Illinois GIS Association - GeoTalk: Blog of the Illinois GIS Association

Batavia officials discuss redistricting in the city ahead of Nov. 8 election

11/1/2022

by Jonah Nink, Shaw Local News Network

Batavia City Hall (Mark Foster)

Batavia now encompasses three U.S. House of Representatives districts as part of multiple redistricting changes resulting from the 2020 Census.

Information on representation changes was presented by Batavia Geographic Information Systems analyst Michael Kamin at the Oct. 25 Committee of the Whole meeting.

“The 2020 Census led to a statewide redistricting,” Kamin said. “The city of Batavia experienced many changes within our districts.”

Batavia will be represented by U.S. Congressional Districts 3, 8 and 11, represented by Democrats Marie Newman, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Bill Foster, respectively, though most of Batavia still will be within District 11, Kamin said.

“We went from one district for the whole of the city and now we have three technically,” Kamin said. “District 3 literally just has our detention pond out on the east side of town. Even District 8 only has, I think ... 19 residences within it.”

Before the 2020 Census, the city was in District 14, which is represented by Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville.

“It’s a big change going from [Lauren] Underwood to now having Bill Foster as our representative,” Kamin said.

Illinois Senate District 33, held by Don DeWitte, R-St. Charles, will no longer cover Batavia, Kamin said.

The city now will be covered by District 42, held by State Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, in western Batavia, and District 25, held by State Sen. Karina Villa, in the eastern part of the city.

Batavia now encompasses three districts in the Illinois House of Representatives.

The northern portion of Batavia will lose State Rep. Dan Ugaste, R-Geneva.

Kamin said District 49, represented by Maura Hirschauer, D-Batavia, has moved to cover the northern and eastern parts of the city. District 50, represented by Keith Wheeler, R-Oswego, covers the southern part of Batavia and North Aurora.

The 83rd District, represented by Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, will cover the western portion of Batavia.

A set of maps outlining all of the changes can be found here.

Kamin said ward boundaries for aldermen will stay put until after the city conducts its planned special census next year.

[Credit: Shaw Local News Network]

Taylor Geospatial Institute Receives $1 Million NSF Grant to Create Regional AI Learning System

10/12/2022

by Maggie Rotermund

ST. LOUIS – A $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation will create the Taylor Geospatial Institute Regional AI Learning System. Launched in April 2022 and led by Saint Louis University, the Taylor Geospatial Institute brings together eight Midwestern universities and research centers to harness innovation in geospatial science.

Pictured, from left, are Shaowen Wang, Ph.D., professor and department head of geography & geographic information science and founding director of the CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; William TC Kramer, Ph.D., research professor of computer science and executive director of the New Frontiers Initiative, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and Vasit Sagan, Ph.D., associate professor of geospatial science at Saint Louis University and acting director of TGI. Photo by Sarah Conroy.

The three-year grant, “Regional Computing: Taylor Geospatial Institute Regional AI Learning System,” was awarded to William TC Kramer, Ph.D., research professor of computer science and executive director of the New Frontiers Initiative, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Shaowen Wang, Ph.D., professor and department head of geography & geographic information science and founding director of the CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and Vasit Sagan, Ph.D., associate professor of geospatial science at Saint Louis University and acting director of TGI.

The high-performance computing and data analysis system, known as TGI RAILS, will be housed at the National Petascale Computing Facility at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“Illinois has a 30,000 square-foot facility that is uniquely set up to securely house this computing equipment and make it easily available to TGI researchers and educators,” Kramer said. “It made sense to house it here. This system will deliver gold-star research computing for TGI’s member institutions.”

The grant comes through NSF’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services and Support (ACCESS) program. ACCESS aims to improve the accessibility of national cyberinfrastructure centers and increase integration with systems and research communities on campuses across the nation.

