Surveying & Engineering Special Interest Group Newsletter

Welcome to the Surveying & Engineering-Special Interest Group newsletter, a periodic publication from the ESRI survey team. Each issue provides a quick glimpse of industry news, upcoming events, reminders, and information about integrating surveying and GIS.

In This Issue

• 2009 Survey & Engineering GIS Summit
• Special Offer: GIS Starter Kit for Surveyors
• Industry News
• Software News
• Training News
• Calendar: Key Events

2009 Survey & Engineering GIS Summit

Meet in San Diego
You are invited to join fellow surveyors, engineers, and GIS professionals at the 2009 ESRI Survey & Engineering (SEG) Summit to be held July 11–14, in San Diego, California. The annual event will give you the know-how to enhance core business practices and expand opportunities with cutting-edge GIS technology. You will hear from geospatial experts, get familiar with the latest GIS technology through training sessions, and learn about applications and solutions that can impact your business development. Held concurrently with the ESRI International User Conference, you’ll find what you’re looking for at the SEG Summit. Register.

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Special Offer: GIS Starter Kit for Surveyors

Put Your Data to Work
The GIS for Surveyors Starter Kit helps you get started with GIS surveying solutions. A complete software bundle with which you can create, maintain, visualize, and share survey and other geographic data, the starter kit also includes training and educational materials to get you up and running faster. The starter kit will assist in integrating GIS into your workflows by providing a platform on which you can store, retrieve, visualize, plan, and share survey and other geographic data throughout your organization.

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Industry News

Send Us Your Map Images
The ESRI survey and engineering industry team is looking for images and screen shots from surveyors and civil engineers using GIS. Your submissions could be featured in ESRI case studies or other marketing materials.

Post a Message
Hosted by BNP Media and POB Online, RPLS.com is a message board for land surveyors, mapping professionals, and others affiliated with the geomatics field to discuss the issues that are important to you. Members of the unique and free online gathering place can exchange ideas and communicate on a wide range of topics, such as business, legal, and technical issues. Sign on to RPLS.com and see what your colleagues are talking about.

ACSM and Trimble Dimensions Conferences
Land surveyors and mapping and geospatial professionals from around the world recently traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, and Las Vegas, Nevada, for the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) and Trimble Dimensions annual conferences. The two gatherings, held back to back, provided nearly a full week of sessions, workshops, meetings, and demonstrations. Find out what you may have missed and what POB magazine’s Christine Grahl took away from her conference week out west.

Get Answers about CAD and GIS Integration
In an online article published by CENews.com, ESRI’s resident CAD/GIS and engineering integration expert, Don Kuehne, weighs in on the current business opportunities for GIS in the civil engineering field. In a Q&A format, the ESRI CAD products manager addresses GIS/CAD interchange and interoperability as well as 3D modeling and data accuracy. Read the full article.

Access Public Land Data
The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) GIS-based National Integrated Land System (NILS) provides a workflow, common data model, and software tools for the collection, management, and sharing of public land data, cadastral data, and land record information between the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The public-facing component to NILS is the GeoCommunicator Web site, which provides interactive searching, accessing, and dynamic mapping of data for Federal Surface Management Agency boundaries, the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), and other survey-based land descriptions. Find out more about the data, interactive maps, and tools that you can access, use, and download for free via GeoCommunicator. Read more.

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Software News

Extend Editing Functions with a New Toolbar Extension
Drafting Tools for ArcGIS is a sample extension toolbar for ArcMap that streamlines the editing experience. Behind the scenes, the drafting tools intelligently manage the storage, editing, and display of primitive points, lines, and polygons. Users can commence drafting without having to precreate data, define coordinate system settings, set up layer properties, manage edit sessions, select target layers, or specify edit tasks. Drafting Tools for ArcGIS was developed for ArcGIS 9.3 and will work with ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo licenses. Download the toolbar.

Easily Integrate Your GIS and CAD Data
ArcGIS for AutoCAD is a free, downloadable tool that gives you access to GIS maps and data while seamlessly adding GIS context to CAD designs. ArcGIS for AutoCAD provides quick and easy access, within the AutoCAD environment, to enterprise GIS data published by ArcGIS Server. In addition, the tool gives you the ability to prepare data for use in GIS while working within existing CAD standards.

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Training News

Become an ArcGIS Survey Analyst Expert
The three-hour Web course Introduction to ArcGIS Survey Analyst is designed for surveyors and GIS technicians who want to incorporate survey data into ArcGIS. Viewing the course will give you an overview of the functionality offered by the ArcGIS Survey Analyst extension. You will see where survey data is stored in the geodatabase and learn to link existing data to surveyed points, digitize new features from surveyed points, and evaluate the accuracy of mapped features according to their survey measurements. Watch it now.

Be a Cadastral Editor
The three-day online, instructor-led course ArcGIS Survey Analyst: Maintaining Land Records Using Cadastral Editor is for experienced ArcGIS users who want to create, update, and manage accurate and seamless cadastral networks from survey plans and electronic subdivision data via the Cadastral Editor workflow inside the Survey Analyst extension to ArcGIS. This class is useful for anyone who works with cadastral datasets and survey information. Register now.

Work with CAD Data in ArcGIS Desktop
The three-day online, instructor-led course Working with CAD Data in ArcGIS Desktop is for experienced ArcGIS users who need to integrate CAD data within ArcGIS. You’ll learn methods for working with native CAD data in ArcGIS, converting CAD data to GIS data, and options for converting GIS data to CAD formats. Techniques related to CAD/GIS workflows are also covered. Enroll now.

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