DRCOG DATA ACQUISITION PROJECTS

Progress Update | March 2021

Ashley Summers, Information

Systems Manager

2

AGENDA

• High-level timeline

• Imagery project wrap-up

• Project recap

• Successes and challenges

• How to create an image service from DRAPP imagery – Denver

• Satisfaction survey results

• What’s next for imagery?

• Lidar project update

• Planimetric project update

• Land cover project update

3

TIMELINE

CUSTOM IMAGERY PROJECT WRAP-UP

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CUSTOM IMAGERY SPECIFICATIONS

Approximately 6,000 square

miles of collection:

• four-band orthoimagery

• snow-free and leaf-off

• meets American Society for

Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

positional accuracy standards for

mapping and geographic information

systems work

• independent quality control provided by

partners and volunteers

6

2020 CUSTOM IMAGERY PROJECT STATS

• Who’s involved?

• 49 partners

• 7 DRCOG member counties

• 31 DRCOG member cities/towns

• 11 regional partners

• What did we get?

• 1368 square miles of 3-inch resolution 4-band imagery

• 1304 square miles of 6-inch resolution 4-band imagery

• 3364 square miles of 12-inch resolution 4-band imagery6

7

ACCESSING DELIVERABLES

• Tiled imagery delivered on hard drive

• Tiled web map service (WMTS) from Sanborn

• Associated shapefiles and metadata on the Regional Data Catalog

• Historical imagery available for download on the Regional Data Catalog

• Meeting materials on the DRAPP webpage

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REMINDER ON LICENSING

• The latest imagery is not available to the public until it is

superseded by a newer version.

• The 2020 imagery will not be available to the public until the

2022 is available for sale.

• The latest imagery is resold by DRCOG and Sanborn Map

Company, Inc.

• Older versions (2002-2018) are being made available on

DRCOG’s Regional Data Catalog for download.

9

TIMELINESS OF DELIVERABLES

Deadline Deliverable Actual Delivery Date

7/15/2021 Interim imagery in WMTS 7/15/2021

1/29/2021 Final imagery in WMTS* 1/19/2021

FTP access granted 1/29/2021

1/29/2021** Group 1 orders delivered 1/29/2021

2/15/2021** Group 2 orders delivered 2/9/2021

2/28/2021** Group 3 orders delivered 2/24/2021

3/15/2021** Group 4 orders delivered 3/4/2021

*Expect a more final WMTS soon that will consolidate the layers, incorporate a few more corrections, and get rid of the white lines etc.

**These were renegotiated dates that were put into place after the flight delays last spring.

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SUCCESSES

• Nearmap supplement for partners that need access to frequently updated imagery.

• Participating partners received two imagery deliveries in 2020 (March and September) and will receive two more in 2021. The next flights are scheduled for April.

• Imagery was orthorectified using the preliminary 2020 lidar data which will make it more positionally accurate.

• This directly addresses a challenge from the 2018 project in which the underlying elevation model was outdated and incorrect in areas of new development.

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SUCCESSES

• Student volunteers from the GeoEx Center at the Front Range Community College helped with the QAQC effort, lessening the burden to partners with limited resources.

• This directly addresses a challenge from the 2018 project in which many partners did not have time to check their assignments.

• We streamlined delivery by reducing the number of custom orders and making tiles available on FTP for self-service access for most partners.

• 31% downloaded their order and did not receive a hard drive

• 63% ordered by project area, not a custom boundary

13

CHALLENGES

• Flight delays caused by airspace closures and bad

weather elongated the schedule by a month.

• Simultaneous processing of imagery and lidar slowed

down the production timeline, especially in Area 1a.

• Still have an issue with dark shadows in the foothills but

the fix (duplicating flight lines) is expensive.

• Still struggling to find an imagery services solution that

meets our needs and stays within budget.

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IMAGERY SERVICES SAGA

• May 2020 - L3Harris increased the cost of our services because our fee wasn’t covering their costs.

• May to October 2020 - We investigated other solutions and discussed partner needs/wants.

• November 2020 - We decided to keep L3Harris for the near term but set intentions to move away from them. L3Harris found out they weren’t licensed to sell us services so they retracted their offer.

• December 2020 - Sanborn offered us WMTS solutions at a price in line with our budget, although we are still troubleshooting some issues with implementation.

L3Harris, ESRI, and Sanborn all bent over backwards to help us find creative solutions that would minimize downtime to the partners.

