Parcel Fabric Lessons Learned May 11, 2018

Agenda Background Benefits/Efficiencies Implementation Tales of Success and Woe

Background We’ve been involved with countywide Our Experience We’ve been involved with countywide fabric conversions for a few years: Harris County Appraisal District (Texas) Counties large and small Lake County (just started) Training and Consulting We come from more of a tax mapping background – day to day workflows facing parcel mappers

Background What is the Parcel Fabric? A specialized grouping of core Arc feature classes for the purpose of editing parcels and cadastral data. Control Points Line Points Points Lines Polygons (Parcel, Lot, etc…) Topological interaction Seamlessly built into workflows

³ Benefits COGO Based Workflows Intuitive ‘Fitting’ Workflows Why it is Fantastic COGO Based Workflows Intuitive ‘Fitting’ Workflows Different Types of ‘Parcels’ Least Squares Adjustments Historical Management Automated Dimension Placement Future Parcel Work ³

Implementation We Look at a Typical Migration project as: Stages We Look at a Typical Migration project as: Clean the Data Stage the Data Load the Data Tune the Geodatabase Train the People

Implementation Data Should be Super Clean Before Loading Data Cleaning Data Should be Super Clean Before Loading Clean the densified arcs on lines Gaps and overlaps Issues between different types (sections/parcels) Multi-part parcels cannot share a corner (split em up, put em back) Stacked polygons can only go if every piece is the same geometry (to meet topology rule)

Implementation This Process Forces You to Finally Clean Your Data Data Cleaning This Process Forces You to Finally Clean Your Data Years of kaka has crept into your parcel data and this is a perfect opportunity to get rid of it Prior conversions from legacy systems HCAD – Scale of database/rendering Clark NV – OCR’ed their maps

Implementation Migration Staging databases (free from Esri) Things to Note Migration Staging databases (free from Esri) Fabric geodatabase (free from Esri) Multiple loads can be strategic Don’t think you have to do it all at once Different types of features Parcels a group at a time

Implementation Performance The parcel fabric is memory intensive Things to Note Performance The parcel fabric is memory intensive Requires good server and database management We have learned a lot especially with the larger datasets

Implementation Data Storage / Management (Enterprise) Things to Note Data Storage / Management (Enterprise) Make a habit of periodically rebuilding new spatial indexes – greatly improves performance Best practice to schedule compress of geodatabase Use best practice database tuning Get used to not zooming to full Versions only one generation off of Default

Implementation Editing Platform Things to Note Editing Platform The parcel fabric is an editing platform Data should be published to layers for consumption Publication workflows incorporated into platform GIS layer exports Plotting Websites THIS IS THE BASE!

Implementation PRODUCTION PUBLICATION GDB GDB (fabric) Example LAYERS Parcels PRODUCTION GDB (fabric) PUBLICATION GDB Publication Replication Subs Survey

Implementation Champions and Mappers Investment in the greater good often overlooks the daily challenges of the mappers Aside from the technological solutions is the investment in personnel to change the way they approach their work Transitions take time

Change in Mapping Technique Implementation Change in Mapping Technique Less about the lines, more about the polygons Drawing complete features outside of the mapping area before joining them Overlapping lines: different surveys Making things fit Software making assumptions Fixin’ stuff – a lot of creativity

Implementation Subdivisions COGO everything in one spreadsheet/traverse Build all lots/subs/parcels from same lines Challenge has been joining subs to existing bad data – more parts need to line up, and requires a different approach

Implementation Unlearning old habits is much harder than starting from scratch Like learning a foreign language Always comparing to the old workflow makes it more difficult to see the greater good User that comes in fresh only knows one way to do it

Implementation Learning is a long process Its not so much learning what the tools do, but where the tools are and in what order to use them Workflows Support is important Internally and externally

Harris County Appraisal District Parcel Fabric Loading 1.4 million parcels 14 separate loads / 20 million dimensions Rendering speed / cleaning the data Three zones full up and running Eight currently in production Fully done by spring Sprinkles have delayed things a bit Collector for ArcGIS to appraise flooded areas

Contra Costa County Parcel Fabric Delivered in October A ton or crummy curves – the boxey Midwest it is not Trained on fabric workflows 2.4 million lines – good GIS system

Washoe County Parcel Fabric Loading in all of their parcels and subs Have been ‘countywide’ for a while Quite a bit of cleanup necessary Coincidence between subs and parcels Casinos and air rights Deliver in June

Van O’Brien| Director of Solutions and Services THANK YOU Van O’Brien| Director of Solutions and Services St. Charles, Illinois Office: 630-549-1031| Cell: 815-762-6735 www.sidwellco.com