The objective of our 778 course is to develop the ability to conceive and solve real-world programming problems and provide GIS application support independently. Our students in 778 identify a unique GIS software shortcoming and develop a tool that helps solve it. Check out these projects below!
Spring 2023
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Michael A. Adduci | Participatory Treasure Reporting Web Application in England and Wales
The Participatory Treasure Reporting Web Application in England and Wales is an ArcGIS JavaScript API application. One of the central uses for a treasure-mapping application is its ability to identify locations according to legal criteria, establish historical location situational awareness, and identify the local coroner legally responsible for documenting treasure discoveries in each District by consolidating contact-information and reporting-features into a single web portal.
This study focuses on the development of a treasure-mapping application that addresses the needs of treasure hobbyists and district-level coroners alike. The application enables users to map treasure by type and quantity, and consequently, afford district Coroners the ability to analyze and perform administrative data-curation within the ArcGIS Online environment.
Testing involved producing end-user interaction processes, assessing peer-reviewed feedback on the application’s features, and implementing changes. This study consolidates the disparate process of contacting a coroner and reporting treasure finds into a single intuitive web application.
Trever Bruhn | Fire Pre-plan Collector/Visualizer
Fire departments are exploring technologies to improve the collection and use of pre-plans. Pre-plans are an excellent opportunity for mobile geospatial technologies. The ability to serve interactive data and imagery from an interactive web-map is an large advantage over the static pre-plan documents widely used.
This project is a web-based pre-plan application that allows firefighters to view, add, and edit data in a common interface during collection and use in an incident. The application enables data collection with minimal training, makes collected data immediately available in the pre-plan format, and connects images with their associated attributes. Users can explore the surrounding context of a facility, quickly view pre-plans of neighboring structures, or enlarge images for closer inspection. The app is built specifically for iPad, but responsive across a range of devices. It was built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with jQuery and the ArcGIS JavaScript SDK.
Links: https://github.com/TjBruhn/wiscpracticum-preplan
Cherie Bryant | Land Development Analysis Using Hexagram Bins for the Urban Service Area of Leon County, Florida from 2009 to 2022
Annual property appraiser parcel databases include a wealth of data that can be used to track development trends. However, parcel sizes and boundaries can change often and has historically made comparing databases from one year to another difficult. This project uses a custom python script to summarize 14 years of parcel data into 1-acre hexagram bins that remain constant from year to year. This allows trends in residential units, nonresidential square feet, valuation, homeownership, and property taxes to be calculated and visualized. The resulting feature class is then used to perform an emerging hotspot/coldspot analysis. The resulting feature classes are presented in a web application showing both annual change, cumulative change, and the hotspot analysis. The python script is structured to allow easy updates when parcel data is updated each October.
Technology Used: Python, ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript
Links: https://cybryant.github.io/LeonParcelTimeAnalysis/
Kuang-Cheng Cheng | Yearly Ridership Data Visualization And Analysis For The Taipei Metro System In Taiwan.
This project aims to provide a new method for technical employees and city planners to observe changing ridership trends without having to perform complex statistical calculations. The project includes two products that serve different purposes. The Jupyter Notebook provides notes and workflows for technical users to follow, organizing and visualizing data simultaneously. On the other hand, the 2D web-based map offers a convenient way for non-technical users to easily navigate and gain insights into the trend and relevant background information without requiring many computer environment settings. The map not only simplifies the process of showing the trend lines in chart forms but also offers an intuitive way for users to observe the overall changes for the whole system directly by visualizing the data.
Technology Used: Leaflet, Python, PyDeck, Jupyter Notebook, JavaScript
Links: https://github.com/KCivilEnGI/GIS-Practicum
Alejandro Gomez | Los Angeles Tree Web Map
Trees are one of our most valuable resources. In addition to providing shade and beautifying streets, urban trees capture and clean stormwater runoff, remove pollution from the air, store carbon, and produce oxygen. The Los Angeles Tree Web Map is an online mapping application that allows users to explore the vast City of Los Angeles public park and public street right-of-way (ROW) tree inventory. Users can discover areas where trees are densely populated, search for their favorite tree(s) across the city, or visualize the range of tree heights along parks or streets. The application has a variety of features to explore trees across the city. The main feature is the ability to filter the two datasets by tree (common) name, street name, or park name. The application also provides the ability to change tree symbology, view tree characteristics, and change basemaps.
