July 15, 2004
Please feel free to invite some of your colleagues from your or another city/county if you think it would benefit them to be a part of our group.
Location: MARC, Kansas City
(Meetings alternate monthly between MARC in Kansas City and the City of Overland Park, KS.)
Attendance
City of Gardner, KS................... Susan
Schultz
City of Gladstone, MO................ Kelli Behr
City of Kansas City, MO.............
Rich Lovett
City of Overland Park, KS........... Chris Audano,
Randy Ellis, Robert Meier and Susan Waters
City of Shawnee, KS.................
Sonya Fendorf
City of Topeka, KS.................... Bill
Stephens and Steve Tallen
Clay County, MO......................
Leslie Ensign, Lutz Mueller and Huaguo Xiao
Jackson County, MO..................
Dan Davis and Joseph P. Tanner
Johnson County, KS.................. Mike
Davidson, Sonia Smith and Karen Sorensen
Wyandotte County, KS:.............
April Bowman
MARC,
KC Metro....................... Barbara Hensley
Presenters
Kurt Loudon.............................
Burns & McDonnell
Derrick
Beasley......................... Burns & McDonnell
Robert
Meier............................ City of Overland Park
The June minutes were approved. Chris Audano gave a quick overview of the following presentations: the first by two representatives from Burns and McDonnell,Kurt Loudon< and Derrick Beasley; and a second by the primary GIS resource person from the City ofOverland Park, Robert Meier.
Presentation #1:Introduction to combining GIS and Web technologies for small and large governmental organizations
Kurt Loudon is chair of the Heartland Users Group’s Web SIG. However, today, another side of Kurt was shared, as a combination Database, Web and GIS Specialist.
Derrick Beasley, a project manager for GIS projects, enhanced and supported the presentation with his technical knowledge and experience. As Burns & McDonnell employees, both have developed websites, Enterprise and Web applications for corporate and government clients.
Starting with an architectural overview, Kurt illustrated how Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can be integrated with the Web. He followed with two examples in the public sector, ranging in scale from small to large; and concluded with a helpful summary including contact information. (Click here for their Powerpoint presentation in .pdf format.)
Their projects have used various configurations using some or all of the following: MS Access, MS VB, ASP, ColdFusion, HTML, Apache, MS SQL Server, Oracle, AutoCAD, Adobe Acrobat and products from ESRI. Generally speaking, server-side GIS products allow GIS functionality and data to be deployed from a central environment. Depending on each client’s needs, Burns and McDonnell personnel such as Kurt and Derrick adapt and reengineer the client’s existing data tobuild a distributed and multi-layer enterprise information system. The result usuallyprovides browser-based access to many GIS cataloged portals that enable users to publish and share geographic knowledge.
Example #1, Small scale
Client: Union< County Conservation District, Arkansas
Union County Conservation District (UCCD) is a political subdivision of the State ofArkansas created for the purpose of conservation. Due to declining water levels, five counties in Arkansas were declared "critical groundwater areas."The nonprofit organization coordinated the development of the Sparta Aquifer Recovery Study.With the assistance of engineering consultants Burns & McDonnell, GIS data was collected from wells inSouth Arkansas and posted to the Union County Water Conservation Board websitewww.ucwcb.org hosted by the University of>Arkansas. Local conservation efforts on the Sparta Aquifer water levels could be then measured and analyzed. They have increased for the first time in more than 40 years. Various environmental and government agencies continue to monitor and log data from the wells.
No special client side software was required; a pre-existing (non-relational!) MS Access database and *.shp files were organized and enhanced with HTML, ASP, ESRI’s ArcIMS, ASPGFX (http://www.aspgfx.com/, a production plotting application for $50.00), and GraphBuilder (http://www.graphbuilder.com/, a production plotting application for free!).
Project cost: $10-25,000; a priceless return on investment for a nonprofit agency with few personnel and dollars.
Example #2, Large scaleClient:City of Westminster,Colorado
Burns & McDonnell/Garney LLC designed and built the new innovative Westminster Northwest Water Treatment Facility. The process design utilizes enhanced conventional treatment with initial plate settlers followed by micro-filtration “membrane” units and has space to accommodate future process equipment. The City of Westminster had another request of Burns & McDonnell after its completion; a way to remotely administer the city’s new water treatment plant. Data can now be accessed and deployed instantly in a multitude of ways. Need a manual, photos and process plans or calculator; it’s there. Employees simply log on with a pass code to a secure site anywhere in the city.
Again, no special client side software was required but various products from ESRI, the world leader in the GIS market, play an important role in fitting GIS into an IT strategy (http://www.esri.com/products.html). ArcSDE, for example, is a server software product and is used to access massively large multi-user geographic databases stored in database management systems (DBMSs). ArcIMS, a scalable Internet Map Server, is widely used for GIS Web Publishing to deliver maps, data, and metadata to many users on the Web.
Project cost:$50,000-$250,000. Return on investment is the time saved by having instant access to an array of design drawings, equipment specifications, and other documents for maintenance to the facility. Additionally, the website will soon provide instant access to real-time data that could help employees be proactive and prevent costly repairs. Obviously the City of> Westminster is a pleased customer who returned for more!
