Revisit our Top Geo Tech Blogs and Stories from 2018

The end of the year is here, and that means this is a great time to revisit all the top things we’ve shared in 2018. We spent some time going through all the goodies we’ve shared over the past 12 months. These articles give insight as to what are some of the challenges our users are facing and what topics are important to the GIS community at large.

So, what were the hottest topics that we covered in 2018? Below, you’ll find a list of the articles that received the most interest and attention from our website visitors. Professionals sought out information on such hot topics as open data, UAV technology, vector tiles, and migrating to ArcGIS Pro.

Tips for Creating an Open Data Site

ArcGIS Open Data / ArcGIS Hub is used by many thousands of government organizations around the world, providing an easy and efficient platform for public data sharing and exploration. We explored Hub, the requirements to get started, and shared some tips.

arcgis open data

Why You Should Make the Jump from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro

Have you made the jump and started using ArcGIS Pro in your daily work? Are you holding off on migrating, waiting for that last key tool to be added? We obviously hit on a hot touch point with this popular article! Our Jr. Solution Engineer Michelle Brake did a good job on this one! If interested in plans for the future, you might enjoy scanning this product roadmap.

Interactive Maps – A Crucial Resource for Tracking Wildfires and Saving Lives

Having access to real-time, accurate data and warnings is crucial for saving life and property. There are many resources to help inform the public and provide real-time or near real-time information and safety tips. We shared a number of excellent resources in this popular blog. Hats off to all the professionals that assisted creating these life saving webmaps!

What’s New in Admin Tools for ArcGIS V 1.3

Admin Tools continues to be a top application in the ArcGIS Marketplace. In October of 2018, we released a pretty big update to V1.3. Noteworthy new functionality included the copy symbology tool, delete pending users, and enhancements to the thumbnail generator tool. Judging by the popularity of this post, ArcGIS users were pretty excited about this release!

admin tools for portal

Drones Providing Situational Awareness

GEO Jobe’s UAV Mapping Services has been quite active this past year. Using cutting-edge hardware and software solutions, GEO Jobe has taken to the skies to support many of our new and existing clients by providing up-to-date imagery and data analysis with drones. Here are some of the results of our recent projects.

Campus Mapping

Exploring The New ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor

Vector Tile maps were all the rage in 2018, and now you have no reason not to create your own custom styles. To get started, all you need to do is select an existing basemap, like my favorite – the World Dark Grey Canvas basemap – then start customizing the layer properties like colors and labels, patterns, transparency settings, and zoom level visibility. We shared the steps you need to get started.

geo jobe vector tile map style

Dashboards Provide Real-Time Situational Awareness About Raging Wildfires

The wildfire season in 2018 was devastating. Once again, the GIS community responded by creating amazing maps and web services in order to provide responders and local officials with the situational awareness they required. Getting accurate, timely, and useful information and data about current emergencies like the raging wildfires in the West can be a challenge. Making sense of it all can be a challenge indeed. This is where Dashboards can shine, such as this map from CalOES.

Fire Situation Awareness

3D Campus Models and Digital Orthophoto Updates, a Must for Facility Managers & Planners

Managers, planners, developers, and security contractors at colleges and universities all over the country are turning to GIS and UAV data collection technology to assist in enabling situational awareness and providing an accurate digital base. Planning and managing a college campus, airport, or even a tourist resort is very similar to managing the assets of a small town or city, albeit on a relatively smaller scale. No wonder these managers are turning to UAV data collection in droves. This popular article shared some of the work our busy UAV Mapping Services team has been doing.

3D Model delivery for University School of Nashville

An Update to Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

2018 started off with the release of Operations Dashboard from Esri. Recall, the Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS enables users to easily create dashboards that enable you to present your data in a single screen for at-a-glance decision making, without writing any code. This new, configurable web app allows users to monitor people, services, assets, and events in real time via the Dashboard.

operations dashboard

5 Tips to Keep Your Database Healthy

The final “Top Post” to share is a team favorite! For those of you that are working with your data daily, you want to make sure that it is running at its best. Here are 5 tips to keeping your database running smoothly. Bookmark this one!

We hope that during the year we managed to touch on some of the topics that were important to you and your business. Did we help you at all with any of the challenges you faced? What do you think were the highlights and HOT industry trends from 2018? We’d love to hear from you. Feel free to send us a comment or hit us up on Twitter @geojobegis – Good Luck in 2019!

Happy New Year!

Interested in more “Top” roundups? See Also:

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From our GEOPowered Cloud to custom solutions, GEO Jobe is committed to showing clients how geospatial thinking can guide them to save time, money, and make better business decisions. The power of GIS, Simplified!