What a Great Time at Watercon 2017!

Jon ready to welcome everyone to the Cloudpoint booth at Watercon 2017!

Cloudpoint Geographics had a great time at the 2017 Watercon Conference! We met with several existing clients and made some great new acquaintances. It was wonderful to get to talk with so many people about what they were undertaking to improve their water systems. 

Cloudpoint's own Joe Christian gave a presentation about why it's important to update your existing maps with GIS and how that process can be implemented.  Joe, as always, was eager to talk about GIS and spread word about the importance of precision mapping, utilizing improved tools, and documenting the wealth of data that long time employees have built up over decades.

If you have any questions regarding the various water utility projects that we have undertaken, whether it be overhauling distribution network maps, conducting field inventories for culverts, or utilizing our drone mapping services to create topographic data, please don't hesitate to contact us at 877-377-8124 or online at www.cloudpointgeo.com, and we'll be happy to help!

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Here you see a 4" diameter wooden water main from Green Bay, WI that was part of a water utility hisory exhibit at Watercon.

As always the food was terrific! Here is an example from the amazing mac and cheese bar where you could choose between chicken, bacon, broccoli, green onions, tomatoes, gouda and cheddar cheese sauce! It was definitely worth the wait!

Watercon Pre-Conference Video

Macon Great Improvements to Sign Inventories!

Macon County, IL is home to several gems, Millikin Univeristy, the original home of the Chicago Bears (Decatur Staleys), and of course, the Macon County Highway Department. Recently Macon County started inquiring about different solutions to manage their existing sign inventory.  After meeting with Jon Hodel and Joe Christian a few times and getting an in depth demo of SignOps, Cloudpoint's in-house developed, web-based, sign inventory solution, County Engineer Bruce Bird knew he had found the solution that he had been searching for.

We are excited to let you know that Macon County is teaming up with Cloudpoint to have our staff complete a county-wide sign inventory using SignOps on all county maintained roads! This will be a large undertaking, but we are eager to get started so Macon County can start to better manage their infrastructure in the field, office, or on the go. To learn more about SignOps visit www.cloudpointgeo.com/signops or you can check out the SignOps YouTube Channel for helpful videos, tutorials, and durability tests.  If you have any questions feel free to contact us at 877-377-8124 or fill out our contact page

Thanks and remember, there's only one way! SignOps!

We'll See You In Wisconsin!

Customer Spotlight - Cassidy Killian, GIS Coordinator, Normal, Il

Cassidy has been the GIS Coordinator for the Town of Normal for 8.5 years, it will be 9 in May. Before this current GIS position he worked with SAIC in St. Louis on NGA projects with 'Top Secret' clearance. Since he graduated from Illinois State University's Geography program, working for the Town was something of a homecoming for him. 

There are many bright spots in working for Normal (aside from the many jokes). One is being able to hire great staff from just down the block at ISU, like GIS technician Daniel Moore. He says his biggest challenges lie far outside City Hall: "It's tough to keep up with the pace of Esri's changes". Something we all struggle with. To do that Cassidy has a steady diet of Online training, Seminars and Conferences including the massive User Conference during the summer. 

Lately, GIS at the Town of Normal has been picking up the pace. Much of the utilities data is now fully digitized. That allows their digital infrastructure to be edited and checked out in the field on connected devices. "Implementing the Sanitary Server Master Plan forced us to push data out to the field," said Cassidy. With a series of iPad Minis and Trimble Geo 7s field folks can view, edit, and maintain their digital infrastructure as it exists while still onsite. This includes the new geometric network that the water system has courtesy of Cloudpoint Geographics. 

There are plans to use a newly installed version of ArcGIS Geoevent Server to help field vehicles become an efficient fleet. In addition to the aforementioned applications, Cassidy is in the midst of creating GIS tools to be used by the park district and other municipal departments. With an Esri Enterprise Agreement, the GIS team at the Town of Normal are only limited by their imagination. 

Great Scott! Cloudpoint enters the Iowa Market!

Cloudpoint is excited to announce that we have partnered with Scott County, Iowa to install ArcGIS Server on the Amazon Cloud. This will allow the County to have greater control over their mapping and make their maps available to more people on the web.  The Amazon EC2 cloud is a flexible deployment solution that is versatile and scalable. Scott county staff will have complete control over what, when and how their public facing GIS is updated. this allows more efficient use of taxpayer dollars.  This install took place in early December 2016. 

Oh Canada! Cloudpoint gets their first international client!

Cloudpoint Geographics is excited to announce that we have been contracted by the City of Barrie, Ontario, Canada to assist with their Parcel Fabric!  This project has been in the works for a few months and we a pleased to see all the pieces come together.  In the coming year, Jon will be making a couple of trips to the great white north to assist in implementation and training of key staff to utilize Esri's Parcel Fabric.  The Cloudpoint team is thrilled to add the City of Barrie to our client list and we are eager to get to Canada to start this partnership! 

Local Governments Learn About What's New in GIS!

Jonathan Hodel discussing UAV mapping and how it can enhance an organization's existing GIS.

This past Friday dozens of city and county officials converged on the Morton Fire Department building in Morton, IL for Cloudpoint Geographics' ArcGIS for Local Government Solutions Showcase.  It was a successful event that included several presentations ranging on topics including drone mapping, parcel management, webmap creation, and much more.  You can learn more about the topics discussed as well as access the presentations by accessing the Showcases page HERE.

We are happy to announce that we have three showcases scheduled for 2017! We will be hosting events in Janesville, Wi, Morton, IL, and the North suburbs of Chicago, IL. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or visit our website to make sure you get the latest information about our upcoming showcases!

A Better Way to Manage GIS Services

The City of Washington, Illinois has experienced a population growth and a spur in construction over the past few decades.  After meeting with Cloudpoint Geographics early this year, they decided that they needed to get the most out of their GIS in order to be ready for future growth. Washington decided that the best way for them to prepare for the future was to properly document all of their spatial data. Whether it was parcel data, utilities, zoning, or any other section of data that the town manages, they knew that in order to build for tomorrow, they had to create a foundation to start from.

By bringing Cloudpoint on to work with and expand their existing GIS system via a Managed Services Contract, the City of Washington is able to continuously improve the ways that they use and view their data.  Currently, Paul Stephenson has been creating a network model to show what the city's current sewer system can handle and what parts of the system would be affected if an increase in flow was to arise via emergency or future land development.

Here you can see a network modeling tool used by the City of Washington to test increased flow added into their existing sanitary network.

In addition to the aforementioned network modeling work, Paul has also be busy working on a variety of other projects including pavement ratings, various small planning and development mapping requests, and overhauling the city's access and sharing practices of various GIS data.  All of this work is improving the City's GIS and it's use moving forward.

We are excited to partner with the City of Washington to deliver the best in GIS implementation, in order for them to better serve the citizens in their jurisdiction.  If you have any questions about Cloudpoint Geographics' Managed Services Contracts, please contact us at 877-377-8124, or visit 

SignOps December Deal!

Visit cloudpointgeo.com/signops for more information on the SignOps Sign Inventory Management System!

SignOps Year End Discount!

Cloudpoint Geographics is excited to offer a year end discount on SignOps, our sign inventory management application!  This offer is only valid for SignOps subscriptions that are purchased during the month of December in 2016.  All SignOps subscriptions purchased in December will either receive a 10% or 20% discount on their yearly subscription fee.

Sign up for 1 year of SignOps, and receive 10% off your yearly subscription fee.

Sign up for 2 or more years of SignOps, and receive 20% off your yearly subscription fee.

Call us at 877-377-8124 or visit www.cloudpointgeo.com/signops to learn more!