2015 annual report of the porter county gis departmant

Annual Report of the Porter County GIS Office

2015

Developed by Charles T. Miller, GISP

Written and Designed By:

Charles T. Miller, GISP

GIS Coordinator, Analyst,

Database Administrator

Porter County Development Department – GIS

Contact Information:

Porter County Administration Building

155 Indiana Avenue Suite 311

Valparaiso, IN 46383

Phone (219)465-3537

Cell (219)307-0024

Email [email protected]

PORTER COUNTY GIS DEPARTMENT ANNUAL REPORT 2015 1

F

A Message from the Coordinator

In sticking to our commitment the GIS Department is in a constant state of evolving and

learning new concepts and technology in GIS and related progressive technologies to

better serve our users be they public or private, part of the Porter County Government

network or citizens and business located in, or involved with, Porter County Indiana.

Making contact with our user base a constant, we strive to cater our project to their

specific needs. Whether there is time for a thorough needs assessment or an

emergency project arises, the Porter County GIS Department is committed to

responding with intelligent and resourceful solutions.

Having an incredible opportunity in a growing and constantly changing community the

Porter County GIS Projects offers its services and technology to support efficient and

harmonious growth with a technological edge providing in depth analysis and

reporting to support planning, development, resource utilization and inventory. I as the

GIS Analyst and Coordinator for the Porter County GIS Project look forward to growing

alongside the community we serve.


The Porter County GIS Department Commitment

The Porter County GIS Department is committed to providing a robust, accurate, and

convenient data rich Information System to empower the organizations and citizens of

Porter County.

What is GIS?

‘A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for

capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced

information.’

-ESRI


F

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

A Message from the Coordinator 1

Table of Contents 2

GIS Department Staff Profile 3

Departments Utilizing GIS 4

System Architecture 5 - 6

Organization Membership and Involvement 7

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

University of Vermont – Urban Canopy Project 8

Python Coding Routines for Updating and Backing Up GIS Data 8

District 1 First Responders GIS Taskforce 9

LGIM – Local Government Information Model 9

Significant Mention and Ongoing County GIS Projects 10

PLANNED PROJECTS

Data Migration to LGIM – Local Government Information Model 11

Public Information Web Application 11

Porter County Plan Commission Zoning District Map 11

F

D

P


F

GIS Department Staff Profile

GIS Staff


GIS Analyst, Coordinator, Database Administrator

Porter County Development - GIS Department

-The GIS Coordinator administers the database environment, performs all GIS

software installs, maintenance, troubleshooting, manages personnel,

coordinates with local, state and federal offices, performs needs assessment to

organize projects, serves as project developer and data analyst for Porter

County's Enterprise GIS.

Mariline Peabody

GIS Tech, Parcel Editor

Porter County Auditor Office – GIS

-The GIS Technician is the primary parcel map editor in the Porter County

Auditor's Office and is responsible for maintaining land parcel records in the

Porter County Plat Map.

2010 Contour


F

Departments Utilizing GIS

Airport – consume base data for internal GIS airport management system

Assessor’s Office – researching property parcels, processing work

Assessor-Portage Township - researching property parcels, processing work

Auditor’s Office – process parcel mapping and maintain plat map

Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) – specific site review

Building Department – consume parcel PIN’s and consume data for GIS module

C-Comm 911- harvest base data for emergency responding

Development Committee Review – specific site review

Drainage Board – site review during Drainage Board Meetings

Emergency Management – consume GIS data for response planning and reporting

Environmental Health – septic and well related data collection

Highway Engineering – road sign inventory

Local Emergency Planning Commission – utilize data for response planning and

reporting

Parks & Recreation – data collection for park resources and project planning and

design

Plan Commission – project planning, design and review

Recycling & Waste Reduction – project design and reporting

Redevelopment Commission – specific site review

Storm Water Quality Management – data collection, inventory, planning and reporting

