maintenance crews, engineers, designers, consultants, contractors,
and the public. This effort has at times been both frustrating and
time-consuming for employees, professionals, and homeowners
alike. The fact that each utility had its own map scales, naming
conventions, and tiling schemes only compounded the problem.
With more than a quarter million documents to manage related
to the utility infrastructure, records research and timely access to
accurate information required for proper decision making have
been difficult to provide.
Change was needed. Technology and time were the keys to
that change. Utility-related Geographic Information System (GIS)
development began in earnest in the late 1990s with the typical
aerial photography, stereo compilation, and conversion of paper
records. This effort was completed in early 2000. At that time,
ArcIMS development and system-support requirements made
any application development unfavorable.
Finally, in 2003, funding and network infrastructure came
together, which permitted the establishment of servers running
ArcIMS and Oracle/SDE. With the development of “U-View,”
the city can now take advantage of GIS and Internet technologies
to provide available tabular, geographical, and image-related data
to any user at any PC within the city. No longer are employees tied
to their respective offices where the information resided. The loss
URISA Journal • Baltimore City, Maryland 63
in productivity resulting from staff having to travel to dispersed
locations to retrieve paper records is being eliminated.
As an unexpected bonus to the development effort, the ap-
plication has been found to work exceptionally well with wire-
less technologies, which will add significant value to the city’s
investment by allowing maintenance managers, complaint scouts,
engineers, and other city managers access to the vast infrastructure
data sets in real time, in the field, at the site where timely and
accurate emergency decisions, based on real information, need
to be made.
What makes U-View exemplary and unique within the region
is its ability to deliver a variety of utility-related information to
a multitude of users at varying levels of city government. From
information desk attendants, permit reviewers, and maintenance
crews through engineers and appointed decision makers, U-View
provides easy and timely access to the information needed for
making better decisions related to utility infrastructure manage-
ment.
Motivation for System Development
As with most governments, both large and small, in today’s
economic environment, the biggest motivation is cost and the
need to reduce those costs for our constituents. The resounding
theme heard in nearly every discussion of budgets is “do more with
less”—less equipment, less staff, less money, but not less services.
Given these “orders,” the natural solution becomes greater use of
automation and technology when performing routine manual
tasks. The general reduction in man-hours related to records
research and retrieval while maintaining or improving records
access was the motivation and goal related to the development
of U-View. An additional motivation was the need to replace an
obsolete version of a desktop-based system that is no longer sup-
ported by the vendor. The level of effort to maintain the desktop
application for more than 70 users had become burdensome and
impractical. The opportunity to go to an intranet-based applica-
tion alleviates a large portion of this effort. Also, to upgrade to
the current, fully supported version of the desktop application,
it would be necessary to provide a commercial GIS software
license (ArcView) with every desktop application license. This
was determined to be severely cost-prohibitive.
System Benefits Achieved
• The best way to say this is, we were lucky!
One of the unexpected benefits was the ability to access the
application in the field. We had hoped that access times,
while a bit long, would allow limited access during extreme
emergencies; imagine our surprise when our wireless field
tests of the finished product produced access times nearly
equal to those of PCs hardwired to the network. This
additional value will help to reduce the travel between offices
for data access. It also presents a number of potential benefits
for improved communications among office personnel and
field crews with obvious implications for improved customer
service.
• A boost in employee morale occurred.
Much time and thought were given to implementation and
training. If staff members were going to use the application,
they would need reasonable training for most were not PC-
literate. Our training efforts were geared towards hands-on
help. The rich reward was seeing people from all backgrounds
working to help each other and learn from each other. In
addition, we felt that “power users” should be identified and
enlisted as trainers so that everyone understood the local
references to documents. This gave recognition to those who
worked at becoming power users.
System Design Issues Encountered
and Overcome
• Acceptable symbology
Under the initial system design, the symbology for the various
features was very complex. For example, the geodatabase for
wastewater features includes a large number of subtypes based
on a range of pipe diameters. The initial design called for each
of these subtypes to be shown with its own unique symbology.
This resulted in a table of contents and map display that was
difficult to read and, thus, of reduced value to the end user.
To alleviate this problem, a more generalized symbology
scheme has been employed to reduce the “clutter” and create
a more useful interface. Specific information regarding any
given pipe’s diameter can be obtained by selecting the pipe
using the Information tool.
• Faulty hardware components (memory issues on both Web
and database servers)
During some of the initial testing of the application,
users within the test group began to experience problems
maintaining connections to the network. This resulted in
continual interruptions in the utilization of the application.
We requested that the staff of the Department of Public
64 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006
Works Computer Center (DPWCC) investigate this
problem. They discovered that the culprit was some faulty
memory chips. Once these memory chips were replaced, the
problem disappeared.
• Image Viewer application for Internet Explorer
One of the most critical uses of the U-View application is
the ability to access, view, and manipulate raster images of
construction drawings, utility plats, and wastewater house
connection cards. Initially, the functionality in U-View to
open and view these images utilized standard Windows
image-viewing tools. However, we soon discovered that in
some instances with certain image file types, this tool became
counterproductive for two major reasons. First, when a user
accessed an image, the user would be presented with a list of
options for action to be taken, including opening the image
or saving the image. The intent of this functionality within
the application is to open the image only. Second, the default
viewer would only allow limited zoom functionality with no
pan functionality. This was equally unacceptable, for the user
requires the ability to pan and zoom interactively around the
image.