Technology Used: Esri Leaflet API, JQuery, Bootstrap, Javascript, HTML
Mingrui Huang | SAM 1960: Web Map of Air Defense Missile Sites in the United States, 1960
The SAM1960 website is an interactive tool that provides information on missile sites that were active in the United States during the 1960s. The website features an interactive map created using Leaflet.js and spatial data stored as GeoJSON files, which enables users to view missile sites near their community and additional information about each site. Additionally, the website has a notable sites page that provides information about missile sites available for public viewing. Using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, the website is simple to use, mobile-friendly, and has a responsive design using the Bootstrap framework. Its static website architecture provides several benefits, including simplicity, easy maintenance, and easy updating and improvement over time. Overall, the SAM1960 website is a unique and informative tool for users to learn about the history of these missile sites and their significance.
Technology Used: HTML/JavaScript/CSS, Bootstrap, Leaflet.js
Links: https://jeffreyhuang.tk/SAM1960/SAM1960.html
Mallory Johnson | Cos-Map
Cos-Map is an interactive map application tailored to the costume photography community, allowing photographers and cosplayers to find new photoshoot locations. The web application is built on ESRI’s Suite of applications, including ArcGIS Pro, Experience Builder, and Survey123. Search and filter widgets are built to allow a user to search by a location’s state, tag category (environmental feature), or by a location’s name. Users can submit their own locations and photos as attachments to the map, subject to automatic filtering and sentiment analysis, to share their experiences at different sites for others to review and use in future photoshoots. User submissions are the core of the application and continuing submissions continue to grow the database beyond administrative intervention.
Technology Used: ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, Microsoft Power Automate, ArcGIS Survey123
Links: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/556b7aba7e984c94b7054c405d640635/
Jeff Kalar | Public Land Survey System Field Note Collector
The objective of my project is to streamline and improve upon the Ramsey County Surveyor’s Office current manual process of recording and storing field notes related to the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) within Ramsey County by allowing our land surveying technicians to utilize ArcGIS Field Maps to record, upload, and store these field notes. These field notes will be stored in a database and made available via an interactive web map for department use. ArcGIS Web AppBuilder was used to create the interactive web map and the database was developed using ArcGIS Pro then stored on ArcGIS Online. Forms to allow for field note collection were configured using ArcGIS Field Maps Designer.
Technology Used: ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Web AppBuilder, ArcGIS Field Maps, Arcade
Links: https://uw-mad.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=007f664d3fa84371b8336a5c2528ec0b
Jiaqi Guo (Max) | Canadian National Capital Region Flood Observation
The Canadian National Capital Region Flood Observation System is designed to help residents identify, report, and communicate flood related observed information with other product user groups.
The system consists of 3 major components, front-end webapp, hosting server and database. The front-end application is a mobile first web app developed with bootstrap framework and open layers API. Backend is using geoserver for data hosting and publishing. Database is using PostgreSQL database with PostGIS extension.There are a few simple geo-analytic tools from the front-end webapp, and user could conduct simple CRUD(create, read, update and delete) process to the observation service from the webapp through WFS service, which is hosted from the back-end server using the PostGIS database. There are also a separate page from the webapp to view flood related knowledge and news for the region. The entire stack’s deployed infrastructure is through Docker.
Technology Used: Openlayers, PostGIS, Geoserver, Docker, NGINX
Aspen Neville | CUWCD Pipeline COF Scoring Application
To accomplish their mission of delivering water resources, Central Utah Water Conservancy District (CUWCD) needs to replace pipelines before they fail. When to replace pipelines can in part be determined by considering the consequence of failure (COF), or the potential impacts that would occur should the pipeline fail. COF is scored by evaluating the spatial relationships between a pipeline and surrounding features (e.g., distances to nearby roads). As such, I developed and designed the “CUWCD Pipeline COF Scoring Application”, an interactive web map application, to calculate COF scores for CUWCD pipelines using methods evaluating the spatial relationships between a selected pipeline and nearby features, write those scores to the PostgreSQL database through API calls, and view the scores in tables and charts for comparison to help determine pipeline replacement schedules.
