GIS Routes Voters to the Polls

Voters in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, can now get voting information and directions to the polls via the web or their mobile devices using a new mapping application. The county used its GIS and a free mapping application template from Esri to develop and launch the Election Polling Place Finder. The project took just a few weeks. The application was used in the run up to the July 17, 2012, primary and will be an excellent resource for the general election on November 6, 2012.

Cutting Down the Workload

Germany's state forest agency, Hessen-Forst Enterprise, uses Esri's ArcGIS Workflow Manager to complete data management tasks and GIS processing jobs quickly and accurately. ArcGIS Workflow Manager tracks the status and progress of jobs and generates a detailed history of a user's work activities. Read the article.

Video Highlights of the 2012 Esri UC

"Impressive!" That's the word Paige Porter-Buhl used to describe the Esri International User Conference (Esri UC), which she attended for the first time in July. If you missed the event, visit this page to view videos of Esri president Jack Dangermond's opening remarks and a series of technology demonstrations to get a flavor of what Porter-Buhl and 14,000 other attendees saw and heard all week.

Introducing Geodesign: The Concept

In this paper, Bill Miller, director of GeoDesign Services at Esri, writes about the definition, history, context, and importance of geodesign, along with the nature of design, managing complexity, and the technology of digital geodesign. Watch a video of Miller talk about geodesign and read a blog about his vision of geodesign.

Take a Tour of the Map Matrix

ArcGIS Online contains thousands of intelligent web maps, created and shared by you, the users. The maps cover a wide range of topics, including climate change, home mortgages, unemployment, and soil types. View the map matrix.

Esri Maps for Office Released

Business professionals can use the new Esri Maps for Office to visualize and analyze data directly within Microsoft Office. "By bringing the power of location analytics to Microsoft Office, Esri Maps for Office extends mapping and geographic intelligence capabilities to new people and departments," said Jack Dangermond, Esri president.

Roadway Fatalities Mapped Using ArcGIS

View the location of traffic fatalities using the SafeRoadMaps website, which was developed using ArcGIS API for Flex. SafeRoadMaps uses data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for 2001–2010. Read the article.

Esri Technology Powers USDA Map

The Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass map from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) maps farmers' markets across the United States. You can also see government-funded programs mapped, including youth gardening classes, food bank renovations, and farmers' market training.

Students Solve Problems with GIS

Read the blog and watch the videos of four high school students from Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia, demonstrate how they apply GIS to real-world issues such as preventing watershed pollution. The students, all enrolled in the Geospatial Semester, spoke at the Esri International User Conference.

Podcast with Pictometry

In this podcast, Brian Beha, director of business development for Pictometry, talks about how the beauty of imagery is in the eye of the beholder, telling different stories for everyone from assessors to fire fighters. He also explains why ArcGIS is the ideal platform for working with his company's aerial oblique imagery data.

GIS Puts Big Bob on the Map

A giant eucalypt was discovered in the Australian state of Queensland after GIS was used to map aerial laser survey data. The 229-foot-tall tree was nicknamed "Big Bob" after Sunshine Coast mayor Bob Abbot.

"The survey results contained about seven billion laser measurements, which is an enormous amount of complex information," said Esri Australia Pty. Ltd. business manager Anton Delporte.

But Delporte said the data was meaningless until GIS technology was used to map, analyze, and view the information.

Read the article.

Where to Grow Breadfruit?

A map serves as a powerful visual tool, but can it help solve world hunger, rejuvenate agricultural soil, and prevent mosquito-borne infections? Can a map help slow global warming and spur sustainable economic development in tropical regions? Perhaps not alone, but a map can display the real potential of a very special tree, the breadfruit. Read the article.

Mapping Census 2010

Using the latest census data and GIS technology, Mapping Census 2010 examines how the US population is moving and changing. This new atlas from Esri Press offers large, full-color maps to illustrate US population, age, and racial and ethnic composition with clarity. Buy the book.