Is your GPS taking you the wrong way?

One day as I was working in my county engineer's office at Stark County, IL, a delivery driver stopped in and said "Why are these roads labeled incorrectly on my GPS map?"  At first I blew it off thinking that's something beyond my control and I had more important things like ongoing construction projects.  After all, we as the local agency were the knowledge experts on local names and places and if these big companies wanted our data they could "come and find us" with their "incorrect" GPS navigation devices.  But then I realized what a tremendous benefit this would be to not only the local deliver driver but also emergency response, tourism, and many others.

 So how do we get these basemaps updated?  First of all, these basemap companies are BIG and there are only a few key players.  By basemaps I mean the foundation for GPS navigation on consumer-grade electronics.  

There's not exactly a 1-800 hotline that you can call as a one-stop-shop to update everyone in the universe (although that would be nice).  There are however, tools that allow you to edit or update the information on your own.  This is called crowd-sourcing, where anyone / anywhere can contribute to updating basemap information to benefit the traveling public.  Here are some ways to do this for some of the bigger basemap providers out there:

A sample of an Esri basemap

• Esri Community Maps is a collaborative effort by Esri and the ArcGIS community to build the Living Atlas of the World

• Open Street Map is a crowd-sourced application that allows to edit and update street map information used by consumers around the world.  All you need is to create a login and learn their simple editing tools.

• HERE, A Nokia Company, who recently purchased acquired Navteq is also a major provider of basemaps.  With HERE you can go to their site: 

https://mapcreator.here.com/mapcreator/  Map editing tool sign up for an account

https://content.ext.here.com/    Data upload portal (Upload GIS data here)

• Google Maps has a Base Map Partner Program that allows agencies to submit their data in vector format with specific instructions regarding format.  In addition to vector data, Google also allows users to contribute to their collection of Cities in 3D, Imagery, and parcel data.

Remember, sometimes it takes some time for it to become active.  Yes, real people typically look at the information you submit and actually take time to verify its accuracy.  

If you have more ideas, thoughts, etc. please leave them in the comments below.

Story Map of a Work Trip

During the week of March 22-29th I had the opportunity to go back to Reynosa, Mexico. The first time I made this trip, I took only my son and 11 others. This event was larger with 24 folks from my church and I took my entire family (6 of us). 

I had been looking for an opportunity to create an Esri Story Map for one reason or another. Just to get the professional experience (configuration, coding and what-not). This trip finally provided good reason to do that and maybe some explanation to our customers of why I was completely off the grid for 7 days.  Reynosa Story

Story Maps are the latest iteration of your Uncle Ted showing your family slides of his trip to the Badlands on your cousins bedsheets over TV Dinners. It's a nice display when the data calls for a map but awkward of it doesn't. If you look at images and ask, "OK where is this now?", that's a time for a story map.  As you can see below, It's cross-platform and responsive. 

If you would like help in setting up a story map, let us know. After having do one I can see all kinds of applications, local government as well as private. 

And if you'd like to ask question about my trip to Reynosa. I'd love to, but lets keep business out of it; micahwilli@gmail.com

EF4 "Washington" Tornado Mapped

With all of this technology, With all of this knowledge with all of this progress, planning and pride, in the end, all we can do is stand and watch...then help rebuild after the storm. 

We really haven't been in the office too much this week. For obvious reasons. However thanks to the ease of ArcGIS Online and work of some other GIS folks in the area, we are able to set up this map depicting the relative path and some field verified points of destruction in the area. Here is a link to an Editable point of impact map: http://bit.ly/1hZlRTG

Another Map to see the aerial view Side-By-Side with preTornado aerial photos. http://ow.ly/r49V0

Zooom Out to see the ESTIMATED Tornado Path and More areas Affected. 

View Larger Map

Also *Special Shoutout to City of Pekin GIS and the OSM Volunteer Editors busy digitizing home footprints.