Carbon Project Selected to Deploy Cloud-based Parcel Data Exchange

 

 The Carbon Project is pleased announce that the State of North Carolina, Office of Information Technology Services has renewed its contract to deploy a cloud-based Cadastral Data Exchange.

The effort builds on a pilot project conducted in 2014 that transformed parcel boundaries from 25 North Carolina counties into standard, integrated datasets and online data services. The data sets and open web services were shared with users of the NC OneMap Geospatial Portal and with EPA’s Environmental Information Exchange Network.

This deployment expands the Cadastral Data Exchange to counties throughout the state. Our goal is to use our latest CarbonCloud services, and help turn North Carolina parcel data into an interactive platform that can answer key business, government and social questions.

The North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (CGIA) is managing the project in partnership with the NC Working Group for Seamless Parcels and NC Department of Transportation, with guidance from the NC Geographic Information Coordinating Council and the Statewide Mapping Advisory Committee.

Carbon Project to Help Online Invasive Species Monitoring

We're pleased to announce The Carbon Project has been selected to help develop an online data exchange for invasive species monitoring.

The project, funded by a grant from the US EPA, will feature tools to transform Michigan and US Great Lakes invasive species observations into standard, integrated datasets and online data services. The data services will be housed within the National Environmental Information Exchange Network and shared with users through the Great Lakes Information Network.

The National Environmental Exchange Network is a partnership first envisioned in 1998 and includes representatives from States, Tribes, Territories, and EPA collaborating to provide better access to high-quality environmental data to help make better environmental decisions. The Great Lakes Information Network began in 1993 as one of the earliest collaborative information sharing sites on the internet and remains the premier clearinghouse for Great Lakes data and information.

The threat of invasive species transcends borders. We look forward to helping regional partners share mapping data for faster detection and monitoring.

 

According to Mike Beaulac of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), “the developed application will allow both agency staff and, more importantly, interested members of the public and local groups to document the location and confirm the identity of invasive plant species.”

Invasive species experts at the Great Lakes Commission note the number of engaged individuals and groups concerned about invasive species and support the project for its “potential to leverage data from local, state and regional programs by using the Exchange Network’s data transformation tools.”

The MDEQ is managing the project in partnership with the Great Lakes Commission and Michigan State University's "Midwest Invasive Species Information Network", with participation from regional partners.

 

- Jeff

Connecting Social Media to Satellites

 

The Carbon Project today announced it was selected to work with George Mason University (GMU) to develop cloud-based tools for guiding mapping satellites or small UAVs during natural disasters - based on information from social media posts.

Hurricanes, floods, fires, earthquakes and blizzards can all cause massive disruption to transportation infrastructure. The ability of first responders and governments to direct needed resources to an area is often hampered by our ability to see what’s happening.  In this crowdsourcing project, large groups of people provide small bits of information that can give us a better understanding of real-time events. This information is used to help guide satellites or small UAVs onto trouble spots.

The effort developed and deployed a cloud-based geosocial networking application called the Carbon Scanner. The Scanner assesses the impact of natural events on transportation infrastructure using social media, alerts on trouble spots and helps guide satellites or UAVs to collect imagery for rapid mapping. Project partners include George Mason University, The Carbon Project, commercial companies and community representatives from US state and local governments. The project is funded by a grant from the US Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA).

The project has already made good progress in designing, developing and deploying a functioning capability. We look forward to the second year, and developing new ways to push this valuable information to those who need it.

- Jeff

DISCLAIMER: The views, opinions, findings and conclusions reflected in this article are the responsibility of the authors only and do not represent the official policy or position of the US Department of Transportation/RITA, or any State or other entity.

The Carbon Project, Geosocial Networking, CarbonCloud and Carbon Scanner are trademarks or registered trademarks of Carbon Project, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their owners.
 

North Carolina Selects Carbon Project to Develop Online Cadastral Data Exchange

The Carbon Project is pleased to announce it has been selected by the State of North Carolina, Office of Information Technology Services for a contract to develop an Integrated Cadastral Data Exchange.

The project, funded by a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will feature tools to transform North Carolina county parcel boundaries into standard, integrated datasets, and share online data services with EPA’s Environmental Information Exchange Network and with users of the NC OneMap Geospatial Portal.

