ESRI Central Maryland Users Group

CMUG Update and Our January 20th Meeting!

2012-01-05T12:50:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday and that we are all off to a good start to the New Year!

On September 16th, 2011 we had another successful CMUG meeting hosted by the Community College of Baltimore County’s Catonsville campus. Special thanks to Julia Fischer from the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development and York Grow from Earth Vector Systems for presenting to the group. PDFs of their presentations can be downloaded here:

Julia Fischer – MD Department of Business and Economic Development – MD iMap

York Grow – Earth Vector Systems – Lightsquared and GPS

York Grow – Earth Vector Systems – Coalition to Save Our GPS - Members Update

Anthony Puzzo from ESRI also gave a presentation on some of the highlights, major rollouts, and user feedback from the 2011 ESRI User Conference. Thanks to Anthony for bringing us up to speed!

Our next CMUG meeting is quickly approaching and will be held at KCI Technologies, Inc. We will be meeting at 8:30am on Friday, January 20th, 2012, on the 4th floor of their Sparks, Maryland office. Thanks to Marshall Stevenson for offering their facility!

A final agenda with directions, parking, visitor information, and maps can be found here:

January 20th, 2012 – CMUG Final Agenda

And please remember to register for this event through ESRI. The registration link can be found here:

January 20th, 2012 – CMUG Registration

Click here to see the meeting location in an ArcGIS Online Viewer!

Looking ahead, we are planning our spring CMUG meeting for Friday, May 11th, 2012. We are currently looking for an agency or organization to host, two presentations, a food sponsor, and ideas for what you would like to see in the ESRI technical presentation. Please let me know if you’re interested in contributing to this or any other future meeting.

So that’s it for now. Please mark Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 8:30am on your calendars. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone and learning about what we have going on in our region!

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at jalvarez@ccbcmd.edu or 443-840-1315.

Thanks!
Jaime

Finalized Agenda for the September 16th, 2011 CMUG Meeting

2011-09-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

Hello all!
Just a quick note that the final agenda for the September 16th CMUG meeting is available. You can find it here: CMUG Agenda - September 16th, 2011.

IMPORTANT!!!
Please note that there is a special permit at the bottom of the agenda for you to print out and place in your windshield for the duration of the meeting. Please remember to park in white-lined spaces ONLY. Your best bet for parking will be Lot #5 on the southwest side of the H building. See the attached campus map in the agenda.

And please remember to register for the event! Register Here!

Looking forward to seeing everyone this Friday, the 16th at CCBC Catonsville!

Thanks!
Jaime

2011-08-05T13:22:00.000-07:00

Hello all!
On April 15th, 2011 we had a very good CMUG meeting hosted by the Maryland Department of the Environment at Montgomery Park. Thanks to Fred Schenerman for working with us to get that meeting scheduled at a great facility!

Special thanks to Zhanping Shi from CSC and Kierran Sutherland from Towson University’s Center for GIS for sharing their work with the group. PDFs of their presentations can be downloaded here:

Zhanping Shi – CSC – How to apply WMS and WFS services from ArcGIS Server and other Open Sources to create a web-based mapping application

Kierran Sutherland – Towson University, Center for GIS – Ramona – GISInventory.net

We also had a great technical presentation given by Brad Songer and Jim Michel from ESRI’s Philadelphia office on Imagery in ArcGIS 10 with focus on LIDAR and elevation data management. These new capabilities in ArcGIS 10 should prove to be extremely valuable tools! Links to other information on Imagery in ArcGIS 10 can be found here. Thanks to Brad and Jim for making the drive and presenting to the group!

Our next CMUG meeting will be held at the Community College of Baltimore County, Catonsville Campus. We will be meeting at 8:30am on Friday, September 16th, 2011, in H-308. A final agenda, directions, and maps can be found here. If you would like to present at this meeting, well, you’re out of luck. We already have the presentations booked. Please let me know if you’re interested in presenting or even hosting a CMUG meeting or sponsoring refreshments. See below for future opportunities.

Starting with this September’s CMUG, we will officially be on a September, January, and May rotation for our meetings. So looking into the future a bit, we already have our January 2012 meeting scheduled. Thanks to Marshall Stevenson from KCI Technologies for offering their facility in Hunt Valley on Friday, January 20th. We are currently looking for two presentations, a food sponsor, and ideas for what you would like to see in the ESRI technical presentation. Please let me know if you’re interested in contributing to this or any other future meeting.

On another note, if you were at the April 15th meeting, you may remember the attendee database that we started building. We will use this database as our means for keeping our information current and checking in at future meetings. If you inputted your information at that meeting, then all you will need to do at the next meeting is click a checkbox near your name and you will be signed in. You will also have the opportunity to update any information as needed. If you were not able to input your information or you were not at the meeting, do not worry. You can still input your information at future meetings. I will continue to use the current email list in Excel until I get everyone’s email move into the database.

On a final note, when you look at this coming September’s agenda, you will notice that there will be a special academic presentation by Feather Stolzenbach, one of our students from CCBC. Feather placed 3rd in the Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM) skills competition at the 2011 ESRI Educational Users Conference in San Diego. Congratulations to Feather! Her presentation at the EdUC and her willingness to present at CMUG got me thinking. I would like to include this type of academic presentation in all of our future CMUGs. I think CMUG is a good venue for undergraduates and graduates to show off what they have done with GIS in their curriculums. It would also be good for connecting the CMUG group with new talent and potential hires. With such a large number of colleges and universities that we could draw from in the region, I would think that we could find students that would like to come and present their work. So if you are a student or someone who teaches GIS and you have students that would benefit from presenting and getting their work out there, please feel free to contact me so that we can schedule a presentation.

That’s all I have for now. Please mark Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 8:30am on your calendars.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at jalvarez@ccbcmd.edu or 443-840-1315.

Thanks!
Jaime

April 15th CMUG Agenda and Registration Link Now Available!

2011-04-02T04:34:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

We're all set! The final agenda for the April 15th CMUG meeting is available. You can find it here: CMUG Agenda - April 15th, 2011

The registration link is also available from ESRI. Please take a moment to register for the event so that we can get as accurate a head count for the meeting as possible. Click here to register: Register for the April 15th, 2011 CMUG Meeting!

See everyone on the 15th!

Thanks!
Jaime

2011-03-30T19:21:00.001-07:00

Hello all!
Just a quick note that the final agenda for the April 15th CMUG meeting is available. You can find it here: CMUG Agenda - April 15th, 2011

Also, please remember to check back to the blog periodically as I will post the registration link when it becomes available.

Thanks!
Jaime

P.S. - If you are interested in hosting, presenting, or sponsoring food for our next meeting, please email me at jalvarez@ccbcmd.edu. We're targeting the mid-August timeframe for our next meeting. Thanks again!

