Notes from the Middle TN Forum on GIS

This posting will serve as a short summary of some of the presentations and information provided by at the Middle TN Forum on GIS which was held earlier this week. If you attended and see something I left out, please add to this post. The forum was well organized and full of really helpful people. It's free and is a great way to see how GIS is being using in Middle Tennessee.

• Ward Tarkington from the TN Division of Forestry gave a talk on the National Agricultural Imagery Program, NAIP, for short. The purpose of the program is to acquire leaf-on color aerial photography for each state once a year. The frequency of updates is dependent upon partnerships with state and local agencies, but data for 2006 and some 2007 data is now available. You can download this data and find out more about the program from:
  
  http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/
  
  2006 NAIP data on the S&T Drives is currently located here (the projection is UTM):
  
  S:\Imagery\Aerial Photos 406\NAIP_2006

• The State Office of Information Resources is now serving basemap data up on the Tennessee Map at the following location:

http://tnmap.state.tn.us/portal/

The map has statewide parcels, roads, counties, and aerial photos, that can be accessed by OIR's web viewer or as a ArcIMS map service which can be added to ArcMap (for details on adding a map service see the posting on using USGS data from Terraserver). If you have questions, or want to see additional data available, contact Chris Meeks with OIR through Groupwise. OIR is also holding technical meetings to determine the content of the Tennessee Map--I'll try to post those meeting dates when they're set.

• Jason Duke with the US Fish and Wildlife Service gave a presentation on using Spatial Analyst to determine slope, aspect, viewshed, from the 10 meter digital elevation models available at the the TNGIS website . I'll scan a copy of his instructions and link to them in a later posting.
  

His presentation served as a clear introduction on using Spatial Analyst to analyze raster datasets. He also demonstrated using the 3-D analyst extension to determine reservoir
volumes and visualize land use changes.

• ESRI demonstrated how ArcGIS Server can be used to very quickly publish custom web mapping applications generated from ArcMap MXD documents. This would be a great way to share maps and data with folks who don't have ArcGIS installed. Hopefully ISD will have the ArcGIS Server up and running soon, so that we can try to start creating these applications and getting GIS data to everyone at TDEC!

• Kurt Snider, also with USFWS, presented some techniques for making better maps and included tips on the proper use of colors and whitespace, line weights, map simplification, and arrangement of map elements on the paper. He recommended several books--I'll link to them in a separate posting.
  

Silas