Managing an Inland Empire

Colton, Calif., is located roughly 60 miles east of Los Angeles in a region named The Inland Empire. With a population of close to 45,000, this smaller municipality covers roughly 16 square miles and serves a growing and diverse community. Colton, like similar communities near major urban regions, faces everyday issues of managing growth and planning for future services. Its mandate, to efficiently manage its wastewater, electric utility and water utility divisions, is a complex job for any government its size. Not surprisingly, small municipalities all over are finding success by utilizing the latest in aerial imagery technologies to meet their present and future needs for adequate services. Colton is just one of the latest examples of how Geographic Information System (GIS) technology can provide cost-effective solutions for smaller government organizations.

Gigabytes of Imagery

Colton recently received a series of high-resolution orthophotography images for use in its GIS projects. These black and white images were shot at a 0.5-foot pixel resolution and covered the whole town. These images totaling 114 individual tiles were roughly 25MB each in a TIFF file format. If displayed as one image, this set would total over a 2.8GB TIFF. Colton did not have the computing resources to work with an image that large on its server, and loading the image onto each computer was not a feasible alternative either.

Results are Stunning

Colton decided that seeking out options to lower the file size of the orthophotography was the best way to recover the heavy initial investment and fully utilize its high-resolution aerial imagery. Michelle Pierce, electrical systems engineer at the City of Colton who also belongs to the Inland Empire GIS User Group (IEGIS), was introduced to LizardTech's MrSID® Geospatial Edition while talking with users in that group. "I met and discussed with GIS end users in IEGIS that have gone through the same struggles in working with the latest high-resolution aerial imagery," said Pierce. "They have had success with LizardTech's MrSID and highly recommended it."

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