Infrastructure Management Series: ArcGIS Server and Mapping

Visualizing assets and the surrounding environment when you build, upgrade, and repair infrastructure helps you decide how to prioritize your work, convince others of its importance, and make good decisions about how to move forward with your plans. Having an accurate, clear picture of the project helps you better understand needs, reduce problems, and mitigate costs and environmental impacts. These processes are improved when GIS is the core system for data management and visualization.

With all the demands on your time, using tools that streamline your business processes and provide you with the best mapping and visualization makes sense. GIS can help you present information in a straightforward way to partners in your projects, government officials, and the public.With ArcGIS Server technology, you can take maps that you have created with ArcGIS Desktop software and publish them over the Web so you, your partners, and your staff in the field can see how a project is progressing.

Take your infrastructure maps into the field for data collection and editing.

GIS—Providing Clarity
Take digital GIS maps of infrastructure into the field on laptops, field data collectors, and smartphones to locate assets, collect as-built information, and verify existing data. When you generate a map using GIS, you have the ability to isolate the data that is most important by turning various layers of information on or off depending on the desired map. You can even visualize assets that are hard to access such as water, sewer, and storm drain lines.

View above- and belowground infrastructure with ArcGIS technology.

For a better view, 3D capabilities let you look at your infrastructure from above- or belowground. Field data collection and editing enhance the accuracy and completeness of your asset information. You can further enrich your asset management processes by integrating work orders, emergency management systems, CAD files, and 311 call center systems with your GIS. You can access your data in seconds—in the field and in the office—and quickly share it with others via the Web.

Data collection and dissemination is ongoing, and maps continually have to be updated and shared with others to reflect the current conditions of your projects. ArcGIS Server allows you to view, edit, and share dynamic, robust maps throughout the many stages of infrastructure management from design and construction to general maintenance and renovations as well as during emergency situations.

With ArcGIS Server technology, you have the most current location-based asset information available when you need it, and it can be sent to decision makers and stakeholders wherever they may be.

Learn more about ArcGIS.

Government Engineering, September-October 2007

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