Transcripts

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Shelly Carroll:

Hi. I'm Shelly Carroll. I'm vice president and general manager of our public sector here at Nearmap. About the last 20 years before joining Nearmap, I worked in both private sector and government, local, state, and federal, all in the GIS departments. Today we're here to talk with Lake County, Illinois to find out how they were documenting the value of aerial imagery in their programs and across the enterprise and what they found in the process. I'd like to introduce you to three of the folks from Lake County, Jeff Laramy, Nick Spittlemeister, and Matt Coleman. Jeff, would you introduce yourself please?

Jeff Laramy:

Of course. Thank you, Shelly. Hello everyone. I'm Jeff Laramy. I'm a GIS analyst with the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission. GIS analyst, intern program coordinator, and IT, a lot of us wear several hats over there. I started with the commission in August of 2002 and one of the things I really like about GIS and working for Lake County is we're providing the stakeholders and citizens of Lake County, as well as the decision makers with what I think is important information to make those decisions moving forward. Thank you.

Shelly Carroll:

And, Matt Coleman.

Matt Coleman:

Hey everyone, this is Matt Coleman. I'm a GIS analyst with Lake County's GIS Mapping Division. I've been with the county since 2015 and my team fulfills sort of like the traditional enterprise GIS role within the county, which means we support and maintain the core GIS infrastructure, the licensing, and we provide support to the various user departments as needed. Happy to be on today.

Shelly Carroll:

Great, and Nick.

Nick Spittlemeister:

Thank you. Hi, my name is Nick Spittlemeister. I'm with the Lake County Forest Preserve District. We're a little bit different than the county GIS folks, we operate our own forest preserve district where we preserve about 31,000 acres of land in Lake County for wildlife and for people. I come through GIS through working for Lake County previously and in the consulting world. I started with the Forest Preserve District in 2016 and I manage all the districts GIS services and maps for throughout Lake County. Thank you for having me.

Shelly Carroll:

Great. All right, let's dive right into the conversation. So Matt, I'd like to start with you. What led you to wanting to initially purchase aerial imagery for the enterprise and how was it decided that it was going to be an enterprise based approach rather than perhaps a department approach?

Matt Coleman:

Sure. So before answering that question, I think it's helpful to have a bit of context and just kind of like a basic understanding of how aerial photography is traditionally captured, at least for us, a client like Lake County. Obviously, the process kind of starts with the budget getting approved and hopefully you can secure funding, you select a vendor and then you coordinate with that vendor to accomplish certain tasks throughout a timeline. Then you obviously have to get an aircraft into the sky to fly your subject area and hopefully under good flying conditions too for the best product, there's a whole QA, QC that goes on and so on and so forth. And in short, that can be kind of a long and drawn out process and in its entirety it can easily take months or on the longer end, the better part of a year. And once we do take delivery of the imagery, my group being the central enterprise GIS group for the county, we're the ones that take that data and make it accessible to the various user departments and the wider user base.

We first became aware of Nearmap in the 2014 to 2015 timeframe, not too long after they began branching out into the US market. And we quickly learned that they had a different way of doing things. Their technology and processes that they had in place kind of allowed them to play by a different set of rules and their systems just allowed them to fly areas multiple times a year. In the case of Lake County, we get several, which is great, and those captures are processed and made available in a matter of weeks and sometimes even days at a super high resolution. You're looking at that two inch pixel resolution or maybe even better with the most modern camera systems. Those numbers really speak for themselves and it's a far cry from the mindset and the set of expectations that we had from prior projects. And that alone will grab the attention of many potential users and truthfully, we're no exception.

Shelly Carroll:

Great. And so how is it decided that you'd take an enterprise instead of a department by department approach to procuring Nearmap?

Matt Coleman:

So over the years, we've really worked with just about every county department in some fashion, but there are numerous GIS enabled departments we'll call them, that we work with very closely. That includes Jeff's group over at the Stormwater Management Commission. It also includes Lake County DOT, public works, planning, building, zoning, the health department, county clerk, Lake County Sheriff, and the Chief County Assessment Office, which is technically the department that me and my team live in. We're a part of the assessor here at Lake County. And as Nick mentioned, the notable exclusion there is the Lake County Forest Preserve District. They're technically a separate entity with their own budget, their own board. And then, yeah. He did a good job kind of describing how that's laid out and what the relationship is to the county, kind of as like a quasi department, but still very independent in that way. But regardless, all of those user departments that I described have a vested interest in GIS and have in one way or another, incorporated Nearmap into their day-to-day processes and their workflows.