This deployment will provide a data service many levels of government can use.  We look forward to bringing our latest cloud-based platform and the skills of our teammates, Atlas Geographic Data of Wilmington, NC and Fairview Industries of Pendleton, SC, to this important effort.

The North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (CGIA) is managing the project in partnership with Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the NC Working Group for Seamless Parcels, NC Department of Transportation, NC Department of the Secretary of State, NC Department of Public Safety, with participation by 25 North Carolina counties and guidance from the NC Geographic Information Coordinating Council and the Statewide Mapping Advisory Committee.

 

For more information please contact info@thecarbonproject.com

 

- Jeff

 

Open Standards for Parcel Data? Yes Please...

The Carbon Project's FGDC CAP grant report on the development of an Implementation Model for sharing Parcel data has been completed. The review document is available at the FGDC Cadastral Subcommittee site.

The draft model conforms to the FGDC Cadastral Data Standard and is implemented as simple Geography Markup Language (GML). It also includes instructions for accessing Parcel GML with WFS, ArcGIS, Gaia and mobile apps.

 

The intent of Parcel GML is to help Parcel data sharing among local, state, tribal, federal and private organizations - and we welcome your feedback!

 

- Jeff

The Carbon Project Deploys Cloud-based Open Data Platform

 

I'm pleased to announce that The Carbon Project has deployed a cloud-based open data platform for sharing transportation data between local, regional and state organizations under a project with the Eastern Carolina Council of Governments (ECCOG) that was funded by the National Spatial Data Infrastructure Cooperative Agreements Program (NSDI CAP).

The deployment provides an easy-to-use platform so local data stewards can upload and translate their data on North Carolina streets and roads into a common information model.  To date, street data from over 80 counties in North Carolina has been uploaded using the Carbon ‘Transformer’.

The Carbon Transformer allows local government spatial data stewards to maintain their transportation data in its native format, to meet their business needs, while also sharing it with State and Federal agencies who need data in a common format.  This allows State and Federal agencies to aggregate contributions from many sources in seamless statewide and national products.

The NSDI CAP is funded by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and administered by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to help form partnerships among organizations to implement the components of the NSDI.

The Carbon Transformer is part of The Carbon Project’s new cloud-based open data platform, CarbonCloud Plus+.  CarbonCloud Plus+ supports a wide variety of mapping information, and enables development of seamless, open data based on standards from regional organizations, states, the FGDC and others.

For more information, or to learn how you can get involved, please contact info@thecarbonproject.com.

- Jeff

GEOINT Source Management and Interoperability

In today's world knowledge about the Earth and the activities on it rarely comes from one source, and it's constantly changing…  Military personnel need to work in collaboration with coalition partners and non-government organizations.  In addition, there are growing crowd-sourcing and geojournalism communities adding updates every day.  In this environment easy-to-use source management, colloration and interoperability tools are vital.

Meeting these challenges requires new approaches, and this week The Carbon Project will be unveiling CarbonCloud Plus+ ... a new platform for geospatial data ingest and management.  CarbonCloud Plus+ uploads, transforms, streams and synchronizes geospatial updates using GEOINT data services - capturing open source, co-producer, in-house and crowd source updates and making them easy to access and update.  Existing data files can also be easily added to GEOINT services for use by non-GIS professionals - and update by mobile Geo-apps.

The CarbonCloud Plus+ platform uses interoperability standards from the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) supported by most GIS vendors, including Esri.  The platform also easily integrates with existing GIS processes - so it's interoperable and works with existing GIS (best of both worlds).   It can also be deployed on a standalone server or used from the Microsoft Azure Cloud, further reducing costs.

Able to work with many types of GEOINT, including Foundation Data, Geonames, Human Geography and OpenStreetMap, CarbonCloud Plus+ enables seamless integration with civilian, federal, commercial and international organizations.  Easy-to-use and cost-effective, CarbonCloud Plus+ is designed to meet the multi-source GEOINT ingest and management needs of today and the future.  Follow me on Twitter @JeffHarrison for more updates throughout the week...

- Jeff