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GIS Cooperative Meeting

City of Tucson - Information Technology

Friday April 13, 2001

10:00 AM - Noon

Present: Donald Ijams, Dave Hochede, Anna Sanchez, Kristi Jenkins, Ves Zinn, Casey Townsend, Daniel Casey, Paige Hamner, Christine O'Connor, Janet Nickell, Mary Syczypanski and David Taylor

CityScan Project Update

Dave Hochede presented a short update on the progress of the ArcIMS conversion of the CityScan prototype. The demonstration prompted a discussion of the City DOT MapGuide site and what they've accomplished, as well as the benefits to the City of multiple development efforts in the Internet GIS arena. There was also some discussion of the effort needed to elicit requirements for the CityScan application from the anticipated widely varied user groups.

Dave pointed out that the strategy for the CityScan application was to develop a baseline set of data based primarily from a 1997 survey of some local neighborhood associations. This baseline data would be used to create the first phase of the CityScan application. Once a working system is in place potential users of the system can be queried as to additional data or functions they might find useful in such an application. In this fashion, new releases of the CityScan application can be made which would include some or all of the users' suggestions as well as incorporating advances in the underlying tool set.

CityScan - Veridian Consulting Contract

Don Ijams presented the six areas for which we have asked Veridian for assistance in the CityScan development process. They are:

Assessment of the Master Address File concept as a core organizing method

Installation and tuning of ArcSDE

ArcIMS HTML design and development

Creating applications using the Active X connector for ArcIMS

VBA training

ArcIMS tuning

The first item is complete, with a letter being received from Veridian generally confirming the approach as appropriate. Other items will be delivered beginning in the next week or two.

GIS Training - Basic GIS Concepts Course

Members were reminded of the Basic GIS Concepts class to be held in the IT Pueblo room on April 19. A suggestion was made to print the PowerPoint slides in note format for each participant. This would provide space for noting comments about the class. Don said he would make the suggestion to Steve Whitney, as well as prepare a separate evaluation form to gather input on course improvement. Dave volunteered to create the copies if Steve would send him the presentation. Another suggestion was made to include a list of GIS contacts.

GIS-Related Visual Basic for Applications Training

Don mentioned that we were still awaiting word from Procurement regarding the classes. The intent is to hold two classes. The first class would be emhasize programming fundamentals using MS Access VBA, while the second class would be more of an ESRI ArcGIS specific VBA class. All attendees of the first class must have finished at least the first two Access classes offered by IT or have an equivalent understanding of Access, SQL, forms and reports.

ArcView Upgrades

The Cooperative is in the process of purchasing 10 copies of ArcView 3.2a. The 10 copies will be distributed to individuals in various departments with a documented need for the software. The goal is to spread the available licenses to departments that don't already have a large number of ArcView copies.

The Cooperative is also purchasing ArcView 8.1 upgrades for those people who asked to have their ArcView 3.x licenses upgraded.

Other Business

A conversation arose regarding third party map label placement software from a company called MapText. There seems to be some demand in the City for such software due to the time-consuming work needed to correctly place labels on multi-layered maps. The Cooperative will review this need and advise the group.

Dave Hochede mentioned the enterprise ArcIMS server the Cooperative has purchased (four 700mhz Xeon processors, 3.5 gig memory). The goal is to serve all City ArcIMS applications from this server. This should reduce the quantity of additional ArcIMS licenses the City will purchase in the future.

There was some interest expressed regarding using the Veridian contract with the city to do additional GIS consulting work outside of the CityScan project. Don explained the process he went through to successfully use the contract to get help from Veridian on the CityScan project. The first step is to create a statement of work and determine the cost with the assistance of Veridian. Next, make sure you have the budget capacity to fund the work requested. Create a purchase requisition referencing the Veridian contract. Contact Laura Jestings in Procurement for the contract number.