Frequently Asked GIS questions

GIS stands for What?

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a technology that is used to view and analyze data from a geographic, or spatial, perspective. GIS links location to information, such as people to addresses, buildings to parcels, or streets within a network, and layers that information to give you a better understanding of how it all interrelates. You choose what layers to combine based on your purpose.

A GIS is most often associated with maps. A map, however, is only one of three ways a GIS can be used to work with geographic information. These three ways are:

The Database View: A GIS is a unique kind of database of the world - a geographic database, or geodatabase.

The Map View: A GIS is a set of intelligent maps and other views that show features and feature relationships on the earth's surface. Maps of the underlying geographic information can be constructed and used as "windows into the database" to support queries, analysis, and editing of the information.

The Model View: A GIS is a set of information transformation tools that derive new geographic datasets from existing datasets. These geoprocessing functions take information from existing datasets, apply analytic functions and write results into new derived datasets.

Map where things are: Mapping where things are lets you find places that have the features you're looking for, and to see where to take action.

Find a feature-People use maps to see where or what an individual feature is.

Finding patterns-Looking at the distribution of features on the map instead of just an individual feature, you can see patterns emerge.

Map quantities: People map quantities, like where the most and least are, to find places that meet their criteria and take action, or to see the relationships between places. This gives an additional level of information beyond simply mapping the locations of features.

For example, a catalog company selling children's clothes would want to find ZIP Codes not only around their store, but those ZIP Codes with many young families with relatively high income. Or, public health officials might not only want to map physicians, but also map the numbers of physicians per 1,000 people in each census tract to see which areas are adequately served, and which are not.

Map densities: While you can see concentrations by simply mapping the locations of features, in areas with many features it may be difficult to see which areas have a higher concentration than others. A density map lets you measure the number of features using a uniform area unit, such as acres or square miles, so you can clearly see the distribution.

Mapping density is especially useful when mapping areas, such as census tracts or counties, which vary greatly in size. On maps showing the number of people per census tract, the larger tracts might have more people than smaller ones. But some smaller tracts might have more people per square mile-a higher density.

Find what's inside: Use GIS to monitor what's happening and to take specific action by mapping what's inside a specific area. For example, a district attorney would monitor drug-related arrests to find out if an arrest is within 1,000 feet of a school--if so, stiffer penalties apply.

Find what's nearby: Find out what's occurring within a set distance of a feature by mapping what's nearby.

Map change: Map the change in an area to anticipate future conditions, decide on a course of action, or to evaluate the results of an action or policy.

By mapping where and how things move over a period of time, you can gain insight into how they behave. For example, a meteorologist might study the paths of hurricanes to predict where and when they might occur in the future.

Map change to anticipate future needs. For example, a police chief might study how crime patterns change from month to month to help decide where officers should be assigned.

Map conditions before and after an action or event to see the impact. A retail analyst might map the change in store sales before and after a regional ad campaign to see where the ads were most effective.

The City of Fairfield began development of it's GIS in 1999 using high resolution aerial photography, Microstation tax maps (Butler County), and Intergraph's Modular GIS Environment (MGE) software. The GIS data was housed in the Oracle Relational model and accessed using Relational Interface System (RIS) database interface. Since then, MGE, which contained a suite of products for specific functions, has evolved into a product called the Geomedia suite of products. The City utilizes the free Geomedia Viewer (used with static Access databases), Geomedia (for viewing only), Geomedia Professional (for development), Geomedia Grid (for 3D), IntelliWhere OnDemand (for field mapping), Geomedia WebMap (for online interactive mapping) and IntelliWhere Trackforce (for vehicle tracking) products of the suite.

The GIS is maintained by GIS staff, part of the Information Technology (IT) Division of the Finance Department. Dedicated staff include one GIS Analyst reporting to the IT Manager. Secondary GIS staff, those whose primary job function is not GIS, include one (1) Wastewater GIS staffer, one (1) Water GIS staffer, and one (1) Public Works GIS staffer.

As an Enterprise-based system, the GIS data is now housed in the Oracle Object model on a dedicated GIS server. GIS data is published to the Web via a dedicated Web server. The GIS data is housed in Oracle schemas (or Tablespaces) based on the City department which performs the duty described by the data. Schemas include Building & Zoning, Development Services, Economic Development, Finance, Fire, Parks, Police, Public Works, Wastewater and Water.

The City's GIS data is generally between 1/100' to 2' accuracy. Most data was created via heads-up digitization utilizing ¼" pixel aerial photos at a scale of no less than 1" = 50'.

GIS data updates are performed daily as city functions, such as water distribution, sewer collection, developmental reviews, building & zoning inspections, etc., trigger updates. It is the City's goal to keep the GIS database as close to real-time as possible.

Aerial photos were flown in 2000, 2005 and 2007. GIS staff have begun verifying all data written between 2001 and 2005 that was created from construction drawings or field data collection.

Fairfield's GIS data is projected utilizing the State Plane Coordinate System (1983) Ohio South projection with a Horizontal storage unit of 1 survey foot, Vertical storage unit of 1 survey foot and a storage center of 0sf, 0sf (X,Y). The geodetic datum is the North American (1983) with a reference ellipsoid of GRS80.

Fairfield's interactive maps will not work in some browsers. You must view them in Internet Explorer. Download the latest version.

To view Fairfield's GIS, you must install the Adobe SVG Viewer.

On your first visit to the interactive maps, you will be prompted to download the software. Follow the on-screen instructions.

If you are not prompted to install the software automatically, you may download it here.

The search tool uses a pop-window. If that window is not appearing, you probably have a pop-up blocker activated on your browser. Look for an error message to pop up near the top of your browser window. Click on it, and change the settings to allow pop-ups from the GIS site.

Pop-up blocker software varies. You may need to consult your documentation to see how to allow pop-ups on specific Web sites.