Technology Used: ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript 4.26, D3, jQuery UI, Bootstrap, ASP.NET Core
Nimita Shery | Public Dataset Finder
The Public Dataset Finder is a desktop web map application that serves as a tool to support renewable energy project development and helps users find public datasets by their location. It is mainly intended for GIS Specialists to use a single web map for gathering various national and state level public data required for preparing reports during the environmental permitting process during the preliminary stages of a project. The user will be able to select the location of the project site on the map which will query from the ArcGIS Online database and display and list them on the map. This enables the user to view more details and navigate to the website for downloading them. This application also aims to improve data management by making use of data APIs.
Technology Used: ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript 4.26, ArcGIS Online
Andrew Winchell | Aviation Management
The Aviation Management web application is a user role focused application to monitor the conditions of the National Airspace and make real-time logistical decisions. Using the foundations of web programming in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the Aviation Management application builds a live feed connection between operating aircraft, US based airports, and US operating airlines. With the combination of these datasets, the user has the ability to monitor all incoming and outgoing flights of a user defined airport, or all en-route aircraft of a user defined airline to make decisions regarding flight delays, air traffic, and personnel requirements. This application serves will serve airport management, airline management, and aircraft spotters alike with its powerful data display and manipulation capabilities.
Technology Used: HTML, CSS, JS, ArcGIS JS API, Esri Calcite Design
Danielle Wyenberg | Garden Planner Web Map
The interactive garden planner web map is a tool to help gardeners gather information, design their garden plot, and receive feedback based on size of plot and vegetable choice. The web map is a valuable addition to the resources and information provided by the Iowa State Extension office. It helps to display data in a visual manner that is more accessible to many users, and to streamline the process of garden planning. Users can access information on hardiness zone, soil data, suggested vegetable varieties, and approximate expected yield. ArcGIS Pro was used to develop the feature layers and data format. The data is hosted using ArcGIS Online. ArcGIS API for JavaScript was utilized for web map design.
Technology Used: ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS API for JavaScript
Nyla Thursday | Wisconsin County Health Rankings Explorer
The Wisconsin County Health Rankings Explorer is a web map application expanding a user’s ability to interact with and learn from an annual data release. There are two maps and an inner panel between them. The left-hand map has the health outcomes ranks and the right-hand map has the health factors ranks. In the middle panel the user can change the year from 2014 – 2022 using the year buttons and select different sub rankings using the buttons. The counties change color to indicate the ranking class and a pop-up will appear when you hover over the county for its associated rank.
I made the tool to expand the visibility of the robust data being collected and allow more individuals and organizations to benefit from county-wide health data. Knowing the health rankings of individual counties and their associated health metrics can be integral in decision making and funding potential.
Technology Used: Leaflet, jQuery, mapshaper, ArcGIS Pro
Links: https://nylathursday.github.io/778_project/
Fall 2022
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Aileen Clarke | Traffic Fatalities in Washington, DC
This scrolling story explores traffic fatalities in Washington, DC from January 2021 to October 2022. Government agencies regularly provide data that is in the public interest for public use. However, there are often caveats to using this data. This project explored a traffic incident dataset provided by the DC city government. In the course of this project, I discovered how large a difference those caveats can make. As someone who is familiar with local DC news, I realized that the city dataset was missing some notable incidents, finding 19 incidents that caused 22 fatalities that were not included in the city’s dataset for the same time period. This story makes an argument for more radical shifts to keeping streets safe and for local community mapping that can more comprehensively serve community members.
Link: https://aileenclarke.github.io/dc-traffic-fatalities.html
John DeLoretta | Watershed Study at Blue Marsh Lake for Blue-Green Algae Prevention
This project serves two purposes: to educate the public on blue-green algae, and also to help park rangers at USACE Blue Marsh Lake in Leesport, PA identify locations within contributing watersheds to install Best Management Practices (BMPs) in order to reduce excess nutrient runoff entering the waterways. This website is split into two pages to achieve each of those goals. The public can scroll through a narrative page to learn about formation, identification, health impacts, and current management practices of blue-green algae at the lake. The second page is an interactive web map that allows users to see topography, streams without vegetated buffers, soil erodibility rates, nitrogen and phosphorus loading rates, and also the estimated nutrient reduction per drainage basin of installing various BMPs of a location where they click.
