The city of Chula Vista, California, has a growing population of 200,000, up almost 10 percent from 2001. The city is expected to continue to expand at a similar rate over the next several years, bringing an influx of development opportunities as more citizens need housing. Continuous growth has made City Hall a bustling business unit dealing with constant activity, employing 1,100 people, and issuing approximately 2,000 building permits per year.

Continuous expansion translates into increased business for developers and architects in the region. The purveyors of additional houses, apartment complexes, office buildings, and other projects count on Chula Vista's engineering staff to maintain an accurate, reliable record of the city's land: its configuration, who owns it, and what can be built where.

The Chula Vista Engineering Department keeps detailed maps and drawings of individual land parcels that are often referred to by working developers to complete work. When new developments are planned, professionals use the maps and drawings to check sewer pipe outlays, flood-prone areas, sanitation department zoning, and other information pertinent to the future housing of thousands of citizens.

A higher workload mandated a digital way of life for the Engineering Department. As more land found itself the target of new developments, easier access to documentation of the city's 49 square miles was needed. Previously untouched parcels had to be staked out for subterranean or logistical impediments to new development, necessitating greater attention to detail. The Engineering Department needed up-to-date, easily accessible map data in an interactive format that could be quickly changed with all the development taking place. Large-scale drawings and minute numeric details shared equal importance.

The Engineering Department needed digital access to the complete details of city contracts, so the city of Chula Vista centralized its extensive collection of Esri software-based data—from ArcGIS and ArcInfo systems—with ArcIMS Viewer. Previously, the information was accessible only through an in-house browser, which was challenging for engineers spending a lot of time in the field. The customized ArcIMS Viewer used an ActiveX Connector and was dubbed internally as CV Mapper. Now the engineers could view and modify GIS data through a Web browser.

Engineers use CV Mapper to instantly check the Internet to find out if a parcel is within a flood zone or what day of the week a street is being swept. The ArcIMS tool can also easily access work order data to check the specifics of new developments such as a manufacturer's phone number.

"We set up our ArcIMS Viewer to provide engineers with the basic GIS information and related work order specifics in a concise format suited to help facilitate quick decisions," says Bob Blackwelder, the city's lead programmer/analyst. "We also saw an opportunity to add all the images from the map room, which was an extra trip engineers often had to make when researching a parcel."

ArcIMS gave engineers the ability to pull up small but important details, such as manufacturer type, from their desks or laptops. Blackwelder's GIS team extended that functionality to include the construction maps and drawings.

The open-ended ArcIMS platform meshed easily with LaserFiche Document Imaging, the digital source of the city's collection of maps and drawings. In 1999, the city contracted to have approximately 40,000 engineering-related maps and documents indexed and scanned into the LaserFiche database, which includes a desktop program allowing users to search and display scanned documents. LaserFiche, an Esri Business Partner, also had a dedicated Web-based thin client, WebLink, deployable to browser-based work environments in a fashion similar to Chula Vista's ArcIMS Viewer.

"All of the objects, properties, and methods developed by LaserFiche were at my disposal for incorporation into our CV Mapper," Blackwelder says. "We only needed to add the appropriate WebLink methods and properties, and our document management system—which included the entire contents of the city map room—was a full-fledged part of our ArcIMS tool."

Chula Vista engineers use ArcIMS to get storm pipe size, type, width, material, and other specifics that can be expressed in a searchable value, while they use WebLink to pull detailed, lengthy documents such as original blueprints. The integration between ArcIMS and WebLink lets engineers find the curve schematics of a drainpipe at the same time they determine its width.

To achieve one-click compatibility between LaserFiche and ArcIMS, the drawings were spatially enabled and layered with corresponding GIS basemap information. A Chula Vista technician linked the unique work order number on each construction drawing into the appropriate project by using ArcIMS Viewer to screen digitize the project boundary and add the work order ID found on the drawing. This created a definitive relationship between the drawings and the geographic images.

Engineers use ArcView to zoom into a specific area, then enter a work order number and run a search for all associated construction drawings, without needing to open another application. This allows engineers to view all documents and maps associated with a project in real time. The Chula Vista GIS staff only need to install WebLink once on their Dell 2500 server, deploying it instantly to the city's entire fleet of Pentium PCs.

By configuring ArcView to access all of these construction drawings, Blackwelder and his GIS team put all of the city's engineering resources at users' fingertips. Now, engineers get those little intangibles that help them pinpoint a problem when it occurs. In the event of a flood or leak, engineers use ArcView to quickly examine georeferenced characteristics of the affected location, then click on a hyperlink to LaserFiche to review a construction drawing and determine how far a sewer is beneath the surface, how a main slopes, or where pipes are connected. These fractious details help explain a sewage problem and expedite a solution. They also help ensure that Chula Vista's many new developments are built in the safest areas possible.

Blackwelder and his GIS team continue to devise more ways to simultaneously put geographic information and digital images at users' fingertips.

"Our Building and Housing Department would like to use the ArcIMS Viewer with our Permits Plus database to quickly display documents associated with building permit status or code violations," Blackwelder says.

For more information, contact Bob Blackwelder, lead programmer/analyst, city of Chula Vista (tel.: 619-585-5765, e-mail: bblackwelder@ci.chula-vista.ca.us), or John Devine, director of Government Programs, LaserFiche Document Imaging (tel.: 562-988-1688, ext. 148; e-mail: jdevine@laserfiche.com).