Analytical Work

I was hired to be only a GIS Technician at Photo Science but over the years of my employment I was cross-trained and became a metadata expert, sensor operator, and functioned as a manager but with just a technician title. Initially I was only responsible for parts of projects (e.g., reports, metadata, or structure collection). Eventually, however, I worked on several projects from inception to completion. Because clients for most projects are public, a significant number of datasets I produced, or at least their metadata, are still available online today.

The National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) is run by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to produce statewide aerial imagery during leaf-on season when crops are growing. Due mostly to the fact that NAIP provides statewide coverage, it is lower resolution than most leaf-off products.

I have worked NAIP projects from start to finish. The first task I was given was to help with the metadata for the Compressed County Mosaics (CCMs) for every county in Maryland in 2007. The county delivery was made up of mulitple files - seamlines (a shapefile of the Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quadrangles [DOQQs] in the county) and it's metadata file as well as a Multi-resolution Seamless Imagery Datasets (MrSID or SID) and it's two text files (metadata and a text file listing the compression ratio). County datasets were burned onto CDs or DVDs.

In 2007 I was tasked with the responsibility of sorting the 2006 Kentucky NAIP flights which were initially captured with a frame system at two foot resolution instead of one meter resolution. In order to create orthoimages at a better resolution, the accuracy requirements increased which involved ensuring the exterior orientation (EO) files had to be reevaluated and often run through aero-triangulation (AT) to ensure proper spatial location. Once the frames were rectified to the new AT solution and mosaiced with new seamlines, I prepared the dataset for delivery to the state.

My involvement continued to expand from creating only the metadata file to creating the shapefiles and eventually the SIDs. The NAIP contract also evolved. With the changes to ArcGIS, certain files would become corrupted to previous versions if they were opened in newer versions so the SIDs had to be checked meticulously. Instead of delivering DOQQ footprints as seamlines, actual seamlines showing imagery footprints were delivered. The text file showing the compression ratio became the MrSID creation log. County datasets weren't delivered on CDs or DVDs, instead internal hard drives as they were acquired which meant a new level of flight tracking.

Based on my ability to piece together the 2006 Kentucky EO files, I also started to compile deliveries for all final products (DOQQ Tagged Image File Format [TIF] files and their metadata), not just CCM datasets. The initial preparation for the season's work started with me. I would analyze the DOQQs needed for each state and for each CCM so that flight planning could begin. I would track the flights, solving the problem presented by Kentucky Statewide 2006 reprocessing, which became important as deliveries went from the entire state to CCMs and their DOQQs as soon as they were completed. I even flight-planned some states. I was able to help acquire a few of the NAIP flights as an alternate sensor operator. Throughout this time my orthoimagery processing responsibilities continued to grow. And, of course, I was writing metadata and delivering the data to the client (both burning CDs and DVDs as well as preparing hard drives.

The economic downturn caused the USDA to reduce the number of contractors on the project from five to three. In 2012 and 2013 summer work was difficult to find. My time as a sensor operator increased. We resumed working on the NAIP contract in 2014 and more than quadrupled the number of states to be completed in the year. Having been absent for two years and having a new perspective on the contractual obligations, the changes were very substantial.

NAIP datasets can be downloaded from  NRCS .

My employer stereo-compiled planimetric features for NKAPC from imagery Photo Science collected. Several years later we did an update. NKAPC had been maintaining their data prior to the update, so newly collected features wouldn't always match one-to-one with initial structures. I assisted in translating new compilation into their database. I also prepared final metadata.

I have completed several different activities for multiple types of corridors: transportation, energy pipelines, and transmission companies. Most of the projects for corridor companies involved imagery or lidar acquisition.

Photo Science worked for several Departments of Transportation. I assisted in writing metadata for the data collected for these corridors. When there were accidents, we would often mobilize to capture the site immediately. One of the most exciting projects with which I assisted was acquiring data for a section of an interstate outside an airport. The resolution was so high and the location so close to the airport it created a stressful situation for my pilot and Air Traffic Controllers. We also had a mobile mapping LiDAR unit on a Chevrolet Suburban that enabled us to capture roadway conditions. I wrote metadata for both airborne acquisition and mobile mapping projects.

