Paul D. Zwick, Ph.D.
Ilir Bejleri, Ph.D.
Robert Crim, P.E.

Providing Public Access to the Geographic Data: The Florida experience

This paper describes the methodology developed at GeoPlan Center, located at the University of Florida for gathering, organization and distribution to the public of GIS data for the State of Florida that have been created with public funds. The paper focuses on the challenges of standardizing about 80Gb of 220 layers of geographic data from 27 state federal and local agencies and their distribution to general public in a preprocessed, user-friendly and inexpensive form. It discusses the issues of such an enormous task from a technological, project management, institutional and end-user perspective and how to solve them successfully.

Keywords: GIS data, data distribution, Florida GIS data, data viewers, arcview extension, arcexplorer

INTRODUCTION

The GeoPlan Center, a research center of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Florida (UF), Gainesville, has for the past three years been the principle organization involved in a project titled 'The Florida Geographic Data Library' (FGDL). The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) have funded the FGDL, and many state, federal, and local organizations have contributed data to the library. The focus of the FDGL project is to facilitate the gathering, organization, and distribution of GIS data to the general public. The FGDL project assists the FDOT, FDEP and other state and local agencies in fulfilling their commitment to provide the citizens of the State of Florida with access to GIS data that was paid for by tax dollars, and to provide these data as a public educational opportunity. The FGDL project, while on going, is already improving access to GIS data within Florida, and is more that a mechanism for transfer of data. FGDL is an application that provides GIS data to the public and allows users to more efficiently access, utilize, and manipulate its data. Additionally, the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) have recently named it for a their national best environmental practice award. The award is jointly shared with the Florida Department of Transportation.

BACKGROUND

Historically, Florida's state agencies have expended a significant amount of human and computer resources fulfilling requests for GIS data. As new and potential users of GIS technology have become more aware of the existence of these GIS data, the pressure on state agencies to fulfill data requests has increased, and the resources required to fill these requests have also increased. As a result, several state agencies have sponsored the GeoPlan Center's FGDL method for the distribution of publicly funded GIS data. The FGDL distribution method provides greater efficiency, organization and accountability for the distribution of these GIS data. Further the FGDL provides users with an ArcView extension and a free data viewer. Thereby, allowing multiple levels of users to access these data. The time required for FGDL users to access these data for application, presentation, and organizational support has been drastically reduced when compared to the simple transfer of these data in their raw format (ArcInfo coverages, export files, or CAD files).

As a matter of policy, most state agencies have distributed their GIS data in the digital formats and map projections in which they are maintained. Unless the agencies are motivated, through special arrangements, to provide the additional data processing required to convert the data into other formats, users are often required to provide significant additional data processing to use these data. This method of data distribution is uncoordinated and requires that potential end-users have a relatively high degree of technical proficiency, and the time and resources to accomplish any/all additional processing for these data sets. Unfortunately, many potential, but less technical, users cannot get past this basic (but necessary) step because they don't have the training, time, or computer hardware required. Furthermore, users are often unfamiliar with metadata and the development of a useful management application for these newly acquired data.

With GIS data publishing and distribution by CD-ROM becoming a standard practice in the United States, government agencies have an opportunity to transfer data more effectively than has been previously accomplished. Today, several state and federal agencies have published their databases in CD-ROM format and made them widely available at reasonable costs. Many private companies have been formed to develop and distribute GIS data in proprietary formats, and have targeted business users as their primary market. However the products offered are often too expensive for many small organizations, and the general citizenry. Currently, FGDL distributes data, a management application, analysis tools, and metadata by CD-ROM. However, FGDL data, applications, viewers, and metadata will soon be available for download via the Internet.
 