Shelly Carroll:

Understood. And so how was the purchase paid for and what was the ROI or the use case that each of you might have used to justify either to your supervisors or procurement in general? Matt, you want to go first?

Matt Coleman:

Yeah. Yeah, I can take that one. So we started off with a trial subscription to MapBrowser, actually. So that's Nearmap's browser-based aerial viewer with a lot of tools loaded in. And along with that, we had access to certain APIs like the WMS and the imagery service that was made available through RGS online. And that made for really easy integration into desktop GIS, which was a big win for us, made the data that much more usable. And I actually built a very simple web application that internal staff would use to kind of build that justification use case in order to get full-blown access to Nearmap. So users would just interact with a very basic map, they would drop a point within a project area and fill in some attributes that would describe a project and sort of the new benefits and the new efficiencies that came along with using the Nearmap data.

And we saw a lot of things, like there was accelerated data development as a result of using Nearmap, enhanced customer service and even in some cases saving staff time out in the field. And that gave us something quantifiable and concrete to bring back to the decision makers and say, "Hey, here are the user departments that are using Nearmap, this is how they're using their data and here's why it's making a difference." So that was one piece to it. And another critical piece for us was Nearmap's willingness to adapt their business model to not only work for their private sector clients, but also those of us in the public sector so we can meet our set of obligations as a public body. And I'm sure there are many other states, counties, and municipalities out there that also appreciate that. So it was a great thing to see as well.

Shelly Carroll:

Right. So Nick, your team also had to secure funding. How did you go about doing that? Not only justifying the ROI, but who did you bring the business case to? How did you present that?

Nick Spittlemeister:

So, we brought it through our executive director and he has been a long proponent of our GIS program at the district, and he initially saw the value of Nearmap. The captures, like Matt explained, three times per year in our area has been a huge benefit to the district. This would be useful from our natural resources management projects too and that really speaks for itself. And we showed multiple different projects where the land protection of our forest preserve boundaries to even wildlife management and invasive species control. So it was a really easy sell for us just being that our management team is extremely open to GIS investment, but also to see the value of a really good product.

Shelly Carroll:

Great, thank you. And Jeff, did the stormwater commission have to secure any type of separate funding or approval processes?

Jeff Laramy:

No, we're fortunate in the fact that we're under the Lake County Enterprise GIS Program. So we were just simply provided with a logon and once the product was purchased, we had access to it.

Shelly Carroll:

Excellent. And I'm going to stick with you, Jeff, for the next question as well. What are some of the use cases that your team has for the use of the aerial imagery and the different products?

Jeff Laramy:

So we have a staff of about 20, I think, we just got an intern, so maybe 21. And we have a planning division and a regulatory division. And then the GIS mapping public information division or component, if you will. So everybody kind of uses it differently. We do one of the, I'll talk about a couple things, couple of the larger ones, and then I can go into some of the other smaller ones if there's time. But we run a, what we call a buyout program. So we have a person who administers our buyout program. And what that entails is if there's properties in flood zones, floodplains, maybe even the floodway, and if they meet a best cost ratio analysis and they qualify for the buyout program, there's funding available through partners like FEMA, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, sometimes the villages themselves will provide funds, and if they meet that ratio, the property can be bought out.

And the caveat is once it's bought out, it needs to stay greenspace in perpetuity, so nothing can be built on that. And where Nearmap comes in, sometimes people, neighbors see a vacant lot and they think, "Oh, that might be a good place to store my boat or car or whatever." And nothing beats boots on the ground, so to speak, but our program manager has used Nearmap to look at, as Nick mentioned, the three shots, three aerials per year. They have looked at Nearmap to see if those properties are staying vacant or if there's been any significant change. So that's one of the big things. And that actually qualifies as kind of an inspection and she can submit that to FEMA as that criteria has been met. If there's any, like I say, boots on the ground, nothing beats that, but Nearmap is a tool we use for that initial survey.