River navigation is made simpler with IENCs; Photo Science used photogrammetry to collect features along the river. Multiple software programs were used in order to provide data that could be incorporated into IENCs. My primary responsibility was to convert the stereo-collected features from GIS into CAD and prepare attributes for IENCs. I also converted bathymetric points from text files into shapefiles and generalized shoreline data.

Several custom spatial software solutions were written for Colonial pipeline at Photo Science. While I worked on some, my largest contribution was to help build a Data Dictionary for Colonial Pipeline. I was fortunate enough to test it in the field, where I learned more about pipeline structures and exactly what "encroachment" meant to pipelines. Colonial pipeline wanted to see "inside of the fence" at their facilities, which required quarter inch imagery, the first time I saw that degree of detail.

Corridors were repeatedly flown in order to see changes along the pipeline. I did some of the historical documentation, including scanning control point locations.

The largest project for me involved gathering, rather than flying, imagery from other sources, e.g., Departments of Transportation, water districts, local entities, and other acquisition companies. It was my responsibility to reconfigure the tiles in order to piece them together to cover only their corridor in Florida.

I compiled Department of Transportation Compliance Reports, a binder full of maps and graphics detailing communication protocols with residents in case of emergencies, by analyzing zip codes against the corridor. Addresses were collected based on the zip code analysis in order to be able to send notices about work along the corridor. These notices were especially important for "High Consequence Areas" which contained hospitals, nursing homes, and schools because residents would likely need help in case evacuation became necessary.

I collected structures along the corridor as well as scanned historical imagery. The structure collection was done by reviewing paper maps from field crews alongside imagery inside a proprietary software package. I helped start to transition the work from the proprietary software package to ArcGIS.

Using ArcGIS I collected structures along the El Paso pipeline. The structures, which were initially identified as generic squares, had to be edited to more closely conform to each structure's proper shape.

I took film scans of water pipelines and georeferenced, or warped, them so that they were spatial. As one of the first tasks I was doing I only completed this work a few times. We began to fly these jobs not using film but using digital sensors. Warping was replaced by camera station information that captured the exact location and attitude of the plane. While not as accurate as full AT, EO positioning is far more accurate and efficient than warping.

With an office in Peachtree City, Georgia, Photo Science had employees working onsite doing requested GIS work. I assisted with a planning retreat in Lexington. I did some GIS tasks when I first started and also analyzed metadata need for the projects.

A study of power lines and poles was requested by FPL. I flew in a helicopter to test photographing power lines with a digital camera. The images were spatially referenced to the power poles and the study was successful. A special mount for the camera was built for a Cessna 206 so the power lines could be flown in fixed wing planes, which enabled a larger area to be covered.

I was one of the team members who helped set up RJ Corman (Kentucky Railroad company) GIS. While most of the "corridor studies" listed have been natural gas or petroleum products, railway was a powerful addition to our resume. A tour of the railway was given via a van which had train wheels as well as normal tires. The tour helped provide an idea of what features would be stored in GIS.

Over the course of multiple years, the Department of Homeland Security tested firms' emergency preparedness. In 48 hours orthoimagery and lidar had to be acquired, processed and delivered. The final products were intended to be able to help disaster recovery and first responding agencies. The sites were all over the country - California, Florida, and New Hampshire - and never close to Lexington, Kentucky which housed the fastest processing capabilities. We utilized FedEx to ship data from the test site to Lexington and worked around the clock. The team was always able to deliver within the incredibly short 48 hour time frame, even the metadata and reports. The exercise was a very realistic test because I have worked on collections to support hurricane recovery several times.