2011-02-10T10:23:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

I have a number of items to address in this entry. First of all, please forgive me for my delinquency with the October meeting follow-up and presentation posting. We had a very good meeting, which was my first as coordinator, and I got a really good feel for the support and excitement that the meetings generate. We are clearly enthusiastic about sharing information about our projects, our process updates, and the use of GIS across the region in general, as well as networking. That’s what this group is all about. I hope to continue that momentum through our future meetings. That said, I got a good lesson in how quickly the next meeting comes up. (Jeff Cox and James Tedrick, you told me so! Guess I had to find out for myself!) By the time we meet again, 6 months will have gone by and I do not want that to happen again. I will therefore be more proactive in soliciting sites and presentations for future meetings from you as a group. I would like us to meet at least 3 times a year, as I mentioned in our October meeting. If we maintain the that schedule after our April meeting, then our next meeting should be in the August 2011 timeframe. So please let me know if you are interested in hosting a CMUG meeting, giving a presentation, or sponsoring refreshments.

Special thanks to Julie Spangler from the Maryland Poison Center and Megan Blaskovich from Fugro Earthdata, Inc., for their presentations at the October 2010 meeting. We really appreciate your stepping up to share your work with the group. PDFs of their presentations can be downloaded here:

Julie Spangler – Maryland Poison Center – Choosing an Address Locator that Suits Your Needs

Megan Blaskovich – Fugro Earthdata, Inc. - GeoSAR and PurVIEW: A Topographic Mapping Solution

As for the next CMUG meeting, we can thank Fred Schenerman from the Maryland Department of the Environment for volunteering their facility at Montgomery Park in Baltimore. We will be meeting at 8:30am on Friday, April 15th, 2011. Please check this blog periodically, as a tentative agenda, directions, and maps will soon be posted.

Speaking of the agenda for this meeting, I am actively seeking presentation topics from you as the group members. If you would like to present please let me know ASAP so that I can include your name, organization, and topic on the agenda. In addition, I am also seeking input for what you would like to see in the ESRI technical demonstrations. Again, please let me know and I will pass this information onto Anthony Puzzo at ESRI so that he can make arrangements for the needed technical staff to attend the meeting. It would be great to have a list of your preferred topics so that we can start thinking about long-term planning for the technical demonstrations.

That’s all I have for now, folks. Please mark Friday, April 15th, 2011 at 8:30am on your calendars and keep an eye out for the forthcoming agenda.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at jalvarez@ccbcmd.edu or 443-840-1315.

Thanks!
Jaime

Jaime J. Alvarez
Assistant Professor
Program Coordinator (Essex Campus)
Geography and Geospatial Applications Program
Community College of Baltimore County
7201 Rossville Blvd.
Baltimore, MD 21237
443-840-1315 (office)
jalvarez@ccbcmd.edu

Finalized Agenda for the October 6th, 2010 CMUG Meeting

2010-09-24T05:13:00.000-07:00

Hello again,
Just a quick note that the final agenda for the October 6th CMUG meeting is available. You can find it here: CMUG Agenda - October 6th, 2010

And please remember to register for the event! Register Here!

Looking forward to seeing everyone on the 6th!

Thanks!
Jaime

CMUG Transition and Our October 6th Meeting

2010-09-03T04:59:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Two important things to catch everyone up on:

1) CMUG Transition

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Jaime Alvarez and I am an Assistant Professor of Geography and Geospatial Applications at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC). Back at the Towson University TUGIS Conference this past May, I had a number of discussions with James Tedrick and Jeff Cox who have coordinated CMUG in the past. Both encouraged me to consider taking over the reigns for a little while and try my hand at running this thing. So here I am sending out my first blog to the group. I look forward to many future meetings with interesting and helpful content and connections that will continue to strengthen GIS in the Central Maryland Region.

Special thanks to James Tedrick (now from ESRI) and Sarah Ierley (from Montgomery County) for their leadership over the last few years, as well as Anthony Puzzo and Drew Kinney who are our points of contact for the CMUG group at ESRI. Thanks again to all four of you for your help with the transition this past summer.

2) Our next CMUG meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, October 6th, 2010.

Since this is my first shot at coordinating the meeting, I figured it best to keep it close to the "backyard" and host it at the CCBC Essex campus. This will be the first time we have hosted CMUG here at Essex. We have hosted it in the past at the CCBC Catonsville campus and will do so again in the future. The tentative agenda can be found here CMUG Agenda - October 6th, 2010 and it gives several important details about the meeting, directions, and parking. Please read the agenda thoroughly and especially follow the directions for parking. Things are tight around here these days on the Essex campus, but if you show up early enough, you'll get a spot and that spot is free.

If anyone has any questions regarding the meeting, please feel free to contact me. My information is listed below. I look forward to seeing everyone on October 6th and don't forget about the ESRI Mid-Atlantic Users Group coming up on November 29 – December 1, 2010, at the Union League in Center City Philadelphia. Visit the conference web site for all the details:
Mid-Atlantic Users Group Meeting

Thanks!
Jaime

Jaime J. Alvarez
Assistant Professor
Program Coordinator (Essex Campus)
Geography and Geospatial Applications Program
Community College of Baltimore County
7201 Rossville Blvd.
Baltimore, MD 21237
443-840-1315 (office)
jalvarez@ccbcmd.edu

December 2009 & March 2010 meetings and (sound effect)... THE FUTURE

2010-06-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

12/09 & 3/10 Meetings

Hi all,

I apologize for not having these up earlier; we've been busy. Both the December and March meetings were great! In particular, I'd like to highlight that the presentation in ArcGIS Explorer in December actually led to one of March's presentations being done in AGX.

Missy Valentino, Towson University Center for GIS presented on the federated centerline project that pioneered a lot of the processes that are being implemented to make the MD iMap an authoritative state resource.

Amy Purvis and Heidi Hammel, KCI, provided an overview of Frederick County's addressing efforts. This covers the intricate nature of parcels, buildings and addresses very well (a copy of the presentation will be available soon)

Jo Farley of ESRI provided a great presentation of ArcGIS Explorer, providing an overview of how to use the program to view GIS data, creating a geo-enabled presentation, and discovering add-ins that provide additional functions. This actually inspired Ben Gruswitz to produce the presentation featured at the March CMUG. In lieu of Jo's presentation (which wasn't easily downloadable since it spanned a few products), I'll direct you to the free Live Training Seminar that happened the week after CMUG.

In March:
Evan Caldwell, the GIS Manager of Novogradac, showed off some of the python scripting techniques he created to help automate his workflows. This presentation really highlighted that while ModelBuilder is powerful, at certain points an analysis process will get complicated enough to migrate it over to an actual script (and that you need to have a script to run a process automatically).

Katherine Nelson, Ben Gruswitz, and Chris McGovern of the M-NCPPC presented on their recent work of getting a Flex-based web map to view forest conservation easements and incorporate a violation reporting/communication mechanism within it. The link to the presentation is the original version recorded in January 7th; since then, we've tied in a communication tracking system using Redmine to the application. Again, I'd like to highlight Ben's work in using ArcGIS Explorer as the presentation medium; it looks spectacular and we've posted some of the techniques on ESRI's AGX blog.