Another thing that she can use is we have something called base flood elevation. So let's say we know that the 100-Year Flood reaches 740 elevation, since the resolution of Nearmap is really good, she can actually, so we do something called first floor elevations. They want to know at what level will water get in the first floor of that structure. And she has used it to count the number of steps on structures at times and get a good idea, and again, nothing, she still has to visit the site to confirm that, but she can get some preliminary information and data before she visits sites. If she sees 10 stairs, there's a good chance that first floor elevation is probably six to eight feet above the floodplain. So that's some good information she can get too. And you can count fixtures and stuff on structures because of the resolution of Nearmap. So, that's an important thing.

Another thing, another reason or another way this tool is used, our inspectors go out, if someone calls in and says, "Oh, we think there's a wetland that's being filled and we don't know what's going on, but we'd like you to check it out." Through the various aerial image shots, she can look at that, or he in the case, whoever the inspector is, and they can determine if there's been stuff done on that property over time. They'll go out and meet with the property owner or meet with the person who filed the complaint and the person might say, "Well, I know they've been working on this property for months." And so Nearmap does provide the photographic evidence that's been happening. So those are kind of the bigger ones.

Shelly Carroll:

Great. Thanks, Jeff. Nick, can you dive a little more into detail? You had mentioned invasive species, wildlife and forestry. Can you talk to some of those use cases?

Nick Spittlemeister:

Sure. I'll dive into the invasive species uses that we have had here at the Forest Preserve District. One of the interesting ones we had has to do with the pandemic in a way, also. Phragmites australis, or common reed is the common name of the species, it is prevalent in wetland areas in Lake County and many areas across the country. And this is an invasive species that can colonize and take over large areas by rhizome and it is easy to remove if you know where it is. And with Nearmap's high resolution imagery and its captures, especially its fall capture when Phragmites australis is bolting or going to seed, it is larger than all the other kind of native species in the area, so we're able to see it on the Nearmap fall imagery. And during the pandemic, we had a number of staff that were looking for projects that they could do from home.

And using Nearmap's web browser and GIS integration into our web mapping applications, we were able to have those staff members who would normally be out treating Phragmites australis, we had them able to be out using web applications at home to map these species, to map the species on our property so that we could easily target them when people were back in the office. And one of the benefits is having multiple imageries to look at and view and see how these expand over time as well. So we've been able to track treatment areas from one year to the next. So having multiple captures and resolution has been really important, and be able to use it really any place at the district if that's in our desktop applications, mobile and also on the web through a web browser. So staff can access Nearmap from really anywhere, in any device.

Shelly Carroll:

Thanks. And Matt, are there any particular use cases you want to speak more to?

Matt Coleman:

Sure, yeah. Really good stuff from Jeff and Nick there. And there's really a long list of things to pick from here potentially, but I'll try to pare it down to just a few prominent ones. So my team is responsible for maintaining countywide address points, countywide centerlines and countywide edge of pavement, impervious surface kinds of data, and also countywide buildings, like a building footprint or building outlying kind of vector feature class that we keep an inventory of. And at that large of a scale, those are difficult things to stay on top of. And having a recent reference point, i.e. a recent capture from Nearmap, is an indispensable tool for doing that kind of work. And really you're trying to identify and track areas of new development or really where there's just been change. So as opposed to waiting for a subdivision to be recorded and for parcels to be digitized in GIS, you can reference the aerials and get those data layers updated without having to wait for some of the other things to fall in place there.

So that is a huge advantage. And that's not even really getting into the AI feature extraction that Nearmap is starting to roll out now. That almost is like a whole nother podcast where you could just dedicate to talking about the AI, but having that potentially in the future is an even bigger game changer. But we'll pivot now to supporting Lake County Sheriff and specifically their CAD dispatch software. Not only do they ingest our address points and centerline data that we use and we maintain with the Nearmap aerials, they also are able to tap a Nearmap API through their web map service. They can consume that into their software and have access to the full library of Nearmap captures going back however many years now. So they have all of these different reference points that they can easily overlay into their map when they're handling dispatch. And that can help just give a better lay of the land and understanding how buildings are laid out and maybe help identify access points for buildings and that kind of thing. And when you're working in emergency response, 911 dispatch, having the latest and greatest data is of the utmost importance because minutes matter, it can save lives. So having the best data available is really paramount there and Nearmap helps facilitate that. So those are a few things. You could go on, but those are some prominent uses for Nearmap in my team. So.

