Acquiring and Downloading Digital Data With support from: NSF DUE in partnership with: John McGee Jennifer McKee Geospatial Technician Education Through Virginia’s Community Colleges (GTEVCC)

Review  There are two main ways to access digital GIS-ready data  Data download  Data streaming

Data Download Option  Often associated with an ftp site  You access the site  Identify:  Geographic are of interest  Layers of interest  Other info. (format, projection, etc.)  Download & save data locally  Maintain your own copy

Data Streaming (or data services) Option  “Seamlessly” streams data right into your application via the Internet  No data download  No formatting of data  Can stream from multiple servers (and multiple data layers) simultaneously!  You don’t have to maintain / update these data!  Need some bandwidth…  Challenge: Currently, no data streaming directory… Data streaming = Data Services! A Mash up!

Where can you find more data?  I’d start with your local governments. They’ve got the best stuff.  Local Government GIS contact info.: Rule of thumb: Call a planner or someone in the engineering dept.

Calling your Local Government: What questions to ask…  Is there any GIS data available for my county that is accessible to me?  If so, what is available (parcels, structures, etc.)?  Can you send these layers to me on a CD, or can I download them off of the Web?  Are there projection files (.prj for vector files and.aux for raster files) associated with all of the layers?  Can I share these data with others, or are the data licensed?  Can I print maps from this data, and distribute the maps?  What format are the data in (i.e. shapefile, geodatabase, etc.)  Do you have any post 2002 aerial photography?

The Virginia Metadata Clearinghouse We’ll go over this in a minute!

Geospatial One-Stop We’ll go over this in a minute!

The USDA Geospatial Data Gateway  Click on the “Get Data” button on the right side to get started We’ll go over this in a minute!

The Virginia Geospatial Extension Program – Links to VA Data Sources http :// We’ll go over this in a minute too!

Data Service options  Data streaming options are increasingly integrated within the software!  You’ve heard about “the cloud”? Well this is non-stop, direct access!  This is the future! Present!  Data services vs. application services

GIS Data Services  Note: Not all of these data services are free!  You will hear much more about ArcGIS data services at the ESRI conference this year! Take notes!

Online Web Mappers and Application Services  Online Web Mappers provide you with a means to explore geographic data  GES = Geographic Exploration System  Think GoogleEarth, BingMaps, etc.  Very limited (if any) analytical capabilities in a GES  Some offer a ‘zip and ship’ capability  Application services are becoming increasing integrated with Online Web Mappers –This is the future too!

Example of an Online Mapper + Application Service bundled together  InForest!  Online tool developed for folks who do not understand “GIS”  Requires a team that has a knowledge of GIS, Web servers, GUI design, modeling, etc.  Developed by the VA Department of Forestry and with a couple of folks here at VT (Randy Wynne, Christine Blinn, Val Thomas to name a few…).

 Not released to the public yet, but this is what it looks like…  Link herehere Data server: Richmond Application server (modeling): Blacksburg Your desktop ‘map’ data User input Model results

Exercises!  Let’s download some data!