Hello everyone,

I am honestly not even sure if this is an acceptable place for this but I have held a gis specialist role for a municipality for roughly 2 years.

On a whim I applied to a GIS program manager role in another municipality and I got it 💀.

The town I’m at now tried to match but isn’t really come close so I start next month at the new municipality. I am curious if there are other GIS program managers here in this community and any advice that could be given for a newbie to this role.

Thanks.

Sup (fellow) nerds. This is a pretty specific and niche side of GIS but I think I'll have better luck asking here than the meme cesspool of r/wildfire;

I'm 9 years deep in primary fire with a federal land management agency. Prior to this career I had a few jobs doing some entry-level GIS stuff in timber and trails management, and I minored in it way back in college. I've always been interested in working the map tent but until this season I haven't really had leadership that supported it. I've been given approval to take S-341 this spring and start going on trainee assignments next fire season.

My captain, while supportive of it, has no idea what the next steps should be for me. My understanding is that most of the map tent people have GIS jobs in real life, and aren't primitive and vulgar ditch diggers. What do I do to get out on assignments? Is it as simple as just making myself available as a GISS trainee on IROC? I heard something about a "sponsor" but I don't really know what that means.

Also, for anyone who's gone through S-341 recently, how's that nomination selection test? My skills are pretty rusty but I've been going through some courses on ESRI to refresh my memory. Anything in particular I should practice or prepare for?

hii! so ive been having trouble publishing layers into my arcgis online network through arcgis pro. Every time I try it there is an error message but without error code, otherwise I probably would’ve been able to fix it. So a few years ago I think I might’ve had the same problem and it turned out that it had to do with the cache, but I’m not 100% sure anymore. Does anyone have an idea why this error happens?

My company is moving to an asset management mainly to establish workflows and keep track of material costs. Before this, we did it through AGOL dashboards and web experiences.

The problem is that I no longer have to establish and maintain these. My workload was almost 80% establishing these experiences and 20% data maintenance. That obviously changes a lot.

The asset management will be great, but it obviously shifts my own workload to more field work. The thing is my boss insists I won't have to do field work and that our engineers can go collect data and bring it back to me, which means I'll have a lot of downtime. There's still things to do like, data maintenance, but what else will keep me busy in the office so I don't lose my mind?

Hi Everyone, I know the GISP is generally not recommended by people in this sub, but my employer has promised me a $1000 bonus and the opportunity to move up into a higher position if I get mine, so I'm taking the exam in December. I have plenty for the portfolio as I have 9 years experience and present at conferences yearly.

I'm mainly looking for anyone's experience with the exam in the last few years. What was your study method? How did you feel about the exam? Did anything surprise you? Any topics you recommend brushing up on? I have strong fundamentals in the GIS world but the study materials list on the web site is honestly ridiculous. I also heard recently that they have started adding more questions about using AI with GIS. Can anyone who took the exam recently corroborate that?

Any and all information would be appreciated. I am getting started with studying today.

GIS EXPERIENCE:
[AI DISCLOSURE]
So I’m going to try to make this short and simple. Basically, I graduated in summer 2024 with B.S. in Geography with GIS Concentration. I wasn’t able to land a job in GIS (no internship, nothing GIS-related out of college). Instead, I work for the local water/sewer company doing utility locates. I use GIS at my job. Survey123, FieldMaps, and our asset map. I applied last year for an entry-level GIS position within the company and didn’t get accepted.

Coming out of school I wasn’t focused enough. But over the past couple months I’ve been able to re-familiarize myself with the basic concepts. I’ve used ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online Map Viewer to create a 12 project portfolio, along with a SOP manual. My resume and cover letters look great. I have three really good references from my workplace.

I’ve applied to two jobs since yesterday, and one has already denied. My concern is that the job market is super competitive and that I don’t actually have the hard skills needed for an entry level GIS job.

Essentially my question to you guys is how can I make myself even more qualified for these jobs. What can I do, get accredited, go back to school? Learn Civil 3D? What do y’all think? Any feedback would be great. (i didn’t use ai, i don’t know why it’s saying i have to put that)

I am attempting to do a multi-criteria analysis and have several rasters with varying values. How can I best normalize the rasters so they all have the same value scale?

And then I would like to do a weighted analysis where certain rasters have different point values/weights in the analysis.

What tools should I be looking at? Using ArcGIS pro btw.

[GIS Experience] OSM contributor for 5 years

[AI Disclosure] AI was used for writing the documentation and webdesign

This project uses e-scooter sensor data to map street-surface quality for better wheelchair navigation. The information is added to OpenStreetMap, where cities and map developers can use them. E-scooters don’t always have the best reputation when it comes to accessibility, so I think this is an interesting use of the data.

Intermittent lurker, but lately from my browsing it seems like every few posts there’s some AI vibe-coded-slop adjacent post describing how they’ve reinvented the wheel. Not sure if it’s just me being an old man screaming at the sky noticing clouds or a genuine uptick? Curious if anyone else’s noticed similar and thought?