The TGI consortium includes SLU, Illinois, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Harris-Stowe State University, Missouri University of Science & Technology, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Washington University in St. Louis. Collectively, these institutions encompass more than 5,000 faculty and 100,000 students.

TGI RAILS will provide critical, shared computing infrastructure for the research and educational work of the collaboration. The grant adds a computational resource that will reduce the time to insight for challenging research investigations by providing a modern, highly performant ecosystem. It will also provide an effective and cohesive state-of-the-art computation and data analysis platform to support advanced research as well as provide staff, researchers, and students with the latest AI and data analytics technologies.

“We are harnessing the power of partnerships here – the creation of TGI made this grant possible,” Sagan said. “Staffed by TGI, this facility will provide much-needed computing capabilities to our researchers, demonstrating TGI's deep commitment to building partnerships.”

TGI RAILS will be housed at the National Petascale Computing Facility at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Photo courtesy of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The systems will also prepare future researchers and students with the skills to design experiments that address research questions and communicate their findings.

“With this grant, we are able to use the existing expertise of our consortium members to build a system available to all TGI researchers,” Sagan said.

RAILS will allow TGI staff, students and researchers to expand beyond a single computer to become more skilled with advanced computing methods, thereby potentially enabling them to propose projects that would use national resources and other ACCESS systems.

“This allows us to democratize access to advanced cyberinfrastructure, cyber-based geospatial information systems (cyberGIS), and high-performance computing,” Wang said. “We can take a high-end computing system and make it easily and widely accessible for diverse communities and users to harness its tremendous power.”

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense. With an annual budget of $8.8 billion, the NSF is the funding source for approximately 27% of the total federal budget for basic research conducted at U.S. colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

As one of the nation’s leading research institutions, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been shaping the future since 1867. Our research focus drives experiences for our 50,000+ students, fuels our outreach, and underpins innovations, discoveries and advances that change the world.

Saint Louis University
Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers nearly 13,000 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.

[Credit: Originally posted by Saint Louis University]

WIU GIS Class Enhances Assessment of Community Needs in Quincy

9/16/2022

QUINCY, IL – It was a piece of the collective puzzle that tied an Adams County needs study together with a technological bow - students in a Western Illinois University Geographic Information System (GIS) class used the technology they learned in the classroom to bring the final report some user-friendly features.

The United Way of Adams County, directed by former WIU College of Business and Technology Development Director Jeremy Wingerter, completes an assessment of community needs every three years. The most recent assessment began in 2021, and was aided this round by an award from the Restore, Reinvest and Renew (R3) grant, money generated by a tax on cannabis sales in Illinois. The money allowed the Adams County United Way to hire consultant Maggie Strong, owner of Strong Consulting in Quincy, to help compile the report and work with local agencies who were helping with data collection.

Strong happens to be the sister-in-law of WIU Earth, Atmospheric and GIS Professor Chris Sutton. The two began talking about the Adams County project and quickly determined Sutton's GIS students could play a role in the needs assessment.

"This report is a snapshot of their future," said Sutton. "It also shows the social applications of GIS. Instead of traditional labs and lectures, it allows our students to work with a real world client, and with real world data."

At WIU, the class is 407G – Social Applications of GIS, with the "G" meaning both graduate and undergraduate students can enroll. Sutton said he expected six students to enroll in the course, but he ended up with 26. He created teams for the students of the topics impacting the study, including housing, land use and transit, with students communicating with the relevant offices in Adams County.

"We created a public Web page to consolidate the teams' work," said Sutton. "They looked at the needs assessment by category, such as determining the housing situation, checking address data with the assessor's office and whether it was owner occupied, the age of the structure and building footprints."

One of the WIU students working on the project was junior Bradley Mercer, a GIS major, emergency management minor, from Cuba, IL, who has taken part is several hands-on GIS projects during his time at Western, including data collection on a lead pipe project in Silvis, IL. Mercer said the Quincy project gave him a chance to learn and use some additional web applications, as well as giving him a minor leadership goal.

