January 2020

City of Kitchener: Land use joined with parcels (2020)

Received from the City of Kitchener, land use joined with parcel data. Land use categories include: agricultural, commercial, industrial, institutional, mixed use, open space, recreational, residential, row and utility.

Soil Survey Complex data update (2003)

Soil Survey Complex data update (2003) from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

Ontario Geological Survey: quaternary geology (1997)

Quaternary geology data update (1997) from the Ontario Geological Survey.

ArcGIS Online: mapping without limits (2020 tutorial)

ArcGIS Online is a web-based mapping and app-building site created by Esri, one of world's leaders in GIS software. In an effort to empower users of all levels to create interactive maps and applications that are easy to share, Esri developed ArcGIS Online (commonly called AGOL) platform to realize its vision. With both a free version for lay users and an organizational account for larger enterprises, the functionality is tailored to different mapping and application needs.

Google Earth Pro (2020 tutorial)

As of early 2015, Google Earth Pro, which used to be a $400 product, is now free. This is a simple yet powerful tool for viewing information geographically—whether it is for viewing climate information, analyzing change over time, or tracing routes from your vacation.

Digital Raster Acquisition Project for the East (DRAPE) imagery (2019)

Received from Land Information Ontario (LIO), 2019 imagery for the Digital Raster Acquisition Project for the East (DRAPE). These orthorectified images have been captured from aircraft because of the ability to obtain high resolution products over a large area. Orthophotos are captured during spring under the best conditions possible to achieve cloud free, snow free, ice free, smoke free, and leaf off conditions.

Getting started with QGIS version 3.10.9 (2020 tutorial)

Quantum GIS, often referred to as QGIS, is an open source GIS desktop application, which can be installed on various system operation platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD (and soon, Android!). More importantly, QGIS is free open-source software and offers numerous plugins for various functions. Since the software is open-source, there is abundant documentation submitted by web community support workers and voluntary developers. This tutorial introduces users to the basic concepts and major functions of QGIS to get them started with the software.

GIS Workshops Fall Term

Access to ArcGIS software

Effective August 31, 2020, the University of Waterloo has obtained an Esri Institutional License, which permits any student or employee of the University of Waterloo to use Esri software for teaching, learning, and research purposes. Commercial use is not permitted.

https://wiki.uwaterloo.ca/display/ISTKB/Accessing+Esri+ArcGIS+software

Getting started with ArcGIS Pro (2020 tutorial)

ArcGIS Pro tutorial (2020): Getting started with ArcGIS Pro (ZIP).

GIS Workshops: Poll

In an effort to serve you better, the Library's Geospatial Centre would like to offer three virtual workshops from September 28th to October 2nd. We'd like your input as to when they should happen during that week.

Please complete these polls for any of the workshops you might be interested in:

Cultural heritage landscape (active, proposed, under review)

Received from the City of Kitchener, cultural heritage landscape data (active, proposed, under review).

Geospatial resources module

Welcome to the Geospatial Resources Module. This module will introduce you to the resources in the Geospatial Centre.

The City of Cambridge orthomosaic (2019)

Description

This data resource is a colour compressed orthomosaic, stored in MrSID image format, covering the City of Cambridge. Pixel resolution is 10 cm. The orthomosaic was provided to the Geospatial Centre by the City of Cambridge.

City of Cambridge: municipal data update (2020)

Received from the City of Cambridge, 2020 municipal data updates including: businesses, steam catchbasin, steam inlet, steam manhole, steam outlet, steam culvert, steam lead, steam pipe and pavement edge.

Region of Waterloo: street and planning data

Data updates received from the Region of Waterloo: residential and non-residential building permits (issued to May 28, 2020), and "Population Land Use Model".

City of Waterloo: Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT)

Received from the City of Waterloo, Annual Average Daily Traffic counts (dBase file format).

