GIS in Action 2026

The purpose of this collaboration session is to provide helpful guidance for anyone using ArcGIS Pro and Python together or separately. The basis for the material presented and demonstrated is everyday experience, particularly with respect to an annual project for which procedures have evolved over many years. A list of related and unrelated topics will be reviewed and audience members will be invited to contribute to the discussion. Ideally, there'll be something for everyone and, as usual, the goal is to provide a forum for a beneficial exchange of information, ideas, and inspiration.

Is your computer struggling under increasingly heavy operating systems? Have you heard of Linux, but aren't sure where to start? Worried about losing access to your programs? Join me for a brief introduction to the Linux ecosystem as a fellow new Linux user. I'll cover basic terminology, introduce distros and desktops, plus how I set up geospatial tools such as QGIS, Google Earth Pro, GDAL, and even ArcGIS Pro.

Blind and low vision map users rely on tactile materials to orient and navigate themselves in locations they frequent. While simplification of these maps for tactile legibility with traditional production methods typically omits elevation data, the increased availability of 3D printing production allows for the incorporation of 3D terrain and symbol elements into tactile cartography. Tactile cartography requires a different design approach than visual cartography and the incorporation of 3D printed elements add additional haptic variables that change the design approach. Locations with varied terrain and complex way finding can greatly benefit from incorporating 3D design elements in their tactile maps which can provide these users with more safety and confidence when navigating these areas. Explore the design and production of 3D tactile terrain models of the Portland Community College Sylvania Campus for the benefit of blind and low vision students and faculty.

Digital elevation models are primarily interacted with through a screen, but they can become powerful physical tools for visualization, teaching, and storytelling. This presentation explores the creation of tangible 3D printed topographic maps, transforming digital elevation data into physical models that make landscapes easier to interpret and engage with.

Building on a session presented at GIS in Action last year, this updated talk expands the workflow and lessons learned from additional experimentation and projects. We will walk through a practical pipeline for turning elevation data into printable terrain models, including sourcing DEM data, preparing and modifying terrain surfaces, exporting printable meshes, and producing final prints.

The workflow will demonstrate techniques using both ArcGIS Pro and QGIS, as well as web-based tools, to convert elevation rasters into printable geometry. The session will also introduce the fundamentals, including how printers operate, key components, and an overview of the current consumer printer landscape. Along the way we will discuss scale, vertical exaggeration, mesh resolution, printer limitations, and other design considerations that influence how terrain translates from raster data to physical form.

By the end of the session, attendees will understand the conceptual and technical steps required to move from DEM to printed object and will leave with practical knowledge for creating their own tactile terrain models.

In remotely sensed imagery, both shadows and unhealthy/dead vegetation contain low values in near-infrared band pixels. As NDVI and NDRE analyses rely heavily on NIR values, false positives for unhealthy vegetation are often the result of shadows.

By converting RGB raster data to invariant color spaces and leveraging this with NIR data by way of logarithmic calculations, a processing mask can be created to avoid shadows when analyzing imagery.

A StoryMap on this project can be found here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/cbaad398d6be4bd08057c1cf57ff6e0e

How do you build an online GIS presence from scratch? Better yet, how do you make data from 2005 talk nice to data from 2025? Navigating the transition out of the ArcMap/Desktop ecosystem into the wide world of AGOL and ArcGIS Pro is no mean feat. In conjunction with our consultant partners at Flo Analytics, come learn how (and why) RTC undertook this journey. A candid look at the process of threading the needle between what can be done and what is "beyond the scope of this thesis", we'll explore the many bumps, bruises, and lessons learned along the way.

Leveraging readily available government land use and remote sensing datasets, this study uses imaging analysis techniques to evaluate landowner choices relative to their municipal water use for landscaping during the summer season. Specifically, the study uses LiDAR surface modeling and NDVI index measures to identify residential taxlot parcels where owners choose to irrigate lawn turf covering their permeable surfaces. Further, the study investigates whether such variables as land/building property value, taxlot areal extent, and/or census tract demographics are predictors of the rate at which parcel owners choose to irrigate. This presentation will review the government interest in the spatial question, the methodology, and results from an initial study area in northeast Portland, Oregon.

As our devices become increasingly powerful, it is important to take full advantage of the hardware available. In April, Esri will release a brand new rendering architecture for the ArcGIS Native Maps SDKs to take advantage of modern rendering capabilities of the devices we use every day to bring improved performance and unlock new features. This will be available through the local scene, which enables 3D workflows in local projected data. In addition, the building scene layer will be added as a supported layer type for this release, allowing even deeper data access to 3D GIS data wherever users are.