For more information about Burns & McDonnell’s sample water supply projects visithttp://www.burnsmcd.com/water/index.html>.
Contact Information:
Kurt W. LoudonDatabase/Web/GIS Specialist
kloudon@burnsmcd.com
816.822.3900 ext.5958
Derrick Beasley
GIS Specialist
dbeasley@burnsmcd.com
816.333.9400 x4363
Burns & McDonnell
(http://www.burnsmcd.com/gis/index.html)
9400 Ward Parkway
Kansas City,MO 64114
Note: As indicated earlier, an expanded introduction of our main presenter was in order. Kurt Loudon is the chair of aKansas City-based Web SIG, which is a user group for Web developers. Meetings are on the fourth Wednesday of every month at Technisource (formerly IntelliMark), Suite 460, 9300 W 110th St, Overland Park, KS. All meetings begin at 6:30 PM unless noted. At their next meeting, which is July 28, 2004, Daniel Green, of SUN Microsystems, will present Building a web services based site that's accessible from a desktop OR a wireless device using Java Studio Creator. For more information including a map on how to get there, visit the group’s web site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kc-web/ .
The Kansas City Area Web SIG is a part of the Heartland Users Group. “We have 5 meetings each month… We are an organization of members willing to share with beginners to experts, educating one another at each of the meetings.” This is done through a number of special interest groups (SIGs). If you are interested in either Access, JAVA, SQL Server, and the Web, please consider looking into this valuable networking resource at http://www.hugkc.org/. All meetings are open to the public and everyone is eligible to partake in vendor raffles. Last month at the Web SIG, Kurt gave away a free class at Foss Training which costs $1,500. A package of MS Enterprise Server software was also given away, another $1,500 item.
Presentation #2:Customized in-house GIS and Web technologies for the City of Overland Park’s residents and businesses
Over the years, data has been collected about communities and assembled into GIS databases. As the technology and the data have become more accessible, such data can have a direct impact on people’s daily lives. Personnel at local governments are keeping pace as they discover new ways that they can use GIS databases and help at the community level. No one knows this better at the City ofOverland Park than Robert Meier, their “main GIS resource person.”
The projects Robert works on are highly customized even though they may start out with the help of a wizard in one of the ESRI’s GIS software packages. The final product typically has an ASP back end and a Javascript front end such as the general map types found at http://www.opkansas.org/_Res/City_Services/Maps/interactive_maps.cfm . Another one of Robert’s programming creations is “What’s happening in my neighborhood” at http://gis.opkansas.org/website/what_haps/ . Within a certain radius of any given address, you can obtain information about road projects, special events and more. It’s SQL-based, not GIS-based, but programmed using X and Y coordinates.After Robert works his impressive magic using only SQL code, raw ASP, Query strings and a text pad (not Dreamweaver!), the final application is most likely maintained by a two person team. One might enter data, for example, while another updates the map images (all *shp files). In the case of an “earlier” Public Works Projects Map, engineers are also included in updating the information daily, http://www.opkansas.org/_Res/Projects_&_Construction/Road_Projects/projects_map.cfm. Indeed, whatever the needs and the interests of Overland Park residents are, Robert plus a team of City of OP employees are thinking about how to innovatively use GIS information. Another database, for example, is the “OP Food Court: Restaurant Search” (http://www.opkansas.org/_Res/City_Services/Food_Court/index.cfm ) programmed by Randy Ellis with some coordination assistance by Susan Walters. This approach to restaurant inspections turns potentially unpleasant encounters with local food establishments into an opportunity to positively promote their businesses. Note: ESRI offers Free GIS tools can help you get started, http://www.gis.com/software/free_software.html.
Old Business
2004 Government Webmasters Conference Update
September 23-24, 2004
Barbara Hensley provided a quick update. All tasks related to the launching the event is in place and then some. The conference’s brochure is now posted on the MAGWeb Web site at http://www.kcmagweb.org/Conference2004/images/brochure.pdf . New potential vendors are contacting members on the conference planning committee stating they would like to participate. Microsoft, for example, would like to make a .Net presentation. Attendee registrations are coming in. Because seating is limited to 250 people, it’s advised to register early. The fee is $125.00 if it is submitted by August 2; $150.00 by August 2-10. Meals included! For more information, visit http://www.kcmagweb.org/Conference2004/ .
Upcoming Meeting Topics
In August, Daniel Davis,Jackson County: a presentation about
RSS Feeds. What are RSS Feeds? “Short for RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary, an
XML format for syndicating Web content. A Web site that wants to allow
other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and
registers the document with an RSS publisher. A user that can read RSS-distributed
content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated content includes
such data as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project
updates, excerpts from discussion forums or even corporate information.
RSS was originally developed by Netscape.” (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RSS.html)
Another good meeting worth attending!
In September, .NET will be presented by Microsoft.
Next Meeting
August 19, 2004,City of Overland Park,KS
Meeting minutes: Karen Lynne Sorensen, Johnson County Wastewater.