WIU graduate student Marcus Baptiste, a GIS and Geoenvironmental major, from Grenada, said he learned a lot about new software and data extraction through the project.

"I learned 3D mapping from scratch," Baptiste said. "We also gathered information from the other groups in the class."

The final report included 3D mapping of each building in Quincy, as well as a digital map of transit routes in the community. Students also built the maps they used, some specifically for Quincy and others within the borders of Adams County.

Strong said she was impressed with the enthusiasm of the students, many who are nearing their end of their academic careers in degree programs such as community development and GIS.

"I would meet with all of them over Zoom to answer questions," she said. "The students took the idea of a community needs assessment and ran with it. The tools they brought led to success; it connected the dots. We were lucky to have that relationship."

One of the stakeholders in the needs assessment process was the city of Quincy. City Director of Planning and Development Chuck Bevelheimer, and Community Development Planner Jason Parrott participated with the students in the housing section of the needs assessment, in coordination with the Adams County Health Department.

"Maggie connected the GIS program and working on using the skills of students to get a better idea," said Bevelheimer. "It is awesome to look at the intricate, specific areas of the demographics of Quincy. We are still wrapping our hands around the data."

Parrott said they will eventually present the website and its data to the Quincy City Council.

"There is a large amount of information and we need to determine the best use for it," said Parrott.

Wingerter said the United Way's needs assessment wrapped up with three biggest community needs being determined as housing, poverty and behavioral health. He called the input of the GIS students a "perfect fit" with the assessment's data collection process.

"We learned a lot and we are excited about what the next semesters could bring," Wingerter said. "We would like to see them come to Quincy and expand the assessment to Adams County and to do field work on the ground. This work enriched what we were doing and it brought a piece to the table I may not have thought of."

Sutton said the work the class completed has been well received and there are discussions about continuing the class with other communities.

"This allowed our students to have real world experiences using GIS," said Sutton. "This type of work is one of the reasons WIU set the GIS Center up 20 years ago. This class has a service learning structure so students can learn the shortcomings of the data; what's not there. We wanted the students to have this type of experience for their portfolios. It showed them how to build the maps so the community can get what they want from the data."

The live website of the work completed by the students is available at tinyurl.com/WIUGIS4072022.

[Credit: Western Illinois University, Jodi Pospeschil]

Decatur, Illinois Uses GIS to Prioritize $5 Million in Federal Funding to Revitalize Neighborhoods

8/11/2022

By Cordaryl "Pat" Patrick, Director, Economic and Community Development, City of Decatur

The City of Decatur, Illinois, is like many cities in the Midwest in that it has seen significant population decline. Since 1980, the city has lost over one-fourth of its population. This led to blight issues and a lack of economic activity in its downtown area. To counter this problem, the city undertook a successful downtown revitalization plan in 2017, adding new commercial projects, a new community care center, and demolishing about 90 abandoned and derelict structures.

While the downtown has seen a rebirth and the outlying areas of the city are prospering, a ring of neighborhoods in between has continued to suffer blight and lack of economic growth. These neighborhoods include about 9,000 residences, or roughly one-third of all properties in the city. Economic and Community Development director Cordaryl "Pat" Patrick and leaders at the city found an opportunity to remedy this with the release of American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) funds, specifically, the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) through the US Department of the Treasury. About $5 million of the award was set aside specifically for residential rehabilitation grants, which can be used by individual homeowners or landlords. The looming question was, How should the funds be distributed?

That's where the city's geographic information system (GIS), led by Seth Stark, came into play. In May 2022, the city used ArcGIS Survey123 to publish an app to the public that allowed residents to quickly and easily apply for money to rehabilitate their homes for projects such as a new roof, air conditioning, accessibility improvements, and structural repairs. Within the first day of the release of this survey, the city had received 200 applications, and over 400 by the end of the first week.