Shelly Carroll:

Great. All right. So let's transition now. Jeff, I want to learn a little bit more about what type of experience or level of expertise is needed for getting your users up and running with Nearmap?

Jeff Laramy:

Yeah. Great question, Shelly. Most of our, now, we do have some new folks, so there's training that we provide, but most of our folks have been with us for a while. So really, and they're used to looking at aerials, being that the county annual areas that go, actually go back to 1939 and then the various years after that. So they're used to doing aerial recon. We have engineers on staff, we have some power GIS users, we have planners. So aerials have always been a tool they've used. So really those people that have been onboard with us, once they get their logon and can sign in, it's just another tool. It's something they're used to. One of the things that's offered through that product is the slider, a lot of people really like the slider so they can see change over time. And that really is important when it comes to conditions out in the field, what's going on out there. So, as far as training goes, yeah. There's not a lot. I mean, Lake County GIS, Matt's division does a good job with the various products they push out, coming around and doing their little demos. So, as far as Nearmap goes, we're pretty much used to using aerials as an everyday tool really.

Shelly Carroll:

So it sounds like the interface is similar enough or easy enough to adapt to, not a too steep of a learning curve?

Jeff Laramy:

No, I would say people are used to the Google Earth type products. There's the Esri maps, ArcGIS Online, Matt's division put together our maps online, which is basically an ArcGIS type interface, ArcGIS Online. So it's very similar and they're used to, at least the staff we have, they're not afraid to click buttons and see what happens here and there. So, that's always good too.

Shelly Carroll:

And Nick, how about for the forest preserve? Any ramp up you do specifically for your staff, your teams?

Nick Spittlemeister:

As I bring people online I do initial training with them and I also do training with our mobile users. And a huge part of our workforce, we have about 100 or so people who use GIS on a daily basis, and most of that use is on the mobile end. So within ArcGIS Field Maps, we're able to use the Nearmap API or Nearmap imagery service right in ArcGIS Field Maps. So it's just the amount of bringing and making that known. And I have it in multiple ways where they can access it either through the imagery layer or as a separate layer. So it's just the amount of, it's really easy to use. It's just like any other layer that you would turn on in ArcGIS Field Maps. So it isn't as much training as just letting people know it's there and what it's useful for. And one of the other things we have done here at the district for our power users is we actually had Nearmap, their tech support services come and do a webinar a couple years ago to show people how to use the web browser and all the different aspects of leak imagery and things like that. So that was really beneficial for our power users, that they have their Nearmap tech staff help train our staff on how to use their product.

Shelly Carroll:

Excellent. And Matt, anything from the administrative side, standing up Nearmap within an organization that you have for tips or tricks or even observations of how that went?

Matt Coleman:

Really the short answer, I'm going to echo a lot of what Nick and Jeff had to say is when you're looking at training, the amount of training is minimal to none in most cases. And that's just really a direct result of Nearmap making resources accessible, accessible, I should say, plug and play and easy to use. And yeah, really echoing Nick's point is, maybe just having an awareness of all of these different tools that you have at your disposal is where the training comes in. You know, have your aerial photography, but you also have all of these tools that are inside of MapBrowser where you can have a panoramic view, you can go back in time and use the time sliders and there's a whole slew of APIs that you can leverage. And like I mentioned before, there's this whole world of AI and machine learning that is just starting to be discovered a little bit more. So it's almost just taking a step back and say, "Yeah, we have the aerials, but look at this broader toolbox. There's all these things that you have access to, how could they be utilized in your projects now and in the future?" So just kind of taking that step back and assessing all of the resources out there, I think is the most prominent point for learning, I think, so.

Shelly Carroll:

Great. And now we'll move on to some last thoughts as we wrap up the podcast. Jeff, is there any information or considerations you want to leave with the audience?