CD-ROM DISTRIBUTION

The UF GeoPlan team has successfully completed distribution for two versions of FGDL on CD-ROM. Both distributions have been for statewide geodatasets, each set divided into sets based on Florida's 67 counties. The CD-ROM(s)are available for PC and UNIX platforms and operating systems, and meet the design team's performance expectations. One disadvantage of version II is the larger number of CD-ROMs required to transfer the entire library. The development of Mr. SID compression software has reduced the need for more than three CD-ROMs per county, and version III will take advantage of this technology. Additionally, the development team has begun the development of a web-based presentation of the data - testing this application for a one county pilot project. Version IV will transfer data and applications via the Internet.

At present CD-ROM(s) offer an advantage over Internet downloading for larger volume (complete statewide geodatasets) users of the FGDL data because they are not required to download the entire geodataset (approximately 200 gigabytes of data), which has proven to be extremely time consuming. Additionally, for users of FGDL the design team has created a management application that is server ready, has built in GIS analysis functions, and hyper-linked metadata.

The CD-ROM distribution does offer two other major advantages over Internet download. A CD-ROM provides greater security against accidental deletion of data than does storage on hard disks after download, and provides for a backup copy of original data by version. GIS databases are often altered and passed on to other users without quality control or documentation. Since CD-ROM(s) are a 'read only' media, this characteristic ensures that original release versions of the database will always be available to users. Once received the user has a write-protected copy of FGDL and can begin to build a time series database by receiving data sets annually. The CD-ROM media provides a simple means for data protection, data can be cataloged by year for time series analysis, and the FGDL version release of the data is maintained for reference.
 

MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES AND APPLICATION

A major objective of the project was to determine the requirements for the FGDL data management and distribution system. The digital format used for vector data in the FGDL database is ArcView 'shapefile' format. This open-system digital format is efficient, supported on all major computing platforms, and translators have been developed for many of the other popular GIS software. Imagery and raster data are distributed in ERDAS '.img' format or GEOTIFF format, and are Mr. SID compressed. Raster data are transferred in ArcInfo GRID format.

FGDL MAP PROJECTION

The map projection currently being used for the FGDL database is:

ALBERS
HPGN
GRS80
METERS
1st Standard Parallel: 24 0 0.000
2nd Standard Parallel: 31 30 0.000
Central Meridian: -84 0 0.000
Latitude of Origin 24 0 0.000
False Easting: 400000.000
False Northing: 0.000

The research team has developed a data management system based on the 'A Modular Library' model. The team has chosen ArcInfo software (by Esri, Redlands, Ca, USA). Based on this model, each statewide data layer is 'cut' into 67 datasets corresponding to the geographic extent of each Florida county boundary. The original database is maintained in ArcInfo 'coverage' format to allow for efficient data processing activities, and for easy conversion to the shapefile format. Custom software programs have been developed to convert the database into the shapefile distribution format, and to compile the individual county data sets according to a standardized organizational scheme. The research team in looking into migrating to the Oracle and SDE database management system in the future.
 

IMPLEMENTATION OF FGDL DATA DISTRIBUTION

The FGDL team examined the issue of full-scale implementation and long-term support of the project in this first phase of the project. The researchers outlined some general recommendations and alternatives. For instance, full-scale implementation of the FGDL should be accompanied by the organization of an data distribution application. The data distribution application needs to address various types of users with various levels of expertise, from novice to expert.

Institutionalization also required that memoranda of agreement with cooperating agencies be established. Table 1 lists the state and federal agencies that have contributed data to the FGDL pilot project.

Table 1. Government agencies that are contributing data members of FGDL.

Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Florida Department of Transportation
Florida Department of Community Affairs
St. Johns River Water Management District
South Florida Water Management District
Suwannee River Water Management District
Southwest Florida Water Management District
Northwest Florida Water Management District
The Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission
The United State's Geological Survey
The United State's Census Bureau
The Florida Department of State - Division of Archeological Research
The United States Department of Agriculture
The Florida Department of Geology
The Florida Department of Revenue
The Florida Natural Areas Inventory

To date all long-term financial support has been provided through a cooperative funding arrangement made between several government agencies. The authors have recommended that in addition to these subsidies, the FGDL charge end-users for the production costs associated with each CD-ROM. It is the opinion of the project team that the taxpayers of Florida should not be required to pay more than the cost of producing duplicates of each of the county CD-ROM(s). A current price of the production cost per CD-ROM is approximately $20.00, which is the sales price per CD-ROM.
 