To process the applications, Stark utilized a dashboard created in ArcGIS Dashboards. This showed the number, location, and type of applications in near real time. After the applications were reviewed in mid-July, the dashboard was updated to show the status of the rehab grant applications and made available to city leaders and the public to provide transparency about the grant process. As the projects are undertaken and completed, this information will also be updated in the dashboard. The GIS can also be used to break down activity by neighborhood boundary, census tract, and so forth.

"GIS was the right choice for tracking these residential rehab lottery applications," said Stark. "The qualifications for grants are based on where you live within Decatur, so accepting the applications through Survey123, tracking their statuses, and analyzing where it is that the most help is needed was a natural fit for GIS."

The goal is for the rehabilitation to include all the residents of these designated neighborhoods, which in turn will benefit all city residents, as they will see increases in property values; neighborhood attractiveness; and, likely, economic growth and development.

ArcGIS Dashboard of 2019 Housing Condition Survey Dashboard (Torrence Park Neighborhood)

"In 2019, we conducted a GIS-based housing condition survey, which helped us determine what areas of Decatur needed the most help with regards to revitalization. Now, we're building on that foundation to expand on the successes we've had with our downtown revitalization by spreading our resources into our urban core neighborhoods. GIS continues to be the tool that simplifies collecting and analyzing information so we can make data-based decisions in our efforts to move the needle towards success in Decatur."

[Credit: Originally Published by Esri]

GIS Center Helps City of Silvis with Water Pipe Survey

8/1/2022

MACOMB, IL – A project to meet a statewide mandate to replace lead water pipes in homes is resulting in hands-on GPS and GIS experience for Western Illinois University undergraduate and graduate students.

The GIS Center at WIU, headed by Director Chad Sperry, has partnered with the Rock Island County community of Silvis to evaluate water pipes that run from the city's streets into its more than 1,500 homes. The project is paying University students to go door-to-door, asking residents to examine the pipe coming into their home from the streets. Students then photograph the pipe, and the collected data is entered into a project database to keep track of the existence of lead pipes that need to be replaced with copper piping.

Silvis officials approached the University after seeking out a way to complete the work.

"This project helps with the students' interpersonal skills and their GIS skills," said Sperry. "Silvis officials made a Facebook post to notify residents that the students would be knocking on doors, and they wore city shirts with 'Silvis' on them, in an effort to alleviate concerns residents had. They also put an ad in the local newspaper asking residents to allow the students to come in."

The work began over WIU's spring break week with GPS equipment purchased for the project. That week, graduate students went home-to-home checking and photographing the pipes, then adding to the database. Students returned to the community earlier this summer, and a plan is being put together for a third visit.

"Collaborating with the WIU students has been so beneficial for the city of Silvis," said Silvis City Administrator Nevada Lemke. "As a small community, with limited staff resources, gathering material inventory for our entire community's water distribution system is quite challenging. The WIU students working on this project came to Silvis and went straight to work, gathering data and entering it directly into the GIS platform. Not only is this extremely helpful with gathering the required material data, but they are going above and beyond by entering locator data for other equipment in our distribution system which is building a more comprehensive GIS map for our community and improving the accuracy of it."

In addition to the legwork, the center built a manual so once the work is complete, Silvis' public works staff can access the online database to make changes and information is gathered about homes, or residents self-report the status of their water pipes.

WIU GIS graduate student Marcus Baptiste, of Grenada said he has made two trips to Silvis to work on the project. He said he learned a variety of skills while gathering information.

"I learned communication skills as we dealt with a variety of people on a day-to-day basis," he said. "We had to analyze the data and go back and add it to the database."

Sophomore GIS major Brad Mercer, of Granite City, IL, accompanied the group on the first data-gathering trip. He said he learned leadership skills, including doing training with Silvis' officials.

Sperry said a presentation on the project was delivered at the recent Illinois Public Works Association's conference, which has led to inquiries from other Illinois' cities. Travel time and lodging expenses are cost prohibitive to doing similar projects too far from Macomb.