Surveyor – drain fee processing

Voter Registration – polling location for public information


F

System Architecture

GIS Software

Server

ArcGIS for Server version 10.1 ArcGIS for Server (Staging) version 10.1

Client

Concurrent ArcGIS Advanced version 10.2 (3X)

Concurrent ArcGIS Standard version 10.2 (4X)

Single Use ArcGIS Basic version 10.3 (X2) *for District 1 First Response Command

Center

ArcGIS Engine version 10 *for BluePrince permitting software GIS module

ArcGIS for Desktop Publisher version 10

ArcGIS Reader for non-editing client consumers (multiple installations)

GIS Enterprise Servers

LAN Servers

GIS-Production: Windows Server 2012 R2 / SQL Server 2008

-internal production environment for all internal editing and client viewing

GIS-Stage: Windows Server 2012 R2 / SQL Server 2008

-internal sever for testing upgrades and maintaining backup of production

DMZ Server

GIS-DMZ: Windows Server 2012 R2 / SQL Server 2008 / IIS6 / ArcGIS for Server 10

-external DMZ server utilized for transmitting data out of the county domain

and hosting web maps and applications for public viewing


F

GIS System Diagram

WEB SERVER

-public facing Porter County

Web Server

GIS-DMZ1

GIS - DMZ

-server set up in the DMZ

for public facing service

data

GIS-SERVER1

GIS - Production

-server set up in the LAN

for production

GIS-SERVER2

GIS - Staging

-server set up in the LAN

for staging and testing

CLIENT MACHINES

-intranet Porter County GIS

viewers and data editors

*utilizing IIS 6.0

PUBLIC

DMZ

LAN

ArcGIS Catalog 10.3.1


F

Organization Membership and Involvement

Porter County Storm Water Advisory Committee (Analysis and

Reporting)

Porter County Drainage Board (GIS Mapping for meeting

reference)

NWI Indiana GIS Users Forum (member)

District One First Responders GIS Taskforce (member)

IGIC – Indiana Geographic Information Council (member)

URISA – Urban and Region Information Systems Association

o GISP – Geographic Information System Professional

(accredited)

NISWAG – Northwest Indiana Storm Water Advisory Group (GIS

Representative)

DNR Soil Report

Project Development

University of Vermont

- Urban Canopy Project

Coding Routines for Updating and

Backing Up GIS Data

District 1 First Responders GIS Taskforce

Local Government Information Model

- (LGIM)

D

2015 Porter County GIS Department Annual Report


D

University of Vermont – Urban Canopy Project

The University of Vermont’s Spatial Analyst Lab (SAL) began a nationwide project in

2015 to analyze the Urban Tree Canopy of select metropolitan areas in the United

States. The State of Indiana 2013 aerial imagery and LiDAR project was being utilized to

render higher level GIS based data layers for further analysis of urban tree cover and its

environmental impact. As part of this project the SAL was offering unrefined base

ground cover data to communities within the scope of the project with additional,

refined data, buy ups available at the cost of production. Porter County GIS worked

with the University of Vermont’s SAL to have some of this optional buy-up data

developed. This in the end has rendered multiple valuable data layers for Porter

County at a highly discounted rate saving the county over $100,000 under the cost from

commercial developers.

Python Code for Updating and Backing up GIS Data

A project was undertaken this year to write a series of python routines for the

automation of several tedious and repetitive GIS System maintenance tasks. The first

part of the project was to replace manual weekly updates of Porter County’s GIS data

to the Assessor’s Office cloud based server network. The data is consumed here for the

Assessor’s Pictometry Assessment software. After leaving the county’s IT network the

problem was realized that they no longer had access to much needed GIS data

updates. At first an application was manually launched to upload data to this cloud

server environment. This data was uploaded from outside the county’s domain DMZ

and so also necessitated the upload of data first from the county production servers to

the DMZ server. A series of python code was scripted to fist produce GIS data including

parcel data with inherent ownership related information and package that data within

the production server environment. Another series of python code and SQL Server

maintenance routines then move copies of the data to the DMZ environment where a

scheduled task initiates the Pictometry data loader application to weekly update the

Assessor’s copy of county GIS data. This code and SQL routines were also utilized to

simultaneously create backups of GIS data for added security and data integrity.