With ArcGIS 10 coming out this summer, we were able to have ESRI's Mike Kennedy provide us a sneak peak at the changes in ArcGIS Desktop. You can also view a similar presentation from ESRI's training page.

I'd like to thank all of our presenters, as well as KCI for providing breakfast for the March meeting!

And now... THE FUTURE!
After 2 years, Sarah & I are at a point in both of our careers where we've become too busy with our jobs to keep running the CMUG. This has been an enjoyable experience for both of us and we have enjoyed meeting everyone.

Don't worry! A member of the Maryland GIS community has stepped up to take on the mantle of coordinator; expect to hear more as we get through the transition process.

Sarah & I would also like to thank all the presenters we've hosted, the companies and organizations whom have provided support through venues and food and ESRI for the technical presentations and drinks.

james

ESRI Mid-Atlantic User Group Conference: 12/9

2009-10-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard, the Mid-Atlantic User Group Conference is open for registration- it's 12/9 at the Radisson Hotel Valley Forge, King of Prussia, PA.

Next CMUG 12/2 @ Silver Spring

2009-10-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

With the crazy weather we've been having lately, it may be hard to tell what season we're in, but the winter CMUG is coming up soon! We'll be meeting next on December 2nd at the M-NCPPC (8787 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring MD 20910).

We'll have presentations on:

Sharing Regional Data to the National Map, Missy Valentino of the Towson University Center for GIS

Frederick County Addressing, Amy Purves & Heidi Hammel of KCI

the new release of ArcGIS Explorer, Jo Fraley of ESRI

You can also read the full agenda.

See you in December!

james & sarah

9-16 Catonsville

2009-10-27T05:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who showed up at Catonsville for our September meeting. We launched with a nice recap of the User Conference- several of us attended and had a lot of perspectives to share. ArcGIS 9.4 was demonstrated; ESRI is having a large beta program to test out the software before releasing it in the summer.

Jeff Cox, a GIS Specialist with Anne Arundel County, presented on the ESRI Authorized Trainer Program. Jeff highlighted the payback that the ESRI course provides while being done at a much lower-cost than normal through in-house staff.

Jaime Alvarez of CCBC (Essex) presented on an analysis of CCBC's student population. Given how in demand community colleges are right now, this type of analysis will help focus the limited resources the colleges have on their core population. This sort of analysis should be the base for any county service provision- find out who your audience is & where they are coming from!

CMUG 09-16: Catonsville

2009-09-11T05:09:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the late post; I was temporarily blocked by blogspot.

We'll be having our fall meeting this coming Wednesday (9/16) at CCBC-Catonsville in Building Q's theater lounge.

We've got 3 great presentations lined up:

Jeff Cox, ESRI's Authorized Training Program in Anne Arundel County

Jaimer Alveraz, Where Are They All Coming From?: Mapping the Community College of Baltimore County’s Student Population

As always we'll have a technical demonstration; tentatively, it's planned to be on ESRI's new ArcGIS Explorer

The full agenda and driving directions can be found here.
See you there!

James & Sarah

Plenary Thoughts

2009-07-14T05:47:00.000-07:00

Good morning!

I've published my thought post on the morning plenary at http://www.tedrick.org/blog/blog.html.

I'll be going to some of the 'Road Ahead' sessions today- get further detail on some of the cool stuff we saw yesterday.

james

Virtual ESRI UC

2009-07-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

I thought I'd give a quick primer on finding out about ESRI UC from the comfort of your cubicle. Even if you haven't used it, you've probably heard of Twitter, which allows people to post short messages online. There's going to be a lot of twittering going on during the keynote- ESRI has a wing of the room set up for computers/cell phones. To find out what's going on, try searching for twitter for ESRIUC- most people will put a "hash tag" of #ESRIUC to provide a keyword.

Even if you don't follow live, the plenary should be up pretty soon- ESRI's media site should have it.

I'll be twittering as well and posing photos to Flckr (Again, the ESRIUC tag is your friend in searching). I'll also try to sum up what I saw that day overnight and post it here on the CMUG blog. I'm definitely planning to attend "The Road Ahead" sessions, which will cover what's planned for 9.4 (and SP2, if there's going to be an SP2).

Also, here's another summary of enjoying a conference from home

james

ESRI UC 2009!

2009-07-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Marylanders! It's a long way to San Diego, but you won't be alone- below are some of the presentations being given by or about Marylanders (and one about a former part of Maryland).

See you all at UC!

Monday, 8pm: Maryland Social!
Hotel Solamar rooftop bar (6th Ave & J St)
Get over your jet lag with the MD GIS social at the Hotel Solamar! Get a bite and catch up with colleagues. Enjoy the one of the Gaslamp's best lounges with a rooftop view of the Bay. Find out who's giving the interesting papers and get prepared for the rest of the conference.

Tuesday
1:30 - 2:45 23B
Sharing Regional Data to The National Map
Kenneth Juengling, Towson University Center for GIS
Mary Valentino, Towson University Center for GIS
http://events.esri.com/uc/2009/infoWeb/OnlineAgenda/?fa=ofg_details_form&ScheduleID=71

Wednesday
8:30 - 9:45 31C
Extending Script Tools with Python Libraries
James Tedrick, M-NCPPC
http://events.esri.com/uc/2009/infoWeb/OnlineAgenda/?fa=ofg_details_form&ScheduleID=227

10:15 - 11:30 16A
Federal and State Agencies Spatially Track Recovery Funds
Beth Blauer, Maryland StateStat Director (Panel Participant)
http://events.esri.com/uc/2009/infoWeb/OnlineAgenda/?fa=ofg_details_form&ScheduleID=1984

10:15 - 11:20 28D
Land-use Planning in the Maringa-Lopori-Wamba Landscape, DRC
Janet Nackoney, University of Maryland
http://events.esri.com/uc/2009/infoWeb/OnlineAgenda/?fa=ofg_details_form&ScheduleID=613

1:30 - 2:45 31C
Leveraging ArcGIS Server for Custom Application Development
Doy Miller, Maryland Transit Administration
Kenneth Juengling, Towson Center for GIS
Steven Fabijanski, Towson Center for GIS
http://events.esri.com/uc/2009/infoWeb/OnlineAgenda/?fa=ofg_details_form&ScheduleID=229

Thursday
8:30 - 9:45 24A
JTX Manages Workflow and Solved a Mystery
Michael Shean, M-NCPPC
http://events.esri.com/uc/2009/infoWeb/OnlineAgenda/?fa=ofg_details_form&ScheduleID=250

8:30 - 9:45 29D
Visualizing the National Mall
Matthew Safford, National Park Service
http://events.esri.com/uc/2009/infoWeb/OnlineAgenda/?fa=ofg_details_form&ScheduleID=278

10:15 - 11:30 24A
Maryland’s Statewide Addressing Initiative
Ashley Buzzeo, Towson University Center for GIS
Marshall Stevenson, Frederick County Government
http://events.esri.com/uc/2009/infoWeb/OnlineAgenda/?fa=ofg_details_form&ScheduleID=251

