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This week, the Board of Commissioners of Tippecanoe, LaPorte, Ripley, and Posey Counties voted to contribute key county-level geospatial data layers to the IndianaMap (www.indianamap.org), a single statewide map for Indiana that includes information people need most in a format that is accessible to both expert GIS users and the general public. These counties join a growing list of Indiana counties whose commissioners have signed a data sharing agreement that offers about $15,000 to each participating county from an Indiana Department of Homeland Security grant to cover the cost of setting up a data transfer mechanism. The grant funds will facilitate the vision of over a dozen collaborating organizations to create something unprecedented in Indiana and very rare around the country – a statewide, integrated electronic map of land parcels. The agreement also makes three other data layers available: point addresses, local roads, and local boundaries. Once integrated into statewide layers, these data layers, with a minimum number of basic attributes, will significantly leverage the benefit returned by each county’s investment by adding value to county, regional, and state initiatives and services. Jim Sparks, Indiana Geographic Information Officer, Indiana Office of Technology, said, “The value of the resulting statewide data layers will spotlight the importance of the contribution of our county government data stewards and should advance the efforts of the GIS community to identify funding for local and state level government GIS activities.”

For more information, contact:
Jim Sparks
Indiana Geographic Information Officer
100 North Senate Ave.
N551 Government Center North
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Office: (317) 234-5889
gio@iot.in.gov

The Indiana Geographic Information Council invites you to attend the 2008 Local Government GIS Coordinator Forum on September 26th in downtown Indianapolis. It is an opportunity to network with other GIS coordinators, voice your opinion, develop strategies, and help define the role local government GIS will play in Indiana’s future.

“It’s a great way to meet and talk with the people who really make GIS happen in Indiana."

Indiana GIS is changing fast. The IndianaMap, data sharing technology, and statewide coordination initiatives are having a direct impact on local governments. What happens next? How do you fit in? Where do you want it to go? Join us September 26th and make sure your voice is heard.

September 26, 2008
9:00 am - 3:00 pm

Farm Bureau Building
225 S. East Street
Downtown Indianapolis

Parking and lunch are included

To register or for more information visit http://www.in.gov/igic/forum/index.html or call 317.353.8884.

This event is hosted by the Indiana Geographic Information Council through the support of our Corporate Sponsors:


WTH Technologies
Pictometry
39 Degrees North
BF&S
Seiler Instrument
ESRI
EarthTech
Williams Aerial & Mapping, Inc.
Woolpert
Lawson-Fisher Associates
Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County
Fugro EarthData

From the United States to Europe and from Asia to South America, the positive role that quality 3D elevation data and imagery can play in minimizing the environmental impact caused by the global escalation of infrastructure development projects cannot be overemphasized. Members of this panel include industry experts recognized throughout their respective careers for practicing and/or advocating socially and environmentally responsible infrastructure planning, development, and maintenance initiatives. This discussion will feature real-world examples of how precision map data has helped geospatial planners and developers move forward with an eye toward ensuring an environmentally and economically sustainable tomorrow.

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Date: Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Time: 8:00 a.m. PDT, 9:00 a.m. MDT, 10:00 CDT, 11:00 a.m. EDT
Panelists: Roger Longhorn (GEO:connexion International), Steven Ramage (1Spatial), Jeff Thurston (Vector1 Media)
Moderator: Kevin Thomas
Register: http://gw.vtrenz.net/?EQXI1NRPU3

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The U.S. Census Bureau today (July 10) released to Indiana University's Indiana Business Research Center the population estimates for all cities, towns and townships in the United States (as of July 1, 2007).

The center's findings, based on its role as the state demographer and official representative to the U.S. Census Bureau for Population, reveal that, notably for Indiana, the largest population growth among cities and towns is concentrated in the Indianapolis metro area and Lake County. Five of the state's six largest cities have seen population decline since 2000.

The Nation's Largest Cities
Indianapolis was the 13th largest city in U.S. in 2007, ranking just behind Jacksonville, Fla. and ahead of San Francisco.

Suburbs Still Growing
Hamilton County is home to three of the top four cities in terms of numeric population gains from 2000 to 2007 -- Fishers, Noblesville and Carmel. Indianapolis is the other city in the top four.

The top eight largest city and town population gains occurred in just four counties in the Indianapolis metro area (Hamilton, Hendricks, Johnson and Marion).

