Wabash County, IL needs new aerial imagery. How do officials know?
Supervisor of Assessments Debbie Gittings said she is working on the 2012 assessments for taxes payable in 2013. She reported the county’s GIS service dates back to 2005 and “is obsolete.” She said using Google maps the office has seen some changes in farmland in the county, some ground cleared that is not showing on the existing GIS.
Centralia, MO officials are trying to determine the best solution for its GIS.
It boiled down to a choice between using free, open-source software and the city purchasing GIS equipment and having city employees map out the cities various utility lines as time permitted, or paying a company to professionally GIS map the city using their own equipment, trained full-time professionals and proprietary software.
City administrator Lynn Behrns recommended using a firm, with an initial start-up cost of $78,500. Citing the concerns of Ward I’s David Wilkins regarding open source software, Behrns said it would be best for the city to retain the Midland firm to perform the whole project.
“Nobody is obligated to service or maintain open-source software once it’s out there,” Behrns said. “If there are glitches, nobody out there is obliged to repair the software.”
The Arizona Geological Survey has announced that the National Geothermal Data System(NDGS) has reached a milestone with data from over one million wells now online and available for free to anyone (http://geothermaldata.org">http://geothermaldata.org ). ...
The system can accommodate common GIS applications, including GoogleEarth, ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Explorer, NREL Geothermal Prospector, Microsoft Layerscape, and the USGS’ National Map Viewer. Give it a try.