1:30 - 2:45 17A
Using ArcGIS to Analyze FD's Compliance with NFPA Standards
Peter Hanna, Baltimore City Fire Department
http://events.esri.com/uc/2009/infoWeb/OnlineAgenda/?fa=ofg_details_form&ScheduleID=293

Batch geocoding w/ ArcGIS Server (Follow-up from June meeting)

2009-06-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

Aisha was kind enough to pass this along:

"A new White Paper covering ‘batch Geoprocessing with ArcGIS Server’ has been published to: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcgisserver/brochures_whitepapers.html

This paper is of interest to organizations that need to batch-geocode very large number of addresses

The ArcGIS Server Blog also references this paper and provides some context to it: http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/arcgisserver/archive/2009/04/06/Parallel-processing-with-ArcGIS-Server_3A00_-A-case-study-with-geocoding.aspx"

james

June 3rd meeting round-up

2009-06-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

I want to thank everyone who came to the June 3rd CMUG meeting at the Universities of Shady Grove! We had a stellar turn-out and learned quite a lot! Fortunately, we have the slides so you can keep prevent info leaking out of your brain :) .

First up was James Potteiger and Peter Hanna from the City of Baltimore Fire Department, presenting "Using GIS To Evaluate Fire Department Response Times". The analysis shown in this presentation was amazing, and showed very starkly how the real-world can differ from the hypothetical analysis.

Next, Dr. Erwin Villager, the CEO of GlobeView and Program Director of UMBC's MPS in GIS (taught at Shady Grove), presented both an overview of the MPS program and the beginning explorations in Humanitarian Spatial Data Infrastructure that he hopes the MPS students will be able to undertake. Thinking of the data needs of international and non-governmental organizations compared to the information my own (and probably your) organization is a good thought exercise in seeing how truly useful your data is.

We need to give an especially warm-hearted thank you to Aisha Jenkins from ESRI's Philadelphia office for coming down and giving a wonderful presentation on geoprocessing, building models and writing scripts. It's a very complete overview and I recommend keeping the slides as a general reference!

Finally, I'd like to thank Dr. Villiger again for hosting the meeting at Shady Grove and providing the breakfast!

See you at UC or in September!

March 2009 meeting round-up: D'oh!

2009-06-16T13:22:00.001-07:00

Hey everybody,

My apologies- I forgot to post the summary of the March meeting.

We had a great and slightly techy set of presentations at Morgan State in March:

Ian Botts and Sharad Garg of KCI showed off a great feature of the SDE with "Distributed Data Capture, Management, and Visualization with ArcGIS"

Chris Slavin and Matt Webb stepped us through their analysis of Anne Arundel County's GDP Holding Capacity

Ralph Denkenberger of ESRI went over the nuts and bolts of using Cartographic Representations in ArcGIS

Upcoming Meeting: Wednesday, June 3 in Rockville

2009-04-15T11:32:00.001-07:00

Mark your calendars!

The next CMUG meeting will be Wednesday, June 3, 2009
9:00 am to Noon

The Universities at Shady Grove
Building I, Room 101
9630 Gudelsky Drive
Rockville, MD 20850

Directions: http://www.shadygrove.umd.edu/about/directions/

Agenda:
8:30 - 9:00........ Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 9:30........ Introductions & GIS Project Updates
9:30 - 10:00......GIS for Emergency Response Analysis
James Potteiger and Peter Hanna, Baltimore City Fire Department
10:00 - 10:30..... Development of Humanitarian Spatial Data Infrastructure (HSDI)
Dr. Erwin Villiger, UMBC
10:30 - 11:00..... BREAK
11:00 - 12:00..... ESRI Demonstration: Geoprocessing/Models & Python

Thanks to the UMBC MPS in GIS program at Shady Grove for supplying the breakfast!

ESRI CMUG tomorrow: March 4 at Morgan State

2009-03-03T09:00:00.001-08:00

Apologies for not posting this sooner, but the next meeting is tomorrow, March 4 at Morgan State University.

Morgan State University Student Center, Room 316
http://www.morgan.edu/about-msu/campusmap.asp

Agenda:
8:30 am to 9:00 Continental Breakfast
9:00 to 9:30 GIS Project Updates and Discussion
Provide an introduction of those in attendance with a brief summary of interests and recent
endeavors.
9:30 to 10:00 Chris Slavin and Matthew Webb, Anne Arundel County
Determining Anne Arundel County’s Development Holding Capacity: A Spatial Analysis
Approach
10:00 to 10:30 Ian Botts and Sharad Garg, KCI Technologies, Inc.
Distributed Data Capture & Management with ArcGIS
10:30 to 10:45 BREAK
10:45 to 11:45 ESRI
Cartographic Representation
11:45 to Noon Wrap Up

Thanks to Sage Management for providing the bagels and ESRI for the coffee!

See you there!

MD Greenprint

2008-12-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

Hi folks! I'll post the summary from the 12/3 meeting over the weekend. In the meantime, I saw that Directions Magazine had a nice blog post on the MD GreenPrint application that launched Wednesday:

http://vector1media.com/spatialsustain/?p=1676

It's a 9.3 ArcGIS Server JavaScript API & features the results of the statewide centerline project & statewide parcel information!

Upcoming CMUG meeting on 12/3

2008-11-17T05:35:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

Our next CMUG meeting will be at the University of Maryland – College Park on 12/3 @ 9:00.

On the agenda:

Presentations by your GIS Colleagues
Integration and Application of GIS into Pandemic Flu Response
Sandi P. Cone, City of Laurel

ArcGIS Server Development Case Studies
Bill Press and Vinay Suryavanshi, PBS&J

Video Presentation
One Maryland-One Map-MD iMap, MD Statewide Collaboration
Governor Martin O’Malley, State of Maryland
Originally Presented at ESRI UC 2008

You can get the full agenda & directions here.

You can register for the event at http://events.esri.com/info/index.cfm?fuseaction=seminarRegForm&shownumber=11426

See you on December 3rd!

Sarah & James

Some links

2008-09-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

During my presentation on the 10th, I mentioned some links that I've found useful:

http://resources.esri.com/- ESRI Resource Center. New for 9.3, the Resource Center is a massive set of documentation, examples, and other help!

DevSummitt 08- The Developer's Summitt was a great meeting for the technically oriented GIS set. In particular, look for the presentations on the "REST API" and "Building Mashups".

http://planetgs.com- Planet Geospatial- one of the most comprehensive collectors of GIS-related news & info.

9/10 meeting: Server, BRAC Analysis & What's New?

2008-09-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

Hi all! Thanks to everyone who showed up and congrats to everybody who got a free map book at the beginning of the meeting. A quick reminder- both the 2008 ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 Seminar Series (FREE!) and the 2008 ESRI ArcGIS Server 9.3 Seminar Series are coming up at multiple DC/Baltimore area locations.