Portage (ranked 16th), Mishawaka (18th), Lafayette (19th) and West Lafayette (21st) were the largest gainers outside the Indianapolis metro area or Lake County.





Read more details on Indiana's population changes at
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/8512.html

Help Wanted
Visit www.in.gov/igic/jobs for more information on this and other job and internship openings.

GIS Analyst
The Polis Center (Polis) at IUPUI seeks a GIS Analyst to support its work with communities in Indiana and beyond to develop and apply knowledge, to build collaborations, and to find innovative solutions to common problems.

A big "THANK YOU" to everyone who responded to our recent survey on the Economic Benefits of the IndianaMap! The response rate to the survey was encouraging. Respondents included government regulators, engineers, utilities, realtors, appraisers, mining companies, researchers, planning officials, teachers, and GIS professionals. Three hundred twelve (312) responses were received during May and June, 2008.

The results of the survey clearly indicate that over $1.75 billion in Indiana projects and government operations are supported by the IndianaMap.
86% indicated that IndianaMap orthophotography was essential to their operations.

In short, this means that an initial investment of $8.5 million in the IndianaMap supports over 200-times its value in projects and operations – with 86% of users indicating they could not do their projects without it.

New business is generated, and projects that could not otherwise have happened are enabled by the IndianaMap. With your input, we are able to demonstrate the value of statewide map data, period of return, and develop a positive business case for funding the ongoing creation and maintenance of statewide framework data.

The full report will be available later this summer.

In the past week or so, researchers at Purdue University have been producing flood maps and putting them on line. The maps were based on the classification of Landsat images at a resolution of 30 meters, which were acquired during June 11 and 12, 2008. For comparison, Landsat images over the same area and period in year 2007 were also classified. The two water regions are shown with road, terrain, city and county boundary etc for reference.

We also built these maps into Google Earth. This way we can take advantage of the high resolution IndianaMap data in Google, such as 6” aerial images, road networks etc. Plus, everyone can visualize these flood maps now. We hope this can better serve the community and public. There is an address locator built into the on-line map so that one can quickly navigate to an interest location.

Please check the site https://engineering.purdue.edu/CE/floodmaps/2008_flood_map.htm and https://engineering.purdue.edu/CE/floodmaps. We’d very much like to see these maps and data be used for further evaluation, assessment and modeling. Please let the good folks at Purdue know your feedback.

Jie Shan, Associate Professor
Geomatics Engineering
School of Civil Engineering
Purdue University
550 Stadium Mall Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2051
USA
Webpages: https://engineering.purdue.edu/ce/jshan

Phone: 765-494-2168
Email: jshan@ecn.purdue.edu
Visiting address:
4110, Civil Engineering Building

Friday, July 18th, 1:00-3:30pm
Indiana State Library, 140 N. Senate Ave, History Reference Room, Indianapolis
IGIC Members: FREE
Nonmembers: $20

This presentation will provide an introduction to Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) and how it is being implemented and used in Indiana counties, communities and schools. Ben Hill of WTH Technology, Inc. will show how AVL works with both GPS and GIS; the differences between cellular and radio AVL networks; how an AVL system can display vehicles in different ways on GIS maps; how back-end records created with an AVL system can be used as defensible proof of past vehicle activity; and how AVL offers a means for assessing and planning better vehicle use.

Matthew Alexander, the Jennings County E911 Director, will then talk about their experience in setting up a new countywide AVL system for law enforcement and public safety vehicles, and describe recent emergency response incidents where the system has been successfully engaged.

Thursday, July 31st, 2:30-3:30pm
WEBINAR
FREE

Help Us Complete and Maintain Indiana’s GIS Inventory

What is the GIS Inventory?

* An Inventory of Existing & Planned Data, Policies, Systems, and People
* A Simple Query Tool for Information About Users and Data Availability
* A Directory of GIS Users
* A Source of Key Information for Collaborative Strategic and Business Planning
* A Tool for Use During Emergencies
* A Way to Minimize the Need to Respond to Pesky Data Surveys
* A Resource to Help Create Partnership Opportunities

Indiana already has over 600 registered users in our GIS Inventory! This online workshop will be a quick tour for new and existing users through Indiana’s GIS Inventory at http://in.gisinventory.net. By the end, you will understand its purpose, how to keep your information up-to-date, and how to get the most out of this easy to use yet powerful system.

Level: Beginning