The state of Illinois has given communities two years to complete an inventory of homes. There could be grant money coming to help replace the lead-based lines.

For more information on the GIS Center, visit wiu.edu/GIS.

[Credit: Western Illinois University]

Eight research organizations form new geospatial institute in st. louis

4/22/2022

By Jacob Barker, Reporter, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Andrew C. Taylor, executive chairman of Enterprise Holdings Inc. and Founding Chair of Greater St. Louis Inc., speaks at the announcement of the launch of the Taylor Geospatial Institute. Photo by Hillary Levin.

ST. LOUIS — Bolstering the city’s bid to become a hub for geospatial technology, economic development and academic leaders announced Thursday the creation of a new research center that will help build an industry officials see as key to St. Louis’s economic future.

Funded with a “legacy investment” from Andy Taylor, executive chairman of rental car giant Enterprise Holdings, as well as contributions from eight area research institutions, the Taylor Geospatial Institute will fund research and develop programs to draw top scientists to the St. Louis. It will also hire research support staff, house cutting-edge equipment and computing power, and build an extensive data library in a bid to draw the top minds in the field here.

“Geospatial is the critical technology in nearly everything we do, and it is imperative that St. Louis have the world’s leading geospatial research institution to fulfill our promise as the global center for geospatial technology in the next decade,” Taylor, who is also the founding chair of business and civic booster Greater St. Louis Inc., said in a statement. “It is my hope that this institute will cement St. Louis as the world’s true center for geospatial excellence.”

An exact figure for the donation wasn’t released, but the Taylor family has put well over $1 billion into the area’s cultural institutions and civic initiatives over the years, from the St. Louis Symphony and Missouri Botanical Garden to the Arch Grounds revamp to the new Major League Soccer franchise and downtown stadium.

“When the Taylor family gets involved,” said Jason Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis, “they do big things.”

The Taylor Geospatial Institute is a “big, big deal for St. Louis,” Hall said. Setting up an entity that can finance foundational research in the geospatial sector will help draw talent and investment from firms that want to be around innovation, Hall said. He called geospatial the “most critical industry for the future success of this metro right now.”

Beyond government agencies like the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, location science has applications for agriculture, public health and a host of consumer and business products, as more devices communicate and connect with each other.

“I’m hoping that this becomes another industry that brings a lot of people from out of town, creates a lot of business, students that are here stay here after they graduate,” Taylor told media after the announcement was made on St. Louis University’s campus Thursday. “It’s also very good for society, if you look at the things geospatial can do, whether it’s food security or national security — the light went on, and it just made a lot of sense to me.”

Launching a geospatial research collaborative was one of the key priorities in the STL GeoFutures report, released in 2020 as regional leaders laid the groundwork to leverage the western headquarters of the NGA to further build an industry sector where St. Louis has a competitive edge. The thousands of jobs at the NGA, and the intelligence agency’s desire to shed its insular reputation and work more closely with industry and universities, have already drawn the interest of locational science firms that have moved to set up offices in St. Louis.

Former NGA Director Robert Cardillo, at the announcement Thursday, said that when he made the decision to build the agency’s new headquarters in north St. Louis, he hoped it would help spur collaborative efforts to propel geospatial research. He and those still with the agency are excited about the opportunities the Taylor Institute might provide. Future geospatial innovation is likely to come from beyond the agency, Cardillo said, and the Taylor Institute can help the NGA solve problems and train its future workforce.

“It’s a win for the NGA and their national security mission, it’s a win for talent and core science, but the big win is for the region,” Cardillo told the Post-Dispatch.

The launch of the Taylor Institute follows other geospatial efforts from organizations such as T-Rex, the downtown business incubator that has a whole floor devoted to geospatial firms and has attracted the NGA’s Moonshot Labs and a University of Missouri St. Louis outpost devoted to the sector. Arch Grants, which offers grants and resources to startups, has set aside funding specifically for geospatial firms.

