Interoperability Conference 2017

Open GIS Server with Raspberry Pi and Radio

Presentation Slides

This was a side project I worked on at night to see if I could run a geographic information system (GIS) that could support both traditional desktop application and modern web mapping applications (server/client). The Raspberry Pi is used to listen for and capture digital data containing location information and insert it into the GIS database.

The goal of this was to get audience members thinking about GIS and how it might be useful or could be applied in the radio/communication community.  

I hope to publish a build log as well as the code I wrote to handle the database insertion.

73,
KE8CRV

GIS Data Sources

Finding sources of GIS data can be frustrating for several reasons:

• Many formats and coordinate systems
• Lack of metadata
• Data has not been updated
• Restrictions that prevent sharing

Here are some useful links and the types of layers that can be found.

State of Michigan
http://gis.michigan.opendata.arcgis.com/

• All Roads
• Boundaries
• Rivers and Lakes
• Imagery
• Elevation Data

Federal Government
https://hifld-dhs-gii.opendata.arcgis.com/

• Hospitals
• FEMA Regions
• Communication Towers

https://nationalmap.gov/ustopo/index.html

• Topo Maps

https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

• Imagery
• Historical Imagery
• Elevation

http://www.census.gov/data/data-tools.html

• Population

City or County

Check with the County or City websites for GIS data. 

• Parcel data

Open Street Map
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Downloading_data

• Basemap

Global Administrative Areas
http://gadm.org/

• Basemap:   Lots of data.  May be better off using Natural Earth Data sets instead

Natural Earth Data

http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

• Basemaps

US National Grid (USNG)
http://usngcenter.org/fema-region-5/

UTM Zones
http://earth-info.nga.mil/GandG/coordsys/grids/universal_grid_system.html

American Red Cross National Shelter System (NSS)
https://gis.fema.gov/REST/services/NSS/FEMA_NSS/MapServer

Geocoding
https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder
https://geoservices.tamu.edu/

What other types of data should be included in an offline GIS?  Let me know in the comments section.