Question – How many of you use GIS?

[Jason T. Radice]

I’m trying to evaluate the relevancy of a course, and I’m wondering how many of you use ArcView GIS in your regular Landscape Architecture practice? I’m speaking of anything beyond doing property searches, research, or topo and aerial work, which can generally be done online via county/city websites. I personally haven’t seen many jobs requiring or even asking for its use, and personally don’t know of any firms who use it. Any help would be great.

[Jason T. Radice]

Oh, one more thing. Having dedicated GIS people in your firm doesn’t count…the LA must use the software as part of everyday work…THANKS!

[Theodore Tegen]

I work for a multi-discipline firm and we have our own dedicated Natural Resources staff who use it quite often. So in answer to your question, I do not. Many of their projects with Minnesota DNR and Soil/Water Resources Board require its use, I am only occasionally involved with those projects.

[Pat S. Rosend]

I use it all of the time, but I never did in private practice. I think government work uses it more. It is a very expensive package and many firms just don’t want to pay the price. When I was at G&O , only the main office had the software. They could export the data into ACAD files as needed. I did not know it at all when I started this position. My agency has a lot of training and support for it. Our division uses it for many applications.

IMHO it adds more value than 3d skills which are primarily marketing tools. GIS is more of an analysis/data tool. Planning positions also are heavy GIS users.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

I only know of one firm in Southern California that uses ArchGIS on a regular basis. At $20,000, for a basic package, most people can’t afford it. It’s a powerful tool though but it’s a “big picture” tool. You really only need it for large scale projects / regional planning. We used it quite a bit at Colorado State University, in the L.A. program. I wish that I had access to it these days…

Here’s part of a project we did for a Resort Design: USGS map draped over a TIN and Slope Analysis.
PG9.pdf

This is a Chip-board model that a few of us did (40+ hours each). I can tell you that while the experience of creating the model helped me visualize contours, GIS is a lot faster and more information rich.
PG10.pdf

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