The first seminar we had was by Christopher McGovern & James Tedrick (your post's author) of M-NCPPC on their work with ArcGIS Server. You can get the slides here and see our main web mapping application (running Server 9.2 for now) at http://www.mcatlas.org. Our main points were:

You don't need a massive computer to get started- just a decent workstation or medium-ish server.
Map Documents are the conduit for data & looks; author the map document to look as you want it to on the web and then publish

Separate your base maps, which can be used across several map applications from your overlay services

Start your applications by using the built in template accessible from the web manager

Use ModelBuilder and especially Python to create analysis scripts to extend the functionality of your program

Start customizing your web applications by tweaking the code here & there (for example: having the scale go from miles to feet when you zoom in). You can then save your tweaks into the template and have all your future applications use them!

Our second presenter was Prof. Scott Jeffrey of CCBC and his Advanced GIS students on their project analyzing the BRAC transition from Fort Monmouth in New Jersey to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. In particular, this project was a fascinating use of the Community Tapestry geodemographic segmentation data.

Finally, Owen Evans of ESRI's Vienna office provided an overview of ArcGIS 9.3. A lot has been changed or upgraded with this release, especially with the ArcGIS Server product- definitely consider attending the seminars listed at the top of the post!

Thanks to Sage Management for the bagels and CCBC for hosting us! See you at our next meeting, 12/3 at the University of Maryland, College Park!

CMUG meeting 9/10

2008-08-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

Hi all! I hope those of you who made it to the User's Conference got as exhausted as I did!

Our next CMUG meeting will be at CCBC-Catonsville's Q building Lounge on 9/10 @ 9:00. Come join us for an overview of the new ArcGIS 9.3 software, as well as demonstrations from your fellow users:

Starting off with ArcGIS Server: Customizing Web Mapping Applications

Chris McGovern & James Tedrick, M-NCPPC Montgomery County

CCBC/CGIS BRAC Study
Scott Jeffrey, CCBC (update: Sorry Scott for getting your name backwards)

You can get the full agenda & directions here. You can also register for the event at http://events2.esri.com/info/index.cfm?fuseaction=seminarRegForm&shownumber=11425 (note that the agenda listed on ESRI has been changed slightly).

Can't wait to see you @ CCBC!

James & Sarah

Mid-Atlantic User Group meeting @ 5:30 Today

2008-08-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

A reminder that the Mid Atlantic Regional User Group Meeting is at 5:30 today in Room 26B. If you're at UC come o by!

5/28 - GIS in Baltimore!

2008-05-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

Our spring CMUG meeting (agenda) was fantastic! Held in the new Student Center at Morgan State, issues affecting the Baltimore region and the state were highlighted. I'd like to start off by thanking all of our presenters and attendees!

CSSC-BRAC: Developing a Tri-State GIS Collaborative
Doug Adams of Baltimore County started off our presentations by describing the massive amount of data sharing and compilation occurring to help support the development of the Chesapeake Science and Security Corridor (CSSC) as part of the on-coming movement of U.S. defense industry jobs into the Baltimore region. This is being constructed as an ArcGIS Server application, using replication to copy data from the participating agencies and serve it through web applications (Server architecture)

House Bill 1141- GIS Analysis Needs for Water Quality AssessmentStephanie Martins of the Maryland Department of Planning (MDP) next presented on the Water Resources Plan Element legislation. This affects all counties and towns in Maryland with planning authority, as they now have to account for where they will get new freshwater and treat the increase in wastewater as their population grows. In meeting this requirement, GIS land use/land cover data is used in conjunction with growth modeling to identify the magnitude of the new needs placed by growth. MDP is helping with this requirement by providing tools that automate some of the analysis. Also briefly shown was some agricultural land preservation ranking developed to help with the requirements of a similar piece of legislation.Stephanie shows off Coastmont county, the example area with everything-
mountains, streams and bayside beaches!

Working with the Geodatabase
Note: The file is password protected- the password is the Central Maryland User's Group's abbreviation.
In our last presentation of the day, Emily Apsey of ESRI walked us through the geodatabase options available with ArcMap and ArcSDE. Essentially the "Basics of the Geodatabase Model" on-line course along with a summary of the "Introduction to the Multiuser Geodatabase" course, this presentation explored all the options for using a geodatabase- why the file geodatabse was introduced in 9.2, how you can use a personal SDE without needing ArcGIS Server, versioned editing, archiving, and replication. As an ESRI user shifting his co-workers from using shapefiles to using our organization's SDE and geodatabases, this was especially helpful for me to gain a better grounding in explaining what we're doing with data storage and why we're doing it!

Finally, I'd like to thank ESRI for providing the drinks, KCI for the bagels & doughnuts, and Dr. Linda Loubert of Morgan State for providing us with a wonderful place to meet! See you at User's Conference or our next meeting on September 10th! (@CC Balt. County- Catonsville; tentative subject- ArcGIS Server).

2/27 GIS in the State and on the Road!

2008-05-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

It's a little bit late, but thanks to everyone who attended our February meeting in the new Rockville library! Unfortunately, we don't have powerpoints from the meeting- the presentations were mostly conversations and demonstrations.

We had a great presentation and follow-up discussion from Ken Miller, the acting GIO of Maryland on the State of GIS in Maryland, including the state's efforts to construct a statewide base set of data.

Mobility was the focus of the second half of the meeting. Brian Reed from Parsons Brinkerhoff showed an ArcGIS server-based field application that enables the State of Hawaii to monitor stormwater runoff and remain connected to their central database. Finally, Darren Biard gave a introductory overview of the ArcGIS Server Mobile technology, showing how it an application could be deployed, synchronized with a server's data, edit disconnected in the field, and then update the server's data on a subsequent synchronization.

Again our thanks to Apollo Teng of Montgomery County DTS/GIS, who hosted the meeting in the new Rockville Library, JMT, who provided the food, and ESRI.

2/27 CMUG meeting is coming up!

2008-02-13T10:27:00.000-08:00

The next ESRI Central Maryland Users Group meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 from 9AM to 12 Noon at the Rockville Public Library (21 Maryland Ave, Rockville, MD 20850).

The main theme is "Mobile GIS." Additionally, Ken Miller, the acting Geographic Information Officer (GIO) for the state of Maryland, will be speaking on the state of Maryland GIS.

Scheduled presentations are:

State of GIS in Maryland
Ken Miller, Acting GIO in Maryland, Governor’s Office

“Asset Management 101 & Implementing ArcGIS Server 9.2”
Brian Reed, Parsons Brinkerhoff

ESRI Demonstration: “Taking GIS on the Road with ArcGIS Mobile”

The full agenda & directions are available for download (MS Word)

We hope to see you there!

James & Alison

Awesome Spatial Analysis!

2007-12-31T07:25:00.000-08:00

The Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 ESRI Central Maryland Users Group was another exciting and well attended event.

