Please note that due to the lack of manpower and data these projects are now obsolete. Below are descriptions of the various projects for the year 2001.
Downtown Dickson Enhancement Project - Land Use Survey
The Downtown Dickson Enhancement Project encompasses an important area in the city of Fayetteville. Through greater understanding of this area, it allows the administration to be able to adapt the limited space that's in this most central area of town. The Land Use Survey puts this data in the hands of the city's administration, so that they can plan for the future of our downtown area.
As a city grows, the area around it expands, but the heart of the city, the downtown area's size does not increase. Since the downtown is supposed to be the heart of a city, it's important that the look and feel of the area are representative of how one feels about their city as a whole. Building conditions, and parking concerns need to be addressed before they become a major problem. The data collected is vital to understanding how these concerns will play out.
The CADIS team collected large amounts for data for about 650 buildings over a 4 week period. Data such as address, current land use, type of use (such as residential or commercial), building condition, number of stories, and amount of parking spaces.
Data Gathering Process
1. A map was made, including the DDEP area, streets, and building footprints (obtained from the city). This map was split into four priority areas. Each building was marked corresponding to a column on a printed out spreadsheet. Areas were delegated to team members and the data was gathered.
2. The data was attributed to the building footprints by imputing the data into tables in ArcView GIS software. The data was verified. While verifying data, there were several buildings that didn't have visible addresses. The Cole's Directory (and some deductive reasoning) were used to figure out the addresses for these buildings. As well, the CADIS team had to figure out how to evaluate mix use buildings.
3. Map products were made, based on the data, such as parking assessment per buildings, generalized vs. actual land use, and sidewalk availability.
Hydrant Obstruction Reporting System
In the course of city government, it is important that citizens are given a chance to participate and provide input whenever possible to increase the effectiveness of the local government's ability to serve its people. On this note, developing online resources that maximize accessibility and interactivity are highly desired. The Hydrant Obstruction Reporting System was developed as an example of how local city government can involve its citizenry in a near real time situation and allow this input to aid in decision making.
An obstructed or hidden fire hydrant could mean the difference between saving or losing property and lives. It is important that these hydrants are accessible at all times. It is virtually impossible for one or two people at the government level to constantly assess the status of hydrants throughout the city, but by getting the local communities involved such a system can be made that alerts officials only to those hydrants that need immediate attention. A common interest is shared in this since officials want to guarantee 100% accessibility and local property owners want to make sure their local hydrant is able to be placed into service at a time of emergency. It is a win-win situation for all those involved.
The Hydrant Obstruction Reporting System is very straightforward. An online web mapping application allows people to input obstructions to the fire hydrants in their neighborhood and send this report to the proper official who can then in turn verify the source and take proper action on the situation. It is database driven, meaning that this system can be expanded beyond the initial study area of this project.
Development of system
1. An initial gathering of hydrant data was done to insure accuracy for this study. Using the city's existing hydrant data layers, team members went out into the field and verified that all hydrants in the study area were indeed there. Some edits to the existing data were needed as some hydrants had been moved or replaced. GPSd positions of any new hydrants were taken so they could be placed into the dataset.
2. Team members then created a GeoMedia WebMap application that included the display of our study area. This particular study area coincided with the Downtown Dickson Enhancement Project (DDEP) area. Once a user selected the hydrant at issue from the map, the user would be taken to another page to enter a service report.
3. Web forms were created to allow the input of a service report that would be emailed to the proper official (fire marshal, etc). User information was taken so that the official can call back and verify the validity of the report. If the e-mail address of the official points to a mobile device, that person will be able to receive reports while in the field.
Future enhancements for this system could include serving the WebMap data to a mobile device, adding more detailed requests such as repair service, or construction variance requests.
Fayetteville, AR - Population Growth Model
If a growing city is to expand efficiently, the city administration must have some idea as to the trends of the city's growth. While throughout a city's administration there are different people who are aware of the specific growth trends, it would be hard to find one person who could understand the growth pattern of an entire city, without hiring someone to fulfill that job full time. The Population Growth Model is an effort to use all the available data to graphically show growth trends in Fayetteville, AR.
Through analysis of census data, permits data, among others, the Population Growth Model creates a graphic look at population, population change, density, and density change. This information will allow the city administration to be able to understand the general growth trends of the city as a whole. With this knowledge-base the administration can make better informed decisions regarding future zoning, annexation, and other population-related issues. The Population Growth Models is a series of E and A size maps.
Modeling Process
1. Data from the City of Fayetteville, and the Census Bureau. Data includes, census values, building permits (new residences), transportation analysis zones, and city zoning.
2. The data obtained was not always in the desired format, so some manipulation was required. Once the data was in the proper format, the data was evaluated for a trend.
3. The CADIS team determined a process by which to graphically allocate population. Several maps of varying sizes were made using the data that was obtained in ArcView GIS.
Panoramas of Residential Neighborhoods
While working with the City of Fayetteville, surveying the DDEP area, the CADIS team came to intimately know the sights of our fine city. The knowledge gained by the CADIS kids would be of benefit to current and future citizens, by helping them become more aware of the downtown area, and some of the more picturesque residential neighborhoods. Panoramas of Residential Neighborhoods was developed to take advantage of the knowledge the CADIS members have gained, and present the downtown area in an interactive and interesting way.
The CADIS kids wished to use their technical skills to make an interactive system that would allow people to see the splendor of Fayetteville, AR from all over the world. By taking panoramic pictures of several residential neighborhoods, as well as some landmark areas in and around the DDEP area, hoped to do just that. By clicking on the locations on a map, people will be taken to another page that will display a panorma or wide angle photograph.
Development of panoramas
1. CADIS team discussed where interesting sites for panoramas could be found. They then went out and captured enough pictures produce a 360º (or a wide angle shot in a few cases) of each given area. A Kodak DC240 digital camera was mounted on a tripod to capture the photos.
2. A map pinpointing the location of each site was created in GeoMedia and exported to a .JPG image. The picture of the map was turned into a web-page image map using Mapedit. As well, the photos were stitched together using Ulead COOL 360.
3. A script was created to use the image map and link to a page where the panamas would be displayed. A user need merely click on the chartreuse dot marking the location of the pa norma they would like to view.
Possible improvements would be to widen the area to include more panorama sites, upgrade the interactivity of the map using GeoMedia WebMap, and perhaps automate the panorama posting process so that citizens, or school classes could submit their pictures and other people would be able to than see more areas of our community without the necessity of paying people to take more pictures.
DDEP - Sidewalk Availability Survey
The downtown area in a city is an area that is representative of a city. While a city's population grows, it's downtown area has little room to grow at the same pace. The downtown area of Fayetteville is not a bustling traffic jam, but instead an area that is filled with businesses (and a university) the one might walk to. This in mind, the availability of sidewalks in the Downtown Dickson Enhancement Project (DDEP) area is important for the city administration to know.
The Sidewalk Availability Survey is gather data displaying all of the sidewalks in the DDEP area. A map was made from this data indicating all of the currently available sidewalks, as well as all of the areas along roads where there are currently no sidewalks.
Survey Process
1. GPS data was collected by walking the areas where sidewalks were present. Data was imported using Pathfinder Office.
2. The data was verified and corrected using City of Fayetteville CAD data, and visual inspection.
3. An E size map was made, showing all of the sidewalk areas and the areas along roads where no sidewalks were present.