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WMTS OFFSET

BUG-000137785: “WMTS services from a non-ArcGIS Server appear shifted when viewed in ArcGIS Pro.” FIXED via settings.

BUG-000101720: “When a Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) service using WGS84 from a non-ArcGIS for Server WMTS server added on Portal for ArcGIS map viewer, the map appears shifted from its original location.” Solution still in progress.

What should you do?1. Implement the workaround for ArcGIS Pro by

adjusting your settings. Note that it needs to be set every time you add a layer.

2. If using ArcMap, consider downgrading for now to ArcMap 10.6.1 where the problem is not observed.

3. Wait for next steps regarding Portal.

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TIPS

Adjusting your imagery

Watch this recording and/or reach out to Devin

Mulhern or Beau Legeer at ESRI with questions.

Hosting your imagery as a service

Presentation from Denver coming up next!

CREATING AN IMAGERY SERVICE FROM YOUR DRAPP IMAGERY – ANDREW BLUNCK, DENVER

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SURVEY RESULTS: 2020 PARTNER SATISFACTION

Very good Good Fair Poor

Overall

experience

66% 26% 8%

Communication 92% 8%

Quality 64% 32% 4%

Timing of

deliverables

28% 60% 8% 4%

DRCOG’s

performance

82% 18%

Sanborn’s

performance

50% 38% 12%

Nearmap’s

performance

59% 41%

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THANK YOU, IMAGERY PARTNERS

1. Colorado Department of Transportation

2. Regional Transportation District3. Denver Water4. Adams County5. Broomfield6. Clear Creek County7. City and County of Denver8. Douglas County9. Gilpin County10. Jefferson County11. City of Arvada12. City of Aurora13. Bennett14. City of Brighton15. Castle Pines16. Castle Rock17. City of Centennial18. City of Cherry Hills Village19. City of Commerce City20. Dacono

21. City of Englewood22. Erie23. City of Federal Heights24. Firestone25. Frederick26. City of Glendale27. City of Golden28. City of Greenwood Village29. City of Lafayette30. City of Lakewood31. City of Littleton32. City of Lone Tree33. City of Longmont34. City of Louisville35. Nederland36. Northglenn37. Parker38. Superior39. City of Thornton40. City of Westminster41. City of Wheat Ridge

42. Arapahoe County Water and Wastewater Authority

43. United Power44. Metro Wastewater

Reclamation District45. Jefferson County

Communications Center Authority

46. South Suburban Parks and Recreation

47. South Metro Fire Rescue48. E-470 Public Highway Authority49. Pinery Water and Wastewater

District

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THANKS TO THE VENDOR EVALUATION VOLUNTEERS

• Doug Genzer from Denver

• Cindy Kamigaki from Frederick

• Jackie Phipps from Littleton

• Barb Morey from Jefferson County

• Jesse Ascunce from Erie

• John Nolte from Denver Water

• Dan Jackson from RTD

• Ben Aldridge from Castle Rock

• Matt Forbis from Brighton

• Jordan Eichem from Dacono

• Jason Murray from Parker

• Dave Murray from Westminster

• Greg Baca from Adams County

21

DRAPP 2022 SURVEY

Things to consider

• 83% support reducing positional accuracy and aesthetic

requirements in areas where there are no paying partners

• 50% require leaf-off imagery and are less concerned

about aesthetics (tan imagery) while 50% would prefer to

see green lawns in their imagery.

• 35% think ownership of imagery is extremely or very

important. 39% think it’s somewhat important. 26% think

its not important.

22

DRAPP 2022 SURVEY

Things to consider

• 79% need the imagery to work in AGOL

• Obliques are not important to 48%, but are somewhat

important to 44% and extremely or very important to 8%

23

DRAPP 2022 SURVEY

When should supplemental flights be flown?

Spring

2022

Summer

2022

Fall

2022

Winter

2022/23

Spring

2023

Summer

2023

Fall

2023

48% 10% 24% 10% 29% 10% 5%

How often should supplemental flights be flown?

Area 1a

Urban Core

Area 1

Metro

Area 2

Eastern

Plains

Area 3

Mountains

Once a year 59% 53% 50% 46%

Twice a year 29% 27%

Every other

year

12% 20% 50% 54%

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DRAPP 2022 SURVEY

• 75% say ground conditions do not matter for the supplemental capture (can be leaf-on or leaf-off). 16% would prefer leaf-off and 9% prefer leaf-on.