This time around, we saw some fantastic presentations, had some great food and enjoyed sharing ideas. Many thanks to Mike Herzberger (URS Corp, http://www.urscorp.com/) for providing the wonderful food. Thank you!

After the initial introductions and round-table discussion, Jeff and Eric announced that they will no longer be coordinating CMUG and that responsibility is transferring to James Tedrick of MNCPPC of Montgomery County. Jeff and Eric have enjoyed their time co-coordinating the group and look forward to the new and fresh ideas that James will bring!

The first presentation of the meeting was “Developing Landform Maps using ESRI’s Spatial Analyst Extension and ModelBuilder” by Dr. Jay Morgan, Director of the Geospatial Research and Education Laboratory, Towson University Geospatial Research and Education Lab and Ashley Lesh, GIS Specialist, Towson University Center for GIS.

This was a fantastic presentation detailing how ArcGIS' Model Builder is used to process readily available data into more useful landform maps. Dr. Morgan detailed how the model was constructed and where the sources for the models underlying logic originated. It was a unique and insightful look into how written ideas and research can be transferred into an automated process. All of the documentation is also available from Dr. Morgan's TU page at http://pages.towson.edu/morgan/downloads/

The next presentation was given by Phil Canter, Chief Statistician, Director, Analysis Section, Baltimore County Police Department. It was entitled “Using GIS and Spatial Analysis to Identify Robbery Offenders' Activity Space”. This presentation showed how custom modeling software was integrated with ArcGIS to produce potential criminal locations. The presentation showed great insight into the use of spatial data and statistics to develop the results that were extremely helpful to the Baltimore County Police in narrowing search areas.

The final presentation of the day was given by Tosia Shall, ESRI, DC Technology Center. She detailed Raster Geoprocessing functionality within the ArcGIS environment and demonstrated tips and tricks to get the most out of the software.

Thank you to all who attended!!! We will see you next time.
Jeff, Eric and Alison.

Next Meeting on Wednesday, November 28, 2007!

2007-10-31T08:39:00.000-07:00

The next ESRI Central Maryland Users Group meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 from 9AM to 12 Noon at the Community College of Baltimore County - Catonsville (800 South Rolling Road, Building H, Room 308, Catonsville, MD. 21228).

The focus of this meeting will be “Spatial Analysis”.

The full agenda, as well as directions, can be found here: Agenda and Directions

Scheduled presentations and demonstrations include:
* “Developing Landform Maps using ESRI’s Spatial Analyst Extension and ModelBuilder” from Dr. Jay Morgan, Director of the Geospatial Research and Education Laboratory, Towson University Geospatial Research and Education Lab
and Ashley Lesh, GIS Specialist, Towson University Center for GIS

* “Using GIS and Spatial Analysis to Identify Robbery Offenders' Activity Space” from Phil Canter, Chief Statistician, Director, Analysis Section, Baltimore County Police Department

* “What’s Coming in ArcGIS 9.3: Enhancements in Spatial Analysis and Geoprocessing” from Tosia Shall, ESRI, DC Technology Center

We hope to see you all there!
Jeff, Eric, & Alison

A 3-D Bonanza!

2007-09-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

The August 29th ESRI Central Maryland Users Group meeting was another enjoyable affair. The focus of the meeting was 3D data and how ESRI's ArcGIS 3D Analyst extension can be used to manipulate it. We had over 60 folks in attendance at Howard Community College who were treated to great presentations and food. Thanks so much to Professor Dave Hinton for providing us with a fantastic venue! We also thank SAGE Management for supplying the wonderful continental breakfast.
First up was Mr. Mike Sheffer, the GIS Coordinator/Assistant Division Chief of the MD State Highway Administration , who presented on "Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) Explores theUse of 3D Street Centerlines for Hurricane Evacuation Planning". Mr. Sheffer reviewed the complex methods that SHA uses to generate 3D centerline data and discussed in detail how the data can be utilized in emergency evacuation and disaster planning. Really cool stuff!

Next up was Mr. Kevin Boone, Director of the Watershed Information Center for Maryland Department of Natural Resources who presented on "Viewshed Analysis of Utility Corridor". This presentation was also very exciting and displayed how ArcGIS can be utilized in concert with Sketch-Up to create 3D scenarious depicting potential land impact from proposed utility lines. Awesome.

Finally, ESRI's Brady Hoak presented on "Geoprocessing with ArcGIS Server: Creating 3D Geoprocessing Services". Brady provided the group with an excellent opportunity to see how ArcGIS Server can publish tools and models (both out-of-the-box and customized) for user consumption in ArcGIS products, such as ArcExplorer or ArcGIS desktop.

On on a GIS-related sidenote, Cathy Cooper announced that the 2007 AAG Mid-Atlantic Region Annual Meeting was coming up on Friday, October 26, 2007 from 9am - 5pm at the US Census Bureau (4600 Silver Hill Rd, Suitland, MD 20746). The theme for the meeting will be "Creating a Strong Public-Private Partnership with Geography". Please feel free to email Molly Brown for details. There is also a call for papers associated with meeting.

Thank you to those who attended! Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at the Community College of Baltimore County - Catonsville Campus. Look for details in October.

Upcoming Meeting: Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

2007-08-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

The next ESRI CMUG meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 from 9AM to 12 Noon at Howard Community College (10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, Instructional Laboratory Building, Room 100, Columbia, MD 21044).

Agenda and Directions

The focus of this meeting will be ESRI's ArcGIS 3D Analyst extension and its application in projects around the State. As always, the meeting will kick off with a brief roundtable discussion of relevant projects occuring in the local area and then move on to the formal presentation.

We are pleased to announce that we have three high quality presentations on the menu. First will be Mike Sheffer, Assistant Division Chief of the MD State Highway Administration, who will be presenting "State Highway Administration’s Use of 3D Streets for Hurricane Evacuation".

Next up will be Kevin Boone, Director of Watershed Information Center for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, who will present "Transmission Line Right-Of-Way Impact Analysis: A Case Study Using ArcGIS and Commercial Extensions".

After a brief intermission, we will finish off the meeting with a demonstration from Brady Hoak of ESRI DC entitled “How to Publish 3D Content and Models with ArcGIS Server”. Each of these presentations should provide an interesting aspect into the use of 3D data and ArcGIS.

Breakfast treats will be provided by Sage Management

WE HOPE TO SEE EVERYONE AT THE MEETING!

Cartography at the fore!

2007-05-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

The May 30th, 2007 ESRI CMUG meeting had Cartography as its focus. With over 55 attendees, the meeting showed that cartographic techniques continue to be a focus for GIS professionals. Informative and exciting presentations from the National Geographic Society and the Maryland State Highway Administration showed how production cartography comes together in their respective shops. ESRI also wowed the room with brand new Cartographic Representation functionality released with ArcGIS 9.2.

We were once again treated to wonderful accommodations by Apollo Teng and the folks at Montgomery County. Thank you Apollo! Montgomery County has recently moved to a new modernized location! Check with Apollo about their new home just a block north of 101 Monroe St.