Harris-Stowe State University, St. Louis University and others have joined business and government leaders to orient their activities in ways to help grow the geospatial sector in St. Louis. Harris-Stowe signed a cooperation agreement with NGA to collaborate with the agency on course offerings. SLU has launched a geospatial institute to work with NGA on research and develop curriculum for careers in the field.

Area universities will be deepening their involvement in the geospatial sector, with seven partnering to form the new Taylor Institute: SLU, Harris-Stowe State University, Missouri University of Science and Technology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Missouri-St. Louis and Washington University.

SLU will house the Taylor Geospatial Institute, though the institute will operate as its own nonprofit with its own director, for which it will conduct a national search.

Though it will be based at SLU, the new institute is “much bigger than any one university,” said SLU President Fred Pestello. He likened it to the area’s success in ag tech, which, in addition to anchor employers and universities, also built off a private research institute.

“Much like plant science, you need the research that you then apply to commercial applications,” Pestello said. “Without this piece of it, I don’t think St. Louis would be able to become the leader it aspires to be in geoscience and not really be able to take advantage of the enormous, tremendous asset we have with the NGA.”

The other institution partnering on the Taylor Institute is the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, a private research institute that Hall and Pestello said is similar to the vision for the new Taylor Geospatial Institute. It was founded by another St. Louis family, the Danforths, and it helps draw top researchers and funds foundational research for the industry.

Geospatial tech has plenty of applications in plant and agricultural technology that the center can help develop. But more broadly, the hope is that the Taylor Geospatial Institute can replicate some of the success St. Louis has had in plant science for the geospatial sector. An investigator at the Danforth Center, for instance, co-founded the now publicly traded Benson Hill.

“Communities that really get ahead in an industry,” Hall said, are “where the ‘new’ is getting created.”

[Credit: St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Illinois geographical society annual meeting - register today!

3/8/2022

From our friends at the Illinois Geographical Society (IGS):

The Illinois Geographical Society cordially invites you to explore the Western Suburbs for its Annual Meeting, April 28-30, 2022. The meeting will be hosted at the Sheraton in Lisle, IL. Join us as we look back in time at the Gentleman Farms of Western Suburbs and welcome you back to our in-person meeting.

More information:
- Meeting invitation
- Book hotel room
- Call for posters & papers

Register Today!

Rep. Casten, FAA officials visit Harper to engage with drone program

3/1/2022

Harper College faculty and students welcomed U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (in blue suit jacket) and FAA Administrator Rebecca MacPherson (in yellow jacket) to campus to learn about the college's drone program and try a drone flight simulator. (Credit: Harper College)

Faculty and students from the Harper College Drone Technology and Applications program recently opened up their classrooms to U.S. Rep. Sean Casten and Federal Aviation Administration officials.

Mukila Maitha, coordinator of Harper’s drone program, led a presentation during the October 29 visit about the program’s history before former and current students shared their experiences with a group that included Casten, who serves Illinois’ sixth congressional district, Dr. Avis Proctor, Harper College president, and Rebecca MacPherson, the FAA’s regional administrator for the Great Lakes region. The students explained interdisciplinary uses for unmanned aircraft and discussed workforce opportunities before instructing visitors how to pilot a drone in a flight simulator.

“This certificate program gives students the skills that they need to enter this fast-growing drone industry,” said Maitha, also the geography department chair and an associate professor at Harper. “We have experienced faculty and we have first-class facilities. This puts us in unique position to serve not only our district, but the entire Chicago area.”

Indeed, Harper’s program is one of only two programs in Illinois selected by the FAA for its Unmanned Aircraft Systems-Collegiate Training Initiative. The 16-credit certificate program, which began in January 2021, offers comprehensive training in both multi-rotor and fixed wing drones, while preparing students for the FAA’s Part 107 drone pilot exam.

