GIS in the Cloud

Geospatial Capability Without the Heavy Overhead

In the early 1990s, when I was the GIS manager for the Atlanta Regional Commission, I saw many counties and municipalities get into financial and political trouble by jumping into expensive “Cadillac” GIS operations without understanding the pitfalls. Occasionally the euphoria of the cutting-edge technology gave way to panic, as some local governments lost their GIS managers to fatter paychecks, leaving a GIS that no one could operate. That’s why I recommended that GIS newbies take baby steps first, starting with simple low-cost systems such as ArcView I and II fed with free GIS data from state or federal agencies. As their experience and comfort level grew, they could then ease into six-figure GIS operations with full aerial imagery collects. Although, to a lesser extent, the same pitfall still exists today.

A somewhat analogous situation existed in the early days of the Internet with organizations wanting their own websites. To have a website, an organization had to hire or have in-house HTML programming talent. The process was slow and expensive, and changes to the website could only be made by the HTML programmers. Today, numerous services such as www.wix.com or www.web.com permit anyone to build and update their own websites in the cloud without HTML experience.

The same kind of capability was needed for geospatial applications. ESRI, Intergraph, TerraGo, Google and others have provided online geospatial tools, but not the kind of environment that would encourage mass adoption. Digital Map Products, Inc., of Irvine, California, sort of backed into the vacuum with several web service solutions (LandVision, GovClarity and CommunityView) that embed GIS functions into real-world workflows to deliver geospatial capabilities for non-GIS professionals.

These services grew out of years of experience in the geospatial data business. In 1990, DMP started work as a data collector and integrator of parcel-level data. DMP developed public-private partnerships with county governments to continually update and share this valuable GIS data with a variety of public and private users. As a result, it now maintains one of the largest nationwide parcel boundary databases available. From these beginnings, DMP started creating applications around the data and deploying them through the Internet for the real-estate industry and local governments. DMP products became an authoritative and continuously updated source of parcel data that was quickly adopted by many counties, municipalities, home builders, commercial brokers, utilities and even some federal agencies.

Experience with cloud-based geospatial delivery services such as LandVision caused DMP to realize that it had a potentially powerful capability that could be expanded to meet broader local government needs. This led to the development of an entirely new generation of services, GovClarity and CommunityView, which drilled even deeper into the day-to-day work processes needed by governments.  These two cloud-based services provide GIS capabilities that could only be matched by a strong in-house GIS team with considerable hardware and software support. GovClarity provides enterprise GIS tools and capabilities to municipal employees, while CommunityView improves public service by providing map-based query tools and information open to all public users.

Talking with several users of the three services, I learned that GovClarity and CommunityView are seeing increased adoption by local governments. Just like current website publication services, the DMP cloud-based services are providing GIS capabilities to customers without the headaches and expense of maintaining their own in-house GIS team. DMP does the heavy lifting by combining established geospatial services such as Bing and Pictometry, overlaying locally produced data, and then delivering the total package with custom-designed interfaces. The service, delivered through the local government’s website, is designed to be intuitive even by non-GIS staff members and constituents.

The City of San Juan Capistrano, California, is a good example that you can view for yourself. The site integrates Bing ortho imagery with street centerline data, and parcels and links to oblique views from Pictometry. There are numerous local data layers such as tracts, neighborhood associations, trash pick-up, hiking trails, and many others. The interface is limited but very easy to navigate for non-GIS users.

A nice feature is linked videoclips of their trails so a user can do a virtual walk/ride through in preparation for actual use (see image below).

For those who want to extend the capabilities of GovClarity and CommunityView, DMP provides API access to its underlying platform for further customization. There is even a capability to connect GovClarity to ArcGIS to leverage all GIS assets within the organization.

Talking with San Juan Capistrano’s City Engineer, Ziad Mazboudi, PE, about his experience with GovClarity and CommunityView, he cited several uses and benefits that the city experienced. GovClarity is being used as a GIS viewing and analysis platform by all departments without the need for separate GIS software or dedicated GIS staff. Users can view imagery and city data, do measurements, and update both feature and attribute data. The city has one GIS technician who builds local data layers that are uploaded to DMP for inclusion in GovClarity and CommunityView. Additionally, use of both ortho and oblique imagery with change detection has proved to be a powerful tool for code enforcement. As you can imagine, GovClarity is also a strong visualization environment for commission and public meetings. They project maps, ortho and oblique imagery on a big screen as an interactive viewing environment so everyone can see and quickly comprehend the issues being discussed.

CommunityView is the city’s public access site. The city has terminals at the front counters of many public offices that permit citizens to view and print maps and imagery. This has significantly reduced the time and difficulty answering questions and responding to the public. The same site is available 24/7 through home computers, and has resulted in strong customer satisfaction.

Many large counties have sophisticated geospatial operations, but the bottom line being the bottom line, those kinds of systems are not always practical for small municipalities and agencies. Ziad was pleased to report that building the city’s geospatial capability using a traditional in-house GIS department would have cost four to five times as much as the DMP cloud service.

Does DMP have a perfect solution? I don’t know, but time will tell. A downside is the need to maintain Internet connectivity, but DMP is working to build a work-around by caching data locally for limited periods of time in its mobile and tablet-based applications. DMP may or may not be a perfect solution, but the company seems to have hit a sweet spot with local governments and other clients by meeting their needs with a low-cost, low-risk and easy-to-use option. I believe DMP is worth your serious consideration.

R/Art

P.S.  I’m going to attend GEOINT in Tampa next month. If you see me, please stop and say hello. I enjoy meeting my readers.