January 31, 2001

Attendees Present
Ms. Susan Cromwell, Department of Information Systems
Mr. Cecil Davis, Department of Arkansas Heritage
Mr. Stephen Hill for Mr. Bill Bush, Arkansas Geological Commission
Mr. Randy Jones, First Electric Cooperative Corporation
Mr. Fred Limp, CAST
Ms. Shirley Sandlin, Benton County Assessor
Ms. Suzanne Wiley, U of A Cooperative Extension Services

Not Attending
 Mr. Chris Boudreaux, Conway Corporation
Mr. Phil Schoettlin, Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce
Mr. Jubal Smith, Entergy Corporation, Inc.
Ms. Phyllis Smith, UALR
Mr. Jim Wells, Wellsco Graphics Solutions

Special Representatives
 Mr. Learon Dalby, GIS Specialist, State Land Information Coordinator's Office
Mr. Shelby Johnson, State Land Information Coordinator

Guests
Mr. Don Melton, Director, Department of Information Systems
Mr. Dennis Patton, Supervisor, Benton County Mapping Dept.

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The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. in the Ragland Building 2nd Floor Conference Room, Little Rock, Arkansas.  Approval of minutes from the last meeting of December 15 was postponed until the next meeting.

Report from the State Land Information Coordinator

NAPP

Shelby Johnson reported that there are three planes in the state and that Pixxures has chosen to utilize another subcontractor for flying, Northwest Geomatics. He explained that Northwest Geomatics has a better reputation for producing a consistent product and that he is glad to have that company in the state.

Shelby reported that Lt. Col. Brian Roberts, Air Commander for the U.S. Air Force Base at Ft. Smith and controller for military operation areas, has agreed to hold down flight missions in the state on the days that the NAPP flights are being flown. That is important because it cost two days of good flying last year. Shelby said his office as sent a thank you letter to Lt. Col. Roberts.

Shelby went on to explain that the NAPP office of the USGS in Reston has totally cleared out all other NAPP project backlog, so all of the Arkansas film has been QC'd and the reports are being sent. He said that everything will be in hand to refly for this year. Furthermore, as soon as film comes in from the current flights, it can go to the contractor to be miniprinted, titled and labled, and can go right to Reston for QC for this year, and Arkansas is first in the queue. Shelby added that Learon is keeping the ADOP web page current on the status of the project.

Shelby said that one other major thing that was accomplished before the current mission started was that the flight plan has been reduced by about 128 frames. He explained that there was a section of the flight plan that extended into Missouri and all of those frames were taken off the project and that helps the contractor.

ADOP and DOQQ

Shelby Johnson reported that during QA/QC of the Lafayette film, Learon found three problem areas and the film was sent back. He said that the contractor has been working on what was essentially a color-balance problem. The contractor has resolved two out of the three and the third problem occured in the middle of water, so those files will be used unless they come up with some other way of improving them.

Shelby went on to talk about delivery of the USGS DOQQs, which has the header and metadata, and explained that those files for Lafayette County are in production. The DOQQs will come to the state and the masters will be copied, then the originals will be forwarded to Rolla, Missouri, where they are awaiting to start inspecting those files.

On the Arkansas River Project, Shelby reminded the Board that all the film that was flown last season was rejected. He said that the reflight of the river corridor has nearly been completed for this year and the initial film looks very good. That film will go right into processing to turn that dataset around as quickly as possible.

On the LIDAR production, Shelby explained that a number of problems have been encountered with the way the data was processed originally with the contractor who captured the LIDAR data. Shelby said they are having to reprocess all of the LIDAR data in order to produce the vector contours. That process is moving forward and the contractor hopes to have that completed by April and deliver both the DEM data and vector contours. Shelby explained that the Corps of Engineers has been great to work with on this and that they have been very understanding regarding the complications that have been encountered in the project.

Arkansas One-Call

Shelby encouraged the Board members to not miss the next meeting at Arkansas One-Call in Conway as there are some good possibilities for some cooperative projects with them. Shelby said that One-Call brings to the table a unique field force of over 100 personnel around the state and that they are considering equipping their personnel with GPS to look at database updates, with a major goal to create a current and up-to-date base map and to get away from utilization of GDT base map data. He said that they're actually talking about collecting address ranges and street center lines as a part of their work, which would be of great benefit..

Digital Parcel Mapping

Suzanne Wiley welcomed Don Melton, Director of the Arkansas Department of Information Systems, for a general discussion of a possible digital parcel mapping project. Following the discussion, it was decided that the Board needs to supply Mr. Melton with the following information prior to any consideration of drafting legislation:

  • Is it feasible?

  • How long would it take?

  • How much would it cost to create and maintain?

Shelby Johnson will do research towards providing answers for Mr. Melton.

GeoStor

Fred Limp reported that GeoStor is up and working, and there have been 2000+ downloads and the pace is picking up dramatically. There was an instance of one user attempting to download all the data layers for the state at one time, which caused problems. The system will be adjusted to prevent this in the future.

Future Meetings 

The next meeting is scheduled for February 14, 9-noon, at the Arkansas One-Call Office in Conway, with a tour of the facility after the meeting.

The meeting was then adjourned.