Daniel Easter | Faster Feathering: Efficient & Simple Feathered Edges in ArcGIS Pro
When creating a map using GIS software cartographic design is often overlooked. Many GIS users have little if any training in cartography and they are often faced with time/budget restraints, which usually leads to poor map design. ArcGIS Pro has alleviated some of the recurring cartographic faux pas that were common in its predecessor, ArcGIS Desktop, by improving defaFaster Feathering: Efficient & Simple Feathered Edges in ArcGIS Proult layout settings and map symbology UX/UI. Still, many professional cartographers find that standalone graphic editing software, which is often inaccessible to the average GIS user, is critical to achieve a desired aesthetic.
Visual hierarchy is one of the most important tools cartographers can leverage when constructing a map. It allows the creator to emphasize certain features while de-emphasizing others. A feathered edge (also known as a vignette) around an area of interest (AOI) is one of the most effective ways to emphasize certain elements on a map by directing the user’s eye through masking and shadowing.
The tool that I created for this project creates a feathered edge effect by creating a simple raster that can be easily symbolized to the user’s preference. The tool is able to achieve these results quickly and at a low technical barrier to entry for the user, with the default settings be widely applicable. The tool leverages ModelBuilder to calculate an appropriately sized feathered edge raster based on the user’s input AOI.
Links: https://youtu.be/GOBi5MI-95U
Kray Freestone | Census Find
For my project, I created Census Find, a tool to let the technical-averse easily gain census insights. Getting the data you want from the U.S. census can be hard, and viewing it on a map can be even harder. This tool allows users to select the variables they are interested in, select the year they want, and apply it to any state, county, census tract, or place in the United States that they want. Say hello to reproducible insights across space and time.
Census Find is not currently live, but a demonstration on the functionality can be found on YouTube.
Links: https://youtu.be/Jf0zjedFfbA, https://github.com/freestok/census-find
Michael Hasinoff | Identification of Mapped, Yet No Longer Existing Unincorporated Communities (Phantoms) In Wisconsin
Upon close inspection of online maps, labels for non-existent unincorporated communities are common. These “Phantoms” are found because websites such as Google Maps use the US Geological Survey (USGS) topographic maps and its Geographical Names Information System (GNIS) as main sources of map data. Due to a paucity of resources, the USGS has not thoroughly rectified these inaccuracies and therefore, over time, Phantoms have persisted on their maps. Using residential parcel records from the Wisconsin Statewide Parcel Map, a methodology was developed in ArcGIS Pro that identified ~60 Phantoms from a list of ~625 unincorporated communities curated from the GNIS. With ground-truthing, most of these can be easily confirmed as Phantoms and subsequently presented to the USGS for appropriate re-symbolization or removal from US topographic maps. This approach can be viewed as a first step for updating maps of Wisconsin and the rest of the United States.
Jenna Johnson | Maryland Wildlife Explorer
The Maryland Wildlife Explorer is an interactive web map application that enables users to identify Maryland wildlife species and report their sightings on an interactive map. It serves like a digital field guide and includes identification information for reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. The goal of Maryland Wildlife Explorer is to empower the next generation of environmentalists. An environmentalist is someone who cares about and advocates for the environment. The best way to become an advocate is to learn and understand the surrounding environment and all its wildlife. The application was designed to be kid friendly, utilizing Calcite and Bootstrap to create an appealing user interface. ArcGIS JS API was used to create the interactive map and the database was developed using ArcGIS Pro then stored on AGOL.
Joseph Rosnow | 10 Years of Wisconsin Water Use
The United States government passed legislation to implement the Great Lakes Compact in 2008. Wisconsin adopted this legislation 2 years later and has had an active management program through the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR). Included in this legislation are requirements for registering and reporting large groundwater and surface water withdrawals, as the Compact recognizes that good water resources data are necessary for water management, planning and protection. The WDNR Water Use Section has been collecting and managing the full data set for the past 10 years.
The purpose of my ARC GIS Online Storymap project to communicate water use concepts, visualize spatial patterns and show statistical trends from the 10 years of water use data in Wisconsin. Look for this Storymap to be released publicly in March of 2023.
