Umpqua Basin Users Group Winter Meeting - March 9, 2000

Umpqua Basin Users Group Winter Meeting - March 9, 2000 1-4pm

Meeting Minutes

Introduction of members and new officers

Due to the departure of Tony Bass, Kathy Thompson was appointed the new URISA board representative.

Some of the attendees spoke about the projects they're involved with:

  • Terrie Franssen from the Douglas County Surveyors Office mentioned the availability of online survey maps available through the Douglas County website at www.co.douglas.or.us/survmaps/.readme.stm
  • Chuck Perino and Jason Lien from UR-COG mentioned their website showing industrial and residential development opportunities as well as tourism sites in Douglas County. Available at www.ur-cog.cog.or.us/industrial/

    Ed Hall reported on the UBUG webpage. No major changes have occurred.

    The guest presenter today was John Sherard from ESRI in Olympia. He gave a presentation and demo of new ESRI products, namely ArcView 3.2 and ArcInfo 8.0. One of the main features of version 3.2 is a new data projection utility. Arc 8 is radically different from conventional ArcInfo as we have known it. Its interface is now similar to ArcView but with the power and functionality of ArcInfo.

    Eric Lanning, the new president of UBUG, gave a presentation on software from Safe Software Inc. (see www.safe.com). Its Feature Manipulation Engine (FME) allows data to be transferred between many different data formats. Eric also talked about MrSID software by LizardTech (see www.lizardtech.com). This software is used to compress images to a fraction of their original size without compromising the quality or other features of the data.

    The group discussed image rectification-why it is necessary and how it is done. Surface features tend to get distorted at the edges of aerial photos. Rectification corrects these errors so that the resulting digital orthophotos more clearly represent real-world features and can be accurately overlayed with other GIS data. See October 1999 Minutes for the availability of Douglas County aerial photography, in both digital and print format.

    Ed Hall pointed out the availability of GIS data at www.terraserver.com, including satellite imagery and more.

    A preliminary schedule was set up for the Spring UBUG meeting. This includes:

  • A committee was formed to look at data sharing possibilities among area agencies. They will report at the meeting.
  • A discussion on GPS technology will take place. A Trimble representative may be present to talk about their GPS products.