While Washington State and King County Covid-19 stay-at-home restrictions remain in place, the King County GIS Training program is still in operation with all classes offered live online. Our next offering is Introduction to ArcGIS Pro, to be offered on June 9-10. This is the same class that we offer in our King Street Center…
As King County was taking delivery of the 2019 digital imagery data from its vendor, EagleView Technologies, GIS analysts, cartographers, and software engineers across King County government, plus users of our GIS products throughout the area, anxiously awaited the creation, from the delivered data, of a variety of secondary imagery products for use in their analyses, maps, and applications.
The April 1, 2020 King County GIS User Group meeting will feature an important roundtable discussion on issues related to using GIS to support agency response to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in our communities. This meeting will be held via Skype or Zoom. As usual, the KCGIS User Group meeting is open to anyone. Many…
In the current public health emergency environment, the ethical use of GIS to help support response to the COVID-19 pandemic is more important than ever. However, the ethical use of geographic data and of geospatial technology are not often on the mind of GIS professionals. GIS professioanls and users are guided by the GIS Code…
I get two or three requests every month for GIS career advice from young people considering a geospatial career, or working adults interested in shifting their career towards GIS. My GIS career path was extremely convoluted, and I think that is the case for many people who want to join the ‘GIS Tribe.’ I came…
King County has added to its collection of high-resolution aerial imagery. Local jurisdictions can share in the bounty. Collecting high resolution aerial imagery is habit forming, at least it is for King County. We have been doing it on a regular basis since 2007, and we continued in 2019. The 2019 acquisition captured three-inch-resolution orthogonal…
Back in November I reported on the award of seven EthicalGEO Fellowships by the American Geographical Society. My EthicalGEO Fellowship project is to develop and publish a first-ever GIS for Equity and Social Justice best practices document. The seven EthicalGEO Fellows first met on November 21, 2019 at Columbia University to present their proposals. This…
When I used to work as GIS Mapping Supervisor for the East Bay Municipal Utility District in California, I would be surprised when a homeowner would pay thousands of dollars to have a fire hydrant installed close to their property. What they were doing was to ensure that their home could be better protected against…
A year or two back, the Washington Department of Natural Resources made some fascinating maps of braided river channels. These maps used lidar-derived imagery to show the twisting patterns of the riverbeds in a novel way — as bright, colorful images on a black background. They looked similar to x-rays, revealing the bones of the…
What’s in a picture? Things are changing in Seattle! The viaduct served us well for many years, but it is gone. The Waterfront Tunnel is open and traffic is humming. New Link Light Rail extensions are snaking up to Northgate and across Lake Washington to Mercer Island, Bellevue, and beyond. These are the new transportation…
GIS & You 