May 2023

The May 2023 meeting featured presentations on the following topics.

NCTCOG State of the Region - Shelley Broyles, NCTCOG
Brief overview of new regional GIS layers available from NCTCOG.

Grapevine GIS Projects and Infrastructure: Keeping the Map Current - Betsi Chatham, City of Grapevine 
Departmental collaboration, database and infrastructure consolidation, ArcGIS Online and desktop migration, and short-term projects are key to keeping the map current. From ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Enterprise to FieldMaps and Survey123, the City of Grapevine taps into many platforms and Esri technology to ensure data integrity, efficient infrastructure, and ultimately a turnkey GIS for users, decision-makers, and citizens alike.

Building a Digital Twin Model of University of North Texas Using Airborne LiDAR and GIS Data – Shwarnali Bhattacharjee, University of North Texas
Digital Twins are virtual renditions of the actual world that include real-world assets, connections, activities, and processes. This presentation covered a study that aims to build a digital twin of the University of North Texas (UNT) using LiDAR and GIS data and addresses the questions How can LiDAR and high-resolution satellite image be effectively used for creating 3D building models?, How can we integrate 3D buildings, trees, and GIS data into a digital twin?, and What are the potential applications of a digital twin for a smart campus?

Dashboards in Crime Analysis - Creel Java, Garland Police Department
Dashboards allow crime analysts to monitor the spatial relationships of crime at a glance, quickly finding sprees or patterns as they appear on the map. After a brief overview of how the map was developed and how it is maintained with an hourly automation, the presenter demonstrated the ways in which Garland PD uses this map to explore crime patterns, connect related incidents, and discover potential leads. Additional dashboards have been created to monitor specific situations such as a gunshot calls for service and discharge of firearms side-by-side dashboard, as well as dashboards for gangs/gang member activity, robbery, and tracking field contacts.

Garland ISD Application & Reporting for Door Security Audits - James Walker, Robert Oleson and Mark Quinn, Garland ISD
The presentation covered the steps Garland ISD took to address the Texas Education Agency mandate that all schools in Texas inventory their exterior doors and begin weekly safety audits during the school day. Steps included collecting necessary data and updating the database, setting up an application for campus administrators and security staff for auditing and inspections, setting up reporting and a scheduling application for campus and district administrators, and creating a dashboard using ArcGIS Insights so that the security department can monitor door audits in real time.

Texas 811 and Utility Damage Prevention – Sara Taylor and Tina Sanders, Texas 811
Cities often have lots of assets and infrastructure that fall under a legal obligation to be protected within the 811 system. Unfortunately, underground utilities are at a high risk of damage due to facilities inability to accurately locate and efficiently share this information. The Texas811 mission is to prevent damages by consuming information from excavators and notifying utility owners when and what type of excavation work will occur. Texas811 has been working to develop an application for cities to manage their damage prevention service areas without the need for heavy training and software licensing. This application is also mobile friendly, allowing edits directly in the application from an iPad or other large format mobile device.

Growing: The Implementation of a GIS for a Small City - Ian Patrick, City of Granbury
This presentation discussed the overall strategy for implementing an enterprise GIS including data standardizing, data creation and staff training moving forward, data migration, and the challenges posed by the existing spatial and non-spatial data.

From Visiting a Cool Conference Booth to Saving $400K While Improving the Student Experience - Scott Sires, Dallas College
The Dallas College GIS Program has a projected to develop floorplan features for interior space in 99 buildings on 14 college properties. The estimated square footage is 4.8M. The deliverable is a geodatabase including polygon features for each room with some must-have attributes, and an app that provides access with the workflow experience to meet the facilities members' needs. Through a focus on this project, Dallas College is contextualizing GIS credit course lessons in several Spring, Summer and Fall 2023 GIS courses. Students in three current courses are performing all the steps to study the project and develop solutions, tools, templates, and needed resources while they also launch the project. They have purchased 2 additional GeoSLAM lidar sensors and are paying the students as part-time workers (for hours outside class time). The value to the students has already exceeded expectations. The value to the college is looking to save $400K while improving their experience, building their portfolios and adding to their resumes.

Building a Real-Time Application - Pamela Kersh, ESRI
Learn how to build apps that allow you to connect to, visualize and analyze real-time feeds. In ArcGIS, you can use ArcGIS Velocity and GeoEvent Server to connect feeds, then analyze them in real-time and serve data to ArcGIS client apps via ArcGIS Stream Services. Participants were shown how to use these Stream Services in apps, including various ways to visualize, interact, and analyze the information.