GIS Update

Last week at the village board meeting we got a presentation by the GIS team on our GIS implementation project which has been taking place for the last half year or so.

A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a system for capturing, storing, analyzing and managing data and associated attributes which are spatially referenced to the earth. In the strictest sense, it is a computer system capable of integrating, storing, editing, analyzing, sharing, and displaying geographically-referenced information. In a more generic sense, GIS is a tool that allows users to create interactive queries (user created searches), analyze the spatial information, edit data, maps, and present the results of all these operations.

Some of the highlights were when I asked how many street lights we had, how many miles of road we had (1,079 and 411,840 feet --over 78 miles-- worth of road). Since this was a live demo, they were able to answer the questions instantly!

The pictures show the streetlights and how they are connected and to where, with both satellite photography and with a plat map as well.