Eli Samuelson | St. Louis Metro Bus Redesign
The objective of this project was to redesign the public bus transportation system of St. Louis. By using current St. Louis Metro bus routes, population statistics, and human points of interest (businesses, public buildings, etc.), I worked to create a new and updated bus system that would better fit the city’s needs. Using GIS and Statistical software (ArcGIS, Python, Excel), I created maps that contained comparative statistics between the new and old systems to explain the updates for the public. Additionally, I created a full visual map of the updated system to provide frequency information, line name information, and some geographical locations the rider can use to better understand when and where the buses would be running with the update.
Link: https://sites.google.com/view/eli-samuelson/st-louis-metro-bus-redesign
Alissa V Stark | Development of a Google Earth Engine Application Example Using Remote Sensing for Change Detection and Trend Analysis
This project synthesized the numerous examples and supporting documentation available regarding accessing and analyzing the data collections within Google Earth Engine for two end goals.
First, create an application that is an example of how a research project benefits from an interactive and approachable end product for users of varying technical abilities; this makes the science available to more users.
Second, create the code in a way that it exists an in-depth example of the pieces necessary to answer the questions that come up when trying to detect change within Earth observation datasets; this makes the code accessible to additional developers or scientists that have limited experience with coding or GIS.
Link: https://avstark.users.earthengine.app/view/growing-season-change-detection
Summer 2022
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Julie Boyden | Application to Convert Army Core of Engineers’ Electronic Chart Database into S57-Format
This ArcPy tool solves a problem I come across regularly in my current job at Raymarine, getting data into the correct format to create a chart. This application converts our customer’s, Army Core of Engineers, inland data written in IENC (Inland Electronic Navigational Chart) format to S-57 format. This format is needed for my group to create the chart that will be used for navigational purposes on Raymarine devices. I am provided a geodatabase with one hundred layers containing depth information, danger points, buoys, etc. with fields and attributes that all need the proper naming conventions for the chart to symbolize correctly. All conversions are done through Python/ArcPy scripting and run by an ArcPy tool.
Tools: Python, ArcPy, Arc Pro
Greg Grube | Wisconsin Voting Districts
The Wisconsin Elections Commission’s job is to help manage election systems in the state of Wisconsin to benefit both members of the public looking to register and vote, but also to help the 1,850 election clerks around the state run elections and manage elections data.
Every 10 years, redistricting occurs in the State of Wisconsin after the U.S. Census. Federal, state and local election districts may be changed as a result. The purpose of this project is to create an interactive web map that can be used by municipal and county clerks to visualize new and existing districts in an intuitive way. It allows for customization, searching and filtering to suit the needs of their county or municipality. Though primarily designed for clerks and election staff, the map can hopefully be beneficial to anyone interested in election geography in Wisconsin.
Tools: ESRI ArcGIS Javascript API 4.23, ESRI ArcGIS Online storage
Project Links: https://grubeg.github.io/WisconsinVotingDistricts/
Emily Johansen | A Rescue Dog's Journey
I created a website called A Rescue Dog’s Journey to teach people about animal rescues and shelters near them. Any person could go onto this website and learn about state or Wisconsin county totals. The goal is to teach people about the ease and availability of going through rescues/shelters rather than feeling the need to find a breeder. They could learn about save rates and the correlation coefficient that average age, homeownership, or level of education have on the save rate of animals in their state or county. There is also a map specifically about rescues in Wisconsin. One could learn everything they could want to know about which rescues are near them and how to get in contact or learn more!
Tools: ArcGIS Online, MapBox, HTML, Correlation Coefficient Formulas,
Project Links: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/b3cc2b146b5b4ab2ae4f2baf086cd999
Bryce Linden | Cangshan Geopark Map
Dali-Cangshan UNESCO Global Geopark is a park located in rural southwestern China and celebrated for its rich geological history. This project seeks to improve hikers’ understanding of these geological artifacts by creating a user-friendly, interactive three-dimensional map that displays the hiking network of this park as well as the location of significant geological features. Its interactivity gives users the option to view trails and features from any angle, thus deepening their understanding of the region while reducing negligence. By modifying an existing mapping project designed by Esri through ArcGIS API, this project uses existing tools and tailors them to further the park’s goal of spreading geological knowledge.
Tools: ArcGIS API, NPM, JavaScript, Sass