City of Kitchener municipal data

Received from the City of Kitchener, 2020 municipal data updates including: bridges, pavement edge, impervious area, planning intensification areas, property unit location, road island, double line street, water hydrants, water mains, water service pipes, water valves and zoning. This vector data resource covers 1997 - 2020 and provides topographic, planning, and recreation information for the area encompassed by the City of Kitchener.

The City of Kitchener orthomosaic (2019)

This data resource is a colour compressed orthomosaic, stored in MrSID image format and covering part of the City of Kitchener. Aerial photography was flown in the spring, 2019, then scanned to digital format. Pixel resolution is 10 cm. The full colour orthomosaic was provided to the Geospatial Centre by the City of Kitchener in July 2020.

Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge 1/2 metre contours (2015)

Created by the Geospatial Centre staff, this unique product was derived from 2015 SWOOP 2 metre DEM (Digital Elevation Model) imagery provided by the MNRF (Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry) Ontario.

The City of Kitchener orthomosaic (2018)

This data resource is a colour compressed orthomosaic, stored in MrSID image format and covers the City of Kitchener. Pixel resolution is 12 cm. The full colour orthomosaic was provided to the Geospatial Centre by the City of Kitchener in July 2020.

City of Kitchener: municipal data (2020)

Recent City of Kitchener municipal data (2020) updates include: addresses, bridges, buildings, business directory, downtown boundary, parks, railways, roads, sidewalks, storm service pipes, storm stream reach, trails and water mains.

Region of Waterloo: zoning 2020

This unique product was created by Geospatial Centre staff by combining: Waterloo zoning (2019), Kitchener zoning (2019), Cambridge zoning (2018) with Teranet's Waterloo Assessment file (2008).

Region of Waterloo: land use 2020

This unique product was created by Geospatial Centre staff by combining: Southern Ontario Land Resource Information System (SOLRIS) 3.0 (2000 - 2015) with Teranet's Waterloo Assessment (2018).

City of Toronto Lidar (2015)

This data resource was received from Airborne Imaging in April, 2020.  The 1 km x 1 km tiled data was collected April 2015 with an average flying height above ground of 1,300 metres (m) producing a Horizontal Accuracy, 95% or 2σ: 30 cm and a Fundamental Vertical Accuracy (on flat hard surfaces), 95% or 2σ: 10 cm.

The data set includes 1 metre Grids (XYZ ASCII), Hillside Images (Geotiffs), Point cloud (LAS v1.2 and 50cm Contours.

Virtual Scavenger Hunt!

Got a bit of cabin fever and wish you could expand your sights a bit more? Take a break and have some fun exploring Kitchener and the world around you (virtually, of course!).

Workshop: Getting familiar with agent based modelling - GIS

Thursday, February 27 - 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Dana Porter Computer Lab (LIB 329)

In this workshop, we will explore agent based modelling using spatial data as an environment.

An agent based model (ABM) is a class of computational models for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents (both individual for collective entities such as organizations or groups) with a view to assessing their effects on the system as a whole. - Wikipedia

Workshop: Getting started with ArcGIS

Tuesday, February 25th –1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Dana Porter Computer Lab (LIB 329)

You may have heard of GIS, but what exactly is it, and more importantly, how can you use it in your own research and academic work?

This introductory workshop presents the basic concepts of GIS and will teach you the skills you need to find geospatial data, map it, and discover new dimensions of information.

By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

Workshop: QGIS + Open source GIS

Monday, February 24th - 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Dana Porter Computer Lab (LIB 329)

Ever wanted to try Open Source GIS but didn’t know where to start?

This workshop builds on “Getting Started with ArcGIS” (a recommended prerequisite for those with no previous GIS experience) but isn’t absolutely necessary. It will go through the in's and out's of QGIS and also cover other alternative Open Source GIS platforms.

City of Waterloo municipal data update (2019)

Received from the City of Waterloo, 2019 municipal data updates including: soils, geology, sanitary sewer, storm sewer, water distribution, zoning, official plan and historical roads.