GIS Expo 2014: Hawaii Statewide GIS Program

Editor's Notes

• #2: Thanks Royce. I’m here to tell everyone a little about the Statewide GIS Program, and the great work we’ve been doing, in partnership with OIMT and the Pacific Disaster Center.
• #3: If you’ve downloaded one or more of the over 200 data layers we’ve published over the last 15 years, then this is how you probably know the Hawaii Statewide GIS Program. Before I talk about the data, I’d like to give you some background on our program.
• #4: The Statewide GIS Program is housed in the Office of Planning, which is an attached agency to DBEDT.
• #5: We are responsible by statute for Leading, planning, and coordinating the State GIS data and the overall Statewide GIS platform and data for State agencies. We create, collect and maintain data, assist State agencies with their GIS needs, work on standards and policies and future direction for the State GIS, and work on enterprise-wide projects such as the State’s ArcGIS Online site.
• #6: Besides downloadable data, we’ve published downloadable maps and web mapping applications.
• #7: For several years we’ve published online applications…
• #8: …and we’re creating new ones. I’d like to show you one of these new apps – EnerGIS – an application created by BEI Hawaii for DBEDT’s Energy Division, with assistance from the Statewide GIS Program.
• #9: EnerGIS provides information on renewable energy for any parcel in Hawaii. Just like in Desktop GIS, there are multiple layers that can be switched on and off. Here are a few layers relating to geothermal energy on the Big Island.
• #10: Users can search for a parcel by address or TMK, or they can pan/zoom to an area and click on a parcel. Once the parcel has been identified, details like those shown here can be requested.
• #11: Here’s the information you get for Biomass…
• #12: Geothermal shows…
• #13: And solar….
• #14: And wind…An interesting item on this page is towards the bottom – GIS REST Services.
• #15: Here, circled in red, is something different – operational layers. These are the layers that draw on top of the imagery basemap. The State publishes these operational layers as a REST Service that the EnerGIS application uses.…
• #16: This is a listing of all the layers that are published as part of the REST service. You can see that they’re organized and numbered. For instance, layer #6 is “Parcels”, used for both display and query. Layer #2 is “Thermal Springs”. Let’s look closer at that one.
• #17: You can see that these are point features; you can see the symbol used to render the points, and you can see there are three attributes including a field called “Description.” All this information is available through the REST service.So who can make use of these REST services? Do you have to be an application development programmer?
• #18: Certainly application developers can make use of these services just like BEI Hawaii did in creating the EnerGIS application.
• #19: And web map designers using ArcGIS Online or other web mapping software can use these same REST services.
• #20: And Desktop GIS users can also use these same REST services. Here’s how…
• #21: Here’s ArcMap with an imagery basemap already drawn. How can I add the Thermal Springs from the State REST service? I go to Catalog and under GIS Servers I have connected to the existing State server at maps.hawaii.gov. I can see a number of map services including one in the EnerGIS folder called “Operational”. I can drag and drop “Operational” on to my map.
• #22: Now I see in my Table of Contents, a new layer, actually a group layer, called EnerGIS/Operational. I can click the plus sign to expand the group layer.
• #23: I can now see all the layers that are part of the REST service and check them on and off like any other layer. Here I have checked on “Thermal Springs” and we see them now on the map.
• #24: And I can uncheck layers, so I unchecked parcels since I don’t want to see them.Notice that I didn’t have to go download a bunch of shapefiles, so it saves me time and saves me space on my hard drive. And I don’t have to worry whether I have the latest version of the shapefiles, since the REST service has the latest data and I see it automatically.So now you may be wondering what other data is available as REST services from State GIS. I’ll tell you in a minute, but first a quick lesson on REST map services.
• #25: The fastest type of REST map service is a Tiled map service. These are often used for basemaps where the data does not change frequently because they draw faster than other types of services. Basically, the maps are pre-drawn at several different scales (zoom levels) and cached on the server. This is why they are also called “static”.If you think of your MXD, imagine zooming in at 16 different scales and taking a snapshot of your screen. This is basically what a Tiled map service is, millions and millions of small snapshots of the map, often created using tools in ArcToolbox, and then uploaded to a server.