For the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management my company was taking data from tables, samples, scans of documents, and occasionally spatial information in order to create a shareable and consistent dataset. It was my job to document the datasets (tabular, raster, and vector) with metadata; since the information was to be hosted on data.gov, there were specific demands regarding the metadata. The other challenge was to automate the process for all feature classes (with different formats, attributes, abstracts, purposes, and even different access restrictions) such that the XML files could be imported onto geodatabase feature datasets and feature classes.

The metadata within the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) required updating. I wrote several programs to analyze the existing metadata and to determine what required revision. Each file has an associated expert and I contacted each of them to better understand their data. Having me, an outsider, do this was advantageous because the columns and attributes contained information that was obscure to me but something the experts dealt with every day and took for granted. I wrote several pieces of code (discussed in the coding section) to aid me in this process.

Several projects within National Ocean Atmospheric Administration have metadata and reports I wrote.

The most notable project is American Samoa lidar and imagery. Nearly constant cloud cover makes acquisition of aerial data almost impossible. The acquisition team members were on site for several months to acquire both imagery and lidar, but once the datasets were back in the states I wrote the metadata for both the imagery and lidar. I helped write the project report, which became a template for our organization. And, once at Woolpert, the knowledge of this dataset helped me work on three airports in American Samoa. Details about the project can be found  here .

Another project was the production of DOQQs along the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in 2009. The contractual language I was required to fulfill was short - just three sentences. Deciphering the intent of what is required from this minimal information became a large part of my job. Creating metadata can be challenging and making it useful for end users is even more difficult.

Project level metadata describing stereo imagery and orthophoto production process shall be submitted as a deliverable. File level metadata for each DOQQ is also a deliverable for this task.

1) Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) compliant metadata shall be provided in extensible markup language (.xml) format compatible with ArcCatalog for each 3.75 minute, quarter quad, orthorectified tile.

The method for finding the information that changed per DOQQ is depicted below along with the delivery blocks. The flight dates are defined by either the footprints of frames flown that day or seamlines attributed with flight information. At the project scale, it is difficult to see what was flown when with 18 different flights. For the pilot (4 DOQQs), it is easier to digest. The four pilot tiles were flown in one day and required 13 frames. Spatial selections and attributions are done with similar datasets to find the items that change per DOQQ.

I worked multiple projects from start to finish for the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) and Florida Department of Revenue. I planned, acquired, processed, checked, wrote metadata as well as reports, and delivered data over the course of my years as an analyst. During that time I worked on the counties of Pinellas, Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, Monroe, Manatee, Hillsborough, Okaloosa and several smaller sites (Yucca Pens). Acquisition of seagrass areas, which was very difficult because it was tide controlled, occurred annually to track environmental changes.

In 2008 I was Photo Science's representative on a metadata panel hosted by Southwest Florida Water Management District and Florida Department of Revenue. The meeting developed their metadata standard.

The reporting process for SWFWMD is very rigorous and requires a surveyor licensed in Florida to sign the report.

Imagery can be downloaded from  Land Boundary Information System (LABINS) .

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Geospatial Product and Service Contract (GPSC) is a coveted award bringing millions of dollars of work to companies who receive it. The services are usually imagery and lidar, but also some Quality Control checks for subcontractors.

The first project for which I batch processed metadata was Coastal Louisiana in 2006. I had to document Digital Orthophotos. Each orthoimage had unique pieces in conjunction with project-specific information. The date it was flown, bounding coordinates, and title changed but the abstract, purpose, and processing steps did not. So I wrote my first major piece of code to batch process each piece of information into individual XML files.

Occasionally the USGS has their GPSC contractors check each others' work. The report is unique because we submit the review to the other contractor. Edits are made by the contractor. If the edits are not satisfactory, we submit another review. If the edits are acceptable, a final report is submitted to the USGS and the data becomes publicly available. With each of these iterations of edits, a report was created. I built this report.

I have been fortunate enough to have been writing metadata for the 3DEP program for many years now. I have seen the USGS Lidar Base Specification evolve to include the ldrinfo tag and worked to decipher each of the tags included. Through contact with H. Karl Heidemann at American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) meetings, I even participated in standardizing the metadata template.