November 2005 Newsletter
Public Meeting
Mark your calendar! The INGISI Public Meeting will be November 17th from 1:00-3:30 in downtown Indianapolis.
Join us for presentations on Indiana GIS inventory, integration for emergency management, the 2005 Statewide
Orthophotography Project, the Disaster Response Initiative and more! The meeting will be held at the
Indiana State Library, 140 N. Senate Avenue (one block east of West Street on Ohio Street). Come find
out what's happening in Indiana GIS.
Call for Abstracts
You are invited to submit an abstract for presentation to share your knowledge, ideas and project case studies
with your colleagues and peers at the 2006 Indiana GIS Conference. Presentation submissions are due by
November 23, 2005. Visit our
conference pages
for more information on how to submit.
Is It Safe to Drive?
Severe weather can create hazardous driving conditions. During inclement weather, how can drivers get
current information about Indiana roads? How can you tell if road conditions are safe? The Indiana
Department of Transportation (INDOT) maintains weather sensors and stations along the road network
throughout the state. INDOT wanted to make this data available to local officials and the general public,
so they developed the online Road Weather Information System (RWIS)
http://rwis.in.gov.
The site pulls data from the weather sensor servers every fifteen minutes. Users can browse the maps and get detailed
information, view statewide summaries, and label their own maps.
The RWIS portal has been very popular, especially during extreme weather events. During a single large
snow storm in December 2004, the site had tens of thousands of unique visitors with over one hundred
thousand page hits for the five days snow was on the ground. Drivers were able to make intelligent,
well-informed decisions about their travel plans.
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GIS Day
This year's annual GIS Day is Wednesday, November 16th, and events are scheduled all over the state.
There will be hands-on GIS activities in Lawrenceburg, presentations on GIS in Archeology in Muncie,
and map galleries in Bloomington. Find out what's going on in your area or register your own GIS Day
event at
http://gis.esri.com/gisday/search.cfm.
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Free Seminars
These events are part of the ongoing GIS Seminar Series, a partnership between
The Polis Center at IUPUI and IGIC.
A Survey of Practical Applications of the IndianaMap Framework Data
November 29, 1:00pm - 4:00pm, IUPUI University Library
This seminar will address a variety of potential applications of the Indiana GIS framework data - including
the new 2005 statewide orthophotography - in addition to providing an update on the development of the
IndianaMap framework data. Applications that will be discussed include a variety of uses for the new color
infrared photography, exploration of the potential uses of the statewide aerial photography for planimetric
updates, and applications of the elevation data that is being collected as part of the photography project.
The seminar presenters will be GIS specialists from State and local government who are planning to apply the
framework data for projects within their communities. Time for questions will be provided both during and
following each presentation.
This seminar is the first in a series of seminars that will be devoted to exploration of the applications of
the Indiana Framework data. Announcements of other seminars in this series will be coming in the near future.
Register by sending your complete contact information (name, phone number, email, and address) to
polis@iupui.edu or call 317-274-2455.
Exploring Statewide GIS Resources
January 17, 1-3:30, Indiana State Library, Room 401
Topics for this seminar will include a review and exploration of the considerable resources that are
available to Indiana GIS users thru the Indiana Geographic Information Council. These resources
include opportunities for networking, education for new as well as experienced GIS users throughout
the state, guidelines that can help GIS users more effectively develop GIS projects within their
communities, and much more. The seminar will also provide an opportunity for participants to share
their thoughts and ideas regarding how IGIC can best support the needs of GIS users across Indiana.
The presenter for this seminar will be Jill Saligoe-Simmel, PhD.
Seating for this seminar is limited. Therefore, it is important that you sign up early by sending your
complete contact information (name, phone number, email, and address) to
polis@iupui.edu or call 317-274-2455.
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Katrina Relief
GISCorps, a URISA program, sent out a call for volunteers shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck. More than
500 GIS professionals responded from around the country. The URISA website has logs, photos and reports
from affected areas. Read more at
http://www.urisa.org/katrina2.htm
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Getting There Faster
The Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC) is the Metropolitan Planning Organization
(MPO) serving the counties of Lake, Porter and LaPorte with a combined population of 741,468. As the MPO,
NIRPC develops and updates long-range transportation plans, including the most recent, Connections 2030.
Developing the plan required pulling together a lot of data, some of which wasn't readily available.
Planners needed detailed information to be shown at the "traffic analysis zone" level, but delays in the
release of Census data meant some of that information had to be generated from scratch.
Using a GIS and existing data, NIRPC was able to recreate the missing information, developing a "base year"
as a starting point for growth projections. GIS was then used to show changes in population, employment and
households at the traffic analysis zone level.
GIS was also used to identify special zones - concentrated elderly populations, vehicle availability,
persons with disabilities, and areas of significant development - and incorporate them into the plan.
The GIS data developed for Connections 2030 was shared with local jurisdictions and the GIS community
in Northwest Indiana.
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