Eating at the GIS Buffet

Yelena KalashnikovaElizabeth Ervin Thebo

SCDOT GIS Office• A small office of 13 staff some contractor some FT)• Responsibilities include

• Maintaining geometry and key attribute information for all public roads, bridges, traffic count stations for HPMS reporting including ongoing conflation of non state maintained roads data through a process called LADC (Local Agency Data Collection)

• Maintaining all the additional features that are used in map production.

• Maintaining municipal, urban, study, county (?) boundary• GIS Support for agency-wide applications (ITMS, PST)• Map production (State , County, Metro, City and on demand

maps)• ArcGIS Online• Printing and mounting special displays• GIS Analysis and Mapping Support for the majority of

SCDOT departments • SO MANY THINGS !!!

Making it work• In order to make it work, SCDOT GIS must use a variety of software and

custom tools. Primarily:• GeoMedia

• HPMS Reporting• Data Maintenance, Analysis, Storage • Mapping• Add-on software (AQT, PointLoader, Route Query Tool, LADC)

• ERDAS Imagine/Apollo• Processing and creating mosaic imagery

• ArcGIS• Sharing data/information externally

• Microstation• Used primarily by engineers and surveyors – GIS uses it to retrieve

data and export data into the appropriate format• Until 2007 we still had maps were built in MicroStation

MicroStation

• Historically, all map production was done in this software.

• Engineers still design in this software• Use it to bring in right-of-way, proposed roads, and other

design features

Acts as a “bridge” between our office and other offices.

ERDAS Imagine/Apollo

• In SC, Counties collect aerial photography data. Every so often we retrieve this data from them

• We use ERDAS to mosaic the data into a format that is useable in MicroStation, GeoMedia, ArcGIS and our web map application

• In the future, we hope to use this for LiDAR processing

• Currently LiDAR is primarily used by design offices, as the basis for DEM and contour creation.

GeoMedia• Bread and butter software

• Built-in and add-on tools enable strong LRS and data connection

• Data is stored in Oracle database

• All the data is live. No versioning is used. This is great when you have different staff members editing different aspects of the data (i.e. people who edit geometry vs. attributes). Downside – the data is live .

• Data from Oracle supports agency web-mapping applications, such as ITMS.

• Having limited staff with an extensive to do list we do not have an administrator to oversee versioning, but ITMS users provide feedback when they find data errors and those are addressed asap.

ITMS

Attribute Data• The attribute data the GIS

office maintains is limited. It contains LRS, milepoint, and a few other basic attributes.

• To analyze or mapping functional class, strategic networks, surface type, pavement width, shoulder information, etc. we use dynamic segmentation.

RIMS

Data Validation and QA/QC

Data Exchange, Accountability and Reporting

Data Exchange, Accountability and Reporting

GeoMedia

ArcGIS Our office has always had one license of ArcGIS

In 2012, we purchased a subscription to AGOL.

Initially used only for an interactive traffic count application

Then….

ArcGIS

ArcGIS

ArcGIS AGOL provided us with an easy, user-friendly way to

share information with the public that was outside of IT.

Used a little during the first historic flood of 2015, but took off during Hurricane Matthew 2016

Evacuation Routes Application: 141,841 hits in 4 days

Road Closures Application: 145,952 hits in ~ a week

ArcGIS Provided our department the opportunity to showcase

talents in a new way

Project Viewer Application created by request of Secretary for Transportation

ArcGIS

ArcGIS

• Use it as a way to share data with MPOs/COGs • we are in the process of trying to standardizing data

submittals by providing templates and training.• Place things like Bike Routes, LRTP project, etc. in

AGOL map and have them review/edit data

• Our goal is that as others see more and more data with LRS and milepoint attributes they will send it back to us in that format.

Current Workflow Our office still maintains and QA/QCs all data in

GeoMedia. The strong LRS and validation tools enable us to have a clean data set that is very essential to our mapping capabilities

Once data is processed , we are more and more relying on AGOL to share the data with external sources.

Public Comment maps are in the process of being upgraded to be displayed in this format

Share basic data sets such as our SCDOT Maintained Roads, Traffic Counts, Functional Class, pavement status, engineering districts, county boundaries, etc.