• #26: A second type of map service is a Dynamic map service. Here the vector and raster data is rendered dynamically by the server as needed and then sent as an image to the client. This is why Dynamic map services are slower than Tiled map services. Dynamic map services can support data that changes often and also support dynamic labeling, just like in an MXD. The EnerGIS REST service is a Dynamic map service. Think of it as an MXD that has been published to a server.
• #27: A third type is a Feature map service. Feature map services are usually the slowest type since the features themselves are sent to the client and rendered there. The advantage is that the user has lots of control over symbology, can access tabular information and perform queries against the data. For small numbers of features they are quite fast, but there are some limitations.Users downloading thousands or millions of features could slow down the server and the network. To prevent this, a limit is set on the server when the feature service is created. The default is 1000 features, we plan to set our threshold to 3000 features. If you were to connect to a feature service of say, parcels on Maui, and the default was set to 1000, you could only see 1000 parcels at a time. If you’re zoomed in to a small area with only a few hundred parcels in the map extent this is not a problem, but if you’re looking at the entire island this looks quite strange since only 1000, seemingly random, parcels are drawn.There are ways to get around this by using a combination of Tiled, Dynamic and Feature services, and the State GIS is working towards providing all of these, but we are not there yet. For now, if you connect and use our feature services, use them with care if you expect more than 1000 features.
• #28: So, back to the data. When Sonny Bhagowalia came on board as the state’s first CIO, he set out to transform IT in State government, including GIS. He, along with OP, convened a GIS working group of stakeholders – some of you probably participated – these were mostly State agency GIS users, but we also worked with HIGICC, the counties, federal agencies, and the private sector to get input on how the Statewide GIS could be improved. The group held several working meetings from January through May of 2012, which resulted in a broad, 10 year plan for modernization of the State GIS that had stakeholder buy-in, because the stakeholders – many of you - developed the plan.
• #29: Part of that plan is to provide all the data you currently access via download as REST map services – as Tiled, Dynamic and/or Feature services. We’ve provided links on our website to a few other agencies who are also doing this, such as the NRCS, USGS, and the CCH.
• #30: Here is a diagram of what we’re working towards… We will have one, authoritative data source for Statewide GIS data. That data will be able to be used directly from the SDE database by State GIS users. That same database will also be pushed out as REST services using the standards listed here. The services will be registered in ArcGIS Online and data.hawaii.gov (not copied!) – so that users of those platforms will be able to search directly from within those environments to find and use the authoritative data. As PDC will describe shortly, we’re well on our way to implementation of this vision.
• #31: But already, the services that PDC has stood up can be pulled directly into Desktop GIS, ArcGIS Online and Web applications like EnerGIS.
• #32: And, we’ve already registered most of our REST services in ArcGIS Online, so that you can find them from within Desktop or ArcGIS Online, searching by tags like those you see here, and/or by using the owner name “HawaiiStateGIS.”
• #33: And other planned components of the vision, such as creation of image services for our WorldView 2 and other State imagery holdings, and an open data portal, will be implemented soon as well.
• #34: PDC, the Pacific Disaster Center is supporting State GIS in this effort, with funding from OIMT. They are providing the infrastructure, hosting and converting the State GIS data layers in to the database and into REST map services, helping us build the caches, and helping us to serve imagery. Eventually, we plan to have one comprehensive State Geoplatform - something that will include access to data, tools, maps and applications, all in one place.
• #35: We’re going to get a status update now from PDC’s CIO, Tristan Chitty, but before they come up, here is the URL to our main website and the URL to the new REST map services that PDC is hosting.We’ll take questions after PDC presents, and we’d really like to hear from you, as to how you use the current download data website, whether you’re already using REST map services in your work, what kinds of data you use the most, and things like that. Hopefully we’ll have time before the end of this session to start that discussion today.Thank you. And now, PDC…
• #37: Review of things that PDC has done (Tristan can add his notes here)…more detail on the coming slides
• #38: May want to talk to Joan about this, because she has a similar slide (see slide 30-33).
• #39: May want to talk to Joan about this, because she has a similar slide.
• #40: May want to talk to Joan about this, because she has a similar slide.
• #41: May want to talk to Joan about this, because she has a similar slide.