AI Disclosure: Not used to generate post. But AI focused question.

So how is everyone setting up their new geospatial workflows to integrate with agentic workflows? I’ve tried various ways, but currently trying to keep it super simple with two primary code repos on GitHub

1. Project Template with high level design rules, company info, security boundaries etc
   
2. geospatial-playbook repo for skills, lessons learnt, reusable design elements etc.

Starting a new project copies the project template and after a couple of “grill-me” questions, any relevant content form the playbook is pulled into the new project repo. Then it’s just the usual AI-assisted development workflow. Lessons learnt, tips and tricks; new data sources etc all feed back to the playbook so that it’s continually updating and “improving”.

It works well for me, but as the team grows I can see it becoming messy so would love to hear how bigger teams approach it.

Does anyone have similar or vastly different setups?

Also - is everyone working like this now or do people still prefer the traditional ArcPro / FME project approach? Curious!

GIS experience: 12 years

[AI disclosure] no AI was used in this project, only YouTube, online tutorials, and my human hands.

[GIS experience] Not a geography, but geology student. I use GIS for projects involving rocks.

I made this 3D relief map of Mount Rainier by draping the 1963 USGS geologic map of Mount Rainier National Park (Professional Paper 444, Fiske, Hopson & Waters) over real elevation data in Blender. In QGIS, I mosaicked two USGS 3DEP 1/3 arc-second (~10 m) elevation tiles and reprojected both the DEM and the scanned geologic map to NAD83 UTM Zone 10N. I traced the map's boundary to clip the DEM so only the park rises, then traced the legend boxes and rasterized them at 5 m so they'd float cleanly above the flat margin. In Blender, I set up two planes with adaptive subdivision: one for the terrain, using the DEM for displacement and the geologic map as the color texture, and a second for the raised legend boxes. A Map Range node normalizes the elevations so the terrain rises from the park's lowest valleys to the 14,411 ft summit.

Original map on last slide.

[AI Disclosure] I use coding agents to assist development but retain full control on design and implementation. The post was drafted by AI and edited by me.

I maintain elevation, an open source Python library and command line tool that downloads, caches and clips global DEMs. After five years without a release, 2.0 is out and it finally adds the modern global DEMs:

- Copernicus DEM GLO-30 and GLO-90

- ALOS World 3D 30m (AW3D30)

- SRTM 30m (geoid and ellipsoidal) and 90m, and the Mapzen terrain tiles

Getting a GeoTIFF of your area is one command:

pip install elevation
eio --product GLO-30 clip -o rome.tif --bounds 12.35 41.8 12.65 42

Tiles are cached locally, so the next clip in the same area doesn't need to downloads anything. The Copernicus DEM is read in place from the Earth Data Hub cloud store and needs a free DestinE account, the other products need no account.

The image compares the three 30m DEMs along the Tiber in Rome, as hillshades made with eio and gdaldem.

You need Python 3.11+ and the GDAL command line tools.

Repo: https://github.com/bopen/elevation

Feedback and bug reports are welcome, especially from Windows users, where it is only lightly tested. Disclosure: development is sponsored by B-Open, where I work.

[GIS Experience] 25 years of GIS / geospatial experience

Hi everyone,

I'm prototyping a tool for an urban planning consultancy in Germany.

Currently, their analysts spend 2–3 days walking streets on foot to manually spot:

1. Vacant infill lots ("Baulücken"): empty gaps or underutilized surface plots between perimeter buildings.

2. Vertical extension potential ("Aufstockung"): buildings with flat roofs or lower height than neighboring buildings that could take 1–2 additional floors.

We are testing this in Lower Saxony (Hannover). From initial research, I found that our state survey office (LGLN) provides official 3D building models (LoD2) and 20 cm aerial orthophotos (DOP20) completely free as Open Data.

Before building from scratch:

- Are there existing open-source tools, repos, or workflows that leverage LoD2 3D models / aerial rasters to automate infill & rooftop potential?

- Is it better to solve this purely via 3D vector/GIS math (building heights delta, roof shape analysis in QGIS/Python) or combine it with Computer Vision on street-level imagery (Street View / Mapillary)?

Appreciate any pointers, papers, or libraries!

Hae, I have been learning gis for a while now. My seniors used to work with arcgis. But I started with qgis since it was free and easy to use. But was planning to switch to arc once I get hang of things. But lately I am seeing posts and people talk about arcgis decline in use or losing it's reputation as gis standard. Is there a new trend going on or something that is replacing it.

Can someone who uses it explain what it is? I’ve seen the term thrown around.

I'm writing an essay for my Master's (Musicology) where I have to discuss an article that lists a tonne of musicians classed under "World Music". I think that a map or diagram showing which music cultures are included (geographically) vs which cities these musicians performed/worked in would help me to illustrate my point.

What would be the best way to show this data? As 2 maps, as 1 map with shades points and pins for the 2 "types" of data?

