Government Technology - January 2008 - (Page 24)

are just like anyone else. And as Las Vegas grows, people who live there may want to learn more about what their city offers. For example, arranging a special event at a city park used to mean finding the phone number for the parks and recreation department. Now, that service is available online at any time, with the data only a few mouse clicks away. On the city’s site, a user need only look on the left side of the screen and find the “I Want To …” menu. The menu boasts an array of different services that can be accessed easily. One of the choices is “find.” Selecting it brings up more options, such as “missing pets,” “emergency services” and “parks and facilities.” By choosing parks and facilities, a user can search parks by features or address. Currently there are 31 features a user can select to narrow a search — everything from baseball fields to bocce ball to fishing ponds. Once options are selected, the matching parks are displayed, each with a link to Google Maps. All this can be done in a few seconds. The city also offers an online 311-type service that lets residents and visitors report problems or non emergency incidents. While this might not seem particularly innovative on the surface, what many people don’t realize is that a large portion of the famed Las Vegas Strip isn’t actually in the city of Las Vegas, but in an unincorporated part of Clark County. With the system the city has built, someone who finds graffiti outside Caesars Palace or suffers a dog bite near The Venetian can simply input the approximate location, and the system will direct the person to the appropriate agency. “Say someone rolls into a pothole outside the Bellagio in the middle of Las Vegas Blvd.,” said Willis. “Many tourists would likely say, ‘Hey, city of Las Vegas, you’re responsible for this.’ You Are Here With only a few clicks, a user of Las Vegas’ Web site can ﬁnd a wealth of information about the city, including ofﬁce hours, directions, even what kind of coins the parking meters accept. All of it is displayed in a user-friendly Google Map. But actually it’s Clark County. Now, the new way, you just tell what type of problem it is and where it exists, and this utility will link you to the right spot. No map involved, but it’s fully GIS as the backbone of this application.” In Sheboygan, Wis., city officials are taking advantage of next-generation GIS to enhance internal operations by providing emergency responders a better look at what they’re dealing with. The city wanted a way to give public safety the upper hand when disaster strikes. Tom Horness, the city’s GIS specialist, found that software from Autodesk, a company specializing in CAD and 3-D imagery, offered tantalizing possibilities. Sheboygan officials discovered that by using Autodesk tools, they could render their entire downtown in lifelike 3-D. Even more impressive: The software lets city personnel see inside of buildings and under streets. “For the city of Sheboygan, they realized they needed to be able to create a fully integrated environment that would enable their first responders, who are inherently nontechnical, to navigate the inside and outside of all the buildings within their city,” said Juliana Virtual Tour Guide Interactive maps allow Las Vegas visitors to locate hotels, shows, restaurants, attractions, shopping, golf and more. Users can ﬁlter results, add notes and print out customized maps. www.visitlasvegas.com Slye, Autodesk director of government. “To be honest with you, a firefighter is not going to open up a GIS application. They’ll start pointing and clicking. They really need something that is just one or two snaps away from giving them all the information.” First, Sheboygan’s GIS manager set up a small “pilot project area” by designing just a few buildings and inputting basic footprint data. “Then they married that footprint data, which is much more of an engineering data, to things like digital personal mapping data and aerial photography,” Slye said. “They began to build this really smart digital environment that allowed them to really provide all this precision information in a Web-based interface that any firefighter could quickly navigate.” The Autodesk software takes CAD drawings, blueprints, schematics and GIS data, blends it together and spits out a highly detailed, 3-D rendered environment. For this article, Autodesk provided a virtual tour of what its software is doing for military officials in Iraq. The tour centered on a street in Baghdad, complete with moving cars, pedestrians and structures. One particular building afforded both exterior and interior views. From inside the structure, you can look out the windows and determine where, for example, possible sniper shots might enter. The software also allows officials to strip away all the structures if they wish, exposing the sewer and electrical infrastructure. In fact, nearly anything designed in CAD and placed on a map can be generated virtually. Autodesk and others are creating virtual worlds that are practical and incorporate real-world data that can be layered just like traditional GIS. Only now, JAN_08 24 http://www.visitlasvegas.com http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - January 2008

Government Technology - January 2008 Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile On the Scene CIO Sightings Four Questions for... Spectrum Location, Location, Location Digital Governor Back to the Drawing Board Waukesha Goes Green Collaring Dangerous Dogs Public Sector Goes Web 2.0 Bounce Back SACWIS Rollout Simple Strategy Products Personal Computing How It Works signal:noise

Government Technology - January 2008

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