(Credit: Harper College)

“What I love about Harper and our community college system broadly is that we have this rapidly dynamic economy and you guys move so quick to address it,” Casten said. “You all have worked with the FAA… you’ve created this program and we’re so thankful to have you in our district. We’re so thankful we have the professors bringing this up and making this work and, of course, the students to take advantage of all this.”

The students were the focus of the event, highlighting how each had used drone technology at Harper (from surveying geography on campus to studying environmental factors in India) and outlining how it will assist them in their future careers (including emergency management and parks and forestry). Each expressed their fascination with drones, but also how drone pilots can be a necessary resource for many industries – sometimes even saving lives in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

“If you want to be an environmental specialist and you’re licensed to pilot drones, that gives you a tremendous tool to go into places safely,” the FAA’s MacPherson said. “There are implications for geology. There are implications for law enforcement. Anytime you get out of an office structure, there is probably an application where being able to safely and effectively operate a drone would assist you in your professional choices and your ability to do your job.”

(Credit: Harper College)

After the FAA administrator noted aviation’s struggle to build a diverse pipeline of new pilots, it was notable that each Harper student who presented at the event is a woman – and many are women of color.

“With regard to community colleges, [the FAA’s drone initiative] really allows us to expand our footprint in drawing people to careers in aviation,” MacPherson said. “We get people interested in aviation in different ways, most of which is about exposure. Aviation hasn’t always been good about diversity. There are shortages in women and minorities, and we think bridging the gap through community colleges is a great way to address it.”

[Originally published by the Harper College News Bureau on 11/3/21]

Why did an Augustana GIS class learn to fly?

2/25/2022

Claire Gregory ’22 and Bethany Schorr ’22 fly the geography department’s DJI Mavic Mini drone along the Mississippi River. (Credit: Augustana)

John Vohasek ’23 and Amanda Walljasper ’23 (Credit: Augustana)

Her official licensed Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) commercial drone pilot’s card had just arrived, and Amanda Walljasper ’23 was excited. “I was really nervous,” she said about the certification test, “and most of the questions on that test are for actual pilots.”

She had spent hours piloting drones and learning FAA test requirements in her Drone Mapping and GIS (geographic information system) class with Dr. Reuben Heine last fall. Walljasper and 10 other students, half of the class, went further by earning their certification through a testing site at a Quad-Cities airport.

That was the best part for her: “Seeing it all compiled together.”

“None of us had ever used photogrammetry, none of us had really ever flown drones before, so we just got right into learning it,” Walljasper said.

Dr. Heine, the Edward Hamming Chair of the geography department, knows students get excited just seeing the class title. Alongside the general thrill, for geography students there’s eagerness to use this new field tool.

“Then there is that moment when they really come to understand what they’re getting with drones," he said.

The difference between the best satellite imagery and drone imagery, he said, is “the difference between looking at a Minecraft world that’s all pixelated and blocky, and the real world…. It’s hundreds of times better resolution than you can get with existing mapping products.”

He pointed out that with drones you can see detail on individual tree leaves, or individual bolts on campus buildings.

Along with higher resolution, drones provide a truly new perspective. Geographers have always conducted their analyses on the ground level, based on what they see with their own eyes — and also using maps, from the global scale on down. “But even the best maps only take you down so far,” Dr. Heine said.

Between ground-based and aerial perspective is another one, “just above head level, that informs our understanding of the world around us,” he said. “What’s so exciting with drones is that it puts you in control of that in-between.”

As soon as he shares that with students, he said, “they see it.”

So does Augustana’s facilities department.

What more access to ‘the real world’ can do

The class was divided into groups, each in charge of mapping a section of campus. Once they learned how to safely maneuver the drone, the groups planned their flights and captured more than 1,400 images.

Then, working with Director of Facilities Bob Lanzerotti, the students created an aerial base map of campus. They also designed new geodatabases of 3D renderings of building roofs and surfaces such as athletic fields and parking lots.