FGDL APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

As mentioned above, the FGDL is not only designed as data standardization and distribution mechanism but also as a management application that allows users to more efficiently access, utilize, and manipulate the data. To achieve this goal GeoPlan Center has developed application programs that can support a wide range of users.

The application called 'FgdlView' is developed for ArcView users. FgdlView is a custom made extension that provides ArcView users with a number of user-friendly functions including loading the FGDL data to the View, hyper-linking to the metadata, selecting pre-defined legends for each layer and the ability to create basic maps quickly. Other custom functions allow the display of the FGDL aerial photographs as seamless image catalogs. The visibility and the extent of the image catalogs are controlled as a function of the user-defined scale and extent.

The application is designed to allow simultaneous access of multiple county data organized in server hard disks. This feature is very useful for various organizations, businesses, schools, libraries etc. It eliminates the need to store the data in each local user machine, it allows the users to share ArcView projects without the need to make path modifications and provides a much easier way to handle data and application updates. Grouping the above functions in an ArcView extension as opposed to an ArcView project allows the users to integrate FGDL with their organization data and their previously created ArcView projects.

Currently GeoPlan Center is working toward expanding FgdlView to include a number of GIS analysis functions such as buffer,clip, erase, dissolve, merge, union, intersection and identity. Even though these functions can be found scattered in shareware extensions provided by Esri and ArcView users, they usually come with a weak interface and in a number of times manifest software bugs. Bounding these important GIS function for data manipulation together as an integrated part of FgdlView will be a valuable addition to FGDL. Packaged with user-friendly viewing and analysis capability, FGDL data will be easier to access and manipulate even by non-GIS experts.

For non-ArcView users GeoPlan has developed a free stand-alone application for Windows platform. This application named 'FgdlExplorer' is designed for users that need to view the data but don't have any GIS software. FgdlExplorer has similar features with FgdlView but is more limited. It can display the FGDL data that are stored both locally and in a server hard disk. It allows the users to change the display of the data by creating user-defined legends as well as basic viewing operations such as zooming and panning. An 'Identity' function allows users to identify individual features on the map and display the corresponding attributes. Metadata can be easily accessed using hyperlinks. An important feature of FgdlExplorer is its ability to access FGDL data as well as user data and display them in the same map as long as the user data is in the same map projection.

Lastly, the research team is working in providing ready-made project files for ArcExplorer(freeware GIS browser by Esri) users. These files will contain pointers to FGDL data as organized in CD-ROMs and it will be distributed with the CD-ROM. These files will help ArcExplorer user getting started quick with FGDL data.

More information about FGDL products is available at the GeoPlan FGDL web site at http://www.fgdl.org.
 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special Thanks are due:

Alexis Thomas, Imagery Database and Systems
Wesley Harrell, GIS Database and Systems
Stanley Latimer, GIS Database and GPS
Andrea Goethels, Web
David Lindemann, Web
Juna Papajorgji, Applications
Priscila Zardo, Applications
Bill Roth, Applications
Marcos Bastian, Graphics
Christopher Stoll, Database

All the graduate students who have worked long hours on the project over the past three years.


Author information

Paul D. Zwick, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Interim Department Chairman, and
Director GeoPlan Center
Department of Urban and Regional Planning
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida
paul@geoplan.ufl.edu

Ilir Bejleri, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Urban and Regional Planning
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida
ilir@geoplan.ufl.edu

Robert Crim, P.E.
State Project Development Engineer
Environmental Management Office
Florida Department of Transportation
Tallahassee, Florida
bob.crim@dot.state.fl.us