To solve this issue, we incorporated some custom Java
code into U-View that replaced the default viewer and
allows the user to open the image and interactively pan and
zoom.
• ActiveX Connector
The ArcIMS ActiveX connector is not so conducive to a
high concurrent user volume as a multithreaded connector
such as .Net Link. Because of the user-specific nature of
this application, a custom connector would have had to
be written to utilize .Net link. Instead, a modified ActiveX
connector environment was set up to be able to handle
multiple concurrent requests, which would be the norm.
What Differentiates This System
from Other Similar Systems?
In general, there are no similar systems that could meet our gen-
eral and specific requirements. If there had been, we would have
purchased a commercially available system and implemented it.
System Hardware, Software, and
Data
Hardware
The host system for U-View is a Dell PowerEdge 1750 server
with four processors. The server is connected to the department’s
storage area network (SAN) data storage system and is accessible
to users throughout city government.
The databases that support U-View are ArcSDE/Oracle
geodatabases. The ArcSDE and Oracle software run on a Dell
PowerEdge 3550 server. This server, like the Web server, is con-
nected to the department’s SAN data storage system.
Software
The primary system software components for U-View are:
• ESRI ArcIMS version 9.0
• ESRI ArcSDE version 9.0
• Oracle version 9i
• ASP.net
• VB.net
• JavaScript
Data
Using U-View, our system users can access a variety of data sets,
including:
• Planimetric data such as buildings, roads, railroads, bridges,
tunnels, vegetation, piers, hydrography, etc. (in ArcSDE/
Oracle enterprise geodatabases)
• Color orthophoto from 2000
• Black-and-white orthophoto from 1997
• Utility data including conduit, water, wastewater, and storm
water (in ArcSDE/Oracle enterprise geodatabases)
A number of application tables also serve the following main
purposes:
• Lookup tables: Because ArcIMS does not utilize ArcGIS
domains, domains had to be replicated as separate RDBMS
tables.
• Layer control tables: Define which layers are displayed in the
Table of Contents, in what order they are displayed, what
symbols are used to represent those layer entries in the TOC,
what fields can be queried from and displayed as results, and
in what order the fields are displayed.
• User table: Table that defines each of the users in the
application user group and in what group they reside (e.g.,
water, wastewater, etc.). Also logs user stats pertaining to
log-in and log-out times.
• Print layout table: Defines parameters of map elements
on PDF files that are generated using the print tool in the
application.
Where Are We Now? Future
Direction
Upon return to Baltimore from the 2005 URISA Conference, the
Project Team presented the ESIG Award to our director, George
L. Winfield. At that time, we also demonstrated the application
to many of the department’s division chiefs. The net result of this
activity was a 25 percent increase in our user community over the
past two months of 2005. This growth phenomenon is expected
to continue into the first quarter of 2006.
Given our unexpected growth in the user population and that
our IMS Application, U-View, is not quite a year old, application
training and user support have been our number one priority,
so little time has been spent making changes in the deployed
application. This is not to say that we haven’t had an eye on the
future potential enhancements for the application, as well as the
URISA Journal • Baltimore City, Maryland 65
potential for additional IMS development.
One change that is currently being worked on involves a
collaborative effort with the Bureau of Water and Wastewater’s
Facility Division. The Facility Division has been working on a
prototype intranet site for pumping stations owned and oper-
ated by the Bureau. This site provides access to various types of
engineering drawings, reports, and analytical data.
U-View now provides, at least in prototype form, a spatial
interface by which pumping stations (and other types of facilities
in the future) may be located using routine GIS tools for database
and spatial queries. Once the appropriate feature is located, the
detailed information can be accessed through a simple Web link
into the division’s intranet site. The Development Team will
continue to search for other suitable “low-hanging fruit” for
short-term enhancements to U-View’s functionality and integra-
tion into the Bureau’s business processes.
Longer-term development/enhancement plans for U-View
include modifications to the user interface. The most noticeable
change will be the elimination of the “Results Area” directly below
the map display. We have found through use and user input that
a larger map display is of significant interest since the original
deployment. Therefore, the Results Area will be transformed into
a separate pop-up window that will allow the map display to be
increased by more than 30 percent.
These enhancements are planned to be completed during
calendar year 2006, along with revamping training manuals to
reflect the enhancements as well as user refresher training. Also
during 2006, strategic planning for application development and
growth will continue, with focused interest in the areas of data dis-
semination for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Consent
Decree Reporting and Sewershed Study Activity Progress, Capital
Improvement Project Monitoring, and Engineering Document
Access for underground infrastructure. Ultimately, the vision is
to grow U-View from a “single process” application into a more
robust utility enterprise application that addresses multiple areas
of interest within the Bureau of Water and Wastewater and po-
tentially the city’s Department of Public Works.
About the Author
E. Scott Harris, Engineering Associate Supervisor
Abel Wolman Municipal Office Building, Room 314
200 North Holliday Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
(410) 396-1317
Fax: (410) 545-3649
E-mail: scott.harris@baltimorecity.gov
Figure 1. U-View display shown with original record plat image Figure 2. U-View display shown with connection card image

These figures illustrate one of U-View’s original requirements that
included access to select historic documents that contain handwritten
details. At the time of our original conversion effort, the details
contained on these documents were identified as too costly to convert.
Through the use of the Image Viewer, many bits and pieces of
information have been retained and may be retrieved without further
damage to the original documents.

Figure 4. Facility Division’s intranet based document access Prototype

The facility’s intranet Web site provides detailed information

such as contract documents, reports, operations and maintenance
manuals, and even photos for the selected facility.

Figure 3. Prototype U-View interface for Facility Division

Prototype development for Facility Division interface with U-View
application. A simple “click” on the table in the results window
launches the facility’s intranet Web site that provides detailed
information on the selected facility.

Figure 5. U-View “Results Area” slated for transformation into

separate display window

66 URISA Journal • Vol. 18, No. 1 • 2006