D

District 1 First Responders GIS Taskforce

Having it’s beginning rooted as early as 2010 local GIS professionals in northwest Indiana

have worked diligently to form a taskforce to add GIS technology to the State of

Indiana’s District One First Responders. Seeing a need early on some emergency

response personnel approached local GIS professionals to see if it was possible to form

a group to develop maps and utilities to aid in emergency and disaster response. It

had been noticed for some time that there was a serious lack of logistic mapping

available to responders when they were most needed. Being one of the frontrunners in

the state for this relatively new concept the group came together in monthly meetings

including emergency response personnel to do a needs assessment and begin the task

of creating a new facet to the District 1 First Response team. The GIS Taskforce began

planning a method for harvesting GIS data from across the state, building a list of

locally available GIS contacts in every district and compiling a state spanning intelligent

map. Working with responders, emergency personnel and FEMA the team has made

great strides toward forming an invaluable geographic resource for emergency

response personnel.

LGIM – Local Government Information Model

The Local Government Information Model was developed and embraced, by ESRI, as

the organizational answer to normalizing small (local level) government GIS data into

one consistent streamlined Geodatabase. The GIS Department made a decision in

2015 to start adopting this data infrastructure for Porter County. Noticing the use for

easy web app development and data standardization for data sharing and website

deployment the need to adopt this database structuring was clear. Two pilot projects

launching from this data restructuring will be Voters Registration Polling Location online

map services and Storm Water project and Zoning Maps for the Porter County

Development Department. The GIS Department will continue to migrate the data in

our existing Geodatabases into the LGIM in the coming year.


D

Significant Mention and Ongoing County GIS Projects

Highway Department Road Sign Inventory

Land Analysis for Proposed CAFO

Storm Water Fee Parcel Identification and Analysis Reports

US Census Local Government Annexation Annual Report

Porter County Development Department Annual Report

Developing Protocol and Process for District 1 First Responder GIS Taskforce

Mapping of Voters Polling Location and Council District Mapping

Land Analysis for Boone Grove Compost Site

Training HAZMAT and EMA Personnel in ESRI ArcGIS Desktop

Developing HAZMAT Planning and Response Geodatabase and Map

Smart 911 Park Property Emergency Personal Location Sign Mapping

TIF District Updating, Locating and Analysis for Porter County Auditor

2013 Land Cover

Planned Projects

Data Migration to LGIM –

Local Government Information Model

Public Information Web Application

Porter County Plan Commission

Zoning District Map

P

2015 Porter County GIS Department Annual Report


P

Data Migration to LGIM – Local Government Information Model

All Porter County Government GIS geodatabase data will be migrated to ESRI’s LGIM.

Once this data set is complete and configured, python scripted backup and data

transfer routines will be coded to update the LGIM geodatabase with current and

updated GIS data from the production environment. The LGIM database will be

replicated to all Porter County GIS databases via SQL Server backup routines.

Public Information Web Applications

Research and development is being planned for the launching of vital public

information web applications maps for Porter County residents. After data is migrated

to the Local Government Information Model this new geodatabase will be utilized to

host parcel-centric web applications displaying pertinent and vital information

available to citizens through a cloud based web portal.

Porter County Plan Commission Zoning District Map

The Zoning District map for Porter County will need to be updated and corrected to

accurately representing current zoning. A maintenance workflow will be designed and,

if needed, employees will be trained in basic editing in the ESRI ArcGIS Desktop

application environment. After revision and acceptance by the Porter County Planning

Director this data layer will be used to develop a publicly accessible Porter County

Zoning Districts web application.

Plan Commission Zoning Districts

2015 annual report of the porter county gis departmant

Documents