 | Summer 2018
Vol. 4, No. 3 |
Welcome to the Oregon GIS Framework Newsletter! Inside this issue you will find:
* Oregon Geographic Information Council strategic plan listening sessions
* recent FIT activities and upcoming meetings, including building footprints meeting and upcoming Framework Forum
* recent Geospatial Enterprise Office happenings This newsletter is published up to four times a year by the Oregon Geospatial Enterprise Office. | The Oregon Geographic Information Council is holding listening sessions across the state to gather insights and priorities for inclusion in the Strategic Plan. OGIC was re-established in January 2018 under ORS 276A.500 - 515. Cy Smith, Oregon Geospatial Information Officer, is leading the sessions. Most sessions are two hours in length. The sessions consist of two parts: a presentation and a discussion. The presentation provides information about OGIC, its responsibilities, and Framework to ensure all participants have a similar base level of knowledge. Discussions during the first several listening sessions have been a mixture of question and answer conversations and brainstorming about issues, concerns, and solutions. Please help us spread the word about the listening sessions by talking about them with your supervisors, planning directors, and anyone who uses geospatial data, especially Framework data. The sessions in Portland, on September 21, at 10AM and 2PM will include remote access. Please contact the Geospatial Enterprise Office if you would like to join remotely. The next meetings are:
* September 14 - Bend City Hall, Bend - 10AM to 12PM and 2PM to 4PM
* September 21 - Metro Commission Room, Portland - 10AM to 12PM and 2PM to 4PM
* September 28 - Symposium by the Sea, South Slough Visitor's Center, Charleston - 1PM to 2PM
* October 15 - 23rd Framework Forum, Chemeketa Center for Business & Industry, Salem - 1PM to 2PM Want to learn more? Check out the listening sessions flier. | Building footprints are in high demand these days, as reflected by the recent release of the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) building footprints. The data were developed using a two-stage approach to extract features from aerial imagery. The first stage uses deep neural network segmentation techniques to develop blobs. Then, the blobs are polygonized, to become building footprints. A number of state agencies are already evaluating and integrating these data into their work processes, while some agencies have been producing building footprints data using different methods. A coordination group will meet September 11, in Salem from 9:30 to 11 AM to discuss how various products compare and map out a course for further evaluation and integration of these data. Please RSVP if you would like to attend. There are both in-person and remote connection tickets available (for free). See the press release to learn more about these data. | The Framework Implementation Team (FIT) leads met in early August to discuss the 23rd Framework Forum, set for October 15, 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM at the Chemeketa Center for Business and Industry at 626 High St. NE in Salem. The group also shared lots of information about theme activities, all recorded in the meeting minutes. | The FIT leads also discussed upcoming work to improve the process for finding potential new theme leaders and ensuring that each theme has an up-to-date charter by the end of the biennium. In addition, the group discussed potential options for sharing value-added data with requestors in the future, such as via the new data hub being developed by the Geospatial Enterprise Office to meet the mandates for secure data sharing in ORS 276A.500 - 515. Two new leads were also announced at the meeting. They will need to be endorsed at the next OGIC meeting, so look for more news on them in the next newsletter. In May, the Utilities FIT convened a meeting on the topic of power lines and data sharing. Participants included representatives from the Public Utilities Commission, PacifiCorp, Portland General Electric, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and Bureau of Land Management. The meeting was hosted by Northwest Natural in downtown Portland. A key outcome of the meeting was the realization that all of the participating organizations' policies around data sharing were developed to protect the public. The GeoSciences FIT met in June to discuss work on the Geology schema update, the need for work on geomorphology data set, and to announce that Lead Lina Ma was stepping down after about 2.5 years as the lead. Lina has moved on from DOGAMI. I am sure that I am not alone in wishing her well. The Elevation FIT also met in June to coordinate the incorporation of National Hydrography Data updates into Oregon Lidar Consortium's 3DEP projects. The next Elevation FIT meeting is scheduled for October 16, 2018 at 1PM. The group will discuss the charter and Tom Carlson (USGS) will discuss the results of the 3D Nation study. Please contact Jake Edwards if