• 55% want supplemental imagery delivered as tiles; 77% want services (not mutually exclusive)

• 70% want the resolution of the supplemental imagery to be the same as the custom flights; only 30% think its fine to downgrade Area 1a to 6-inch for supplemental flights.

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WHAT’S NEXT FOR IMAGERY?

• DRAPP 2022 RFP closed 2/19

• Volunteers are still voting on vendors – Stay

tuned!

• Expect quotes on 4/19

• Signed commitments due in the fall

LIDAR PROJECT UPDATE

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LIDAR SPECIFICATIONS

Approximately 5,000 square miles of lidar proposed for collection.

Deliverables, captured according to U.S. Geological Survey Lidar Base Specifications:

• classified lidar point cloud: quality level 2 and quality level 1

• bare-earth digital elevation model

• first return intensity raster

• breaklines

• Federal Geographic Data Committee metadata

• 1-foot and 2-foot machine-generated contours add-on

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CONTOUR SPECIFICATIONS

The DRCOG project

will collect quality level

1 and quality level 2

lidar as well as 1-foot

and 2-foot contours.

• Sample 1 – too messy

• Sample 2 – too smooth

• Sample 3 – expected in June

2021

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PRIORITIES

• Due to an IT infrastructure

issue, our timeline is

delayed by about two

months.

• The red hatched areas will

be prioritized to minimize

impact to most partners.

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MILESTONES

Milestone Completion date

Flights ✓ September 4, 2020

QL1 and QL2 pilot available for review ✓ November 24, 2020

Contour pilot #1 available for review ✓ December 11, 2020

Contour pilot #2 available for review ✓ January 19, 2021

Contour pilot #3 available for review June 1, 2021

Lidar delivered to USGS for review (priority areas) March 31,2021 June 1, 2021

USGS review due to Sanborn May 31, 2021* August 1, 2021*

Sanborn delivers corrections June 30, 2021* September 1, 2021*

Reprojection/contour creation July 31, 2021** October 1, 2021**

Hard drives shipped to partners August 31, 2021** November 1, 2021**

*The review and correction cycle may not take as long as noted here. This schedule shows the maximum amount of time that one cycle can take. There can be additional rounds of review/corrections, if needed.**These dates are less solid because the length of the review/correction process is unknown. If there are issues sticking to this schedule, the front range will be prioritized for delivery.

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DELIVERY LOGISTICS

Data will be delivered:

• In the appropriate state plane zone (North or Central), with considerable overlap so that jurisdictions are covered entirely by one or both.

• On hard drive shipped by Sanborn.

• Download option from Regional Data Catalog by the end of the year.

North

Central

review this map

PLANIMETRIC PROJECT UPDATE

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PROJECT AREAS AND SCHEDULE

Area Ready

for QC

Partner

QC Due

Final

Delivery

1 6/10/21 7/1/21 7/22/21

2 8/11/21 9/1/21 9/22/21

3 9/30/21 10/21/21 11/11/21

4 11/9/21 11/30/21 12/21/21

5 12/8/21 12/29/21 1/19/22

6 1/14/21 2/4/22 2/25/22

7 2/21/22 3/14/22 4/4/22

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TASKS FOR PARTNERS

1. Invoices will be sent out soon, so contact me if you have

preferences.

2. A pilot will be available in early April.

3. If you cannot be available to QC your area of interest,

please let me know ASAP so I can line up a student

volunteer.

LAND COVER PROJECT UPDATE

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FUNDING

• We received a grant from the Colorado Water

Conservation Board to match our local funds!

• Thank you to Boulder, Broomfield, Castle Rock, Erie,

Greenwood Village, Wheat Ridge and especially Mile

High Flood District for committing funds that unlocked

the State investment.

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PROJECT SPECIFICATIONS

• 1-meter resolution land cover for the 10-country region (same extent as custom imagery)

• 9-classes including:

1. Structures

2. Impervious surfaces

3. Water

4. Grassland/prairie

5. Shrubland/scrubland

6. Tree canopy

7. Irrigated lands/turf

8. Barren/rock

9. Cropland

38

TIMELINE

Approximate Deadline Deliverable/Action

End of April 2021 Contracts/POs in place with CWCB

and Sanborn

May 2021 Invoices sent to partners

December 2021 Products delivered

We are still working out interim deadlines for products that the

partners can evaluate.

39

QUESTIONS?

THANK YOU!Ashley Summers

Information Systems Manager, Regional Planning and Development

asummers@drcog.org

303-480-6746

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