Jeff Laramy:

Yeah, I just wanted to say Nearmap's been a great tool for our agency. Like I mentioned earlier, they're all used to using aerials, now that we have the three captures per year, it's a great tool. One of the things our staff does, and we all rotate doing this on a daily basis, we take something what we call walk-ins. So if somebody calls our agency or they, members of the public, if they walk in, and it could be a simple question like, "Am I in the floodplain?" But they can get more complicated like, "I want to build this deck and there's a wetland or there's this pond in my backyard, I want to get some information." So Nearmap and having access to those three captures a year is a great tool and everybody uses that kind of as the first thing to look at. And especially if somebody calls our agency, before we call them back, it's a research tool that we can get some information beforehand so we have some stuff to tell them while we call them back. So we're not fishing while we're on the call and wasting their time.

As far as other remote uses, it's been very handy with monitoring erosion on the various stream bank restoration projects that we do around the county, especially with the three captures and the various years going back. And another interesting thing we use it for is monitoring beaver activity. They like to build dams and they flood areas and it's nice to keep tabs on where those are and how they change and maybe where there wasn't a beaver dam before and now there is. But it's a tool in our toolbox we use. Like I mentioned before, nothing beats people in the field seeing what's actually going on out there, but it's a very valuable first tool that we can do some screening with to get some information.

Shelly Carroll:

Excellent. And Nick, are there any final thoughts you'd like to leave?

Nick Spittlemeister:

Yeah, I just want to kind of talk a little bit about other projects too. So we're a little bit different than the county, as where we actually build our own projects for instance. Kind of almost like transportation projects like a DOT would. But as the forest preserve, we're planning new preserves or updates to preserves. Uses of Nearmap of the district. And I think it is really important for us because it allows us to see. So we're building new trails, we're building new shelters, we're doing restoration work, like we're disabling field tiles so we can have better wetlands. So it's really important for us to be able to show our staff, but also the public and our commissioners before and after projects and to say, "Hey, this is what we're using your tax dollars for. These are some of the projects we have done and here are some before, after shots. This is what we've done to transform the forest preserves to be better for you." And it's so great that we can do that more than just before, but before gearing and after construction or our management practices. So that's one of the really great things that Nearmap has been able to enable us to do at the district.

Shelly Carroll:

Thanks, Nick. All right. And Matt, any final thoughts from you for the audience?

Matt Coleman:

Yeah, so there's a couple takeaways here and just kind of listening to Jeff and Nick and their use cases in various projects, it's all awesome to hear how their users are using Nearmap, but I think one of the main takeaways is there's like several components to Nearmap that make it a really compelling product. That's the number of captures that you get per year, the turnaround time in which those are available and the resolution. Between those three and the combination of the speed and efficiency in which they all operate, it makes it an exceedingly useful tool regardless of what field you might be in or what the application is, what department you might be in, whether you're in stormwater management or you work with the forest preserves or you work in transportation, it's an exceedingly useful product. And just another takeaway here would be, being GIS power users, aerial photography is an indispensable tool that's in the toolbox.

We're hearing that analogy quite a bit, but it's impossible to replace it. It really is. And having access to Nearmap products is kind of like having a whole new toolkit between all of the aerial captures, the tools in MapBrowser, the APIs that are available, and now the AI layers, which again could be like its own podcast because there's just a lot to uncover there. It's opening up new kinds of analysis that wasn't previously possible and it's just a great position to be in. We're very thankful and we're excited to see where things go from here.

Shelly Carroll:

I am too, Matt. And I really appreciate Lake County, Illinois. Jeff, Nick, Matt, thank you very much for joining us. Have a great day.

Nick Spittlemeister:

You're welcome and thank you.

Matt Coleman:

Great. Thanks, everyone.

Episode is sponsored by

Guest Information

Jeff Laramy, GISP, GIS Supervisor/Intern Program Coordinator, Lake County Stormwater Management Commission

Matt Coleman, GIS Analyst, Lake County GIS/Mapping Division

Nick Spittlemeister, GIS Analyst, Lake County Forest Preserve District

Michelle (Shelly) Carroll, Vice President and General Manager, Public Sector, Nearmap

Episode Notes

Three geographic information system experts from Lake County, Illinois share use-cases on Nearmap's GIS software.

• Show before, during, and after shots of projects to communicate progress with the public, council, and commissioners.
• Capture multiple high-resolution images per location per year.
• Integrate at an enterprise level with cross-department functionality.

Resources

Exclusive free two-week trial: Enhance government workflows with premium aerial intelligence from Nearmap. 

ICMA's Strategic Planning in Small Communities: A Manager's Manual