Sage Management provided us with our food this time around. It was fantastic and we thank them for supporting our group in this way!

National Geographic and Maryland State Highway discussed their respective production methods to the awe of many in the group. It was simply amazing to see the amount of time and thought that goes into producing a quality cartographic product.

Presentation - Billie Leff, National Geographic Society - "Cartographic Dexterity for GIS Professionals" (17 mb)

Billie Leff provided the group with some fantastic insight into the production methods used at the National Geographic Society (NGS). She discussed that, in most cases, the NGS GIS group provides the base data for the maps produced by the Society, and that the cartographic editors enhance and customize the data in other graphics packages. Ms. Leff explained that they maintain their data in multiple databases across several scales with varying degrees of detail.

While the GIS group does not usually produce magazine-ready maps, she explained that they can produce 3D analytical mapping graphics that are able to go into an issue with little alteration. With some awesome examples, she enthralled the group with the ability of the NGS GIS and Editor groups to turn around high quality maps in a short period of time. It is obvious that the attention to database design and business process design has benefited National Geographic's Map production process in a unbelievable way. Kudos!

Presentation - Clay Supensky and Laurie Goudy, Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) - "Cartography at the Maryland State Highway Administration " (4 mb)

Clay Supensky and Laurie Goudy presented complex task that SHA faces in making their statewide grid map product. They presented in detail how the process has evolved through time and recently the production environment has migrated from Microstation 7 into ArcGIS utilizing the SHA cooperative centerline product.

As part of that migration discussion, Laurie and Clay detailed how the ArcGIS Maplex extension met a lot of their needs, but they still required additional customization. SHA opted to also use another off-the-shelf extension called Maptext Label-EZ. This product was able to meet the rest of of SHA's production needs and was also able to export text to Microstation V8. The hardcopy examples they provided to the group really showed what a fantastic job they do for SHA!

If you have any questions about SHA's presentation or MapText, feel free to contact Clay Supensky at 410-545-2945 or csupensky@sha.state.md.us.

Presentation - Thom Oaks, ESRI - "Cartographic Representations at ArcGIS 9.2: An Overview" (1 mb)

Thom Oaks rounded out the day with a very cool presentation on Cartographic Representations with ArcGIS 9.2. ESRI states, "Cartographic representations have been designed especially for cartographers who need to manage how and where features will be symbolized and depicted on a map or multiple maps that are derived from a common database."

Thom walked us through the reasons why maps can easily fail if produced incorrectly and how ArcGIS 9.2 Cartographic Representations can assist map-makers to cut down on some of those common errors. One particularly cool example was a demonstration on editing the I-395 road line work around the Nations Capitol to depict it in a much more realistic fashion. The cartographic representation is altered in the Geodatabase but underlying data remains unchanged. Sweet! ESRI has a winner with Cartographic Representations and it will be interesting to see how quickly this product catches on.

Upcoming Meeting
The next ESRI CMUG meeting will take place on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 at Howard Community College. Please stay tuned for more details. Thanks!

Upcoming Meeting: Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

2007-04-25T17:01:00.000-07:00

The upcoming Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 meeting of the ESRI CMUG will be held at the Montgomery County Executive Office Building Lobby Auditorium, 101 Monroe St. Rockville, MD 20850 from 9AM to 12 Noon.

The focus of this meeting will be Cartography! Each of us has a soft spot for a good map and at this meeting we will hear from the folks at National Geographic and the Maryland State Highway Administration on how they make their maps!

The first presentation of the meeting will be "Cartography at the Maryland State Highway Administration" by Clay Supensky, Cartographer, MD State Highway Administration, Mapping & Product Development Team. The second presentation of the meeting is "Cartographic Dexterity for GIS Professionals" by Billie Leff, GIS Project Manager, National Geographic Maps. These presentations look to be spectacular real world studies of high quality production mapping.

ESRI will round out the meeting with a technical session entitled "Cartographic Representations at ArcGIS 9.2: An Overview” by Thom Oaks, ESRI Technical Marketing, DC Technology Center. This will provide some insight into the new Cartographic functionality in the new ESRI 9.2 release.

Food will be provided by Sage Management

Agenda and Directions

February 28, 2007 Meeting

2007-03-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

The February 28, 2007 meeting of the ESRI Central Maryland Users Group was a interesting and well attended affair. Once again Enterprise Information Solutions provided the refreshments and we would like to thank them for their contribution to our comfort during the meeting! We also want to thank the folks at the Campus of the Community College of Baltimore County for offering their site to host the meeting. The accomodations were fabulous.

The attendance for this meeting was very interesting as we saw many new faces and many new organizations represented. The core attendance for our group continues to be State and Local government but we are starting to see a spike in the attendance in non-profit and academic institutions attendance which is exciting.

The meeting kicked off with a brief discussion of the GIS related activities on the Campus of the
Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC). Scott Jeffrey, Director of the Center for Science and Technology and Coordinator of the Geospatial Applications Program on the Catonsville Campus briefed the group on the fantastic program at CCBC. He and John Walker on the Dundalk/Essex Campus have done some extraordinary work in bringing that program to the fore in the local area. CCBC is the only institution in the area to have its entire Geospatial Applications Program set up to transfer all credit hours to 4 year institutions like Towson or UMBC. Their current students are looking for internship opportunities so please contact Scott or John for information on how to bring them on board at your organization.

Presentation: Michael Shean - Planning Process Enhancements Through Internet Mapping (Not Available)

Michael Shean GIS Coordinator, Prince Georges County MNCPPC was first to present following our usual roundtable disussion. He presented a summary of how much the internet mapping tool PGAtlas has improved business processes at PG County. He detailed in terms of costs (Time and Money), how much the PGAtlas application has saved the County since its first release. He made several observations about how the data included in the site it used and discussed how the site has evolved through user testing and feedback.

Presentation: Darren Baird, ESRI, DC Technology Center - Geodatabase Replication at ArcGIS 9.2: An Overview (Both ESRI presentations)

Darren Baird followed Mike with a sweet overiew of what Geodatabase Replication is and how it can benefit organiztions who may look to use it. Replication offers some exiciting potential for GIS users in the future by providing a great way to manage data in complex business processes.

Presentation: Darren Baird, ESRI, DC Technology Center - Model Builder and ArcGIS Server (Both ESRI presentations)

After a brief intermission Darren was back on stage discussing Model Builder and its integration into ArcGIS Server. Initially Darren showed some exciting CAD management functions in ArcGIS and created a tool to get the data into a featureclass using Model Builder. He then published this model and also the ArcMap document that contained the tool and showed how they could be accessed from an ArcServer Application online. Very cool!

Thank you to all who attended. We look forward to seeing you and many new faces at the next CMUG. Check back with the blog from time to time for updates from our region!

