AAUG Monthly Meetings
- Alaska Remote Imaging: Capture, Deliver, and Integrate
April 16, 2025
Matt Gutacker, ARIAlaska Remote Imaging (ARI) has provided 3D documentation through drone data collection since 2019. Our team of 22 Alaskans is focused on one mission: "Making hard jobs easier through modeling, surveying, and imaging." This presentation will focus on how ARI utilizes ESRI programs to enhance internal systems as well as client deliverables. The topics reviewed will include internal AGOL maps, Survey 123 for flight logs, AGOL for client delivery, ESRI Site Scan, and georeferencing data. Tips, tricks, and lessons learned along the way will be discussed.
- Landslides, Tsunamis, Flooding, and Erosion in Alaska National Parks—Mapping Tools used to Monitor Geohazards
March 19, 2025
Chad Hults, National Park ServiceThawing permafrost, increasing intensity of rainfall, and shrinking glaciers are triggering landslides. Diminishing sea ice is exposing the coasts of Arctic parks to fall and winter storms. These changes are impacting park infrastructure, eroding cultural resources, modifying habitats, and threatening visitor and employee safety. In this presentation Chad will provide a review of recent geohazards and their impacts on Alaska Parks, and present some of the mapping tools like structure-from-motion and terrestrial LiDAR used to detect and monitor these geohazards.
- How to not get lost in a foreign country and other users for Personal GIS
February 19, 2025
Tobin Lilly, HDRDo you get lost? All the time? Even though you are a professional geographer with 20 years of experience making maps? Well, I do. I have spent many work hours making offline maps for remote work in Alaska. I had never considered utilizing this skill in my personal life. As I was preparing to head overseas for the first time, I began to freak out. What phone plan would allow me to constantly figure out where I am and where I am going? An expensive one. That was the answer. It took me a minute to think about using Field Maps, which took me a minute to figure out how. At this point I have taken 2 trips out of country and utilized offline maps with field maps and a personal AGOL organization subscription. While traveling, it is awesome. While getting ready for the trip (coordinating with others/family) – Awesome! Showing how cool the trip was to others – Awesome. During this presentation, I would like to, of course, show some cool pictures of adventures had, but also go through how making a decision to use my professional skills in my personal life has led to some enriching opportunities from presenting to groups of students in Taiwan and helping my son show Mayan pyramids to his 5th grade class.
- Coordinates and Coordinate Systems: Differences and What's Coming
January 15, 2025
Joel Cusick, National Park ServiceProficiency in understanding coordinates is fundamental for GIS specialists while navigating popular software we use every day. Over the years using GNSS receivers in Alaska, I have been confused multiple times when blending coordinate systems to make features fit together at spatial scales large and small. Today, a mapper can precisely map features spaced 20-60 cm apart but I think I might not be alone when you return from the field and data is not lining up. Hopefully in this presentation I'll try to clear up some of the topics that I have stumbled with over the years and what can be done to prepare for the coming changes in the foundation of our National Spatial Reference System.
- NGS Update
October 16, 2024
Lynda Bell, NOAA - GIS Happenings in the Municipality
September 18, 2024
Mike Knapp, Municipality of AnchorageMembers of the Municipality of Anchorage Enterprise GIS team will present an overview of recent and upcoming GIS happenings in the Municipality; including a discussion of how GIS was used to help manage information regarding roof collapses during last year’s record snowfall, a new public art app, snow removal tracking improvements, and new imagery!
- The Web Atlas of Alaska Dene Traditional Place Names
August 21, 2024Gerad M. Smith, a cultural resources consultant with North Star Cultural Resources, and the University of Alaska Anchorage archaeologist in the Department of Anthropology and Geography, will discuss the background, digitization, and mapping of traditional Alaska Native place names, and the ongoing creative work on The Web Atlas of Alaska Dene Traditional Place Names.
Freddie R. Olin IV, a spatial planning consultant and University of Alaska Fairbanks Rural Development graduate student, will be discussing Alaska Native corporation land ownership and land use in comparison with the ArcGIS Online Alaska Native place names layer authored by Drs. Gerad Smith and Jim Kari.
- Mapping in Alaska - Returning to Fundamentals and Best Practices
July 24, 2024
Joel Cusick, National Park ServiceA journey across Alaska with a GNSS receiver in the hand presents unique challenges brought upon us by our sheer remoteness. Hardware and Software companies from the lower 48 are increasingly making it more difficult to map in remote locations and in high latitudes with ever-more reliance on internet and Line of Sight to geostationary satellites. What is an Alaskan to do? Don't despair - Alaskans get it done no matter what, but it does pay to focus in on the fundamentals of space-based navigation and positioning. Join us during this AUG meeting to cover what works in today's mobile mapping workflows, and best practices that will always work - regardless of what a specifications sheet will tell you.
- ArcGIS Experience Builder Development Considerations
June 24, 2024
David HowesArcGIS Experience Builder is described by Esri as "a highly configurable solution for building compelling web apps without writing code." Coding, however, provides significant additional benefits, either through the creation and installation of custom widgets or through more traditional application customization, which involves, for example, adding code that runs in response to browser events. An overview of these options and associated development considerations will be provided in a manner that is designed to be helpful to both developers and non-developers alike, with explanations supported by comparisons with ArcGIS Web AppBuilder development technology. In view of the scheduled retirement of ArcGIS Web AppBuilder in July 2024, transition considerations will also be addressed.
- Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys (DGGS) Presentations
June 14, 2022Mike Hendricks, Jen Athey, and Oralee Nudson of DGGS will give a series of short presentations including: 1) Brief overview of DGGS field-to-archive geologic mapping systems, 2) Contracting out geologic map digitization and attribution using the GeMS standard, 3) AK DGGS' hardware solution for collaborative field data collection, and 4) Alaska radon maps suggest potential scope of health concern.
- Geodata for Safe and Resilient Coastal Communities
April 20, 2022Presented by Rada Khadjinova and Stephanie Ingle of Fugro.
- GNSS Base Station Deployment in AK
January 19, 2022Presented by Joel Cusick of National Park Service and Peter Flint with Alaska DNR.
AAUG GIS Conferences
- 2021 Virtual Geospatial Gathering
- 2018 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
- 2017 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
- 2016 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
- 2015 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
- 2014 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
- 2013 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
- 2012 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
- 2011 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
- 2010 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
- 2009 GeoJam from the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference (AKSMC)