Claire Gregory ’22 and Dr. Reuben Heine review the flight controller. (Credit: Augustana)

To do this, they used a process called photogrammetry to resolve photos in 3D. Because only the center of a photo is distortion-free, Dr. Heine explained, photogrammetry overlays images so that measurements can be made using only those distortion-free sections (see Old Main image).

Students can “take lots and lots of photos and deliberately assemble them into a final digital product that’s then usable in GIS,” said Dr. Heine. He describes photogrammetry as “the in-between of drone flying and GIS.”

This spring, four students are continuing their class final database project through paid internships with Augustana's facilities department. Two are working with the grounds crew to focus on paved, grassed and forested areas, prioritizing pollinator gardens and sites that need attention, and later, permeable paved surfaces.

Using photogrammetry to map Old Main. (Credit: Augustana)

Amanda Walljasper is one of the two interns working on a rooftop geodatabase. Building on the drone data from the class mapping project, the interns are adding measurements, roof types, angle and pitch, make and model, etc., so that facilities will have a clickable database about the state of a rooftop.

And in the future, the facilities department will hire a student worker with GIS background to keep the project going.

“The drone industry is on the cusp of exploding, so I am excited to be on the leading edge of the industry.” – Ben Ford ’22 (Credit: Augustana)

Precision agriculture and other futures for the field

Walljasper’s minor in geographic information science and technology (GIST) supports her majors in public health and environmental studies. She said what drew her to GIS is “all the possibilities, and that it’s constantly growing.”

Inspired by both the human/social and physical/environmental sides of public health, she knows GIS can influence her future career, though she doesn’t yet know how. “I want to make positive changes for both the environment and for people, and keeping the environment healthy keeps people healthy.

“I really like research and interacting with people — and going out into the field, too," she said. "I like it all, which makes it hard to narrow it down.”

Walljasper has plenty of time to find her path — and a great resource in Augustana’s CORE (Careers, Opportunities, Research, Exploration). That’s where she found her major interests, with the help of her vocational exploration advisor, when she realized she no longer wanted to be the band director she’d imagined in high school.

Senior Ben Ford, with his GIST minor and majors in geography and business administration, knows exactly how he’ll use his GIS and drone skills after graduation: as a UAS Flight Operations intern for a precision agriculture company called Sentera.

Ford will travel “to farm fields across eastern Iowa and western Illinois to collect various types of data with Sentera’s FieldAgent technology,” he said. He’ll be “giving farmers accurate insights regarding crop stand counts, tassel counts, crop health, yield estimates and precision weed mapping, to name a few.

“So, basically, I will be the one flying the drone and collecting the data, then sending this data off to analysts at Sentera to create useful deliverable data for farmers who want to know more about their cropland.”

When he was introduced to drone technology through his GIST minor, he saw the powerful data it could offer.

“And that led me to seek a job position that uses drones to help others,” Ford said. “The drone industry is on the cusp of exploding, so I am excited to be on the leading edge of the industry.”

[Credit: Augustana College]

Statewide Parcel Data Transformation: The North Dakota Parcel Story

2/25/2022

Next Wednesday, March 2nd @ 2:00 pm EST, Bob Nutsch (Geospatial Program Coordinator for North Dakota) and 2020 ILGISA Keynote Speaker, Bill Johnson (AppGeo's Carpe Geo Evangelist), will share the story behind the State's Parcel Program. From how it got started, to what helped it succeed — and most importantly, what has been learned along the way.

“I’m excited to share what the State and it’s partners, all 53 counties and their vendors, have experienced: the challenges we’ve encountered, how they were addressed, the things we are working on now, and our vision moving forward.”

AppGeo’s Carpe Geo Evangelist and former NY State GIO, Bill Johnson, will facilitate the conversation with Bob, exploring the county-state cooperative model that North Dakota has implemented.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER