Author Archives: socalgovgis - Michael Carson

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About socalgovgis - Michael Carson

Michael Carson, GIS Manager (retired) for the City of Burbank and President of Southern California Government GIS User Group. Currently teaching GIS at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita.

ArcGIS Online Update

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On September 29, from 5pm to midnight (PDT), ESRI plans to update ArcGIS Online. The update includes streamlined item sharing with groups, configurable tabs in the navigation bar, more reports for admins, and improvements in ArcGIS Configurable Apps.

Configurable tabs in the navigation bar
Administrators will be able to configure which tabs appear in their organization’s navigation bar for both members and visitors. Hiding unused tabs will help simplify the user experience.
Additional reports for administrators
Asynchronous reporting continues to expand in ArcGIS Online giving administrators more ways to monitor and assess activity.

  • Credit report showing the transaction type and number of credits used by each member in a predefined time period.
  • Activity report showing changes made to the organization (i.e. home page edits), members (i.e. added, updated profile, last login), groups (i.e. adding members, new content), and content (i.e. updated, deleted, or modified sharing settings). This is an improved version of the existing activity log that can be generated as a week or month report. 
Streamlined item sharing with groups
Group owners and managers will be able to batch add items to a group.
ArcGIS Configurable Apps improvements
ArcGIS Configurable Apps with express setup (Media Map, Minimalist, Interactive Legend, Zone Lookup, Nearby, and Attachment Viewer) continue expanding to make sharing your maps quick, easy, and insightful. Planned improvements include Support for Google Analytics. Screenshot widget that allows you to capture the entire app including the pop-up and legend.

 

ESRI IMGIS Conference

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The ESRI Infrastructure Management & GIS Conference will be held virtually October 27-30, 2020. The conference will welcome GIS leaders, managers, and professionals across critical infrastructure industries including electric, gas and pipeline, water, telecom, transportation, and architecture/engineering/construction (AEC).

The conference is complimentary for all ESRI users who are current on their maintenance or subscription. For more info and to register, click below!

The First Published View of Los Angeles

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In March 1853, Congress appropriated $150,000 to survey proposed routes for a transcontinental railroad. The United States Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers embarked on the work. There were five surveys conducted. One went from St. Paul, Minnesota to Puget Sound, where Seattle was later founded. Another traveled from St. Louis to San Francisco. A third started in what became Oklahoma and headed for San Pedro south of Los Angeles. Then, there was a route from Texas to San Diego. Finally, there was a survey that traveled the Pacific coast from San Diego to Puget Sound.

Between 1856 and 1861, eleven large volumes of published reports from the surveys were issued by the federal government. They included Continue reading →

FRA Trespassers Casualty Map

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The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Trespassers Casualty Map is an interactive map that displays all railroad trespasser related injuries and fatalities dating back to June 2011.  The interactive map also allows users to view where trespassing accidents and fatalities occur, trends of where accidents are most concentrated, details on what occurred at accident locations, and the outline of Class I Railroad and Main Line networks.  Check it out!

fratrespassers

Track California Wildfires

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If you are looking to track fires in California, stay on top of warnings from local fire officials, and find the latest information on traffic and smoke forecasts, then these interactive maps will help you keep on top of it all.

Cal Fire: This page brings you real-time updates on fire location and containment, as well as updates on evacuation orders and other news.

calfire

ESRI Wildfire Story Map: This interactive map uses geolocation tools to track a fire’s coordinates and lets you look up additional data like smoke forecasts.

esrifires

Los Angeles Times: A great source for local fire info, with a nice interactive map and tools.

latimesfire

Say Bye Bye to US Survey Foot

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I remember 30 years ago working on ESRI’s COGO software. If you ever used it back in the day, you were a hero creating a landbase from scratch with only measurements from tract and parcel maps and making sure everything closed well with your traverses.

One thing I found interesting was there were two definitions for measuring 1 foot. There was the international foot, which was defined as 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters exactly, or 1 foot = 0.3048 meters exactly. The other was the older US survey foot, which was defined as 39.37 inches = 1 meter exactly, or 1 foot = approximately 0.304800609601 meters, or multiplying US survey feet by the fraction 1200/3937 to get meters.

The US survey foot has been around since 1893 while the international foot was established in 1959 and is slightly more exact. One of the reasons we retained the US survey foot was because of our state plane coordinate systems, which were derived from the national geodetic control network, and are based on the relationship of 1 meter equaling 39.37 inches exactly. Fundamental survey units, such as rods, chains, statute miles, acres, sections, and townships, all depend on the relationship of 1 meter equaling 39.37 inches exactly.

Using two measurements for the same unit have been confusing over the years. But now the US survey foot will be obsolete by January 1, 2023. Click below to read more about it!

ussurveyfoot