I’m currently unemployed after being laid off from my last GIS job and have done several interviews for other GIS positions but have gotten rejected from them. I have a Masters degree in GIS and several years of professional experience, I feel like I aced the interview questions, but I was still rejected. I feel like the competition is so tough. What’s something I can do to stand out from the tons of other people applying for these jobs?

It's my first time attending this conference. I'm excited to network and learn more about utility related GIS. Curious if anybody here is going or has attended previous years.

I've been trying to get Drone data into ArcGIS online and it has been one struggle after another. I finally managed to build a .tpkx file and raw tiff files of about 146 Gb create a .tpkx of only 29 Gb, which is a win.

I've spent almost 8 hours trying to get ArcGIS Pro to upload it to AGOL using the share package tool and every time it failed after about 40 mins with an "(sharepackage) aborted by user." Error.

I had assumed that a native desktop tool should be robust enough to upload large files to their own backend, but I was sorely mistaken.

After about the 6th failure, I thought that I was going crazy and thought of using the web interface of AGOL to upload the large file. And bloody hell, it worked!

In what world is uploading a 29Gb file through a browser less error prone than using their own native app?

Thanks for listening to my rant!

[AI Disclosure] Google AI Overview was used as a resource at points in my project.

I have an ArcGIS Online web map that contains a hosted feature layer that I created for ongoing water quality sampling. I was hoping to be able to add new rows of data to the feature layer table manually as we take new samples and get results, which did not show me any errors. However, the new features are not updating in the map that the layer is featured in, even though opening the attribute table in the map viewer shows that the new rows are there. Am I going about this incorrectly?

[GIS Experience] I’m relatively inexperienced with ArcGIS and have had to do a lot of Google searching to create this web map - I did take a semester of intro to GIS in college 2 years ago.

Hello!!

Looking for advice. I'm an environmental planner ([GIS Experience] 3 years as a GIS analyst/developer working in AEC, now an environmental planner) and I need spatial data on where project work will physically disturb the site. The engineers I work with design in MicroStation, but often their drawings aren't georeferenced. Getting disturbance locations means digging through 400+ sheets and then sitting through meetings where I find out my interpretation is wrong.

I report on project impacts so the locations need to be accurate. A lot of the existing infrastructure only exists as pen-on-paper drawings from the 1910s so what the design engineers are doing, is they’re drawing new design over those scans, so there's often no real coordinate system behind the linework. Pulling it in to Pro just draws it in no-geography island.

I've been digitizing excavation areas, laydown areas, ductbank work, sidewalk modifications, and facility footprints by hand from drawings and meeting with engineers.

And it took so long to even get that because they tended to hear environmental planner wants to map "disturbance" as where are we moving dirt or removing trees. But for environmental review it includes staging, temporary access, and new surfaces too.

I'm planning to ask for this:

“"Disturbances" are anywhere the project touches, occupies, or changes the site, even temporarily. If crews, equipment, or materials will be there, or something is built, replaced, or removed there, it counts.

At a minimum
1. Google Earth files (KML or KMZ). One file per type of work:
[types of work relevant to the project blah blah]

2. It must have a coordinate reference system. A file without a correct location is useless.
Easy test: open the KMZ/KML file in Google Earth. If it doesn't land on the project site, it's wrong. Files exported from CAD that aren't georeferenced often show up in the wrong place.
Note: KML is always in latitude/longitude, so the coordinate system is rarely the problem with a Google Earth file itself. The risk is that the CAD wasn't georeferenced before export, which is why the open-in-Google-Earth test is the check to lead with.

1. A new delivery at each design milestone, so changes don't happen silently.

Ideal
Shapefile instead of a Google Earth file - with coordinate reference system.
Polygons capturing where this work is done.
Details on each feature: type of work.”

In a semi-ideal world they would make LOD polygons that capture where this work and send me shapefiles.

In return, I'd reduce my hours on the project and take over the reporting.
I'd like to make the ask before the project starts, not after the design is done or in the middle of it.

How have you gotten design engineers to commit to a spatial deliverable early when their base drawings aren't georeferenced? Any wording that worked, or workflows like sketching over an aerial in Google Earth or ArcGIS, would help. And for the engineers here: what would make this easy for you instead of one more ask?

[AI disclosure] not sure why I’m required to put this. Project is definitely not a use-case for AI.

[AI Disclosure] no AI was used throughout this project

Hi everyone,

Im trying to complete a project in ArcGIS pro which is turning out to be a bit complicated and I could use some help. For context, I’m an urban planner who has 5 years of GIS experience, although I don’t use python or code much.

Okay, so what I’m trying to accomplish is creating a “prioritization network” raster file for a safety action plan. The way this file will be created is through a an areas proximity to certain prioritization factors. These facts are also weighted.

For example, a given area which is 500 feet from a school will receive one ‘point’. 100 feel from a park will be a ‘point’. Being within the high injury network is weighted 3 ‘points’, etc.

I essentially want to create a faster file that incorporates this weighted scale to create a faster file that will show the results throughout the city.

If anyone has any ideas as to how I can accomplish this, it’d be greatly appreciated!