Last Monday, a utility company I do a lot of work for requested that I stake a road right of way line so they could see if they have enough room for a proposed utility cabinet. It's on a parcel where I know the road has been widened for a turn lane onto a new major intersection. The R/W department at the utility company likes to "save money" by doing whatever research is necessary. When I don't have enough data, I tell them what I need and in theory they go get it for me.
After a week of internal emails back and forth between R/W agents, which they cc me on, they come up with a contact at the City that's supposed to know about R/W widening and road projects. Yesterday, this Associate Civil Engineer emails the GIS aerial photo, like that's supposed to help somehow. I saw that on Google Earth ten minutes after I got the staking request. He says they don't have any plans or as-builts on this major intersection that was built in their City a couple of years ago.
Well it's obviously your problem and not his. He's an Engineer, and you're just a surveyor......
OK, I'm confused. How is this a GIS fail?
GIS is data management software. It operates very much on the 'garbage in - garbage out' principle. I've gotten just as much lousy data from PEs as I have from GIS analysts.
I'm sure there are some very fine and useful GIS systems in place throughout the world. I've just never seen one in the areas I work in. In this case, my point is that it is worse than useless. This engineer actually sent it out thinking that the cartoon boundary overlaid on an aerial photo was somehow usable information to determine a right of way line. We just had a conference call with him and when I pointed out that very expensive equipment was proposed to be built and the yellow line on the aerial wasn't sufficiently accurate for our purpose, he contacted somebody in traffic engineering that might be able to help with some real data.
Yes I have to agree with the post above. It's not a GIS fail. It's an engineer fail.
A GIS is an electronic tax map. We're you down on tax maps when they were on paper?
Sorry, I feel like stirring the pot today.
Stephen
OK, I agree that it's an engineer fail in that he had the mistaken idea that the GIS cartoon has any value whatsoever. In the areas I work in, we have Assessor maps that are actually quite good and show at least the Assessor's plotting of lot dimensions, right of way takes, recorded maps, etc. If the Assessor's maps had been used as a basis for the GIS, they would have at least started out with something of value. The GIS here is just an aerial photo with some colored lines slopped onto it intended to show approximate parcel lines, some of which are about half a parcel off with the lines going through houses, making it as I said before worse than useless.
Don't blame the messenger, in this case the application, for shoddy professional practices. I can create just as lousy a product in Civil3D as I can in ArcInfo.
You nailed the real root of the problem when you stated that it was the Engineer who thought what he provided was a useful product. GIS is spatial data management software. If the spatial attributes of the data in the GIS are accurate, then the output will be accurate. If the data is inaccurate to start with, well...
You can search all day but you won't find a menu button in ArcInfo labeled "Fix My Data 'cuz I Was Too Lazy To Do My Part Up Front"
If the GIS, or its documentation, doesn't clearly state that the info should only be used for ... or should never be used for, then the GIS does fail.
If the engineer learns his lesson then maybe he deserves a pass. 🙂
Just another subtle perspective change.
With a lot of man hours used to accomplish it,
the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has a very nice GIS that shows and links to pdf scans of the highway plans based on a base map. It is a very handy thing to have available when looking at the courthouse for right of way deeds.
I have started this for my own use covering the main area I work in on a county level as the state GIS does not include county right of ways and the county does not have a reliable reference to old right of way deeds. It has a long way to go and really makes me appreciate the work that the transportation cabinet put into that resource.
> ....the GIS cartoon ...
...The GIS here is just an aerial photo with some colored lines slopped onto it intended to show approximate parcel lines...
I'm pretty sure the source of the property lines was the old tax maps. Where the else would they come from? Not likely that they had technicians do a geometry plot of every parcles current deed. Not when the exact same thing is sitting there ready to be digitized.
>...as I said before worse than useless.
... for determining property boundaries. Guess what, Steve. They weren't intended to determine property boundaries. News flash for all the hatin' land surveyors of Planet Earth: They didn't invent GIS for you. They invented GIS for themselves and the general public.
Stephen
And the GIS was based on what control points? And the accuracy is what?
> And the GIS was based on what control points? And the accuracy is what?
What is your point?
Stephen
