GIS Cooperative Meeting Notes

City Information Technology Dept. Pueblo Room

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

GIS Cooperative Chairman Steve Whitney presiding.

City of Tucson Development Services
Electronic Plans System Demonstration

Bill Marum, from COT Development Services, demonstrated the system that they use for electronic plan submittal. Integrated Data Technologies (IDT) developed and hosts the system that is used. It is a web-based system to which private firms subscribe to, and to which Development Services pays an annual maintenance fee. Private firms upload TIFF images of their plans through a secure portal on IDT's website. Development Services then downloads the plans from IDT's site for review. If people reviewing the plans have any questions, they can call the submitting firm and simultaneously view the plans on IDT's site. Submitters can view the marked up plans on-line. Currently, Development Services is utilizing this system for building plans only.

Pima Association of Governments Orthophoto Project of 2005

The coverage area has been set and 3 products are being requested: 1) 1-foot resolution color imagery covering 1,133 square miles, with LiDAR generated Digital Elevation Models DEM), 2) 1/2-foot resolution color imagery covering 118 square miles, with LiDAR/photogrammetrically generated Digital Terrain Models (DTM), and 3) 1/2-foot resolution color imagery covering 624 square miles, with LiDAR generated DEMs that will support future conversion to DTMs.

Notable new areas of coverage include Ajo, Sells, and a portion of the I-10 corridor in Cochise County.

Electronic Plans Submission Subcommittee Report

The subcommittee is working to set up a pilot project with IDT (see item 1) which will test the feasibility of transferring AutoCAD drawings. The subcommittee is looking for additional representatives from organizations that review subdivision plats.

What's new in the GIS Library: Review of how parcel boundary changes are tracked.

Steve Whitney reviewed the data that is available to track changes to parcel boundaries. The shapefiles that are generated on a weekly basis are located in \\mars\mars1\az\counties\pima\shapes_pareg_diff. There are some questions regarding the validity of the data being captured, i.e. in some cases it is impossible to discern that a change has taken place. This is being investigated and could be caused by spatial data processing tolerances.

GIS Cooperative Member Survey

The results of the latest survey are being finalized for a report, which will be posted to the Cooperative website. The top three suggested goals are: 1) expand participants, including private vendors, 2) enhance monthly presentations at Cooperative meetings, and 3) complete a GIS data inventory, not just what's in the Central GIS Library.

Emergency Response Subcommittee
Tucson Community Technology Education Network

Tucson Fire Department is in the process of testing laptop computers in their fire trucks. City High School students continue to map building details, and their computers should be in soon.

Geospatial Organization Initiative Report

The application form for the Arizona Professional Land Surveyors (APLS) Geospatial Professional designation has been posted on their website.

Open Floor

A flyer for the Society of Conservation GIS (SCGIS) was distributed.

The issue of how to deal with sensitive data layers was raised, and it was decided that the Emergency Response subcommittee would be a good group to work on developing protocols for this type of data.

Nominations for the 2005 GIS Cooperative chair will be taken at the November meeting.

Next Meeting:

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 / 3:00 P.M / City I.T. Pueblo Room