Upcoming Meeting - Wednesday, February 28th, 2007

2007-02-08T18:42:00.000-08:00

The upcoming Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 meeting of the ESRI CMUG will be held at the Community College of Baltimore County - Catonsville (Building H - Room 308, 800 South Rolling Road, Catonsville, MD. 21228) from 9AM to 12 Noon

The first presentation of the meeting will be on Internet Mapping benefits to the Planning Process in Montgomery County presented by Michael Shean, GIS Coordinator, The Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission. ESRI will then provide a double shot of ArcGIS technical information focusing on Geodatabase Replication and Model Builder Applications.

Agenda and Directions

Register Now! (Disregard any notices from ESRI that the meeting is full, come anyway!)

GIS Best Practices

2007-01-04T07:42:00.000-08:00

Here is a great link to ESRI best practice documents.

http://www.esri.com/showcase/best-practices/index.html

December 12, 2006 Meeting

2006-12-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

The December 12, 2006 meeting of the ESRI Central Maryland Users Group was another resounding success. Attendance at this meeting saw a good cross section of Maryland Counties and Private Sector firms present at the Frederick County Sheriff's Office. The facility was extremely impressive and very comfortable and we were very thankful to be able to use it.

Enterprise Information Solutions once again provided the refreshments and we would once again like to thank them for their contribution to our comfort during the meeting.

The meeting kicked off with the usual round table discussion of what is happening with those in attendance. Of particular note was that the Towns of Westminster and Bowie and the City of Rockville were present. It is always exciting to see the smaller municipalities join in the conversation with the larger entities! We hope to see more of them in the future!

Presentation: Matt Felton - Maryland Statewide GIS Coordination Efforts (pdf -196kb)

Matt Felton from the Center for Geographic Information Sciences at Towson University kicked off the presentation portion of the meeting with a discussion of Statewide GIS Coordination efforts. This presentation offered valuable insight into what is being strived for at the Statewide level to bring GIS to the forefront. His efforts along with those involved in MSGIC are to be commended. They work so hard as volunteers to plant the seeds within the political arena that will hopefully mature into a legislatively supported Statewide GIS agenda.

Presentation: Calvin Strozier and Jeff Edgin - Bringing True Property to Life (pdf - 2 mb)

The Parcel Mapping presentations followed with Calvin Strozier and Jeff Edgin from St. Mary's County showing the group how they performed their daily operations in keeping their Parcel Layer current. Of particular note was the level to which they have received support from their elected and appointed officials. They have succeeded in passing legislation that requires that if a plat is submitted digitally it must conform to specific standards in order to be quickly integrated into their Parcel Layer. It is the first time we have heard within the setting of our group that a GIS professional has the ability to stop any approval process if the data does not meet specifications. Very exciting stuff!

Presentation: John Bussiere - Managing Howard County’s Parcels in a Developing Enterprise Environment ( pdf - 1.2 mb)

John Bussiere from Howard County followed Calvin and Jeff and added some quality insight into how they are working with their parcel data. Howard County has moved into using SQL Server and ArcSDE withing the last year to manage and store their parcel data and it was exciting to see the level to which they are working with automated tasks to keep their data current!

Presentation: Eric Wilson - Anne Arundel CountyProperty Geodatabase Briefing (pdf - 1.6 mb)

Eric Wilson wrapped up the parcel discussions with a blitzkreig through his powerpoint depicting how Anne Arundel County is approaching their parcel mapping process. It was great to see how closely each of the Counties are in terms of overall business needs and the different ways they implement processes to meet those needs.

Presentation: Alison Rice - ArcGIS Server 9.2: Publishing Map Services & Creating Web Editing Applications Using ArcGIS Server Advanced Edition

After a brief intermission, Alison Rice from ESRI gave a great demonstration of the new ArcGIS Server Application (Advanced Addition). Alison showed how to create a web site and a web service with the new tools provided with ArcGIS Server. Of particular note here was that editing of data is supported through the web with this application out of the box in addition to an easier install procedure, and the ability to also serve out Model Builder Models.

Look for an e-mail in the coming weeks with details of when our next meeting will be held.

Why doesn't it load?!?!!?

Upcoming Meeting - December 12, 2006

2006-11-28T08:31:00.000-08:00

The upcoming December 12, 2006 meeting of the ESRI CMUG will be held at the Frederick County Sheriff's Office from 9AM to 12 Noon.

The focus of the meeting will be on the various Parcel/Cadastral Mapping processes that different counties in the region are using. Presentations will be given by St. Mary's County, Howard County and Anne Arundel County.

The ESRI technical demonstration will focus on publishing Map Services & Creating Web Editing Applications Using ArcGIS Server Advanced Edition

Agenda and Directions

Previous Meetings

2006-11-27T13:28:00.000-08:00

The ESRI CMUG group has had several previous meetings since the group was restarted in 2005. These meetings are listed below. Please follow the links to see what we have discussed to date in the group.

June 29, 2005 - Rockville Maryland

Agenda

September 21, 2005 - UMBC

Agenda

Presentation - Lessons Learned Implementing and Using ArcSDE, Baltimore County, Maryland

Presentation - Implementing ArcSDE

February 15, 2006 - Howard Community College

Agenda

May 17, 2006 - Towson University

Agenda

August 30, 2006 Meeting

2006-09-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

The ESRI Central Maryland Users Group August 30th meeting was a tremendous success. The meeting showcased Pictometry and Lidar Data processing. The attendance was spectacular with close to 80 people showing up to view some awesome presentations.

After the cursory intros Matt Felton from Towson University CGIS discussed Maryland Statewide GIS Coordination Efforts highlighting the projects such as the statewide orthophoto effort and MSGIC's role as the statewide coordination body.

Tom Burns from Pictometry gave a background on the Pictometry product while Bill Ballard of Baltimore County, Charlie Richman of Washington DC, and Patrick Callahan of Prince Georges County discussed how they use the product on a daily basis. It was a fascinating look into how these jurisdictions are putting to use a product that offers an alternative way of viewing the earth's surface.

Dr. Yung-Tsung Kang from Montgomery County, Dept of Permitting Services followed the Pictometry presentations with a discussion of LIDAR data processing using QT Modeller software with its results being displayed in ArcMap. Very cool as well.

Finally Tosia Shall rounded out the morning with a great presentation titled "Geoprocessing with Python, and What ArcWeb Services Can Do For You". The discussion focused on Python at the request of the audience and was very insightful into what can be accomplished with the use of this language.

Welcome!

2006-09-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the ESRI Central Maryland Users Group Blog. Enjoy yourself as you explore the meetings we have had and our plans for the future!

A little information about the coordinators of the CMUG group at present...

Alison Rice is the ESRI Maryland Representative. She was previously the GIS Manager for Allegany County, Maryland.

Jeff Cox is currently a GIS Specialist with Anne Arundel County's Office of Information Technology (OIT). He works extensively with the County's Street Centerline product and is a certified instructor for ArcGIS I and II.

Eric Wilson is currently a Program Specialist in Anne Arundel County's Office of Planning and Zoning (OPZ). He is in charge of the technical development of the County's Property Geodatabase Project.

Thank you,

Alison, Jeff and Eric