Geographic Information Systems Division

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) integrates spatial data (maps) and tabular data (informational databases) through computer technology. In doing so, it revolutionizes the way in which information can be used.

GIS is one of the basic building blocks of the City technology offerings. The City's goal is to deploy GIS throughout the organization, improving the way services are delivered to citizens. The GIS Division of the Management Information Systems Department (MIS) supports the databases, develops applications, and provides technical assistance to a growing base of GIS users.

It has been suggested that more than 80 percent of the information maintained by municipal organizations is "geographically referenced." This means that the information is tied to a location on the earth's surface by a street address, its depiction on a map, or through some similar technique, and that this knowledge of its location is an important aspect of the information.

Geographically-referenced data includes crime incidents, water customer locations, and routes of vehicles.

2007 Highlighted GIS Projects

• New aerial photos
• New web mapping application
• Stormwater inventory
• City command center application
• ArcMap 9.2 upgrade
• ArcPad historical inventory
• Contact Center support
• Open space maintenance
• Beta test ImageNow and GIS integration

Software - Greensboro is using the ArcMap Suite of products, including ArcInfo 9x. The City maintains 13 licenses of ArcInfo, four licenses of ArcEditor, and about 25 licenses for ArcView.  More than 130 users, spread across nearly every City department, regularly use this suite of software. ESRI ArcSDE conversion is complete.

Hardware - The typical platform for ArcInfo is a Dell Precision 470 workstation running Windows XP. The typical ArcView platform is one of several models of Dell personal computers operating on 266 MHz and up. Personal computers at the City operate on Windows XP. Multiple servers provide data to GIS users.

Additionally, a pair of clustered enterprise-wide Dell file-servers host all SQLServer based data (including ArcSDE layers as well as non-GIS data). Another pair of clustered enterprise-wide Dell application servers support ArcIMS applications along with non-GIS applications. A prototyping file-server is also used for application development and testing.

Application Development Environment

The application development platform for GIS combines a number of technologies, including ESRI’s MapObjects, ODE, Avenue and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). From Microsoft, GIS uses both Visual Basic 6.0 and ASP.Net. Most database management occurs in Microsoft’s SQLServer. GIS operates in a Client/Server environment running Windows 2000 and Windows XP on the desktop and a variety of Windows Server products on our file-servers and application servers. While GIS provides direct application development services for many GIS-centric applications, the division frequently partners with the Application Services Division of MIS in applications that are primarily traditional IT applications but which can be enhanced by GIS functionality.