Site to provide maps
Ascension Parish officials announced Monday that new user-friendly web maps are available for public use.
Brandon O’Deay, manager of Ascension Parish’s Office of Technology and Geographic Information Systems, said the new web maps, available at http://maps.apgov.us, are part of a new Environmental Systems Research Institute geographic information system being implemented by his department.
“There is a massive amount of GIS data in our system and these new maps do a very good job at representing our data in a modern and easy-to-use format,” O’Deay said. “The new maps do not require plug-ins and can be accessed using any web browser.”
O’Deay said the maps can also be viewed on Apple and Google mobile devices using the ESRI ArcGIS app found in their app stores.
“The web maps published on maps.apgov.us are a small part of the new GIS system Ascension Parish has implemented,” O’Deay said “Our previous GIS system was beginning to show its age. It is no longer an industry standard and that is important in the GIS world. When it came time to discuss GIS integration with some of our other systems, the integration was either not possible or very expensive.”
O’Deay said another important issue facing his department was licensing for parish employees using the previous system. Multiple departments within parish government rely on advanced GIS desktop software for updating, modifying, and researching GIS data.
“Over the past four years, the number of employees needing access to the desktop software has doubled,” O’Deay said.
He said the ESRI platform is used by surrounding parishes, allowing the parishes to easily share data.
“One of the many ways we manage the growth of our parish is by incorporating the use of modern technology in our workforce,” Parish President Tommy Martinez said. “This new system is an example of just that and we are happy and excited to offer this new technology to our residents.”
For more information about the new system, contact parish IT/GIS Administrator Vijai Prammagnaanam at (225) 621-1125 or email support@apgov.us.