you have questions. Look for more FIT meeting announcements coming over the next few months to review charters and develop work plans and priorities. FIT meetings are listed in the GEO calendar at gis.oregon.gov. | The Geospatial Enterprise Office is in the throes of planning what it calls the "GEOHub", a system for managing data and data sharing as mandated by ORS 276A.500 - 515. The GEOHub will provide secure access to a data sharing repository for secure Framework geospatial data. Publicly-accessible, up-to-date Framework data will still be available from the Oregon Spatial Data Library. The conceptual design for the hub is anticipated in the early part of 2019. The launch will occur in January 2020. | A national advisory committee was formed earlier this summer to review the re-establishment of fees for access to Landsat imagery. For more information visit the Landsat Cost Recovery webpage. The Oregon Statewide Imagery Program was created in 2016 through a collaboration between the Imagery FIT and GEO and includes a Steering Committee providing operational oversight. On behalf of the Imagery Program, GEO will be releasing the one-foot imagery collected for the Eastern half of Oregon during the summer of 2017. Look for the outreach in your inbox soon. David Mather, GEO's System Administration specialist, has been hard at work automating the update process for GEO's web services using a combination of replication, synchronization, and automatically invoked scripts. Currently, web services must be updated manually when feature classes are changed. Once updated, the services must be manually stopped and restarted.
This is relatively slow and, as with many manual work flows, are prone to human error. Using the new work flow, updates to the feature class will result in refreshed web services within a few seconds without the need to stop and restart services. Do you have an interesting, inspiring, or just plain great use case for Framework geospatial data?
If so, Framework Coordinator, Theresa Burcsu, wants to hear from you. GEO is collecting use cases to demonstrate the value of Framework and geospatial data and data sharing in Oregon to the 2019 Legislature. If you have a use case you would like to share, please email Theresa. | Participants at the 20th Framework Forum in Bend, OR | The Oregon Geographic Information Council met July 23. The meeting marked the third meeting for the Council since its re-establishment in statute (ORS 276A.500 - 515) by the 2017 Legislature. The Council represents a wider array of organizations than before, with representatives from several categories of state agencies, county governments, county assessors, special districts, public safety, and more. Searches are underway for three currently positions representing tribes, federal agencies, and other state agencies. The Council held its inaugural meeting January 19, 2018. Jeff Frkonja, Portland Metro Research Director, and Kay Erickson, Oregon Department of Employment Director, were elected to the positions of Chair and Vice-Chair by the Council at the January meeting. All representatives are appointed by Oregon Governor Kate Brown. Among the key work tasks facing the new Council are identification of the funding mechanism for data sharing as mandated by ORS 276A.500 - 515; development of the Council's strategic plan; and development of performance measures to track program progress and effectiveness. The funding mechanism will set the stage for data sharing under the Oregon Geographic Information Council by addressing costs for data development, data maintenance, and system development for managing Framework data. A number of mechanisms are being evaluated by the Council. A recommendation is expected to be made by an ad-hoc work group at the next Council meeting on October 30, 2018. The funding mechanism will be submitted to the 2019 Oregon Legislature. The strategic plan will establish the direction for the Council, for the data, and for its governance moving forward. A draft plan will be also be presented by the planning work group at the October meeting of the Council. | Oregon's Framework is a shared resource that has been guided and built by the Framework community. Without your efforts, input, and feedback, we would not have the many data holdings nor the coordination required to ensure the long term value of the data. Oregon's Framework will be heavily impacted by the implementation of ORS 276A, and as a result, I've been leaning on many of you for information about the condition and costs of Framework data during the 2018 Framework Data Inventory and Assessment and more recently through the work of the Framework Financial Analysis Work Group. For all of your efforts, I congratulate and thank you! Theresa Burcsu
Framework Coordinator | Cy Smith tested his strategic thinking and chess skills against this poor soul while getting lunch between OGIC listening sessions in Medford. | Want to see your work featured in the newsletter? Send us an email with a short description of your story! | | |
