UITS helps State boost security, emergency management, and planning
Big impact seen for Statewide Digital Orthophotography Program hosted by IU
University Information Technology Services (UITS) at Indiana University is helping the State of Indiana take a bold step forward with the Statewide Digital Orthophotography Program. This unprecedented program is providing seamless, high-resolution, color aerial photography for all of Indiana 's 92 counties. Counties throughout the state will use the imagery to support homeland security, emergency management, and other business and government applications. The goal is to create a current, accurate, statewide, seamless base map at significantly reduced costs over county-by-county data collection through an integrated, complementary and interoperable GIS (geographical information system).
UITS has partnered with the Indiana Geographic Information Council (IGIC) to host an enterprise geodatabase service for the Statewide Digital Orthophotography Program. UITS will provide the infrastructure and support staff to create and maintain an Oracle geodatabase hosting the imagery. The geodatabase service and associated web mapping services will make this valuable data resource readily available to the IU community as well as public and private stakeholders throughout Indiana and beyond. In particular, this project will support the IndianaMap, The National Map, Geospatial One-Stop, and the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Clearinghouse node efforts.
UITS has a proven record in creating and supporting enterprise geospatial database services. UITS professionals provide database services for internal units such as Indiana University 's Facilities Information Management System and network operations.
Likewise, UITS supports enterprise Geographic Information Systems (GIS) services for the U.S. Forest Service as their staff seeks public comments on The Hoosier National Forest revised management plans.
The Statewide Digital Orthophotography Program builds upon existing UITS GIS services including the Indiana Spatial Data Portal, an online clearinghouse hosting more than 1.4 Terabytes of maps and aerial photos, and the newer Indiana Spatial Data Service, which provides online data viewing and real-time data streaming to desktop GIS applications. These existing online resources are available to the IU community and the general public at http://gis.iu.edu.
Funding for the project has come from a number of stakeholders, including the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the United States Geological Survey and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Major contributions came from the Indiana 2004 State and Local Homeland Security Grant administered through the Indiana Counter-Terrorism and Security Council (now the Indiana Department of Homeland Security).
About UITS
University Information Technology Services (UITS) at Indiana University , with offices on the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses, develops and maintains a modern information technology environment throughout the university in support of IU's vision for excellence in research, teaching, outreach, and lifelong learning.
UITS provides tools and services to support the academic and administrative work of the university, including a high-speed campus network with wireless access, central web hosting, a rich selection of free and low-cost software for personal use, tools and support for instruction and research, and supercomputers for data analysis and visualization.
About the IGIG and INGISI
The Indiana GIS Initiative (INGISI) is a grass-roots organization of over 1,000 stakeholders. INGISI is administered by its board of directors, the Indiana Geographic Information Council, Inc. (IGIC), a nonprofit corporation.
Since 1997 IGIC and INGISI have provided coordination of Indiana GIS through dissemination of data and data products, education and outreach, adoption of standards, and building partnerships.
